Whatever Happened to DC Elseworlds Books

[Paper Monkey]

I am curious as to whatever happened to DC Elseworlds books? I recently started reading comics again not too long ago, so my comic knowledge is not that great. I used to love these books when I was younger, and always thought they had great alternate stories. I almost completely forgot about Elseworlds if it was not for the Multiversity sale on Comixology that about to end. I am curious if DC still does these types of books once in a while, or if not, if anyone knows why they stopped? Thanks.

P.S. Any apologies if there is a previous thread about this. I'm new to this site, and I have not really mastered how to search for threads on here.

[resipsaloquitur]

They're dead. Sort of.

If you mean the "Elseworlds" banner, that's apparently dead. It was originally conceived of for out-of-continuity stories in which characters were dropped into alternate settings. Some of these would resemble traditional DC (i.e., "Justice League: The Nail"), while many were outright in a different era (the Old West, Camelot, etc.) or different settings (fantasy worlds, outer space, etc.).

Elseworlds should notably be contrasted with Marvel's "What If...?" series. Marvel's alternate Earths were traditionally based on an actual Marvel event gone differently, like the Burglar killing Spider-Man's Aunt instead of his Uncle, or Dracula turning Wolverine into a vampire, or something else from a specific Marvel story. DC's were usually based on "retell the hero's story in a different setting."

Note also that Elseworlds referred to stuff that was specifically out-of-continuity. That means that alternate timelines and alternate histories shown in DC's main comics were not Elseworlds. A bunch of alternate realities bled into the DCU in Zero Hour, but because they interacted with the DCU, they weren't Elseworlds--just alternate realities. It's also notable that some Elseworlds were eventually referenced into the DCU, but I think the approach was "these are alternate realities that look a lot like an Elseworld, but aren't exactly them." Hence, The Kingdom dealt with an in-continuity follow-up to Kingdom Come, but it wasn't exactly Kingdom Come since there were subtle differences (like Steel and Hawkman being seen in The Kingdom #1 where they were explicitly killed in Kingdom Come #4). Confused? You should be.

I am not sure which comic had the first Elseworlds logo, although DC officially considers Gotham by Gaslight to be the first Elseworlds story (despite not having the logo). Most (not all) out-of-continuity stories published between 1990 and 2005 had the "Elseworlds" label, including every Annual published in 1994. It stopped in 2005, although it was brought back one more time in Last Family of Krypton (I'm not sure if it was ever published or not).

A lot of the Elseworlds were brought into continuity with the new 52 and seen in Countdown, Countdown: Arena, and Countdown: The Search for Ray Palmer. Note that DC very quickly deviated from what was shown in those Elseworlds with some weird deviations from those stories. Arena killed off a bunch of Elseworlds characters like four heroes from Justice League: The Nail, Wonder Woman from Justice Riders, and the Bat from JSA: The Liberty File. It was creepy.

They're all dead now anyway. Post Flashpoint, every alternate Earth has been given a New-52 makeover. We're likely to see worlds that resemble pre-Flashpoint Elseworlds but clearly won't be them. We're going to see a Vampire Batman, but he won't have the history of the Red Rain Batman. Same with the Soviet Superman from Red Son. So, if you want Elseworlds...there's always the back issue bin.

[Tupiaz]

As far as I know it stopped because of decline interest or at least in the upcoming protect DC had at the time.

[Thor-Ul]

Resipsaloquitur made an excellent resume.
I would add than the elseworlds also were tied to the Graphic Novel phenomenon. As most of the stories were self contained and longer than the usual 22 page book, the Elseworld books were expensive and had a better presentation. When the GN start to sell less, so did the Elseworlds line decline.
ANd I must insist than I want a Speeding Bullets earth.

[MykeHavoc]

Several of the Elseworlds still exist in the Multiverse: vampire Batman, Red Son, Gotham by Gaslight, Thrillkillers etc. The brand itself is dead, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a resurgence after Multiversity or a new branding of some sort with the same basic concept. An ongoing anthology with short 2 or 3 issue arcs alternating between Earths and creative teams seems the most logical.

[Dataweaver]

Resipsaloquitur made an excellent resume.
I would add than the elseworlds also were tied to the Graphic Novel phenomenon. As most of the stories were self contained and longer than the usual 22 page book, the Elseworld books were expensive and had a better presentation. When the GN start to sell less, so did the Elseworlds line decline.
ANd I must insist than I want a Speeding Bullets earth.

This. And to add to Resipsaloquitur’s resumé, The Kingdom didn’t just do an in-continuity followup to Kingdom Come; it introduced the 90s DCU’s framework for tying all of the Elseworlds together: Hypertime. They even followed up on that in Superboy and the Flash, and the Titans tried to get in on the action before an editorial mandate (from Dan Didio, I believe) forced them to stop. In hindsight, it’s apparent that he put Hypertime off limits so that it wouldn’t clash with the upcoming plans for Infinite Crisis and the revisiting of the Multiverse concept.

One thing about the 52: it’s not big enough for the Elseworlds. There were far more than fifty Elseworlds published in the 90s; combined with “New Earth”, “Earth Prime”, Tangent Comics, and other not-quite-Elseworlds that populate the Orrery of Worlds (as Morrison calls it), there really isn’t enough room for everything.

[MykeHavoc]

I think it would be fairly easy to make sense. The 52 Earths is perhaps a simplified version, but imagine this: what if each of those is in itself a Prime Earth for another Multiverse of 52 Earths? As is each of those? There's your infinite Multiverse, or Megaverse as I believe its called. Just a personal theory, but there's no end to the ease to explain anything left out. Plus F editorial: hypertime exists. It all happened :-P

[Dataweaver]

Oh, it definitely exists. Morrison inserted some oblique references to it in Superman Beyond; and I suspect that it’s going to be returning in all its glory at the end of Multiversity: Morrison commented that there’s no 90s Earth in the Multiverse, but that the matter will be addressed in Multiversity’s conclusion — and knowing Morrison and the direction the series is taking so far, a return of Hypertime sounds like exactly the sort of thing he’d do.

[Colossus1980]

Read The New 52: Futures End.