Continuity Cops! Has "Everything Happened" been a success or failure for you?

[Restingvoice]

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. I disagree that this has been "fandom attitude for years." Marvel's use of the multiverse concept with Spider-Man has exposed more and more people to the idea of multiple versions of characters. The CW has done the same with less of a reach and now the MCU is using the concept. I don't think we're back to the days of pre-COIE when DC fans considered the DCU as a storytelling universe made up of multiple universes and versions of characters, but I do think that more fans than not accept the idea of alternate versions. This is both good and bad. For example, it's a shame that many seem to prefer the murdering Superman of Injustice or the murdering Batman of Flashpoint than the iconic versions of the characters. Meanwhile, we've seen faithful versions like Routh's Superman from the CW and Waid's World's Finest resonate with fans.

I think this is further proof that the Multiverse is the much better continuity solution than a vague and frankly ridiculous "everyone remembers past lives" concept. It's a poor attempt at meta-significance from Snyder, who simply doesn't have the capability to give such an idea depth or logic. Johns' Metaverse idea stands in stark contrast as how it can be done properly. I don't blame Snyder for that, as he was roped in by DiDio to expunge Doomsday Clock as much as possible.

I mean that fandom want the story they like to be part of the main continuity because DC only does story in main continuity most of the time. Yes, they have different Earths but how many times have they used them? Right now there's only Earth 3. So in the end, only Earth 0 matters. Marvel ended up combining Ultimate and 616 universe (and before that bringing back Peter Parker in Ultimate)

I can say to Cass Cain's fans that Cass Cain's full story of Batgirl exist in the Metaverse, but if they don't make stories about that, continuing that continuity, they're not buying. They don't like the current version.

Meanwhile Young Justice fans perk up when Dark Crisis features flashback and reunion of classic Young Justice (and also when Bendis first announced his line) because it shows them that it's still canon in main continuity and they're hoping all of them are canon.

The difference between alternate earths and everything canon is... with alternate earths, you're stuck with only 1 version in 1 earth, and only 1 earth gets the attention most of the time... whereas with everything canon, the writers have the flexibility to include both version of back story, and it informs the characterization and they can say to those fans, yes, your version is canon. Then a different writer can use different back story, and say, yes, your version is canon, and it happened in the main earth. The one that matters. Because this is where most stories happened.

Note that I'm not saying that the current method is less complicated, it's complicated af, I'm just saying that they're not using alternate earths enough for it to matter to fans who like them.

I'm also not saying that this method works, after all, there's still only one version running on earth-0 right now. Jon's adult and bi, Cass Cain sounds like a teenager, for example. So it still suffer from the same problem as alternate earths. I'm merely explaining why I think DC pick this method. It's because they know a lot of fans only count it if it's main Earth, and they themselves have most of their stories set in main Earth.

[ducklord]

How does that work, it can be either one or both at the same time, depends on the writer and characters.

An example of the confusion from differing memories is the Hall of Justice museum for Justice League. Clayface, disguised as a guide, explained that people don't agree on when or what exactly the first iteration of Justice League, while pointing at two exhibits. The Silver Age origin and the New 52 origin. This happens because people remember different origins.

It's one thing for a few heroes to have wispy, occasionally conflicting memories about the first meeting of the JLA, but that's seriously no way for reality to behave. If one lived on Earth-0 in the DCU, and paid $1.99 a month for the privilege of browsing the Daily Planet archives, and looked for the first gathering of the heroes that would become known as the Justice League, would they find more than one incident? Would you find different inciting cases depending on the day of the week you were looking, or what color your shirt happened to be? Even if you run with the "everything that happened in previous continuities somehow happened and informed the present continuity" wishy-washy approach to things, at some basic level, whatever the current continuity of the DCU is at the moment does have to have some sort of linear coherence, yes?

PS A lot of my apparent annoyance on this front has been engendered by a recent re-read of The DC Book: A Vast and Vibrant Multiverse, which has many merits, but every time it gets into the weeds of trying to explain, say, how Cyborg is both a founding member of the JLA *and* a longtime member of the Titans, it just comes across like a LOT of handwaving.

PPS The DC Book is also stunning in its petty (or perhaps legal) avoidance of all things Alan Moore.

[Restingvoice]

It's one thing for a few heroes to have wispy, occasionally conflicting memories about the first meeting of the JLA, but that's seriously no way for reality to behave. If one lived on Earth-0 in the DCU, and paid $1.99 a month for the privilege of browsing the Daily Planet archives, and looked for the first gathering of the heroes that would become known as the Justice League, would they find more than one incident? Would you find different inciting cases depending on the day of the week you were looking, or what color your shirt happened to be? Even if you run with the "everything that happened in previous continuities somehow happened and informed the present continuity" wishy-washy approach to things, at some basic level, whatever the current continuity of the DCU is at the moment does have to have some sort of linear coherence, yes?.

There should be only one thing that happened physically, yes.

Unless... person A is checking the Daily Planet archive when he's in timeline A, while person B is checking Daily Planet archive while they're in timeline B, but timeline A and B have different records, and then they meet when both branches of timeline reunited.

But that's just a guess on how far the alternate timelines in DC works. Hypertime branches does separate and recombine, but how far it goes I have no idea.

Because people CAN carry objects from different timelines, like how Barry carried Thomas Wayne's letter to Bruce from Flashpoint, or how Thomas himself can travel to Earth-0. Right now, alternate timeline in DCU is not like Back to The Future where Whoosh, one timeline disappear, replaced by the other, but like two or more roads running parallel to each other, and people with that power can jump between the roads.

They canonize everything and they canonize every method possible to canonize everything. That's basically where we're at right now.

[ducklord]

There should be only one thing that happened physically, yes.

Which is why things like that museum scene kind of bug me. It's a little too cute by half about the whole "wispy memory" thing. In a real museum, the docents don't go around saying things like "history's all kind of a blur, who can really say what happened in the deep past of (checks notes) 20 years ago" - they spout facts.

Fortunately, I've already headcanoned that scene as being nonsense on account of the unreliable narrator (Clayface).

[bat39]

But it needs a framework of what physical reality actually is. Say... Superman remembers having a relic from a planet that, in actuality he's never been to, and can't find it because it was a different him that went to that planet and no other version of him has. Sure as a writer you don't have to go there, but... It is a natural consequence of how unnatural the new status quo is. There is only one Metropolis on Earth and only one Earth. How many of those memories are of people/places/things that don't physically exist?

Precisely.

And to be clear - you can tell an interesting story about Superman remembering his trip to a planet that happened in a previous universe/timeline/life. But that sort of things can't apply to everyone, all the time. Ultimately, Superman stories have to be built on a foundation of what physically happened to the character in this reality.

It looks like Johns may be tackling this “Everything Happened” issue in Flashpoint Beyond, and that his proposed solution is going to be Hypertime. That's what I'm getting out of his introduction of the “Divine Continuum”, consisting of Space (the Omniverse) and Time (Hypertime); and with his inclusion of Mime and Marionette, which makes it a sequel to Doomsday Clock. I think he's going to be presenting the notion that the Flashpoint timeline exists elsewhere in Hypertime, as do the “Metaversal spinoffs” that were introduced in the last issue of Doomsday Clock: Earth 2, Earth 1985, Earth 52, and others. This will lay the groundwork for restoring the original Hypertime notion of “Everything Happened”, which has the caveat of “…just not all in a single timeline”.

Dark Crisis, meanwhile, appears to be operating in the “Space” branch of Johns's Divine Continuum, being a story of the Omniverse. In particular, I expect that it will end up with the Multiverse-2 first mentioned by Morrison in Multiversity and recently revealed to be the ruins of the pre-Crisis Multiverse. Basically, I see Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, Multiversity, Dark Nights (both Metal and Death Metal), Infinite Frontier, and now Dark Crisis to be stories about the Omniverse; whereas Zero Hour, The Kingdom, Flashpoint, Convergence, Doomsday Clock, and now Flashpoint Beyond are stories about Hypertime. How the Omniverse and Hypertime relate to each other is an open question; my own preference is to view the Omniverse as existing within the central timeline of Hypertime, with each branch in Hypertime having its own version of the Omniverse. But that's just speculation on my part.

I'm hoping that when they finally end the current “Everything Happened” phase of DC's story (in the sense of “the denizens of Earth 0 remember every iteration of the Metaverse”), that Hypertime notion of “Everything Matters” will stick around. Let Earth 0 get a single, consistent history, where not everything happened; but make it clear that whatever gets removed from Earth-0's history exists elsewhere in Hypertime — and, just as importantly, that Hypertime isn't where stories go to die. Encourage more stories like Batman: White Knight or New Frontiers that don't even attempt to fit into the Metaverse; just slap an “Elseworlds” logo on the cover as a heads-up to any continuity cops that the story in question isn't in continuity and isn't subject to their jurisdiction: where the Elseworlds label is concerned, apply the advice of Rip Hunter from the introduction to the Justice League: New Frontier animated special:

“Hundreds of years ago they said the world was flat. Today, experts will try to tell you there are 52 worlds. The truth is there are infinite worlds out there and every year dozens more spring to life. The scientific term used to describe this state is ‘fictional’.

“Who cares what world we're on? Just sit back and enjoy these untold stories from the last heroic age.”

In short, let Earth 0 cater to continuity buffs, to the extent that that's still possible; and promote Elseworlds as something for DC writers who want to tell stories without being tied down to a single, consistent continuity.

Beautifully put!

It's one thing for a few heroes to have wispy, occasionally conflicting memories about the first meeting of the JLA, but that's seriously no way for reality to behave. If one lived on Earth-0 in the DCU, and paid $1.99 a month for the privilege of browsing the Daily Planet archives, and looked for the first gathering of the heroes that would become known as the Justice League, would they find more than one incident? Would you find different inciting cases depending on the day of the week you were looking, or what color your shirt happened to be? Even if you run with the "everything that happened in previous continuities somehow happened and informed the present continuity" wishy-washy approach to things, at some basic level, whatever the current continuity of the DCU is at the moment does have to have some sort of linear coherence, yes?

PS A lot of my apparent annoyance on this front has been engendered by a recent re-read of The DC Book: A Vast and Vibrant Multiverse, which has many merits, but every time it gets into the weeds of trying to explain, say, how Cyborg is both a founding member of the JLA *and* a longtime member of the Titans, it just comes across like a LOT of handwaving.

PPS The DC Book is also stunning in its petty (or perhaps legal) avoidance of all things Alan Moore.

Spot on!

Frankly, I love it when writers find a way to reconcile multiple versions in a way that kinda makes sense. For instance the ''It was the street, it was the boat'' thing in Tom King's Batman run worked because both versions can have happened in the same physical reality - Bruce fought Selina on the streets of the East End (per Year One) and then Batman encountered Catwoman on a cruise liner (per Batman # 1). Or consider something like the Post-IC idea that Black Canary was a founding member of the JLA along with Wonder Woman - so both the old Silver Age JLA stories and JLA: Year One can kinda co-exist if you squint a bit.

Honestly, the easy way to solve the problem with the League's conflicting origins is for the Apellexian one to be the beginnings of the original JLA, and the New 52 version is the origin of a later iteration of the team from a few years ago. See, that works, even if some details of the New 52 origin have to be retconned (like Cyborg's origin...maybe he was just transformed into his New 52 incarnation after exposure to Apokolips technology...and obviously all the heroes know each other well).

[Kirk Brent]

I mean that fandom want the story they like to be part of the main continuity because DC only does story in main continuity most of the time. Yes, they have different Earths but how many times have they used them? Right now there's only Earth 3. So in the end, only Earth 0 matters. Marvel ended up combining Ultimate and 616 universe (and before that bringing back Peter Parker in Ultimate)

I can say to Cass Cain's fans that Cass Cain's full story of Batgirl exist in the Metaverse, but if they don't make stories about that, continuing that continuity, they're not buying. They don't like the current version.

Meanwhile Young Justice fans perk up when Dark Crisis features flashback and reunion of classic Young Justice (and also when Bendis first announced his line) because it shows them that it's still canon in main continuity and they're hoping all of them are canon.

The difference between alternate earths and everything canon is... with alternate earths, you're stuck with only 1 version in 1 earth, and only 1 earth gets the attention most of the time... whereas with everything canon, the writers have the flexibility to include both version of back story, and it informs the characterization and they can say to those fans, yes, your version is canon. Then a different writer can use different back story, and say, yes, your version is canon, and it happened in the main earth. The one that matters. Because this is where most stories happened.

Note that I'm not saying that the current method is less complicated, it's complicated af, I'm just saying that they're not using alternate earths enough for it to matter to fans who like them.

Pre-COIE, fans accepted that the DCU as a publishing entity included characters from and events and settings on different Earths in the Multiverse. Multiversal travel was easy and happened frequently. This added a richness to the DCU as a whole. Though I'm not a fan of it, Spider-Verse proves that the general audience can understand and accept multiple iterations of a character or universe. The CWverse proved the same, crossing over various versions of characters frequently.

Earth-One wasn't the only setting pre-COIE but it was usually the main setting for crossovers; thus, everything that "matters" as you put it happened in one universe. I think today's reader and general audience member can accept these concepts far more than timey-wimey "everyone remembers their past lives" stuff. On this Earth, Superman is married to Lois and has a child, who's Superboy. On this Earth, Batman died and Dick Grayson took over as Gotham's protector as an adult Robin. These characters can interact as frequently and easily as the story dictates and their interactions have tons of narrative potential. "Everyone remembers everything" is an immediate speed-block that takes readers out of the story as they try to figure out just what the hell it means. If they realize it has no real logical basis and makes zero sense, they'll likely stop reading altogether.

[Dataweaver]

Precisely.

And to be clear - you can tell an interesting story about Superman remembering his trip to a planet that happened in a previous universe/timeline/life. But that sort of things can't apply to everyone, all the time. Ultimately, Superman stories have to be built on a foundation of what physically happened to the character in this reality.



Beautifully put!



Spot on!

Frankly, I love it when writers find a way to reconcile multiple versions in a way that kinda makes sense. For instance the ''It was the street, it was the boat'' thing in Tom King's Batman run worked because both versions can have happened in the same physical reality - Bruce fought Selina on the streets of the East End (per Year One) and then Batman encountered Catwoman on a cruise liner (per Batman # 1). Or consider something like the Post-IC idea that Black Canary was a founding member of the JLA along with Wonder Woman - so both the old Silver Age JLA stories and JLA: Year One can kinda co-exist if you squint a bit.

Honestly, the easy way to solve the problem with the League's conflicting origins is for the Apellexian one to be the beginnings of the original JLA, and the New 52 version is the origin of a later iteration of the team from a few years ago. See, that works, even if some details of the New 52 origin have to be retconned (like Cyborg's origin...maybe he was just transformed into his New 52 incarnation after exposure to Apokolips technology...and obviously all the heroes know each other well).

Yeah. I didn't go into detail as to what I'd like the new Earth 0 history to be; but it would essentially be this: use as much of the histories of the various iterations of the Metaverse as can reasonably be synthesized into a coherent whole.

Taking Superman as an example: he was Superboy in Smallville; but was strictly a local hero and didn't rise to worldwide fame. On the other hand, he was also an inspiration for, and member of, the Legion of Superheroes. Reconcile those by saying that the Legion recruited him early in his teenage years, when he was just beginning his Superboy career; and that they cautioned him that it would be a bad thing if he became too well known too soon. So while Clark had a period where he was Superboy, that period more closely resemble the earlier seasons of Smallville than the Silver Age Superboy comics. As a compromise, I'd put him in a “t-shirt and jeans” look, similar to his debut in Morrison's New 52 Action Comics relaunch.

Also, go with the Man of Steel and N52 notion that his powers developed gradually over decades; I'd even go so far as to say that if he could fly during his teen years, it was because of his Legion Flight Ring.

When he left Smallville, he didn't go straight to Metropolis; include a time of “wandering the world” the way Man of Steel and Birthright depict. When he eventually debuts in Metropolis, do something that pays homage to his original, 1938 debut: much like Morrison's New 52 Superman, his powers aren't yet fully online (though they're rapidly getting there), and his earliest public feat involves picking up a green car. At this point, he's faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. But it's not long before he starts flying around the globe in seconds and lifting luxury liners.

He takes a job at the Daily Star under George Taylor, but later transfers to the Daily Planet under Perry White when the Daily Star folds. His career at the Daily Planet is the longest running item on his resume, albeit with a brief interruption when the Daily Planet is shut down. He briefly works as an independent blogger (N52) before getting a job as an anchor at WGBS (1970s DCU), which lasts for a couple of years before Perry White is able to get the Daily Planet back up and running.

It is at this point that he and Lois (who he first met at the Daily Star) start dating. He revealed his secret to her; they get engaged; Doomsday shows up and “kills” him; the Reign of the Supermen happens; and he and Lois get married. If there's a time that he dated Wonder Woman, it would be during his first stint at the Daily Planet; and it would be over by the time he becomes an anchor at WGBS.

Some time after this, he and Lois get sucked into a time vortex and end up stranded a decade in the past, by way of the Convergence. Lois gets pregnant, and Jon is born. The Kents take on false identities and “relive” that decade in secret until they catch up with the present and step into their old lives, presenting Jon to their friends and coworkers as their “adopted” son. (Alternately, they spend those years on Earth-52, which retains all of its history right up to Superman Reborn, which ends with Earth-0's Kent's being sent home and Earth-52's Superman being, well, reborn.) Then *sigh* the Bendis stuff happens. Not a fan; but the point is to incorporate as much as the timeline as possible, whether I personally like it or not.

Supergirl arrives on Earth during Clark's days at WGBS, and has something akin to her pre-Crisis adventures before dying in the Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Matrix Supergirl appears some time after that, and is around for the Death of Superman story. Then PAD's Supergirl series happens, up to and including Many Happy Returns, which is now a time travel story where Linda Danvers of the present and Kara Zor-El of the past swap places and spawn an alternate timeline where Linda ended up marrying Superman, before undoing the changes to prevent tragedy. The Cir-El and the Futuresmiths stuff happens, but doesn't result in Superman's history being changed.

Rewinding slightly: Supergirl gets plucked from the timeline shortly before the Crisis on Infinite Earths by the Convergence, and ends up sticking around to deal with some great crisis when the Convergence ends. But she doesn't get sent back in time at the end the way Lois and Clark are; she gets sent forward in time to get “second coming”, when Superman and Batman find her trapped inside a meteorite made of Kryptonite. This reintroduces her into the DCU, where her adventures in the 00s and 10s take place.

And that's how I'd patch together a single, coherent Superman timeline that incorporates as much of his history as possible — the good, the bad, and the ugly. I'd make it a floating timeline, where Superman debuted in Metropolis approximately 20 years ago (and with that start date gradually drifting further into the past, at roughly one year per four years of publishing). While this would remove him from the Golden Age, that's surprisingly not a big deal to me: despite a lot of talk about how he was the “first superhero” and an integral part of the Justice Society, the “first superhero” thing still holds in terms of the modern age of superheroes; and in the actual Golden Age, he wasn't an integral part of the Justice Society; Batman and he were honorary members only, who only made appearances in something like three or four issues of the entire run. Superman's role in the Justice Society didn't become a big deal until the Silver Age; and at that point, we're talking about Earth 2's history, not Earth-0's.

And I'd look for similar patches for other characters; for instance, the trick of patching the pre-Crisis Supergirl into her 2000s reboot by way of the Convergence could also be used to explain Barry Allen's return during Final Crisis: that's where he landed after the Convergence ended.

I said that I want a single, consistent history for Earth-0. That doesn't man that it needs to be strictly linear, or isolated. Heroes can spend time in the past, or on alternate Earths; just so long as the timeline for Earth-0 remains stable.

[Lightning Rider]

Yeah. I didn't go into detail as to what I'd like the new Earth 0 history to be; but it would essentially be this: use as much of the histories of the various iterations of the Metaverse as can reasonably be synthesized into a coherent whole.

Yeah, I think this approach is best and pretty self-evident. In fact, it's more or less what fans basically do when forming their head-canon reading stories in different eras. I think your Superman layout is pretty comprehensive and pleases as many people as realistically possible.

[Ascended]

Yeah, I think this approach is best and pretty self-evident. In fact, it's more or less what fans basically do when forming their head-canon reading stories in different eras. I think your Superman layout is pretty comprehensive and pleases as many people as realistically possible.

Agreed. I think it wouldn't be all that difficult to stitch together a singular timeline. Sure, some things won't translate completely, or are at odds with each other, but I don't think it'd be hard to get a basic framework of a timeline hammered out.

The proposal of using time travel raises a concern for me though. Like Jon and Convergence: Sure, it keeps the continuity kinda-sorta lined up with the published books (insofar as that's possible), but isn't the point of this effort to streamline the continuity? Is it not more straight forward to just say that Jon grew up in his proper time and place, and was just "off panel" during the stories where he would've been little?

At this point, we now have several flashbacks to young Jon growing up in the current continuity. On the other hand we have Convergence and the Lois and Clark maxiseries that deals with a Jon who grew up out of sync with history. We gotta lose one or the other, so while the time travel idea is more fun and elegant, because this is just a history framework and not something we'd be reading in "real time" shouldn't things be kept as simple as possible?

And if you use this for multiple characters like Kara and Donna Troy and whoever else, don't you run the risk of making the history even more confusing?

[Dataweaver]

No, the goal isn't to streamline the continuity; at least, that's not the primary goal. That's what New 52 tried to do; and that was a disaster. Rather, the primary goal would be “a time and place for everything”. It's an outline of Superman's life that could theoretically include every story in the Metaverse about Superman, with only a handful of exceptions and with as few changes as possible. All without having to include anything about “…and then the timeline was altered.”

The Daily Star and early Daily Planet stuff is there primarily as a place for Superman stories from the Golden Age, and possibly some stories adapted from the New 52; the latter part of the initial Daily Planet stuff covers the Silver Age and most of the rest of the New 52 stuff; the Blogger period covers the rest of the New 52 stuff, save only for the final two story arcs (where Lois reveals Superman's secret to the world, and where Superman overloads and dies); those, I'd reserve for Earth-52. The Smallville era is there primarily for the Silver Age Superboy stories. The WGBS era is there for the Bronze Age tales. The return of the Daily Planet is there for 1986–2011, and everything from Superman Reborn to the present.

If I was aiming for streamlining or simplification, I wouldn't have (for example) included anything about the Daily Star, Clark's time as a blogger, WGBS, or Smallville. I'd just say that his career started in Metropolis, at the Daily Planet; and that he had never done superheroics before.

The core issue is that every time you change something, no matter how well-meaning the change is, there will be unintended consequences. And it's really easy for those to spiral out of control. So it's much better to make as few changes as possible. Even my decision to relocate much of the N52 stuff to be contemporary with the Silver Age has the potential for complications — though the fact that much of the New 52 was being written as if it was taking place in the early days of the DCU helps mitigate that, somewhat.

As for how complex it is, we're dealing with 84 years of stories here; that's going to be complicated, no way around it. It doesn't mean that the average reader needs to read everything in order to know what's going on; because there won't be any stories where everything matters to that story. Newcomers can get by with where Superman is now, and a brief summary of whichever parts of his backstory are relevant to the current story; they don't need to know every intricate detail of every Superman story ever published to get into the new stuff.

[Restingvoice]

Pre-COIE, fans accepted that the DCU as a publishing entity included characters from and events and settings on different Earths in the Multiverse. Multiversal travel was easy and happened frequently. This added a richness to the DCU as a whole. Though I'm not a fan of it, Spider-Verse proves that the general audience can understand and accept multiple iterations of a character or universe. The CWverse proved the same, crossing over various versions of characters frequently.

Earth-One wasn't the only setting pre-COIE but it was usually the main setting for crossovers; thus, everything that "matters" as you put it happened in one universe. I think today's reader and general audience member can accept these concepts far more than timey-wimey "everyone remembers their past lives" stuff. On this Earth, Superman is married to Lois and has a child, who's Superboy. On this Earth, Batman died and Dick Grayson took over as Gotham's protector as an adult Robin. These characters can interact as frequently and easily as the story dictates and their interactions have tons of narrative potential. "Everyone remembers everything" is an immediate speed-block that takes readers out of the story as they try to figure out just what the hell it means. If they realize it has no real logical basis and makes zero sense, they'll likely stop reading altogether.

If DC can follow the Pre Crisis model, yes, that will be more ideal, but right now the line is so compressed and so Batman focused that even when they do Black Label, Webtoon and YA as a representation of stories from another Earth, they prefer to do a new story (most of it Batman), instead of tackling past continuity and what happened to them.

Or maybe, they make this Everything Happened thing so they can do past continuity in the mainline while keep churning on new stories unbound by continuity in the different lines.

[Dataweaver]

Frankly, if they want total freedom to do whatever they want, they should lean into Hypertime and then blow up Earth 0, so that everything is an Elseworld.

If course, long-time fans would be up in arms over such a move.

[HsssH]

Though I'm not a fan of it, Spider-Verse proves that the general audience can understand and accept multiple iterations of a character or universe. The CWverse proved the same, crossing over various versions of characters frequently.

It is not really about understanding it, but caring about it. Take Barbara as Oracle for example, mini-series about her on main Earth is going to sell better than one set on Earth-whatever. So thats why we now have weird progression of her being Batgirl, getting shot by Joker, being Oracle, with the help of an implant recovering and being Batgirl again, her implant getting screwed up and now she is kinda Oracle again, but can totally suit up if required. So you can now do Batgirl and Oracle stories for her on main continuity.

[phonogram12]

Frankly, if they want total freedom to do whatever they want, they should plan into Hypertime and then blow up Earth 0, so that everything is an Elseworld.

If course, long-time fans would be up in arms over such a move.

Ha! And I'd love to be front row with my popcorn to see that happen! lol

[bat39]

Agreed. I think it wouldn't be all that difficult to stitch together a singular timeline. Sure, some things won't translate completely, or are at odds with each other, but I don't think it'd be hard to get a basic framework of a timeline hammered out.

The proposal of using time travel raises a concern for me though. Like Jon and Convergence: Sure, it keeps the continuity kinda-sorta lined up with the published books (insofar as that's possible), but isn't the point of this effort to streamline the continuity? Is it not more straight forward to just say that Jon grew up in his proper time and place, and was just "off panel" during the stories where he would've been little?

At this point, we now have several flashbacks to young Jon growing up in the current continuity. On the other hand we have Convergence and the Lois and Clark maxiseries that deals with a Jon who grew up out of sync with history. We gotta lose one or the other, so while the time travel idea is more fun and elegant, because this is just a history framework and not something we'd be reading in "real time" shouldn't things be kept as simple as possible?

And if you use this for multiple characters like Kara and Donna Troy and whoever else, don't you run the risk of making the history even more confusing?

No, the goal isn't to streamline the continuity; at least, that's not the primary goal. That's what New 52 tried to do; and that was a disaster. Rather, the primary goal would be “a time and place for everything”. It's an outline of Superman's life that could theoretically include every story in the Metaverse about Superman, with only a handful of exceptions and with as few changes as possible. All without having to include anything about “…and then the timeline was altered.”

The Daily Star and early Daily Planet stuff is there primarily as a place for Superman stories from the Golden Age, and possibly some stories adapted from the New 52; the latter part of the initial Daily Planet stuff covers the Silver Age and most of the rest of the New 52 stuff; the Blogger period covers the rest of the New 52 stuff, save only for the final two story arcs (where Lois reveals Superman's secret to the world, and where Superman overloads and dies); those, I'd reserve for Earth-52. The Smallville era is there primarily for the Silver Age Superboy stories. The WGBS era is there for the Bronze Age tales. The return of the Daily Planet is there for 1986–2011, and everything from Superman Reborn to the present.

If I was aiming for streamlining or simplification, I wouldn't have (for example) included anything about the Daily Star, Clark's time as a blogger, WGBS, or Smallville. I'd just say that his career started in Metropolis, at the Daily Planet; and that he had never done superheroics before.

The core issue is that every time you change something, no matter how well-meaning the change is, there will be unintended consequences. And it's really easy for those to spiral out of control. So it's much better to make as few changes as possible. Even my decision to relocate much of the N52 stuff to be contemporary with the Silver Age has the potential for complications — though the fact that much of the New 52 was being written as if it was taking place in the early days of the DCU helps mitigate that, somewhat.

As for how complex it is, we're dealing with 84 years of stories here; that's going to be complicated, no way around it. It doesn't mean that the average reader needs to read everything in order to know what's going on; because there won't be any stories where everything matters to that story. Newcomers can get by with where Superman is now, and a brief summary of whichever parts of his backstory are relevant to the current story; they don't need to know every intricate detail of every Superman story ever published to get into the new stuff.

I understand where you're coming from.

But ultimately, this sort of approach would have the effect of technically being inclusive of every version but not really being true to the spirit of any version.

I haven't read much of the recent Jon material but I know that the basic idea behind the character is that he's Superman and Lois' son all grown up who's now become Superman (his being aged up already adds a convoluted element to his backstory, but fair enough). Jon as the son of the Superman and Lois from another timeline/time period who grew up ''out of sync'' with the world is a much more complex character concept that had its day. Attempting to reconcile the two doesn't really do justice to either idea.

I like the idea of trying to include aspects of different versions into one coherent timeline, provided that it all makes sense without having to resort to convoluted mental gymnastics. For instance, Clark's time at WGBS is pretty easy to reconcile with any other continuity. Superman's relationship with Wonder Woman is a much harder pill to swallow. Sure, you can claim that technically they dated early in their careers, but the context of that relationship would be completely different to what we saw in the New 52.