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

[Lee Stone]

DC needs Bob Rozakis and Roy Thomas to straighten it all out for them.

And my answer to the OP: Not for me, it hasn't.

[Jackalope89]

Robert Tomonago, son of Oliver and Shado. Emiko is the daughter of Robert Queen and Shado, so she would be Robert Tomonago's aunt and sister.

Wow. Yeah. Something there needs to be addressed. Changed. Burned in a hellfire.

[John Venus]

I think it's incredibly stupid from a narrative standpoint, especially considering how simple yet effective Johns' Metaverse is from Doomsday Clock. The ONLY reason the Metaverse explanation for the Multiverse (and the undoing of Manhattan's changes to the core DCU) were undone was because DiDio was put back in charge by Bob Harras. Personal vendetta and spite overruled what could have easily been the final word on continuity: every time there's a change to Superman, a new universe is created in the Multiverse that preserves the previous era. In essence, everything DID happen and those versions of characters and stories are forever preserved and available to be revisited.

As much as I complain about Johns, his explanation really was the best one. Too bad he lost the three way firing squad between his plans, Didio's 5G and Snyder's Dark Metals.

The advantage with Batman, at least back in the late 2000's, was that there really wasn't that much contradiction, continuity-wise, between the various eras. Morrison's work was more about reconciling the conflicting tonalities of the Silver Age Batman with the modern stuff than it was about continuity issues per se. Most of the major Post-COIE Batman retcons (Alfred as Bruce's surrogate father being the biggest one) are now settled parts of the mythos and the other stuff is minor or cosmetic enough to be easily overlooked.

Contrast this with something like Superman continuity where you have far more fundamental contradictions, like whether the Kents are alive or dead, whether Clark and Lois are married or not, and possibly in the near-future (if there's another reboot that tries to walk back on Jon), whether they have a kid or not.

And don't even get started on WW's continuity. lol.

Yes, the great thing about Batman is that most of us are on the page and we aren't arguing about whether Bruce should have been raised by Alfred or by Phillip Wayne and Ms Chilton. Or whether Martha Wayne died by gun shot or heart attack.

Wally West's comic book history at least comes close to having that kind of consistency. The only point of contention is the depiction of Wally's parents, changing from normal well adjusted parents in the pre crisis continuity to the jerks they were in post crisis continuity. But that's the kind of thing that can always be explained away in universe, plenty of families experience declines.

I tend to agree. And it seemed like Rebirth was building on the Post-COIE base.

Anyway, 80's/90's nostalgia is in these days, so really, it should be Post-COIE for the win! Kinda like how 15-20 years ago it was Silver Age nostalgia that ruled the roost.

Yeah, hopefully things are better than they are now a few years from now. I'm hopeful since most of the previous regime is out and new people are in charge.

[John Venus]

DC needs Bob Rozakis and Roy Thomas to straighten it all out for them.

And my answer to the OP: Not for me, it hasn't.

They need new blood.

They need to drive up a dump truck full of cash to Johnathan Hickman and Al Ewing and get them to come to DC.

[marhawkman]

No, he's born in Earth-0 now. If he's actually born in Convergence I wouldn't have any problem with it. The memory part isn't the problem. The physical part is.

or are you saying Jon was born in Earth-0 now but he remembered it happening 12 years ago when it was actually only 3-6 or so years ago?

About Wonder Woman, at the end of Doomsday Clock it's established that Wonder Woman actually physically debut before Alan Scott, that's not a memory, since Alan is old now, and he has his WW2 backstory. The question is, was Wonder Woman still there too, or has it been changed.

Now if he goes to Earth 91.... MWAHAHAHAAHAH
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Lisa_Kent_(Earth-91)
Yeah that is an elseworld I think of a LOT these days because of the "child of Superman" angle. In Earth 91 Superman has a daughter named Lisa, instead of a son named Jon.

[Lee Stone]

They need new blood.

They need to drive up a dump truck full of cash to Johnathan Hickman and Al Ewing and get them to come to DC.

That, too.

But I was more-or-less referring to how both of them knew 'everything' about the DC Universe up until stuff went crazy.
Rozakis was 'The Answer Man' in DC's monthly editorial during the late '70s and early '80s.
If you wanted to know where X first appeared, who was the stronger of two heroes, or if a hero ever met someone, Bob Rozakis was the one to ask.

Thomas had an encyclopedic knowledge of both DC and Marvel. Probably because he was most interested in the Golden Age heroes of both companies and was always thinking of how things were related to the present universes.

[SanityOrMadness]

"Everything happened" has clearly been abandoned, otherwise Cassie Sandsmark would have known Artremis in Jones' Wonder Girl series, since the latter was her mentor for a decade of stories.

At most, there's a lot of one-line summaries of stories which all happened, but the actual details of the stories are invalidated to a greater or lesser extent. (So Wally West was zapped into the speed force so that everyone forgot him by Abra Kadabra - similarly to how it happened with Linda before - but it happened c. 2011 stories, not while he was Kid Flash. Johns' New 52 JL origin story happened, but it was a reformation of the team after the pre-Flashpoint Dick-Batman/Donna Troy/Jade/Jesse Quick*/etc lineup broke up; and the details are blurred away - like them being strangers to one another - so that anything which contradicts other stuff is just Not Part of History. And so on...)

*Don't ask what happened to Jesse's kid.

*My* DC Universe existed from 1986-2011, and while it certainly had its flaws, the people that built it cared about continuity on a level we probably won't ever see again.

I don't mean this as cynically as it sounds, but I really don't care anymore. The current mandate works for me in that I still read the characters/creators I like, and stopped worrying about how/if/when their stories all tie together awhile ago now.

Nowhere near 2011. Zero Hour's borderline - it didn't change that much, except Captain Marvel's origin changing from Shazam: A New Beginning to Ordway's Power of Shazam GN - basically just deleting one miniseries, since his appearances in Legends, JLI, etc stayed intact and he never had a series between the two - although I think it may be the point where Batman & Superman officially stopped having been JLA founders, there was never a JLA origin between Crisis & ZH as far as I recall.

The post-Crisis DCU really died with the Superman: Birthright origin rewrite, which rewrote huge chunks of Superman's history - e.g., Lex Luthor being the same age as Clark and having grown up in Smallville rather than twice his age and growing up in Suicide Slum, Kandor being Kryptonian again rather than a grabag of random alien races, Krypton being completely different (which invalidated the Eradicator's origin amongst other things), the whole Pocket Universe thing (including Superman killing Zod & co) being erased... . And around the same time, you had Kon-El's origin being rewritten without explanation by Geoff Johns to match the fanfic he wrote and had published in a letter column a decade earlier (Superman/Luthor hybrid) rather than his existing origin (Paul Westfield clone, altered to have tactile TK and look like a young Superman).

And then you get to Infinite Crisis, after which Wonder Woman had suddenly been around for a decade longer and she, Superman & Batman were JLA founders again (invalidating JLA: Year One; and also leaving her history essentially a blank slate since the Perez run was predicated around her being a newbie in the late 1980s, including a major crossover spinning out of her public debut).

[Stanlos]

The point of everything happened isn't because we can go back and visit older timelines, that can be done in any story out of continuity. The point is that there isn't a single continuity that satisfies the fandom. So we need to sat tgat the heroes remember every previous canon life they lived, even though they live in todays world.

Superman himself had at least 3 different origins in Post Crisis.

And most Wonder Woman fans don't actually wanna go back to Post Crisis despite their claims, because they don't want Steve Trevor to be old and married to Etta Candy, nor do they want the old origin story for Cheetah, nor do they want Amazons Attack to be canon.

No Aquaman fan is asking for Post Crisis back.

I actually prefer the horror elements of the Post Crisis origin for Cheetah.

[bat39]

I wonder what the consensus timelines would look like for DC's major characters, and what fans would choose that they remember. It seems too overwhelming to think that Wonder Woman remembers being every version of her past self, for example. Morrison's Batman approach could work if they committed to it.

The multiversal explanation in Doomsday Clock also works, which was kind of similar to Hypertime.

There's surely a way to streamline it all.

I think Pre-Flashpoint the ''Morrison Batman'' approach might have worked. After IC, they started bringing back bits and pieces of past continuities anyway, while retaining the Post-COIE base. Relatively few characters actually got rebooted during COIE - Superman and Wonder Woman being the most prominent examples. Most of the others, including Batman, got cosmetic changes to their backstories.

Post-Flashpoint, its a lot harder to have a streamlined continuity because almost every character got a hard reboot with the New 52. I mean, its easy to work around the issue of whether Bruce was raised by Alfred or by Phillip Wayne in the larger scheme of things (answer: its Alfred, and ultimately Uncle Phillip really wasn't such a big deal even Pre-COIE anyway). But is Shado the lover of Robert Queen or the one-time enemy/lover of Oliver Queen? Were Barry Allen and Iris West married? Is Donna Troy Wonder Woman's protege or some kind of construct? These are much harder issues to reconcile.

As far as the metaverse goes, in the larger scheme of things its the perfect explanation for DC's various continuity changes. But it also skirts a fundamental question - which version of history counts now? Someone who loves the idea of, say, Superman having been Superboy could notionally be assured that he was Superboy on Earth-1985, but it doesn't answer the question of whether he was Superboy on the current earth.

[phonogram12]

I don't mean this as cynically as it sounds, but I really don't care anymore. The current mandate works for me in that I still read the characters/creators I like, and stopped worrying about how/if/when their stories all tie together awhile ago now.

This is probably for the best, tbh. I've always assembled my own continuity, anyway, so this just validates that decision even more.

I mean, my main Batman continuity starts at Batman Year One and continues to where we are now...except from the point where Jason was resurrected. For me, that starts at the New 52, since that's the first time his resurrection meant anything to me.

My Superman continuity's origin is the Birthright origin, but then borrows bits from Superman Secret Origin.

Don't get me started on WW.

The whole everything happened thing probably works best for the Flashes, tbh, since not a whole lot changed for them from one age to the next. And when it did (the nu 52) it later got explained away in a surprisingly satisfying fashion (Rebirth).

Hawkman? I get a headache just thinking about it, so I just go with the latest series (although I surprisingly liked JLU's version).

Power Girl? I like the JSA Classified's explanation.

It seems too overwhelming to think that Wonder Woman remembers being every version of her past self, for example.

If anyone could handle it, it would be WW.

And most Wonder Woman fans don't actually wanna go back to Post Crisis despite their claims, because they don't want Steve Trevor to be old and married to Etta Candy, nor do they want the old origin story for Cheetah, nor do they want Amazons Attack to be canon.

The problem with WW (and less so with Superman lately, it seems) is that the fanbase is so fractured that it's probably impossible for the book's numbers to hit anywhere near where editorial would like them to hit. I mean, the only version of WW without the secret id I've ever enjoyed is the New 52 version, which is controversial to say the least.

[Digifiend]

Robert Tomonago, son of Oliver and Shado. Emiko is the daughter of Robert Queen and Shado, so she would be Robert Tomonago's aunt and sister.

So Connor Hawke has a half-brother!?! I thought he was Oliver's only blood relative child (though of course Roy Harper might as well be his adopted kid).

Yeah, sleeping with your Dad's ex isn't a good look.

[Jim Kelly]

In THE SIRENS OF TITAN (1959) by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., the chrono-synclastic infundibulum is where all the different kinds of truths fit together. All pardoxes are resolved there. At some point in the future, it will be possible for us to achieve this higher state of consciousness. Just be patient.

[king81992]

I wonder what the consensus timelines would look like for DC's major characters, and what fans would choose that they remember. It seems too overwhelming to think that Wonder Woman remembers being every version of her past self, for example. Morrison's Batman approach could work if they committed to it.

The multiversal explanation in Doomsday Clock also works, which was kind of similar to Hypertime.

There's surely a way to streamline it all.

I feel like the only way to streamline everything would be to focus on two sperate Earths and place different characters(not alternate versions of the same character) one each one. For example, one Earth would have Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman as the trinity and the other Earth would have different characters in that position. It would break up a lot of iconic rosters + relationships and change histories, but it would make more sense than what we have now. It would make thins less cluttered and give characters who got shafted/ neglected/ derailed or lost in limbo time in the spotlight.

[phonogram12]

I feel like the only way to streamline everything would be to focus on two sperate Earths and place different characters(not alternate versions of the same character) one each one. For example, one Earth would have Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman as the trinity and the other Earth would have different characters in that position. It would break up a lot of iconic rosters + relationships and change histories, but it would make more sense than what we have now. It would make thins less cluttered and give characters who got shafted/ neglected/ derailed or lost in limbo time in the spotlight.

See, I get why someone would want this, but as someone who would want to see the continuing adventures of the Dick Sprang era of Batman (and his run on World's Finest) if we had multiple earths I'd want multiple versions of the same character. If we just have different characters on different earths I almost don't see the point, tbh.

[Alpha]

I wonder what the consensus timelines would look like for DC's major characters, and what fans would choose that they remember. It seems too overwhelming to think that Wonder Woman remembers being every version of her past self, for example. Morrison's Batman approach could work if they committed to it.

I don't see why it would be overwhelming for her. She remembers being born in the Golden Age and then time being rewritten many times, by gods, alien entities and cosmic unities. She remembers going through those various adventures, dying, coming back, Steve being older, younger, etc.

They are just memories from all the adventures she's had and how her relationships oscilated and how she herself changed. Except she knows her memory was reset multiple times and now all of it is back.


And Wonder Woman is the perfect example of how you can't actually pick one single continuity for her because every past history of the character had huge blunders fans dislike, specially post crisis, and even Rebirth (like her only seeing Themyscira again 10 years after leaving, Jason being her brother, etc).

So her remembering every past is the only pragmatic option.

Everything Happened is what ends the endless cycle of major and minor reboots that were never going to create consistency, just grievances