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.
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.
"There's magic in the sound of analog audio." - CNET.
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.
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.
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.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.
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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.
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.
"There's magic in the sound of analog audio." - CNET.
"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.
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).
Last edited by SanityOrMadness; 05-21-2022 at 08:10 AM.
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.
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.
If anyone could handle it, it would be WW.
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.
Keep in mind that you have about as much chance of changing my mind as I do of changing yours.
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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.
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.
Keep in mind that you have about as much chance of changing my mind as I do of changing yours.
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