The DCU Timeline Discussion Thread!

[Dataweaver]

I don't like the implications of Diana retiring while she's still in her prime. She just turns her back on Man's World to be with Steve until Superman shows up and reminds her that heroes are still needed?
I think we would need a really good story to explain all the blanks in logic but, like I said, that's just not something DC will ever satisfyingly do.
They just want to say she's been around for all these years without giving it much thought as to how that could make sense with her characterization and status in-universe.

Patching the “Mod era” in between the 20th and 21st century timeline would do the trick: have the Crisis depower her (except for her unaging) and have Steve disappear (in the Mod era, he died but was later restored to life), and have her do the “Mod era” stuff until Superman debuts and a means to restore her powers becomes available: maybe the new Heroic Age gives her a way to do an Orpheus-style raid into the underworld where she finds Steve's spirit and brings him back, restoring him to life and in the process regaining her full powers.

Frankly, I find the detractors of putting her Golden Age history back in to be overly pessimistic, always talking about what can't be done instead of looking at ways that it might actually be doable, or assuming that the only options are the dumbest ones.

[Factor]

I'm not sure pessimistic is the right word. You're projecting your own preferences as if they're more "optimistic" than others.
I am totally sure that restoring her WWII origins is doable, I just disagree that it does her character any favours, especially considering how DC have portrayed that element in the past.
It's not pessimism to hold a different opinion.

[Dataweaver]

Maybe cynicism, then. I'm referring to the tendency to assume that the only way that it could be done would be to have her go through essentially the same character arc twice, once in the Golden Age and a second time in the modern age; it's as if you're only looking at the worst possible way to do it, and then assuming that that's they only way to do it.

[Buried Alien]

While I have no objection to them as characters, I've long felt that shoehorning Damian Wayne and Jon Kent into decades worth of DC history/continuity that was originally published *without* them is awkward as hell. Ditto Wallace West and now these new previously unknown "Golden Age" characters that will emerge in the aftermath of DARK CRISIS. For a longtime DC reader, the placement of these latter day characters in a history we remember reading without them will always feel forced, even if the characters themselves are not innately objectionable.

On the other hand, what about characters we DO remember reading and WERE in fact published, but are now lost to history? The classic Silver/Bronze Age Kara Zor-El Supergirl who died in COIE? The original Kal-L from Earth-Two? The Marvel Family in their original, Earth-S (Fawcett) incarnations?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Factor]

Maybe cynicism, then. I'm referring to the recency to assume that the only way that it could be done would be to have her go through essentially the same character arc twice, once in the Golden Age and a second time in the modern age; it's as if you're only looking at the worst possible way to do it, and then assuming that that's they only way to do it.

Wow, first I was a pessimist and now a cynic?
My comment about having the same character arc twice is in response to many here wanting to embrace the *entire publishing* history as part of the same version of the character’s story. If you go with the mindset of keeping most continuity intact, you’re bound to repeat the same bits because that’s how the character has been published.
If you change the repetitions, you’re deviating so much from the original stories that it begins to be questionable why to try and integrate so many elements at the same time if they’re going to be fundamentally changed.

[bat39]

Patching the “Mod era” in between the 20th and 21st century timeline would do the trick: have the Crisis depower her (except for her unaging) and have Steve disappear (in the Mod era, he died but was later restored to life), and have her do the “Mod era” stuff until Superman debuts and a means to restore her powers becomes available: maybe the new Heroic Age gives her a way to do an Orpheus-style raid into the underworld where she finds Steve's spirit and brings him back, restoring him to life and in the process regaining her full powers.

Frankly, I find the detractors of putting her Golden Age history back in to be overly pessimistic, always talking about what can't be done instead of looking at ways that it might actually be doable, or assuming that the only options are the dumbest ones.

Or she could just have been 'killed' during COIE (as the Earth One version actually was in the original story) and reverted back to the clay she was formed from. Then, at some point she's resurrected. This not only gives us a reason for her to be missing, but it also creates a distinction of sorts between the two versions of the character - especially if the 'modern' Diana starts out potentially without her memories of the decades she previously spent in Man's World (though that's optional).

Likewise with Steve Trevor. He's a character who actually died and was then resurrected (or rather, replaced with a doppelganger or some other crazy Silver Age construct) in actual publishing history. Why not make use of that?

Yeah, I know its convoluted but these are comics. When are they not convoluted? Frankly, I think its easier to explain two Steve Trevors and the gap between Diana's two stints in Man's World than it is to explain how Jon fits into the DC timeline and all the temporal shenanigans in his life.

While I have no objection to them as characters, I've long felt that shoehorning Damian Wayne and Jon Kent into decades worth of DC history/continuity that was originally published *without* them is awkward as hell. Ditto Wallace West and now these new previously unknown "Golden Age" characters that will emerge in the aftermath of DARK CRISIS. For a longtime DC reader, the placement of these latter day characters in a history we remember reading without them will always feel forced, even if the characters themselves are not innately objectionable.

On the other hand, what about characters we DO remember reading and WERE in fact published, but are now lost to history? The classic Silver/Bronze Age Kara Zor-El Supergirl who died in COIE? The original Kal-L from Earth-Two? The Marvel Family in their original, Earth-S (Fawcett) incarnations?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Damian isn't a problem, really. He existed in the background of the stories we read but he doesn't affect them much because Batman didn't know of his existence.

Jon is a different matter because, given the compressed timeline, he had to have been around during stories we read that didn't have him. Unlike Damian, he wasn't hidden away from his father but was very much a part of Lois and Clark's life.

As far as Kara goes, I suppose the idea is that she died during COIE and then got resurrected? At least that's what the scrapped 5G timeline hinted at.

[Dataweaver]

While I have no objection to them as characters, I've long felt that shoehorning Damian Wayne and Jon Kent into decades worth of DC history/continuity that was originally published *without* them is awkward as hell. Ditto Wallace West and now these new previously unknown "Golden Age" characters that will emerge in the aftermath of DARK CRISIS. For a longtime DC reader, the placement of these latter day characters in a history we remember reading without them will always feel forced, even if the characters themselves are not innately objectionable.

Personally, I'm a lot less bothered by insertions than I am of deletions; in part because insertions tend to be less disruptive. Except when they aren't; for example, I don't have a problem inserting Damian into history, as long as the timeline is long enough that Bruce and Talia could reasonably have a teenaged son; but part of that is that Damian was off-screen throughout most of his existence. Theoretically, his existence might have had some impact on what Talia did during the time between his conception and his introduction into Bruce's life; in practice, I'd be hard pressed to think of anything she did in the original history that she would have done differently with Damian around.

By contrast, inserting Jon into history (as opposed to keeping his original time travel based origin) is potentially very disruptive: at best, you have Lois and Clark married and raising a son during events that originally at most featured Lois as Clark's fiancee; at worst, you end up with major events like the Death of Superman being forced out of sync with the rest of the timeline. It's why my preferred solution for Jon is not to insert him into history, and just keep the time travel element in his backstory. And if he must be inserted into history, go with the least disruptive option of having the marriage occur out of sequence: having the Death of Superman occur while he has a wife and toddler is less disruptive than having the Death of Superman happen when Dick Grayson was Batman's sidekick and the original Teen Titans were running around.

I'll note that this isn't the first time that characters have been inserted into history; although for the most part, insertions have existed to plug holes left by other characters being deleted, such as the Young All-Stars existing in part to replace the then-recently deleted Golden Age Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, or Black Canary being edited into the founding JLA roster to replace the fact that Wonder Woman had been removed from it. But there are a few other insertions that have taken place over the years: remember Triumph, from Zero Hour? His whole thing was that he had been a founding member of the Justice League until time shenanigans erased him from history — though to be fair, the stories about him were centered on the idea that even though he was back, people still didn't remember him.

And then there's the Justice Experience, from Cameron Chase's backstory, where an entire super-team was retroactively inserted into history — although in that regard, they were inserted into the ever-widening gap in history between the JSA and the JLA. I don't mind including them in DC's timeline; though I'd put them on the sliding timescale roughly around the same time as Clark's adventures as Superboy. For now, that would be at the very tail-end of the 20th century, rather than being in the 1970s as was originally imagined; though as the timeline slides forward, they'll end up sliding into the early 21st century. And that will eventually leave a gap in the the 90s without any heroes, except for a handful of immortal holdovers from the JSA like the Spectre.

I personally don't mind leaving that gap mostly blank. But another possibility, especially if DC decides to start telling more “period piece” stories instead of focusing almost exclusively on contemporary stories, would be to reimagine the original Wildstorm universe as being folded into the 90s instead of inserted into the present. I'm not terribly fond of the Wildstorm characters, myself; they mix with DC's heroes like oil and water. But if they're going to be inserted into the timeline, I'd much rather see them anchored to the 90s in much the same way that the JSA has become anchored to the early 20th century. They were creations of the 90s, and tend to represent the zeitgeist of that decade; and they haven't really adapted to the changing times all that well. So make the 90s the era of Stormwatch, the WildCATs, and Gen 13; and if any Wildstorm-based characters exist in the present, let them be a new generation of characters that are legacies of the original Wildstorm cast, like how Jenny Quantum replaced Jenny Spark.

On the other hand, what about characters we DO remember reading and WERE in fact published, but are now lost to history? The classic Silver/Bronze Age Kara Zor-El Supergirl who died in COIE? The original Kal-L from Earth-Two? The Marvel Family in their original, Earth-S (Fawcett) incarnations?

I've addressed Supergirl already; in my preferred timeline, the modern Kara Zor-El would be the pre-Crisis Kara Zor-El restored to life in much the same way Barry came back (though I personally like the idea of leveraging her appearance near the end of PAD's Supergirl run as part of the explanation for how she came back).

As for the original Kal-L from Earth Two and the original Marvel family in their Earth-S incarnations: I would also add the original Superman, Batman, and (Jason Todd) Robin from the pre-Crisis Earth One. I don't see those working as part of a DCU (or “Earth 0”) timeline; but I absolutely see them working in Hypertime, another concept that I wish DC would do more with.

[Buried Alien]

Personally, I'm a lot less bothered by insertions than I am of deletions; in part because insertions tend to be less disruptive. Except when they aren't; for example, I don't have a problem inserting Damian into history, as long as the timeline is long enough that Bruce and Talia could reasonably have a teenaged son; but part of that is that Damian was off-screen throughout most of his existence. Theoretically, his existence might have had some impact on what Talia did during the time between his conception and his introduction into Bruce's life; in practice, I'd be hard pressed to think of anything she did in the original history that she would have done differently with Damian around.

One thing about the addition of Damian that has long bothered me is its ripple effect on Batman's Silver and Bronze Age history. As originally presented in the 1970s, Batman first became aware of the existence of Ra's Al-Ghul at a time when Dick Grayson was in his college years and on the cusp of making the transition from Robin to Nightwing. To accommodate Damian into this scheme, however, Batman's first encounter with Ra's and Talia needs to have taken place either before Dick became Robin, or very early into Dick's tenure as Robin. Ra's keeps getting pushed farther and father back in Batman's history, but I've long been accustomed to Ra's being a latter-day adversary who didn't come on the scene until Batman had already been fighting the Joker, the Riddler, the Penguin, Two-Face, etc., in Gotham for a number of years. To me, it's never quite worked to have Ra's involved with Batman's story that early into his crimefighting career.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Dataweaver]

Ra's al-Ghul first encountered Batman in 1971. Dick Grayson didn't become Nightwing until 1983. I'd have to double check exactly when Dick left for College; but if I recall correctly, he was still Batman's sidekick when the al-Ghuls first showed up.

[Buried Alien]

Ra's al-Ghul first encountered Batman in 1971. Dick Grayson didn't become Nightwing until 1983. I'd have to double check exactly when Dick left for College; but if I recall correctly, he was still Batman's sidekick when the al-Ghuls first showed up.

Dick went to college in 1969, so the entire length of the 1970s found Robin in this extended twilight when he was still tenuously Batman's partner, but not quite in the immutable way he had been from 1940-1968. Nightwing wouldn't happen until 1983, but the path started in 1969.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[sifighter]

While I have no objection to them as characters, I've long felt that shoehorning Damian Wayne and Jon Kent into decades worth of DC history/continuity that was originally published *without* them is awkward as hell. Ditto Wallace West and now these new previously unknown "Golden Age" characters that will emerge in the aftermath of DARK CRISIS. For a longtime DC reader, the placement of these latter day characters in a history we remember reading without them will always feel forced, even if the characters themselves are not innately objectionable.

On the other hand, what about characters we DO remember reading and WERE in fact published, but are now lost to history? The classic Silver/Bronze Age Kara Zor-El Supergirl who died in COIE? The original Kal-L from Earth-Two? The Marvel Family in their original, Earth-S (Fawcett) incarnations?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

You know why and I think someone mentioned this in the new golden age thread, but I’d be interested in seeing DC would publish fake/retconned facsimile comics. Like how some of the new golden age characters were supposedly in the 40’s comics but weren’t so what if we rewrote comics with them in it? Or even something like when Jon Kent was born.

Maybe people would read them if that’s something they’d be inter In seeing? Of course you’d have to clearly advertise it or else it would get pretty confusing huh.

[bat39]

One thing about the addition of Damian that has long bothered me is its ripple effect on Batman's Silver and Bronze Age history. As originally presented in the 1970s, Batman first became aware of the existence of Ra's Al-Ghul at a time when Dick Grayson was in his college years and on the cusp of making the transition from Robin to Nightwing. To accommodate Damian into this scheme, however, Batman's first encounter with Ra's and Talia needs to have taken place either before Dick became Robin, or very early into Dick's tenure as Robin. Ra's keeps getting pushed farther and father back in Batman's history, but I've long been accustomed to Ra's being a latter-day adversary who didn't come on the scene until Batman had already been fighting the Joker, the Riddler, the Penguin, Two-Face, etc., in Gotham for a number of years. To me, it's never quite worked to have Ra's involved with Batman's story that early into his crimefighting career.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

That's why I prefer something like a 21 year timeline, where Bruce only encounters Ra's and Talia around Year 7 and Damian is born (unbeknownst to Bruce) in Year 8. But unfortunately, in a compressed timeline, the only way to make Damian work (without accelerated ageing or whatever) is to push those early encounters to earlier in Batman's career.

It's not ideal...especially since a major aspect of those early stories was that Ra's considered Batman to be a worthy successor to him and a worthy suitor for his daughter, and that's because of Batman's reputation as a legendary crime-fighter not just in Gotham, but across the globe. This makes way more sense if Batman is a veteran crime-fighter who's been at it for several years, than if he was still pretty early in his career.

Of course, an even bigger retcon would be Bruce meeting Talia before he becomes Batman, as has been suggested often here.

Ra's being pushed to earlier in Batman's career may be jarring, but if you think about it, that's happened to a lot of villains. Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, the Matt Hagen Clayface, to name a few, were all introduced in the Silver Age, well into Dick's career as Robin...they've all since been retconned into debuting during Year One or Year Two. Hell, every big-name villain, including the Joker, originally showed up after Dick became Robin, and most of them precede him now.

It's not just the villains...there are plenty of stories I think which show Montoya being around during Batman's early years. Leslie Thompkins too is around during Bruce's early years (though this is mostly a function of her being retconned into being a friend of Thomas Wayne's and one of Bruce's earliest confidants alongside Alfred).

Granted, this isn't just a Batman problem (if you consider it a 'problem').

Dick went to college in 1969, so the entire length of the 1970s found Robin in this extended twilight when he was still tenuously Batman's partner, but not quite in the immutable way he had been from 1940-1968. Nightwing wouldn't happen until 1983, but the path started in 1969.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Yeah. The Bronze Age era was notionally still in continuity after COIE I believe but usually tends to get overlooked/ignored (apart from a few key stories like the original Batman/Ra's tangles). The Dick Grayson in college status quo is often forgotten as a result - though ironically it formed the basis for his status quo in BTAS (which in general borrowed heavily from this era). And in recent years, elements from the Bronze Age have again started to make their way into adaptations - the Penthouse and city-based Batcave in TDK and Reeves' film (and the CW's Batwoman), the Batmobile looking more like a souped-up sports car (Reeves' film again, and the CW's Batwoman) etc.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Damian's much less of a problem for me timeline-wise because Talia using rapid aging on the kid makes perfect sense, whereas Jon growing up with a relatively normal childhood for the first decade of his life without some kind of time shenanigans isn't really possible without some serious squinting at the ages of the 'young' heroes

[Aahz]

Damian's much less of a problem for me timeline-wise because Talia using rapid aging on the kid makes perfect sense, whereas Jon growing up with a relatively normal childhood for the first decade of his life without some kind of time shenanigans isn't really possible without some serious squinting at the ages of the 'young' heroes

Even if you keep the rapid ageing to make him being 10 when he became Robin work, him being allready 14 now is similar problematic, since that completely contradicts the ages of all other Batfamily members who still seem around the same ages as they were around flashpoint.

[Dataweaver]

Or younger, for what that's worth. Although that mostly matters to kids: adults can easily have their physical ages adjusted by as much as a decade and few people will notice; but going from 10 to 14 or 13 to 17 is a huge deal. It's why I tend to concentrate on getting the kids' ages right.

We do have the option is saying that Flashpoint physically de-aged a bunch of people, and not just superheroes; and that the physical de-aging remained even after the lost years of experience were restored. This could allow, for example, Tim Drake to chronologically have over twenty years of experience but physically be barely a year or two older than Damian. This “Flashpoint Effect” could be more pronounced the older you are, so that people who were in their 50s before Flashpoint are now biologically in their fourties, whole someone who was 20 only gets regressed to 16.