DC Time Travel Rules

[John Venus]

The current DCU time travel rules seems to be 'saving random woman makes timeline go brrr....Thomas Wayne is Batman and Wonder Woman/Aquaman are at war'.

Yet, prior to that there were more deft handling of time travel:

-I distinctly recall a time travel story from the Silver Age where Superboy from the past coming to the future lead to the Superman of the present to go to the past. As if the timeline had a self correcting mechanism.

-Flash, Starman and Booster Gold all operate on 'Back to the Future' rules and characters are extremely careful not to break from the predetermined timeline. Even if they did, like Booster trying to save Babs from being cripped, the future still somehow came to pass. At the same time there are also various alternate timelines in the DCU.

What are other examples of time travel rules in the DCU either pre Nu52 or post Nu 52?

[Jim Kelly]

For Superman, from SUPERMAN 61 (November-December 1949)--"Superman Returns to Krypton"--and through 1984, he could not travel within his own lifetime and exist in two places at the same time. One of him would become a phantom. There were a few times when this broke down.

In SUPERMAN 380 (February 1983) - 382 (April 1983) and THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERBOY 38 (February 1983), when Superman goes flying through the time barrier into the past, on an errand for Professor Lang to track the migration patterns of Neanderthals, the Man of Tomorrow comes upon a time-space anomaly but surges through it only to make contact with his younger self going the other way toward the future and a meeting with the Legion of Super-Heroes. Because a person can't occupy the same place in time as a past or future self, they both momentarily become phantoms, exchange minds, before being hurled back to their original point in time. Thus Superman's body goes back to his own time, with Superboy's mind. And Superboy's body goes back to his own time, with Superman's mind.

In DC COMICS PRESENTS 50 (October 1982)--"When You Wish Upon a Planetoid"--we find out that Clark uses this fact of time travel to go back in time as a phantom to revisit his parents, the Kents, and observe his young life with them, remembering those good times (the way the rest of us go through old photo albums and old home movies).

As well, and as seen in ACTION COMICS 387 (April 1970)--"Even a Superman Dies"--time is curved, so if the Man ot Tomorrow heads to the end of time, he will come around to the beginning of time again. Supes and Flash take advantage of this fact in DC COMICS PRESENTS 1 and 2 (July-August 1978 and September-October 1978)--"Chase to the End of Time"/"Race to the End of Time"--since they're bound to travel ever forward in time, they go to the end of time and then double back from the beginning to get to the present. Also in this story, when Kal-El travels through the 30th century, he is able to encounter his younger self (because the aliens forcing him to race have screwed with that rule of time travel) and Superman initiates a cataclysmic confrontation with his Superboy self--the resulting explosion from such an encounter automatically returns both of him to their home time periods.

Given the CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS transpired all through 1985 and that caused time to go wild, I cannot say if these rules still applied to the Man of Steel in that year. And these rules were thrown out when the Last Son of Krypton was rebooted in 1986.

[king81992]

There are no time travel rules, it's whatever makes sense(even when it makes no sense) to justify whatever story the writer wants to tell.

[The Darknight Detective]

Superboy found out in a Silver Age story he couldn't save Abraham Lincoln, since there was some type of time rule that wouldn't allow him to change history. Yet, Superman did save Honest Abe, General Custer, Christians at the Roman Coliseum, and even all of the Kryptonians before the planet exploded. Of course, he found out later he was doing these feats on another Earth.

[marhawkman]

Superboy found out in a Silver Age story he couldn't save Abraham Lincoln, since there was some type of time rule that wouldn't allow him to change history. Yet, Superman did save Honest Abe, General Custer, Christians at the Roman Coliseum, and even all of the Kryptonians before the planet exploded. Of course, he found out later he was doing these feats on another Earth.

So he couldn't change his OWN past, but ruin an alternate reality instead? Which one was that?

[The Darknight Detective]

So he couldn't change his OWN past, but ruin an alternate reality instead? Which one was that?

I can't remember. The story, I believe, preceded the meeting of the two Flashes and DC never went back to that alternate Earth again.

[bat39]

There have been a few attempts to suggest that time-travel results in causal loops/predestination paradoxes, particularly where the Flash is concerned.

Like the Secret Origins annual which revealed that when Barry died in COIE, he became the lightning bolt that struck his younger self and turned him into the Flash in the first place.

Flash Rebirth would later give its own spin on the origin - Barry and Wally, while battling Thawne, traveled back to the night of the fateful thunderstorm, and their battle causes the lightning bolt which strikes past Barry.

Then there was 'The Return of Barry Allen' which made Eobard Thawne's life a bit of a causal loop. The 'returned' Barry Allen of the story was a younger Eobard Thawne still in his Flash fanboy phase, who'd altered his appearance to impersonate Barry and traveled back in time. Thawne visits the Flash Museum, discovers what happens to him (that he becomes the Reverse-Flash and is eventually killed by the Flash) and this is what drives him crazy and pushes him towards becoming the Reverse-Flash.

[Jim Kelly]

Whenever Superman time-travelled (pre-Crisis) he could not change the past. If it seemed like he was changing the past, it would turn out that what he did actually made those events happen. For example, in ADVENTURE COMICS 333 (June 1965)--"The War Between Krypton and Earth"--Superboy and the Legion travel back in time to when Kryptonian scientific refugees travelled to Earth and attempted to colonize ancient Atlantis--it turns out that the Legionnaires' trip into the past was always destined to happen and to set these events in motion.

However, on one occasion, the Metropolis Marvel found that he could change the events of the past. It happened in SUPERMAN 146 (July 1961)--"Superman's Greatest Feats." In fact, a time trap caused him to bridge over into a parallel time stream, where his interference in that timeline shaped that universe's history. So for the people in that universe he was like God--that's just my surmisal, the story never shows what the people in this universe thought about their mysterious prime mover.

Other than early fantasy tales of Superman, in which he exists in either the past or the future, the Darknight Detective seems to have time travelled before the Action Ace. In BATMAN 24 (August-September 1944)--"It Happened in Rome"--Professor Carter Nichols projects his friends Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson into the past, when he practices a hypnotic experiment, placing the two (who are secretly Batman and Robin) in Ancient Rome. Thus begins a long association between Professor Nichols and those two Gotham socialites--which might still be happening to this day.

In numerous adventures, Wayne and Grayson travel throughout time--usually into the past but sometimes into the future. Later, Nichols upgrades his system so it's a hypnotic time machine. He doesn't seem to suspect that the millionaire playboy and his ward are actually the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder--but surely he must guess they are not ordinary individuals. And why does the professor do this for them? On occasion, Nichols has time travelled himself using this method.

One could maybe explain it as all a fantastic illusion brought on by hypnosis, except that Superman has shared adventures with his World's Finest Friends--he using his usual breaking through the time barrier method and they using Nichols' hypnosis machine.

Jimmy Olsen time travelled through various methods--magical or scientific--however, a few times he became displaced in time by the Star of Cathay. This was actually two gemstones brought to Earth thousands of years ago by the long-lived alien traveller Enorr. Whenever Jimmy was in the presence of a Star of Cathay, he entered some sort of trance-like state where he travelled back in time to either become Marco Polo himself, on two occasions, or, another time, Spartacus--in SUPERMAN'S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN 157 (March 1973), 159 (August 1973) and 163 (February-March 1974).

The Atom, the extremely under-appreciated Ray Palmer, had one of the most logical methods of time travel, given it being possible in particle physics. As the esteemed Richard Feynman theorized, sub-atomic particles may jump back in time. First seen in THE ATOM 3 (October-November 1962)--"The Secret of 'Al Atom's' Lamp"--at Ivy University, retired professor Alpheus V. Hyatt discovered a "time pool"--a small wormhole in time. Through this the Tiny Titan could drop into the past.

[Lightning Rider]

For Superman, from SUPERMAN 61 (November-December 1949)--"Superman Returns to Krypton"--and through 1984, he could not travel within his own lifetime and exist in two places at the same time. One of him would become a phantom. There were a few times when this broke down.

In SUPERMAN 380 (February 1983) - 382 (April 1983) and THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERBOY 38 (February 1983), when Superman goes flying through the time barrier into the past, on an errand for Professor Lang to track the migration patterns of Neanderthals, the Man of Tomorrow comes upon a time-space anomaly but surges through it only to make contact with his younger self going the other way toward the future and a meeting with the Legion of Super-Heroes. Because a person can't occupy the same place in time as a past or future self, they both momentarily become phantoms, exchange minds, before being hurled back to their original point in time. Thus Superman's body goes back to his own time, with Superboy's mind. And Superboy's body goes back to his own time, with Superman's mind.

In DC COMICS PRESENTS 50 (October 1982)--"When You Wish Upon a Planetoid"--we find out that Clark uses this fact of time travel to go back in time as a phantom to revisit his parents, the Kents, and observe his young life with them, remembering those good times (the way the rest of us go through old photo albums and old home movies).

As well, and as seen in ACTION COMICS 387 (April 1970)--"Even a Superman Dies"--time is curved, so if the Man ot Tomorrow heads to the end of time, he will come around to the beginning of time again. Supes and Flash take advantage of this fact in DC COMICS PRESENTS 1 and 2 (July-August 1978 and September-October 1978)--"Chase to the End of Time"/"Race to the End of Time"--since they're bound to travel ever forward in time, they go to the end of time and then double back from the beginning to get to the present. Also in this story, when Kal-El travels through the 30th century, he is able to encounter his younger self (because the aliens forcing him to race have screwed with that rule of time travel) and Superman initiates a cataclysmic confrontation with his Superboy self--the resulting explosion from such an encounter automatically returns both of him to their home time periods.

Given the CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS transpired all through 1985 and that caused time to go wild, I cannot say if these rules still applied to the Man of Steel in that year. And these rules were thrown out when the Last Son of Krypton was rebooted in 1986.

Posts like these are a treasure.

[Lightning Rider]

Side note, but I prefer when Flash has to use the cosmic treadmill to go to a specific time and place. If he can just run down the block and end up wherever he feels like it, it seems too accessible and cheap.

[The Darknight Detective]

Whenever Superman time-travelled (pre-Crisis) he could not change the past. If it seemed like he was changing the past, it would turn out that what he did actually made those events happen. For example, in ADVENTURE COMICS 333 (June 1965)--"The War Between Krypton and Earth"--Superboy and the Legion travel back in time to when Kryptonian scientific refugees travelled to Earth and attempted to colonize ancient Atlantis--it turns out that the Legionnaires' trip into the past was always destined to happen and to set these events in motion.

Jimmy Olsen time travelled through various methods--magical or scientific--however, a few times he became displaced in time by the Star of Cathay. This was actually two gemstones brought to Earth thousands of years ago by the long-lived alien traveller Enorr. Whenever Jimmy was in the presence of a Star of Cathay, he entered some sort of trance-like state where he travelled back in time to either become Marco Polo himself, on two occasions, or, another time, Spartacus--in SUPERMAN'S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN 157 (March 1973), 159 (August 1973) and 163 (February-March 1974).

The first two DC comics I ever owned had a reprint of the Legion story, while the other one had the first Marco Polo tale!

[The Darknight Detective]

Posts like these are a treasure.

Nobody puts in more work on his posts than Jim Kelly.

[Jackalope89]

Eh, I figured that, at least part of it, is like the Cell Saga; when Future Trunks traveled back in time, rather than alter his own timeline, he created a new one, if unintentionally.

What's more, the animated Crisis on Two Earths, Owlman describes the multiverse existing because of that kind of thing. Where every decision splits into a new timeline/universe.

[TheRay]

With the way DC works and the multiverse being in play, I always assumed that different methods of time travel had different rules, but I thought no matter what doing anything in the past would have some sort of effect on the future/present for the time traveler.

[Alan2099]

I'm not quite sure what time travel rules Johna Hex used, but when he traveled into the future, he ended up discovering his own dead body from the past.

It gets even wilder in New52, when after discovering his own dead body, he ends up getting surgery to correct his scars before going back in time to discover somebody else had stolen his identity. So he takes the identity of the person that went down in history as "the man who killed Johna Hex" kills the fake Hex, and turns his body over to have it stuffed so it'll become the one he encounters in the future.