You're In Charge of Crisis On Infinite Earths: What do you do?

[marhawkman]

Yeah, Superboy Prime punched reality and altered somethings. Its what resurrected Jason Todd. There is an actually wikipedea list that list some of the big ones

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contin...nfinite_Crisis

Yeah editorial wanted to make a bunch of arbitrary changes, and not actually write out how/why things changed.

[Stanlos]

Wow.
WOW!
I guess I owe Scott Snyder an apology for ragging so hard on that cosmic doorknob business. I don't find it a bit less idiotic or silly, but ...Superboy Punch? Here I thought the Superboy moving planets like they were balls in a book with a publishing date after the 60s was the most absurd thing about IC. Yikes.

[scary harpy]

Then DC needed to hire Archivists, Librarians and Editors to keep track of all that. Comics were becoming more sophisticated.

What DC did to "simplify" the DCU created a mess that maybe cannot be cleaned up.

Now that I've thought about it...this is what DC needs today.

Instead of creating more new characters destined to end upon a shelf in Limbo, they need to use the characters created over eight decades.

[Jon Clark]

Now that I've thought about it...this is what DC needs today.

Instead of creating more new characters destined to end upon a shelf in Limbo, they need to use the characters created over eight decades.

Sort of Mark Gruenwald's policy at marvel in the 1980's. He'd see a story where a writer was using a villain with, for example, cold powers and offer a list of previously used villains the writer might want to use instead of adding one more to Marvel's inventory. So in DC's case why create HUnter Zolomon's Zoom, Godspeed, Savatar ,,, rather than use Reverse Flash (or even the Rival)? Or introduce the 951st evil Superman analog when you already have the Zoners, Ultraman, Bizarro?

[marhawkman]

Sort of Mark Gruenwald's policy at marvel in the 1980's. He'd see a story where a writer was using a villain with, for example, cold powers and offer a list of previously used villains the writer might want to use instead of adding one more to Marvel's inventory. So in DC's case why create HUnter Zolomon's Zoom, Godspeed, Savatar ,,, rather than use Reverse Flash (or even the Rival)? Or introduce the 951st evil Superman analog when you already have the Zoners, Ultraman, Bizarro?

Marvel has had serious issue there in the past too! Reading the history of the Acolytes villain team is pretty weird. Some members literally got forgotten after being seen once. Others get killed off and replaced next issue.... with someone completely different. Like maybe 1/5 of them are still used in comics? Even in the Krakoa era where supposedly all mutants matter and get to live again.... NOPE, never seen again. 'cause editorial forgot they ever existed.

[clonegeek]

Sort of Mark Gruenwald's policy at marvel in the 1980's. He'd see a story where a writer was using a villain with, for example, cold powers and offer a list of previously used villains the writer might want to use instead of adding one more to Marvel's inventory. So in DC's case why create HUnter Zolomon's Zoom, Godspeed, Savatar ,,, rather than use Reverse Flash (or even the Rival)? Or introduce the 951st evil Superman analog when you already have the Zoners, Ultraman, Bizarro?

In theory this is something that AI would be able to help with if implimented well.

Regarding Mark Gruenwald, one thing he believed in was that heros need a strong rogue's gallary of at least 12 villains. One for each month of the year.

[edpower]

Mostly what they did with a few exceptions:

1. There is a mystery WWII Wonder Woman. Is it Hippolyta? Is it a Time Traveling Diana? Don't care. We'll figure that out later. Or Hell, have Nubia be the WWII Wonder Woman somehow. That'd be interesting. She dies tragically during the Civil Rights movement, shades of JFK/RFK/MLK/Malcolm X, now there's a reason Hippolyta doesn't want Diana to go to "Man's World".

2. The Diana Wonder Woman premeires around the time Batman and Superman do. She is a fouding member of the JLA. We just switch it all to George Perez's Wonder Woman origins. This way she predates Donna Troy again.

3. Hawkman: Tim Truman's Hawkworld mini is Kartar Hol's origin, and that's it. Like Diana he stays having premeired in the Silver Age. Use that explanaiton of Katar's dad being on Earth for a little while as to why he and Carter have the same names. Don't care. It's comics. Weirder things have happened.

4. The LSH shows up when Clark starts discovering his powers. They bring him to the future to train him. There he is Superboy. In the present he is Clark.

5. Power Girl is from the furture. She is the daugther of 2 Legion of Superhero members. In a final battle with Time Trapper, they launch their dauther back in time to be found by Clark. Who are her parents? That's the mystery. Probably an older Supergirl and somebody though.

6. Joe Chill is a name young Bruce made up to call his parent's murderer. Not his reall name. Ala LA Confidential.

7. The Earth in the Anti-matter universe is the replacement for Earth-3. They do NOT have big bulgy eyes. They are humans on that Earth. Not Qwardians.

8. The post-COIE's Crisis on Infinte Earths is the Anti-Monitor trying to destory the Positive Matter Universe (aka Clutter Earth). Barry Dies (and does not return) and everyone remembers it.

[marhawkman]

5. Power Girl is from the furture. She is the daugther of 2 Legion of Superhero members. In a final battle with Time Trapper, they launch their dauther back in time to be found by Clark. Who are her parents? That's the mystery. Probably an older Supergirl and somebody though.

Ooohh.... have the surprise reveal be that her father is actually Brainy, and she was born with Coluan green skin.

Yes, this is a ref to Kingdom Come "Brainiac's Daughter", but well... I mean you already borrowed part of her backstory(future Supergirl's daughter). Just have it that there's a thing making her skin look normal. She looks somewhat like Powergirl as-is. Okay yeah, diff costume, diff haircut, and a thing to change her skin color.... Enh, personality wise she had a lot of similarities though.

[Thor-Ul]

Mostly what they did with a few exceptions:

1. There is a mystery WWII Wonder Woman. Is it Hippolyta? Is it a Time Traveling Diana? Don't care. We'll figure that out later. Or Hell, have Nubia be the WWII Wonder Woman somehow. That'd be interesting. She dies tragically during the Civil Rights movement, shades of JFK/RFK/MLK/Malcolm X, now there's a reason Hippolyta doesn't want Diana to go to "Man's World".

2. The Diana Wonder Woman premeires around the time Batman and Superman do. She is a fouding member of the JLA. We just switch it all to George Perez's Wonder Woman origins. This way she predates Donna Troy again.

3. Hawkman: Tim Truman's Hawkworld mini is Kartar Hol's origin, and that's it. Like Diana he stays having premeired in the Silver Age. Use that explanaiton of Katar's dad being on Earth for a little while as to why he and Carter have the same names. Don't care. It's comics. Weirder things have happened.

4. The LSH shows up when Clark starts discovering his powers. They bring him to the future to train him. There he is Superboy. In the present he is Clark.

5. Power Girl is from the furture. She is the daugther of 2 Legion of Superhero members. In a final battle with Time Trapper, they launch their dauther back in time to be found by Clark. Who are her parents? That's the mystery. Probably an older Supergirl and somebody though.

6. Joe Chill is a name young Bruce made up to call his parent's murderer. Not his reall name. Ala LA Confidential.

7. The Earth in the Anti-matter universe is the replacement for Earth-3. They do NOT have big bulgy eyes. They are humans on that Earth. Not Qwardians.

8. The post-COIE's Crisis on Infinte Earths is the Anti-Monitor trying to destory the Positive Matter Universe (aka Clutter Earth). Barry Dies (and does not return) and everyone remembers it.

This could had been the almost perfect world. But still is left the fact to know if Supergirl existed or not and if she died in this new continuity. The rest take in acount everything.


But I would add the time when Superman and Batman travelled to the past and had some adventures with the Justice Society. And Superman was with his powers very much reduced.

[Sutekh]

In theory this is something that AI would be able to help with if implimented well.

Regarding Mark Gruenwald, one thing he believed in was that heros need a strong rogue's gallary of at least 12 villains. One for each month of the year.

Serial TV shows often have something called a 'series bible,' which is a book full of relevant notes about various characters and setting details, because not every director or writer working for the show, particularly one that has had *many* different directors and writers (some of whom might show up to direct, like, a *single* episode), possibly with multiple seasons, is going to be expected to sit down and watch possibly hundreds of hours of shows and know everything about every character.

Comics, especially serial comics (instead of minis written by a single writer and then ended, like the original Watchmen or even the Runaways, initially) should totally have such a thing, and any new writer wanting to work on an established character should 100% be required to sit down and read that puppy. (The Marvel Handbook used to fill such a role. A new writer could get up to speed on past events in the Hulk's long, long run, without being expected to plod through hundreds of appearances, and not have to 'make stuff up' or possibly get stuff wrong by introducing a sibling to someone already established as an only child, or some canon-busting thing like that.)

But, really, also, there should be a thing called editors. And they should be on top of things like this, and not backhand writing or 'directing' books like frustrated wannabe writers.

Ed. Eee. Tors. And they should do stuff.

Also agree with the villains thing. Strong villains make a good hero, but *multiple* strong villains also mean that not *every* Adam Warlock story needs to be about Thanos for the 347th time. Not every Fantastic Four has to be all about Doom, after all. Sometimes they're about Annihilus or Blastaar or Diablo or Salem's Seven/Nicholas Scratch or the Frightful Four or Galactus or Kang or the Super-Skrull!

And hey, I'm in a DC thread. Change all the Marvel references above to stuff about how every Raven thing has to revolve around Trigon (again), while the Flash has like, fifty Rogues, and I can easily go a year without seeing, say, Captain Cold, or Reverse-Flash, because they aren't the only game in his town. Ahem. (Same applies to movies/shows. I've seen some great Lex, particularly on Smallville, but I am sick. to. death of that guy, and would love the next Superman movie to focus on someone else.)

I feel like groups like the Power Company or Birds of Prey or Secret Six might have been able to keep on trucking if they had more memorable villains of their own.

[wonder39]

Things like Earth 1985 and Earth 52 were brilliant ideas. So of course DC couldn't leave well enough alone and just let them stand.

Exactly. DDC ( with all of it's issues) ended with such a simple answer to the Multiverse. New Earths created to preserve the previous continuity. ( IMO it would have been better to have the " current" Earth with its new continuity be the newly created one, leaving the previous Earth as the original to be saved,)

And then just let it all go. No more reality altering crisis on infinite identity of dark metal events. Stop. Explore, explain, and build the new world. And then you can bring back an old Earth for a story, or a mini, a one shot, etc.

That's a cleaner version of " eveything happened" than trying to meld it all into one continuity.

[marhawkman]

Exactly. DDC ( with all of it's issues) ended with such a simple answer to the Multiverse. New Earths created to preserve the previous continuity. ( IMO it would have been better to have the " current" Earth with its new continuity be the newly created one, leaving the previous Earth as the original to be saved,)

And then just let it all go. No more reality altering crisis on infinite identity of dark metal events. Stop. Explore, explain, and build the new world. And then you can bring back an old Earth for a story, or a mini, a one shot, etc.

That's a cleaner version of " eveything happened" than trying to meld it all into one continuity.

Yeah, New 52 had promise.... but they threw it away instead of using it!!!

[Jim Kelly]

They did have a Continuity Cop. I imagine that E. Nelson Bridwell unofficially served this function in the 1960s and 1970s, but he didn't get a lot of respect. I think the first official Continuity Cop was Paul Levitz. After him, I believe the job was passed to Karen Berger. After her, I'm not sure--maybe Bob Greenberger.

Probably the Continuity Cop was ignored when the publisher was trying to get a fan-favourite writer/artist/editor to come work for them and it was too easy for these cool kids to ask for the moon and get it. If a big name wanted to create their own new evil Superman, the Continuity Cop just had to keep stum.

[All Star Superman]

Good question.

I never really thought about the answer.

My guess would be Earth 4 since its the 'fresh start' earth and LSH were going to get a new beginning as I recall.

It may not matter.

LSH is 1000 years in the future. They've always been a separate little niche from the DC Universe.

Gotcha. Thanks for answering! Love those ideas.

8. The post-COIE's Crisis on Infinte Earths is the Anti-Monitor trying to destory the Positive Matter Universe (aka Clutter Earth). Barry Dies (and does not return) and everyone remembers it.

You're saying "The Crisis" referenced in New Earth history would be the Anti-Monitor's attempt to destroy the positive matter universe? That's a simple yet rich idea. There wouldn't be alternate versions of characters teaming up, but members of other planets would have to be involved in the effort. Lots of Green Lanterns, Thanagarians, Rannians, Daxamites, etc.

Exactly. DDC ( with all of it's issues) ended with such a simple answer to the Multiverse. New Earths created to preserve the previous continuity. ( IMO it would have been better to have the " current" Earth with its new continuity be the newly created one, leaving the previous Earth as the original to be saved,)

And then just let it all go. No more reality altering crisis on infinite identity of dark metal events. Stop. Explore, explain, and build the new world. And then you can bring back an old Earth for a story, or a mini, a one shot, etc.

That's a cleaner version of " eveything happened" than trying to meld it all into one continuity.

It was indeed perfect, and we were so close. The shifting editorial winds at DC/WB (then owned by AT&T) blew it off course, though.

Yeah, New 52 had promise.... but they threw it away instead of using it!!!

The more time goes by, the more I think the New 52 should have been the Earth-One books. Morrison on the t-shirt/jeans Superman, coordinating with JMS on the adult Superman, Snyder and Johns sharing volumes of Batman, Manapul on Flash, and brand new takes on Green Lantern and the rest. That would also mean no Azzarello on Wonder Woman, thankfully.

Meanwhile, the main DC line would continue without a reboot. Wally continues at Flash, the GL books continue the story begun with Rebirth, etc. Also, DiDio and Lee could have run that corner of the publishing division while Johns and other people with knowledge of and love for classic DC (DiDio and Lee have both admitted to preferring Marvel to DC outside of Batman) would focus on the main line of books.

[kingaliencracker]

Outside of the easy answer of "I just wouldn't have done it", since (through no direct fault of its own) it's caused nothing but issues since it was published...

All the main characters (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman) would have gotten a YEAR ONE/MAN OF STEEL reboot, with the characters' main books relaunching immediately following from where their reboot arc ended. The reboot arcs would have spanned only 5 years, with everyone catching up at the end of the reboots. The 6th year (the relaunch of the main books) would have seen the formation of the Justice League, Robin/Dick Grayson leaving Batman/Bruce Wayne to become Nightwing, and the debut of DC's remaining sidekicks and 2nd & 3rd tier characters. All of the pre-Crisis history would be jettisoned, regardless of how successful the titles were (i.e. Teen Titans, Legion of Superheroes), and the reboot arcs would have been the DCU bibles. No references would have been made to the previous DCU or the Crisis, but the multiverse would have remained - just put aside for a few years.

Obviously my way would have ruffled some feathers, but it would have been the only way for the relaunch to have been successful.