How much time passed in the pre-New-52 continuity?

[Slimybug]

Dick Grayson was stated to be 26 years old by Marv Wolfman in his OYL run. In DC time, this is roughly one year and a half before Flashpoint.

Okay, that's intriguing. Is it actually stated that Flashpoint takes place about a Year and a half after OYL???

[BohemiaDrinker]

Okay, that's intriguing. Is it actually stated that Flashpoint takes place about a Year and a half after OYL???

No, it's not. I'm mainly using Batman's timeline to fit the rest here:

- Batman RIP, which started chronologically during the OYL period took the span of only some weeks, maximum, and ended right at the start of Final Crisis.
- Dick Grayson takes over. His career as Batman is stated to last for precisely a year.
- Bruce comes back, spend some 2 or 3 months setting Batman INC up.

Round it up or down a month or two, that's a year and a half.

[Buried Alien]

No, it's not. I'm mainly using Batman's timeline to fit the rest here:

- Batman RIP, which started chronologically during the OYL period took the span of only some weeks, maximum, and ended right at the start of Final Crisis.
- Dick Grayson takes over. His career as Batman is stated to last for precisely a year.
- Bruce comes back, spend some 2 or 3 months setting Batman INC up.

Round it up or down a month or two, that's a year and a half.

For some reason, Batman's mythos is the easiest/most convenient to build the chronology of the rest of the DCU around. If you try to build it around any other character (including Superman), it just doesn't work out as well, for some reason.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Dataweaver]

Oh, that's what I meant - the Infinity Inc kids wouldn't be born until after the jump, so that they would be on the sliding timeline too.

The problem with this is that it requires the Golden Age heroes to land on the sliding timeline far enough back to then have kids who are now fully grown. If the Infinity Inc. generation was born in the 50s but got transplanted to the sliding timeline along with their parents, you can have the JSA's appearance in the modern age correlate with the post-Crisis counterpart of Flash of Two Worlds and similar stories.

For some reason, Batman's mythos is the easiest/most convenient to build the chronology of the rest of the DCU around. If you try to build it around any other character (including Superman), it just doesn't work out as well, for some reason.

Mainly because of how extensive Batman's mythos has become. Trim it back to “Bruce is Batman, Dick is Robin; and who are these other kids you're talking about?", and you can easily fit it within a five-year window.

I would note that Tim's first appearance was less than a year after Jason's death, which was recent enough that Batman was still reeling from it. Tim then spent roughly six months to a year training to be Robin before Bruce gave him the costume. One of the last stories before Infinite Crisis had Tim celebrating his seventeenth birthday; so we've got four or five years between his first appearance and that point.

[GlennSimpson]

The problem with this is that it requires the Golden Age heroes to land on the sliding timeline far enough back to then have kids who are now fully grown. If the Infinity Inc. generation was born in the 50s but got transplanted to the sliding timeline along with their parents, you can have the JSA's appearance in the modern age correlate with the post-Crisis counterpart of Flash of Two Worlds and similar stories.

Six of one, half-dozen of another. I don't personally have a problem with them returning "30 years ago", retiring, having the kids, and then coming out of retirement (in other words, nothing supernatural about the return) right after the JLA forms.

[Dataweaver]

I hear you. My own inclination comes from wanting to keep as much of the flavor of their Silver Age reintroduction as can be managed in a single-world continuity: thus my reference to post-Crisis' version of "Flash of Two Worlds" as the point that Jay Garrick arrived on the sliding timescale, with the rest of the JSA arriving shortly after that.

[BohemiaDrinker]

For some reason, Batman's mythos is the easiest/most convenient to build the chronology of the rest of the DCU around. If you try to build it around any other character (including Superman), it just doesn't work out as well, for some reason.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Flash also works quite well, but it has fewer instances of hard numbers being given.

But my view on it is that Dick Grayson and Wally West were the two characters to most inform the rest of the post-Crisis DCU. The changes in Dick Grayson heroic activities as well as the promotion from Kid Flash to Flash and then all the phases Wally go trough are kind of easier to fall back on and trace.

However, Wally is trickier because Geoff Johns tried to compress his career to a couple of years - as, in general, he tried to compress the post-Crisis period in it's entirety to about nine years. (Seen in Flash and Booster Gold).

[bat39]

For some reason, Batman's mythos is the easiest/most convenient to build the chronology of the rest of the DCU around. If you try to build it around any other character (including Superman), it just doesn't work out as well, for some reason.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Superman's particularly tough because of the way his Post-COIE reboot was done.

I mean, we have MOS, which has a fairly coherent internal chronology, according to which, Clark has been Superman for 3 years as off the last issue. Which is fine.

Except that the last issue leads almost directly into the first issue of the relaunched 'Superman' title. Which is supposed to be set in current continuity. So we have a situation where Superman has been around for 3 years, whereas pretty much everyone else from his generation has been around nearly a decade! And Superman is supposed to be the first 'modern' hero...

Even if one ignores MOS' chronology, and assume that Superman HAD been around for nearly a decade, there's another problem. Virtually all of Superman's major foes and the major events in his Post-COIE history happened AFTER the series was re-launched. Which means, we have a large expanse of time (sparsely covered by MOS) during which Superman, the premier DC hero, did a whole lot of nothing!

I mean, going by MOS, Superman basically had a couple of brief encounters with Lex Luthor and one fight with Bizarro in all those years. In the same period of time, Dick Grayson was supposed to have grown from a 12 year old Robin into a 20 year old Nightwing, Barry had his entire career as Flash, there had been three Green Lanterns, and three distinct eras of the Justice League!

(I dunno how this stood post-IC, with Secret Origins altering Superman's early career).

[Buried Alien]

Superman's particularly tough because of the way his Post-COIE reboot was done.

I mean, we have MOS, which has a fairly coherent internal chronology, according to which, Clark has been Superman for 3 years as off the last issue. Which is fine.

Except that the last issue leads almost directly into the first issue of the relaunched 'Superman' title. Which is supposed to be set in current continuity. So we have a situation where Superman has been around for 3 years, whereas pretty much everyone else from his generation has been around nearly a decade! And Superman is supposed to be the first 'modern' hero...

Even if one ignores MOS' chronology, and assume that Superman HAD been around for nearly a decade, there's another problem. Virtually all of Superman's major foes and the major events in his Post-COIE history happened AFTER the series was re-launched. Which means, we have a large expanse of time (sparsely covered by MOS) during which Superman, the premier DC hero, did a whole lot of nothing!

I mean, going by MOS, Superman basically had a couple of brief encounters with Lex Luthor and one fight with Bizarro in all those years. In the same period of time, Dick Grayson was supposed to have grown from a 12 year old Robin into a 20 year old Nightwing, Barry had his entire career as Flash, there had been three Green Lanterns, and three distinct eras of the Justice League!

(I dunno how this stood post-IC, with Secret Origins altering Superman's early career).

Early Post-COIE continuity was just as crazy as early New 52 continuity, especially where Superman is concerned.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Buried Alien]

Let's not forget Black Mirror - in many ways, the last major Batman story of the pre-52 continuity (not counting Batman Inc vol. 2, which also arguably applied to the pre-52 canon).

James Jr. is about 18 at the very least (he's 19 in the New 52, and we can assume he was around the same age when he first appeared in the original story). And since he was born during Year One, it means that its been around 18-19 years since Batman first showed up!

Which is why I do believe that its always made sense for Batman's debut to predate that of Superman, Flash and the rest of the 'Silver Age JLA generation'. Batman is the only one of the Big Three who had a vast majority of his continuity dating back to the Golden Age still relatively intact (with new stories constantly being added to his career retroactively). It simply meant that the 'modern' Batman has been through a LOT more than the modern Superman or Wonder Woman had, and therefore it made sense for him to have been around longer. The question is, if Batman has been around for 19 years, what about Robin?

Well, in Dick's case, it is possible to construct a coherent chronology of some sort, which also gives us an idea of Batman's chronology and that of the wider DCU. Dick became Robin around the age of 12 in Post-COIE continuity. He was most certainly Robin until he was around 18-19, which means 6-7 years (let's put it at 7). Dick then becomes Nightwing, and Jason (aged 13) becomes Robin around the same time. Jason died at the age of around 14, roughly a year later (Dick was 20 at the time, which ties in well with his stated age around the time of COIE).
At the time of 'Under the Hood', we're told that Jason was 18 (at least chronologically). Ergo, add another four years to the timeline, and Dick is 24. Then there's the OYL jump. Dick is 25. And I'm pretty sure it was at least another year from then till Flashpoint, in-universe. Dick is 26.

Which means that between Dick becoming Robin and Flashpoint, 14 years passed.

Now assuming the various sidekicks who comprised the Titans debuted around the same time, give or take a year, it means that they've been around roughly 14 years, and their mentors have also been around at least that long (probably a year or two more).

So most of the DC heroes had been around 15 years, give or take. With Batman having been around 19 years. (This doesn't gel well with various stories that state that Batman was in his third year when Robin came along, but I guess some inconsistencies were bound to happen).

You know what makes all this even crazier are the events in Batman's career (just since COIE) that have lasted between six months and a year. As far as I can remember:

0. According to the VENOM storyline in LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT, Batman was out of sight and out of commission with Venom addiction and withdrawal/recovery for a period of about six months (this was early in his career, before Dick became Robin).

1. The period between Bruce and Dick's split to Jason's becoming Robin: eighteen months (I believe that was stated by Bruce in BATMAN # 416).

2. The entire KNIGHTFALL saga, from when Bruce began feeling exhausted, meeting Jean Paul Valley, meeting Bane, KNIGHTFALL proper, KNIGHTQUEST THE SEARCH/CRUSADE, KNIGHTSEND, PRODIGAL, to when Bruce fully returned as Batman in the all-black costume *had* to span at least six months, if not longer. I'd think it would take Bruce, etc., at least a year to go through all that stuff.

3. NO MAN'S LAND was said, I believe, to have lasted an entire year from when the quake struck Gotham in CATACLYSM to when the No Man's Land period ended with the death of Sarah Essen.

4. In the aftermath of INFINITE CRISIS, Bruce spent a year away (hence, ONE YEAR LATER); there was no Batman during this year (he takes quite a few years off, it would seem).

5. How long was Bruce missing in action between FINAL CRISIS and THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE?

That's *many* events that happened to Bruce during his Batman career. While it's not impossible to believe that he went through all that, those experiences can't be NEARLY as long as originally presented. He can't have lost four or five years of Batman time to addiction, injury, city-shattering earthquake aftermath, self-imposed exile, being lost in time, etc.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[bat39]

You know what makes all this even crazier are the events in Batman's career (just since COIE) that have lasted between six months and a year. As far as I can remember:

0. According to the VENOM storyline in LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT, Batman was out of sight and out of commission with Venom addiction and withdrawal/recovery for a period of about six months (this was early in his career, before Dick became Robin).

1. The period between Bruce and Dick's split to Jason's becoming Robin: eighteen months (I believe that was stated by Bruce in BATMAN # 416).

2. The entire KNIGHTFALL saga, from when Bruce began feeling exhausted, meeting Jean Paul Valley, meeting Bane, KNIGHTFALL proper, KNIGHTQUEST THE SEARCH/CRUSADE, KNIGHTSEND, PRODIGAL, to when Bruce fully returned as Batman in the all-black costume *had* to span at least six months, if not longer. I'd think it would take Bruce, etc., at least a year to go through all that stuff.

3. NO MAN'S LAND was said, I believe, to have lasted an entire year from when the quake struck Gotham in CATACLYSM to when the No Man's Land period ended with the death of Sarah Essen.

4. In the aftermath of INFINITE CRISIS, Bruce spent a year away (hence, ONE YEAR LATER); there was no Batman during this year (he takes quite a few years off, it would seem).

5. How long was Bruce missing in action between FINAL CRISIS and THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE?

That's *many* events that happened to Bruce during his Batman career. While it's not impossible to believe that he went through all that, those experiences can't be NEARLY as long as originally presented. He can't have lost four or five years of Batman time to addiction, injury, city-shattering earthquake aftermath, self-imposed exile, being lost in time, etc.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

0. I was under the impression that LOTDK was only loosely in continuity if at all. So maybe this is a case where Bruce was suffering from Venom addiction for six months in the LOTDK version of the story, but in the mainstream DC rendition of those events, it was only a few days/weeks (which would be bad enough for Bruce, frankly)?

1. Well, maybe there was such a reference, but if so, it has certainly been contradicted by other stories, most notably 'Nightwing Year One', which shows Dick becoming Nightwing pretty much immediately after he quit as Robin, and Jason had become Robin during that time. So I'd say the gap is one of a couple of months at most. The gap between Jason's death and Bruce meeting Tim I'm not too sure off.

2. Agreed. I think the same rules as the 'Venom' example apply. As told in the story itself, it may well have taken a year. In-universe though, it ultimately got compressed to months. I think 4-6 months is a fair assumption.

3. Same as above, though here, the compression realistically would be a LOT tougher. A city recovering from an earthquake and being completely rebuilt should take a LOT longer, even in comic-book terms, than someone's back healing!

4. Agreed. But I think the feeling is that this is the first time Gotham has been without Batman for such a long time.

5. Only a few months it would seem.

Scrutinizing the chronology of individual events is an exercise in futility. But broadly speaking, 19ish years seems like a fair amount of time for Bruce to go through everything he had been through in modern continuity.

[Buried Alien]

0. I was under the impression that LOTDK was only loosely in continuity if at all. So maybe this is a case where Bruce was suffering from Venom addiction for six months in the LOTDK version of the story, but in the mainstream DC rendition of those events, it was only a few days/weeks (which would be bad enough for Bruce, frankly)?

1. Well, maybe there was such a reference, but if so, it has certainly been contradicted by other stories, most notably 'Nightwing Year One', which shows Dick becoming Nightwing pretty much immediately after he quit as Robin, and Jason had become Robin during that time. So I'd say the gap is one of a couple of months at most. The gap between Jason's death and Bruce meeting Tim I'm not too sure off.

2. Agreed. I think the same rules as the 'Venom' example apply. As told in the story itself, it may well have taken a year. In-universe though, it ultimately got compressed to months. I think 4-6 months is a fair assumption.

3. Same as above, though here, the compression realistically would be a LOT tougher. A city recovering from an earthquake and being completely rebuilt should take a LOT longer, even in comic-book terms, than someone's back healing!

4. Agreed. But I think the feeling is that this is the first time Gotham has been without Batman for such a long time.

5. Only a few months it would seem.

Scrutinizing the chronology of individual events is an exercise in futility. But broadly speaking, 19ish years seems like a fair amount of time for Bruce to go through everything he had been through in modern continuity.

I actually forgot another important one, between 1. and 2.

1A. BATMAN: THE CULT. Apparently, Deacon Blackfire broke Bruce so badly that Bruce gave up being Batman for (you guessed it): six months.

I tell, you: Batman is a slacker. He takes entire years off at a time.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[sudoku]

I have actually given a lot of time thinking about this topic (probably more than is healthy). I pretty much agree with the idea that 19-20 years pass from Year One to Flashpoint, not only because of James Jr's age in the Black Mirror, but due to plenty of other evidence. I'll throw out some of that below for those interested in also thinking too much about this:

1. I think it's stated in several places that in post-Crisis continuity Dick Grayson was 12 when his parents were killed. (It should be noted that in pre-Crisis continuity, and in at least one post-Crisis story by Wolfman, he was said to have been 8 (New Titans 55, I think). But this was corrected to 12 by the time of Tim Drake's debut.)
2. Grayson's parents were traditionally always shown to be killed in Batman's third year, but it should be noted that a strict reading of The Long Halloween and Dark Victory (which are often referenced in continuity) would place the event in Batman's fifth year.
3. Dick turns 20 immediately after the Crisis, in New Teen Titans vol. 2 18.
4. Tim Drake was at the circus when Dick's parents were killed and remembers the event, so he must be at least 3 years old.
5. So when Tim debuts at age 13, Dick has been a costumed superhero for about 10 years. Dick should be around 22 years old.
6. Tim is said to be turning 16 on his birthday in Robin 116, published in 2003. This would make Tim 13-15 during Knightfall, No Man's Land, and the many other stories published between 1992 and 2003.
7. Lex Luthor is elected president in stories published in 2000. He does not serve out his term, is presumed dead, and is replaced by his Vice President Pete Ross, who resigns and is replaced in turn by Jonathan Horne. The next election doesn't take place till One Year Later (in the Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters mini-series), when the American people accidentally elect an evil robot as president. This establishes four years between the stories published in 2000, and the stories published OYL. (The next presidential election occurs in the DCU Decisions miniseries, but there is no way it could take place four years after the Freedom Fighters series, and it is most likely a special election taking place one year after the accidental election of the evil robot.) Tim is almost certainly 15 when Luthor is elected, and therefore would be 19 by the time of the election OYL.
8. Tim Drake's birthday is established as July 19 in Robin 116. The One Year Gap in "52" runs from May to May (placing Infinite Crisis in April or May and the start of OYL in May or June).
9. This would place Infinite Crisis 8 or 9 years after the first Crisis, which corresponds to the 9 years since Wonder Woman's post-Crisis debut mentioned in Wonder Woman vol.2 226.
10. Furthermore, Lian Harper is born around the time of the first Crisis (she first appears as an infant in New Teen Titans 21). This would make her about 8 during Judd Winick's run on Outsiders (leading up to Infinite Crisis), which is just barely reasonable (she appears to be pretty young in that story, but is in school). It contradicts her age on a gravestone on the cover of an issue after her death, but covers are often unreliable!
11. I'm unaware of any stories explicitly giving Tim's age during this period, but I would guess he turns 17 before Infinite Crisis, and 18 during the one year gap (Then he'd turn 19 between the start of OYL and the November election). Logically, he should still be a minor at the start of OYL, when Bruce adopts him. That would make him under 18 in most states. But the age of majority in Alabama and Nebraska is 19, and in Mississippi it's 21, so in the fictional DC Universe, it's not unreasonable for Tim to be as old as 20 at this point.
12. Dick should be about 9 years older than Tim, so as long as Dick's birthday occurs between the start of OYL and Tim's 19th birthday in July, then it's not impossible for Dick to be 26 at the start of OYL as stated in Marv Wolfman's run on Nightwing.
13. Final Crisis is said to occur exactly a year after the end of 52 (in the first issue of Booster Gold), but there's some wiggle room here, since Final Crisis takes place over three months or so. Tim is shown to still be in high school in issues of Robin leading up to RIP and Final Crisis, as well as early issues of Red Robin (though he could be a year behind in school due to No Man's Land and taking a year off in 52). Tim likely turns 20 shortly after Bruce's disappearance in Final Crisis, around the time he adopts the Red Robin identity.
14. Tim is said to be an "emancipated minor" in Red Robin 12 (during the period when Bruce is lost in time and is presumed dead), but see the "age of majority" note above. It's not unreasonable for him to be 20 at this time. Since he also quits the Teen Titans around this time, it's also thematically reasonable that he would no longer be a teenager.

By this reasoning, Flashpoint would happen in year 20 or 21, with Dick Grayson being 29-30. If Dick actually debuted in year 5 instead of year 3, then Flashpoint would actually happen in year 22 or 23, and James Gordon Jr. would be 21 or 22 years old in Black Mirror.

[Dataweaver]

It’s worth noting that the Bat-verse got a “quiet reboot” in the late 90s, around the time that an editorial mandate was handed down saying that Batman isn’t a public figure. “Batman: Year Two” and “Batman: Year Three” are part of the pre-Urban Legend continuity; “The Long Haloween” and “Dark Victory” replace them in the post-Urban Legend continuity. Batman: Year One is shared by both.

This replacement introduced some complications; in particular, Tim Drake’s origin was anchored in the pre-Urban Myth continuity of Batman: Year Three, with a young Tim seeing Batman comfort Dick Grayson at Haley’s Circus and an older Tim seeing Batman and Robin on TV. Tim never got a proper origin update before Flashpoint struck; but his backstory arguably had to be a bit different to conform to Dark Victory. For instance, he may not have been at Haley’s Circus when the Graysons died; his interest in Batman could have been sparked in some other manner. The important beats of his backstory are:

1. he figured out Batman and Robin’s secret identities on his own, but kept their secret to himself.
2. after Jason died and Batman started to fall apart, he took action aimed at giving Batman another Robin to keep him grounded.
3. Batman ended up giving him the job.

Within that framework, there’s a fair amount of flexibility to be had.

[sudoku]

That's a good point about the Urban Legend retcon. It never occurred to me that it might have affected Tim's presence at the circus. My personal rationalization was that, while Batman may have never been clearly photographed or videotaped, Robin was photographed and videotaped often. (It would be impossible for him to be a member of the Teen Titans otherwise.) And even if Batman was never photographed with Robin, their association would have been assumed by those (like Tim) who believed Batman was real. So, Tim could have seen video of Robin and deduced his identity without ever having seen video of Batman.