The History of the DC Universe

[Thor2000]

I haven't been here in a while, but then, I don't collect as many comic books like I used to, anyway....

With the up-coming destruction of the Marvel Universe, I'm trying to come up with a list of all the times the DC Universe has been destroyed and re-created. Here's what I have:

Pre-Crisis Universe
Post-Crisis Universe
Post Zero Hour Universe
Post Infinite Crisis Universe
New Earth
Prime Earth

Is this fairly accurate or have I missed a few?

Question: Even in a comic book, when the known past is altered, whether by time travel or by a temporal event, isn't it still technically a new universe in the aspect that it no longer resembles the previous one?

[colonyofcells]

My guess is Dc history is being redone every month.

[dancj]

There was also a golden age universe where The Flash was Jay Garrick, Alan Scott was Green Lantern and so-on. There's no event to separate it though. They just started bringing out new versions of old characters.

[BatmanJones]

There was also a golden age universe where The Flash was Jay Garrick, Alan Scott was Green Lantern and so-on. There's no event to separate it though. They just started bringing out new versions of old characters.

I wouldn't count this personally. Nothing of that history was changed, erased, or rebooted by the 'relaunch' of the Silver Age characters. Thanks to Julie Schwartz and company all of that old history not only continued in continuity but the Golden Age heroes became a part of the relaunch.

Not until Crisis on Infinite Earths did DC start rewriting continuity. It was so exciting picking up those issues right of the rack and I loved the series and even most things about the reboot. But, in retrospect, I wish DC had never done an event that erased its own history. Since that first time in 1985 it's become rather a small deal to erase everything and start again but there was a time that would have been unthinkable. And I loved comics so much more when the DCU's rich history remained intact.

The Silver Age and consequent integration of the Golden Age was a great example of how a company can start over without erasing its past. I think it's actually the opposite of each of the other history rewriting events.

[GlennSimpson]

I wouldn't count this personally. Nothing of that history was changed, erased, or rebooted by the 'relaunch' of the Silver Age characters. Thanks to Julie Schwartz and company all of that old history not only continued in continuity but the Golden Age heroes became a part of the relaunch.

Not until Crisis on Infinite Earths did DC start rewriting continuity. It was so exciting picking up those issues right of the rack and I loved the series and even most things about the reboot. But, in retrospect, I wish DC had never done an event that erased its own history. Since that first time in 1985 it's become rather a small deal to erase everything and start again but there was a time that would have been unthinkable. And I loved comics so much more when the DCU's rich history remained intact.

The Silver Age and consequent integration of the Golden Age was a great example of how a company can start over without erasing its past. I think it's actually the opposite of each of the other history rewriting events.

Except for Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman being published continuously, forcing later writers to decide what elements were "Earth 2" and which were "Earth 1". And Superboy actually fought Nazis at one point, something that happened in the Golden Age, but did not happen on Earth 2.

[BatmanJones]

Except for Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman being published continuously, forcing later writers to decide what elements were "Earth 2" and which were "Earth 1". And Superboy actually fought Nazis at one point, something that happened in the Golden Age, but did not happen on Earth 2.

My hat's off to you for finding the exception. I'd say it's a small enough thing as to be an exception that proves a rule.

I don't think the Superman/Batman/WW thing proves anything but that DC and Julie Schwartz in particular went to great lengths to fit even the squarest pegs into the roundest holes and used DC's storied history as the fire that fueled a great imagination machine.

Look at how Superman evolved from a guy that jumped really high to a guy that pushes planets around or how Batman went from a gun-wielding killer to a strict no gun/no kill ethos. DC didn't just have to decide which stories belonged to one earth or the other; they had to reconcile all sorts of contradictions rooted changing times and a changing culture. The important point is that they did. From the late 1930s to 1985. Then the seal was broken and ever since we suffer the hitting of a reset button every X years, coming in quicker and quicker succession. If DC could find a story reason to do just one of these, if one came as the result of one of Morrison's meta elements or something, I'd be pretty okay with it. That's what was meant to happen with Psycho Pirate and select others remembering the pre-Crisis history and I guess it was sort of meant to be true of Flashpoint too though the execution was obviously rushed and necessarily shallow.

Look at what Julius Schwartz and Gardner Fox and the rest did to solve a problem like Jay Garrick and then look at histories wiped out or rewritten by a super-punch or by a new character called Pandora that shows up in every #1 of 52 new series and then slinks back into nothingness. Even the '85 Crisis was a clumsy story with the Watcher, er, the Monitor fighting his opposite, the Anti-Watcher, er, Anti-Monitor because, well, because. Because DC wanted to streamline its history and didn't feel story was a necessary factor in doing so. At least the 1985-86 relaunch had the benefit of being clearly well thought out and extensively planned. And we got Batman:Year One and Man of Steel and Perez's WW and the JLI along with the legendary stories and characters that would move over to Vertigo.

Next to all that the new 52 is quite lacking in character.

[Doctor Know]

It's more like

Golden Age: Earth 2

Silver Age: Earth 1

Bronze Age: 1970-1985: Essentially the Silver Age but with the comedic and far out there storylines being dropped. *Shudder* Zebra costume Batman.

Crisis on Infinite Earths 1985: Swan Song to the Golden, Silver and Bronze Ages. Reboot for the entire DCU. Only NTT and Legion of Superheroes escaped having their histories rebooted.

Zero Hour: An attempt to fix some of the holes left over from COIE. Legion Continuity and Hawkman being the biggest changes.

Identity Crisis + Crisis of Conscience: A blatant attempt to reestablish and retcon the Silver Age and Bronze Age continuities back into the DCU. This despite COIE retconning all stories before the crisis as not in continuity. Also Mark Waid's JLA Year One established what exactly were the adventures of the Post-Crisis League. Something Giffen and DeMatteis failed to distinguish during their run on JLI after COIE and Legends.

Infinite Crisis: A mega event used to "officially" explain all the retcons and blending of different continuities. This is explained by the villain in one panel of exposition. The aforementioned panel being in Infinite Crisis #7 i think.

Saying that Batman caught Joe Chill but still remained Batman. WW WAS a founding member of the Justice League. Since Post-Crisis WW didn't appear until Legends. To give you a time frame; in Legends Jason Todd is Robin and Nightwing (Dick) is 19 years old. Dick who became Robin when he was 12. Meaning Bruce had been active for years before recruiting his first Robin. Yeah... Also Mark Waid's JLA Year One explained that Bats, Supes and WW were not founding members of the JLA and that all of the WW escapades (referenced to in JLI) were all Black Canary's. Since Black Canary had replaced WW as a founding member in Post-COIE continuity. The last thing Luthor says is that there were reports of Superman being active before his debut in Metropolis. Essentially costumed Superboy (and by extension his adventures with the Legion Pre Crisis) is back in continuity. Since Geoff Johns took over Legion of Superheroes after Mark Waid's Threeboot was cancelled.


New Earth: The Post Infinite Crisis World where upon Post-Crisis and Pre-Crisis (Silver and Bronze Ages) are blended together into one colossal mismash. The DCU was too large and was endanger of collapsing under it's own weight. Coupled with books not titled Batman, Green Lantern, Flash, Legion, certain events (52, Seven Soldiers, Final Crisis, Blackest Night, Brightest Day) and TT (sorta) were all treading water or basically going under. This led of course to...

Flashpoint: Where the Post-Crisis DCU was unceremoniously ended and rebooted in a Flash comic. It's because of this that DC decided to do their Convergence event as a way to give a true farewell to that era of comics.

New 52: The current universe and a hard reboot for every title not GL or Batman. Bats though got a soft reboot, with abridged story lines for Dick, Jason, Tim and Damien.

[GlennSimpson]

DC didn't just have to decide which stories belonged to one earth or the other; they had to reconcile all sorts of contradictions rooted changing times and a changing culture. The important point is that they did.

Actually, they didn't. DC said "The guy from Earth 2 is Kal-L who was never Superboy and who has always worked for the Daily Star for editor George Taylor; the guy from Earth 1 is Kal-El who was Superboy and who always worked for the Daily Planet for Perry White." But there are plenty of Golden Age stories that presumably have some blending of one or the other and DC never addressed that. They just set up the groundwork and then let the fans decide the rest.

I *think* the Who's Who issues back in the mid-eighties may have defined the first appearances of the Silver Age versions (which would be attributed to Earth 1) based on the first stories that had purely Earth 1 elements but that's about as far as DC went with it.

The Golden Age characters and the Earth 2 characters are very very similar, but not exactly the same.