The Rebirth Universe

[The Nuke]

I keep seeing it. It fucks with my head in the worst way.

The Rebirth comic came out. Most of us read it, but some of us still don't get it. So let this thread be used to make it crystal clear. There is definitely some confusion.


1. THE REBIRTH UNIVERSE IS THE PRE-52 UNIVERSE. THE POST CRISIS UNIVERSE

2. ALL CHARACTERS SAVE FOR NU-Superman and Lois ARE THEIR PRE-52 versions with warped timelines and memories brought on by Dr. Manhattan.

3. Superdad IS THE POST CRISIS SUPERMAN. Who has actually been in his Universe the entire time without knowing it. Wouldn't he also be the Silver Age Superman with changes in continuity brought on by Crisis?

4. THE NU-52 TAKES PLACE IN THE PRE-52 UNIVERSE. IT IS THE CONSEQUENCE OF DR.M FUCKING WITH CONTINUITY. LOOK AT THE NU52 LIKE YOU WOULD AN EVENT COMIC. THE LONGEST EVER. YOU'VE READ STORIES LIKE THIS BEFORE WHERE SOME POWERFUL CHARACTER MESSES WITH TIME. SAME THING. MARVEL DOES IT A LOT.


Not trying to be an asshole. Just very odd that this still hard to get for some. It was very clear in REBIRTH I thought.

[GlennSimpson]

The problem is, the things they say in the Rebirth comic don't actually make sense. How could stealing 10 years create a different Krypton?

Not to mention, a lot of this is semantics. What difference does it make if it is "the Pre-52 universe" if everything is different?

Technically, Wally says there was a universe that existed before the new52. You are assuming it was pre-Flashpoint. What if there was one in-between?

[Lokimaru]

Both New52 Superman and Lois were also their pre52 selves the reason Nuperman is so different is because a 5th dimensional imp screwed with his history. Manhattan aint got nothing on those guys.

[The Nuke]

The problem is, the things they say in the Rebirth comic don't actually make sense. How could stealing 10 years create a different Krypton?

Not to mention, a lot of this is semantics. What difference does it make if it is "the Pre-52 universe" if everything is different?

Technically, Wally says there was a universe that existed before the new52. You are assuming it was pre-Flashpoint. What if there was one in-between?

I think you are reading to much into to some how find a flaw that really isn't there.

In the end the fact remains, all of which will no doubt be ironed out over time, that the REBIRTH UNIVERSE is the PRE-52 UNIVERSE. There's no issue you can have that can't be simply explained away as Dr. Manhattan. Here's a new one, how could Zero Year have happened if YEAR ONE is the origin in the Pre-52 Universe? Dr. Manhattan.


I mean how hard is it to figure that Wally is talking about his universe? It's clear. Reading to much into it to find a flaw to be contrarian to the matter isn't going to stop that the Rebirth Universe takes place in the Pre-52 Universe.

Lokimaru:

That was true until DC created Convergence. When that happened they fucked up, and ended up making it to where the NU52 characters were new versions as opposed to being the Pre-52 versions. Then they decided to do Rebirth and retcon it back to the original concept because restoring continuity was a big factor in the reboot. Thus Nu52 Superman could no longer be the real Superman if Superdad existed, because Superdad was the Post-Crisis Superman. The Post Crisis Universe the NU52 was retconned to take place in.

If Convergence had never happened, given that it was only a event comic done to appease Pre-52 fans when DC was moving cross country, then the NU52 Superman would still be the Pre-52 Superman and there would be no need for a Superdad.

[MajorHoy]

Really, all this is just SPECULATION at the moment.

It doesn't matter what you think DC is doing or says they are going to do until DC actually commits to anything in a printed comic book. Look how many things Dan DiDio and Geoff Johns said at the beginning of the New 52 but later had to walk back because they eventually realized they wouldn't work as originally planned / said? How many times did they tell us in the beginning that the New 52 wasn't a "reboot" until they had to finally admit it was?

Right now, they've said Rebirth is NOT a reboot of the New 52 . . . but who knows what will actually happen in the next six-to-eighteen months?

[BohemiaDrinker]

The problem is, the things they say in the Rebirth comic don't actually make sense. How could stealing 10 years create a different Krypton?

By not stealing all at once. Butterfly effect. 10 years have 315,360,000 seconds. One of those seconds stolen at the right time (say, the second where the most common energy spource in Krypton was discovered), you alter it's history radically.

[The Nuke]

Really, all this is just SPECULATION at the moment.

It doesn't matter what you think DC is doing or says they are going to do until DC actually commits to anything in a printed comic book. Look how many things Dan DiDio and Geoff Johns said at the beginning of the New 52 but later had to walk back because they eventually realized they wouldn't work as originally planned / said? How many times did they tell us in the beginning that the New 52 wasn't a "reboot" until they had to finally admit it was?

Right now, they've said Rebirth is NOT a reboot of the New 52 . . . but who knows what will actually happen in the next six-to-eighteen months?

According to the Rebirth comic it's not speculation. Could they back track on what the Rebirth comic establishes? I guess. Have they? No.

The NU-52 is not a reboot, and according the other half of that statement, it never was.

The idea originally, was that the NU52 was a reboot, and a new Universe. It has since been RETCONNED.

The NU52 is now just another chapter in the Pre-52 Universe, like Johns said it was. Therefore it all rings true, It is not a Reboot, because in the end nothing was rebooted. Just changed as part of an over arching story.

I can't believe how hard this is, when the fucking comic is right there to fucking read.

[Sacred Knight]

All MajorHoy is saying is that he's reserving judgmenet over the finished project in case they change their minds. Rebirth isn't to be completed till 2018, and its taken far less time for them to change their minds on things before. They've made clear the direction they're going as of now. But until these secrets are concretely revealed to the characters within the verse, and until the new continuity is done being crafted, then they always have room for plans to change to various degrees.

And there's even a question whether the post-Crisis world can even be called the post-Crisis world anymore. The post-Crisis world was born from the original end of COIE, which saw the Anti-Monitor successfully destroy the multiverse before the heroes were able to defeat him and then create one singular verse to house everything. That origin isn't the case anymore. The original multiverse wasn't completely destroyed this time around. The Convergence heroes changed the way COIE ended, seemingly helping to stop the Anti-Monitor quicker this time, before his level of destruction was completed. So it begs the question...what is the origin of the post-Crisis Earth now? Is it still a new Earth created after the Crisis? If so, why, considering the multiverse and at the very least Earth-One surivived this time around? Or is it Earth-One or another one of the surviving Earths transformed? The potential answers to these questions could cause the very history that they're bringing back to be changed to certain degrees in of itself.

When all is said and done it could quite possibly be more apt to say that post-Rebirth continuity is in essence a new, unique main continuity, similar story-wise, but lore-wise not exactly the post-Crisis Earth in origin anymore. So looking at things deeper there could be a lot of personal point-of-view at play here in regards to the specifics.

[acnblj]

For someone, like me who has been away from comics for 30+ years, this is absolutely confusing.

[DCJdog]

For someone, like me who has been away from comics for 30+ years, this is absolutely confusing.

Yep. It's a freaking mess.

After reading Rebirth, it's definitely clear that the restored memories that Wally is bringing back to people is from the pre-new52 universe. I don't see how anybody can't get that. But they have events that happened in the new 52 that changed the events in the pre-new52 universe. If the whoever-it-is-that-stole-time/memories/whatever removed ten years of that time, what actually did happen in the past? So, there was a COIE?

This mess is so confusing . . . I don't see how it attracts new or lapsed readers. It's supposed to do away with the "dark" days of the new 52 but, reading other Rebirth comics, I'm still seeing a lot of "darkness."

I actually thought about getting back into comics when I read about Rebirth but the whole thing is turning me off worse than the new 52. As someone else said, we will have to see how things play out before we completely judge the event. But the whole idea of people getting their memories back of lives they actually didn't live or were somehow "stolen" (their memories/lives were stolen and they were de-aged but somehow those memories are laying hidden somewhere in their minds . . . even though actions in the past did not occur to give them the memories in the first place . . .WTH).

Maybe Superman can fix it all with a wish machine . . .

[Dataweaver]

DC has a long history of “latent memories” or rather previous versions of a character leaving a subtle imprint the current version. Heck, Infinite Crisis was built around that notion, with Alex collecting heroes from the mash-up Earth who had come from different Earths in the pre-Crisis iteration.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Yep. It's a freaking mess.

After reading Rebirth, it's definitely clear that the restored memories that Wally is bringing back to people is from the pre-new52 universe. I don't see how anybody can't get that. But they have events that happened in the new 52 that changed the events in the pre-new52 universe. If the whoever-it-is-that-stole-time/memories/whatever removed ten years of that time, what actually did happen in the past? So, there was a COIE?

This mess is so confusing . . . I don't see how it attracts new or lapsed readers. It's supposed to do away with the "dark" days of the new 52 but, reading other Rebirth comics, I'm still seeing a lot of "darkness."

I actually thought about getting back into comics when I read about Rebirth but the whole thing is turning me off worse than the new 52. As someone else said, we will have to see how things play out before we completely judge the event. But the whole idea of people getting their memories back of lives they actually didn't live or were somehow "stolen" (their memories/lives were stolen and they were de-aged but somehow those memories are laying hidden somewhere in their minds . . . even though actions in the past did not occur to give them the memories in the first place . . .WTH).

Maybe Superman can fix it all with a wish machine . . .

Those events only played out differently because of the messing with the timeline. How is that hard to comprehend? That's kind of a basic trope of time travel and time-based stories. For example, Batman only remembers Zero Year as his origin because Year One was one of those stories that was snatched from the timeline by Dr. Manhattan. Similarly, the Batfamily only remembers B&R Eternal as their first meeting of Cass Cain because No Man's Land was also snatched from the timeline. To use a non-Batman related example, Hal Jordan remembers that the Blackest Night happened, BUT cannot remember the deaths of Martian Manhunter or Ralph Dibney or Ronnie Raymond that fed into that event. Also, the previous iterations of the JLA also existed, but were, again snatched from time by Dr. Manhattan, so the characters of the DCU only remember the roster that was in JL: Origin. This is all just Dr. Manhattan screwing with the time stream.

But yes, the memories that Wally is bringing back are obviously memories of the Pre-Flashpoint canon. Also Superman, the flagship hero of the DCU, ALSO remembers everything from the Pre-Flashpoint canon. Wally knows that the timeline was altered (and that's why the discrepancies), while Superman simply believes it to be a separate universe. The safe bet is probably then that, at the end of Rebirth, the events of the Pre-Flashpoint timeline WILL be restored to the official DCU continuity and all characters will remember their lives before Flashpoint on top of their New 52 lives. So, Bruce will remember Zero Year...but he'll remember it not as his origin, but simply as a story that took place during his career as Batman and how he met Duke.

[adrikito]

For someone, like me who has been away from comics for 30+ years, this is absolutely confusing.

..WOW... More than 30 years.... You need to see Justice League Frontier film and Kingdoom Come Comics... The film events happen in Earth 21.. Kingdoom Come comics in Earth 22.. clearly neither of those 2 superman are the post-crisis superman..


...With rebirth they are returning to the Post-Crisis Rules.. In the end, nothing has changed since the first crisis..

[GlennSimpson]

By not stealing all at once. Butterfly effect. 10 years have 315,360,000 seconds. One of those seconds stolen at the right time (say, the second where the most common energy spource in Krypton was discovered), you alter it's history radically.

In which case the fact that it is 10 years isn't really the pertinent point. If that was the case, then Wally would have said "he stole bits of time all through history". But that's not what he said.

[GlennSimpson]

I think you are reading to much into to some how find a flaw that really isn't there.

In the end the fact remains, all of which will no doubt be ironed out over time, that the REBIRTH UNIVERSE is the PRE-52 UNIVERSE. There's no issue you can have that can't be simply explained away as Dr. Manhattan. Here's a new one, how could Zero Year have happened if YEAR ONE is the origin in the Pre-52 Universe? Dr. Manhattan.


I mean how hard is it to figure that Wally is talking about his universe? It's clear. Reading to much into it to find a flaw to be contrarian to the matter isn't going to stop that the Rebirth Universe takes place in the Pre-52 Universe.

Because in the pre-Flashpoint universe, Wally had kids. Why isn't he talking about them the same way he is Linda?

And it really doesn't matter what universe it was before Dr. Manhattan - it's now an utterly different universe BECAUSE of Dr. Manhattan.