What's the big deal about Earth 2?

[Jon Clark]

If you have an Earth 2 that precedes in real time, realistically, the Infinity Inc. "kids" should be in their late-fifties or sixties. They're Super Boomers.

The problem was that the "real time" wasn't quite part of Earth-2 stories in the 1960s, so no one gave Batman a kid until 1978, the rest of Infinity were not conceived until the 1980s. Then Crisis happened and the Infinitors got lumped in with the unaging Modern Age characters.

The original characters of Earth-2 (JSA, All-Star Squadron) were largely based on actual published stories that gave them a history to draw on. If we were to try that now the question is whether to make up 30+ years out of whole cloth or to restart as if 1986's Crisis was the last appearance of Earth-2 and all the heroes' lives since have been frozen?

Go with the "real time" since the 1930's based largely on published stuff only or treat it as some new Elseworlds where someone like Geoff Johns (or Grant Morrison or Scott Snyder ...) gets to make up 1986-2020 events that none of us have seen before.

[superduperman]

Honestly, that's the aspect I don't care much for. I like the simpler technology of a Batman before facial recognition satellites and stuff like that... but unless their 'current calendar' is set in the 50-60's.. I don't like characters being around 'THAT long.' I need a good sliding timeline to make it beleiveable. Sure, Superman could have been around since 1938.... but i have zero interest in a Lois and Jimmy in their 90's too. For me, a character is usually just as good as thier supporting cast, and making htem immortal like that ruins things for me.

I think there are limitations as to what you can do with it. If they do bring back E-2, I hope it takes place in the mid-eighties so that the timeline makes more sense. This is why it works as a secondary Earth and not a main one. In some ways, Generations was kind of a better E-2 than E-2. In other ways, not so much.

[king81992]

Well let me let you in on something, I’m not even 30 yet. My generation was the Young Justice/Geoff Johns Teen Titans era of comics. I didn’t read Earth 2 because it was around in my day, nor did I know there was an earth 2 in the beginning of my reading. I read it because I got introduced to it through Geoff Johns JSA and Infinite Crisis. I found them through the power of interest, research, and the internet and went on from there.

So I don’t think it really matters where we started in reading comics, it’s just where our interests take us. I’m a proponent of the legacy of DC so that was where I went. Maybe there is no Titans, Tim, Steph, Damian or Jon but there is Kara/Powergirl, Helena/Huntress, Lyta/Fury, and etc of the Infinity Inc. Just got to give a chance.

With Infinity Inc around, an Earth 2 version of the Titans/ TT would be redundant but I'd love to read a book about Titans/ TT and Outsiders Earth 2.

[Lee Stone]

I liked Earth-2 mainly because it felt more down to Earth to me.
Especially when the stories are set in the Golden Age and they're fighting more pulp-ish villains and regular gangsters.

They also tend to get drawn differently. Costumes are often less spandex and more cotton, leather and denim.

Even the 1991 mini-series, set in the '50s but on clutter-earth (I headcanon it into Earth-2's Golden Age, though), felt real grounded to me.

[Restingvoice]

Well let me let you in on something, I’m not even 30 yet. My generation was the Young Justice/Geoff Johns Teen Titans era of comics. I didn’t read Earth 2 because it was around in my day, nor did I know there was an earth 2 in the beginning of my reading. I read it because I got introduced to it through Geoff Johns JSA and Infinite Crisis. I found them through the power of interest, research, and the internet and went on from there.

So I don’t think it really matters where we started in reading comics, it’s just where our interests take us. I’m a proponent of the legacy of DC so that was where I went. Maybe there is no Titans, Tim, Steph, Damian or Jon but there is Kara/Powergirl, Helena/Huntress, Lyta/Fury, and etc of the Infinity Inc. Just got to give a chance.

I've been going back to the Golden Age because current continuity suck so I may get there eventually

[Lee Stone]

I don't know about you, but isn't there something so fascinating about finding a whole bunch of comics and characters that you knew nothing about and then getting new stories about those characters that tell what happened next and where their lives took them?

The best of these was Sandman Mystery Theatre.
It felt like someone from the '30s and '40s saying, yes that did happen, but here's what they left out because it was too controversial/shocking/scandalous to tell people at the time.

[Electricmastro]

It can give the cool opportunity to see Batman fighting in a World War II without having to bother with time travel, like how he fought in World War II on Earth-Two back in Batman #15 (February, 1943):

[sifighter]

I've been going back to the Golden Age because current continuity suck so I may get there eventually

If you do I hope you enjoy it, be warned you won’t find a main earth 2 JSA the ongoing series though. The main earth 2 stuff is in All-Star Comics, All-Star Squadron, Justice League crossovers, and probably a few others I’m forgetting until Infinity Inc gets a title.

[Menacer]

I have only been following New 52 Earth 2 books until I got a JSA one...

1 because Power Girl has a storyline I'm following. Worlds' Finest, etc

2 because in Rebirths Lois and Clark the story opened with a mention of Convergence. And when I looked up Convergence I read that the event was only enjoyable if you'd read Earth 2 vol 1 The Gathering - vol 5 ...

3 I like variety and checking out various books from different lines keeps things fresh and exciting

I am reading JSA Vol 1 Omnibus By Geoff Johns and liking it but not sure if I love it enough to track down 2 and 3 Omnibus

[Electricmastro]

If you do I hope you enjoy it, be warned you won’t find a main earth 2 JSA the ongoing series though. The main earth 2 stuff is in All-Star Comics, All-Star Squadron, Justice League crossovers, and probably a few others I’m forgetting until Infinity Inc gets a title.

Honestly, I’m in more of a phase of looking at the older stuff than the newer stuff, with the possible exception of the The Terrifics since that has more of an endearing charm, if almost nostalgic charm, to it that I don’t quite see in other newer DC titles that I’ve seen.

[M L A]

Because earth 2 in general managed to be readable to good for years until DC tanked it with COIE (even then Infinity Inc was still pretty readable if a little lost in its direction due to having to share with the more popular Titans).

And then JSA struck back by being good again with the 1992 series and Golden Age until DC tanked it AGAIN with Zero Hour.

And then JSA struck back A G A I N with Starman, Johns' JSA, Sandman Mystery Theatre, and Hourman until DC tanked it A G A I N with Willingham, Guggenheim, and new 52.

And then JSA had promise until DC tanked it yet again by that editor making Robinson leave and having earth 2 turn into another Batman and Superman comic.

And in general there's just something comfy about earth 2, especially the characters actually getting married and having kids part which main earth is always kinda against that thing, especially for their big heroes.

[bat39]

In addition to all the reasons already discussed, another big reason is simply...nostalgia.

Earth 2 was probably one of the first times the comic-book genre aggressively catered to nostalgia, something which is now pretty much an integral part of it. It was a glimpse into a bygone era. It was a 'retro' take on the DCU. It was a time capsule of the earliest days of comic-books and superheroes as we know them.

We love reading about earlier versions of characters. We love it when the clock is turned back and we get to see some bygone era of a fictional universe. Its a phenomenon which pop-culture is pretty much suffused with - hence all the prequels and reboots and call-backs. In a way, Earth 2 was one of the earliest major efforts to capitalize on this.

[Jim Kelly]

Can you have nostalgia for a past that you never experienced? This seems to be so with a lot of things--not just comics--where the greater number of people look at a past period of time and wish to experience what that was like. It seems like there should be a special word for that (maybe there is and I just can't think of it right now). There's another kind of nostalgia which is what we're going through right now and what many soldiers experienced in WW I--where you wish to return to a state of normalcy before this crisis happened, but you can't and you never will, so it becomes a maddening sort of nostalgia. Nostalgia was a diagnosed condition back in earlier wars and literally could kill you--you get a sense of that in the movie 1917.

Anyway, another feature of Earth-Two is that it's science fiction. Parallel world stories have always appealed to me and I like to see how things are similar yet different in these other worlds.

I prefer the real time nature of Earth-Two. To solve the problems this presents, I imagine Earth-Two as not contemporaneous with Earth-One or Earth-Prime, they are maybe forty years behind the times. So the JSAers can still be relatively young and they can have children in their twenties and thirties. However, if there were stories about Earth-Two set in 2020, then Infinity, Inc. would be middle-aged by now with grown kids of their own--and that's also not a bad thing, as it allows for even more generations of super-heroes to be invented.

[phonogram12]

In addition to all the reasons already discussed, another big reason is simply...nostalgia.

I completely agree. This can be said about DC as a whole, really.

[DrNewGod]

In addition to all the reasons already discussed, another big reason is simply...nostalgia.

Earth 2 was probably one of the first times the comic-book genre aggressively catered to nostalgia, something which is now pretty much an integral part of it. It was a glimpse into a bygone era. It was a 'retro' take on the DCU. It was a time capsule of the earliest days of comic-books and superheroes as we know them.

We love reading about earlier versions of characters. We love it when the clock is turned back and we get to see some bygone era of a fictional universe. Its a phenomenon which pop-culture is pretty much suffused with - hence all the prequels and reboots and call-backs. In a way, Earth 2 was one of the earliest major efforts to capitalize on this.

I agree with you on every point except the underlined. One of the reasons we're seeing so many reboots is that studios (not filmmakers, mind you, but the financing organizations) dislike risk, and would prefer to invest in properties they think of as proven audience draws.