JulianPerez
Council of Wisdom
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Posts: 1168
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« on: July 10, 2006, 08:09:35 AM » |
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You have no idea what a pain in the ass figuring out what's official or not in DC has been for the past decade or so. To those of us that value interconnectivity, respect for history, treating characters as "real," and consistency - old school fanboys like me, Kurt Busiek, Phillip Jose Farmer, and others...the last few decades have been pretty much hell, as the concept of "DC Continuity" became an oxymoron.
Nearly every discussion I've had with friends centered on the DC Universe, the concept of "what IS IN the DCU now," or how things "really happened" has been the primary point of discussion for years, because nobody really seemed to know. Even the so-called original HISTORY OF THE DC UNIVERSE from Wolfman and Perez was useless and contradicted the moment it was published.
So, coming out of this climate of nothing being clear, PRAISE JESUS AND THE GREAT SPACEMAN for the "History of the DC Universe" backup telling us precisely what is and isn't the DC Universe, something that many people have been waiting for years.
Now we have "History of the DC Universe" in the back of 52 recognizing that the multiverse happened, and existed, but no longer exists now. Am I the only one that recognizes how absolutely significant a change this is?
In other words, all those stories did happen, only nobody remembers them now.
This may sound like the merest semantic difference from the old state of affairs where stories just never happened, but it really is the most profound change to happen to how continuity is talked about in decades. I said earlier I didn't feel IC really changed the status quo. How wrong I was!
Consider for a moment the Paul Kupperberg NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERGIRL.
CRISIS, in its monumental arrogance, comitted the one sin that you're not supposed to do in a shared universe: say something "never happened." Obviously I'm talking about Supergirl, the Silver Age/Bronze Age Supergirl. So, what becomes of the Paul Kupperberg DARING NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERGIRL's villains, the Gang?
The Pre-Crisis history couldn't provide an answer. As nearly as I could determine, there were three posibilities: 1) It's possible they never existed, because Supergirl didn't exist, but that wouldn't make any sense. 2) It's possible that they existed, but that another heroine opposed them on the new shared earth and restructured history. The name of Power Girl, for instance, was tossed around.
Ah, but wait! Possibility 1 is right out the window because these guys DO exist in the post-Crisis DC Universe. Ms. Mesmer of the Gang appeared in a Morrison issue featuring a Legion of all-female supervillains.
Now, we get to the post-IC DC Universe. The stories DID happen, but nobody remembers them. Which means that DARING NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERGIRL actually DID happen! Which means Supergirl DID fight the Gang, and they just don't remember, and presumably, the Gang has no memory of this.
Think of all the uncertain-status questions that have been resolved thanks to this new approach to DC History, which begins with recognizing that YEAH, there WAS a multiverse, and yeah, what you read DID happen as you read it.
So, color me a fan of "History of the DC Universe."
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