SuperMonkey writes:well, that's more like wishful thinking. Those Earths were clearly destroyed in that mini series.
It's been awhile since I've read "Crisis" (thank Heavens!), but as memory serves, those other worlds were never shown blowing up, burning up, splitting in half, etc. They just disappeared into a white nothingness. So whether they could all still be around depends on your definition of "clearly destroyed."
More importantly we must not forget the ultimate paradox of the "Crisis"...
because it happened, it can never have happened. (!) The final thing Crisis ret-conned away was itself, because no story involving multiple earths can possibly have taken place.
Except for some odd comments from this or that character every few years (like Hal Jordan in "Zero Hour"), it seems that those who remember the Crisis at all remember it as something altogether different from what we saw. For them it went like this: the skies turned red, some cosmic threat loomed, the Flash died but the good guys won. No multiple nothin', no "I used to live on Earth-2 but now I live on this merged Earth," no "wasn't there a Supergirl who died too?"...nada. Yes, there was that period when Superman remembered Kara (who now never existed), a period of a few months before he was rebooted. And there was that mini-series where the JSA buried the Earth-2 Dick Grayson and Helena Wayne, but there are signs that never happened, either. And starting with "Man of Steel" no. 1, we are dealing with a different Superman than the one published the month before. The current Superman did not participate in the Crisis we read, even though the current Hal Jordan MAY have. (?)
My point is, nothing in "Crisis" is particularly binding on the DCU, since the entire Crisis has itself been effectively ret-conned away in the months and years since, and now according to DCU continuity it's something that never could have happened. Even if I
had seen those Earths "destroyed" in Crisis, it wouldn't matter, since by editorial decree, they never existed in the first place!
If I want to believe the Multiverse still exists, who's to say I'm wrong? Indeed, "The Kingdom" and various issues of "Superboy" tell us the Multiverse does indeed exist, just with a different name.
Let's face it, "Crisis" is a terrible story that goes on for six issues too long and ultimately collapses under its own weight. I still have an "Amazing Heroes" magazine from the time which details just how many times Wolfman contradicted himself and broke his own rules. The series may have been pretty to look at (sometimes), but in the end it was just a corny gimmick; a way to make editorial changes via an actual "event" in the characters' lives. It's kind of like that cartoon where Daffy Duck breaks the fourth wall and talks to his animator until he finally gets erased off the page. And for my money, it should be taken with the same seriousness. Whether or not you agree with the decision to wipe the slate clean in 85, the choice to do so in the form of a company-wide cross-over event was nothing more than a marketing gimmick, a case of bean-counters pulling the strings of writers and artists. (And in that regard, a sad harbinger of things to come)
unless you count "Superman: Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?" as a real story.
If that doesn't qualify as a "real story," then I don't know what does! As far as I'm concerned it's the last real story ever told about Superman, written by the last real writer to ever work on the character. And DC seems determined to keep it that way.
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