Superman Through the Ages! Forum

The original Crisis was such a defining event in the DCU that comicdom refers to Pre Crisis and Post Crisis DCU in the same manner as we date things either BC (Before Christ) or AD (Anno Domini or 'in the year of our Lord').

Will IC be of the same level and scope of change that events will similarly be dated in the DCU from that pivotal DC event?

No. After Infinite Crisis is over, the brains of all comic readers will explode. There will be simply no way to categorize all the major, annual life-changing DCU events over the last 20 years...at least not accessible to the human mind.

In order to keep up with DC, we will have to create a new manner of personal computer to put in each person's home. The computers will take over and enslave humanity.

Well, COIE combined the different earths DC had.  Infinite Crisis isn't going to split them from what I've read and heard.  Changes will be instituted to various characters and each book except Superman, Batman, Action and Detective will start with new #1's.  So I don't think IC is going to be regarded as changing as much.

Even though "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and Byrne's "Man of Steel" reboot were separate events that happened at different times, people now refer to the Byrne Superman as the "post-Crisis" Superman and the pre-MOS Superman as the "pre-Crisis" Superman.

Superman is again in the midst of going through some big changes, continuity-wise.  His origin has changed from Byrne's MOS to Waid's "Birthright."  He now knew Lex when they were teenagers instead of first meeting as adults; he was launched from Krypton as a baby instead of as a couple of zygotes; It was a different rocket; different birth parents; etc.

This is a new continuity.  I predict that, as happened with "Crisis," down the road, "Infinite Crisis" will be seen as the demarcation point.  So, yes, there will be a "post-Crisis" and a "post-Infinite Crisis" or some similar set of terms.  I can't think of any other way to name the new continuities that will now exist.

:s:

Also to theres no fire left in this kind of event because comicbook companies have totally used it up. The Earth planetary or galactic level threat has very little punch when the whole planet beign threatend on a level that requires more than one hero happens every month in JLA.

The big crossover has become a routine and a bloated shell of it's former self. All it is now is just a lottery for who's gonna die or get canceled.

But even so they do tend to sell well.

My compromise would be this:

Many of the heroes of the DCU are members of something called the Justice League. A benevolent group ran and funded either by the UN. The heroes in the DCU with few exceptions are all part of this group.

So instead of having a regular ongoing JL title where someone has to come up with a threat level worthy of the big 7 every single month, or a annual crossover that bends the universe I would instead make The Justice League book an *annual* event.

Keep team ups in the DCU to a bare minimum and then once a year the various members of the Justice League basically the bulk of their superhero universe ideally with the big 7 in the lead) must band together to face a threat that is far more than one, two, or a handful of heroes can face by themselves.

Since the team-ups would be rare and special things then seeing all the characters together in one story would in and of itself be an event in addtion to whatever Galactus, Darkseid, Anti-Monitor, OMAC, sized threat they were dealing with. The creators would have an entire year to come up with the annual JL event and plenty of time to wrangle the best writer and artist to pull it off.

 


No, no, no!!!  COIE did NOT combine the different Earths!  All it did was shift our attention from the E-1 Multiverse to a NEW universe.  We didn't even KNOW it at the time.  

Just like comics fans didn't know that DC shifted from the Golden Age Earth to the Earth-1 until much later.  

;)

The merged Earth at the end of COIE is a different Earth than the Earth on which Man Of Steel takes place upon, which is different than that of Birthright.    

There is STILL an Earth-2 that was UNTOUCHED by the COIE.  The Multiverse was simply TOO BIG for the Anti-Monitor to realize that.  For every Earth-1 he destroyed, FIVE of them survived!

If the Multiverse really had an infinite amount of Earths, then all that the Anti-Monitor did was destroy is super tiny fraction of them.



More like 5 duotrigintillion! (google it ;) )

This is, in fact, the plot of next year's major DC event.

Before the Crisis, the Multiverse was a by-and-large consistent continuum with rules that mostly were followed and a history that was more or less respected and adhered to.  After the Crisis, the DCU was a place of ever-shifting rules, ever-changing "history" and conflicting "continuities," a place where "reality" differed not only from book to book, but from issue to issue of individual books.

Thus, I look at the designations as you would, say, "Roman Empire" and "Post-Empire".  Before, there was order and a system, afterwards chaos and anarchy.  Or in terms of dinosaur history, its like "Pre-Asteroid" and "Post-Asteroid," or if you're from the South, Antebellum and post-War.

My point being, the Post-Crisis era is far from cohesive and ultimately is defined less by what has been built, or any hard and fast rules, than by what it took away.  Unless this new Crisis builds a new continuity and enforces a new company-wide vision across all books, I will view it as merely a continuation of the Post-Crisis era.

Or to put it in maybe a less confrontational way, I really don't think we'll see the kind of wholesale reboot of character histories, power levels, etc that we had in 86.  Superman of 2006 will not differ from Superman of 2001 to anything like the degree Superman of 1987 differed from Superman of 1983.

As Mr. Spock once said, "A difference which makes no difference is no difference."

 

Exactly!  He didn't know how BIG it all was.  He DID destroy countless Supermen (Supermans?) and all the rest, but just as many (if not more) not only survived, but there are countless Supermans (Supermen?) that never even HEARD of the Anti-Monitor!  





Yeah, but I just didn't want to cause anyone's head to explode!   :lol:

I don't think Spock actually said that in the series per canon.  He said that in James Blish's "Spock Must Die!" novel.

If you're versed in Cantor's Transfinite mathematics, subtracting infinity from infinity still leaves infinity.  IOW, the Anti-Monitor could have wiped out an infinite number of universes and still left an infinite number over.  Now, if we're talking different levels of infinity like Aleph-null, Aleph-1, etc. that's a different matter.

Berganza has said on his Ask Eddie forum that the mulitverse is bigger than we originally thought when asked about DC returning to a multiverse.  This jibes with the above reasoning.

While the Anti-Monitor might not be able to sweep his anti-matter wall through ALL positive matter Infinite Earths, one could argue that the Battle at the Dawn of Time in Crisis #10 finished the job by preventing the Multiverse from actually forming in the first place.  At least we've been led to believe that starting in Crisis #11 there was only ONE positive matter Univese (Earth-Sigma) and the anti-matter universe of Qwaad.

But it's not clear if the Merged Earth ever left the Netherverse that was created to safeguard the Five Worlds -- it's possible that whatever remains of the Multiverse is still "outside".

Also, the Big Bang was repeated twice since the Crisis -- both in Zero Hour and in Our Worlds at War.  There were opportunities to "sneak" the Multiverse back when nobody was looking.

All kinds of different kinds of multiverses are possible, even at different levels that could augment each others' numbers.

Check this summary article on Wikipedia out that has the same info as the Scientific American one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

The original DCU multiverse was based on vibrational frequency differences which are a separate category from the ones in that article.  Even if the vibrational multiverse ceased to be, the quantum versions, etc. would continue to exist and proliferate.

Or, one COULD say the Big Bang ONLY took place in that one universe/multiverse.  ;)

See my post above yours, Gernot.  We posted at the same time.

LOL  I caught that, Cap!  LOL  

"Great minds", etc.  ;)

There are an Infinite amount of earths in one Multiverse, and there are an Infinite amount of Multiverses. Wrap your minds around that one. :)

Grant Morrsion's ill fated Hypercrisis was going to state just that, but it never got off the ground.

Cool, Super Monkey!

Here's a page from a site devoted to Hypertime where the theory is more explicitly described:
http://www.geocities.com/hypertime2000/features/theory/index.html

It basically says what you said Morrison said.

say what ;)

Quite right. In fact we the readers knwo one Earth excaped Crisis - Earth-B the earth where DC Challenge took place concurant with Crisis.

If there is still an Earth-2 untouched by Crisis, there must also still be an Earth-1. Which begs the question...what will we find there, once we see it again?

A lot of fans believe that "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" really happened. Imaginary stories may or may not happen...one of them may have. In fact, Loeb even showed us that Superman in the Superman/Batman arc.

So, was that Earth-1, or an alternate timeline that split off Earth-1, re: hypertime?

Gangbuster Thorul, somewhere on the Internet is/was a fanfiction site that had as its main premise that the Five Worlds are still in the Netherverse patiently waiting for their heroes (and villains) to return from that epic battle at the Dawn of Time.  By now most of the secret identities have been uncovered -- it didn't take long for those investigating the missing Clark Kent to find evidence linking him to Superman, and Alfred finally told all after a year of silent soul-searching.

A fascinating idea, but I don't know if this was seriously pursued by the original fanfiction writers.  One might imagine Supergirl's Gold-Kryptonite depowered clone having a daughter, which would be half-Kryptonian and just now developing superpowers in her mid-teens.  (Gold-Kryptonite's effects were apparently not passed down to the next generation.)  This new Supergirl would then be the first Post-Crisis "New Gen" superheroine in the Netherverse, and possibly the first able to travel between the Five Earths.  A lot of potential stories there...

I haven't heard of that exact fanfic premise.  I did however hear of this one:



Five Earths Project- http://www.geocities.com/the5earths/home.htm

As to Kara's Gold-K depowered clone in 5 Earths Project, the powers were returned to her after Lesla Lar merged with the clone.  Lesla became a hero and due to the wierdness of her powers, she has energy powers on Rokyn and is th epremire hero of Rokyn known as Valor.  Lydia-7 is now the new Supergirl of Earth 1.



At any rate, as long as the universe of the Nail is existant, the multiverse does exist in some way.

Think of it THIS way:  There are about 9 different actors who portrayed Superman over the years (not counting the different animated styles and radio shows).  

I always liked to think of them all much like Earth-1, Earth-2, etc.  

Each Superman IS about as different as all of the actors who've portrayed Superman are, and yet they were/are all the same.  .

Think of it THIS way. Each actor is/was Superman, yet they were all a different Superman.

They were all the same character, but different actors.

http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/gernot0/PAGES/Actors.html

Gernot wrote:

Think of it THIS way: There are about 9 different actors who portrayed Superman over the years (not counting the different animated styles and radio shows).

I always liked to think of them all much like Earth-1, Earth-2, etc.

-----------------------------------

Gernot, I once half-jokingly suggested that there were "Subset Earths" based on Earth-1 and Earth-2.  A few were:

Earth-2F(leischer)  Home of the early animated adventures.

Earth-2N(ewspaper)  The daily comics Superman stories.

Earth-2S(erial)  The world portrayed by Kirk Alyn, Noel Neill and Lyle Talbot.

Earth-2T(elevision)  The Adventures of Superman George Reeves.  
Note that Earth-2T is VERY similar in certain aspects to Earth-2S -- Lois Lane is virtually IDENTICAL!   :wink:

Earth-1C(inema)  The 1980s Christopher Reeve and Helen Slater version of the S-Family.  (Meanwhile, Michael Keaton lurks in Gotham City.)

Earth-1F(ilmation)  The Saturday morning cartoon adventures of Superman, not to be confused with Earth-1HB (for Hanna-Barbara), home of the Super Friends.   :P

Earth-1T(elevision)  The Adventures of Superboy Gerald Christopher.
Note that Earth-1T lasted at least to 1992, well past the Crisis.

Earth Sigma-T(elevision)  The Post-Reboot (and Pre-Zero Hour) land of Lois and Clark.

Earth Zero-T(elevision)  The Post-Reboot Earth-Zero world of Smallville.

And the strangest DC Universe world of all -- Earth-H(ostess), where superheroes foil villains with tasty snack cakes!   :wink:

DTO, I'm REALLY glad others feel the same way about the various Supermans (Supermen?) in the media as I!  :D  

Don't you DARE forget the Superman of Earth-1-B(rady)K(ids), though!   :lol:   (THAT one is VERY similar to the Earth-1F(ilmation), though he WAS different!  He actually appeared on a different network!)  

And THEN there was also the Superman from the newspaper strips of the 1960's, and don't forget the Superman from the World's Greatest Heroes Strip (also Superman).  

Man!  That's a LOT of Supermen (Supermans?) to keep track of!  :lol:

I haven't really been following this, but I did read the giant-sized hoopla that came out a few months ago, in which they had Blue Beetle shot. They had Blue Beetle shot! By Rao, isn't anything sacred?

Not on THIS particular Earth, Permanus!  

Hey, welcome to these boards, my friend!  

Anyway, if you'd like to know what's going on after Blue Beetle got shot, go to http://www.dccomics.com and go to DC's message boards.  Go to "Infinite Crisis" and you'll be able to read all of the messages within.  If you want to post any questions there, you'll have to register, but it's free, just as this great board is!  ;)  

Anyway, I'm gonna havta start referring to myself as the Superman of Earth-Gernot!   :lol:

Thanks for the welcome, Gernot! I followed your advice and went to the message board, and was slightly dismayed to find that DC seem to have been getting up to mass slaughter since the last time I checked (I no longer buy comics that regularly). I am also rather confused by a comment made by one of the posters, viz. that the ghost of Kara Zor-El now acts as a "spiritual advisor" to Linda Danvers. Huh? Someone's been dropping the brown acid tabs...

linda danver's isn't around anymore either..
and someone else please explain that particular supergirl to him please because my heads already exploded once today.

Don't bother; I've been looking it up. I still don't understand any of it, mind you, but I suppose it's like bebop: "Man, if you hafta ask the question, then you ain't going to understand the answer".

linda danver's is still better than crack ho britney zor-el.
get that girl some food.

Evidently I'm not alone in being completely baffled by all this. Everywhere I go, I keep running into the same questions, asked, I suspect, with a note of despair. I've pretty much given up on trying to understand it all, but this guy's made a tremendous effort if any of you lot wants to have a look: http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=88800&page=1

I'll see if I can summarize the various Supergirls since the Crisis.

Matrix Supergirl started out as a protomatter pseudolifeform created by the Pocketverse Luthor.  She had Lana Lang's persona imprinted on her.

When Matrix migrated to the mainstream DCU Earth, she took no other identity while living with the Kents.  She did take on Superman's likeness and identity at one point but her addled mind got better.  She also took Draaga's shape on after Panic in the Sky to honour the noble warrior's self-sacrifice, but mysteriously went to using his classic form again later.

A Kara of Argo was shown, IIRC, in the Superman vs Aliens one-shot.  Argo was colonized by people influenced by Kryptonian culture though they weren't Kryptonians themselves.  I don't think that book is in canon, however, so this is a moot point included just for interest sake.

Power Girl is the Earth-2 version of Kara Zor-el and is evidently once again the multiverse counterpart to the mainstream Kara Zor-El Supergirl.  For a time she was considered the granddaughter of Arion of Atlantis and possibly other retcons on her origin.  Johns has explained this as reality trying to fit her in since she really didn't belong in the Post Crisis DCU.

Andromeda/Laurel Gand and her SW6 duplicate were Daxamite descendants of Lar Gand introduced into the LSH continuity to fill the gap formerly filled by the real Supergirl.

Cir-El was another Supergirl thinking herself the daughter of Lois and Clark but was really a Terran woman of the present imprinted with partial powers based on genes in Superman's hair by Brainiac-13.

Matrix Supergirl eventually merged with a real woman, Linda Danvers, to form PAD's 'Earth Angel' Supergirl.  Eventually, both were split again with Matrix leaving Earth and Linda continuing as a singular Supergirl with most of their former powers.  She has been essentially written out of the current DCU books as no one but PAD gives a hang about her.

PAD introduced a supposed 'real Kara Zor-El' from the SA era in his Earth Angel misguided series.  She returned to her supposed Pre Crisis Earth to live out her destiny to die fighting the Anti-Monitor in the Crisis.

The current Supergirl is the supposed Post Crisis incarnation of Kara Zor-El.  See the current Supergirl book and the recent Superman/Batman intro stories on her.

I think that's it.  Somebody fill in the gaps if I've missed something.

I suspect this huge mess is symptomatic of the fact that no one has ever been able to keep a Supergirl book alive in any era.  It remains to be seen if the current attempt will fare any better.

Finally, a sensible summarization! Thanks, Cap. They should really have left her memory alone, shouldn't they? As you say, a Supergirl title has never really been viable.

That timeline has been updated here:
http://superman.nu/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=14815#14815

I'm also pretty sure that all this has already been explained and discussed somewhere in these forums.  Try a Search (http://superman.nu/phpBB2/search.php) or browse the Supergirl section (http://superman.nu/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=8).

:s: