Earth-2 mania

[Great Rao]

I've noticed that there have been a lot of recent Earth-2 specific additions to Supermanica: Jimmy Olsen of Earth-2, Doctor Fate of Earth-2, etc.  It seems to me that some of these are redundant - for instance, there is an "Ultra-Humanite of Earth-2", claiming to be a parallel version of the "Ultra-Humanite of Earth-1" - yet the main "Ultra Humanite" entry only covers 1939, so that obviously can't be the "Earth-1" Ultra, if there ever even was an Earth-1 Ultra.  There are basically two entries for the same character.

I seem to recall that we had already worked out a policy on this issue.

Telle, are you willing to step in?

[Anonymous]

i'm pretty sure pre-crisis there was only one ultra-humanite who was superman's enemy before lex luthor was created...
i don't recall ever seeing him used in the silver age except in JSA stories and All star Sqaudron.

[TELLE]

Managing these various parallel versions of the canonical characters is shaping up to be a Crisis of Multiversal proportions.

I can't remember having a specific discussion on the issue of Earth-1/Earth-2 redundancy.  The original author of the Great Superman Book never acknowledged the concept of Earth-2 as canonical references to it came relatively late in his project.

For the most part, the majority of "redundant" Earth-2 (and other) entries are just that: unless they differ in some essential way from their E-1 counterparts, it is hard to justify separate entries.  Of course, even very minor players in the canon will eventually receive entries (if they haven't already), so efforts to police these will prove hopeless.  Some E-2 entries already link to E-1 articles.

The difference between some E-1 and 2 characters is cut and dried (the E-1 Planet staff is the E-2 Star staff).  As for the villains, Ultra encounters a Superman who works for the Star in the 1930s (his last appearance is Act 21, 1940 whereas the last mention of the Star is Act 22) and so may be said to be strictly an Earth-2 phenomenon if not for the musings in the Planet and Star (and on their employees) entries by Fleisher.  Tough call but I would be willing to exile Ultra to Earth-2 and eliminate any entry for an E-1 Ultra.  Other villains who made intitial Golden Age appearances outside of the Canon, like the Wizard, are even harder.  Detective 27 is extra-canonical but rates a reference as the first app of E-1 Batman.  By that logic, the Wizard is an E-1 villain with no analogue in the canon except as an E-2 villain.

These are the paradoxes that the Mr and Mrs Superman authors enjoyed playing with and I think they were very careful and selective in their use of villains, restricting them mainly to the period before Act 22.

Tough questions!  No easy answers that I can see.