superman.nuMary Immaculate of Lourdes NewtonHolliston School Committeefacebook    
  •   forum   •   COUNTDOWN TO MIRACLE MONDAY: "IT'S REAL!" •   fortress   •  
Superman Through the Ages! Forum
News: Superman Through the Ages! now located at theAges.superman.nu
 
*
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 28, 2024, 07:07:57 PM


Login with username, password and session length


Pages: [1] 2   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: My take on DC's Multiverse.  (Read 6011 times)
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
llozymandias
Last Son of Krypton
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 301



« on: February 01, 2004, 10:11:04 PM »

Mr. Majestic told Lois "This isn't my earth. This isn't even the neighborhood of my strand of the multiverse.".   I like the idea of referring to a section of a multiverse as a "strand".  It goes along with the idea that a multiverse is infinite (or at least nigh-infinite).  For all we know the main Wildstorm earth, could be trillions of universes away from the current DCU.  


     Hypertime is not the pre-crisis multiverse.  It is bigger.  It might be hilbert space.   Hilber space is the dimension that  theoretically exists between divergent timelines.   A hypertimeline is said to contain an entire dimensional  mutiverse.  


     The Anti-Monitor did not destroy an infinite number of universes.  He destroyed somewhere between 1,000 & 3,000.   That is only an infinitesmal fraction of a multiverse that is anywhere near infinite.

     The strands of the DC Multiverse include:

  1.)  Pre-Crisis;  Earths 1, 2, 3, C, C-Minus, G, S, T, X, & Prime.  Crisis never happened here.  Last appeared in the early 80s.

  2.)  Crisis;  Earths 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12, C, C-Minus, S, X, & Prime.  First appeared in the early 80s.  Last appeared in Crisis #10.  

  3.)   Post-Crisis;  The "merged" earth that first appeared in Crisis #11.  Last appeared just before the "man of steel" mini-series came out.

  4.)   Reboot;  First appeared in "Man of Steel" mini-series.  Most "Elseworlds" are part of this strand.

  5.)   Tangent

  6.)   Wildstorm


   In an infinite multiverse there are going to be many earths that call themselves Earth-1 or Earth-Prime.
Logged

John Martin, citizen of the omniverse.
Super Monkey
Super
League of Supermen
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 3435



WWW
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2004, 12:30:35 AM »

There are actually many different versions of each universe, for example in The Supergirl story "Many Happy Returns" we see a different Sliver Age universe. You can go as far as to say that each different version of Superman from the Action Comics #1 to "Whatever happen to the Man of tommorrow" exist in their own universe. THis was hinted at during Zero Hour as seen here :

Logged

"I loved Super-Monkey; always wanted to do something with him but it never happened."
- Elliot S! Maggin
llozymandias
Last Son of Krypton
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 301



« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2004, 08:40:31 PM »

The Pre-Crisis DC Multiverse is a dimensional multiverse.  A dimensional multiverse is composed of a seemingly infinite number of parallel universes.  Parallel universes are separate from beginning to end.  Hypertime was partly inspired by Hugh Everett's "many worlds interpretation" of quantum mechanics.  The "many worlds interpretation" deals with divergent timelines.  Sure a lot of people were & are confused by the multiverse.  Which earth is which.  Which characters live on which earth.  As well as (for example)  Earth-1's many alternate futures.  Crisis was not the ideal solution.  Not even a good one.  The Post-Crisis continuities are even more confusing.  Which pre-crisis stories happened or not. How many happened as originally written.  The ideal solution to reader confusion (regarding the multiverse) is a Who's Who series.  


    In an infinite multiverse there are going to be many earths that call themselves Earth-1.  Imagine on 1,000 (or more) separate parallel earths, someone has made the first known crossing to a parallel universe.  None of those travellers are aware of their counterparts who are doing the same thing.  Naturally each traveller will call his/her home "Earth-1".  And the first earth they visit, will be called "Earth-2".
Logged

John Martin, citizen of the omniverse.
KryptoniteKills
Superman Emergency Squad
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 77



« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2004, 08:47:12 PM »

Actually the pre-crisis multiverse was an artificial phenomenon-a single universe that was divided into thousands by Krona.  As to how this fits into a greater multiverse that exists as a function of probablity...well that's another story.

Still the cosmology of it all can be dizzying.
Logged
llozymandias
Last Son of Krypton
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 301



« Reply #4 on: February 02, 2004, 09:22:37 PM »

Crisis was the only place in the comics where that claim was made.  The Monitor told that story to Harbinger.  Harbinger repeated that story to others.  Besides i tend to discount & ignore that "explanation" for the pre-crisis DC Multiverse.  The diverging of timelines/universes is a natural thing.  If Hypertime refers to a multiverse,  it refers to a Temporal Multiverse.  A temporal multiverse is composed of a seemingly infinite number of divergent timelines/universes.  It has been hinted that a hypertimeline contains a dimensional multiverse.  That does go along with what Waid & Morrison said about Hypertime.  That it's bigger than the pre-crisis dc multiverse.  Btw by its nature a multiverse is going to contain far more than "thousands of universes".   A dimensional multiverse has the same number of universes from beginning to end.  Assuming that nobody destroys any of them somehow.  A temporal multiverse starts out as a single universe, or dimensional multiverse.  It is always increasing in size.  all timelines diverge.
Logged

John Martin, citizen of the omniverse.
llozymandias
Last Son of Krypton
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 301



« Reply #5 on: February 03, 2004, 08:56:14 PM »

What i listed in my first postimg on this thread is how the dc multiverse would be.  if i owned dc.  the other advantages to that kind of multiverse setting include:  

  1.)  retcons/revamps/reboots that change continuity are easier to do.  they are more readily accepted by the readers.  they would take place in their own universes.

  2.)  more freedom for the writers.  earth-shaking events in one title don't need to be reflected in all dc's other titles.  just the ones that take place on that title's earth.  

  3.)  crossovers with licensed characters make more sense.  the licensed characters are on their own earths.  they can still crossover with dc's characters.  if dc loses the license to a character,  the earth that character lives on is not seen again.  at least untill dc gets the license back.  if ever.

   4.)   dc would be able to have as many titles about as many characters, as the market would support.  but since they would be spread out among numerous different earths,  they would not be overcrowded on one earth.  A character like (for example) blue beetle would not seem redundant.  if he is not one of hundreds or thousands of super-heroes on one earth.

   
  earth-prime is one of the things about the pre-crisis dc multiverse i enjoyed the most.  the conceit that dc's characters were real & living on other earths,  added to the fun of reading dc's pre-crisis titles.
Logged

John Martin, citizen of the omniverse.
llozymandias
Last Son of Krypton
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 301



« Reply #6 on: February 07, 2004, 05:53:27 PM »

One of the reasons dc got rid of its multiverse, was to make their "universe"  more like marvel's.  ironic considering the fact that marvel never got rid of its multiverse.  in the "legends"  crossover mark waid wrote that dc's reason for "streamlining" their "universe", was to make crossovers easier.  Sure it's easier to have the characters meet if they are all on one earth.  i just prefer the pre-crisis meetings to the post-crisis ones.  what is the more impressive meeting?  You meet someone from another earth?  you had known of this indivdual as a fictional character, whose adventures you have read about for years/decades.  Or you meet someone from another city on your earth?  


    it's funny how post-crisis only fans keep referring to the multiverse as an "outdated" concept.   yet all the time the multiverse concept is gaining more & more acceptance by the scientific community.  just a thiught.
Logged

John Martin, citizen of the omniverse.
India Ink
Superman Squad
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 547


« Reply #7 on: February 07, 2004, 08:23:19 PM »

In my continuing efforts to organize my collection (the cost of bags and backing boards really mounts up), I was in the process of organizing my BATMANs up past the issue 400 mark.  Thumbing through one issue (just after the end of the Collins/Cockrum abbreviated run), I spied a letter from a fan who while receptive to the current efforts was still much put out that her past decades of comics were now out of continuity.

The lettercol editor gave the pat response from those days--about how you still have those comics in your collection, so it doesn't matter, they're still nice mementos of a bygone era--BUT continuity was so confused DC had to do something to clean it all up and now Brave New World (my words not his) readers would have it a lot easier to follow Batman.

Now let's say this was the mission statement at that time--to keep to a clear unconfusing continuity.  And upon reflection--despite the rebooting of Jason's origin--those Collins/Cockrum issues harkened back to the best of Batman's past, so I'd say DC wasn't entirely confused at that point.  But immediately after that was the Millennium crossover which brought extraterrestial robots directly into the continuity of Batman stories.  You'd think DC would have first crafted a policy where they would try to avoid any screwed up plotlines that confused their now simplified continuity.

They didn't do this.  They just allowed a bunch of hotshot writers (everyone from Frank Miller to Jim Starlin) to spin their own ideas without reference to anything else.  So we ended up with a confederation of continuities, none of which necessarily agreed with each other.  And then a bunch of efforts to untangle those conflicts, afterwhich more hotshot writers again spun ideas that had their own continuity--ad nauseum.

And this is just for Batman--who in my opinion didn't have a confused continuity before Crisis.  The editors said he did, but their statement isn't based in fact.  It's more like an aesthetic judgement.  Some things seemed inelegant to them, so they just removed them from continuity without thought as to how that might affect the overall continuity.  Such as Jason's original origin because it was too conveniently like Dick's origin--but changing Jay's origin retroactively destroyed all the continuity of those stories up to that point.

So the stated purpose of Crisis might have been to clean up continuity, but this purpose was very quickly abandoned for another purpose--to allow writer-artist-editors to do whatever they felt like doing without regard to consistent continuity.
Logged

India Ink
Pages: [1] 2   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

CURRENT FORUM

Archives: OLD FORUM  -  DCMB  -  KAL-L
Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS! Dilber MC Theme by HarzeM
Entrance ·  Origin ·  K-Metal ·  The Living Legend ·  About the Comics ·  Novels ·  Encyclopaedia ·  The Screen ·  Costumes ·  Read Comics Online ·  Trophy Room ·  Creators ·  ES!M ·  Fans ·  Multimedia ·  Community ·  Supply Depot ·  Gift Shop ·  Guest Book ·  Contact & Credits ·  Links ·  Coming Attractions ·  Free E-mail ·  Forum

Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
The LIVING LEGENDS of SUPERMAN! Adventures of Superman Volume 1!
Return to SUPERMAN THROUGH THE AGES!
The Complete Supply Depot for all your Superman needs!