caiusbackup (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
caiusbackup) wrote2005-06-07 11:18 am
caiusbackup) wrote2005-06-07 11:18 am
A new multiverse
So, I've been reading and thinking about some of the discussion of Infinite Crisis (of Finite Earths! as I'm always tempted to finish it) and Dan Didio's comments at Wizard World Philly (which I was almost at myself, and I'm now not at all sure whether to be glad that family events kept me away).
And I have a proposal.
More than the whole "one year after" business, what made me growly about the interview was Didio's comments about the JSA and DC history in general.
Asked if readers will see more stories set in the Golden Age of the JSA or something starring the All-Star Squadron set in the past, Didio admitted that he tends to resist those kinds of stories. While he didn’t rule it out, Didio said that he doesn’t like to look back too much, as the DCU, in Didio’s eyes, revolves around Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, who remain relatively ageless.
Didio went on to explain that the DCU is a generational story, and while time does progress, if you try to tell stories set in the past, it pushes the three major heroes up in the timeline, putting more time in between the first superheroes of the DCU and the modern day trinity of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Telling stories that do that, Didio said, is something he’s very cautious about.
So, basically, Didio is accusing the JSA, the only heroes in the mainstream DCU who age in real-time, of pushing the "ageless" Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman "up in the timeline", and appears to want to solve this by ignoring the JSA's past.
Which--as a history major and a fan of the JSA, Infinity Inc, and other heroes who, to one degree or another, experience time passing, is really galling. The DCU's rich past is one of its important properties, distinguishing it from smaller, newer publishers, and even from Marvel, which has fewer characters that go back that far.
Unfortunately, as Didio points out quite accurately, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are properties more valuable to the company, as it attempts to appeal to folks who don't go into paroxysms of squee when Alan or Jay demonstrate their elder-statesmen mojo or Ollie turns 43.[1] And Batman, in particular, loses his vitality as a hero if he's allowed to age too much. (Superman and Wonder Woman, not being Normal Humans, are less of a problem, although Superman's supporting cast would be.)
Between the "agelessness" of Batman and the real-time of the JSA, the DCU *is* in a time-squeeze, compressing more and more of its continuity into ~10 years while stretching out the empty years between the post-war retirement of the original JSA and Superman's "10 years ago" debut.[2] And yes, ignoring the fact that Black Canary I made her heroic debut in 1947 will cause people to wonder less often why her daughter was 19 "10 years ago" or appears to be the same age as Oracle now.
It hardly solves the *problem*, however, much less the problem caused by the compression of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s into the 1990s and 2000s--when did Ollie and Hal's roadtrip happen again?! Attempting to fully wrap ones mind around these things leads to madness, and for the average, everyday, writer or reader, ignoring it is really your best bet.
But Didio's Infinite Crisis offers a chance to do something about this for the long term, or, at any rate, for the next twenty-odd years. Now, my trust in DC editorial lately is pretty limited, and between Identity Crisis and DC Countdown, Don't do anything major!! sounds like a pretty good knee-jerk reaction. (...I'm not at all sure how I feel about the whole "One year later!" gimmick. A large part of me is simply expecting it to be a year long gimmick and then lapse into usual DC continuity in a year or so real-time. Since the Crisis, DC has been very good at absorbing CROSSOVER EVENTS! with little long-term damage. I am possibly being over-optimistic.)
However. I think DC needs a new set of multiple (or at any rate dual) Earths, on the lines of the pre-Crisis Earth-1 and Earth-2 that allowed the WWII heroes to age in the first place. The dynastic and/or time-tied heroes could be moved to a separate Earth that was allowed to progress in real time, while revamped versions of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and certain other newer and younger heroes, with fewer ties to real-time, could inhabit an earth of Eternal Present on the model of the post-Crisis "10 years ago" continuity--except with less baggage.
Unfortunately, splitting continuity would not be as easy as it was in the 1960s, when the concept of "continuity" was less well developed and there was a fairly obvious splitting point between Earth-1 and Earth-2[3]. I would vote for either a two-earth or a three-earth system; either a revived Earth-2 for the JSAers and their offspring and an "Earth-1" for the more dynastic Silver Agers (primarily, from my perspective, the Lanterns, Arrows, and Flashes, who could be tied to the 1960s and 1970s the way the JSAers are to the 1940s), plus a new "Earth-BSW" for the revamped Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman; or, for those who like the generational aspect of the post-Crisis DCU to extend a bit further, both Golden and Silver Age real-time heroes on Earth-2 and Eternal Present heroes on Earth-1.
There would be a number of wrinkles in this; Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman have been partially detangled from the Silver Age JLA in post-Crisis continuity; Earth-1 could either *fully* disentangle them or double them and put 'em back. The "third generation" of sidekicks would be another issue; I suspect many of you would not *like* to have Bart on a different earth from Tim and Kon (and Cassie), or Roy on a different earth from Dick (even aside from what all this would to to the Teen Titans); again, there would be solutions involving either multiple versions of the Bat, Super, and Wonder people, or, particularly in the case of the Robins, having some characters *only* on Earth-1 so as to relieve the pressure on Batman's past (four Robins in 10 years?!). One could also alleviate the Lantern controversy by putting Hal and Kyle on different earths...
And, well, if this has nothing at all to do with what DC is plotting? It could make for some good fic, but fic so expansive I need plenty of help in the world-building department. Discuss!
[1] And whyever not?! I don't understand these people...;)
[2] Or substitute "12 years" or "15" or even "20", depending on the timeline you're using.
[3] I.e. the early 50s, when most superhero comics went out of publication.
And I have a proposal.
More than the whole "one year after" business, what made me growly about the interview was Didio's comments about the JSA and DC history in general.
Asked if readers will see more stories set in the Golden Age of the JSA or something starring the All-Star Squadron set in the past, Didio admitted that he tends to resist those kinds of stories. While he didn’t rule it out, Didio said that he doesn’t like to look back too much, as the DCU, in Didio’s eyes, revolves around Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, who remain relatively ageless.
Didio went on to explain that the DCU is a generational story, and while time does progress, if you try to tell stories set in the past, it pushes the three major heroes up in the timeline, putting more time in between the first superheroes of the DCU and the modern day trinity of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Telling stories that do that, Didio said, is something he’s very cautious about.
So, basically, Didio is accusing the JSA, the only heroes in the mainstream DCU who age in real-time, of pushing the "ageless" Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman "up in the timeline", and appears to want to solve this by ignoring the JSA's past.
Which--as a history major and a fan of the JSA, Infinity Inc, and other heroes who, to one degree or another, experience time passing, is really galling. The DCU's rich past is one of its important properties, distinguishing it from smaller, newer publishers, and even from Marvel, which has fewer characters that go back that far.
Unfortunately, as Didio points out quite accurately, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are properties more valuable to the company, as it attempts to appeal to folks who don't go into paroxysms of squee when Alan or Jay demonstrate their elder-statesmen mojo or Ollie turns 43.[1] And Batman, in particular, loses his vitality as a hero if he's allowed to age too much. (Superman and Wonder Woman, not being Normal Humans, are less of a problem, although Superman's supporting cast would be.)
Between the "agelessness" of Batman and the real-time of the JSA, the DCU *is* in a time-squeeze, compressing more and more of its continuity into ~10 years while stretching out the empty years between the post-war retirement of the original JSA and Superman's "10 years ago" debut.[2] And yes, ignoring the fact that Black Canary I made her heroic debut in 1947 will cause people to wonder less often why her daughter was 19 "10 years ago" or appears to be the same age as Oracle now.
It hardly solves the *problem*, however, much less the problem caused by the compression of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s into the 1990s and 2000s--when did Ollie and Hal's roadtrip happen again?! Attempting to fully wrap ones mind around these things leads to madness, and for the average, everyday, writer or reader, ignoring it is really your best bet.
But Didio's Infinite Crisis offers a chance to do something about this for the long term, or, at any rate, for the next twenty-odd years. Now, my trust in DC editorial lately is pretty limited, and between Identity Crisis and DC Countdown, Don't do anything major!! sounds like a pretty good knee-jerk reaction. (...I'm not at all sure how I feel about the whole "One year later!" gimmick. A large part of me is simply expecting it to be a year long gimmick and then lapse into usual DC continuity in a year or so real-time. Since the Crisis, DC has been very good at absorbing CROSSOVER EVENTS! with little long-term damage. I am possibly being over-optimistic.)
However. I think DC needs a new set of multiple (or at any rate dual) Earths, on the lines of the pre-Crisis Earth-1 and Earth-2 that allowed the WWII heroes to age in the first place. The dynastic and/or time-tied heroes could be moved to a separate Earth that was allowed to progress in real time, while revamped versions of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and certain other newer and younger heroes, with fewer ties to real-time, could inhabit an earth of Eternal Present on the model of the post-Crisis "10 years ago" continuity--except with less baggage.
Unfortunately, splitting continuity would not be as easy as it was in the 1960s, when the concept of "continuity" was less well developed and there was a fairly obvious splitting point between Earth-1 and Earth-2[3]. I would vote for either a two-earth or a three-earth system; either a revived Earth-2 for the JSAers and their offspring and an "Earth-1" for the more dynastic Silver Agers (primarily, from my perspective, the Lanterns, Arrows, and Flashes, who could be tied to the 1960s and 1970s the way the JSAers are to the 1940s), plus a new "Earth-BSW" for the revamped Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman; or, for those who like the generational aspect of the post-Crisis DCU to extend a bit further, both Golden and Silver Age real-time heroes on Earth-2 and Eternal Present heroes on Earth-1.
There would be a number of wrinkles in this; Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman have been partially detangled from the Silver Age JLA in post-Crisis continuity; Earth-1 could either *fully* disentangle them or double them and put 'em back. The "third generation" of sidekicks would be another issue; I suspect many of you would not *like* to have Bart on a different earth from Tim and Kon (and Cassie), or Roy on a different earth from Dick (even aside from what all this would to to the Teen Titans); again, there would be solutions involving either multiple versions of the Bat, Super, and Wonder people, or, particularly in the case of the Robins, having some characters *only* on Earth-1 so as to relieve the pressure on Batman's past (four Robins in 10 years?!). One could also alleviate the Lantern controversy by putting Hal and Kyle on different earths...
And, well, if this has nothing at all to do with what DC is plotting? It could make for some good fic, but fic so expansive I need plenty of help in the world-building department. Discuss!
[1] And whyever not?! I don't understand these people...;)
[2] Or substitute "12 years" or "15" or even "20", depending on the timeline you're using.
[3] I.e. the early 50s, when most superhero comics went out of publication.
no subject
Does the Blue Beetle end up in the Golden Age or Silver Age 'verse, and, more importantly, which Blue Beetle are we using? *torn! My love for Silver Age Dan, she remains*
*licks your brains*
no subject
Possibly the Titans *mostly* stay in the Silver Age 'verse, with some adjustments for real time, and there are rebooted teams in the newverse?
*contemplates making Donna Diana's Earth-1 [Silver Age] replacement...*
As for the Beetles--I think we can get them *all* in there! Golden Age Dan would be in the Golden Age 'verse, Silver Age Dan in the SA 'verse, and, since Ted is Dan's successor and associated with people (Booster with his time travel, Guy in his association with Hal) who would do better in real time, he winds up in the mid-to-younger generation of the SA 'verse.
(Earth-1--where we put people we want to HIDE from the editors!)
no subject
This could be easily explained away by the Lazarus pit thing. Whoo for easy outs!
no subject
And we're still left with a generation of heroes that both reproduce improbably late and are dependent on various magical *thingees* to keep them young.
no subject
Second thought, yet look what they're doing with the 80s JL at the moment. If that isn't a seperate continuity I don't know what is going on.
Third thought, but that messing with the story really really winds me up.
The JSA spent an indeterminate amount of time in limbo, have travelled in time a whole ton, and generally interact with DCU-normal time in ways no other group does. Plus comics in the Vertigo line are crucial to the continuity of some members (the current Dr Fate and his lady). And Vertigo was never meant to be in continuity, except for where Sandman kind of was sometimes. Which in my head is because the DCU is a tiny little corner of the Dreaming anyway. But gets very confusing.
I also can never figure if Animal Man got like doubled up to have a Vertigo version and the version who was in the Justice League, or how John Constantine and Swamp Thing interact with the main timeline (because they turn up sometimes, but are they the same they? Can't be, John ages for real). But both of them being kind of magical they could be wandering in and out on the weekends or something. Like when Zatanna was apparently at Constantine's birthday party.
I guess with anything that overlaps Vertigo titles there are already seperate continuities.
And they are headache inducing.
Would the different continuities take different parts as background? If you think 4 Robins in 10 years is a problem, which one would you leave out? The Batfamily only make sense when they're all connected. You can leave out the Titans stuff and still understand a lot, but you can't leave out any of the Bats and have the same character left standing, and Tim and Dick are very different if Titans and Young Justice aren't taken into consideration. VERY very. So how to split things up and still keep it all working?
The way current continuity seems to be sliding everything that happened in Extreme Justice and after, or Guy Gardner Warrior, into some kind of never happened black hole, really annoys me, since those were the comics I read when I was going hungry to get them so they mean a lot to me. Everyone will have some kind of obscure canon point that they want to keep.
Splitting universes seems to me like a way to annoy all the people at once.
Just let Batman age. Given all the freaky technologies available in the DCU he can just get himself an exoskeleton and keep going like he always has.
I thought I read somewhere there was a dodge about Hypertime, how there are a bunch of universes sort of close together that bump into and out of each other, hence the possibility of retcon, or the way Power Girl was/wasn't... well, anything really, her continuity being the most fragmented I can think of. Which has some of the benefits of multiple continuities without the drawbacks. Except for the internal logic headaches.
I have drawn no conclusions. But with many words.
no subject
(Although they should not have dropped Hector and Lyta Hall back into JSA after their time in Sandman. *That* was just too much of a mess--although it would become a bit less of one if they were actually a *different* Hec and Lyta... This is as much of a character and *reasonableness* issue as strictly a continuity one, though, since Hec and Lyta started out in Infinity Inc, clearly within DC [albeit Earth-2 at the time] continuity.)
Splitting continuities is difficult and I come back more and more to an "Ultimate DC" solution, where younger (or the same age but without ~30 years of continuity behind them) versions of Batman, Superman, et al. get reintroduced, while a stretched-out version of normal continuity allows people who need to age *to* age. With room for things like Extreme Justice and Guy Gardner, Warrior to actually happen. (Although on that note, I was pleased that Rebirth acknowledged GGW even if it undid it.)
And yes, for a Bruce Wayne to age, too. Because I don't think a primary-continuity Bruce *will* be allowed to age, and I'm entirely sure I want him to. I, too, like the connectedness and *intergenerational*ness of current DC continuity, but a lot of that exists because of twenty-odd years of separate 'verses; and current continuity is jeopordizing it greatly. And, well, it says something about myself as a fan that I'm willing to wreak all sorts of havok on the Bats for the sake of keeping the JSA and Silver Age JLA on track, but, well, I'm not in charge of DC...
The thing about Hypertime--which would be as good a *mechicnism* for this as any, really--is that it was introduced rather badly and rarely used in a way that makes it at all clear what it *is* and how it can be used. It's stuff like Power Girl's continuity (where, say, she was once NOT at JSAer EVER but there was another adjacent 'verse where she WAS so there was a BLEED and no it's not that the writers were retconning/thought their predecessors were nuts/hadn't bothered to read the damn backissues) that gives Hypertime a bad name. Theoretically, Hypertime means that DC *has* a multiverse still, but when it's not being ignored it's as likely to be used to handwave a continuity glitch as anything else.
no subject
Excuse me, what? A generational story? In the sense that no one ever dies and the characters, particularly the Silver Age characters, stick around forever? TILL THE END OF TIME?
Look, Dan DiDio, wherever you are . . . Have you noticed how James Bond never ages, ever? Have you noticed how James Bond fans don't run around screaming "ZOMG! How can he still be the same age as he was in the 60s???" Yeah, they don't CARE as long as the latest movie has scantily clad women and spies and lots of 'splosions.
And guess what else, Dan DiDio? In an amazingly similar way, it doesn't MATTER how long Batman has been 30, or 35, or whatever arbitrary number he is today. Here's a hint: all the fanboys who are obsessed enough to figure out that if the JSA are in a WWII story and Black Canary I has a daughter X years later, and Black Canary II is X years old, that makes Superman X years older than he looks in Superman #2343? If they are spending that much time figuring it out, they are fans who WILL BUY THE BOOK ANYWAY!
Anyway. *sigh*
I'm all for multiple universes, as long as there's a Superbuddies or JLI dedicated one . . . *innocent smile*
no subject
It's also, clearly, somewhat less than the level of geekyness required to be me. :)
Mmmmmmm, Earth-JLI! They could, like, have annual team-ups with the other Justice Leagues and Societies! *g* It almost already exists, really, considering that I can't believe it's not the Justice League is not in *normal* continuity.
The Meta-Reality theory
I like the way Busiek (and to a degree, Gaiman) postulated it--essentially, every person in the DCU walks around in their own personal reality/hypertime. They travel/choose to interact with different realities on some meta-level. Some people (like the Phantom Stranger) are higher on the cosmic awareness level and can see/interact with more realities at a time (Sgt. Rock had very low cosmic awareness and only rarely interacted with wierd stuff). As they move through other realities, your VERY BEING can change. Hence, Phantom Stranger's first appearance is as a debunker of fake mysticism rather than a powerful mystic entity. The character's essential nature dictates the nature of reality and the 'story' being told, unless it is overpowered by someone else's reality, ie. Superman shows up/tries to interact with you.
This would make Constantine and Ollie older or younger *depending where they are and who they're around*.
There is a default universe (ours) common to all, but unless the wierder realities bump up against each other, everyone mysteriously forgets the denizens of them--explaining why Lucifer gets to use Alephs from Jack Kirby's Fourth World but the JLA never shows up to kick Lucifer's butt..
Re: The Meta-Reality theory
Interesting theory with the personal realities/hypertimes. It explains a lot of the DCU, though I've never seen it made explicit in the comics--where did Busiek express it?
Re: The Meta-Reality theory
Gaiman says it in the Books of Magic 2, when Tim Hunter meets Dr. Thirteen. Somebody says that for Dr. Thirteen the skeptic, none of that stuff *really* happens.
'Course, Morrison went and broke the rule in Zatanna 1. The only thing I haven't liked about his Seven Soldiers stuff.