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DC comic continuity question

Started by Mr. Hog,

28 posts in this topic

Mr. Hog

Mr. Hog

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A boardie recently turned me on to some Golden Age DC. I'm having a good time retracing the old origin stories but it brought up some continuity questions I was hoping to get some insight into. I've spent 40 years reading Marvel. Outside of a few instinces that never really appealed to me, I've never, ever read DC... So my question, while probably so, so easy to explain, really eludes me. As I understand it, DC has had multiple universes that coexist - and for this question, let's focus on just Golden Age and silver to modern. Flash and Green Lantern have 2 very different sets of characters, with different origins but Batman and Supes have the same. How do they explain this? Are there also two theoretical Batman/Superman characters in the GA Flash/Green Lantern universes or do those characters fly above the fray? I honestly don't know wht the answer is... I assume like Timley, DCs superheroes went out of vogue... But Bats and Supes stayed... So how do they tie it all together?

 

 

Sorry for the first grade reader question... Insights would be helpful.

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Mr. Hog

Mr. Hog

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Was there always 1 superman and 1 batman or were there two also? Guess I look at the costumes which never seems to change... Vs names and costumes of green lantern and flash for example... What about Wonder Woman and Hawkman?

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Unca Ben

Unca Ben

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From what I remember reading when I was a kid (before I became a Marvel only fan)

it started out with the old Justice Society (Earth 2)members interacting with the "new" (Earth 1) 1960's JLA members. Guys like Dr. Fate, Mr Terrific, and the golden age Flash and Green Lantern, among others.

A little later (publishing wise), a Batman from Earth 2 (what the golden age character universe was referred to) came about.

 

I quit following DC and Justice League around that time but I'm pretty sure an Earth 2 Superman was also revealed. It might have been around the same time as the Earth 2 Batman. I don't remember.

 

So, to answer your question, yes there were 2 Batmen and Supermen, as well as Flash and Green lanterns (Atoms as well).

 

edit: this would have been when I was reading books during the mid to later '60s, DC could have retconned even more after that.

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Zonker

Zonker

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Right.

 

There have been at least 3 major continuity rewrites at DC.

 

Pre-Crisis. Earth 1 has the silver age versions. Earth 2 has the golden age characters. There is an Earth 2 Batman who married Catwoman and fathered the Huntress. He never had the yellow oval around the Bat symbol. There is an Earth 2 Superman whose costume is identical to his Earth 1 counterpart. Some details from the original golden age are kept for the Earth 2 Superman, such as he works as a reporter for the Daily Star rather than the Daily Planet. Likewise there were Earth 1 and Earth 2 Wonder Women, almost indistinguishable.

 

Post-Crisis. The Golden Age characters preceeded their Silver Age counterparts. There were only ever single instances of Superman & Batman, each first appearing recently (within the last 5 years of whenever the stories were published) Any of the Golden Age crossovers between Superman, Batman and the Justice Society either are ignored, or else Golden Age characters are retroactively written in to stand in for Superman & Batman. Wonder Woman's presence is a bigger problem, since she appeared in almost all the golden age Justice Society stories. John Byrne tried to fix this by having the JSA's Wonder Woman of the 1940s revealed to be Hippolyta, the mother of the present-day WW.

 

New 52. From what I can tell, this is a complete do-over. So no particular need to tie off with any previous stories. Apparently they have introduced a new Earth 2 but I couldn't tell you how it differs from previous concepts.

 

 

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lemonman5

lemonman5

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I think the flash is the only person aware of the previous earth before 52....

 

Flash explained the events of Flashpoint (which created the New 52 universe) to Batman, so Bruce seems to know, too. Its hard to tell what he knows exactly.

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Ares

Ares

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I think the flash is the only person aware of the previous earth before 52....

 

Flash explained the events of Flashpoint (which created the New 52 universe) to Batman, so Bruce seems to know, too. Its hard to tell what he knows exactly.

 

I think they knew for a while then memories faded.

Either that or he only remembers the Flashpoint war

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Buzzetta

Buzzetta

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I think the flash is the only person aware of the previous earth before 52....

 

Flash explained the events of Flashpoint (which created the New 52 universe) to Batman, so Bruce seems to know, too. Its hard to tell what he knows exactly.

 

I think they knew for a while then memories faded.

Either that or he only remembers the Flashpoint war

 

When was this?

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JAM_NYC

JAM_NYC

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I think the flash is the only person aware of the previous earth before 52....

 

Flash explained the events of Flashpoint (which created the New 52 universe) to Batman, so Bruce seems to know, too. Its hard to tell what he knows exactly.

 

I think they knew for a while then memories faded.

Either that or he only remembers the Flashpoint war

 

When was this?

End of Flashpoint. I think Batman still remembers what Flash told him. The letter from his dad is shown to be on display in an issue of Batman later on.

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wardevil0

wardevil0

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This was a huge help all. Thank you very much for taking the time to bring me up to speed.

 

Here are a few more details regarding your original question about Earth-2 Batman and Superman...

 

On Earth-2, Batman continued to age at a more normal rate, so he retired as Batman and eventually became police commissioner. He married Selina Kyle (Catwoman), and their daughter was Huntress (Helena Wayne). Eventually Bruce Wayne was forced to come out of retirement for one last mission as Batman, during which he died (for reals this time) in Adventure Comics 462.

 

On Earth-2, Superman worked for the Daily Star, not the Daily Planet, and generally continued to be the big blue boyscout. During the Crisis on Infinite Earths, he chose to step outside the universe to maintain some cosmic balance or something, along with Earth-2 Lois, Earth-Prime Superboy, and Earth-3 Alexander Luthor. Earth-Prime Superboy's dissatisfaction with "grim and gritty" dystopian comics led to Infinite Crisis, which returned Earth-2 Superman briefly to regular continuity.

 

The reason why so many characters have different origins is that for the Silver Age DC wanted to capture more of a science-fiction angle; thus Green Lantern is now a member of a space police force, Hawkman is a Thanagarian alien, Atom is a shrinking scientist, etc. There was no need to rewrite origins for SUperman and Batman, because those still worked under the mentality of kids in the post-Comics Code Authority, post-WWII, Cold War era.

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