DC's Multiverse Returns
Well, after spending the last year and a half taking the band-aid off one hair at a time, DC has finally taken the last hair off. The final issue of DC's interminable weekly soap, 52, reveals what the Infinite Crisis seemed to wimp out on, and what Brad Meltzer has been teasing us with in JLA: the multiverse is back.
If you're a fan of Earth 2 (where the original, golden age versions of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and their Justice Society, still exist), like me, you're in luck.
Earth-3--the mirror universe of DC mythology, where the heroes are villains and the villains are heroes--is also back.
Earth-4--where the characters acquired by DC from Charlton Comics (Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, The Question, etc) reside--is back. Earth-5--the Captain Marvel Family--is back. Etc etc.
So it's official: 22 years after it did away with the multiverse, DC has reversed the Crisis on Infinite Earths. *whew*
Way to go, DC!
I was really loving Infinite Crisis until it seemed to stop short of this, the logical conclusion of the story. I thought it was a tremendous wimp-out... And, while I'm relieved I was wrong about that, I'm still not wild about the daytime soap opera way we've been strung along--for a year--waiting for the other shoe to drop.
But still--better late than never. This is why JLA 0 featured a flash forward segment where the League grapples with Flash's discovery of "another earth."--Flash forward, not back. So, as much as 52 absolutely frames this as a restoration ("welcome home"), they're not bringing pre-Crisis continuity back so much as recreating the pre-Crisis premise, which lets them undertake new tellings of classic Earth-2 crossover stories ("Flash of Two Worlds," "Crisis on Two Earths," etc). And that sounds great to me.
I wonder if the pre-Crisis Legionnaires running around JLA and JSA at the moment are related to this, too. . . Taken together--the return of both the multiverse and the real Legion--I'm pretty happy with DC at the moment.
(I wouldn't mind seeing them do their own Ultimate-verse now... on Earth 50 or whatever...)
If you're a fan of Earth 2 (where the original, golden age versions of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and their Justice Society, still exist), like me, you're in luck.
Earth-3--the mirror universe of DC mythology, where the heroes are villains and the villains are heroes--is also back.
Earth-4--where the characters acquired by DC from Charlton Comics (Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, The Question, etc) reside--is back. Earth-5--the Captain Marvel Family--is back. Etc etc.
So it's official: 22 years after it did away with the multiverse, DC has reversed the Crisis on Infinite Earths. *whew*
Way to go, DC!
I was really loving Infinite Crisis until it seemed to stop short of this, the logical conclusion of the story. I thought it was a tremendous wimp-out... And, while I'm relieved I was wrong about that, I'm still not wild about the daytime soap opera way we've been strung along--for a year--waiting for the other shoe to drop.
But still--better late than never. This is why JLA 0 featured a flash forward segment where the League grapples with Flash's discovery of "another earth."--Flash forward, not back. So, as much as 52 absolutely frames this as a restoration ("welcome home"), they're not bringing pre-Crisis continuity back so much as recreating the pre-Crisis premise, which lets them undertake new tellings of classic Earth-2 crossover stories ("Flash of Two Worlds," "Crisis on Two Earths," etc). And that sounds great to me.
I wonder if the pre-Crisis Legionnaires running around JLA and JSA at the moment are related to this, too. . . Taken together--the return of both the multiverse and the real Legion--I'm pretty happy with DC at the moment.
(I wouldn't mind seeing them do their own Ultimate-verse now... on Earth 50 or whatever...)
Labels: comics, dc, multiverse
posted by Scott at 7:38 PM
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