Breaking! All past history will be canon in DC after DD Clock

[Owennoctis]

all the big events like COIE to Flashpoint will be on a straight linear timeline
Silver Age Superman is Modern Superman, DC canon history will be 1938 to present day

they should've done this a long time ago, I've been waiting for this for 10 years

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/10/04/new-dc-comics-continuity-timeline-nycc/

https://www.comicsbeat.com/nycc-19-dc-continuity/

 

[Antvasima]

This seems like an interesting development. Thanks for the information.

 

[Owennoctis]

This seems like an interesting development. Thanks for the information.

more concise info will be published after DD Clock 12 issue drops.

after this feat wise, characters past feats are the same as current, silver age superman is modern superman.

DC just got a tremendous boost

 

[Antvasima]

Let's wait and see if the timeline is genuinely identical first. I did not get that impression from the articles.

 

[Owennoctis]

I mean thats what DC is trying to do and what DDD said on twitter, all comic history from 1938 to now will be canon.

that's the whole point of establishing this timeline, to reverse the consequences of crisis reboots. all reboots are just another events now

but yes we can wait and see

 

[Antvasima]

Yes, that seems best. Wonder Woman will now be the first Superhero in DC, which is not true to the original history for example, and Superman does not work if he has been active since 1938, so that seems unlikely.

 

[FanofRPGs]

Would that explain why Rebirth Superman has been getting crazier feats?

 

[The_Impress]

Does this damage our scaling in any way?

 

[ShadowWhoWalks]

Dan DiDio said that they aim to create a consistent timeline to avoid reboots and retcons, and that the timeline will reintroduce [some] aspects and concepts from all of DC's history; so they are not literally making all Silver Age feats canon, but will take inspiration from the iconic events when making the timeline.

It sounds like a 'reboot to end all reboots' that will be used for the foreseeable future, and it is about time.


So the new canon timeline will be split into four eras:

Dawn of the Heroic Age: Wonder Woman arrives in Man's World before World War II

The Space Age: Superman debuts (from the name, sounds like it starts in the 50s or 60s)

The Age of Crisis: Covers events between the 1985 Crisis on Infinite Earths, and 2011's Flashpoint

Current Era: Post Flashpoint

 

[Antvasima]

I hope that Geoff Johnns and Grant Morrison are involved in mapping out the history. They are good at that sort of thing.

I am also very tired of the constant reboots.

 

[FanofRPGs]

I hope that Geoff Johnns and Grant Morrison are involved in mapping out the history. They are good at that sort of thing.
I am also very tired of the constant reboots.

Given what is possibly going to happen with DC comics, there will be no more retcons or reboots

 

[Antvasima]

True enough. Dan Didio has driven them to the brink of being shut down.

 

[FanofRPGs]

As much as I disliked how much Superman and the Justice League was getting wanked up by Grant Morrison, he knew how to respect the wonder of the characters and the multiverse. Now we get dumb stuff like "The Ultra Monitor," meanwhile Infinity Ending sounds pretty cool

 

[Ionliosite]

Wait, DC is rebooting its reboots and making all its rich history canon again? Am I dreaming? Did I die and reached heaven? This is something I have been wishing for years (and I believed Rebirth was the closest I was getting to it). I agree with Ant, I think Johns will be involved since he's the one who wrote Doomsday Clock, so I'll pray for Morrison to join this.

 

[Antvasima]

Infinity Ending is out on Comixology btw, but has not been released on *************** yet.

 

[FanofRPGs]

Infinity Ending is out on Comixology btw, but has not been released on *************** yet.

I am still wondering how we will tier it. Will we do what we did with Thanos: The End and just assume they are High 1-B or just ignore it?

Also, does Earth 1 and 2 Superman still exist as separate entities for Post Crisis/Rebirth Superman?

 

[Antvasima]

I thought that we consider the Above-All-Others as a 1-A avatar.

 

[FanofRPGs]

I thought that we consider the Above-All-Others as a 1-A avatar.

It's weird. Starlin really must not like the cosmology other writers espous.

 

[Antvasima]

Yes, he has his own version that is arguably far less powerful than our Marvel tiering.

 

[FanofRPGs]

Which is weird, because his relics, ignoring the cosmology of the verse, do far more impressive looking things

 

[Ionliosite]

Also, it says the story goes from 1938 to the present? So DC is finally confirming Superman and Batman never age for some reason?

 

[AnonymousBlank]

Nah, they age. Just very slowly.

 

[ShadowWhoWalks]

My guess is that Superman ages veeery slowly due to Kryptonian physiology, as for the other characters who age and don't want to use magic we eventually get wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff if they get too old. So while they are no retcons, the main timeline changes to one where the characters are younger.

 

[Antvasima]

I think that they will use compressed continuity for their history, similar to Marvel Comics, as all of Superman's supporting cast would end up dead otherwise.

 

[Owennoctis]

Dan DiDio said that they aim to create a consistent timeline to avoid reboots and retcons, and that the timeline will reintroduce [some] aspects and concepts from all of DC's history; so they are not literally making all Silver Age feats canon, but will take inspiration from the iconic events when making the timeline.
It sounds like a 'reboot to end all reboots' that will be used for the foreseeable future, and it is about time.

you are wrong, it's not reintroduction

everything happened before, happened

new gods and higher dimension beings always know about all the crisis and saw everything unfold before there eyes. it's just that most 3rd dimensional beings are unaware of it. but some still have the memories like psycho pirate

we already got the foreshadowing in doomsday clock 10 when doctor manhattan saw superman's past history from 1938 till now. Manhattan literally spelled it out that it's the same person, in the same Universe [the Metaverse]. He spent a whole issue going through golden age, silver age, post crisis, and post-flashpoint of Supes as one being.

Manhattan showed us that everything from Superman and DC's past can still be accessed. That means it still exists in the timestream. Now it's just a matter of Superman himself remembering it all. it's very likely that superman will remember everything that happened to him from the beginning in the final issue of doomsday clock, and since superman is the center of the metaverse his connection to everyone will make everybody else remember everything that happened before each crisis too.

so NO it's not a reboot (literally the motto of rebirth), the whole point of this is to connect everything that happened each era to a consistenly linear timeline

even if there will be contradictions of origin stories, that's problems for later

 

[ShadowWhoWalks]

@Owennoctis

I mean "reintorduce" was the term Didio used, and he said that he wants consistency not contradiction. At most, Superman of the Metaverse remembers the origin stories that Doctor Manhattan and other multidimensional beings induced through timeline manipulation; it is far from confirmed to be a 1:1 to all of DC's publishing history. I don't think it is mentioned that multiple Metaverse Supermen or multiple Metaverse timelines exist simultaneously either.

To summarize the events: Doctor Manhattan discovers that Superman is the center of a certain universe, and this remains the case even after he reality wraps Supes origin story multiple time, and learsn that this particular universe [the Metaverse] is not actually part of the multiverse but is highly influential on the multiverse and every world in it. So it is not that Superman = the Metaverse, but that the Metaverse is a "Universe of Hope" that is centered around Superman and the multiverse reacts to this particular universe.

When Manhattan mentioned that the Metaverse is not passive and that it has become aware of his manipulation, we are shown that the Flash figured out what Manhattan is doing and warns him that the others will stop him. When he mentions that the metaverse has turned against him, he gets a vision where Superman fights him and "He destroys me or I destroy the Metaverse". After he inserts himself with the Watchmen plot into the Metaverse, Manhattan's thoughts are "I am a being of inaction on a collision course with a Man of Action [Superman]. To this universe of hope... I have become the villain."

Bleeding Cool had people squeeze their eyes to make a partial transcript for the timeline of the first three eras by the way:

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/10/04/wonder-woman-first-superhero-dc-universe-25-years-timeline/

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/10/05/justice-league-of-america-second-generation-new-dc-timeline/

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/1...obin-third-generation-new-dc-comics-timeline/

So Wonder Woman debuts before several superheroes do and they form the Justice Society of America; Superman is old and has been superheroing in secret but was known as "Superboy"; superheroes get banned in the US and the superheroes retire; Superman and Batman debut around the same time years later.

 

[Antvasima]

Possibly some bad news:

https://boundingintocomics.com/2019...acters-new-identities-via-crisis-level-event/

It seems like Dan Didio may plan to use this new status quo to replace the main DC superheroes with younger successors, and as he said earlier, they are going to stick with this approach in the long run.

 

[The_Impress]

I'm not familiar with the characters, personality-wise, so I can't comment on them personally, but I personally don't see a reason to do this. DC characters always felt ageless anyhow, so there seems no reason on why one should do this except for pandering.

Maybe because she was kinda tan, but I legit used to assume Wonder Woman was of color when I was younger, and Clark is always a somewhat more approachable character than Jonathan, so I don't exactly see a reason to replace them from a writer's perspective anyhow... can see it from a business standpoint though.

At least in Marvel's scenario, the original superheroes went through so much evolution and change in their entire history, ending up as quite different characters overtime, that it seemed like a natural progression for them to hang up their coats, and seeing them in roles such as mentors and even inspirations was an interesting experience. Characters in DC maintain their nature in their stories, and their pull was seeing such iconic personalities react to situations they hadn't experienced, so replacing them is somewhat unnecessary and counter-productive IMO

 

[Standuser081]

I don't mind DC introducing new characters, but "replace"? As in remove beloved characters whom fans have adored for decades in favor of no-name teenagers that seem like Teen Titan rejects? Wtf DC and DiDio

 

[Antvasima]

We do not know for certain if this is correct yet, but I obviously agree.