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Over the years, there has been much controversy regarding the statistics and power-scaling of DC Comics' cosmic entities. As many of you know, we have been working on overhauling the DC cosmology for roughly two years now. First and foremost, we want to express our gratitude for the community's patience and understanding as we collaborated to create the most accurate representation that we could.
We have oriented the project around splitting the verse's cosmology, rather than the current "composite" approach. This wiki aims to create profiles for characters that accurately represent their abilities and scales of power. The problem we have run into regularly with DC Comics' cosmic entities is that, when drawing upon the enormous amount of tens of thousands of comics that have ever been printed for the verse since 1938, it is easy to string together a chain of scans from completely unrelated storylines, across several decades of continuity reboots, to scale a character in a way that is completely incompatible with their actual power in the stories.
We already split characters based on reboots (Pre-Crisis, Post-Crisis, N52, Rebirth), or individual storylines that take place in an alternate universe (Superman: Strange Visitor, One-Million). However, this model can't easily be applied to cosmic beings because they do not exist in specific universes. Just as the New 52 Superman (4-B) has an extremely different portrayal from that of the Strange Visitor Superman (Low 1-C), different eras and authors portray the cosmology in completely different ways that are being mashed together for scaling.
How the Divisions Work
Our approach is primarily (but not exclusively) focused on authorship. There is a trend of prominent authors creating their own personal "cosmological sandbox" when writing for DC Comics, and other authors who are writing tie-in comics will usually operate within that same sandbox with minimal changes. The cosmologies are named after the authors, but this does not mean only comics written by that specific author can be incorporated. It also does not mean every comic written by that author must be incorporated.
We recognize that there is no "one-size-fits-all" solution to this, and that the basis for where and when a setting diverges into a distinct new cosmology is, ultimately, subjective. This wiki is a living document that changes over time based on content revision threads. The models for DC's cosmology are no exception and merely represent the best efforts of the team that created them.
In that spirit, we want to emphasize that the specific discussions about how individual aspects of each cosmology should be described, or which cosmologies are distinct enough to separate, will take place in a separate thread after the basic split is approved. I.e., the specific details of where to draw the dividing lines and what each cosmology should look like is peripheral to whether or not we legitimize a split cosmology in the first place.
Exceptions and Narrative Relevance
Another important aspect that we want to highlight, so there is no confusion, is that these cosmology divisions represent "lines in the sand" about scaling and aren't meant to be interpreted as immovable walls. The focus is to change our "rule of thumb" about how we engage with these characters. As it currently stands, the default assumption is that all of DC Comics history is fair play for cosmic entities.
Under this new model, the starting assumption will be that characters are restricted in scaling to their immediate cosmology but that exception can be made in the case of clear narrative relevance. Meaning, even if a character is within a certain cosmology (based on the era a comic was written in, the author of that comic, or the storylines it is connected to, etc.), cross-scaling can still occur if there is clear and convincing evidence for this, rather than simply saying, "This scan from a 1999 Wildstorm comic says that there are roughly 200,000 spatial dimensions, and DC bought Wildstorm. Therefore, this DC character in 2019 is 1-B", or a comparable stretch.
This project's primary goal is to establish the foundational concept of splitting the cosmology to create ratings for characters that are faithful to their storylines and narrative surroundings.
We would greatly appreciate it if all staff members here carefully read all of our presented evidence and reasoning on the following page before you make any decisions. Again, it has taken us roughly two years to finish this project, so it would be very nice if the sheer effort involved is given appropriate consideration. Thank you very much in advance for any help.
https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:Antvasima/DC_Comics_Cosmology_Revision_Project
In addition, this revision constitutes a massive change in official guidelines. Given its controversy, we want to avoid giving rise to the likely unmanageable derailing, spam, and/or toxicity that would occur if several dozens of members offer their input. As such, this discussion is currently limited to staff members, non-staff who worked on this project, and knowledgeable non-staff members who have something genuinely important to say without derailing, using personal attacks, or engaging in toxicity. Regular members who break these rules will have their posts deleted, and likely be prevented from responding to this thread if they continue.
We have oriented the project around splitting the verse's cosmology, rather than the current "composite" approach. This wiki aims to create profiles for characters that accurately represent their abilities and scales of power. The problem we have run into regularly with DC Comics' cosmic entities is that, when drawing upon the enormous amount of tens of thousands of comics that have ever been printed for the verse since 1938, it is easy to string together a chain of scans from completely unrelated storylines, across several decades of continuity reboots, to scale a character in a way that is completely incompatible with their actual power in the stories.
We already split characters based on reboots (Pre-Crisis, Post-Crisis, N52, Rebirth), or individual storylines that take place in an alternate universe (Superman: Strange Visitor, One-Million). However, this model can't easily be applied to cosmic beings because they do not exist in specific universes. Just as the New 52 Superman (4-B) has an extremely different portrayal from that of the Strange Visitor Superman (Low 1-C), different eras and authors portray the cosmology in completely different ways that are being mashed together for scaling.
How the Divisions Work
Our approach is primarily (but not exclusively) focused on authorship. There is a trend of prominent authors creating their own personal "cosmological sandbox" when writing for DC Comics, and other authors who are writing tie-in comics will usually operate within that same sandbox with minimal changes. The cosmologies are named after the authors, but this does not mean only comics written by that specific author can be incorporated. It also does not mean every comic written by that author must be incorporated.
We recognize that there is no "one-size-fits-all" solution to this, and that the basis for where and when a setting diverges into a distinct new cosmology is, ultimately, subjective. This wiki is a living document that changes over time based on content revision threads. The models for DC's cosmology are no exception and merely represent the best efforts of the team that created them.
In that spirit, we want to emphasize that the specific discussions about how individual aspects of each cosmology should be described, or which cosmologies are distinct enough to separate, will take place in a separate thread after the basic split is approved. I.e., the specific details of where to draw the dividing lines and what each cosmology should look like is peripheral to whether or not we legitimize a split cosmology in the first place.
Exceptions and Narrative Relevance
Another important aspect that we want to highlight, so there is no confusion, is that these cosmology divisions represent "lines in the sand" about scaling and aren't meant to be interpreted as immovable walls. The focus is to change our "rule of thumb" about how we engage with these characters. As it currently stands, the default assumption is that all of DC Comics history is fair play for cosmic entities.
Under this new model, the starting assumption will be that characters are restricted in scaling to their immediate cosmology but that exception can be made in the case of clear narrative relevance. Meaning, even if a character is within a certain cosmology (based on the era a comic was written in, the author of that comic, or the storylines it is connected to, etc.), cross-scaling can still occur if there is clear and convincing evidence for this, rather than simply saying, "This scan from a 1999 Wildstorm comic says that there are roughly 200,000 spatial dimensions, and DC bought Wildstorm. Therefore, this DC character in 2019 is 1-B", or a comparable stretch.
This project's primary goal is to establish the foundational concept of splitting the cosmology to create ratings for characters that are faithful to their storylines and narrative surroundings.
We would greatly appreciate it if all staff members here carefully read all of our presented evidence and reasoning on the following page before you make any decisions. Again, it has taken us roughly two years to finish this project, so it would be very nice if the sheer effort involved is given appropriate consideration. Thank you very much in advance for any help.
https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:Antvasima/DC_Comics_Cosmology_Revision_Project
In addition, this revision constitutes a massive change in official guidelines. Given its controversy, we want to avoid giving rise to the likely unmanageable derailing, spam, and/or toxicity that would occur if several dozens of members offer their input. As such, this discussion is currently limited to staff members, non-staff who worked on this project, and knowledgeable non-staff members who have something genuinely important to say without derailing, using personal attacks, or engaging in toxicity. Regular members who break these rules will have their posts deleted, and likely be prevented from responding to this thread if they continue.
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