{"id":2781,"date":"2010-02-17T07:00:52","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T12:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/?p=2781"},"modified":"2010-02-17T08:40:55","modified_gmt":"2010-02-17T13:40:55","slug":"my-love-hate-relationship-with-dcs-multiverse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/2010\/02\/17\/my-love-hate-relationship-with-dcs-multiverse\/","title":{"rendered":"My Love-Hate Relationship with DC’s Multiverse"},"content":{"rendered":"

The multiverse is one of my favorite aspects of DC Comics, but it’s also one of my least favorite.\u00a0 I found myself thinking about this after yesterday’s post on Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

My first exposure to the multiverse was in the 1979 issue Justice League of America<\/em> #171, “The Murderer Among Us: Crisis above Earth-One!”\u00a0 The comic was a gift from my older sister and I must have read it a million times.\u00a0 It was one of the first superhero comic books I ever owned.\u00a0 Remember being seven years old and reading the same comic over and over until it literally fell apart?\u00a0 I watch my kids do that nowadays and it brings a smile to my face.<\/p>\n

\"Justice<\/p>\n

This issue was one of those classic JLA\/JSA annual crossovers by Gerry Conway and Dick Dillin.\u00a0 Having watched numerous episodes of the Super Friends<\/em>, I was already familiar with most of the JLA.\u00a0 However, these strange doppelgangers called the Justice Society of America were confusing to me.\u00a0 I didn’t understand why there were two guys both named Hawkman.\u00a0 They looked similar and had the same powers, but were different folks.\u00a0 Hmmm… now what about these Green Lanterns and Flashes?\u00a0 They didn’t look similar at all and yet they shared the same name and powers.\u00a0 Weird.\u00a0 So I went back and re-read the first page several times until I began to grasp that two parallel Earths existed at different vibrational frequencies.\u00a0 Once I got it, I thought that was pretty cool!<\/p>\n

In this issue, Golden Age hero Mr. Terrific was murdered!\u00a0 After an investigation it was determined that the murder was committed by a member of the JLA or JSA!\u00a0 But who?!?!\u00a0 I was kept in suspense for nearly 15 years.\u00a0 It took that long before I managed to get my hands on a copy of issue #172.\u00a0 Sorry, I can’t tell you who the murderer was.\u00a0 I don’t want to spoil it for you.<\/p>\n

So there I was, officially indoctrinated into the philosophy of the multiverse.\u00a0 In particular, I was fascinated by Doctor Fate and the Alan Scott Green Lantern.\u00a0 Sadly it would be another six years until I encountered a multiverse crossover again.\u00a0 It was 1985 and I was buying some comics for a long road trip.\u00a0 I was already a Marvel zombie by this point, having read Secret Wars<\/em>, Uncanny X-Men<\/em>, Power Pack<\/em>, and many more.\u00a0 The only DC comics I was buying at the time were The Fury of Firestorm<\/em> and Blue Devil<\/em>.\u00a0 While looking for road trip reading material I spied Crisis on Infinite Earths<\/em> #7 on the shelf of the local drug store.\u00a0 It featured both Firestorm and Blue Devil on the cover so I decided to give it a try.\u00a0 Little did I realize at the time that I was opening a door into a whole new level of comic geekdom.<\/p>\n

\"Crisis<\/p>\n

I was instantly hooked.\u00a0 As we made our way across the country, I searched for other issues of Crisis <\/em>at every stop.\u00a0 I began making lists of all the characters, categorizing them by the Earth they came from.\u00a0 While Secret Wars<\/em> vol I #2 may have started me on the path of collecting comics<\/a>, Crisis on Infinite Earths<\/em> #7 started me on the path of comic book fanaticism. It was my gateway drug into the DC pantheon of characters.\u00a0 Then I started picking up Who’s Who<\/em>, devouring each issue and learning more about obscure characters and further worlds in the multiverse.\u00a0 There was no turning back after that.<\/p>\n

Crisis on Infinite Earths<\/em> brought the multiverse to a close in 1986.\u00a0 Around that time I began buying back issues featuring old cross-world adventures.\u00a0 In particular the All-Star Squadron<\/em> and the annual JLA\/JSA crossovers were some of my favorites.\u00a0 The story “Crisis on Earth-Prime” which ran through both Justice League of America<\/em> and the All-Star Squadron<\/em> is still one of my all-time favorite multiverse stories.\u00a0 Curiosity drove my interest in these old adventures.\u00a0 I was starting to appreciate the legacy of the Golden Age to the Silver Age, so I was intensely curious about the JSA.\u00a0 Also, it was fun to read some of those kooky Silver and Bronze Age tales.\u00a0 A fair number of the multiverse stories were just plain far-fetched and the resolutions were sometimes hilariously out of left field.<\/p>\n

Since I started with DC hardcore in 1985, I was pretty much a post-Crisis <\/em>reader (or a Tween-Crisis<\/em> reader<\/a> if you like).\u00a0 Any story I read featuring the multiverse was a back issue and was read with the benefit of hindsight. I grew comfortable with the idea that the multiverse was a thing of the past.\u00a0 When DC started publishing Elseworlds<\/em> in the late 1980s, I was fine with it.\u00a0 After all, these were basically DC’s answer to Marvel’s What If<\/em>.\u00a0 By the mid-90s I was reading the majority of DC’s superhero line.\u00a0 I felt invested in the DCU as it existed at that time.\u00a0 Many of my favorite titles used formerly-multiverse aspects incorporated into the singular continuity like the JSA, the Shazam family, Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Huntress, Power Girl, and more.<\/p>\n

After thirteen years in the grave, Mark Waid resurrected the multiverse in the 1999 mini-series The Kingdom<\/em>.\u00a0 This time around they called it “hypertime” instead of the “multiverse”.\u00a0 I was ticked!\u00a0 How dare they bring back the multiverse after all this time?!?!\u00a0 Were they simply throwing away the past 13 years of continuity and resetting everything to the Pre-Crisis<\/em> status quo?\u00a0 It quickly became obvious that wasn’t the case.\u00a0 Hypertime was introduced simply to provide some freedom to the writers to tell different stories.\u00a0 While hypertime was used occasionally (i.e. Superboy in “Hypertension” and the graphic novel JLA: Earth-2<\/em>), it quietly faded into the background.\u00a0 I eventually accepted the seldom-used hypertime and became comfortable once again in my Post-Crisis <\/em>dominion over the DC Universe.<\/p>\n

Then in 2005 Infinite Crisis<\/em> came along.\u00a0 Here we were again, 19 years after saying goodbye to the multiverse it was being dragged back into existence and to a place of prominence in the DC Universe… oh wait, I guess I gotta say DC Multiverse.\u00a0 Once again I was ticked.\u00a0 I felt like the writers were coping-out by resetting everything to the way it was when they started reading in the 70s and early 80s.\u00a0 They were bringing back the elements from an era they felt comfortable with.\u00a0 Didn’t they understand, this wasn’t about their comfort zone, it was about mine!<\/p>\n

Admittedly my outrage was over the top.\u00a0 While my emotions were strong, I had my reasons.\u00a0 First, I felt betrayed.\u00a0 I felt the past 19 years I invested in reading DC Comics was wasted.\u00a0 The universe I’d come to know in-and-out was being chucked in favor of a multiverse that existed back when Loni Anderson was a sex symbol and disco was cool.\u00a0 Second, while I love the old multiverse stories, many of them really don’t hold up under a critical eye.\u00a0 My love for these multiverse adventures comes from a sense of nostalgia rather than from the quality of the writing.\u00a0 Often the old multi-Earth plots were outlandish and more for fun than serious storytelling. \u00a0 Third, I was concerned about the quality of new stories that would be written using the multiverse concept.\u00a0 If the old ones were often weak, what guarantee existed that new ones would be any better?<\/p>\n

Okay, so the last 19 years of DC continuity didn’t get chucked.\u00a0 However, given the quality of Countdown<\/em> and Final Crisis<\/em> stories and tie-ins, I feel my concern about modern multiverse adventures was merited.\u00a0 Countdown<\/em> was an abysmal train wreck of a series.\u00a0 An overall direction for the series was non-existent, the individual stories were weak, and it was far too dependent upon multiverse-hopping.\u00a0 Like any series, there were certain moments in Countdown<\/em> that were good, but those moments were few and far between.\u00a0 In all fairness, not all modern-day multiverse stories have been bad.\u00a0 Geoff Johns has written some really good Justice Society of America <\/em>multiverse adventures, like the one featuring the Justice Society Infinity.\u00a0 However, those good stories are the exception and are heavily outweighed by the bad ones (who isn’t sick of Superboy-Prime?).<\/p>\n

\"Countdown<\/p>\n

So far, the modern-day multiverse stories have been a let down.\u00a0 Would the DC Uni-\/Multi-verse have been better without the reintroduction?\u00a0 Has the return of the multiverse really brought anything fantastic?\u00a0 Sure I’m glad to see Earth-2 Superman up and around again, but have they actually told any really good stories with him since bringing him back?\u00a0 I don’t think so.<\/p>\n

Call me a stick in the mud, but I’m really disappointed with the return of the multiverse.\u00a0 However, the old school multiverse stories will always have a place in my heart, even if it’s as ridiculous as the Super-Sons of Superman and Batman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tell the world about ONCE UPON A GEEK:<\/h3>