You know what’s confusing, asks Comic Bloc? Everything not tying together:
“Okay, so we have New Earth which is the default DCU Earth. We also have the Earth depicted in the Wildstorm titles. On the horizon is the prospect of new stories set on Tangent Earth (hopefully with the Tangent trade dress). With this in mind I was under the impression that DC are considering stories set on Earths other than New Earth to potentially form new imprints. Was this correct or have I mis-read something? In turn, if that is the case will we see new imprints from DC do you think, with stories featuring characters set on Earths across the multiverse? Marvel already do two essentially standalone titles (Squadron Supreme, with supporting mini-series; and Newuniversal) – could and will DC follow suit and do this more widely in the wake of the 52 universes?”
“I’ve never really understood the idea that a company’s entire output must be part of one organic whole. If DC feels there’s a market for a Tangent series, they should just do one, and not spend time worrying about how it syncs up with Flash or whatever. Marvel seems to be falling into the same trap with Ultimate Power. So to answer your question – I hope so. I’d love to see more books that aren’t beholden to decades of DC continuity. I just hope that if they DO attempt books like that, they’ll let them stand alone rather than making them extensions of the existing titles.”
“With the exception of Wildstorm, DC handles the other 51 Earths under themselves. Personally, I think it’d be a waste of resources to have to make entire branches of the DC offices in order to run other Earths. I mean, we may get what? A maximum of 6 Earths that will have an ongoing set in them? If that? Nah. For the 52, you got Wildstorm and DC, and really that’s all you need.”
“I get the feeling all the discussion about ‘The 52′ is going to be a waste of energy by this time next year. I think we’re going to find out there’s much more than the 52 universe makeup of the current DCU. Maybe in Final Crisis, or Booster Gold? Remember, Booster discovers ‘The Megaverse’ whatever that will be. Hypertime under a new name?”
“megaverse = infinite 52 universe multiverses.”
Holy mother of God, 52 isn’t enough…?
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:04 am
They’ve got some fair points, though. I don’t really see the point in having specifically 52 Earths. If your universe isn’t going to interact with the other universes, then why bother making it one of the 52 universes in the first place? If they ARE all going to interact with one another, isn’t that going to be utterly chaotic? And the moment one of them crosses over with a universe outside the 52 – for example, the next time they do an intercompany crossover – you have the immediate question of what makes the 52 earths special.
It’s a cutesy little gimmick for a pay-off at the end of the 52 maxiseries, but as a long-term proposition it’s just an arbitrary number that combines all the disadvantages of infinite earths (too many, too unwieldy) with all the disadvantages of a small limit (too restrictive, too limiting).
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:45 am
I just take it one issue at a time. If I like the story, I end up happy. Like Jeph Loeb said, “Jimmy Olsen was never Robin, everything else is just gravy.”
August 3rd, 2007 at 1:55 pm
The Megaverse is going to be 52 Earths for each TIMELINE. Every time you time travel, you branch the timeline and now there are 104 Earths (52 in Timeline A and 52 in Timeline B). With any number of time travellers on any number of earths on any number of timelines, that creates infinite universes each containing 52 (or more or less depending on how any particular Crisis or Zero Hour works out) Earths.