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149-558: Beyond the main continuity, the DC Multiverse encompasses all alternate realities within DC Comics. The primary universe has been known by various names over time, with recent designations including "Prime Earth" or "Earth 0" (distinct from " Earth Prime "). The DC Universe and its alternate realities have been adapted across multiple media, including film serials , radio dramas , and modern films, with ongoing efforts to address

298-639: A "DCU logo on them" in addition to corner boxes with icons of the characters to help identify the family of titles; titles outside the DCU, such as Injustice: Gods Among Us and DC Bombshells would simply have the DC logo on them. DiDio also added that the Young Animal imprint would continue as a separate line of titles. In 2021, DC announced a line-wide relaunch of ongoing monthly superhero comic book titles. A number of miniseries and one-shots were also announced. It

447-673: A "Justice Configuration", isolated from the wider Omniverse. Eventually, it would be judged, and if found to still be tainted with the violence of its beginning, it would be destroyed. As told in Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, the DC Universe was a single positive matter Universe until a scientist named Krona from the planet Oa altered the very moment of the creation of the Universe, causing it to split into countless similar universes and an antimatter universe. Oa, however, had no duplicates in

596-642: A Multiverse of its own: the universe of Earth-616 in the Marvel Multiverse. The universes were rarely referred to with specific names within the stories but were named in the "Real World" (both officially and unofficially) using the name of the editorial, imprint or even an element in particular. While in the comic books the concept of a "real" Multiverse was avoided, the Multiverse played an important role in cartoon series and live-action shows. In summary, from 1986 to 1999, everything not happening in

745-515: A captive, watched as Monarch killed the Dove in front of his own eyes. Being created as two beings whose natures were supposed to be in balance, Hank became enraged when his partner's pacifist nature could no longer contain his warlike spirit. He beat Monarch to death, only to learn the horrible truth: he was the one who would be the Monarch of the future. Upon seeing Monarch's dead body and the device he

894-412: A continuity issue. This revelation was extremely unpopular among both fans and professionals , in part because of the continuity issue mentioned above and the disregard for the clues placed in previous issues. Additionally, it required Hawk to behave in ways that many felt to be out of character . This also made it impossible to continue using either Hawk or Dove as they had in the past and necessitated

1043-514: A device that will awaken them when it senses Captain Atom. Once awake, Monarch follows Atom through Nero's Rome, the "Old West" (approx. late 1890s), and finally into World War II (estimated near 1945 - as they are testing atomic power). In the World War II era, they stumble onto an atomic test (which Atom is aware of, but Monarch is not) and Atom is blasted into the present, while Monarch's fate

1192-675: A few examples. These 'beings' are most often created by individuals who possess vast intellects, like scientists Professor T.O. Morrow (maker of the Red Tornado), Dr. Will Magnus (who constructed the Metal Men) and Professor Ivo (who fabricated Amazo and other advanced androids using a form of Nano-technology developed by Lexcorp). Brainiac also emulates this technology as well as technology from other worlds. Similarly, some characters use technology to enhance their armor or modify cybernetic functions, for example Steel , Cyborg and

1341-585: A fictional character. The success of this story led to the first team crossover between the new Justice League of America (JLA) and the Golden Age JSA, in the stories "Crisis on Earth-One" ( Justice League of America #21) and "Crisis on Earth-Two" ( Justice League of America #22), published in late 1963. This story arc started the tradition of a yearly crossover between the JLA and the JSA, and established firmly

1490-399: A focal point among all the worlds in every universe). Some of the heroes of Earth knew about other Earths and their own counterparts and fought side by side on many occasions. Later, a scientist from one universe named Kell Mossa (known initially only as Pariah ) created another device that would allow him to attempt the same thing Krona had attempted before. His actions accidentally awakened

1639-553: A kind of Valhalla for deceased speedsters. The Flash: Rebirth reveals that Barry Allen is a living generator of the Speed Force ever since the accident that transformed him into the Flash. It is possible to travel in time in this universe by several means, including moving faster than the speed of light. The Legion of Super-Heroes from 1,000 years into the future in particular have access to time-travel technology (although

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1788-481: A large number of them are humanoid, even human-like, in form (such as Kryptonians, who outwardly appear identical to Earth-born humans); some can even interbreed with Terrans. Some of these races have natural superpowers, but they are usually the same for all individuals of the same race, unlike Earth's metahumans. This was explained by the fact that in Earth's distant past Martians experimented on humanity, severely culling

1937-595: A more wary approach, however. Back during World War II they started "Project M" to create experimental soldiers to fight in the war, such as the Creature Commandos . Most of these experiments remain a secret to the public. Currently, the government deals with metahumans and similar beings through its Department of Extranormal Operations (DEO), and more recently A.R.G.U.S. Covertly, they use an organization of costumed (but non-superhuman) agents known as " Checkmate ". The government also formed Task Force X (known as

2086-516: A multitude of futures to the point Waverider comments "No matter the future they fought him but never became him"; Waverider finally touches both Hawk and Dove to see their daughter Unity alter Monarch's mind. In Armageddon 2001 #2, in a subsequent battle with the Justice League, Monarch retreated, taking Dawn Granger , the current Dove , with him. Hank Hall (the Hawk ), who was also

2235-462: A new Multiverse was created. The new Multiverse consisted of 52 positive matter universes, an Antimatter Universe and a Limbo. The main continuity still occurred in New Earth (also called Earth-0), Earths 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10 resembled Earths One, Two, Three, Four, S, and X of the original Multiverse respectively. Earths 13 and 50 were Vertigo and the rebooted Wildstorm Universe, while Earth-17 became

2384-772: A plague. Even the Almeracian Empire was victim to impending destruction by Imperiex . Order is kept around the galaxy by the Guardians of the Universe and their agents, the Green Lantern Corps . Rival peacekeeping organizations include the Darkstars (created by the Guardians' rivals, the Controllers ) and the interplanetary mercenary organization L.E.G.I.O.N. Criminal organizations include

2533-480: A portal that sent both of them back in time to the Age of Dinosaurs . When hostile aliens encounter Monarch and Atom in the past (sometime between 230 and 65 million years ago), they attempted to enlist both (without either's knowledge) to assist them in creating a wormhole. The wormhole's creation would destroy the universe in which the primitive Earth existed, but would allow the aliens to freely travel. The creation of

2682-492: A reboot of the Multiverse termed "5G", which would have fixed all of DC's publishing history into a single coherent continuity, stretching from World War II to the present day, with stories going forward focussing on new characters or aged versions of current ones. "A Brave New World", intended to be the first story set in this continuity, was published in Wonder Woman #750. This reboot was cancelled due to delays caused by

2831-436: A result, almost once per decade since the 1980s, the DC Universe experiences a major crisis that allows any number of changes from new versions of characters to appear as a whole reboot of the universe, restarting nominally all the characters into a new and modernized version of their lives. Meanwhile, DC has published occasional stories called Elseworlds , which often presented alternate versions of its characters. One told

2980-520: A ripple effect that affected several past events, Earth-13 (Vertigo Universe) and Earth-50 (new Wildstorm Universe). Similar to the result of Crisis on Infinite Earths , a new mainstream Earth is created from the former three, with a whole new history. Most of the stories have been retold anew but certain events of New Earth remain (such as Batgirl being crippled by the Joker). Since it was established after Infinite Crisis that if something ever happened to

3129-581: A single unnamed universe with a single history. However, not all the books rebooted post-Crisis. For example, the Legion of Superheroes book acted as if the Pre-Crisis Earth-1 history was still their past, a point driven home in the Cosmic Boy miniseries . It also removed the mechanism DC had been using to deal with continuity glitches or storylines that a later writer wanted to ignore (which

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3278-518: A special publishing deal with Milestone Media , DC Comics published a new series of comic books that told the stories of the heroes living in Dakota City , formed mostly by African American superheroes and other minorities. These characters lived in a universe separated from the DC Universe (known as the Dakotaverse or Milestone Universe). The event known as Worlds Collide presented one of

3427-486: A storm of temporal energy that opened a gate to the future through which Monarch emerged. Monarch, it seems, had been monitoring Waverider's every move in the past ever since he left the future and merely waited for the perfect time to travel back and stop him from erasing his existence. In Hawk and Dove Annual #2, Waverider looked into Hank Hall's future to see him fight and die at the hands of Monarch in 2001. The Dove's power interacts with Waverider's, allowing him to see

3576-680: A twice-monthly release schedule, a number of existing titles relaunching with new #1s, and the release of several new titles. DC has used the Green Lantern: Rebirth and The Flash: Rebirth miniseries as examples of the basis for the initiative, which has been described as a rebirth of the DC Universe. The DC Rebirth initiative will reintroduce concepts from pre- Flashpoint continuity, such as legacy, that have been lost with The New 52 and build "on everything that's been published since Action Comics #1 up thru The New 52." In October 2017, DC revealed that they would be discontinuing

3725-491: A twin world existing alongside Earth with duplicates of everyone but with a different development. The concept of different versions of the world and its heroes was revisited in the pages of Wonder Woman a few times later. Led by editor Julius Schwartz and writer Gardner Fox, DC Comics' superheroes were given a "reboot" with the publication of Showcase #4 in 1956, where a new version of the Flash made his first appearance. This

3874-594: A very important ingredient within DC Comics' publications. It helped (among other things) to explain continuity errors, to retell and retcon stories, and to incorporate foreign elements that could actively interact with everything else and allow them to have an "existence". Continuity flaws between the established Earth-Two and several stories from the Golden Age were given separate Earths. "Imaginary" stories and sometime divergences of Earth-One were given also separate realities (such as Earth-B and Earth-A). In addition to

4023-403: A way to explain apparent inconsistencies in stories written, editors at DC came to consider the varied continuity of multiple Earths too difficult to keep track of, and feared that it was an obstacle to accessibility for new readers. To address this, they published the cross-universe miniseries Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985, which merged universes and characters, reducing the Multiverse to

4172-767: Is also collectively known as the Dominion. Other aliens in the outlying galaxies control armadas like the Khunds, Gordanians, Thanagarians, Spider Guild and, most recently, the Reach. Even though the majority of the DC Universe is policed by the Green Lantern Corps, and later the United Planets , most rogue races strive to conquer the known universe. One oddity is the Vegan star system. Due to an arrangement with

4321-460: Is available - but it is usually very expensive, and usually only rich or powerful individuals and organizations (or the scientific geniuses who create them) have access to them. S.T.A.R. Labs is an independent research outfit that often develops these devices, while Lexcorp is the main company selling them. The government also runs the secret Project Cadmus (located in the mountains near Metropolis) to develop clones and genetic manipulation without

4470-516: Is considered the beginning period of the Silver Age of Comic Books . The success of this new Flash led to the creation of new incarnations of the Golden Age characters who only shared the names and powers but had different secret identities, origins and stories. Later, new versions of other heroes, Superman , Batman and Wonder Woman, were also restarted by retelling their origins but keeping their secret identities. Gardner Fox, who worked before in

4619-737: Is defeated, but the Source Wall at the boundary of the Multiverse is cracked and the Batman Who Laughs manages to escape into the main DC Universe. The story is continued in Justice League . In Snyder's run on Justice League , the crack in the Source Wall allows the Totality, a small meteorite bearing immense power, to enter the Multiverse from the Source beyond. Lex Luthor retrieves the Totality and eventually frees Perpetua,

DC Universe - Misplaced Pages Continue

4768-480: Is destroyed except for five Earths (the Silver Age 's Earth-One, the Golden Age 's Earth-Two, Charlton Comics ' Earth-Four, Fawcett Comics ' Earth-S and Quality Comics ' Freedom Fighters' Earth-X). Later, the universe is recreated as one single universe from those five. The crossover event Convergence (2015) officially retconned the events of Crisis after heroes in that series went back in time to prevent

4917-491: Is drawn. As well, certain dimensions function as crossover opportunities for heroes from different comic book companies to interact, either from competing companies, or from companies absorbed by competitors. The most notable example of the first kind of crossover has been between DC Comics and Marvel Comics , and the latter with Wildstorm Comics . An example of the latter kind of crossover would be DC's acquisition of Fawcett Comics , Quality Comics , and Charlton Comics and

5066-513: Is how Earths B and E came into existence) resulting in a convoluted explanation for characters like Hawkman. The Zero Hour limited series (1994) gave them an opportunity to revise timelines and rewrite the DC Universe history. However this failed right out of the gate as the writers had Waverider state all alternate histories had been wiped and yet have the Armageddon 2001 saga in the timeline which required multiple timelines to work. As

5215-452: Is left unknown. At some point during the crossover it was revealed Captain Atom would be the hero who became Monarch. The conclusion of the Annual for Justice League Europe , the final crossover issue before the conclusion of the story, seemed to confirm this leak. Waverider had seen the futures of various Justice League Europe members but had not scanned Captain Atom, who was away at

5364-457: Is once again recreated by higher beings from the Source, with Wonder Woman ascending alongside them to protect it. The New 52/Rebirth multiverse is restored largely as it was prior to the events of Dark Nights: Death Metal . As well as this, a new infinite web of multiverses appears, the Multiverse developing into an Omniverse. It is established that all events in DC's publishing history have occurred within this new Omniverse, with characters gaining

5513-483: Is only because most monsters play a less substantial role in the DC Universe. The plot-lines of Dinosaur Island and Skartaris are but a few examples of the experiments the DC universe contrives, yet its role in DC comics are played down when in comparison to other companies, therefore they are included as being a race from Earth. An easternized influence is more evident in most Marvel Comics literature, while DC Comics are exaggerated, under-influenced or sustained into

5662-529: Is part of a larger DC Universe and DC Multiverse . Originally created from the First Crisis , it was allegedly erased from existence because of the Flashpoint – Convergence effect, being replaced by " Prime Earth ". By the end of the storyline Superman Reborn , the timelines of New Earth and Prime Earth have realigned into one single reality. Many of the superhumans on Earth owe their powers to

5811-420: Is that Waverider had seen Hank Hall fight and die against Monarch and that the Dove had allowed him to see so many futures as to conclude "No matter the future they fought him but never became him", making Hank Hall and Dawn Granger the only two heroes Monarch could not be. They were the only characters shown in this situation, and thus any of the other major characters could have been Monarch without creating

5960-553: Is the Secret Society of Super Villains of which there have been several versions. Most villain teams are usually small, having been formed of individuals who know each other personally, such as the Central City Rogues , or have some other reason to work together (mercenary groups like the H.I.V.E. , fanatical cults such as Kobra , etc.). Technology more advanced than that which currently exists in real life

6109-581: Is the follow-up to the DC Rebirth relaunch. In late 2022, DC announced a new line-wide initiative titled the Dawn Of DC. The Dawn of DC is a year long story telling initiative with various new, ongoing and limited series. The Dawn of DC titles received a new trade dress. The initiative meant to change the tone for the DC universe into something brighter and lighter, as well as creating more inter-connectivity between multiple series. The basic concept of

DC Universe - Misplaced Pages Continue

6258-432: Is too powerful in the physical world, where harnessing magic can distort and even destroy reality if not properly controlled (e.g., if a Lord of Order succumbs to certain events, so will a Lord of Chaos). There are several types of cosmic entities, such as: The DC Universe is composed of a number of different dimensional planes , most notably parallel Earths (see Multiverse ), but the latter were eliminated when reality

6407-780: The All-Star Squadron to protect the United States from the Axis powers . However, due to a magical spell cast by Adolf Hitler (using the Spear of Destiny and the Holy Grail ) the most powerful heroes were unable to enter Axis-held territories, leaving the offensive portion of the war to be fought mainly by normal humans such as Sgt. Rock while the superheroes participated in defensive activities in Allied territories. After

6556-532: The COVID-19 pandemic and the firing of publisher Dan DiDio, who was the main architect of 5G. The original plans for 5G were recycled into the Future State event, which followed Dark Nights: Death Metal . Dark Nights: Death Metal and its companion comics act as a conclusion to Dark Nights: Metal , Flash Forward and Scott Snyder's run on Justice League . Perpetua destroys much of the Multiverse while

6705-571: The Cyborg Superman . There are a few intelligent races living on Earth that the public at large did not know about until recent times. Among these are the Amazons of Themyscira and Bana-Mighdall and the last survivors of Atlantis, who changed themselves into water-breathing forms, including the human-like Poseidonians and the mermaid-like Tritonians. Other species, such as Warworlders , were brief test subjects of Project Cadmus who fled to

6854-524: The DC Comics media, the Multiverse is a "cosmic construct" that is composed of the many fictional universes the stories of DC media take place in. The worlds within the multiverse share a space and fate in common, and its structure has changed several times in the history of DC Comics. The concept of a universe and a multiverse in which the fictional stories take place was loosely established during

7003-596: The Elseworlds imprint. None of these stories were ever intended to be included in the "real" continuity of the DC Universe. Certain characters were reinvented in a mature context and were published under the Vertigo imprint. Most of the times, the characters depicted within the Vertigo imprint had no relation to the original DC Universe's versions, nor did the events have influence over the new Universe. Later, under

7152-566: The Flash actually having museums dedicated to them—by the general public, though some individuals have decided that "the metahumans" must be dealt with less passively. Thus, an organization called "the Dome" was formed to help superheroes who needed to fight crime across international borders; the superhero group called the Global Guardians were their main agents. However the Dome eventually lost out, as its United Nations backing went to

7301-522: The Golden Age of Comic Books (1938–1956). With the publication of All-Star Comics #3 in 1940, the first crossover between characters occurred with the creation of the Justice Society of America (JSA), which presented the first superhero team with characters appearing in other publications (comic strips and anthology titles) to bring attention to less-known characters. This established the first shared "universe", as all these heroes now lived in

7450-729: The Psions , the Guardians did not intervene in that system, allowing a cruel empire called "the Citadel" to govern there, until it was overthrown by the Omega Men . The Presence is the God of the DC Universe; he created all reality. He is also among the most powerful beings in Creation. There are several lesser beings in the DC universe that possess god-like powers, through energy manipulation, magic ability, or technological advancement. Magic and

7599-761: The Teen Titans ) have either belonged to the League at some point, or have connections to it. As a general rule, being a superhero does not require powers anywhere near omnipotence . Furthermore, even major heroes and cosmic entities have distinct vulnerabilities, such as: Superman 's weaknesses to magic, kryptonite, and red sunlight ; Green Lantern 's initial problems with wood or the color yellow (which have since been largely overcome); or Batman 's lack of superhuman powers, which he supplements with keen intellect, constant training, and specialized technology. Superheroes are generally accepted or even praised—Superman and

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7748-478: The threeboot Legion lacks time travel technology) while Rip Hunter is the present day authority of the technology. Originally, it was impossible to change the past, or to exist in two places at the same time (a time traveler appearing in an era where they already existed would become an ineffectual, invisible phantom while there). However that was all changed after the Anti-Monitor tried to change history at

7897-535: The " Suicide Squad ") for " black ops ". Most members have been captured supervillains (and thus expendable and deniable assets), and were strongly "encouraged" to join (often with offerings of clemency if they survived their extremely dangerous missions). Outcast personalities are often relegated to the world of DCU supervillainry. They are then usually well versed in heists, kidnappings and robberies. Villains with meek powers contrive schemes of extraordinary complexity, yet—because of their simple talents—they only call

8046-611: The " metagene ", a genetic feature of unknown origin, which causes some people to develop superpowers when exposed to dangerous substances and forces. Others owe their powers to magic , genetic manipulation (or mutation) or bionics ( see below ). A large power gap resides between most superheroes and civilians. Still others owe their powers to not being human at all ( see races, below ). There are also superheroes and supervillains who possess no superhuman powers at all (for example Batman , Robin , Green Arrow or Speedy ), but rival their effectiveness with specialized equipment or "to

8195-558: The "mainstream" continuity appearing in DC comics was either a non-canonical story or happened in a completely different and separate reality/universe/multiverse. In 1999, the unexpected and overwhelming success of Elseworlds' Kingdom Come and other stories, led to the creation of the concept known as Hypertime in order to publish crossovers with those characters and the mainstream continuity. This structure gave "existence" to alternate timelines, stories in Elseworlds , appearances in other media and any other appearance of DC characters in

8344-633: The 1940s could not easily be reconciled with stories featuring a still-youthful man in the 1960s. To explain this, they introduced the idea of the Multiverse in Flash #123 (1961) where the Silver Age Flash met his Golden Age counterpart . In addition to allowing the conflicting stories to "co-exist", it allowed the differing versions of characters to meet, and even team up to combat cross-universe threats. The writers gave designations such as " Earth-One ", " Earth-Two ", and so forth, to certain universes, designations which at times were also used by

8493-412: The 1970s, everything that was published or related officially to DC Comics' titles could become part of the Multiverse, although much of it remained largely uncatalogued. The names of the worlds were usually in the format Earth, hyphen, spelled numeral/letter/name . In the case of worlds with numerals, the "rule" of spelling the number was not always followed, even within the pages of the same issue. As

8642-439: The 50th anniversary of DC Comics drew near, major events were proposed for the celebration: an encyclopedia ( Who's Who in the DC Universe ) and a crossover of the ages, characters, and worlds appearing in DC's comics. As told in the letter section of Crisis on Infinite Earths #1, as the research started in the late 1970s, it became evident that there were many flaws in continuity. The way used to circumvent some of these errors

8791-506: The Anti-Monitor, who then devoured Pariah's entire universe (aside from Pariah himself) and began to do the same to other universes (Pariah originally believes that the opposite is true; that his experiment destroyed the universes, which awakened the Anti-Monitor, until the truth is revealed to him). The time period of Earth when this takes place or the name of this Earth are never revealed. Armageddon 2001 " Armageddon 2001 "

8940-607: The Batman Who Laughs reshapes Earth-0 according to his whims, creating the Metalverse. The Batman Who Laughs successfully steals Wally's new power, becoming a godlike being known as the Darkest Knight. He kills Perpetua and creates his own Multiverse of twisted worlds called "The Last 52". Wonder Woman gains the power necessary to fight him and eventually destroys him in the Death Sun at the end of time. The Multiverse

9089-605: The DC Universe is that it is just like the real world, but with superheroes and supervillains existing in it. However, there are other corollary differences resulting from the justifications implied by that main concept. Many fictional countries, such as Qurac , Vlatava , and Zandia , exist in it. Though stories are often set in the United States of America , they are as often as not set in fictional cities, such as Gotham City or Metropolis . These cities are effectively archetypes of cities, with Gotham City embodying more of

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9238-431: The DCU. This miniseries brought back several heroes from the ages of DC Comics that were obliterated by the crisis events. They were trapped by a godlike incarnation of Brainiac outside of time (or Vanishing Point as this "place" is called). At the end of the crossover, Brainiac sent these heroes back to their own timelines, and also successfully sent Zero Hour Hal Jordan, pre- Flashpoint Superman and other heroes back to

9387-661: The Dark Multiverse. At the end of the series, Wally sits in the Mobius Chair, gaining omniscience and residual power from Dr. Manhattan. In an epilogue published in The Flash #750, Wally surveys the timestream and notices multiple contradictions and inconsistencies within history, the result of Manhattan's reckless tampering with time. This was originally intended to lead into the Generations miniseries and

9536-432: The Manhunters, the Spider Guild and the Dark Circle . Most aliens are from different planets, who have a source of origin near the Solar System and in the Milky Way Galaxy, although, unlike the Marvel Universe , alien colonies are common within the Solar System. The Dominators are an imperialistic race of terrorist aliens who control most of the unknown cosmos in order to extract genetic resources from planets. The caste

9685-442: The Modern Age still happening. In parallel, Captain Atom: Armageddon tells the story of how Captain Atom of the DC Universe causes the recreation of the Wildstorm Universe upon its destruction (and possibly its Multiverse as well). The recreated universe became part of the newly recreated DC Universe. The aftermath of Infinite Crisis and Captain Atom: Armageddon ( 52 , Countdown to Final Crisis and Final Crisis ) showed that

9834-421: The Modern Age was still being the main continuity, younger readers could not follow the stories of the mainstream versions of the DC heroes, just as had happened prior to the original Crisis on Infinite Earths . In order to overcome these new problems, a new event was created to restart the DC Comics' Universe. In the Flashpoint miniseries (May–September 2011), the Flash alters the timeline of Earth-0 creating

9983-540: The Multiverse but did have a twin in the antimatter universe: Qward. A satellite on each of these planets was created in the cataclysm and it was there where the embodiments of the Multiverse were born: the Monitor and the Anti-Monitor . The two battled to a standstill and eventually rendered one another comatose. The Multiverse had countless duplicates of planet Earth. Every Earth had a different history from one another but they always developed heroes and inspired heroic ages (which, according to Harbinger, it somehow made them

10132-431: The Multiverse for the first time, but it also presented key features of the Multiverse: all the universes vibrate at a specific frequency which keeps them separated; these "barriers" could be trespassed by "tuning" to that vibration. Because people could also "tune-in" these worlds in dreams, some people wrote comic books with the stories from those worlds they dreamed, which explained why Barry Allen knew about Jay Garrick as

10281-582: The Omniverse and Hypertime exist alongside each other as parts of a larger Divine Continuum, with the Omniverse corresponding to Space and Hypertime corresponding to Time. It also organizes previous Crisis events into Omniversal Crises and Hypertime Crises, with the "Crisis on Infinite Earths", "Infinite Crisis", "Final Crisis", "Multiversity", "Dark Nights", and "Dark Crisis" being Omniversal Crises while "Zero Hour", "the Kingdom", "Flashpoint/New 52", "Convergence", "DC Rebirth/Doomsday Clock", and "Flashpoint Beyond/New Golden Age" were Hypertime Crises. The Multiverse

10430-424: The Pre- Crisis infinite Multiverse, the collapsed Earth, and the Pre- New 52 52 worlds Multiverse. The Infinite Crisis event (2005–2006) remade the DC Universe yet again, with new changes . The limited series 52 (2006–2007) established that a new multiverse now existed, with Earth-0 as the primary Earth. The 2011 reboot of the DC Universe coincided with DC's publishing event The New 52 , during which

10579-524: The Rebirth branding and logo from their titles in December 2017, releasing everything under a single umbrella title as the DC Universe. Coincided with the release of the New Age of Heroes imprint, DiDio explained, "We want to make it clear that this is all the DC Universe... Rebirth pretty much is the DCU now; while we're taking Rebirth off the books, we'll be following the direction that Rebirth established." Titles also received new trade dress , with those "that tie in clearly to our larger DC Universe" having

10728-559: The Silver Age version ( Katar Hol ) in the same continuity without a good explanation. The interaction of "possible timelines" also created continuity holes. This led to a new crisis to address the problem: the Zero Hour . The resulting universe had a slightly re-written story with no continuity errors even though it was acknowledged that reality-shattering events did happen (including the Crisis on Infinite Earths ). This Universe kept

10877-544: The Silver Age, the Justice Society was reimagined as the Justice League of America, which was founded with Major League Baseball's National League and American League as inspiration for the name. The comic book that introduced the Justice League was titled The Brave and the Bold . However, the majority of National/DC's publications continued to be written with little regard of maintaining continuity with each other for

11026-577: The Underworld below Metropolis. There is also a tribe of highly intelligent, telepathic gorillas living in Gorilla City, an invisible city hidden in Africa; this is the home of Gorilla Grodd . Certain creatures created such as angelic beings, timeline driven entities, experimental deformities and dimension creatures are not considered hidden races because it is simply not included. However, it

11175-592: The United States in 2000, and entire cities and countries being destroyed. There are other minor variations, such as the Earth being slightly larger than ours (to accommodate the extra countries), and the planet Saturn having 18 moons rather than 19 because Superman destroyed one. "New Earth" is the Earth-like home planet to the main storybook characters of the DC Universe - the one with Smallville where Superman grows up, and Gotham City where Bruce Wayne avenges his parents by becoming Batman . This New Earth

11324-440: The Universe was "splintered" and the original Multiverse was restored briefly, showing that the entire Hypertime and many other appearances of the DC characters were part of the original Multiverse, including Tangent Comics which were published 12 years after the Multiverse was no more. In the end of Infinite Crisis , the multiverse is merged back as a New Earth with a new continuity with many stories re-written and many others from

11473-495: The absolute limit of human potential" training in special skills, such as martial arts. The humans first began using costumed identities to fight or commit crime during the 1930s. The first superheroes included characters like the Crimson Avenger and The Sandman . In November 1940, the first superhero team, the Justice Society of America , was formed. During World War II , all of America's heroes were banded together as

11622-528: The absorption into the DC continuity of the original Captain Marvel , Plastic Man and Captain Atom . In this way, heroes originally published by different companies are now part of the same fictional universe, and interactions between such characters are no longer considered intercompany crossovers. Additionally, the Marvel Comics Universe is also said to exist in the DC Universe as one of

11771-440: The attention of powerless superheroes like Batman , or lesser superheroes like Booster Gold . When caught, any prison sufficient to contain these villains is suitable. More powerful villains strive to contest for greater goals like world domination and/or universal acclaim (from the public and their villainous peers). Usually more powerful enemies are imprisoned in maximum-level facilities—such as Belle Reve Penitentiary (which also

11920-613: The beginning of time during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Also, a number of alternate realities -known as Hypertime -now exist. A group calling itself the Linear Men formed to prevent anyone from changing history. In addition, an enormously powerful being called the Time Trapper , an enemy of the Legion, has been known to manipulate the timestream, even creating " pocket universes ". Multiverse (DC Comics) In most of

12069-478: The belief of comical parodies; e.g. the story-line of the alien, Monstergirl, and her affluent life-style as a teenage recluse who turns into a monster or the purpose of Asmodel, an angelic inter-dimensional being from a conceptual Heaven who comes to Earth. Therefore, these particular races are not considered hidden but alien and extra-dimensional (see the following sections below for reference). There are many intelligent extraterrestrial races as well. Curiously,

12218-487: The body to adulthood and thus caused it to become the new Doctor Fate . Much later, while searching for his wife Lyta , Hector would discover Dove and bring her out of Mordru's spell, revealing the truth of these events. She would then discover that her sister had inherited Hawk's powers after the death of Hank Hall . In addition to the bookend issues, the storyline followed Waverider through multiple annuals: After Armageddon 2001 , Waverider continued to show up (next, in

12367-455: The cancellation of the Hawk & Dove series. Karl Kesel , the writer of Hawk & Dove , commented that " Hawk and Dove was always a love story. Then one day, Hawk went insane and murdered Dove". A storyline in JSA later revealed that the ending of Armageddon 2001 had been faked by Mordru . He had created an illusion of the Dove being murdered by a future Hawk/Monarch in order to drive

12516-477: The characters themselves. Earth-One was the primary world of this publication era, as established in " Flash of Two Worlds " and "Crisis on Earth-One!". Over the years, as the number of titles published increased and the volume of past stories accumulated, it became increasingly difficult to maintain internal consistency. In the face of diminishing sales, maintaining the status quo of their most popular characters became attractive. Although retcons were used as

12665-404: The collapse of the Multiverse. After the conclusion of Crisis on Infinite Earths , the concept of a single Universe containing most elements of the "surviving Earths" was established and heavily enforced to avoid the continuity problems of the Multiverse. However, alternate realities that affected the new DC Universe appeared very quickly. In Superman (vol. 2) #8, a Universe inside the Universe

12814-542: The complex continuity through streamlined storylines and events. The fact that DC Comics characters coexisted in the same world was first established in All Star Comics #3 (1940) where several superheroes (who starred in separate stories in the series up to that point) met each other in a group dubbed the Justice Society of America . Earth-Two was the primary world of this publication era, as established in " Flash of Two Worlds " and "Crisis on Earth-Two!". In

12963-450: The concept of a Multiverse and the designation of names, Earth-One being the JLA reality and Earth-Two the JSA reality. The success of these crossovers spawned publications telling the further stories of the Golden Age heroes in the present-day parting from many of the stories told, thus establishing a more defined continuity for every universe. This concept of parallel Earths with differences in locations, persons and historical events became

13112-446: The concept of one universe, one timeline. Such a timeline was "mapped" from the beginning to the present (1994) at the back cover of Zero Hour #0 that also included certain key dates in the future. The need to publish stories outside the strict DC Universe continuity led to the creation of certain DC imprints . Stories that set DC characters in different situations after the Crisis on Infinite Earths , were published by DC Comics under

13261-637: The cover of Action Comics #670, with Armageddon 2001' s aftermath), mostly in the Superman titles ( Superman (vol. 2) #61 depicts Superman and Waverider in the Metropolis disaster area, which is the same area seen in Action Comics #670, and follows Waverider and Superman almost immediately after Armageddon 2001 ), before playing an important role in 1994's Zero Hour: Crisis in Time! event which

13410-407: The creation of the JSA, where other heroes met for the first time, created the story " Flash of Two Worlds " in The Flash #123 (1961), where Barry Allen, the new Flash, is transported to the Earth where the original Flash, Jay Garrick, existed. To Allen, Jay Garrick's world was a work of fiction as it was in the real world. This story not only presented the encounter of two worlds and the existence of

13559-489: The creator of the Multiverse. Despite the heroes' best efforts they are ultimately defeated. At the end of Justice League #39, the defeated League are saved from destruction by the Quintessence, who grant them the power necessary to fight Perpetua. The team run into a portal for the final battle, but this conflict is not shown and from there Justice League follows the team on other adventures, written by new writers. In

13708-460: The current Hawk insane. He then took control of Hawk and used him to impregnate Dove so she would give birth to a child that would inherit all the powers of the Lords of Chaos and Order . Mordru cast a spell on Dove that kept her in a comatose state for years. She did give birth to a child, but before Mordru could possess the child's body, it was instead inhabited by a reincarnated Hector Hall who aged

13857-513: The entire Superman timeline. Where there had been two Superman, their realities have now been fused into one timeline with just one of them". It is revealed in Doomsday Clock that the New 52 was created by Doctor Manhattan as he experimented with reality, manipulating events to prevent many Golden Age heroes from gaining their powers and continually moving Superman to different points in

14006-500: The established New 52 Multiverse continuity, as well as to revisit other characters and concepts from DC's history as the conclusion of Convergence suggested that although the core 52 universe that now exists is the evolution of the multiverse, all the worlds still exist in some form. This was confirmed by Convergence writer Jeff King, as he stated that the reconstituted DC Multiverse is now infinite and there might be more than one Multiverse. The 2016 DC Rebirth initiative returned

14155-573: The events of Crisis on Infinite Earths so that the collapse of the Multiverse could be averted. From July 2015 onwards, The New 52 marking ended with the continuation of several publications and new others that did not necessarily take place within The New 52 multiverse. Advertised as DC YOU (a pun of DCU or DC Universe and the phrase "it's about you, the fans" appearing in the advertisements), DC now has an "open doors" policy to continuity, granting writers greater freedom to explore stories set outside

14304-436: The fact that many of these universes were mostly unchronicled or merely glimpsed and that Final Crisis also changed the Multiverse slightly, many stories featuring alternate worlds and their interactions were published, which led certain inconsistencies and retcons to appear, such as Earth-1 being originally a "mirror" of Earth-One and later being the reality of J. Michael Straczynski 's Superman: Earth One or Earth-16 being

14453-408: The fictional world is similar to the real one (for instance, there was a Roman Empire , and World War II and 9/11 both occurred), but many fantastic additions exist, such as the known existence of Atlantis . In recent years, stories have increasingly described events which bring the DC Universe farther away from reality, such as World War III occurring, Lex Luthor being elected as President of

14602-448: The first few decades. In the 1950s and 1960s, DC has introduced different versions of its characters, sometimes presenting them as if the earlier version had never existed, including: Flash ( Barry Allen ), Green Lantern ( Hal Jordan ), and Hawkman ( Katar Hol ). These new versions of the characters had similar powers but different names and personal histories. Similarly, they had characters such as Batman whose early adventures set in

14751-468: The first modern intercompany crossovers within the established continuity of the Universes instead of being "imaginary" and showed that there could be other universes or even multiverses outside the new DC Universe. In a similar way to Worlds Collide , the crossover event DC vs. Marvel showed another in-continuity crossover with another reality completely separated from the DC Universe and that has

14900-463: The higher beings within the Source who contained the aberrant Multiverse within the Source Wall, imprisoned Perpetua within the Wall and remade the original positive matter multiverse into a single positive matter Universe, which Krona , the rogue Maltusian, would eventually splinter into another infinite Multiverse. The beings within the Source decided to give the Multiverse a chance to achieve perfection,

15049-553: The home of an alternate Superman/ Christopher Kent , the home of the Super-Sons , and later the reality of the Young Justice TV series. Also, some universes appearing in the new continuity were never given a proper place within the 52 Universe, such as Prime-Earth. The new restored universe with only 52 worlds opened myriad possibilities for new stories and crossovers with different versions of heroes interacting with

15198-516: The logo THE NEW 52! would only appear in publications with stories occurring in the new continuity, while those taking place outside of this new continuity (such as Smallville Season Eleven or the Batman Beyond universe) would not bear this distinction. At first it seemed that there was not going to be a naming convention for the Earths as it happened with the 52. The mainstream continuity

15347-474: The main Universe, the whole Multiverse could be affected as well, thus a new Multiverse of 52 worlds was also recreated. This new Multiverse is called The New 52 . This time, not all universes were revealed right away, only a couple were revealed in the first two years of The New 52 . In addition, in a similar fashion as the Elseworlds logo would appear in comics that did not occur in the "real" continuity,

15496-407: The main versions of heroes as well as the stories resulting from the new integrated characters from Milestone and Wildstorm. However, it became chaotic in just five years. Many stories and situations of other Universes were not followed well. The number designations could be completely disregarded from story to story and some universes were recreated over and over. In addition, as most of the history of

15645-566: The many alternative universes. The reverse may also be said with respect to the Marvel Universe. This is one method of explaining the various crossover stories co-published by the two companies. Heaven and Hell exist in the DC Universe but may not exist in the same continuum. Versions vary from the Vertigo and DC Universe series with writers of the Vertigo Universe depicting them in relation to religion and mythology while

15794-568: The memories of all their prior incarnations. Infinite Frontier reveals that awareness of prior incarnations is widespread but not ubiquitous. It also identifies Multiverse 2 as the "corpse" of the pre-Crisis Multiverse. Dark Crisis calls the Omniverse into question, and adds infinite Earths taken from Multiverse 2 into the Orrery of Worlds, expanding it to contain infinite Earths. Concurrently with Dark Crisis , Flashpoint Beyond reveals that

15943-530: The metahuman potential; this means that a species that was meant to have a wide range of powers, like Tamaranians or Kryptonians, ended up "just...human". However, there are also plenty of nonhumanoid races. The DC Universe has had many natural and cosmic disasters happen to their alien civilizations. The Martians were destroyed by war, the Kryptonians by a dying planet that exploded, and the Czarnians by

16092-655: The more famous Justice League. In general, DC Comics has led a parody of its own teams and organizations after the Watchmen storyline and the Batman run from a dark humor style which began during the 1980s and ended in the early 90s. Superhero teams such as the Doom Patrol and Justice League International led the writers to have a more subtle approach of semiotic dark humor with its own version of over-powered egos dominating personalities. The American government has had

16241-429: The most notable event being Armageddon 2001 in 1991. An Antimatter Universe existed as well, which had some "reversed" events in a similar way as the former Earth-Three. The Earth within this Universe was called "Earth 2". In addition, there was a Limbo, where some heroes and characters that could not be brought back to "existence" after the Crisis on Infinite Earths lived outside the Universe. An important rule in

16390-494: The name Waverider . Waverider used the superhuman abilities he gained during his transformation to peer into several possible futures of different members of various superheroes in the DC Universe, seeing where they would be in the year 2001, when Monarch's rise to power began, but he was unable to pinpoint exactly who would become Monarch. After several attempts, he began to rethink his approach. However, Waverider accidentally came in physical contact with Captain Atom , unleashing

16539-662: The negative aspects of life in a large city, and Metropolis reflecting more of the positive aspects. Sentient alien species (such as Kryptonians and Thanagarians) and even functioning interstellar societies are generally known to exist, and the arrival of alien spacecraft is not uncommon. Technologies which are only theoretical in the real world, such as artificial intelligence or are outright impossible according to modern science, such as faster-than-light travel, are functional and reproducible, though they are often portrayed as highly experimental and difficult to achieve. Demonstrable magic exists and can be learned. The general history of

16688-420: The new DC Universe was that there could only be one timeline, so any change caused by time travelers caused the destruction of their timelines of origin. Changes in the past were often "fixed" or have to comply with the present to prevent continuity errors. Nevertheless, continuity errors appeared. The retold origin of Hawkman presented errors regarding the existence of the Golden Age version ( Carter Hall ) and

16837-402: The new DC Universe, which were still separated just like Milestone and Marvel. In 2005, a new universal crisis story arc was published as a way to update once more the superheroes of DC Comics, bring together other "realities" (namely, Milestone and Wildstorm) and bring back the Multiverse, this time with a limited number of Earths instead of an infinite one. During the event Infinite Crisis ,

16986-436: The original Wally West to Earth from the Speed Force and reveals that time has been stolen from his friends' memories, and the Superman of the pre- Flashpoint world, stranded in the new timeline following Convergence , assumes the role of that Earth's Superman. In Action Comics #976, the pre- Flashpoint and New 52 Supermen's histories are merged. Peter J. Tomasi explained that "the events of Action #976 reset and reshape

17135-419: The past. The main timeline or "Central Timeline" was like a river and all of the alternate stories were branches of it. Hypertime was similar to the former Multiverse as it allowed each and every reality ever published to co-exist and interact as most branches tend to return to the original stream (explaining some retcons as well as crossovers). However, all realities existed within only one Universe. Originally,

17284-452: The people not noticing that some of the characters in those comic books existed in "real life". In addition, many universes had multiple alternate timelines, such as Kamandi and the Legion of Super-Heroes both being from Earth-One. Writer Marv Wolfman took this crossover event as an opportunity to reform all the fictional universe of DC Comics to avoid further continuity errors and update the DC characters to modern times. The whole Multiverse

17433-436: The positive matter multiverse or destroyed; and an antimatter multiverse ruled over by the Anti-Monitor to shield the Multiverse from danger in the wider Omniverse. Perpetua was supposed to move on to create new Multiverses, leaving her creation in the hands of her children, but instead she remained, creating ever more aggressive forms of life to forge the Multiverse into a weapon to be used against her own kind. Her sons contacted

17582-465: The public's knowledge. Technology can also come from outer space or different timelines. Apokolips weaponry is often sold in Metropolis to the criminal organization known as Intergang . Robots and similar creations, including cyborgs, can have superior intelligence when they are created as sentient beings. The Manhunters , the Metal Men , Red Tornado , Robotman , Hourman , and Metallo are but

17731-689: The publisher cancelled its ongoing titles and relaunched 52 new books, including a number of new books, set within a revised continuity. This follows the conclusion of the Flashpoint crossover storyline, which provided a jumping-off point for the existing continuity. A number of in-universe changes are intended to make characters more modern and accessible, though the scope of the changes varies from character to character. Some like Batman have their histories left largely intact, though compressed, while others were given wildly different histories and looks. DC stopped putting 'The New 52' logo on its publications in

17880-448: The same world. Prior to this publication, characters from the different comic books seemingly existed in different worlds. Later, Wonder Woman #59 (May 1953) presented DC Comics' first story depicting a parallel "mirror" world. Wonder Woman is transported to a twin Earth where she meets Tara Terruna, who is exactly like her. Tara Terruna means "Wonder Woman" in the native language of that world. Wonder Woman describes this world as being

18029-580: The special event comic Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen , the Batman Who Laughs joins with Perpetua. The resolution to the Perpetua story arc was advertised in Justice League #39 as "The Encore", which would eventually be published as Dark Nights: Death Metal . Published roughly contemporaneously, a six-issue miniseries titled Flash Forward follows Wally West being enlisted by a cosmic being known as Tempus Fuginaut to stop an incursion of

18178-611: The stories appearing in WildStorm Productions ' comic books occurred in a universe that was part of the Image Universe along with other characters appearing in Image Comics publications. It was separated from it during the event called "Shattered Image" consolidating the separate WildStorm Universe which had its own multiversal structure. After the purchase of WildStorm by DC Comics, crossovers occurred with

18327-536: The stories appearing mainly in the pages of JLA that created new Earths, the acquisition of other comic book companies and characters by DC Comics incorporated these new properties as Earths in the Multiverse which would interact several times with the "main" Earths, One and Two; two of the most notable being Earth-S for the Fawcett Comics characters, and Earth-X for the Quality Comics characters. By

18476-514: The stories that were told in Milestone Comics publications now occurred in New Earth and the Dakotaverse ceased to exist as a separated Universe. A naming convention was established and followed this time in the format Earth, hyphen, numeral , from Earth-0 to Earth-51. Even with a new Multiverse, not every published or related work had an "Earth" within the 52 and there were no in-continuity intercompany crossovers. Taking advantage of

18625-524: The story of Bruce Wayne as a Green Lantern. In another tale, Superman: Speeding Bullets , the rocket ship that brought the infant Superman to Earth was discovered by the Wayne family of Gotham City rather than the Kents. In 1999, The Kingdom reintroduced a variant of the old Multiverse concept called Hypertime which essentially allows for alternate versions of characters and worlds again. The entire process

18774-711: The summer of 2015, coinciding with the Convergence anniversary crossover event which celebrated the history of the DC Multiverse and its various incarnations. In February 2016, DC announced its DC Rebirth initiative, a line-wide relaunch of its titles, to begin in June 2016. Beginning with an 80-page one-shot which was released on May 25, 2016, DC Rebirth also sees Action Comics and Detective Comics return to their previous numbering (#957 and #934 respectively), all books releasing at US$ 2.99 , multiple books shifting to

18923-491: The supernatural are often depicted as being real in the DC Universe, though some skeptics, such as Mister Terrific , maintain that there are scientific explanations to all such events. The narration of the mystic and harsh dark reality is more common in DC's Vertigo Comics because its stories lurk outside of superhero fantasy; the Vertigo series have beings that relate better to civilian life, although both universes are subject to fantastical realms and unworldly dimensions. Magic

19072-531: The three previous "crises" did not occur in this new continuity, but other events such as Zero Hour still happened, without ending in a crisis/reboot. However, writers continued to make references to the crises, and the full history of the structure of the DC Multiverse, detailing previous crisis events, was given in Grant Morrison 's The Multiversity (2014–2015) limited series. The Convergence (2015) crossover event later explored this concept within

19221-422: The time. The final panel of the issue showed Waverider about to touch Captain Atom, who had just returned, and a text box stated that the story would be concluded in the second issue of Armageddon 2001 . In response to the leak, the originally-intended ending was changed at the last minute: Monarch was revealed to be, not Captain Atom, but rather the Hawk . The problem with this reveal, as many fans pointed out ,

19370-477: The timeline, resulting in superheroes emerging later in history. After a confrontation with Superman, Manhattan attempts to erase his tampering and restore the Pre-Flashpoint and Pre-Crisis multiverses, as well as elements he had previously removed from the history of Earth-0 such as the Justice Society of America and Legion of Superheroes . It is later revealed that he failed, only managing to destabilise

19519-482: The timestream further as it attempted to accommodate events from previous versions of reality. Meanwhile, Dark Nights: Metal , written by Scott Snyder , introduced the concept of the Dark Multiverse, a multiverse below the main DC Multiverse of nightmare worlds created from heroes' deepest fears. A being named Barbatos launches an attack from the Dark Multiverse on reality, spearheaded by a force of villainous versions of Batman led by The Batman Who Laughs . The invasion

19668-546: The underlying structure for the multiverse was revealed in a detailed map in the back of several comic books, for which an interactive online version was maintained and updated on the DC Comics website. In addition, the sixth issue of The Multiversity constituted a 'guidebook' to the worlds of the current DC multiverse and was published in January 2015. In October 2011, Dan DiDio posted on his Facebook page that in The New 52,

19817-584: The war, under pressure from the paranoid Committee on Un-American Activities , the JSA disbanded. While many types of heroes were active afterwards (mainly non-costumed, such as the Challengers of the Unknown or Detective Chimp ), it was not until Superman's public debut that a new generation of costumed heroes became active. Soon after, the Justice League of America was formed, and they have remained Earth's preeminent superhero team; most DC heroes (such as

19966-504: The world of a revived post-apocalypse Atomic Knights after a mid-80s World War III once more. Many important stories from the Elseworlds imprint were later also given their own alternate Earths within this new Multiverse. In the miniseries, Milestone Forever , in a similar fashion as Captain Atom: Armageddon , the events that led to the end of the Dakotaverse and its integration to the new DC continuity are revealed. Most of

20115-408: The wormhole hinged on a sophisticated, bowling ball-shaped "trigger". Captain Atom next causes an explosion on the primitive Earth, which propels both him and the trigger forward in time to Emperor Nero (A.D. 54-68) era Rome. Monarch strikes a bargain to retrieve the trigger if the aliens agree to place him back in his own time. Monarch allows the aliens to place him in stasis with an alien companion and

20264-435: The writers in the DCU have a tendency to narrate fantasy. The Speed Force is an extradimensional energy source which provides the speedsters of the DC Universe with their powers. Accessing the Speed Force makes it possible to run at incredible speeds, even faster than light, and even to jump in and out of the timestream, thereby travelling - albeit with a limited degree of control - through time. The Speed Force also acts as

20413-413: Was a 1991 crossover event storyline published by DC Comics . It ran through a self-titled, two-issue limited series and most of the annuals DC published that year from May through October ( Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #2 did not tie-in to the storyline). After the event, there were two limited series, Armageddon: The Alien Agenda #1-4 (which was a direct sequel) and Armageddon: Inferno #1-4 (which

20562-895: Was altered by the Anti-Monitor (although stories featuring parallel Earths have continued to crop up with various rationalizations in the following years). Other types of dimensions still exist, however, including the Antimatter Universe of Qward , the Pax dimension , the Fifth Dimension and the Bleed . Prison dimensions, such as the Phantom Zone , are meant to house superpowered criminals who are too powerful for any conventional means of containment. Dimensions make up many universes, of which some are created and destroyed with help from supernatural forces and elements from which power

20711-403: Was building to enslave humanity, he mused that Earth would need someone to keep the balance, so he put on Monarch's armor and continued building his machine. Eventually, the Justice League found him, and Captain Atom, feeling guilty he let Monarch slip through the timestream in the first place, decided to fight him one-on-one. The battle caused Atom's energy and Monarch's suit to clash, creating

20860-420: Was convinced he could use his technology to travel back in time and prevent the maniacal ruler from ever coming to power. He learned that in the late 20th century one of Earth's superheroes had become evil. In the year 2001 this hero had killed all of his comrades, assumed the identity of Monarch, and began his rise to global domination. Because Monarch always appeared in a suit of full body armor his prior identity

21009-510: Was known as Prime Earth, although it was not a similar world to the real world as Earth-Prime was. J. Michael Straczynski 's re-envisioning of Superman and Geoff Johns ' reimagining of Batman were released as part of a series called Earth One . In Grant Morrison's The Multiversity (2014–2015), the Earths are named in the same format as in the former 52 Multiverse (Earth-6, Earth-7, Earth-8 etc.). Morrison intended for The Multiversity to reveal remaining universes of The New 52 multiverse, and

21158-555: Was likewise controlled by Jurgens. None of the alternate futures shown in Armageddon 2001 came true and most of their events had no impact on the DC Universe. One exception was The New Titans crossover which showed a group of super-powered teens fighting against a god-like dictator. These characters had already appeared in New Titans , having traveled back in time to prevent their future from happening. The title "Armageddon"

21307-460: Was only tangentially related). Each participating annual explored potential possible futures for its main characters. The guiding hands behind the series were editor and writer Dennis O'Neil , writer Archie Goodwin and artist Dan Jurgens . Monarch was an oppressive tyrant from a bleak, dystopian Earth 50 years in the future. The people were unhappy with his rule, particularly a scientist named Matthew Ryder, an expert on temporal studies, who

21456-546: Was originally created by Perpetua, a member of a race of cosmic beings known as "Hands", referencing the common imagery in DC of a giant Hand creating the Universe. She also created the Monitor, Anti-Monitor and World Forger. The original Multiverse consisted of an infinite positive matter multiverse to be overseen by the Monitor; a dark matter Multiverse where the World Forger would create new universes to be either added to

21605-534: Was possibly inspired by Alan Moore 's meta-comic, Supreme: Story of the Year (1997). The Convergence (2015) crossover officially retconned the events of Crisis after heroes in that series went back in time to prevent the collapse of the Multiverse. However, Brainiac states "Each world has evolved but they all still exist". It has been confirmed that all previous worlds and timelines now exist, and that there are even multiple Multiverses now in existence, such as

21754-522: Was revealed to have been created to preserve the Legion of Super Heroes' 30th century in New Earth. This world was used to allow crossovers with certain characters of the Legion of Super-Heroes and recreate characters that otherwise could not exist in the new continuity (such as Kryptonians , as in the New Earth Superman was the only survivor of Krypton). Alternate timelines were also used,

21903-419: Was secretly Task Force X's headquarters) and even alternate dimensions or outer space —because they cannot simply be killed by a bullet, electricity, or poison. Supervillains sometimes also form their own groups, but these tend to be short-lived because most villains simply do not trust each other. Most such teams are formed by a charismatic and/or fearsome criminal mastermind for specific purposes; an example

22052-484: Was the "Multiple Earths", which also showed a chaotic nature that brought even more continuity problems that were not easily explained or were simply left unexplained. Examples of this included: 1) the Black Canary of Earth-One being the daughter of the original Black Canary of World War II even though the original Black Canary was a resident of Earth-Two, and 2) the existence of Golden Age comic books on Earth-One and

22201-459: Was unknown. Chosen by Monarch to take part in a time-travel experiment, Ryder traveled back to 1991, the year in which the series was published, and 10 years before Monarch's massacre of Earth's heroes. Ryder was determined to find out who the Monarch really was and, if possible, kill him before he could rise to power. As he travelled through the rift, his body mutated into a form of living temporal energy, and upon arriving at his destination, he took

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