Need for Crisis

[erichssf]

It's kinda funny. The reason for the original Crisis was to condense the DC Universe down to one single universe to end all the confusion.
But since then, all the Elseworlds tales and then Hyper-Time, and all the people who want to retell the origins of heroes, there is a need for a another crisis story to get things back on track.
Is this something DC is going to do every so many years?

[jonsnow]

WHo knows, but 20 years is a long time. I do not see this becoming an every five year thing. Heck maybe they will do ti again in 20, but two decades is a long time to develop inconsistencies and conflicting story-lines. I see no problem with what DC did 20 years ago, or what they are doing now. It helps to clean the clutter and get things back on track without seriously hurting or ignoring major things. It has been handled brilliantly. However, it may be needed again in 20 years, who knows.

[erichssf]

True, both stories have been very very good.

[Jim Wright]

Well to be honest, it's not the Elseworlds or Hyper-time that's the reason for this Crisis...The main reason I think is that the aftermath of COIE didn't solve all the problems. One decision by DC threw everything out of whack and that's having Superman never be Superboy...that threw the Legion out of whack and attempts to fix its history have been bad...Hawkman was messed up for a while, but that wasn't directly related to COIE. IC should hopefully fix everything once and for all...maybe...

[erichssf]

Maybe I am the only one that thinks this, but the whole Hyper-Time thing (to me) was still a way to have the multiverse. 'Cept this time around, it was not really known to everybody that there altinate versions of themselves.

[Infinitor]

Maybe I am the only one that thinks this, but the whole Hyper-Time thing (to me) was still a way to have the multiverse. 'Cept this time around, it was not really known to everybody that there altinate versions of themselves.

Yep, it was a Morrison-Waid scam to bring back the Multiverse without anyone knowing what happened :LOL: :LOL:

[Goorudoguntai]

What is or was the problem of DC multiverse as opposed Marvel Multiverse?

[Justin Byrd]

What is or was the problem of DC multiverse as opposed Marvel Multiverse?
Continuity got convoluted and confusing. No one knew what Earth was what, Marvel doesn't deal with the alternate Earths while DC had crossovers with Earth-1, Earth-2, Earth-3, Earth-S, etc. all the time.

[JX141]

DCU multiverse's problems stem from having multiple versions of the same characters existing at the same time in alternate universes or on alternate earths. Not so big a deal until they decided to have everyone meet starting with the 2nd Flash, Barry Allen meeting the 1st, Jay Garrick. Crossovers were the standard of the day leading up until the original Crisis, when it was said it was difficult to figure out where one version started and another ended.
The people in charge must have believed this was confusing for not only writers and editors but was detracting from obtaining new readers. DC was a mess after this and is only now being remedied.
The MU has always been a multiverse but the main difference is almost none of the alternate universes contained the same character set, I believe until recently, see resident experts for more :). In the MU almost without exception whenever a character encountered a duplicate of themself it was from an alternate timeline rather than an alternate universe. This was far easier to explain away than the oppposite.
There is a lot more detail to it than that so see columns on COIE, IC from our resident experts Blake, Mark, and the like sorry if I forgot someone.

[Jim Wright]

The big problem was really the Big Three...as history passed and WWII gave way to the fifties, a lot of the WWII era comics started going by the wayside..then came the advent of western and romance comics and what not and DC was pretty much left with Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman being their only Superhero books. Enter the Space Age. DC decided instead of reintroducing it's older heroes, it would take their names and give them a more science based origin. Thus Green Lantern stopped being a guy with a magic lantern and instead became an intergalactic space cop. The Atom became a scientist who could shrink. Hawkman was now Katar Hol, an alien policeman from Thanagar. The Flash became a police scientist struck by lightning. Barry Allen was inspired by his Flash comics to name himself the Flash as the WWII Flash was a comic book character on his world like ours. Then Gardner Fox (I believe) got the idea to have to have the two Flashes meet and the idea of the Multiverse was born. The Earth the current Flash was on became Earth-1 and the old Flash's Earth became Earth-2.
So far so good.
The Flash team ups became popular and evolved into JLA-JSA annual meetings.
Here came one problem solved. The earlier adventures of the Big Three were explained as the exploits of their Earth-2 Counterparts.
Over the years as other comic book companies folded, DC acquired the rights of those companies' characters. DC decided to use the multiverse to introduce these characters. Captain Marvel and his family lived on Earth-S. The Charlton Heroes (Blue Beetle, Question, etc) lived on Earth-C. The Quality Characters (Uncle Sam, Black Condor, Ray, etc) lived on Earth-X. And so on.
Eventually it was decided that this got too unwieldy and the idea to tighten up the continuity was made and thus came COIE.
It worked for about 5 minutes. When Superman was relaunched, John Byrne decided that Superman slowly developed his powers and was never Superboy. This had repurcussions for the Legion's history since Superboy was a prominent member. Many attempts at reconciling this occured.
Also, Hawkman's history got convoluted as well and fixes were tried.
Now, DC has decided to revisit COIE and create a new launching point. Not so much a total reboot as a defragging and cleaning. Time will tell if this was a great move (COIE) or just another blip in time for DC (Zero Hour).

[Justin Byrd]

The big problem was really the Big Three...as history passed and WWII gave way to the fifties, a lot of the WWII era comics started going by the wayside..then came the advent of western and romance comics and what not and DC was pretty much left with Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman being their only Superhero books. Enter the Space Age. DC decided instead of reintroducing it's older heroes, it would take their names and give them a more science based origin. Thus Green Lantern stopped being a guy with a magic lantern and instead became an intergalactic space cop. The Atom became a scientist who could shrink. Hawkman was now Katar Hol, an alien policeman from Thanagar. The Flash became a police scientist struck by lightning. Barry Allen was inspired by his Flash comics to name himself the Flash as the WWII Flash was a comic book character on his world like ours. Then Gardner Fox (I believe) got the idea to have to have the two Flashes meet and the idea of the Multiverse was born. The Earth the current Flash was on became Earth-1 and the old Flash's Earth became Earth-2.
So far so good.
The Flash team ups became popular and evolved into JLA-JSA annual meetings.
Here came one problem solved. The earlier adventures of the Big Three were explained as the exploits of their Earth-2 Counterparts.
Over the years as other comic book companies folded, DC acquired the rights of those companies' characters. DC decided to use the multiverse to introduce these characters. Captain Marvel and his family lived on Earth-S. The Charlton Heroes (Blue Beetle, Question, etc) lived on Earth-C. The Quality Characters (Uncle Sam, Black Condor, Ray, etc) lived on Earth-X. And so on.
Eventually it was decided that this got too unwieldy and the idea to tighten up the continuity was made and thus came COIE.
It worked for about 5 minutes. When Superman was relaunched, John Byrne decided that Superman slowly developed his powers and was never Superboy. This had repurcussions for the Legion's history since Superboy was a prominent member. Many attempts at reconciling this occured.
Also, Hawkman's history got convoluted as well and fixes were tried.
Now, DC has decided to revisit COIE and create a new launching point. Not so much a total reboot as a defragging and cleaning. Time will tell if this was a great move (COIE) or just another blip in time for DC (Zero Hour).
Excellent sum up, but I wanted to make a eensy weensy point. The Charlton Heroes were from Earth-4, and weren't introduced until CoIE. And I thought Uncle Sam and company were from Earth-2 and then moved to Earth-X...?

[Picard]

Continuity got convoluted and confusing. No one knew what Earth was what, Marvel doesn't deal with the alternate Earths while DC had crossovers with Earth-1, Earth-2, Earth-3, Earth-S, etc. all the time.

What do you mean?
Marvel have dealt with alternate earths in thousends of comics.
The whole concept of Exiles is alternate earths.

[JX141]

What do you mean?
Marvel have dealt with alternate earths in thousends of comics.
The whole concept of Exiles is alternate earths.
Yeah but until recently nearly every time a marvel character encountered a duplicate it was from and alternate timeline not alternate earth. Further AFAIK they are not counting the histories of the alternate earth versions of characters, encountered by the exiles and such, as part of the history of the main universe characters.
Therein lies the problem, DC was shortsighted with they're crossovers back in the day and they, being the folks in charge + writers and editors, couldnt keep things straight, thus COIE and the DC history since then.

[Jim Wright]

You got me on the Charlton point.

However, when the JLA-JSA first met the Freedom Fighters, they were from Earth-X. Later on in All-Star Squadron, it was shown that Sam and the others started out on Earth-2 then moved to Earth-X.