Superboy punched reality into it's current continuity?

Cafe Society
1

Am I being wooshed? I’ve seen this mentioned several times on this board, but I guess I just can’t believe a company like DC would do something like that. At least, not modern DC. Back in the 50’s and 60’s, sure, but I thought that was one of the points of the Crisis of Infinite Earths; that we would be free of that kind of schlocky nonsense.

FYI, I never really followed DC comics myself, was a Marvel fan mostly, but I’ve followed a lot of threads and discussions about the 'verse because it’s always interesting to see what they’re doing with the most iconic super heroes lately.

2

It was Superboy Prime, not Superboy. Of course it doesn’t make it any less stupid.

3

It’s a little more complicated than that and the answer’s “Well, kinda but not really.”.

After the Crisis On Infinite Earths when all the parallel Earths merged into one, Superman Earth-2, Lois Earth-2, Superboy Earth-Prime and Alex Luthor (Earth 3) ended up in a sort of limbo that was supposed to be heaven, but wasn’t. All they could do is watch the Post_Crisis universe get darker and darker. Eventually

Infinite Crisis Spoilers

Superboy-Prime (who is a Silver-Age power level superman type who can easily push planets out of orbit without raising a sweat) went nuts and started pounding on the interdimensional walls of their “prison”. The pounding had some effects (mostly small scale retcons) on continuity*. It’s not so much that he pounded the universe into it’s current shape, it’s that he was causing reality-quakes with his punches on the interdimenional walls of his prison

Really, the “reality punches” were really only responsible for a dozen or so continuity glitches. So they’re blaming him/his punches for continuity problems that had happened in the last 20 years or so.

The major changes to the universe came from Alexander Luthor (Earth-3 Luthor’s son) mixing and matching all sorts of parallel worlds and then them all rejoining in a slightly different order.

*for instance: there was a generally loathed Metal Men series where it turned out the Metal Men were really human and where Doc Magnus became a robot. Which was promptly ignored. Apparently that was caused and/or fixed by a reality punch. Ditto with all of the Hawkman continuity errors, Jason Todd was never killed after a reality punch undid his death, presumably the Zatanna mini-series where she lost her backwards speaking powers was one, Superman having two non-compatible origins, all of the Legion reboots and re-reboots were all a result of the reality quakes from Superboy-prime’s punches

4

You really start to think that it would actually be easier for them to just maintain continuity in the first place than to go to such absurd lengths to explain away continuity problems…

5

I gather most DC fans are pretty much on automatic facepalm mode ever since Infinite Crisis debuted.

I’m still not sure what to make of Marvel’s Civil War, though.

6

Best. Excuse. Ever!

7

I hated the first three issues so much, I’ve pretty much abandoned all hope for the mainstream DCU. Whatever kind of readers they’re going after, I’m pretty sure I’m no longer part of DC’s target demographic.

And like an idiot, I’m still going to try out 52 because I’m a fan of the Question and Booster Gold.

8

Just randomly, this is actually the second time a punch has changed continuity.

The first was the Giffen/Bierbaum Legion of Super-Heroes #4, when Mon-El punched the Time Trapper to death, while in his extra-dimentional pocket universe, and thus completely altered history from the 20th century onwards. History was then changed back to something mostly resembling the original continuity when the denizens of the new continuity replaced the Trapper with Glorith and Superboy with Mon-El (now renamed Valor).

9

Remember several things:

(1) They never considered continuity to be important. If they had what they thought was a good story, they told it. They figured (correctly at that time) that no one would care if a year or two before, they had a story with a conflicting outcome. DC was not alone in this; TV shows and comics and similar multiple-stories about the same character(s) never worried about continuity back in those days (1930s through 1960s, say.) As writers in the 1960s (I think Tolkien was a huge influence) started to care about continuity, and as people started collecting the old comics, continuity became an issue.

(2) DC had been publishing for 40 years or so. A character would be popular with one group of kids and get his/her own comic book, and then after five or ten years, that generation would have outgrown comics (the idea of adult collectors was rare) and lose interest. So the character would drop. Then, a decade later, they’d try to moderize and revise the same super-power. So, I clearly remember the revival of Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) with a new origin story.

(3) Especially with Superman, they needed to come up with more and more powerful villains for him to battle. Watch the George Reeves’ SUPERMAN TV series from the 1950s, now out on DVD (Season 1 and 2): his powers are pretty tame, the villains are almost always normal human crooks with some sort of clever or mysterious plan. There’s an occasional robot run awry. The interest was in the mystery plot, rather than in Superman’s powers. The same happened in the early comics, but by the 1950s, they needed more powerful villains to make the stories interesting. The more powerful the villains, the more powerful Superman: to the point where, indeed, Superboy in one story pushes the earth a trifle off its orbit.

That would have all been OK, except that they started pulling up the older versions of characters. I fondly remember when they brought the 1940s Flash (Jay Garrick) across the inter-dimensional gap to meet the current Flash (Barry Allen.) It was a cool story idea, so they did it, and never thought about consequences. They did other bits where the current (late 50s, early 60s) version met their earlier counterpart, portrayed as Earth-2.

Then, once you’ve got Earth-2, why not others? It would allow for more interesting stories without disturbing continuity (by that time, a consideration) and so we had stories set on Earth-3, etc. Imagine a world where the Joker is the hero and Batman is evil! I know, we’ll put it on Earth-27!

So, it’s not at all surprising that they had so many continuity gaps and decided to revise and “start over.”

10

I just want to chime in with this:

I personally believed at the time (and still do) that the alternate earth theory is still the best course of action in regards to comic books.

Just pick up every 15 years or so and move to a new earth – start over fresh without damaging any of the previously beloved characters. You retain old images and imprints and get new ones to sell. Team up when a good story presents itself. Tell imaginary stories if you like or create an elseworld in which to place them and give them their own continuity.

Look at Marvel (and don’t get me wrong I love Marvel characters too) with Reed and Ben having served together in WW II and having taken a ship up in the early 60’s before any other manned flights. Tony Start and Rhodey who met in Vietnam (now 40 years ago that would make them at least 60 years old now).

Fifteen years ago, Marvel needed to reinvent itself the way DC did in the late 50’s and early 60’s. Start over. Keep the numbers just say – hey kids get in on the ground floor, we’re starting over with new and different characters.

Still the best idea from a story telling point of view (to avoid an unwieldy and bloated continuity that is difficult to keep track of) and not a terrible idea from a marketing standpoint.

Shooter’s New Universe wasn’t a bad idea, just poorly executed (like so much of Marvel under his reign).

My 2 sheckles worth of thoughts on the whole matter.

11

Or just do what they do in The Ulitimates, and tell a cracking good story with familiar charactors and ignore the 10 billion previous comics published about those charactors. Works for me.

12

Had to correct --sorry

13

I’ve made fun of it, but I also liked it.

First of all, of course it’s silly. If I had a problem with silly, I wouldn’t follow a genre in which fully-grown men routinely run around with their underwear on the outside, accompanied by their similarly-clad underage sidekicks, and nobody thinks this is odd. The more over-the-top my superheroes get, the more I like it.

Secondly, the more I think about it, the more it seems like mythology:
“Why are there falling stars?”
“Because Atlas shrugs when holding up the sky.”

“Why are there earthquakes?”
“Because Loki is buried deep underneath the ground, and writhes in agony when the snake drops its venom on his face.”

“Why are there continuity errors?”
“Because Superboy-Prime couldn’t get laid.”
It works.

To be clear, SB’ only caused the retcons between Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis. Infinite Crisis itself ushered in a whole new set of retcons, most of which have yet to be revealed. But henceforth, DC doesn’t have any excuse for futher errors or retcons. The plan is to not have any more.

<snicker>

14

I knew you couldn’t say that with a straight face.

15

I never became the millionaire I was meant to be because Superboy had gas.

16

Would someone be kind enough to spoil this stuff for me? I know about Superboy punching stuff, but what happened in the last half of Infinite Crisis?

Gracias,
–Cliffy

17

The Multiverse comes back and collapses again. Characters fight each other. Some get killed, some end up much older. Mogo socializes.

18

nfinite Crisis on Wikipedia

19

Wow, thanks. I wasn’t expecting such a response. That even straightened out a few things I didn’t even know I had mixed up.

I still think it’s a bad plot device. I guess I just feel like there should be something of a dividing line between series like Batman/Superman/X-Men/Spider Man, etc., and series like The Tick/Venture Brothers/Nuklear Age, and so on. If it were an idea in a comedy like that, I’d love it, but in the DCU proper, it seems stupid to me.

I should say, I haven’t even been reading Marvel since around '98. What’s this Civil War all about? Is it just another semi-annual mega-crossover like Onslaught was?

PS. Anyone here know whatever happened to Nate Grey, aka the X-Man? I used to LOVE that series up until something like issue 22, when they just seemed to rapidly lose their steam. I read a comic at a bookstore a few years back where he apparently killed himself to save the earth from aliens or something, but last I heard he was traveling dimensions and had become some sort of “Earth-Shaman” or something? I don’t know.

20

You know, or something. :stuck_out_tongue:
I don’t know why I kept repeating that at the end there. Kind of reminds me how I always get annoyed when talking on the phone with my older brother. He seriously says “y’know” every 10 words or so. Sometimes, he even says it two or three times in a row. :rolleyes: