Explain? This isn’t ringing a bell.
Pretty much my observation at the time. Things seem even more complicated now that Crisis is over.
It pretty much frustrated Roy Thomas to the point of eventually leaving DC (I loved his books at the time, but can’t say how popular they were).
And while it was a great ride, it did seem to really mess a lot of stuff up in the long run.
I’ll paste two critical paragraphs from Alan Moore’s Interminable Ramble from his never-published DCU pitch called TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, which was torturously rewritten as “KINGDOM COME.”
"Firstly, I understand that there is to be some restriction upon time travel in the revised post-Crisis continuity, which is all well and good by me. To consolidate the importance of these restrictions and their reverberations upon the various books that use time travel as a motif, I suggest that, as an example, some members of the Legion of Super-Heroes should volunteer for a reconnaissance mission exploring the time stream and testing its new limits with regard to their vehicles. Those Legionnaires might be selected for this that me and Paul have agreed between us are appropriate. At the same time, in any other books that might have time travel problems, it could be mentioned in passing that from our own era, Professor Rip Hunter was currently investigating the phenomenon in his time top.
Okay… now if Paul and Karen and everybody else involved are amenable to this, then I figure the next step is to introduce a scheme by the Time Trapper. The Time Trapper, living up to his name, intends to set up a sort of temporal fluke field in the timestream that will in effect make time travel in or out of this area all but impossible, thus trapping the Legionnaires who volunteered or were selected in the past, unable to return. I suggest that the Legionnaires chosen should be some that Paul is able to do without for a few months, and maybe those that he’d like to see some changes made to. Like I say, these details can be sorted out later. The Time Trapper is maybe planning to trap these various Legionnaires in the past so that they cannot help prevent some plot he is planning to devil the Legion with in the future and might conceivably be useful as a plot springboard to Paul over in the Legion’s own book. The important thing in terms of Twilight is that the Time Trapper successfully sets up his fluke field, which effectively distorts a whole stretch of the timestream from, say, 1990 to the year 2010. With very few exceptions, nothing can get in or out of this Time Tangle. Furthermore, as a result of an effect of the fluke field upon a continuum already sorely abused during the reality-reordering of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, within this bubble of fluke time, numerous alternate realities again become possible, if only for a limited thirty year stretch. Although we won’t be exploring any of these realities save for one in Twilight, the possibilities there for story ideas in other books are limitless. Within the fluke, there are maybe worlds where the imaginary stories happened: what would the world of Superman Red/Superman Blue be like if you were to visit it twenty years on? Or the world in “The Death of Superman”. Is there a world perhaps like the old Earth-Two or a world in which Dark Knight takes place? As well as opening up a wealth of story possibilities without opening up the attendant can of worms, it also provides a convenient trash bin for every story that DC ever published that didn’t fit in with the continuity. Brother Power? It happened in the fluke. Prez? The fluke. The Rainbow Batman? In the fluke. Because travel by people in the mainstream continuities into the fluke zone of the timestream would be presented as all but impossible except in exceptional circumstances, the chance for the infinite number of maybe-worlds in the fluke to spill over and damage the mainstream continuity would be minimal."
Alan Moore. Englishman. Mad Sorceror. Comic Book God.
Fenris:
Did anyone hate it enough that they had to re-introduce and re-destroy a multiverse to reverse it?
I didn’t necessarily develop any emotional attachment to it, but it worked in the new continuity. I thought it was okay. Heck, it lasted longer than her original history! (PG was introduced in 1976 and her retcon took place 11 years later in 1987, from that point until Geoff Johns began suggesting the Arion origin wasn’t real, which would have been in JSA # 32, 2002 - 15 years)
A mechanically similar version of that called Hypertime was imposed on the DCU for a few moments.
Nobody liked it, so it was swept under the carpet without so much as a Crisis to dignify its passing.
I liked it, at least.
Askia actually selected the same sections I was coming in to post.
Here is a link to the whole ramble – for those interested:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/6612/twilight.htm
Like Moore, I like imaginary and multi-earth stories – I thought the COIE was great fun, but a bad idea and railed against it at the time.
Moore’s suggestion for fixing it would have helped alleviate my anger.
Apparently, given that they did! 
(Kidding! :p)
I dunno–I thought it was problematic. I didn’t care that much either, but the character seemed to lose something and it REALLY seemed to bug writers that if she was Arion’s granddaughter(?) why would she have the Kryptonian suite of powers and therefore kept changing power levels, powers and weaknesses on her. (I hated the revision one where she was allergic to…um was it unprocessed materials like wood and dirt and stuff?)
I didn’t mind Hypertime either, but the problem was the way it was explained. If there was ever a poster-child for poor marketing, this was it.
Rather than simply say “Yeah, the multiverse exists but it’s near impossible to get from here to there” (which is what it was) Waid (IIRC) explained it as a permanent solution to every contiuity problem forwards or backwards. The idea was that time was permanantly in flux and everything just kept changing. Unless you step out of Hypertime and back in at a different place (like Superboy did during that one story), you just never NOTICE the changes. So Alfred can be a portly butler who is a humorous, bumbling wanna-be detective in one issue, a grouchy, bitter old man in the next issue and a caring father figure who was a French resistance fighter in WWII who sired a child with Mmle Marie the next. And no-one ever notices the change.
So, you’re a writer and you don’t like an issue of Batman that a previous writer did where Alan Scott fought in the Vietnam War? Easy fix. It was hypertime and you cn just ignore it. Does the origin that Hawkman had last week bother you? It was hypertime: just ignore it.
Waid was saying that ALL the imaginary stories were in a single constantly shifting continuity in a single, constantly shifting timeline.
So that one Elseworlds where Superman was found by the Commies (Red Son?) was the same Superman as landed in the Kent’s field back in the 1940s and grew up in the 1950s during the Weisinger era. And he’s the same as Byrne’s Superman who was the same as the one from the Alan Davis Elseworlds “Superboy’s Legion”. It’s just that time keeps shifting out from under everyone and nobody but the readers ever notice.
Fans took this as a “get out of jail free” card to be played by any writer who felt like ignoring continuity* could just say “Relax. It’s just hypertime” and do whatever they wanted. And if you’re telling a serial story with characters that grow, you can’t keep changing basic character and history traits.
Fenris
*And, before we start the continuity wars here, I think most people would agree that what I’ll call “high level continuity” and “low level continuity” are needed. High level is the BIG stuff about the character: Peter let the robber go and Uncle Ben died as a result. Bruce saw his parents gunned down. Green Arrow is a liberal. Without that, you’d never know which character you’re reading from issue to issue. Low level continuity is the panel-to-panel, issue-to-issue stuff: if Lois was being thrown out of a plane last issue, she shouldn’t be (without explaination) back in her chair next issue. If Queen Hippolyta tells the JSA that they can’t kill Hitler because they’re only able to because she time-travelled there and that would mess up history, she shouldn’t, three panels later say “But what the hell, I’ll hang out here for a few years, even though history says I didn’t.” < cough > The panel-to-panel/issue-to-issue stuff matters.
It’s the “mid-level”/trivia continuity that people debate about. Fer instance: How could the baby in “Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow” have super powers if Superman was exposed to gold kryptonite when there was one story from about 1967 where some Kandorians were exiled from Kandor 'cause they were exposed to Gold K and the Science Council (who’d know) said that their kids would not only be non-powered, but they’d also pass the “powerlessness” to their kids? This stuff that’s cool, but ultimately doesn’t matter all that much and shouldn’t get in the way of a good story. If you have a great story but it depends on Peter being allergic to maple syrup, but in Amazing Fantasy #15 Peter had maple syrup on his wheatcakes, just ignore it and go on. But the big stuff and the panel-to-panel stuff does matter.
If you really want to tell a story about a Superman who has a giant burning carrot for a head, slap the “Elseworlds” or “What If” logo on it and tell it. But don’t try to wedge it into the main storyline.
Fenris, I agree with you on all points. The tragedy of the thing was that the only time they used Hypertime to explain a continuity error was to explain a coloring error. That’s it. Someone was wearing the wrong color shirt, and they said it was Hypertime. And Grant Morrison, who concieved the thing (although Waid wrote it up), never got to use it. My God, how much would that have rocked?
Also, we should add that “The Kingdom” was poorly recieved, since it wasn’t really a Kingdom Come sequel, as it was initially marketed.
Of course, without Hypertime, every continuity error since Crisis, and a few new ones besides, got explained by Superboy’ clobberin’ time. I bet a few folks are wishing they kept Hypertime around now. :smack:
What? Don’t you like retconpunches?
Depends on the tequila content.
Fenris:
I don’t recall the exact way they phrased it in the Secret Origins story, but I think part of the suspended animation spell was that she’d awake when someone with similar powers appears on Earth and her “ship” would be drawn to him. So she coincidentally had similar powers to the Kryptonian suite, and it took 45000 years for that to re-appear on Earth.
(Hey…maybe Arion was descended from a tryst Superboy had with that Atlantean girl in “The Civil War of the Legion” Adventure # 333, and those dormant genes are what Garn Daanuth awakened in her! Hey, continuity geekhood can be fun!)
When was that, in the latter Justice League books? Was this when she was pregnant with [del]Immortus[/del] Equinox?
Ok, now that’s just a damned impressive retcon…except that you forget that there WAS no Superboy–even the Pocket Universe one :D! The Legion was inspired by [del]the fake legend of Superboy[/del] [del]the pocket universe Superboy[/del], [del]Mon-E…nope, can’t go there[/del], [del]Lar Gand[/del], [del]Val-Or[/del], [del]The Peter David/Earth Angel Supergirl*[/del], Earth Prime comic books that somehow ended up in the Legion’s time. 
So maybe Superman ended up in the Legion’s time, fought the Civil War of the Legion and HE boinked that Atlantean girl. Except that she was too young for Superman. Or maybe Superboy Prime time travelled while pushing planets around and did it? Hmm…I’m starting to understand the reasoning behind Infinite Crisis. 
Kidding aside, unfortunately the DC writers weren’t as creative as you and given that, I do see a problem with Arion’s grandkid just happening to have exactly the same powers and power-levels as Superman.
I don’t remember the sequence of events: I may be putting these in the wrong order. She kept losing her powers. First, she lost a ton of power when the Grey Man attacked her, then it turned out that she was allergic to diet soda(?) which made her into a bitch, then it turned out she was allergic to natural stuff–this was (IIRC) during her Soverign Seven run about the same time as the “Godwave” stuff. Someone beats her up with a hunk of wood. Her “classic” line once she realizes that anything unprocessed (? like air?) like branches and rocks and bunnies can hurt her was something like “Wait. You’re saying sticks and stones really can break…?!” I hated the fact that they kept wimping Power Girl out.
Plus, her post-Crisis continuity never made any sense even with the Arion origin. Each issue of Man of Steel was supposed to be 1 year apart so that Byrne’s first issues of Superman/Action were set 7 years into his career. (Or 6.) Power Girl had to have been running around before issue 6 of Man of Steel. She’d teamed up with too many other characters earlier in their careers (remember, the current issue of Infinity Inc and all other titles were set "6 (or 7) years after the last panel of Man of Steel 1) and Power Girl was a veteran hero by Infinity Inc #30-something.
The problem is this. At some point earlier than issue 6 of Man of Steel, Supes had to meet her and acknowledge her as his cousin from Krypton. But he didn’t find out that he was from Krypton until Man of Steel #6.
This is one of those examples of bad continuity patches that keeps getting worse with each attempted fix…and why I think Infinite Crisis, if handled correctly, is the best/simplest fix. “Meet Kara Zor-L, twice orphaned survivor of a Krypton that existed in another, now destroyed parallel dimension which she is also the only survivor of. Now in our dimension, with the same powers and abilities of Superman, she fights a never-ending battle…etc” It passes the index card test. 
*I think. Maybe. And I left a couple out–Didn’t 20th Century records of Cosmic Boy who was time-travelling at the time inspire the Legion (around/during the time of Legends)? And during the Glorithverse, there were a couple of other inspirations I thought.
And Earth-Angel Supergirl is another continuity patch problem. First the Pocket Universe existed and the Legion was allowed to remember Superboy. Supergirl (as Matrix came from the Pocket Universe and Superman executed the Phantom Zone criminals there. But by Legion 5-Years Later, Glorith wiped the Time Trapper out of history, thus no Pocket Universe, thus no Matrix/Supergirl (and who Superman executed and where he did it is a whole other problem). Earth-Angel Supergirl canNOT be fit on an index card.
Honestly, I must admit to being mildly charmed by the sheer chutzpah of this conceit. After all the nonsense of CoIE and Zero Hour, it turns out that the best way to fix DC continuity is to just beat it up.
"Do you still feel like contradicting yourself now?" POW * “This one’s for *Hawkman!” SOCK “*And this one’s for * Beppo the Super-Monkey!” BIFF
Fenris:
Were they really exactly the same? I don’t recall PG having heat vision or X-Ray vision before they started re-opening her origin in JSA. And without those, she’s just strong, invulnerable and can fly.
Do you have a problem with Ultra Boy? Granted, he can only use one power at a time, but the set is the same as Superman’s.
So he meets her and acknowledges that their powers are probably from the same source, whatever that might have been. That’s not a difficult retcon to manage.
Actually, she was exactly the problem that had the Legion team scrambling to put Superboy back into Legion history in a minor role, after all they just went through to replace him with Valor. That was such a mess, and for what? What idiot decided they had to erase the Pocket Universe?
I believe she had the whole suite of Kryptonian (Earth 2 level) powers Post-Crisis (she certainly did pre-Crisis) including the vision/breath/senses powers until she got mugged by the Grey Man around JLI 37 and was drastically depowered.
A) A fan/geek quibble answer. It’s not exactly the same: he has penetra-vision which can see through lead! And his invulnerablitly allows him to travel through time if all other ways to protect him fail (LoSH ~280 or so).
B) An ‘fan theory’ answer: He could have TONS more powers: pretty much any one he can think of-albeit one at a time, but he’s just not all that creative/bright.
C) A real answer: you got a really valid point. But somehow it doesn’t bug me with Ultra-Boy. (Mon-El doesn’t count: Daxamites are a Kryptonian offshoot. Or the reverse.)
Except that (IIRC) her post-Crisis origin specifically had her have implanted Kryptonian memories (courtesy of Arion) and a big chunk of her backstory is that she was introduced as Superman’s cousin ('cause she had fake Kryptonian memories) until they learned better. I think that was in the original Post-Crisis Arion origin issue.
I don’t remember, but I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t the Legion team’s idea to ditch it. IIRC, it was forced on the Legion–I don’t think it was Byrne: I thought Byrne’s compromise was that the Legion could use the Pocket Universe fix as long as the Pocket Universe Superboy died and then they didn’t mention him much after that…which the Legion did. It might have been Byrne’s editor at the time. Was Kevin Dooley ever a Superman editor? He was the doof who thought that all other Green Lanterns (including Alan Scott) had to be killed (or name changed) because it was too confusing for readers to have more than one character with the same name. There are plenty of valid story reasons for getting rid of the Corps, but “reader confusion” isn’t one of them (as evidenced by all the Flashes running around in Waid’s Flash). He was also the one who drove Peter David off of Aquaman. I can easily see him saying “Nope. Too confusing to have a Superboy who’s not connected with Superman”. That said, I don’t know if he had anything to do with it.
I do know that the whole bit in the early “Five Years Later” issues with the…what 5 origins in 4 issues (the Glorithverse and such) clusterf*ck was forced on the Legion by a variety of editors, none of whom were communicating with each other at all. Ditto with the Rond Vidar/Green Lantern thing (that WAS Kevin Dooley) and whatshername…Celeste someone? Also a Dooley victim.
One thing I like about Dan Didido (am I spelling that right?) is that he’s really forcing the editors and writers to interact with each other. And he’s also (apparently, again 5th hand info) promised Waid that the Legion will NOT be messed up. If something changes (like all the GL rings are destroyed in the present and if Waid has introduced a GL character earlier) there’s a thousand years for that problem to be solved.
Fenris:
Correct. It was the Superman editor of the time, though I don’t recall now who that was. It was Mike Carlin’s predecessor in that role.
Nitpick: The bitch-slapping came in Justice League Europe #8. It was part of a four part cross-over with JLA issues #35 and 36. Still damned impressive though.
Meanwhile, back on the OP…
I worked for a comic book distributer when CoIE came out. At that time, comic books were really, REALLY hot. So many independant names to chose from, and people were buying them. All of them. The comic book financial ‘pie’ had become huge, but at the same time, there were a lot more companies taking out ‘slices’. Thus, DC needed to do something big to get their audience stabilized. This, at the time, was big. A year-long (iirc) reboot, with no one really sure how it was going to end. It was an enormous money maker for them.