When the ongoing stories from an entire publisher take place in the same continuity, things are bound to get messy.
Whether it's one story contradicting a detail from a decades-old story, or past publications getting so old that characters' ages no longer make sense, comic readers will start to get confused as to what's in continuity. I cannot stress how important continuity is to the comic book reader. It is the history of characters, stories, and worlds in which they have invested time and care. So when issues and contradictions arise, fans start to get itchy trying to consolidate how the narrative makes sense and if their emotional investment will be scrapped. Marvel largely ignored their continuity issues: where Tony was once part of the Vietnam war in earlier publications, newer publications simply mention that it was Afghanistan as if the previous mention of Vietnam never happened. DC, however, has attempted to addressed these issues head on in the stories themselves, as alternate realities known as the multiverse, or in large-scale stories that reboot DC's history. Creating a story that serves the purpose of solving continuity issues should be easy, right? Simply create a threat to reality, and at the end we have a new established history for the narrative. At least, those were the hopes.
Last week saw the conclusion to DC's latest attempt to rewrite its history, Convergence. After many attempts to fix continuity issues and establish a new definitive history for its characters, DC decided to hell with keeping up a strict continuity. Instead of another attempt to streamline continuity and errors within it, Convergence was DC's flag-planting of new territory: focus less on continuity, focus more on story — everything is canon, there are infinite universes for everything to have happened. So, how exactly was all of this established within the story itself? To start, let's take a look at the history of DC's multiverse to create some context.
A (Stupendously) Brief History of the DC Multiverse
[Disclaimer: the following in an unbelievably condensed and overly-simplified summary of events, where I only outline how these events affected the state of the multiverse — not the whole story. I have also excluded Grant Morrison's Multiversity, as it is not a multiverse-changing event nor an attempt to correct DC's continuity errors.]
1961 Flashes of Two Worlds! — by accident, Barry Allen/Flash discovers there are other realities when he accidentally travels to Earth-Two and meets the Flash of the Golden Age: Jay Garrick.
Editorial purpose: explain to readers what happened to the golden age heroes — they still existed somewhere and were not just forgotten/disposed.
1986 Crisis on Infinite Earths — We learn that there was once only a single universe, but an Oan scientist named Krona (Oans being the first intelligent life in the universe) created a way to witness the creation of the universe. The act of witnessing creation fractured the universe into infinite (unstable) universes, including one anti-matter universe. The Monitor (a life-form who monitors the entire infinite multiverse) recruits heroes to defeat Anti-Monitor, a being from the anti-matter universe who seeks to destroy every last positive matter universe. Anti-Monitor is eventually destroyed, and the surviving 5 universes merge into one single universe. Alexander Luthor Jr of Earth-Three, Superboy(Prime) of Earth-Prime, and Superman and Lois of Earth-Two sacrifice themselves to limbo.
Editorial purpose: streamline the DC comics publishing line from infinite earths down to one, and amalgamate acquired properties from Fawcett Comics and Charlton Comics into the primary DC continuity.
1994 Zero Hour: Crisis in Time! — Hal Jordan, Green Lantern of Earth, absorbs the corruptive power of Parallax in the anguish of failing to prevent the destruction of his home, Coast City. With his new power, he attempts to undo all time and recreate it in his image (one where Coast City is not destroyed, and he is not Parallax). He is stopped, and the timeline restored from Hal's tampering (with tweaks to continuity).
Editorial purpose: iron out continuity errors that occurred both as a result of and since CoIE.
2005 Infinite Crisis — Alex Luthor Jr, SuperboyPrime, and Superman of Earth-Two break free of limbo after being displeased with the moral ambiguity and bleakness of the earth and its heroes. They seek to recreate the more peaceful Earth-Two. They turn increasingly more evil in their attempts, create a "tuning fork" machine out of the dead Anti-Monitor as a means to create a perfect Earth, and inadvertently create a finite multiverse of 52 worlds before they are stopped. We later learn that every time SuperboyPrime punched the barrier of limbo and reality before the events of Infinite Crisis, it caused a rippled in reality, which explains the continuity inconsistencies with DC since CoIE in 1986. We also learn that Monitors were created, one for each of the 52 new universes, to oversee and prevent other Crisis events.
Editorial purpose: a little nip/tuck to the continuity, and revive the multiverse concept.
2008 Final Crisis — after failing to recreate the multiverse in his image, Darkseid is killed, and his essence (along with his followers from Apokolips) are reincarnated on earth in human bodies. His essence, however, is drowning out of existence, thereby turning earth into a doomsday singularity threatening the multiverse. At the same time, a Monitor corrupted by the stories of the multiverse, Mandrakk, seeks to eradicate existence until all that is left is himself. After defeating Darkseid too late and all that's left is earth, Mandrakk awaits Superman, and is eventually defeated by the different Supermen of the multiverse assembled beforehand. Superman assembles and uses the Miracle Machine to restore earth and the multiverse to the way it was before. The Monitors, now aware of their corruptible nature, ban themselves from existence.
Editorial purpose: none that I'm aware of, other than let Grant Morrison unleash his glorious insanity on readers. Probably to return to a single Monitor for the entire Multiverse.
2011 Flashpoint — Barry Allen/Flash travels back in time to prevent his mother's death when he was a child. The resulting butterfly effect leads Barry to return to a different reality. In his (successful) attempt to undo his actions, a ripple resonates throughout the multiverse, effectively rebooting all 52 universes, into and new, albeit familiar, set of 52 universes, including Barry's own.
Editorial purpose: reboot all of DC Comics; all series cancelled, and launch 52 new series under The New 52 banner. With all new series, universe(s), and histories (where heroes only been active for five years), DC Comics are now more accessible to new readers. Merge Vertigo and Wildstorm characters into the main DC universe (now called Prime-Earth).
2015 Convergence — the surviving heroes of Earth-2 are transported to a planet that exists in Vanishing Point — a location outside of all time and the multiverse. This is where Brainiac stores his bottled cities from dying worlds/realities. As this planet begins to enter into the multiverse threatening existence, the villain responsible is defeated, Brainiac is released from captivity and stops the planet. We learn that this is the Brainiac from Earth-0 of pre-CoIE, who has survived all multiversal changes/reboots. He attempts to send all the bottled cities back to their realities, but the effects of CoIE are too strong. He sends a group of heroes to CoIE in order to prevent the multiverse from collapsing into one universe. They are successful off-panel, and Brainiac states all realities now exists, and have evolved.
Editorial purpose: bring the multiverse from a finite number of 52 universes, to an infinite number. Here, characters and stories from DC's past are all canon and narratively in existence living out their lives. Appease fans who didn't like the idea that their favourite iterations of characters from before Flashpoint were forever gone. Editorial shift of focusing away from continuity, and into one where "everything is canon."
The Current State of the DC's Multiverse and Continuity
Now that we've let the end of Convergence mellow out for a week, how does the story accomplish DC's new mandate? By preventing the collapse of the multiverse in CoIE into a single universe, that means the multiverse as it was pre-CoIE survives. What kind of multiverse did we have pre-CoIE? An infinite one. Infinite number of realities, infinite earths, infinite versions of characters. This means that everything that was ever written and published by DC is now canon and existing in some parallel universe. Writers now have the ability to tell stories from where ever. DC is also free from the constraints of continuity, able to explain away contradictions between stories as different realities. Basically, anything goes for stories, and if stories contradict each other, it's because "different universe".
"Yes, In Convergence #8 we reference [Grant Morrison's] Multiversity and show you some of the Post-Convergence worlds that make up the reconstituted DC Multiverse. In many ways, the number of Worlds is now infinite. There may even be more than one Multiverse." -Jeff King, writer Convergence. Interview with comicbook.com
[I'm aware that there is a large enough population on the internet that claims the actual story was not clear on this, and instead the finite multiverse of 52 worlds has been New52-ified. I understand their reasons for believing this, but I choose to ignore it because a) there is evidence in the story to support DC's goal of achieving an infinite multiverse, and b) the writer said that was his intent — that should be the end of it right there.]
What do I think of DC's current state of continuity, as someone who is usually a stickler about continuity? I sincerely do not mind. With DC making a stand with canon over continuity… I'm perfectly happy with easing up on my need for keeping a strict continuity. I'm not, however, of the camp that brushes off continuity because, "all that matters is the story, man." No, continuity matters. The history of the characters frames a context for their personality, motivations, the world they live in, and the story I'm currently reading. But, the nitty gritty of how one story's events doesn't add up when compared to another story that happened years before? I don't care; it's a mistake, writers and editors aren't encyclopedias, and a little glitch in continuity doesn't deter from framing the context I just mentioned. I mean, how serious of an issue can it be when it's easily and happily explained away by an afterthought like, "Superboy-Prime was punching reality and caused time altering shockwaves."
At the moment though, The Darkseid War is under way; a story heavy with referencing altered realities from Crisis' past, and the eponymous war between Darkseid and Anti-Monitor threatening to end all reality for good. Where, when, and how this fits in with relation to Convergence is unknown at the moment. Instead of working up a fuss as to how it all fits together, I'll be sitting back, and enjoy a good story involving the New Gods, Justice League, and the two most infamous baddies in all of DC comics. I'm sure it will all work out.
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