From: jcoxhead@acorn.co.uk (Jonathan Coxhead)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: The Crisis never happened
Date: 1 Sep 92 09:45:52 GMT
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England


   The Crisis never happened
   --- ------ ----- --------

   There's benn a lot of discussion about the Crisis recently, so I think
it's time for me to confuse beyond hope of recovery any newbies there may be
out there who don't understand this stuff.

   Well, it's true. The Crisis never happened.

   (Did you know that Marv Wolfman and Len Wein have agreed wthat it was a
Bad Thing, anyway? So that much is official.)

   The usual view of the Crisis is that there was some kind of destruction
of the "pre-crisis" universe (including Earth-1, Earth-2, Earth-3; also
Earth-S, Earth-C, Earth-Q and various others - who remembers the world of
the Super-Sons?) resulting in the formation of a "post-crisis" universe,
consisting of just one (simplified) world, allegedly with a non-confusing
continuity.

   In fact, this is not the case.

   If you think about it, it just doesn't make sense. Think of Earth-1.
There was a happy Superman, having problems with Lois Lane and lots of other
people with the initials L L, Batman meeting Batgirl, Bat-Girl, Batwoman and
of course the Bat-Hound and so on; but we did also know a lot about its
future: about OMAC, the One-Man Army Corps; of Tommy Tomorrow, and the five
world wars that led to the Legion of Super-Heroes; and Anthro, too, and so
on. Stories have been told about these things; they happened in a universe
that was consistent, and that had regular trade-routes open to other
universes - viz, Earth-[a-zA-Z1-9'] (I was never sure if they were supposed
to be case-sensitive or not).

   So all this history was there: and it was there for all the other
universes too. Imagine that the universe is a four-dimensional continuum
(which it is, so that's not too hard). "The present" is a three-dimensional
slice through this continuum, and as time goes by it moves along the fourth
axis. It's best not to enquire too closely into exactly in what sense it's
moving - it's not moving forward at some particular rate, since it is
exactly the thing that defines the time you measure rate with. But I
digress.

   At some "point," all these universes merged into one, with a red-sky
effect never satisfactorily accounted for by normal physics; and the "new"
earth was born. But these changes didn't really affect the histories of any
of the universes that there had been before: they were already "complete,"
from a four-dimensional perspective. The only way this could have happened
was in a fifth dimension of "supertime," which provides a medium for the
entire four-dimensional structure of a universe to evolve and change
(also merge with others, appear, disappear and whatever).

   But within the spacetime of Earth-1, this was undetectable: at supertime
T = 0, there was a whole history; at 0 < T < 1 (say), the skies went red; at
T = 1, things settled down.

   Well, they haven't actually settled down yet. There is clearly some scope
for research into the five-dimensional structure of the D C multiverse here
- I think the Psycho Pirate might well be able to help out.

   So all that happened during the Crisis was that we stopped having comics
about Earth-1, Earth-2 etc written, and they started writing comics about
this new earth instead. The Crisis was a shift of narrative emphasis, not
something that happened "inside" any of the Earths that we had come to know
and love.

   BUT in the D C universe, we know there is time travel: travel in the
fourth dimension. All we need is for some bright spark (or the Psycho
Pirate) to invent a supertime-machine, and we can open up the trade routes
again.

   YAYYYYY!!!!

   So the "new" Superman could visit the Superman of Earth-1 (who is now
powerless, having exposed himself to gold kryptonite as a bid to stop Mr
Mxyzptlk from destroying the world) and the Superman of Earth-2 (happily
married to Lois Lane). But then they'd need a name for their brave new
world: a world where Power Girl is the last daughter of Atlantis instead of
of Krypton, Supergirl is secretly Lana Lang (or not), and the Time Trapper
has manipulated time and space to an extent that would surely shock the
heroes of Earth-[12]; and the Ambush Bug from Earth-Prime is trapped against
his will. (At least, I assume that it must be because he's from Earth-Prime
that he has this knowledge denied to all other inhabitants of his world -
that he's living in a comic book.)

   So the name I propose for this new world is:

      ******   ****   *****   ******  **  **         ****
      **      **  **  **  **    **    **  **        **  **
      **      **  **  **  **    **    **  **        **  **
      *****   ******  *****     **    ******  ****  **  **
      **      **  **  ** **     **    **  **        **  **
      **      **  **  **  **    **    **  **        **  **
      ******  **  **  **  **    **    **  **         ****

in keeping with the logical progression so far (30's - 40's: Earth-2,
60's - 70's: Earth-1, 80's - 90's: Earth-0).

   And they could still tell stories about Earth-[a-zA-Z1-9], just as we had
Earth-2 stories in the 70's.

   So here's a little trivia question:

   What effect did (green) kryptonite have on Earth-2 humans? On Earth-1
humans? On Earth-0 humans? Reply by e-mail (if you've got this far) and I'll
let you know.

   And remember ... the Crisis never happened! Write to your M P (or
Senator) and demand more stories about Earth-1!

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