Over almost eighty years of publishing history, DC Comics has gotten a reputation for mucking around rather a lot with the fictional history of its shared superhero universe. Currently it's in the early stages of "Rebirth," which (in a nutshell) apparently aims to restore ten years' worth of in-universe time to the five-year backstory of the New 52.

RELATED: Ten Biggest New 52 Continuity Changes "DC Universe: Rebirth" Reversed

If the previous sentence made your eyes glaze over and your brain go numb, this post wants to help. What follows is a concise-ish catalog of how the comics company has sought to define (or redefine) its collective cosmos; and it goes back quite a ways.


The company we think of as DC Comics was formed out of three distinct entities: National Allied Publications, Detective Comics Inc. and All-American Publications. National began publishing "New Fun Comics" (later retitled "More Fun Comics") in 1935, and "New Comics" (later "Adventure Comics") in 1936. Detective Comics' eponymous series came along later in 1936 (#1 cover-dated 1937), and in 1938 it launched the industry-changing "Action Comics."

In 1946 Detective Comics Inc., National Allied Publications and All-American Publications became one corporate entity, National Periodical Publications. That company didn't officially change its name to "DC Comics Inc." until 1977, although it had been known as such for decades. I mention the corporate moves because collectively, they make the first real "DC Universe" moment even more remarkable.

DC 1.0: THE JUSTICE SOCIETY



Debuting in All-American's "All-Star Comics" #3 (1941), the Justice Society of America brought together characters from all three early entities, including National's Doctor Fate, Hourman and Sandman, All-American's Flash, Atom, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman, and (occasionally) Detective's Batman and Superman. Speaking practically, though, the fact that they came from different (albeit closely-connected) publishers is more of a historical footnote. What matters is that they were a team at all. The notion that all these characters appeared in their own titles and then met up to fight even bigger menaces is a given today, but back then it was groundbreaking.

DC 1.1: SUPERBOY



Another significant bit of history came in 1945, with the debut of Superboy in "More Fun Comics" #101. As the tagline reminded readers, these were "the adventures of Superman when he was a boy" -- but that statement arguably conflicted with the Man of Steel's origin as documented in 1938's "Action" #1, and (in expanded form) in 1939's "Superman" #1. Now, it's a fair point as to whether 1940s readers really cared as much about consistency; but eventually they would care. Boy, would they. Reconciling these sorts of differences would eventually mean creating both a whole new cosmology, and new terms like "retroactive continuity" to describe it.

DC 2.0: THE SILVER AGE



In hindsight, the start of DC's Silver Age shares a lot with a modern line-wide reboot. It reintroduced Golden Age characters like the Flash, Green Lantern, Atom and Hawkman, but changed them significantly and -- for a while, at least -- all but ignored the original stories. It also introduced new characters (Martian Manhunter, Adam Strange, the Doom Patrol); modernized Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman; and updated the JSA into the Justice League of America.

Of course, the Silver Age's two foundational events both involve The Flash. September-October 1956's "Showcase" #4 introduced the second Scarlet Speedster, Barry Allen; and February 1961's "Flash" #123 revealed that original Flash Jay Garrick had been living on the parallel world of Earth-Two. By that time it had been ten years since the last Justice Society story (February-March 1951's "All-Star" #57) and twelve years since Jay's "Flash Comics" had been cancelled.

DC 2.1: THE MULTIVERSE

Thus, right from the start Earth-Two laid out a couple of ground rules that would distinguish itself from Barry's Earth-One. It presumed that all of Jay's Golden Age adventures had "actually" happened (just on Earth-Two); and also that they happened in real time (i.e. from Jay's introduction in 1940's "Flash Comics" #1 to his 1949 retirement).

The rules of Earth-Two also ended up defining the main Earth-One. The five-and-a-half years between "All-Star" #57 and "Showcase" #4 included some stories that would become part of Earth-One history. Among them were the debut of Captain Comet in June 1951's "Strange Adventures" #9; the start of the Superman/Batman team-ups in May-June 1952's "Superman" #76; and the Martian Manhunter's first appearance in November 1955's "Detective" #225. The Superboy stories were also retroactively assigned to Earth-One -- or at least they were deemed not to have happened to the Superman of Earth-Two, who didn't appear in a Silver Age story until 1969's "JLA" #75.

Otherwise, the early 1950s were pretty quiet for DC's superheroes. Superman, Batman and Robin, and Wonder Woman survived the end of the Golden Age, but except for the aforementioned team-ups (monthly in "World's Finest Comics") they didn't interact with each other. Those team-ups deserve another mention, because "Superman" #76 purported to tell the first meeting of Superman and Batman, despite the two being members of the JSA (and having shared adventures on the 1940s "Adventures of Superman" radio show). As with the Superboy stories, this wasn't just a contradiction of Golden Age history, but a piece of Earth-One history; and that conceit helped to establish the boundaries between Earths.

Naturally, Earth-One history only got more expansive as the Silver Age went on. By the 1970s its heroes had gotten an elastic timeline which kept them perpetually young (or at least young-ish). This was in contrast to Earth-Two, whose Golden Agers were pinned inflexibly to the 1940s, and aged accordingly. Such distinctions became necessary elements of the Multiverse which DC's creative teams were gradually building.

DC 3.0: YOU-KNOW-WHAT



By the mid-1980s, conventional wisdom claimed that DC's now-infinite Multiverse had become too unwieldy, so 1985's "Crisis On Infinite Earths" sought to streamline it. Smooshing together the last universes standing created a singular timeline which accommodated most of their characters. The ostensibly-streamlined DC-Earth had a Golden Age which started in the late 1930s (albeit without a Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman), a Silver Age which started "seven years ago," three distinct generations of super-folk, and quite a few super-people who'd been published originally by companies other than DC.

DC 3.1: ROLLING REBOOTS OF THE LATE '80S



Although "Crisis" ended in November 1985, DC wasn't done rebooting and/or relaunching. Starting with June 1986's "Man of Steel" #1 and lasting well into 1987, DC rolled out revised versions of Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and Captain Marvel. During the same period it relaunched "Justice League," "Suicide Squad" and "Flash" (now starring Wally West). By the time Tim Truman tackled Hawkman's beginnings in "Hawkworld," it was 1989 and the new DC Universe was almost three-and-a-half years old.

Furthermore, DC creative teams had found new ways to tell parallel-world stories. The Superman reboot did away with a "Superboy" career, but the Legion of Super-Heroes' history hadn't changed; so a 1987 crossover explained the discrepancy with a "pocket universe." It wasn't a parallel Earth, just a sliver of time cultivated and shaped to look like the pre-Crisis status quo. (A time-twisting 1990 "Legion" issue then removed Superboy and Supergirl from Legion history and replaced them with Lar Gand and Laurel Gand.) Similarly, in 1987 the Justice League encountered a group of Avengers analogues from the "other-dimensional" world of Angor -- which, of course, happened to look and act just like a parallel Earth.

DC 3.2: ZERO HOUR



Hawkman wasn't the only problem. Besides Superman and the Legion, changes to Wonder Woman affected the histories of the Justice League and Teen Titans; and a plot point in "Batman: Year One" required a change in Batgirl's background. In the summer of 1994, writer/artist Dan Jurgens (with inker Jerry Ordway) produced the five-issue weekly "Zero Hour: Crisis In Time!" It played with alternate timelines instead of parallel worlds, but with a familiar ending: everything was the same, except for the little differences. "Zero Hour" tried its best to fix Hawkman, retired the Justice Society, and rebooted the Legion of Super-Heroes with a pair of zero issues and a young-again cast. That Legion reboot was probably the most significant product of post-"Zero Hour" continuity, with the new "Starman" series a close second; and "Starman" had next to nothing to do with "Zero Hour" beyond a cameo in the miniseries. For the rest of the superhero books "Zero Hour" was basically a collective deep breath and a chance to regroup.

DC 3.3: HYPERTIME



Meanwhile, starting with 1989's "Gotham By Gaslight," DC had found yet another way to tell parallel-world stories, by calling them "Elseworlds" and decreeing that they would have no effect on main-line continuity. Mark Waid, who had written 1996's "Kingdom Come" Elseworlds and its sequel "The Kingdom" (and who incidentally had edited "Gaslight") collaborated with "JLA" writer Grant Morrison on the concept of Hypertime.

Essentially a catch-all for any story DC had ever published, from "Action Comics" #1 to a Hostess Cupcake comic starring Green Lantern, was now deemed part of Hypertime. While Hypertime threads could manifest occasionally as part of the main timeline -- as in the "Kingdom: Planet Krypton" special, when Batman recognized a traditional, out-of-continuity Batwoman -- it wasn't that easy to travel through Hypertime at will. The Flash could do it with some practice, but a "Superboy" arc required some Apokoliptian technology powered by a nuclear explosion. While it was intended to re-expand the scope of DC cosmology, even hinting that the infinite Multiverse destroyed in "Crisis" was just a little corner of Hypertime, it never caught on.

DC 3.4: ROLLING REBOOTS OF THE EARLY '00S

A couple more series-specific reboots deserve some attention. In 2004, Waid and artist Leinil Yu revised Superman's origin for the first time since "Man of Steel" in the 12-issue "Superman: Birthright." Among other things, it established that teenaged Lex Luthor was friends with Clark Kent in Smallville (as was the case in the Silver Age and on the "Smallville" TV show) and crafted a fake-Kryptonian-invasion storyline to go along with Supes' earliest appearances. Around the same time, Waid and artist Barry Kitson relaunched "Legion of Super-Heroes" in what was later called the "threeboot." This time the Legion was more of a youth movement than a super-team, and the stories started with the group already fairly well-established. It lasted about four years before being sidelined in favor of an earlier version.

DC 3.5: THE CRISIS CYCLE



For 2005's 20th anniversary of "Crisis On Infinite Earths," DC turned to writer Geoff Johns and artist Phil Jimenez. "Infinite Crisis" brought back four characters from the original "Crisis," killed three of them, and turned the fourth into a nigh-irredeemable strawman. As far as reboots go, "Infinite Crisis" explained minor timeline tweaks on much the same level as a parent explaining thunder to a small child, only instead of "God is bowling" it was "an angry version of Superboy is punching an interdimensional wall." The sequel also set up a new Multiverse, whose existence was revealed a year later towards the end of the weekly "52" maxi-series.

The Multiverse got a lot of play over the next couple of years, primarily in the "Countdown" and "Final Crisis" miniseries. The ending of "Final Crisis" involved another cosmic restart, but this one was meant more to undo the damage from the miniseries than for continuity tweaks. Nevertheless, Johns and artist Gary Frank used the opportunity to produce "Superman: Secret Origin," the third and last major set of revisions in the post-Crisis period.

DC 4.0: FLASHPOINT AND THE NEW 52



"Final Crisis" ended in early 2009, but a little over two years later DC announced another line-wide relaunch. "Flashpoint" was a five-issue miniseries with its own dizzying array of tie-ins, each focusing on a different aspect of a horrifically altered DC-Earth. To set things straight, the Flash (Barry Allen, back since "Final Crisis") restarted the timeline as directed by the mysterious Pandora. The resulting New 52 timeline picked up five in-story years after the Justice League formed, and was a mishmash of total reboots (Superman, the Flash, Wonder Woman) and grandfathered continuity (Batman, Green Lantern, the rest of the Multiverse) thrown together with characters from DC's Vertigo and WildStorm imprints.

DC 4.1: CONVERGENCE



The last bit of cosmic card-shuffling came in 2015's "Convergence," which revealed that your favorite retired timelines were still out there, ready to fight each other, thanks to Brainiac. As near as I can tell, these weren't entire parallel universes, but slivers of time not unlike what the Time Trapper did back in 1987 to preserve the pre-Crisis Superboy.

"Convergence" produced three miniseries: "Telos," about Brainiac's number-one assistant, which almost no one read; "Titans Hunt," reuniting the New 52 versions of the classic Teen Titans; and "Superman: Lois & Clark," bringing back the pre-New 52 Superman, his bride and their son. "Titans Hunt" revealed that no one remembers the original Teen Titans, including them; and "Lois & Clark" revealed that the ex-Kents have been living in secret on the main DC-Earth since the New 52 Justice League first appeared. The "DC Universe: Rebirth" special picked up the basic plots of both miniseries, so they should play out in the new Superman books and the no-adjective "Titans" series. I feel compelled to point out that as far as I can tell, there hasn't been any sort of big cosmic change in the "Rebirth" books, but boy is it coming.

WHITHER DC 5.0?



Accordingly, by my count there have been four major versions of DC's shared universe:

  • Golden Age (1935-51)
  • Silver Age/Multiverse (1956-85)
  • Post-Crisis (1986-2011)
  • New 52 (2011-present)

Clearly this reflects only the most comprehensive reboots, not status quo shifts, continuity tweaks or changes in tone. It also glosses over the growth of the legacy structure and/or the demarcation of various younger generations, which I suppose could be seen as relaunches.

Nevertheless, within those four major eras are nine "softer" reboots, relaunches, what have you:

  • Superboy (1945)
  • The Multiverse (1961)
  • The Post-Crisis relaunches (1986-89)
  • "Zero Hour" (1994)
  • Hypertime (1998)
  • "Infinite Crisis" wall-punching and other early-'00s tweaks (2003-05)
  • The New Multiverse (2007)
  • "Convergence" (2015)

Since these sets of changes have been increasing in frequency, it's easy to see how DC got its reputation for tinkering.

What, therefore, might we expect from "Rebirth?" At the very least it seems like the basic New 52 setup will be expanded with ten more years' worth of comic book time. That could make some characters older, and give creative teams more room to develop them (even if they only do it by dropping in some pre-New 52 references). Still, it says nothing about whether a more comprehensive reboot will happen anytime soon.

To be sure, the "Rebirth" we have right now isn't really making the case for DC 5.0, even if it brings back older versions of characters. I'd classify a New 52-Plus-Ten-Years as "DC 4.5" up until the point where everything goes white (or blue, as the case may be). DC stopped branding its superhero books with "New 52" a year ago, but as much as it may want to say that era is over, it still can't chuck the whole thing just yet. As a practical matter, five years in DC is still fine-tuning the New 52.

What's your favorite DC era? Let us know in the comments!