18 comments to “Remember the Fiff-dee-tuu”

1. I like many of these, but did we really need a *Justice Riders* world, for Pete’s sake? A Liberty Files world? An Amazonia world?

        by Andrew Perron November 26th, 2007 at 16:13 --reply
   

2. It’s funny. Rip’s comment about the multiverse being opened is really very metafictional looking back. By defining the 52 universes, they’ve really removed any ability for new possibilities. Sure, they can write further stories, but the majority of Elseworlds stories had pretty firm endings, that I can remember. Also, there’s a couple other new worlds in there, unless you’re counting one-panel appearances as previously seen. Earth-12 may or may not be Batman Beyond. If nothing else, the GL being featured in Arena is NOT the GL from BB (although there’s a simple argument that there’s lots of GLs). Earth-13 is possibly new, although the intentional vagueness kind of hints at Earth-Vertigo. Earth-3’s entire publishing history at this point is a couple fight scenes in Countdown. Same with Earth-15 (although that is now destroyed). There’s also a handful of skipped numbers which may well be completely new. Still, I agree that it’s a huge letdown making the bulk into previously seen Elseworlds.

        by Endless Mike November 26th, 2007 at 16:13 --reply
   

3. I wonder how many more of these worlds will see entire casts introduced and then murdered by Superboy Prime.

        by Jbird November 26th, 2007 at 17:14 --reply
   

4. About those 3 “new” worlds? It’s only two.

   Earth-17 is Atomic Knights-ville. Population: Armor-clad dudes riding dalmations.

   I’m glad they never made that post-apoc DCU Elseworld I had the idea for. (It would’ve been awesome though. At the end it turns out the nuclear war started when the Cold War superpowers saw baby Kal-El’s rocket. Whoa!)

        by HitTheTargets November 26th, 2007 at 22:13 --reply
   

5. I’m still wondering why they needed to do this when Hypertime was already there.

   Of course, explaining Hypertime is another matter. It’s probably easier to say “parallel worlds!” and have fanboys debate endlessly about multiple continuities.

        by MarkPoa November 26th, 2007 at 22:34 --reply
   

6. DC is all about wheels within wheels. They’re spinnin’ nigga. They’re spinnin’.

        by Pedro Tejeda November 26th, 2007 at 22:40 --reply
   

7. MarkPoa hit it on the head.

        by West November 26th, 2007 at 23:36 --reply
   

8. DC is all about wheels within wheels. They’re spinnin’ nigga. They’re spinnin’.

   I can’t decide whether to laugh or to strangle you until I feel better.

        by david brothers November 27th, 2007 at 04:15 --reply
   

9. This shit is the prelude to the reintroduction of Hypertime. Why the hell would Grant Morrison pitch a Crisis without Hypertime?

        by d00gZ November 27th, 2007 at 12:24 --reply
   

10. …in hindsight, its hard to see DC going in any other direction than ‘oh, all our Elseworlds are now worlds!’

    And hells yeah, those panels are full of meta. “Thats the way things should be…” doesn’t get more meta than that. ^_^

    I think the problem that (some) fans had with Hypertime was that it meant that they had to relax their rigid grip on continuity. Y’see, for me, the explanation that “It’s all true, it all happened” is really neat and sort of Zen. Its the same reason I’ve been using to explain the sections where Vertigo overlaps with the DCU proper- having an ‘Earth 13’ would create a lot more problems than it would solve, IMO.

    And while I’m ranting:
    Earth-4: Home of the Charlton characters (a.k.a. – the Watchmen-esque world)
    Watchmen-esque? Isn’t that a little… disingenuous?

         by The Black Snotling November 27th, 2007 at 15:08 --reply
    

11. To be fair, they didn’t name off a good chunk of worlds, around half or so, so there is the chance, hopefully a good one, that we’ll see something new and exciting and not cribbed from some Elseworlds book. I can always hope, even if the odds are around the same as me bitting bit by a bat/spider hybrid from Krypton which was engulfed in gamma radiation and thusly turning into SPIDER HULK BAT SUPER MAN.

         by Soth November 27th, 2007 at 15:58 --reply
    

12. I think Newsarama and/or DC messed up in labeling Earth-13 as first appearing in Arena #1. I’m pretty sure it’s the Earth from the backup of Countdown to Adventure #3, with the different schools of magic and the Shade as a major player and the like. It’s not a particularly GOOD world, but it’s a great deal better than canonizing Red Rain and Justice Riders. (About the only Elseworlds I really think belonged in the 52 Earths are Kingdom Come, which I think is overrated but is certainly the most important, and New Frontier and maybe Liberty Files just because I liked them a lot. And maybe that utterly bizarre one where Kal-El was adopted by the Waynes and became Batman, just because it would amuse me to see him interact with our Batman.)

         by Zach Adams November 27th, 2007 at 16:21 --reply
    

13. All I want to know is which Earth has Superman punching out Bat-Santa? Now that was an Elseworlds worth reading.

         by Gavok November 27th, 2007 at 18:20 --reply
    

14. And, while it’s not a comic COVER, it’d make an awesome front cover for the last CHIKARA show of the year!

         by Zach Adams November 27th, 2007 at 18:27 --reply
    

15. How lame that practically all of these universes can be described in one sentence that begins, “Batman is a/an…”

    Earth-2 “Batman is a dead guy who fathered a daughter with Catwoman.”
    Earth-3 “Batman is an evil jerk.”
    Earth-9 “Batman is an enchanted suit of armor.”
    Earth-11 “Batman is a woman.”
    Earth-12 “Batman is a teenage kid.”
    Earth-13 “Batman is a sorcerer.”
    Earth-15 “Batman is a guy named Jason Todd.”
    Earth-16 “Batman is a dad.”
    Earth-18 “Batman is a cowboy.”
    Earth-19 “Batman is a Victorian vigilante.”
    Earth-21 “Batman is a …Batman.”
    Earth-22 “Batman is a crippled micro-manager.”
    Earth-26 “Batman is a mouse.”
    Earth-30 “Batman is a Russian resistance fighter.”
    Earth-32 “Batman is a Green Lantern.”
    Earth-37 “Batman is a broke orphan.”
    Earth-40 “Batman is an American spy during WWI.”
    Earth-43 “Batman is a vampire.”
    Earth-50 “Batman is a gay black ops operative.” (They’re totally going to do this, just you watch.)

         by Splint Chesthair November 28th, 2007 at 17:02 --reply
    

16. Well that’s just great. Now I want there to be a lone Forerunner child who survived the Shadow Demon assault and swore to become a bat. Monitors are a superstitious ect. ect.

         by HitTheTargets November 28th, 2007 at 21:03 --reply
    

17. Why the hell does everyone have shadow demons now anyways? Darkseid, the Monitors, the Anti-Monitor, probably Pa Kent…

         by d00gZ November 29th, 2007 at 11:53 --reply
    

18. Shadow demons are probably easy to find hanging out in the parking lot of a Home Depot or something.

         by Splint Chesthair November 29th, 2007 at 12:15 --reply