On Tuesday, February 23, DC launches the Linearverse – a new way to look at the publisher’s 82-year history. Part of the new extended Multiverse concept launched in Dark Nights in January: Death Metal # 7, called the Omniverse, in which every DC story ever told is in continuity, and the Linearverse is ironically enough to need to take away why the DC Multiverse in the first place.
Do you have any questions? Do not worry, we will explain in detail. But first …
Spoilers for February 23’s Generations: Counterfeit # 1
Generations: Forged # 1 by writers Dan Jurgens, Andy Schmidt and Robert Venditti is the second half of a story that began with a prologue in Detective Comics # 1027 and which continued in January’s Generations: Shattered # 1. Kind of like Avengers Forever-ish adventure, the story features a team of DC superheroes picked from various timelines, including the original Batman from 1939, put together a few weeks into his career to fight a villain who sweeps time (for reasons that somewhat similar to what’s going on (in Disney Plus’ WandaVison).
A natural assumption about the Generations story in light of the revelation that everyone stories are now in continuity in the new Omniverse is that heroes from different Earth are picked from the Multiverse representing the different timelines. But it turns out not to be the case.
In the last pages of Forged, readers instead learn that despite all the familiar signs of DC’s past and future in the storyline, such as the original depictions of Superman’s birth world of Krypton, it actually takes place in his own new corner of the Omniverse called the Linear verses, in which all the DCs of more than 80 years take place in one single and of course linear timeline on one earth.
In other words, the Batman-Bruce who started his career in 1939 is the same Batman-Bruce Wayne who just participated in The 2020 Joker War.
No multiple Earth, no crises that rework timelines and continuity. Only heroes who live very, very long.
In the Linear verses, “people age much more slowly and live much longer than elsewhere,” Waverider (a gatekeeper of DC’s timelines) explains to Batman in the last pages of Forged. “Your youth and vitality will last for decades, enabling you to be effective much longer than the universal norm.”
The last pages also show versions of various iconic versions of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Robin / Nightwing and others, indicating that, despite the changes in styles, all DC stories from their origins have happened to the same people to this day. .
It’s a simple, straightforward way of explaining why fashions and technologies have changed; contemporary characters active in 2021 have lived through historical events such as World War II, and the heroes have experienced far more adventures than those within the 10-15 years that DC and even Marvel Comics superheroes are commonly considered.
Co-author Dan Jurgens tells Newsarama that Linear readers “give a place that embraces a different concept of DC history.”
Because people age differently in the Linear Age, Jurgens explains, Batman “is still young and alive enough to act as Batman through the 40s, 70s, 90s, and to this day. Despite being very, very older, would Batman still be the body of a much younger man.The same with Robin.
“It doesn’t just apply to superheroes. Commissioner Gordon, for example, would have the same status.”
The Linearverse is the formalization of an approach that writers like Grant Morrison unofficially followed during their Batman days, but currently exist as a separate reality within the Omniverse.
“It is fair to say that what we have built here, the Linearverse, is its own universe that can fit into the larger context of DC’s Omniverse,” Jurgens explains. “It’s a place where unique and individual stories can be told.”
And while the methodology is simple, eliminating the need for multiple earths, alternate timelines, crises, and the enduring nature of iconic fictional characters over time, DC continuity is never that simply.
Because so much of DC’s storytelling has been creating a coherent timeline for nearly 40 years now, the Linearverse needs creative perceptions to make everything work, too.
“When you try to build these things, accommodation has to be made, because it never fits nicely,” Jurgens answers the question of how stories like Frank Miller’s seminal Batman: Year One of 1987 (which assumes Batman’s early years in more contemporary times) fits into the Linear concept.
“Did something happen pretty close to Frank’s year one? I want to think so, yes, and it would have been in the ’30s,” Jurgens continues. “Will we still get to the point where The Dark Knight Returns is happening? This is in the future, as Bruce has not yet reached that general age.
“It’s not always the cleanest fit. But if you consider it a set of puzzle pieces where you are allowed to sand a little from one side, cut another and cut while you paint a little putty adding to the next piece, it can all come together so that it looks pretty damn good. ‘
Jurgens was very clear that although this new Linear ” is a place where some unique and individual stories can be told ‘, that it also fits within the’ larger context of the Omniverse ‘. But close watchers of DC can not only help to wonder what may have been there and whether this approach would first be considered as official continuity of DC.
Remember, Generations: Shattered and Forged is a somewhat re-imagined version of the intention to be the big, universally redefining event of DC in early 2020, kicking off the new decade in five monthly installments, along with a Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) prologue.
Readers may remember them almost a year before the original Generations were due to launch in May 2020, and Dan DiDio, DC co-publisher, began teasing the upcoming definition of a new canonical DC timeline that began with Wonder Woman’s appearance during the First World War (Generation One). , as first portrayed in a story written by Scott Snyder in January 2020’s Wonder Woman # 750.
“The Generation series of special offers was built to bring the new DC timeline to life,” DiDio said in February 2020 about the original event. “We will focus on the 80-year publishing history of the DC Universe, while charting the course for the bright future of DC’s characters. All of our greatest stories and events will create the backdrop and context for the DC “wonderful new adventures that we have planned. Everything counts, and we guarantee that there will be surprises along the way!”
One surprise along the way was DiDio’s sudden exit from DC a few days after this announcement. And although the FCBD presentation was officially finalized and the series was delayed because COVID-19 FBCD effectively canceled, the entire event was removed from DC’s schedule later to this day without an official explanation before re-emerging as Shattered and Forged .
Asked if the Linear verses were the endgame of the initial iteration of Generations in 2020, or if it originated during the development of what Generations would become, Jurgens tells Newsarama that its origins go back to the original version.
“Ironically, it reflects a bit of what Generations was in the beginning,” the author says. “There’s quite a difference, but the idea of telling a story that reflects DC’s comics from the beginning through the present is where we started. The roadmap of the journey was filled with directional changes, blocked roads, numerous flight changes and some idiosyncratic voyages lost at sea, but the project still retains aspects of our earliest conversations.
‘DC’s publication history is a generational history. This is, after all, one of the reasons why we have taken characters from a particular point in time through DC’s history. It is surprising that these characters have endured as long as they have and it is remarkable to see that they have adapted to the time but in many cases still retain their original core characteristics. ‘
Whatever the original intent, the Linearverse now exists as a playground in which new stories can be told in the Omniverse, and Jurgens and his co-authors practically concluded the story to explore DC.
Generations: Forged ends with Waverider donating Batman in 1939 with a time travel device to use only as a last resort in a ‘real crisis’, and the last words of the story are ‘The Beginning!’
“There are all kinds of stories and adventures worth exploring in the Linear verses,” Jurgens concludes. “If readers like what they’ve seen, respond well to the concept and ask for more, it can just happen.”
Speaking of crises, Newsarama ranked every crisis in DC’s history from best to worst.