I hated the DC Multiverse. Granted, I came into comics mostly after it was dead and gone. Even the issues that introduced me to comics, the random Adventures and World's Finests that survived my mom's childhood, never actually dealt with alternate Earths. "Imaginary Stories," sure, but they were never Earth-4 or Earth-19 or anything. When Hypertime appeared, I really hated that, too. It was years before I could accept it, and that still took a damn good story from Superboy and a decent story from the Flash to justify its existence. It helped that Hypertime was intrinsically dangerous and was very hard to use. It helped that Hypertime was mostly a way to explain where Elseworlds stories were in the grand scheme of things, and thus had little bearing on the regular universe.
But I'll admit, much to my chagrin, that I'm psyched about the new Multiverse. I was angry when Infinite Crisis suggested it (and relieved when we came out of it with one single Earth). I was groaning and griping and grousing when the 52 "secret message" came out. But after 52 #52, which was pretty darn good (could have used more closure and more clarity), I'm actually looking forward to this Multiverse.
There are a number of reasons for this. First, it's not well-known; so far only Booster, Supernova, and Rip Hunter know all about it, and I like all those characters. I'm sure the big reveal in the next few JLofA issues is going to be that Starman and the Legion are actually from Earth-1, and so the knowledge of these alternate universes is going to expand rather quickly, but for now it's a need-to-know thing, and that's nice. I guess Captain Atom and Ion know bits about it, but it doesn't seem like they have the whole picture. It's nice to see that Rip Hunter and Booster Gold are going to get some time in the spotlight.
Second, it seems like it's harder to get between universes now. So far, the only ways we know are the Bleed and Rip Hunter's Time Sphere. The former seems to have some rules (the one-for-one trade that we saw in Ion--I wonder if the Breach's death is why Captain Atom can traverse it freely) which is one of the things I liked about Hypertime; and I doubt Rip will be lending out his time bubble anytime soon.
Third, there's a limited number of worlds, which means writers are going to have to use them sparingly. There won't be any of the "o-ho! But you thought this was Earth-1, when in fact it was Earth-124, where Red Kryptonite, not Green Kryptonite, is fatal to Kryptonians!" twists that I understand were not uncommon in the pre-Crisis era. It also means that they're defining specific worlds for a reason, and hopefully that reason is "more stories."
So, now that I'm all pro-Multiverse, here's some stories I want to see, and some questions I want answered:
- What about the antimatter universe and its Anti-Earth, with the Crime Syndicate from "Earth 2"? We saw an Earth-3 in 52, with its own version of the CSA, but they weren't quite the same as the ones we've seen previously. For instance, J'onn's counterpart on Anti-Earth was a White Martian who Ultraman claimed to have killed, not a savage green Martian like the one seen here.
- How many Oas and Qwards are there? How many New Geneses and Apokolipses?
- I want to see a story where the JSA and Infinity Inc of Earth-2 invade New Earth to retrieve Kara and punish Superman-2's killer.
- I want to see Renee meet Earth-4's Vic Sage and challenge his Objectivist A=A notions.
- I want to see the LSH of Earth-2, Earth-3, Earth-10, Earth-22, etc.
- I want to see more of Earth-10 in general. Nazi Superman? How can I refuse?
- I want to see Booster Gold's quixotic quest to turn Earth-4's Ted Kord into his lost friend.
- I want to see the term "Megaverse" never, ever used again.
- I want to see Captain Marvel of Earth-5 smacking some sense into New Earth's Freddy Freeman. In fact, I want to see an all-out Marvel war. A Civil War, if you will, in the Mighty Marvel Manner.
...on second thought, scratch that last one.
But all the rest would be great. And I really want to see the new Earth-1. I suspect it's going to be like pre-Crisis Earth-1, but I might be wrong about that. In any case, I'm psyched for the future of DC. So, hey, I guess 52 worked.
