User blog:MektonZ/A Brief History of the Multiverse

The Beginning
The Golden Age of the Comics begins in 1938 when DC -well, they went by another name back then- publishes Action Comics #1. Superman's huge success led to the creation of more super-heroes in the 40's: Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Alan Scott), The Flash (Jay Garrick), Atom (Al Pratt), Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Aquaman... and several of those heroes founded the Justice Society, the world's first team.

Back then, continuity wasn't important, so some characters changed gradually. Take Superman, for example: Superman's name was originally Kal-L, but later he was called Kal-El. At the beginning he worked for the Daily Star, managed by George Taylor. After some issues, both names were changed to Daily Planet and Perry White, respectively. Superman started off his career when he was an adult in the early stories, but DC started publishing Superboy's adventures in 1945...

In the late 40's, super-heroes fell out of fashion and most of their strips and magazines were cancelled. Only Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman went on publication during the 40's and 50's. At the same time, editors and writers grew a little more continuity-obsessed.

Multiple Earths
In 1956 started the Silver Age and the revival of the super-heroes. DC published the adventures of a new Flash (Barry Allen) and later revamped other concepts. Green Lantern was now Hal Jordan, a space cop. Atom was now Ray Palmer, a man with the ability to shrink himself. And so on. In 1961 they formed the Justice League. At the same time, several characters gained sidekicks/partners (Supergirl, Wondergirl, Kid Flash, Aqualad, Speedy) and several of them founded the Teen Titans.

In order to explain the differences between both periods (Superman having a different backstory, Hal Jordan having never heard of Alan Scott or both the JSA and the JLA being the world's first super-team), DC published "The Flash of Two Worlds" in 1961, which established the heroes of the Golden Age (the original Superman Kal-L, Jay Garrick, Alan Scott...) lived in a parallel universe named Earth-Two and the heroes of the Silver Age (Superman Kal-El, Barry Allen, Hal Jordan, Ray Palmer, Supergirl, Batgirl...) lived in Earth-One.

This was the status quo during thirty years: Earth-One was the main universe, but DC still published stories set in Earth-Two. DC also bought new characters and companies (Captain Marvel, Blue Beetle) and set their stories in different universes. DC also published "imaginary stories" set in alternate universes.

And since Earth-Two wasn't the main universe, writers were free to try different things and change the status quo in that alternate continuity: heroes got older and even passed away. Superman and Lois Lane got married. Batman retired, married to Selina Kyle, had a daughter and died. Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor's daughter dated Hawkman and Hawkgirl's son...

The Crisis
In the 80's it was decided by some creatives that the Multiverse was too confusing, so in 1985 Marv Wolfman and George Perez wrote "Crisis on Infinite Earths" in order to get rid of multiple Earths and duplicate characters, as well as characters DC thought had overstayed their welcome as Supergirl Kara Zor-El and Barry Allen.

In COIE, the Anti-Monitor devours most of the Multiverse but five Earths. He's defeated, but the five surviving Earths merged into a single universe named New Earth, with a different history and different characters.

However, that setup was a source of problems and headaches since the beginning. No one remembered the Multiverse but somehow everybody remembered the Crisis. And the continuity was only half-rebooted. Some characters (Superman, Wonder Woman...) were rebooted but others weren't (Batman, Green Lantern...). Some stories were still in-continuity but they had happened differently and contradict other stories. Some characters like Power Girl, Hawkman or Wonder Girl became huge messes because of this.

New Earth was the main universe from 1986 to 2011. During those years, DC tried to fix the continuity issues created by the Crisis via new events: Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis... At the same time they kept publishing alternate continuity stories called Elseworlds (which pretty much ruined the purpose of COIE).

Flashpoint
Finally, in 2011 DC published Flashpoint, an event which created a new continuity called Prime Earth. Prime Earth has been the main continuity since 2011, but it's ever-changing because writers cherry-pick whatever they want.