Tangent Comics was a DC Comics imprint created in 1997–1998, developed from ideas created by Dan Jurgens. The line, made up of various one-shots, focused on creating all-new characters using established DC names, such as the Joker, Batman, and the Flash. Tangent Comics is notable as the only fifth week event published by DC to be revisited for a second round.
As with Alan Moore's Watchmen saga, the Tangent Universe radically diverged from our own due to the appearance of metahumans/superheroes, such as the original Atom, whose interference escalated the Cuban Missile Crisis on his world into a limited nuclear exchange that resulted in the obliteration of Florida. The destruction of Florida played a pivotal role in the life of the Joker, whose home city, New Atlantis on the Georgia shoreline, was formed by Florida's obliteration. The Sea Devils were marine mutants who had undergone accelerated change and gained sentience in inundated Florida and Georgia, now undersea. The Soviet Union did not fall, remaining a superpower up through the present day, and the Metal Men intervened in the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Furthermore, as in our own world, the People's Republic of China was an ascendant superpower and had its own entry in the metahuman arms race—Powergirl.
Tangent Titles
1997 Titles
- Tangent Comics: Atom #1
- Tangent Comics: Doom Patrol #1
- Tangent Comics: Flash #1
- Tangent Comics: Green Lantern #1
- Tangent Comics: Joker #1
- Tangent Comics: Metal Men #1
- Tangent Comics: Nightwing #1
- Tangent Comics: Sea Devils #1
- Tangent Comics: Secret Six #1
1998 Titles
- Tangent Comics: Batman #1
- Tangent Comics: JLA #1
- Tangent Comics: The Joker's Wild #1
- Tangent Comics: Nightwing: Night Force #1
- Tangent Comics: Powergirl #1
- Tangent Comics: The Superman #1
- Tangent Comics: Tales of the Green Lantern #1
- Tangent Comics: The Trials of the Flash #1
- Tangent Comics: Wonder Woman #1
Notes
- The Kingdom revealed that the Tangent universe was part of Hypertime, a fluid system of alternate realities based on splitting and re-merging timelines.
- Both Crisis on Infinite Earths: The Compendium and Infinite Crisis identified the Tangent universe as Earth-97. Restored in Alex Luthor's recreated Multiverse, its Green Lantern said that the heroes had to follow her lantern's light in order to survive their world's destruction from the chaos.
- At the end of the story on New Earth, two children found the lantern belonging to the Tangent Universe's Green Lantern washed up on a beach. The Tangent heroes played a part in the Ion limited series in issues #9 and #10. With the recreation of the Multiverse following the events of 52, the Tangent Universe is now known by the reality designation Earth-9.