DC Database
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The first Time Travel story in a comic book by DC Comics or its predecessors was Magic Crystal of History: "Ancient Egypt, Part 1", by Adolphe Barreaux, in New Fun Comics #1, Feb 1935.

Time Travel can be achieved by many means, one more weird than the other.

History

The first Time Travel story in a comic book by DC Comics or its predecessors was Magic Crystal of History: "Ancient Egypt, Part 1", by Adolphe Barreaux, in New Fun Comics #1, Feb 1935.

The second Time Travel story in a DC comic was Strange Adventures of Mr. Weed: "The Time Machine, Part 1", by Sheldon Mayer, in New Comics #1, Dec 1935.

Since that time, hundreds of stories have featured characters and vehicles and devices and potions for accomplishing various forms of time travel.

Time Travel Theory

Three distinct, and irreconcilable, theories regarding time travel have long co-existed, in the DC Universes:

Fixed Time: The past cannot be changed. Events will conspire to prevent any meaningful changes to history.[1][2] In some cases a time traveler is forced to be part of the very event they were to observe and make sure it happens as recorded.[3][4] In others a person will become a phantom unable to interact with events.[5][6]

Plastic Time: History can be changed, but there can be consequences from doing so.[7]

  • The concept of hypertime can be viewed as a strange version of the Plastic Time theory.
  • An extreme version of Plastic Time is Chaotic Time where the smallest of changes can have mammoth effects on the timeline.[8]

Parallel Universes: Time travel to your own actual past or future is impossible, and all time travel does is either shift you into a parallel universe,[7] or into an alternate timeline. In some cases travel to "the" future was actually travel to an parallel Earth with a similar but also different history.[9]


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