Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities The Multiverse

My main point exactly.

I've always felt that CoIE was a good story told well with exceptional art that did a bad, bad thing. Most stories that used the Multiverse concept explained the whole thing in one page or less and the explanation didn't detract from the overall story. I don't remember ever not understanding the Multiverse, honestly. DC's solution to the "problem" of the Muliverse was generally far worse than the original problem. Some characters retained Golden Age counterparts, while others didn't, with no real rhyme or reason. Some characters, especially from Earth 2, whose origins depended on characters that were removed from the continuity, found themselves without an origin (*cough*Power Girl*cough*). And other problems. It just made a big mess of the whole thing.

I don't, at this point, want to see DC try to return us to Earth 1. That won't work at this point. But the Multiverse concept was always a sound one and useful to boot. Gardner Fox was a pretty smart guy and I'm glad that DC is re-aquainting itself with his legacy.

Sure.

But how many of these worlds are they going to set their comics in?

As many as will sell, presumably. The key is to make it clear which comics are placed on which world. This is what Marvel has managed to do really well with their "Ultimate" branding.

Point taken on the sales issue, but there are still only so many books they'll be able to put on the release schedule.

I'm not sure the Ultimate line is quite the same as we're discussing, though. That continuity started from scratch, and largely features the more popular characters from the "regular" Marvel Universe.

While my experiences with the Pre-Crisis Universe are limited, I really don't see how bringing it back could be a bad thing--if done right. Personally, I thought Hypertime could have been expanded into a really good Multi-Verse replacement, had it not fallen to the wayside scarcely two years after its introduction.

The one thing I really liked about the Multi-verse (at least from what I'd heard of it), is that it allowed one universe's heroes to age, while allowing another to keep another to keep its heroes as the eternal 30-somethings DC thinks its heroes should be.

Should the Multi-verse be brought back? Can it be brought back? I'm not sure. From what I've heard, it took years for the original multi-verse to coalesce into something coherent. It was also somewhat accidental--a concept that evolved into what it became, not something that was consciously created. Intentionally trying to replicate the Multi-verse wouldn't solve much, I think.

a good way to show the multiverse would probably be in a showcase book, or a brave & bold format. make it an ongoing series that shows different aspects of certain worlds. and/or you could do mini and maxi series. that way DC could determine interest level in certain characters or teams and then decide to make it a monthly. otherwise to just suddenly have new books on the shelf, or worse everybody and his bother crossing wily-nily from one world to the next would get old quick.

I could REALLY get into an Digest style Anthology. 100-140 pgs every quarter with 4-6 stories covering characters from different earths that could never hold down their own book. This would also be a great place to try out new ideas and new characters. If something hits big give it more space in the anthology. If it hits huge, give it its own book.

I still don't fully understand why the Anthology style book has gone out of favor. It would seam to the best way to look into all the corners of the DCU without the cost of launching a whole new book. The ongoing series becomes a place to showcase (and educate) new talent, try out new characters, and, like 52, give us an ongoing look at characters that the main books don't normally focus on

DC claims they don't sell.

They may not, in the direct market, but I wonder if a "Shonen Jump" style book might not sell well outside of that market.

An 6-8 dollar digest would be ideal for those kiddy car trips. But increasingly SUV's are equipped with televisons, DVDs and kids bring their portable game devices.

The comic book market is so artist fanboy dominated I don't see how shrinking the latest thing down to 6x4 would be recieved.

That said I buy Runaways in the small format.

I really wish the anthology book would make a comeback. Anybody remember Crossgen's Compendia anthologies? Those things were awesome. And yet they failed, which would seem to prove DC right (although that might be unfair to anthologies, since Crossgen itself would not be far behind, failure-wise).

I'm expecting Nightwing, Ion, Donna, and a few others are going to take on an Exiles-type role.

That would be good way to introduce the multiverse to new readers. And any worlds/characters that garner attention can be spotlighted.

Read ION.

The problem with anthologies, in my opinion, are having to buy a whole issue when you're only following one of the stories. As good as any anthology series is (Dark Horse Presents, I'm talking about you), sooner or later a feature's going to come in where you start to question why you're buying it. And what happens when you're not interested in a majority of the stories?

DC anthology series of years ago quite frankly became the dumping grounds for hacks, has-beens and never-weres as well.

However both the Runaways digest and the Walmart double issues were censored for content.

There's one more issue of ION, and this series should be something any multiverse fan should be reading.

Only slightly (albeit clumsily). They didn't redo whole pages of art or dialogue or anything of the sort.