Panel Vision - DC Multiverse Guide

Edited by Robert Beach

This week marks a major milestone for superhero adaptations. This is the week CW’s The Flash takes a trip to Earth-2. While the Earth-2 of TV is markedly different from that of the comics, I figured now would be a good time to pen my guide to the DC Multiverse. It’s pretty much confirmed Flash will be travelling the other realities of DC’s parallel Earths. 

So I’ve put together a collection of Earth’s to watch out for and what you need to know about them should they pop up. This is also a pretty fundamental baseline for understanding why the DC multiverse exists and how all these parallel universes came to be in the first place. With that said, here’s your guide to the DC Multiverse. 

EARTH-2                        JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA

Earth-2 was originally created out of a bizarre necessity. After the end of World War 2, comics shifted readership, owing mainly to the influx of new readership in returning servicemen and the birth of the middle class. As a result, most superheroes comics just went away save for Batman and Superman.  

Now, eventually superheroes came back into vogue in the ‘60s, so DC started resurrecting old heroes like Flash and Green Lantern in their more modern guises. But older fans started wondering what happened to the originals, especially since Superman had met both Flashes, both Atoms, and both Green Lanterns. DC genius and guru Gardner Fox came up with the crazy idea that all the original heroes and their team, the Justice Society of America, were still around but on the parallel universe of Earth-2. 

Since then, Earth-2 has stuck around as a major part of DC continuity for a long time, even picking up some ongoing titles of its own for a time with the characters visibly aging and new heroes taking on their roles. For instance, Earth-2 Batman eventually retired and then died with Robin adopting a more Batman-inspired costume alongside Huntress, the daughter of Bruce Wayne and Catwoman.  

After DC blew up the Multiverse in 1986, most of its history was integrated into the mainstream comics till the 2006 revelation that the Multiverse had returned. At this point, Earth-2 was revived with a collection of the heroic successors that the JSA inspired known as Justice Society Infinity. This version didn’t last long before the New 52 shifted everything up again, creating the current version which is too unrewarding to go into in great detail. 

EARTH-3                        CRIME SYNDICATE OF AMERICA

After creating the pretty major hit achievement of Earth-2, Gardner Fox decided that since he’d opened the lid on the Multiverse Pandora’s box he may as well dive in head first. Thus, Earth-3, home of the Crime Syndicate, was born. The team group comprised of evil doppelgangers of various Earth-1 heroes like Ultra Man, who gained new powers from kryptonite.  

In their world, all of history is reversed as well like Columbus discovered Europe and Abe Lincoln shot president John Wilkes Booth. It’s a weird concept to be sure, and one that was so much of a threat it required the intervention of both the Justice League and the Justice Society, creating a semi-annual tradition of cross-universe team-ups. Another fun fact about the Crime Syndicate: they predate Star Trek’s mirror universe by about 3 years. 

The Crime Syndicate didn’t really stick around as bad guys, mainly owing to how powerful they were. They popped up in the twilight years after 1986. Prior to 2006, the graphic novel JLA: Earth 2 displayed they were the antimatter duplicates of the Justice League, an iteration that's gone a long way to shape modern conception of the team. In this iteration, the Syndicate is a lot more villainous while their powers and backstories are better realized. 

Owlman is Thomas Wayne Jr. and was raised by Joe Chill while opposing his father, Commissioner Thomas Wayne. This is also the version of the team that added the idea main universe villains were heroes in the crime syndicate world like Alex Luthor or the Jokester, sole opponents of the Crime Syndicate.

The syndicate has more or less stayed in this vision in their next two adaptations. They briefly appeared as the Crime Society during the toxic weekly comic Countdown before returning to their Syndicate roots in the toxic event comic Forever Evil. It seems like it’ll be awhile before the CSA is returned to its former glory. 

EARTH-5                        SHAZAM

No, we aren’t going in numeric order, mainly because the chronological history of the Multiverse is key to understanding its make-up. Something that’s always set DC apart from Marvel in comics history is DC had money and lawyers to burn on a lot of their big endeavors. That’s why DC got stuff like the Adam West Batman show and the ’78 Superman movie while Marvel got the Lou Ferrigno Hulk series.  

However, this also meant DC was more inclined to buy up the properties of rival comic companies, usually after actively putting them out of business. Such was the case with Fawcette comics, the creators of Shazam, who DC had sued into bankruptcy before purchasing. After buying the Fawcette characters, DC wanted to preserve the old stories while integrating Captain Marvel into their universe, so they decided to slot him into a parallel Earth. And so Earth-5 (or as it was called at the time Earth-S) was born. 

Originally, this Earth was just a collection of Fawcette heroes like the Marvel family, Bulletman, Mr. Scarlet, Ibis the Invincible, Spy Smasher, and Isis. This all happened during the ‘70s when DC was pursuing rapid expansion and experimentation after feeling pressure from Marvel. Most of these characters were folded into the main universe after the ’86 Crisis with the Earth being briefly revived in the short-lived 52/Countdown Multiverse. 

This version featured an Earth-5 Green Lantern who was never really explored to the degree that he deserved. The modern iteration of Earth-5, spawned from Grant Morrison’s Multiversity, is nicknamed Thunderworld and is framed as a back to basics, light and happy endings take on superheroes that stack up as one of the best versions of Shazam and friends ever penned. 

EARTH-10        UNCLE SAM & THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS

Full disclosure here: I am a huge fan of Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters. I really can’t explain why other than that they’re one of the strangest conflagrations of comics I’ve ever encountered. Quality Comics owned all the characters previously before going defunct and getting purchased by DC.  When tasked to integrate the Quality Comics characters, it made sense to slot them into an alternate universe.  

What didn’t make sense?  Deciding to drop the Quality Comics characters a Man In The High Castle-style alternate history where the Nazis won World War 2. To be fair, there is some logic to this madness, mainly because Uncle Sam never really had an origin story. This basically left the writers with a quasi-mystical living embodiment of America dropped into their life, so throwing him up against the most un-American villains of all time is the only move left open to you. 

It was later revealed the Freedom Fighters were Earth-2 heroes who, having failed to prevent Pearl Harbor, went to a parallel Earth to try and right their mistake. Earth-10 only ever had the one appearance as the JLA and JSA teamed with the Freedom Fighters to liberate Earth-10 from the Nazis. Afterwards, the Freedom Fighters returned to their home Earth to fight crime and eventually became part of the universe prime in ’86. When Countdown re-explored the Multiverse, the idea was introduced that Earth-10 was also full of Nazi versions of the Justice League. That particular idea has stuck around into the latest iteration of Earth-10 from Multiversity, in which the Freedom Fighters were also reimagined to be holocaust survivors. 

EARTH-4                        CHARLTON COMICS

So here’s a weird one. Like Earth-10 and Earth-5, the characters of Earth-4 are a collection of heroes previously owned by another publisher that DC purchased when they went bust. In this case, it’s Charlton Comics. The heroes on hand are a weird collection of guys, most famous among them being Blue Beetle and the Question.  

There was also Captain Atom, who some might know from Justice League Unlimited, along with Peacemaker, Nightshade, and Thunderbolt. DC ended up buying Charlton late in the game, so Earth-4 never actually appeared in the pre-Crisis times like Earth-2, 3, 5, and 10. In fact, the only way we knew Earth-4 actually existed is because it was established in the 1986 event comic Crisis On Infinite Earths. After that, most of these guys ended up integrated into the DC mainstream with Blue Beetle and Captain Atom taking spots on the Justice League throughout most of the ‘80s. 

Where things get weird is Alan Moore had intended to use these Charlton characters for his seminal work of Watchmen. Because DC was integrating them into the mainstream universe, Moore had to come up with analog stand-ins: Blue Beetle became Nightowl, Captain Atom became Dr. Manhattan, Peacemaker became Comedian, etc. However, when Grant Morrison was tasked with re-imagining the DC Multiverse in Multiversity, he chose to re-imagine the Charlton Comics characters into a bizarre Watchmen pastiche known as the Pax Americana. This version is decidedly stylish and a different take on the characters, but still unique and worth looking up if you get the chance. 

EARTH-8                        LORD HAVOK

We’ve now more or less used up all the pre-’86 parallel universes, but that doesn’t mean the writers at DC didn’t still find ways to come up with alternate worlds for weird stories. Lord Havok is one of their stranger attempts, coming out of the Justice League International era of Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis.  

Lord Havok’s world was introduced as a “pocket universe,” which was code for parallel realities before DC editorial was willing to let writers do alternate earths again. Lord Havok’s world was, essentially, a rip-off of the Marvel universe, complete with Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-Men analogs. The universe also had villain stand-ins with Lord Havok working as his Earth’s Dr. Doom. 

When it was initially created, Lord Havok’s universe ended up destroyed by nuclear war in a villain scheme that went wrong, yet it came back with a vengeance in the Countdown Multiverse. This was when Lord Havok and his villain team, the Extremists, got their own mini-series and really had their reality fleshed out.  

That version of events ended up pretty toxic and deplorable as with all things tied to Countdown. Though, some of the visual redesigns were enjoyable. Like a lot of Earths, the gang got back together in Multiversity with a much lighter touch from Grant Morrison, rendering them as a more one-to-one parallel of the Marvel universe without being as mean spirited as the Countdown iteration or as limited as the original. 

EARTH-9                        TANGENT

Earth-9 is the result of one of the strangest experiments DC ever threw together. During the ‘90s, DC editorial had a moratorium on creating new universes to tell non-canon stories in, but writers still wanted to play around with continuity and status quo in a way that couldn’t fit into the main comic canon. DC’s response to this desire was to spawn a handful of unique imprints and mini-series that were deemed out of continuity such as the Elseworlds emblem.  Tangent Comics was one such emblem with the unique wrinkle of being written exclusively by Superman super-scribe Dan Jurgens.

Jurgens launched the line with the express purpose of imagining a vision of the DC universe that had been shaped and molded by the presence of sci-fi, fantasy, and superhero elements. Apparently, Jurgens penned the books in response to his feeling that the main DC universe was too reflective of reality as it is and not how it would be altered by the presence of super beings. Jurgens also took the time to re-conceptualize a lot of DC classics such as Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman. All of these elements should have added up to a more engaging and meaningful universe than Tangent really is.

Call me a cynic, but I’ve never been able to get on board with the Tangent comics line, likely because they all feel far too limited.  Spawning multiple, interconnected mini-series from the mind of one man while keeping them interesting is a Herculean task, one I’m not sure Jurgens was really up to. Despite alleging this massive sprawling universe, Tangent always felt very small. 

EARTH-26                        CAPTAIN CARROT

Who’s ready to get weird?  Even though DC’s heyday of free experimentation was in the ‘70s, they were still willing to stray from the superhero base aesthetic in the ‘80s, and Captain Carrot is a great example of that. First appearing in 1982, Captain Carrot was imagined as a whack-y animal adventure character, an anthropomorphic rabbit who could transform into a superhero at will. At the time, it was established he was from Earth-C along with an entire collection of fellow super animals known as the Zoo Crew, who worked as their own standalone characters. 

Things got weird when a second group of anthropomorphic super powered animals were introduced known as the Just’a Lotta Animals (a play on the JLA). They were the comic book Captain Carrot drew in his civilian identity as Rodney Rabbit (incidentally, that name was actually an homage to the BOOK Who Framed Roger Rabbit as it predates the film.)

Since their initial appearance, Captain Carrot, the Zoo Crew, and the Just’a Lotta Animals have appeared sporadically throughout DC history. They tend to pop-up as fictional characters within the DC universe as a fun nod to the idea that one world’s fiction was another world’s reality. Captain Carrot was briefly retrofitted into a painful Rocket Raccoon rip-off as a space pirate bunny before the idea was mercifully abandoned. Since then, Captain Carrot has returned to the Multiverse situated on Earth-26 and starred as a breakout character in Grant Morrison’s Multiversity. 

Earth-33                        Earth Prime

This is probably the strangest addition to the DC multiverse because of how often it fails to be exactly what it was intended for.  Earth-Prime was initially created to be the real world; the world people wrote comics, and heroes only exist in fiction. It served that purpose well for awhile, even though there were some weird stories in it. Like one time a couple of comic nerds from Earth-Prime come to Earth-1 and gain the power of God. It’s stupid. In a sane and rational world, Earth-Prime probably would’ve gone the way of the dinosaurs when the Multiverse was destroyed in 1986. Thankfully, we live in the madcap crazy world that is Earth-Prime.

Earth-Prime ended up one of the universes chosen for a showcase in Multiversity through one of the strangest stories ever told. The idea of Earth-Prime here was a world where the only superheroes were kind of self-aware living stories, conscious of the fact that they were the projected identities of everyone reading the story.  Ultra Comics it was called, a bizarre surrealist descent into madness and exploration of ideas as invading entities. It’s an incredibly trippy experience that serves as an excellent exploration of thought and creativity in a world where the bravest heroes and vilest villains are all fictional. 

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