Hello everyone, I’ve been reading the new 52 and I do love it, but with so many major timeline inconsistencies that are obvious even to the layman (Damian having being 10 when Bruce hasn't been Batman for that long, as the simplest example) it’s reached a point where all that DC can really hope to do at this point is perform a major continuity event to clean things up.
I think I may have actually thought of a story explanation that may actually be able to explain every problem caused by this specific reboot, if there’s anything I’ve gotten wrong though I would like it to be pointed out, but overall I think my plan would stick with what has already been established regarding universes and how they operate in the DC multiverse.
By the way, sorry in advance for any grammatical errors, I only did a rush job when I was editing.
The 3 Edited in notes below add more context to what was already written, I've left the original concept unchanged, but the information given in the edits gives what I'm saying a lot more credibility.
EDIT: Doing a little more research I have found that a much better term (one that has already been established) than omniversal time already exists: Hypertime.
EDIT 2: Looking through even more I'm finding a lot of what I'm saying actually correlates with things that already exist (except for the name), for example the realm of the "gods" would be what is already known as "The Bleed" with the universes being spread throughout "The Snowflake" and events like Crisis on Infinite Earths having caused only "partial multiversal collapse". With that said change what I've said about multiverses to multiverse segments, and instead of having the entire multiverse seperated and balled into layers as I proposed before we instead have only one universe that was seperated and balled into layers.
EDIT 3: I'm writing a new version that is cleaned up, shorter and uses all the relevant DC terms to cut down on ramblings I've made whilst attempting to explain thing.
The DCnU timeline compression that was caused/performed by Pandora was imperfect (Hence the Phantom Stranger chastising her in the Justice League #6 back-up), in that although the multiverses were now “whole” again and are sturdier/stronger than ever they have entirely new issues because of her method.
Think of the merged multiverses as having originally been a single sheet of multi-layered tin foil (this analogy will be a running theme for this entire post). The malevolent forces which apparently separated the original multiverses somehow managed to perfectly separate the layers from each other without having damaged the layered multiverses (keeping with the tin-foil analogy they are still perfectly workable multiverses, but weaker than a multi-layered one)(there is no real limit to how many layers there could potentially be, how many made up the previous multiverses, how many make up the DCnU, how many layers there were in the very beginning, what exactly is in a single layer, etc).
Universes, Multiverses, etc, all have their own progression rate (for lack of a better term, although many things make up a progression rate, time among other things), although a universe’s (and by extension the multiverse it is contained in) progression rate can be altered by its inhabitants (e.g. Past time travel stories). A multi-verse is eternal (although its contents are not and can be altered in almost any way, for example the collapse of the multiverse in Crisis on Infinite Earths), though for multiverses to be merged they must be in a synchronized period in overall time (overall time being the combined past time of all universes within a multiverse), many things can cause the overall time to change (Crisis on Infinite Earths would have wound back the overall time of the multiverse drastically for example).
The most relevant way to change a multiverse’s overall time is to time travel as this causes a universe to go into flux. When a universe is in flux it is essentially any and every time period (the time equivalent of a skeleton key) as it is between time periods. With a single universe in flux an entire multiverse is essentially any age and could potentially merge with another, though this would take intervention from some outside power (this is where Pandora comes in).
The conversation between the Phantom Stranger and Pandora reveals that Pandora is not the only one of her kind and that her kind has enemies (for the rest of this post I shall refer to these enemies as “Dark Ones” and Pandora’s kind as “gods”, although gods is in no way a correct term, it will simply be shorthand for them until a more appropriate one is forthcoming), enemies which Pandora and her ilk could not defeat without the assistance of the multiverses. Using the setup I have given and what little we know about Pandora this means that after the multiverses had been separated by the dark ones the gods would have wished to attempt to recombine the multiverses, however merging is an extremely delicate process and takes an extremely long period of time if one does not wish to damage the multiverses (comparing the separation of the multiverses to the merging of multiverses would be like finding a sticker of some variety and peeling it off without it creasing as opposed to attempting to place said sticker back in its exact holder [or whatever you call them] without any 1 millimetre going over any of the edges and without leaving any scuff marks or air bubbles behind). No gods were willing to actively enter the multiverses and cause a chronal event (or collapse event, etc) for fear of being caught in the event and being changed/destroyed. The gods had simply been biding their time for an event within the multiverses to cause their overall times to synch up or a chronal event that would last long enough for a merging attempt (Being outside of the multiverses the gods are outside of the time that applies to multiverses and the changes within the universes within those, they are instead subject to Omniversal time, the two being a one way street in that Omniversal time can affect the multiverses but not the other way around, this is what allows the gods to watch such events unaffected unless they are within the multiverses).
The gods find that the dark ones are going to attack shortly and begin to panic, with no real hope left of a chronal event that would last long enough for them to attempt to properly merge the multiverses Pandora becomes desperate and witnesses the Flash’s time travels (Flashpoint), seizing her chance (this will be where the tinfoil analogy is strongest) Pandora seizes the 3 multiverses (go grab a piece of tinfoil, if it isn’t multi-layered then grab multiple pieces of single layered tinfoil, failing that go grab some toilet paper) and desperately crumples them together (with the tinfoil you’re holding in your hand crumple it up into a tight ball) into a merged multiverse. Although merged and “stronger” than the multiverses would have ever been (stronger in the same way that a tightly balled up piece of tinfoil would be harder to tear than if they were smoothed out and in “out of the dispenser condition”, sure it’ll be harder to tear it and it’ll take more effort to separate the pieces again, but it’s now damaged and has problems, fissures, maybe a tear or two, etc. In other words when she claimed it was strengthening the multiverse it WAS strengthened in some ways, but she’s done more harm than good) it has caused major chronal problems across the newly merged Multiverse (that newly merged multiverse being the DCnU or what DC is apparently calling its “official” name: Prime Earth). These problems being why Pandora is monitoring the main DC universe to see how it is being affected by the change, though she is only watching this particular universe because of all the sections of the multiverse that are shown it is the least damaged by her actions and now, most powerful (one the examples of damage being explained in the next paragraph is that there will be one dominant piece showing in your rolled up tin foil, think of the piece that is shown the most on your ball as the main DC universe).
To explain the chronal problems (those major continuity problems regarding time in the new 52 titles) you look at the balled up piece of tinfoil you have, some of the 3 pieces are showing, lots are missing, if you run your finger along it (in that your finger running forward along the foil is analogous to the story) you find that pieces overlap each other and that there are massive cracks that go in and around inside itself and although out of sight are still there and propping up what is still visible), it’s extremely small compared to how it used to look, etc. You probably see what I’m getting at.
To wind this thing up after explaining all that the dark ones show up, the problems with the multiverse begin to cause everything within (i.e. the DC multiverses) to destroy themselves from the space/time continuum folding in and around itself, the DC heroes and the gods defeat the dark ones and with their last efforts the final remaining heroes cause a chronal event to have the gods repair the multiverse to the way it’s meant to be. Once that story is done DC should actually plan out extremely carefully how they are going to alter things so that the DCnU no longer has such issues and release a compendium that flat out states everything that has changed. They’ve reached a point where there’s little else they can do without just releasing such a compendium.
If you didn’t make it this far I don’t blame you, but for those of you who did, what do you think of this idea? Did you even understand what I was TRYING (and most likely failed) to say? Are there any inconsistencies, be they with DC canon or with the internal logic relevant to this concept?
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