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DC Just Made Multiple Controversial Changes to Their Timeline
DC Comics is going through something of a renaissance right now. Publishing initiatives like “Dawn of DC” and “DC All-In” have made their comics more popular than ever and DCU projects like Superman, Creature Commandos, and Peacemaker have made general audiences more likely to check out DC than they have been before. However, there’s a problem with all of this — DC’s history isn’t really new-reader-friendly. It’s honestly very hard to know what is and isn’t canon in DC Comics thanks to the multiple reboots of the last 40 years. DC knows this, and that’s why we’ve been getting New History of the DC Universe, a book that sets up what is and isn’t canon.
New History of the DC Universe #3 brings readers into modern times, establishing what is canon from the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths to Flashpoint. DC continuity has been wonky for a while, and New History of the DC Universe #3 does a great job of establishing what did and didn’t actually happen. There are a lot of surprises to the timeline that I doubt most fans would have figured out, and it shows how far DC is going to make things make sense.
Modern DC History Has Changed a Lot
The biggest change that New History of the DC Universe #3 makes to DC history is the canon status of DC’s Milestone imprint. We got a tease that parts of it were going to be canon in New History of the DC Universe #1 because Icon, Milestone’s Superman, is canon, but now we know that the whole thing is canon. Milestone was the brainchild of African-American creators Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Christopher Priest, and several others. Based in Dakota City, the imprint had more of an urban flavor, and while it was never widely popular, bringing it into canon is a big deal.
That’s not all, though. Infinite Crisis is completely canon, for example, down to Superboy-Prime punching the walls of reality. Speaking of Crisis canon, Identity Crisis is also canon now. Identity Crisis is one of DC’s most controversial stories for its treatment of female characters like Sue Dibney and Jean Loring. Identity Crisis has been taken out of canon numerous times over the years, and the fact that it’s back in canon shows that DC isn’t running from the controversy that has changed the way fans view the story.
Final Crisis, the most complicated Crisis event, is now also completely canon, which is kind of surprising. I’ve always been a huge fan of the story, but its complexity has stopped a lot of fans from enjoying it. New History of the DC Universe writer Mark Waid can break down the complex events of the story into their simplest form, which should help fans who didn’t understand the story’s events. Jon Kent’s birth was moved to the period when Superman didn’t have his powers in 52, which means at least eight years went by between 52 and Jon being aged up in the Bendis Superman run (although, we don’t know if that’s actually canon yet).
One of the more interesting additions to the canon is that DC One Million is canon. This means that the entire 853rd century is canon, as well as the Prime Superman. The Prime Superman also appeared in All-Star Superman, which raises a big question: Is All-Star Superman canon now? We don’t really have an answer to that yet, but seeing how Waid went out of his way to canonize the entire Grant Morrison JLA run, the answer may be affirmative, or that All-Star Superman at least takes place on its own Earth.
DC Canon Has Gotten More Interesting
DC canon has always been very different from Marvel, and this has hurt the publisher a lot. Since 2005, DC history has been rebooted several times, making what is canon and what isn’t something that even longtime DC readers have wondered for years. New History of the DC Universe answers a lot of those questions, showing that DC history is much more interesting than it has ever been. This latest issue canonizes a lot of modern DC, and that will change things in the future.
The addition of the Milestone imprint’s Dakotaverse is intriguing because those comics are some underrated gems. Hopefully, we’ll be getting characters that we’ve never seen in the DC Multiverse in years, like Hardware, the Blood Syndicate, and Xombi. The three major Crises of the 21st century, all being canonized exactly as they were, are also pretty interesting, since their status has always been nebulous. All of these additions are making DC better than ever, and it’ll be interesting to see where it all goes.
New History of the DC Universe #3 is on sale now.
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