Should DC Bring Back Earth-1 And Earth-2?
My Take On Earth-1 And Earth-2 Which No Longer Exists.
I got a question from a reader and he asked me something regarding DC Comics, “Should DC Comics Bring Back Earth-1 And Earth-2?”. And the answer to that question is no, because, bring those 2 Earths back would only make things worse for the overall DC Comics brand. Because if you look back in the beginning when DC first started back in 1938, they gave us Superman, then Batman and then Wonder Woman. This was followed by the original Flash, Jay Garrick, Alan Scott the original Green Lantern, Dr. Fate, The Atom, Hourman, The Sandman (Wesley Dodds), Dr. Mid-Nite, Wildcat, the original Black Canary and then Johnny Thunder, which would lead to them forming Justice Society Of America) in 1941 during “World War II”. Now, in Earth-1 that was were Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman resided and this was around the time comic books were entering the “Silver Age” era. And during that period they decided to introduce a new Flash and Green Lantern and they were Barry Allen and Hal Jordan and they would later become founding members of the “Justice League” in 1960. This was followed by other characters being introduced during that time period like the original Batgirl (Barbara Gordon), The Phantom Stranger, Doom Patrol, Metemorpho and many others. Then in the 1970’s we were introduced to characters such as OMAC, Kamandi, The New Gods, Fourth People, Etrigan The Demon, Firestorm, Black Lightning and Shade, The Changing Man. However, as DC Comics entered the 1980’s, this was where things started to get problematic; the sales were beginning to struggle, fans were getting confused to which is the main DC Earth and who are the main characters. And because of this, Jenette Kahn who was a former children’s magazine publisher, replaced Carmine Infantino as editorial director and this was around the time she and Paul Levitz decided to restart the DC Universe in 1985 with the series “Crisis On Infinite Earths” and this was done for a very number of reasons. One of those reasons was due to the confusion that many fans saw with Earth-1 and Earth-2; because in that Earth, resides the original Golden Age Heroes such as members of the Justice Society of America, Jay Garrick, Alan Scott, the original Golden Age Superman, Batman who retires and marries Catwoman and has a daughter named Helena Wayne who becomes the Huntress in that Earth. Later additions in that Earth are Infinity Inc. and All Star Squadron who are children of the original Golden Age Heroes. Now in Earth-1 that’s where the heroes are most recognizable such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Batgirl, Robin (Dick Grayson), Firestorm, Shade, The Changing Man, Metamorpho, Doom Patrol and Justice League. And because of the confusion with 2 Earths, this was one of the reasons that prompted editorial to clean house.
And after the events of “Crisis On Infinite Earths”, the 2 Earths merged and became one and as a result, many other characters Earths also got absorbed such as the Charlton Characters, Peacemaker, Night Shade, The Question, Captain Atom and the second Blue Beetle, Ted Kord. When DC restarted their Universe, The Golden Age heroes such as members of the Justice Society Of America became mentors to later heroes of the Silver Age such as Batman, The Flash (Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) and the second Black Canary. That would stay for many years until the 1990’s when DC did another event called “Zero Hour”. Now in that event, this was an attempt to reconcile with problems left unaddressed during the events of “Crisis On Infinite Earths” and other problems that were caused unintentionally by it. This was because due to the events of “Death Of Superman” and Hal Jordan losing his hometown Coast City, becomes the villain Parallax. And after that event, DC’s main Earth remained the same and in place for another more years until the start of the Dan DiDio era of DC Comics. Now another reason why they can’t bring back Earth-1 and Earth-2 is because during the era of Dan DiDio, he had multiple characters killed off starting with Donna Troy in the event called “Graduation Day” and this was followed later in 2004 with the event known as “Identity Crisis” where Sue Dibney the wife of Elongated Man was raped by Dr. Light and members of the Justice League were acting out of character and Zatanna erased Batman’s memory of that event. Those 2 stories really turned a lot of people off because Dan DiDio had no publishing experience and he further went on a warpath with events like “Infinite Crisis”, “Final Crisis” and then “Flashpoint” basically destroying the hard work of Jennette Kahn and Paul Levitz when they originally cleaned house. And then, when DC did “The New 52” line, a lot of longtime comic fans were heavily turned off with this line, because this was Dan DiDio’s vision to see a more brutal, edgier and grittier take on the DC heroes like Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter and many other characters like Doom Patrol acting out of character during a story in Justice League.
And then in 2015, they tried to fix the mess with the event called “Convergence” and once more, it wasn’t a hit, because it was still confusing and the only time they did something right with Superman was bringing in the original heroic boy from the pre-New 52 era and having him become a father to a son named Jon Kent and happily married to Lois. But overall, that event was a disappointment which only further alienated many comic fans because DiDio didn’t wanna give up “The New 52” and still went on with until 2016 when Geoff Johns was put in charge and they did “DC Rebirth” which could had fixed the whole mess of DC’s continuity and having characters of the Watchmen come into play with Dr. Manhattan tinkering the timeline and we also knew it was him who erased Wally West out of existence and Superman being different and emotional. However that was cut short when Johns attempted to conclude the story with “Doomsday Clock” but that got shrugged out of the way when DiDio got his old position back and he started recruiting Brian Michael Bendis, Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction to further destroy the hard work the Johns tried to do. So that is another reason why DC can’t bring back Earth-1 and Earth-2 and another further reason why they can’t bring back those 2 Earths? Is because back when DC was purchasing properties, they started purchasing characters that were originally from a different publishing company like the Shazam characters, Plastic Man, Charlton Characters and then the Wildstorm Characters which they were mixed in after the events of “Flashpoint”.
At this point, you can’t really save DC Comics, because DC Comics as of now, is a jumbled mess and many of the younger generations aren’t even reading DC Comics, nor do they know who the Wildstorm Characters are and sometimes the Charlton Characters, only because they just see them in cartoon or live action adaptations. So, Earth-1 and Earth-2 will never come back at this point, because DC Comics overall is in a state of a decline due to corporate greed and bringing grossly unqualified writers and artists who continue to mess up iconic characters and useless stories like “Absolute Power” and all other events. At this point, DC Comics should just stop trying to appeal to younger audiences, because the majority of the younger generations do not even read a comic book, because many of them are use to reading books and series like Japanese manga, Korean Manhwa and sometimes Chinese Manhua and in addition to that, some of them are also into video games and they don’t see any reason to pick up a DC Comic, the only types of people who still read DC Comics are mostly White Gen Xers and White Millennials who are the ones shoehorning their “Nostalgia” agenda and still think there is hope for DC Comics, when there isn’t any hope anytime soon.