#batverse

To talk about the structure of the universe with my readers, I have to remind them how comics usually work. A story is a construction, the parts of which interact with each other. We have several important points that go through all the changes as an idea. Bruce's parents always die in the same place. However, their killer, the tone of death, Bruce's age, and the presence or absence of police nearby will vary for the same Earth. This happens because the development of the hero correlates with the basic ideas and attitudes that shape his presentation. We can't use the dark 90s vibes at the beginning of New 52, because Batman already has a huge family here that makes his life better and brighter. Therefore, Scott uses mild melancholy to emphasize the great pain and uncertainty on the one hand and the more frequent impulsive actions, hugs, smiles and sweet words of gratitude on the other. You can see this for the entire Dark Knight universe throughout this period, because each of Batfam forms this narrative and changes. At the same time, we cannot keep this experience straight, because then it will break the opportunity to reboot the story. This is how we mention the Knightfall, Killing Joke and other root events, but we replace their direct content. We didn't make Azrael the boss for a long period, we didn't force Tim to fight him or even just be there during it. Selina is not related. The idea persists. Most Crises work the same way. We replace some large lines, sometimes completely deleting them. Their place is taken by stories that relate to the last set point and support the narrative of the new universe. Metal event finale (not to be confused with Death Metal) returns part of the plot from the pre-Flashpoint. Then, Doomsday Clock and the intermediate titles(JL vol4, v2 of Batman/Superman, Flash Forward and so on) continue the same idea, but explores local topics inside(Wally's legacy, interpretation of the Hawk people, Aquaman's future). It also introduces new contradictions such as Titans' full story (not counting the children's part from pre-CoIE) or the "removal" of New 52 for one part of the world, but not for the other. This is an inevitable process necessary for a gentle transition from one variation of events to another with the general preservation of the accumulated experience of the Earth. However, it's formed only at the moment, so the local history, the story of one hero, is preserved in the form that it was originally(starting with Rebirth for this case). Therefore, globally, DC always retains narrative logic. But for a particular Earth, this is an existing whole narrative that is locally "forgotten" at the right time. To fix this idea in your head, I'll use a simple formula: Stories always have a clear starting point. The basic idea of this point moves on, forming new main lines. Then the new lines change their appearance. But the universe can still perform a mathematical operation that will allow it to reach any location from any set point. In other words, you have a circle. If something is changed or cancelled, it will be replaced with equivalent results and narratives. What happened in 2022? The formula was partially destroyed by the series we talked about yesterday. Nightwing has completely reversed the events of Dick's past as they are presented by Batgirl and previous issues of pre-Taylor. For most series, New 52 or at least the ending of this universe is the starting point, but Worlds' Finest completely ignores this, due to which we lose Superman, Supergirl, etc. You can see the identical problems in Zdarsky's Batman, King's Wonder Woman. All the main lines were lost.

Dark Crisis could have prevented further collapse. But as DC abandoned setting a global story, these stories continued to collapse right up to Absolute Power, which became the pinnacle of spontaneous data. So we got a new event that was supposed to fix the current situation. But a couple of years before K.O.... In September 2023, Bill Willingham, the author of Fables, announced his work as a public domain. This was the first (actually not) time in history that DC faced a narrative challenge. If the story belongs to everyone, every fic, video, art, even thought voiced as a fairy tale are one big story until its author decides otherwise. If we work with this data from a lore perspective, we don't have a disaster. However, the precedent becomes the trigger to achieve the issue...is fan creativity a part of the universe? Ask Tom King, who gave power over the Watchmen(TV) universe to fans back in 2020. Or the Telltale games, where we had a direct impact on the future of the story. Or even NFT.