Alternate Universe / The DCU

The DCU has had many different Earths before the Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Reset Button event from the mid to late 80's, and many Elseworld stories, including one where Superman turns out like this◊.

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Comic Books

Comic Books

The following have their own pages:

• The Multiversity

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• By far the most important AU in the DC Multiverse was Earth-Two, home of the Justice Society of America, who would cross over with the Justice League on Earth-One once a year.
• Other alternate earths in the D.C. Multiverse included but were not limited to:
  • Earth-3, where the good guys were bad guys and so-forth.
  • Earth-4, where characters from Charlton Comics (Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, the Question, etc.) lived after D.C. had acquired their rights.
  • Earth-S, where characters from Fawcett Comics (the Shazam Captain Marvel, the Marvel Family, etc.) lived after D.C. had acquired their rights or they'd fallen into the public domain.
  • Earth-X, where characters from Quality Comics (Uncle Sam, Phantom Lady, the Human Bomb, etc.) lived, and where World War II continued into the '70s.
  • Earth-Prime, which was supposed to represent the "real world," and from whence the infamous Superboy Prime cometh.
  • The 5th Dimension and Qward from Superman and Green Lantern, respectively, which were homes to certain villains in their comics.
• Crisis on Infinite Earths supposedly did away with alternate Earths, except for a few things.
  • The 5th Dimension and Qward remained, and in fact, Qward took the place of Earth-3 in establishing a place of origin for the Crime Syndicate.
  • An early post-Crisis Superman story established that Superboy had existed in a Pocket Universe created by the Time Trapper simply to explain an inconsistency of the mainstream DC Universe Superman never becoming Superboy, yet the Legion of Super-Heroes still regard Superboy as actually existing and becoming one of its members.
  • D.C. began labeling their high-concept imaginary stories "Elseworlds" as if to imply that they took place on alternate Earths.
  • The 1996 Marvel vs D.C. crossover clearly states that Marvel and D.C. Comics take place on parallel Earths. This is important to the overall plot of the story, though it doesn't seem to have had much impact on the ongoing lives of either line of superheroes.
    • The 2003 JLA/Avengers also says that Marvel and D.C. are parallel Earths.
  • The fate of the Superman of Earth-2 was still apparent in the story The Kingdom.
  • D.C. eventually created Hypertime as essentially a similar device to exploring alternate versions of characters.
  • And, finally, the plot of Infinite Crisis made it so that the parallel Earths had to exist.
• After Infinite Crisis, the Multiverse was restored, with 52 separate realities, most of them containing versions of the Elseworld stories. So we got to see Superman fight Communist Superman at last.
• While a longstanding tradition at DC, the Second Wave of The New 52 had the re-established Earth-2 as a focus. (Not only the Earth 2 comic itself, but also Worlds' Finest, whose stars are refugees from that reality.)
• Forever Evil (2013) involves the Crime Syndicate of the re-established Earth-3 invading the main Earth.
• The Multiversity has it own page.
• Superman:
  • In Superboy (1949) #117, Superboy finds five evil counterparts of his Legion pals, and realizes that they come from an alternate universe. Then he ponders over the multiverse the potentially infinite issue of alternate universes◊.
  • Superboy (1994): Kon-El gets thrown through several realities including Earth-1098 and Earth-18 while tying to solve the murder of an alternate version of himself.
• In Convergence, Brainiac has been collecting fragments from timelines and universes that have "ended" together on one world - ie, every DC timeline and AU prior to the New 52 - and Telos decides to let them meet. Featured are:
  • The pre-Flashpoint DCU.
  • The pre-Zero Hour: Crisis in Time! DCU.
  • The pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths DCU.
  • The Futures End timeline, 35 years in the future of the New 52.
  • The Flashpoint timeline.
  • The DC One Million timeline.
  • The pre-Crisis future of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
  • The post-Zero Hour future of the Legion ^note But not really. The team featured wore costumes similar to the post-Zero Hour Legion -and- Batch sw6 from the "Glorithverse", but featured a line-up that didn't match either version of the team and were depicted in a manner out-of-character for either version.
  • Pre-Crisis Earth-2, home to the Justice Society of America.
  • Pre-Crisis Earth-3, the Mirror Universe of the Crime Syndicate of America.
  • Pre-Crisis Earth-4, home to the Charlton Comics heroes - Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, and The Question.
  • Pre-Crisis Earth-S, home to the Marvel Family.
  • Pre-Crisis Earth-X, where the Nazis won World War II, home to Quality Comics characters Plastic Man and the Freedom Fighters.
  • Pre-Crisis Earth-6, home to Lady Quark and Lord Volt.
  • Pre-Crisis Bizarro World.
  • Earth-A, where the Justice League was corrupted into the Lawless League.
  • Earth-C, home to Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!
  • Earth-C Minus, home to the Justa Lotta Animals, Funny Animal counterparts to the Justice League.
  • Just Imagine... Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe.
  • The Superman & Batman: Generations universe.
  • The Kingdom Come universe.
  • The WildStorm universe.
  • The Tangent Comics universe.
  • The Batman Vampire universe.
  • The Gotham by Gaslight universe.
  • The Superman: Red Son universe.
  • The Justice Riders universe.
  • The Injustice: Gods Among Us universe.
  • The Batman Beyond universe.
  • The world of Superman-Red and Superman-Blue.
  • The anti-matter universe of Qward.
  • Jack Kirby's DC future, featuring Kamandi.
  • The post-apocalyptic future of Hex.
  • The original future of the Atomic Knights.
  • The world of Casey the Cop.
  • Pre-Crisis Kandor.
  • Angor, home to the Extremists.
  • Skataris, home to the Warlord.
  • The New 52's Earth 2, where younger versions of the original Earth-2's heroes arose in the modern day.
  • Earth-1098, the Elseworld's Finest: Supergirl & Batgirl world. Lex Luthor murdered Superman when he was a baby, and got Barbara's Gordon parents assassinated. Many years later, Supergirl is the world's greatest hero, Batgirl is Gotham's near-dictatorial protector, and Wonder Woman leads a Justice Society manipulated by Luthor.
  • We also get glimpses of the original In Darkest Knight world and the original Leatherwing world that inspired Earth-31.
• The end of Convergence results in the DC Multiverse becoming a combination of the Pre-Crisis Multiverse, the New 52 Multiverse, and the Elseworlds, at least nominally.
• Dark Nights: Metal introduces the Dark Multiverse, spawned of the fears and hopes of the Multiverse's inhabitants, and starts adding new Earths to the 52 Multiverse, beginning with the 53rd Earth, where the Justice League are all non-human primates. Its spin-off Tales from the Dark Multiverse adds to this with dark versions of classic stories.
• Dark Nights: Death Metal concludes with the growth of an infinite web of multiverses, an Omniverse.
• Milestone Comics: As part of the current infinite DC Multiverse, the original Milestone universe is now officially designated Earth-1993, while the rebooted version is known as Earth-93. The heroes of both worlds encounter each other in the Milestone 30th Anniversary Special and compare notes, like 93!Rocket freaking out when she discovers 1993!Rocket is a mom.
  93!Rocket: Don't tell me we've got a little brother or sister in this universe?
  1993!Rocket: Uh, not exactly. Amistad is my son.
  93!Rocket: YOUR WHAT?! Girl, you rich, crazy, or both?!

Live-Action TV

Live-Action TV

• Arrowverse
  • The second season of The Flash (2014) introduces Earth 2, an alternate world with many of the characters having duplicates. It's stated that there are an infinite number of universes, but this is the only one that appears to have a direct line to Earth 1 via the breaches that have resulted from the paradox singularity that opened in the season 1 finale. When traveling between the universes, characters experience glimpses of other alternate worlds (read: shows). The overall technology level of Earth 2 is higher than that of Earth 1, partly thanks to the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator working successfully (as far as the public is concerned), although much of the tech has a Zeerust feel. Additionally, Atlantis is a real place there. The Flash of that world is not Barry Allen (who is just a CSI on Earth 2) but Jay Garrick (his nickname is Crimson Comet instead of Scarlet Speedster). There is also Gorilla City in a tropical rainforest, a refuge for intelligent gorillas. Meanwhile, Oliver Queen never made it off Lian Yu, his role as Starling City's protector having been taken up by his father, known as the Hood.
  • The crossover with Supergirl (2015) establishes that that show exists in the same multiverse. Also, the same can be retroactively said about the 1990 Flash series.
  • Earth 3 is mentioned in season 2 finale, which is the world where the real Jay Garrick (Henry Allen's double) is from.
• Lois & Clark:
  • In "Tempus, Anyone?", Tempus kidnapped Lois and H. G. Wells and transported them to a parallel universe. In this universe, Lois disappeared while covering a gunrunning story in the Congo in 1993 and is presumed dead, Jimmy is "a whiz kid of the computer world" who has just bought the Daily Planet and Perry is running for Mayor against Tempus. The most significant difference, however, is that there is no Superman. In the parallel universe, Jonathan and Martha were killed in a car accident when Clark was ten (which he witnessed but was not fast enough to prevent) and he was bounced around foster homes for the remainder of his childhood. He eventually started a relationship with Lana Lang - this being Lana's only Lois & Clark appearance - who convinced him to keep his powers a secret and scolds him whenever he clandestinely uses them to help anyone in a minor way. At the time of Lois' arrival, he and Lana are engaged. This version of Clark never met the Lois of his universe as she disappeared before his arrival in Metropolis. Speaking of Metropolis, it is a dirtier, more violent city due to Superman's absence and almost everyone carries guns, typically semi-automatics.
  • In "Lois and Clarks", after Clark is stranded in a time window by Tempus, H. G. Wells brings the Clark from the parallel universe to the main universe so that he can be fill in for Superman in the absence of the normal version of Clark. This proves difficult for everyone, at least initially. Lois finds it very hard being around him as "it's like having Clark but not." For his part, the alternate Clark, who has a pretty lonely life, is attracted to Lois and the two of them have a "weird chemistry" that he doesn't really understand. Considering that Jonathan and Martha's counterparts in the parallel universe were killed in a car accident when their son was ten, meeting the very much alive normal versions of them is a particularly strange and painful experience for the alternate Clark.
• Smallville:
  • An interesting subversion: Clark wakes up in a mental asylum; apparently, he started having delusions of superdom in high school, and his "saving" of Lex in the first episode actually cost Lex his legs. Oh, and Chloe is a freaking nutcase. Of course, it was all a delusion caused by an escaped Phantom that attacked him in his barn and invaded his mind. John Jones (the Martian Manhunter) helped him escape by entering the illusion (as another inmate), and capturing the creature in a Kryptonian crystal.
  • Noir: Jimmy Olsen wakes up in a Film Noir universe.
  • Season 10 had an Alternate Universe as a major plot line: Clark discovers a kryptonian artifact called a "mirror box" and when activated it takes him to a world where the Kents never adopted him, but instead was raised by Lionel Luthor and goes by the name "Clark Luthor". Clark Luthor himself is brought to Clark Kent's world and causes no end of trouble before the original Clark manages to switch them back. Then it turns out the alternate Lionel managed to come through to the main world with Clark, taking the place of the original Lionel (who was dead) with a story that he'd faked his death. Then Clark Luthor uses his mirror box to come back and send our Clark to his world, where he helps the alternate Jonathan reconnect with Martha, and convinces Clark Luthor to try and use his powers for good, rather than live in Lionel's shadow.

Video Games

Video Games

• Infinite Crisis the video game is set in the DC multiverse, with characters from six Earths colliding:
  • Earth-0 (Prime), the main DC universe.
  • Earth-13 (Arcane), a Heroic Fantasy-themed universe.
  • Earth-17 (Atomic), where Kal-El's arrival on Earth during the Cold War triggered a nuclear holocaust
  • Earth-19 (Gaslight), a 19th century steampunk universe.
  • Earth-43 (Nightmare), a horror universe where the heroes have been transformed into monsters.
  • Earth-44 (Mecha), a world where the heroes are Ridiculously Human Robots.

Western Animation

Western Animation

• DC Animated Universe
  • Justice League had several — the retro-styled world of the Justice Guild, the dark dystopia of the Justice Lords, the Vandal Savage-ruled world created through time travel, and others.
  • Notably, the Justice Lords Universe depicted Arkham Asylum, and Gotham City for that matter, as very bright, Metropolis-esque places, in one of the few instances of the city being shown during the day.
  • The Superman: The Animated Series episode "Brave New Metropolis" features a universe where Lois is assassinated, prompting Superman to team up with Luthor and take over Metropolis.

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