Headscratchers / Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths

• If Owlman is a hardcore Nihilist, then why does he even want to do his plan to blow up all Earths? By his own definition, isn't that very action also meaningless? So why is he doing it?
  • His point is that whenever you make a decision, you split off an entirely separate universe where you make the opposite decision. If he destroys Earth Prime, every single Earth will be destroyed and this is the one action that cannot simply create more Earths.
    • Owlman explains how the multiverse works poorly. When you make a decision it doesn't create a universe where you made the opposite decision. It creates a multiverse where you didn't make that particular decision. There is a universe where Owlman didn't just shrug it off and spent eternity trying to get off that planet, probably a few where he managed it for example.
    • Poorly? Isn't the movie allowed to make its own rules on the multiverse? It is fiction after all.
  • But again, what's the point? Like he said, nothing matters or has any meaning.
    • It's possible that's the moment he actually realized that he was making a decision and thus splitting the timeline. Destroying Earth Prime, intentionally anyway, is entirely impossible because it involves a choice. We often make the mistake of thinking that just because Batman/Owlman/Any fictional genius is smarter than us that they can figure out what it takes hundreds of us thousands of watchings/readings to figure have a fatal flaw but that may not be true. I think Owlman literally didn't understand the rammifications until the game was set and then he simply accepted the the outcome and chose to die in a bomb rather than starve or freeze. Someone is thinking of asking why he didn't build a gate, maybe he couldn't with the time he had left. Even Tony Stark who built a suit with a box of scraps had a box of scraps. He wasn't stranded on an iceberg without power tools, refined steel, and all the other modern(ish) advantages.
  • Again you guys, you're ignoring my question. It's not about what happens during the fight with Batman, or after on the ice world, or even the rammifications of what he was trying ti do. I'm asking why, a nihilist like Owlman, wants to destroys all Earths, when by definition as a Nihilist, nothing matters?
    • Because Owlman, like most people, wants to do things that matter. But he's determined that there is nothing that matters except maybe destroying everything.
    • It's the Grandfather Paradox. If you were to go back in time and kill your grandfather when he was still a kid, then he could never have children. If he never had children, your parents were never born, and neither were you. So your grandfather never died, so he did die. Earth Prime is an Earth before a choice. Take away the Earth before a choice is made, you take away the choices. You take away the multiverse. There was no human race, and there would be no human race. His goal was to end all life in all worlds. You want to get as many branches as you want from a tree for your use and only your use, you cut down the tree at the trunk.
    • Because if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do. And if nothing else, destroying the entirety of reality is a much more interesting and epic thing to do than just lying in bed every day waiting for death even if to a nihilist both actions matter as little as each other in the long run.
    • Because Owlman is NOT actually a Nihilist. His 'Nihilism' comes from discovering the infinite multiverse. Owlman is actually a Egotistical Sociopath. He HATES that his actions have no true ramifications. He believes the universe works in a nihilist way, but he doesn't like that does, and he wants to change it...the only way he can. That is why he wants to destroy the multiverse. That is the only way he can truly scribe his will on the universe. The only way he can truly matter. And he desperately wants to matter because of his Ego.
    • Not quite correct. According to Nietzsche, Owlman is an active nihilist. The danger of active nihilism comes from its anarchic willingness to destroy society, for the sake of freedom. In this case, destroy the multiverse for the sake of freedom from choices begetting endless choices.
  • From the way I saw it, Owlman wanted to destroy everyone and everything because it was the only meaningful choice he thought he could make. Owlman saw every choice as predetermined because he saw all realities nothing but the result of a choice made by a you from a different reality. However, if Owlman destroyed Earth Prime and end all realities, he would be making a choice no other Owlman had ever done and thus a meaningful choice determined by his own will rather than the will of another Owlman. Because if an Owlman had done it before him, he wouldn't be around to do it. And if he failed and another Owlman succeeded, he still wouldn't be around to be angry about the failure. Thus destroying Earth Prime is the one true choice from Owlman's point of view. It's the only choice that couldn't have been predetermined in some form or fashion.
  • Because he is a murderous psychopath. Who happens to be a nihilist.
  • Because he wants to die (destroying everything everywhere will kill him) but because he hates literally everything and everything, he wants them to die as well.
  • He also states that he was never "good" because he is "only human". He states his belief that Earth Prime must have been destroyed by man. He believes that man is a force of destruction. Man can only destroy itself, it just takes time. So he wants justice against man by destroying mankind everywhere it exists. He believes all universes will lead to the death of humanity. That's why nothing matters, but if he kills mankind, then man can't destroy the planet. If man is never around to destroy the planet, then he saves everything. You can see the hypocrisy there, but his theory is destroying Earth Prime will destroy all the other Earths. If that's true then what happens to the past? There was an Earth somewhere, that existed at some point where people made choices. How does destroying Earth destroy the Prime Universe? Hell, how does Earth Prime being destroyed matter AT ALL. Given enough time, Earth Prime will be consumed by the sun and destroyed. When that happens, will all the universes just cease? There's a lot the movie doesn't cover. It could just be Owlman wanted to set something in motion and do something that actually did matter for everyone and everything with the goal of specifically killing off every version of humanity. What happens after that, that mattered to him. But he would be dead, so he wouldn't be able to see it. He didn't deserve to, because he was part of humanity.
  • Owlman is as much the ultimate control-freak as Batman is. And he absolutely cannot take the realization that his actions can never truly control squat, because for any event he affects, there will be countless other universes where he didn't affect it at all.
• Owlman walks through Superwoman on the alternate universe theory, citing one planet where humans never evolved. Then towards the end, on Earth prime, we are told that every human action splits off another world. Can you see the contradiction here? Why is fish world even a thing, if there are no human actions to change something?
  • Likely he just means that decisions as a whole alter things; no fish chose to go out of the water on that planet, ergo no humans. The bit about it being "human action" that changes everything is likely the result of Owlman's own hatred for humanity, combined with the fact that most alternates are changed by human choices.
    • Concurrent with the above trope I think it's pretty simple logic that the existence of realities is wholly determined by human thought. How would anything exist before humans of that were true?
  • When I watched the scene, I was under the impression that Owlman wasn't actually denoting real Earths, merely using the image to make a point contrary to Superwoman. You'll notice that the first "alternate Earth" he mentions is a polar opposite of their current situation. Him mentioning the fish world was a hyperbole that didn't need to technically be true to illustrate his point.
• The concept of an Earth prime makes no sense. It's like one particular branch somehow holding the entire tree up.
  • or the Trunk...
  • It's the trunk. Only by virtue of the multiverse it doesn't REALLY exist. The moment Owlman decided to travel there a second Earth Prime is created where he did not make the decision to go there.
    • That wouldn't create an Earth, but even if it did, it wouldn't matter, because it wouldn't be Earth Prime. It would be extremely similar to Earth Prime, but it wouldn't be the same thing.
    • The thing is Owlman is mistaken. As was already mentioned the moment Owlman traveled to Earth Prime a different Earth was created where he didn't. More to the point he realizes that there are Earth's where humans never evolved and yet are somehow to blame for the problems. There is also the fact that we know in the DC Universe that humans, if not Earth is relatively young. Removing Earth and humans from the equation wouldn't have any effect on anything Martians, Kryptonians, Thanagarians etc,etc have done to shape the universe. Unless Earth Prime works via equal parts alternate dimensions and time travel like in Turtles Forever where apparently destroying the "source material" destroys everything that was built upon it retroactively.
    • Think of it as the trunk where Earth Prime sits unblemished. It will remain unaltered because any attempts to move from the branch to the trunk with just grow another branch.
    • Besides, did he go back in time to do this or something? If he destroys it in whatever year this adventure takes place, the other Earths have already been created. Why would they cease to exist, retroactively never exist, or even be harmed in the blast?
    • No, he didn't travel back in time at least not as far we we can tell. Interdimensional travel gets confusing like that since there is no rule saying they all have to be at the same time period. However Owlman (claims) knows that the reason Earth Prime is lifeless is because of human action so he didn't travel back to beginning. The theory (in so much as fantasy science shows any consistency) is that Earth Prime is where everything else stems from and without it there would be nothing. Sure it shouldn't work retroactively so time travel aught be required though it's possible that the multiverse works exactly like a tree and without the trunk the branches simply wither and die regardless of anything else.
    • Owlman did make it to Earth prime, once he got there more Earths would have been created but he would stay on the original. Lets hope those duplicates don't try again.
  • The way I always looked at it was that the creation of the multiverse be it God/Big Bang/Other Forces was the root, Earth Prime was the trunk and everything else was the branches. By taking out Earth Prime, you are essentially killing near enough the whole tree; however, because the root is still in place, a new Earth Prime is created that replaces the old one.
• Why is Alt!Chesire evil? Aren't villain and hero supposed to be reversed in Luthor's universe?
  • Actually that was Alt!Katana not Chesire.
  • It may also have been Alt!Lynx.
  • Either way, that's only the case in most instances, given Alt!Lobo's presence.
    • Lobo is a '90s Anti-Hero though...
• If every choice not made on Earth Prime sparks a new alternate Earth, then why weren't there dozens of Batmen and Owlmen fighting there in the end?
  • Maybe it's because Owlman is unique among Batman duplicates?
    • Doesn't fit with what we're shown. "Every choice" splits the world. Also, there are versions of Owlman that we would find quite pleasant.
    • Because when Owlman made the decision to go Earth Prime he created a second Earth Prime where he did not make that decision. By virtue of every decision we make creating two universes you really can't get to Earth Prime, certainly not without time travel to just go to the beginning.
    • Deciding not to go to Earth Prime wouldn't make another one. And even if it did, it wouldn't' be Earth PRIME.
  • Because who's to say there weren't?
    • Individual choices create new Earths. In the reality in which Owlman did not choose to try and kill everything, why would that make a new Earth Prime? It would just change how things worked out in that particular reality. Only changes to Earth Prime affect other universes, not the other way around.
    • Two ideas here. Firstly, who's to say the universe Owlman and Batman ended up in was Earth Prime? There is no actual difference between Earth Owlman And Batman Fight and Earth Prime, so he just made a mistake. Alternate theory: the universe was specifically by a higher power (the great and powerful McDuffie, all hail his holy name) to be not so shoddily designed as to allow such an insignificant speck to ruin all his work. That pretty much covers all the bases.
  • Word of God says it's because that wasn't really Earth Prime. As mentioned above, as soon as Owlman chooses to jump worlds, Earth Prime splits into two alternate realities - one where the jump was successful and one where it wasn't. The actual Prime world remains untouched. Unfortunately for Owlman, he either never realized this or only realized it when it was too late.
• Why did Good!Luthor not use the dimensional shifter to save himself and the Jester in the first scene, right after he had gotten the quantum trigger?
  • Because the two pursuers were too close. Jester had to buy some time for Luthor to properly escape.
    • But then when he actually uses it, the Justice Lords are right in front of him.
    • Crime Syndicate.
  • My guess is that their original plan was to escape somewhere and do something important (but not quite vital to the plan) before jumping dimensions. Jester sacrifices and Luthor still sticks to that plan, but once he is cornered by the Syndicate, has no other chose but to use the shifter.
• Are Lex Luthors predisposed to be evil or did Lex know about our Earth before coming here? If I was Lex Luthor and traveled to a new dimension I would have gone looking for my double and his hopefully still operating Justice League. Instead he walks into the police department knowing that they'd recognize him and recognize him as an A class villian so the easiest way to get Superman (who back home is evil) is to threaten world domination. He had to have known the situation prior to showing up.
  • No, he walks into the police station to contact the Justice League, but the cops pull guns on him and react to him like he was a criminal, so he makes his 'threat' to ensure they call the League. Simple really.
  • He knew that his Luthor was a criminal and that the League were heroes already. Its obvious that he has learnt to spy on and spot the differences between his world and others, because Owlman, Superwoman and Batman themselves can do it. Unless Batman didn't know that Owlman and his planet-killing bomb would be going to a dead iceworld and is an asshole who didn't give a damn.
    • Superwoman mentioned the dead iceworld while flipping through settings and threatening to send Batman to a hostile world, so the device (which was said to store the last dozen or so settings) had that information.
• Why is it that, when comparing the differences between this movie and the DCAU, everyone mentions Green Lantern being different but not Aquaman?
  • Because overall Aquaman is a white guy who sometimes has a tan but a beard and hair length is not worth talking about. Green Lantern, on the other hand, is at least several human characters.
• After seeing the reversed layout of Alt-Lex's organs, why is Superman's first conclusion that he's from another universe? Couldn't he easily be something more "mundane" like an imperfect clone or a shapeshifter?
  • Could a clone or a shapeshifter have reversed layouts?
  • Yes actually there was a shapeshifter that reversed everything in the people he copied. The reverse organ thing just proved that Alt-Luthor was a different person from normal Luthor.
  • You know, in a lot of media, someone will make a guess like that and be informed that they are wrong. In this instance, Superman made the correct guess first and Luther had immediately confirmed it. Having organs reversed like that is a very rare genetic condition. While there were more "mundane" answers, the scene established that Superman is well aware of other Earths.
• How did Superman talk in space? Superman can't talk in space. He wasn't wearing a space suit, he wasn't wearing a breathing mask, and he certainly wasn't speaking telepathically!
  • Whether or not he can talk or breath in space really depends on the version of Superman depicted. In the DCAU, he can't breath in space and needs a space suit or breathing mask, in the comics, he's been shown to talk and even hold extended conversations with people while in space (The Supergirl Story arc of Superman/Batman comes to mind specifically).
  • Even if he doesn't need to breathe, though, there's no way for sound to travel in space.
    • Well then welcome to comic book logic. Hope you enjoy your stay.
    • He is using an earpiece. Sound could travel through his own body without air.
• I get that Superwoman is suppose to be a Mary Marvel Counterpart rather than Wonder Woman. But then why do we have Mary Mayhem?
  • According to the comments, the consensus is that the writer intended for Superwoman to be evil!Mary Marvel, but failed to make this intent completely known to the design team, resulting in goofs like that.
  • It could also be that the design team simply assumed that Superwoman was akin to the character from the Morrison/Quitely Earth-2 graphic novel, and who is a more straightforward Wonder Woman-parallel with the secret ID of Lois Lane.
• If Crime Syndicate is able to give superpowers to normal humans and turn them into made men, why does the Owlman have to rely on his Powerarmor?
  • Probably the same reason Batman never tries to get powers even though there are methods in the main DCU where he could get them. He doesn't need them.
    • Oh, but Owlman seems to need them, as he did create a power armor instead of standard suit. So why not real superpowers instead of superpowered suit?
    • The other reason why Batman doesn't go looking for superpower boosts first chance he gets as well; pride. Like Batman, Owlman prides himself on being a physically 'normal' human being who can nevertheless keep up with and even outclass godlike beings with superpowers. They just have different approaches; Batman trains himself to the peak of human physical perfection and relies on a few tools and gadgets but otherwise takes the minimalistic approach, while Owlman goes the power-armour approach.
• Why is Deathstroke the president? Why did WB puss out on having a not named impersonator like someone looking like Osama Bin Laden? In the book it was Fidel Castro and I thought that was a great concept. Its a pg-13 movie, it feels dumbed down for the audience.
  • Using a real-world figure can date a work.
    • Point taken.
  • Also, using an established DC character instead of a real world figure is more appealing to some fans.
  • Furthermore, that makes him the second President Wilson. Geeks from all corners rejoice!
  • Because Osama Bin Laden wasn't a US citizen.
• If every possible choice branches off... why isn't there ALSO a reality where Owlman's bomb, for one reason or another, did go off, thus killing everyone anyway?
  • Yup. But because at least one version of "Earth Prime" still exists, only the planet the bomb was on would actually be destroyed.
  • Because things that happen on Earth Prime affect the multiverse, things that happen in the multiverse do not affect Earth Prime.
• According to Word of God, if Owlman's plan was doomed from the start due to creating an alternate Earth Prime, what was the point in Batman even trying to stop him? It was a pointless Rule of Cool battle with absolutely no threat to our own existence. And if both Batman and Owlman were smart enough to deduce that every choice we make creates an alternate Earth, why couldn't they work out that the choice to travel to Earth Prime or not, or detonating the bomb itself or not, would've created an alternate Earth Prime, rendering Owlman's pursuit for total destruction of everything pointless?
  • I haven't read the Word of God and would like to. However Owlman's plan even if it was doomed to not end all of existence it would have ended every world born from the one where he made the decision to head back which presumably would have included his own where he came from and Batman's which is linked to that one. Also as smart as Batman/Owlman is it's possible they missed some detail in a complex or occasionally very simple plan.
  • If Owlman didn't realize that flaw in his plan, Batman probably wouldn't either.
    • There is no indication even by the Wordof God that OUR existence was in no danger only that the multiverse itself would survive. If Owlman's plot to destroy the entire multiverse instead succeeded in destroy two very specific worlds one of which Batman called home and the other he was currently standing in that's more than enough of infinite multiverse to justify doing whatever it took to stop Owlman.
  • Because if Batman thinks that Owlman's plan is doomed to fail to begin with and chooses to do nothing...then he's gambling the entire multiverse on the idea that he is right and Owlman is wrong. Quite simply, either he thinks Owlman is right (meaning simply that both Owlman and Batman are wrong), or he just thinks that there is an outside chance that Owlman might be right. Quite bluntly, Batman is not arrogant enough to take that chance.
  • Because even if Owlman's plan isn't going to literally destroy the entire multiverse, it still risks killing quite a lot of people. Batman isn't the type of person to shrug his shoulders and let someone potentially commit genocide on a potentially universal scale based on nothing more than a philosophical point.
  • Plus, even if Batman thinks that Owlman's plan won't work, he doesn't want to risk possibly being wrong and everything going boom.
  • Not to mention that Owlman is, y'know, a villainous version of himself, ergo is far too dangerous to just be allowed to run loose. Even if Batman could be sure Owlman's device would fail, Batman would want to take him down, because who knows what Owlman - an Omnicidal Maniac with a death wish - might do next?
  • Also, we're basing this whole Headscratcher on Word of God. Batman doesn't have access to the Word of God. So how's he supposed to know for sure Owlman is wrong, exactly?
  • And even if we accept that it was "a pointless Rule of Cool battle with absolutely no threat to our own existence", (a) of course it had no threat to our existence, it's only occurring a fictional superhero cartoon, the whole thing's made up to begin with, and (b) a pointless Rule of Cool battle is nevertheless still preferable to Batman just not doing anything at all because he'd figured out or heard from Word of God that because of multidimensional theory Owlman's plan was doomed to failure anyway, because that would just be a boring anticlimax.
• So, one of the classic differences between the JLA and the Crime Syndicate is that the JLA doesn't kill, Syndicate does. But during the finale, Batman ties Owlman to the bomb before he sends it off, killing him.
  • Batman didn't kill Owlman, he just sent him to the ice planet and gave him a choice. Disarm the bomb and freeze/starve to death or let it go off and die. Although if Owlman IS resourceful as Batman he probably could have dismantled the bomb and built a way off the ice planet or some other such thing.
    • He still had the dimension hopping thingerjobber
  • Batman left the dimension hopper for Owlman so that he could potentially save himself (which in hindsight is incredibly stupid of Batman- if Owlman did disarm the bomb in time, then he could just hop back to Earth Prime with the bomb again, or go to Syndicate Earth or even Justice League Earth and decide revenge is just as good). But regardless of that, there are far, far more differences between the Syndicate and the League than "one kills, one doesn't". The Crime Syndicate is a crime syndicate, and a particularly powerful and evil one at that; if the League decided to kill every single supervillain they ran into from now on or go all Justice Lord on the world they would still be better than these guys, because these guys are a bunch of superpowered thugs, murderers, psychopaths and sadists, who were quite happy to threaten to blow up the planet if they weren't treated like gods (or in the case of Owlman and Superwoman, blow up everything on a nihilistic whim).
  • I think we do also have to chalk this up to "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". When we say the League don't kill, we might be better saying the League don't kill on a whim, or because it's more convenient and easier, or to satisfy some sadistic impulse, or to give themselves more power and authority over others. They try as hard as possible to save everyone, including their enemies, and take no pleasure or satisfaction in the possibility of anyone's death. If you look at their final fight scene, at several points Batman goes out of his way to try and incapacitate Owlman in a non-lethal fashion and could have had a much easier time against him if he just took the gloves off and aimed to kill him from the start. But ultimately, Owlman is a nihilistic Omnicidal Maniac who is trying to blow up literally the entire multiverse just because he can and has no compunction about killing Batman in order to do so. Batman doesn't want to die or risk sacrificing the whole of reality at Owlman's hands just to allow himself the moral satisfaction of never causing someone's death and, frankly, it would be a morally unforgivable act of foolishness if he did. Batman doesn't want to kill Owlman. He tries hard not to kill Owlman. But if it comes down to a choice between either Batman causing/allowing Owlman's death or Owlman causing the deaths of literally everything living thing ever, including himself, ultimately that's no choice at all.
  • Moreover, he's not killing Owlman, he's letting Owlman kill himself if he chooses to leave his own bomb activated. Essentially, it's a test of Owlman's convictions: if he's really so nihilistic that he won't stop trying to destroy the multiverse, then he's also nihilistic enough to stay chained to the bomb until it explodes. If, faced with the abyss of his own meaningless death, he blinks again, then Owlman can save himself, but only by abandoning his philosophy that nothing matters. Batman is forcing Owlman to sacrifice only his own life on the altar of his beliefs, if he remains true to them, rather than everyone else's. And he's not worried that Owlman will try to weasel out of the choice (i.e. escape, then keep trying to destroy reality), because putting his own life in jeopardy is something Batman, himself, has never hesitated to do for his principles, so he expects nothing less from his counterpart.
• Owlman says that the multiverse consists of every possible universe where every possible choice was taken. So wouldn't there be a combination of universes where Batman was unable to stop Owlman, causing the multiverse to end no matter what?
  • Not necessarily. Owlman obviously believes this is so, but his theory was not conclusively proven as true. We see a myriad of possibilities, but no proof that every possibility is incarnate in this multiverse beyond his word.
  • Word of God says that Owlman's plan was doomed from the start because as soon as any free-will choice occurs on Earth Prime, it splits off two Earth-Not-Quite-Primes where the possible choices play out, leaving the actual Cosmic Keystone world undisturbed. Something like this has to be the case. If Earth Prime remained unique, then every possible Owlman with destructive intent would show up there at once. They would crush each other by their sheer mass.
• Why wouldn't Owlman just abort the QED in the end, wait until he was fairly certain that Batman was off of Earth Prime, then go back and finish the job? Though it does make sense when you consider his Nietzsche Wannabe philosophy.
  • The dimensional shifter may not have had enough power to make the jump, especially with something as big as the QED, to which one might say that he was probably carrying a backup power cell (though Owlman isn't necessarily as Crazy-Prepared as Batman; in the comics he simply has a drug-fuelled enhanced intellect). Alternatively, he may have simply decided that doing nothing was no more or less valid a choice than doing something because it didn't matter.
  • There is another way of looking at it if you want to potentially give the writers more credit than they likely deserve in over thinking this. This was Earth Prime. Any Owlman from a vaguely similar Earth should have showed up there. Sure, some would have shown up on Earth Almost Primes, but still only Owlman and Batman showed up. This would imply only this Owlman made it this far. Drug fueled or natural, Owlman likely noticed this. He was the only variation that made it that far, that almost succeeded, a fluke. Then, he failed. He may have come to the conclusion that all other attempts were stopped somehow by providence/destiny/etc. He was stopped. Attempting to destroy Earth Prime is impossible.
  • Or, as he himself said at the end, it truly doesn't matter. According to Owlman's theory, it didn't matter if he chose not to stop the QED from going off—because at the instant he made that choice, that universe split into two, with him making the opposite choice on the other ice-world universe. If Owlman is right, it truly didn't matter if he died, because somewhere else, he didn't.
  • As someone mentioned above, doing this would ultimately undermine Owlman's philosophy that nothing matters. If Owlman saves his own life from a pointless death, even to destroy the multiverse (or even just that universe), then he is tacitly admitting that something — his own life and decisions, and his plan to destroy the universe — actually matters. Saving himself only to subsequently destroy the universe would subsequently render his motivations hollow and hypocritical, even if no one else knew about it — he's not destroying the universe because nothing matters, because clearly he believes that it matters if he dies pointlessly having failed, and that it matters if the universe isn't destroyed. Ergo, because he truly believes nothing matters, he lets the bomb kill him because, hey, it doesn't matter anyway. Owlman is essentially committing suicide to prove (to himself at least) his philosophical point that nothing matters, not even his own plan or life. Which may seem kind of stupid when put like that but, hey, he's the nihilist in this situation.
• Apparently the only choices that matter in the multiverse are of humans on Earth?
  • All DC canon aside, The movie was about the multidimensional choices of the planet Earth. So for the Planet Earth, the choices on Earth matter. For example, If we take Martian Manhunter - there has to be an Earth were he never left Mars (for whatever reason), meaning there must be multidimensional Marses where x happens but y doesn't and etc etc.
    • Both "Earth Prime" and "Mars Prime" and every other world would basically occupy a "Universe Prime", which is probably another reason Owlman was doomed to fail- he is far too Earth-centric and human-centric to appreciate how complex the system he's trying to destroy really is. Given his intelligence, this is probably a sign of how insanely misanthropic he really is, even more than he appears to be.
    • Unlikely. Owlman was trying to destroy the multiverse. One of the important details in Infinite Crisis is that Earth is the center of the multiverse as opposed to Oa which is the center of the Universe. Owlman had the right target, his plan was probably flawed but his target was proper even if it was for the wrong reasons.
  • This is a story written by people on Earth, for people on Earth, who have no idea whether other intelligence decision-capable species even exist within their universe. So yes, in that context, the only choices that matter are those made by people on Earth. It would likely pack less emotional punch for the general audience if everything hinged on what people on Oa or Alpha Centauri or Vulcan or Gallifrey were doing.
• When the Q.E.D. is armed, a window appears that says "Abort: Yes/No". I can guess what pressing "yes" does, but what does pressing "no" do, seeing as it's already on a timer?
  • Makes it impossible to shut down or override?
  • It's there in case it was armed by mistake. If you armed it on purpose, then "no" is what you press.
• Why would the destruction of Earth Prime have effected anything else? The explanation that we are given is that the universe functions more or less like a tree. (Work with me for a second) and that Earth Prime is either the seed or the roots and either way nothing else can exist without it but that doesn't really make sense (unless there is some time travel involved as well that simply isn't mentioned.) because what happens on Earth Prime should be no more important to what happens on Earth (whatever number this story takes place on) than say your parents or grand parents have on you. Sure they exist but killing them today won't wink you out of existence.
  • It doesn't make sense because you changed metaphors half-way through. Stay with the tree. Earth Prime is like the trunk—if you chop it down, the rest of the tree dies with it.
• Owlman mentions that while he doesn't know how Earth Prime became a wasteland he does know that it was the fault of human choice. How exactly does that square with his idea that there are worlds where no fish was brave enough to crawl up out of the ocean and thus man never evolved? That seems to be a rather major hiccup in his philosophy.
  • Owlman is an omnicidal madman. They're not exactly known for the thoroughness and lucidity of their world views. He's just trying to justify his own actions, nothing more.
  • Earth Prime was once inhabited, as evidenced by the visible ruins — that's proof enough for Owlman to reach a conclusion that gibes with what he's inclined to believe anyway.
  • When I watched the scene where Owlman explained the multiverse to Superwoman,I was under the impression that Owlman wasn't actually denoting real Earths, merely using the image to make a point contrary to Superwoman. You'll notice that the first "alternate Earth" he mentions is a polar opposite of their current situation. Him mentioning the fish world was a hyperbole that didn't need to technically be true to illustrate his point.
  • Owlman is a nihilist with a generally low opinion of humanity. He doesn't know for certain, but simply believes that Earth Prime was destroyed by humans because he believes humanity is fundamentally destructive and malevolent. It's simply a reflection of his own biases and prejudices.
• Every choice on the evil Earth creates more. Doesn't that mean there are billions more Owlman out there trying to destroy Earth Prime?
  • There are just as many of those Owlmen who aren't trying to destroy Earth Prime. And even more so, there are those who realize they have counterparts trying to destroy Earth prime and thus join them, or try to stop them. And *THEN* there are Owlmen who just stopped giving a crap about any of it.
  • There may be billions trying, but it doesn't follow that there are billions succeeding in trying. If every choice creates two timelines, then there are those who chose a different method which ended up in a dead end, those which accidentally blew themselves up before they could get anywhere, those who were stopped sooner, and so forth.
• Superman & Lex Luthor's defeat of Ultraman. It's been pointed out more than once in the DC universe that kryptonite only affects kryptonians from the same dimension.
  • Earth Prime was a barren wasteland, but in the comics it's supposed to be our world. Unless they were just in L.A., clearly it's all non-canon and the rules are different here.
  • Alternately, Lex picked up a piece from a universe where Ultraman didn't destroy all the blue kryptonite. Say, for example, Ultraman had decided to gather up and destroy all the kryptonite a few years ago. At that same time, an alternate universe was made where he didn't decide to do that. On another timeline, he might have found that blue kryptonite makes for an awesome fuel for power plants that would put all the oil companies out of business and rake in billions of dollars legitimately. Lex could have just searched for a timeline where synthetic blue kryptonite was available at every corner drug store and bought some.
• Has anyone here considered what would happen if Owlman had just sent the bomb there on its own? A bomb can't make a free will choice, thereby neutralizing the loopholes established on this page.
  • The very act of opening a portal or otherwise making contact with Earth Prime automatically creates a second. And Owlman most likely wasn't on Earth Prime anyway. He speaks of a world where no fish was ever brave enough to climb up on land and then comments that live on Earth Prime ended because of a decision that man made. Clearly if there is a world where no fish evolved into man its closer to Earth Prime than a planet that was destroyed by humans. Either way destroying Earth Prime is completely impossible.
  • A bomb can't make a decision, but someone who materialises on the planet after the bomb — someone such as Batman, for example — can make the decision to disarm it. If Owlman is on the planet with the bomb, he is able to prevent anyone from intervening to stop the bomb from disarming it, whereas if he isn't on the planet, he can't. Since, if Owlman is correct, he's gonna be dead when the multiverse goes boom either way, Owlman might as well die making absolutely sure that nothing goes wrong with his plan.
• Even if you don't think Batman killed Owlman, he still totally killed Johnny Quick. He used a Batman Gambit to trick him into volunteering for a job that Batman knew could kill him and chose not to tell him about the risk. That's what the lawyers call "depraved indifference to human life" and, since Johnny died as a result, it's murder.
  • It was Johnny or Flash, and Batman clearly valued the life of his comrade over the life of a criminal. Moreover, it was that or the end of the multiverse. Even THEN, he didn't kill Johnny; he merely made him volunteer for something that would sacrifice his life. Batman even tells him it could be dangerous; it's not even like he doesn't warn Johnny about there being risks, he's just not specific. Batman commits a lie of omission, but ultimately it was still Johnny's decision.
    • Plus death wasn't certain, for all we know if he'd stopped as soon as Batman got back he'd have been fine, if down a couple decades. It just happened to take him a bit too long to stop.
  • On top of this, nothing indicates that Johnny needed to keep going once Batman passed through. He could have stopped vibrating as soon as Batman was off. Of course, he needed to keep going until Batman made it to the other side and stopping would have risked killing Batman halfway through the journey, but Owlman made it there almost instantly. Johnny could be relatively certain that Batman made it through in the first minute at most and then stopped to trap him there. Johnny decided on his own to not stop until Batman came back and he could probably feel what was happening to him the entire time (the screaming is a dead giveaway). What further complicates, well, all of this is that Johnny didn't actually die... Speedsters don't die, ever. They just become one with the speedforce which is like a paradise specifically made for speedsters. When Barry Allen accidentally created it, the speedforce was unbound by time so it seeped its way through all of time, space, and the multiverses. In theory, Johnny could just come back any time he wants, he just doesn't want to and even if he does, he can arrive back at any period of history. Granted though, becoming one with the speedforce doesn't mean it's EASY to come back from it, but it was one of the speedsters or the multiverse. If the multiverse was destroyed, the speedforce might have gone with it (it's complicated with the speedforce being outside of time and space after all), but at least with the multiverse still intact, then Johnny has a slim chance of returning from the speedforce. Let's not even get into the possibility of Batman knowing, well, any of this by the way. This is way too complicated already to guess on what the characters do and don't know
• If the Crime Syndicate practically control the whole world, why do they need masks and presumably secret identies?
  • Because there's still the normal-universe villains as heroes, and any citizens with guns who kidnap or kill their relatives.
  • Also, supervillains like to look dramatic.
  • Their control is still limited by what amounts to a cold war between them and the normal governments. Maintaining secret identities gives them an escape hatch if the governments had gained the upper hand but not actually captured them.
  • They also don't necessarily trust each other with their mundane identities. Supervillains aren't known for getting along, despite alliances. Indeed, him knowing other Crime Syndicate members' secret identities could be part of the reason why Owlman exerts as much influence among them as he does, despite being outclassed in the brute-force-power department.
• Okay, yeah, J'onn was Strangled by the Red String, but when you can share all of your life experiences with someone in just a few minutes, wouldn't that be the case for ALL Martians when they found someone they are psychically capabitable with? Dating on Mars must be refreshingly straight forward.
• So in the attacks on the Syndicate's operations, Flash probably killed Alt!Black Canary, she's shown struggling to swim for a brief second and a later shot of roughly the same part of the water she's gone. Also Wonder Woman blew up a truck with a pair of mooks in it. What about their "no kill" rule?
  • With regards to Wonder Woman, she is a warrior; her "no kill" rule is generally a little looser than Batman or Superman. She doesn't kill simply for the hell of it or because it's easier, but she's generally willing to use lethal force in a combat situation. As for Flash, that's a little trickier, because we don't actually see what happens to her; we see her struggle for a moment, but depending on how one is willing to view the ambiguity that could also be because she's just suddenly been dropped into to water and is trying to get her bearings again. From what we actually see, she could have swam away off-screen. Even if she did drown, this one is closer to reckless manslaughter, since Flash dropping her in the water suggests an attempt to deal with her non-lethally; he just might not have known that she couldn't swim.

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