The 1990's
After Gaiman completed his Swamp Thing run in 1993, Fantasy award winning writer China Miéville took over and radically changed the series in his traditional style of subverting Fantasy tropes. His run on
Swamp Thing is considered amazing by many and he is often put on the same pedestal as Moore and Gaiman for their quality
Swamp Thing runs. As a result,
Swamp Thing continued to see publication due to the talented work by the authors(OTL it was canceled in 1993 with no Gaiman and Miéville run happening as was originally planned, Gaiman because DC refused his Swamp thing Jesus story for fear of offending christians despite its lack of anything that would conceivably insult them and both Veitch and Gaiman quitting in protest with the series ending before Miéville could write it. Given the prestige of both Gaiman and Miéville, one can assume the runs would have been amazing).
After the Crisis, DC released several mandates. There was no plan to bring back Barry Allen. Wally West would continue to be the Flash(No new 52 Wally West is introduced). Bart Allen was introduced as the perpetual kid Sidekick and new Kid Flash, though he would get his own series after he became old enough to become the Flash, taking over from Wally. A DC editorial mandate was handed down concerning the Joker. The Joker had recently made three Iconic appearances,
The Dark Knight Returns, the Killing Joke, and
A Death in the Family. On those stories he had been killed, crippled Barbara Gordon, and murdered the second Robin Jason Todd. DC felt that using him too much took away from the character's appeal and feared oversaturation. He would only appear in big events in Batman's life or in cameos, though this only applied to Comics. Other media appearances were fair game. Another rule was that Joker's origin could never be confirmed, as it added to his mystery. Science Fiction Writer Larry Niven took over Green Lantern and wrote "The Green Lantern Bible", which established the Post-Crisis history of the Green Lantern Corps, and incorporated hard science fiction concepts into the Green Lantern mythos. This almost included making Guy Gardner an alien but this was cut. The Mandate basically made the Bible law for a time until Gaiman would receive permission to contradict the contents.
The event known as
Legends depicted Darkseid, now only a spirit, attacking Earth by having his henchman Glorious Godfrey turn mankind against the Superheroes, using his ability to control anyone who hears his voice, and then sending Brimstone to attack Earth. This led to the formation of the Suicide Squad as well as a New Justice League made to answer to the UN called
Justice League International. Kevin Maguire was pulling double duty on this series and the Wild Card Series with Kurt Busiek, which introduced the titular new Superhero(who fittingly would have the Joker as a villain in his first appearance, along with the Royal Flush Gang). After
Legends, DC's next event was
Armageddon 2001. This event revealed Captain Atom would become the villain Monarch in one of many possible futures when a time traveller came back and was able to touch people and see their futures. The time traveller became the Superhero Waverider and made contact with several superheroes, glimpsing several possible futures(which are actually stories set in established futures such as that of
Dark Knight Returns and
Twilight of the Superheroes). Captain Atom fought Monarch when he emerged from his own time following Waverider and sacrificed himself to kill the villain, ensuring that Monarch's future would not come to pass. The event was then largely forgotten. Low sales meant DC kicked into high gear. They would put out a remarketing of the character
Ambush Bug, which would later be marketed as DC's answer to Deadpool, often using fourth wall breaking humor. Ambush Bug though would eventually fall to the wayside as Harley Quinn was introduced and essentially became DC's Deadpool in his place.
Wonder Woman and the Star Riders Tie in Comic Series.
Wonder Woman and the Star Riders Action Figures
Wonder Woman had an animated TV Show called
Wonder Woman and the Star Riders. The series was made by DC and Mattel to sell toys. Diana, Donna and Stephanie were joined by Dolphine and Ice on the show. Other DC Characters such as Amethyst Princess of Gemworld would appear. The show was clearly the Western Answer to Sailor Moon, however, Bruce Timm would incorporate the series into the DCAU when introducing Wonder Woman. In the Comics, a Wonder Woman Crossover with Xena was made and later adapted into an episode of Xena proper, with a cameo from Linda Carter, though a different actress playing Wonder Woman.
Plans were made for the Heroes of the DC Universe to go through changes. Several crossovers occurred at once to preserve the iconic versions of the characters. This resulted in an interesting Crossover with Marvel. While the companies were on good terms and crossed over several times before, this crossover was different, creating an entire new line called the Amalgam Universe, centering on a merged universe containing both heroes(the details of which will be provided in their own post).
The sorcerer character Doctor Fate, or rather his series, underwent a transformation His series diving into the darker areas of the Supernatural(this is due to the ideas that became the comic series
Scarab originally being planned for a Doctor Fate series), helping to bring the series in line with the popular Image comics at the time.Oliver Queen lost his arm in his own series, leading to his retirement(an allusion in Universe to his fate in
The Dark Knight Returns). He at this time discovered he had a son he didn't know about named Connor Hawke, who he would have a good relationship with, training him to be the new Green Arrow. The comic series
Doomsday introduced a new villain for the Man of Steel and later new characters such as Steel, the Eradicator and Cyborg Superman(No Death of Superman, so Coast City is not destroyed ITTL). The biggest change however, would occur to Green Lantern, as a young writer named Geoff Johns was given the chance to revamp the character in an event known as
Emerald Dawn(avoiding the name Twilight to avoid confusion with the Moore story). The story depicted Sinestro forming his own Corps and attacking the Lanterns with all their enemies to initiate the Blackest Night, a prophecy discovered by Hal Jordan's predecessor Abin Sur about how the Green Lantern Corps will fall. The battle is intense. Johns also introduced the villain Parallax as an entity imprisoned with the Green Lantern Power Battery. While the Sinestro Corps are defeated, even leading to Hal Jordan killing Sinestro, in the sequel
Blackest Knight, Parallax corrupts the Lantern Power Battery forcing Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner and John Stewart to fight the Corps and destroy it, including blowing up the sentient Green Lantern Planet Mogo with a bomb in his Core as he was creating sentient rings. This falls on John Stewart who was placed in a similar situation in the Justice League Story arc
Cosmic Odyssey. The strongest Green Lantern Sodam Yat is also slain thanks to the Ring's weakness to yellow. The Lanterns also discover other Lantern Corps exist and recruit their help, each taking on different rings and defeating the Corps. Only one Green Ring survives thanks the Guardian Ganthet. It arrives in the hands of an artist named Kyle Rayner. The next arc
War of the Lanterns, introduces the Black Lanterns an to an extent the White Lanterns. It involves Kyle Rayner having to master each ring to gain access to the White Lantern of Life and defeat an invasion. This event grew to involve the entire DC Universe combatting the undead, becoming an Arc. To add fuel to the event, Superman was believed to be Dead for a time. Hal Jordan ultimately sacrificed himself to defeat the Black Lanterns and save the Universe.
The events known as
The Final Night took place, though with Hal Jordan dead, he cannot sacrifice himself to reignite the sun. Instead it is Superman(who's powers are solar based) who sacrifices himself to reignite the sun(dying in 1996 TTL rather than 1993 OTL. This story later helped inspire the conclusion of
All Star Superman ITTL). Though Lois Lane expresses the belief that Superman was not dead and would return after fixing the sun.
Not Inked Cover of Alex Ross's Batboy
Alex Ross wrote a series titled
Batboy, about an alternate Damian Wayne, and his ally, Superman, Jr. Most of the original heroes had by that point retired save for Green Lantern Hal Jordan with the Teen Titans becoming the Justice League. As the story progressed, Batboy realized his world was
too perfect before learning the truth - he was under the thrall of the wish granting parasitic Black Mercy and his family was fighting to save him. This story introduced Damian Wayne, a character previously seen in the debatably canon
Batman: Son of the Demon into continuity. He was made the child of Bruce Wayne and Talia Al Ghul born before Bruce and Selina married. The story ended with him going out and finding his father with the intent to become Robin. During his original run of
Robin, Chuck Dixon had Tim Drake, the third Robin, move on to becoming Blue Beetle for a period of time. Dixon had set up foreshadowing by establishing Tim as a fan of Ted Kord, and giving Ted a heart condition that would make it more difficult for him to do strenuous crime-fighting. Tim would then take on the role, while Stephanie Brown would temporarily become Robin in his absence until Damian was ready for it. Tim would then go back to being Robin, and the "Blue Beetle" name would be franchised out, with Ted Kord training other new Beetles.
DC continued the Vertigo line for stories, sometimes welding them into continuity. Christopher Priest introduced a DC original character called the Avenger and in his Run on Triumph, Confirmed the Hero as closeted gay, elements later folded into DC continuity. Neil Gaiman concluded the last Volume of
The Sandman with the speeches of Alianore, Odin, and Death in full, as well as Superman(possibly brought there by Death), at Morpheus's eulogy. This would not be the only time Superman appeared outside continuity.
Image from the Superman/Rocketeer crossover
Superman was featured in a Crossover with the Rocketeer ins a three issue story that had the two working together to save Orson Welles when his War of the Worlds broadcast becomes very real. It was written by Dave Stevens(only proposed OTL.
Superman: War of the Worlds doesn't exist which has the same plot without the Rocketeer. This story is set on Earth One in 1938.). Crossovers also occurred with Batman, due to the popularity of the
Batman: Animated Series, which received a Comic tie in, some stories of which were later adapted into episodes. "Jolly Ol' Saint Nicholas", one of a series of shorts in
The Batman Adventures Holiday Special later adapted in
The New Batman Adventures episode "Holiday Knights", had a scene where Barbara Gordon, banking on the panicking crowd seeing Clayface being too busy panicking, changed into Batgirl in front of them. According to Bruce Timm, it was based off of a panel from an issue of
Supergirl. A
Batman/
Gen¹³ crossover was created by DC and Image-Wildstorm, and drawn by Gen 13 artist J. Scott Campbell.
Panel from Kingdom Come depicting the Battle at the end of the original Twilight of the Superheroes.
For the tenth Anniversary of
Twilight of the Superheroes in 1997
, Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross penned the excellent story known as
Kingdom Come. The Story is a prequel and shows the formation of Superman's own House(and also serves as a less detailed origin for Batman's faction, which is justified given its origin in
The Dark Knight Returns). The story then shifts to other focuses during the actual events of
Twilight. It does however Retcon the ending and allow Superman and Wonder Woman to survive and help rebuild by revealing they only appeared to die. At around the same time, Jim Lee's Wildstorm imprint was bought by DC. He approached his former coworkers at Image about an idea concerning both the Image and DC heroes by moving some of the Image heroes like Spawn to the DC Universe and this idea was greenlit(OTL this idea never materialized but the creators were enthusiastic for it). DC had acquired the heroes. Many joked that it was time for another Crisis. Ironically Peter David Joke that they'd had to kill Supergirl again. Two versions of the character had been introduced Post-Crisis. The first was Kara-Zor-El herself, who in the new Universe still came to Earth but now went by Power Woman. The current Supergirl was Lara Kent, who was the daughter of Superman and Lois Lane, the two having been married shortly after the Crisis. With Kara's blessing, Lara acted as Supergirl. With so much continuity, many writers were given permission to explore the early days of the heroes suchas Jeph Loeb and Paul Smith's sequel to
Batman: Year One in 1999,
Trinity, which provided a style take on the early days of DC's Trinity (Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman).
Twilight Superman enters the main DC Universe.
The Kingdom, the sequel to
Kingdom Come, served as a prequel or even an aversion of the series. The story focused more on the civilian identities rather than the heroes themselves. Gog, the predecessor of Magog from
Kingdom Come, appeared to attempt to murder the New Gods before Magog killed him. Superman of the
Twilight Universe would enter the main Universe of DC and would take steps to prevent the dark future of
Twilight from coming to pass on the Main Universe. He would then permanently reside in the main DC Universe, replacing his deceased counterpart. Lois Lane was also revealed to have been pregnant with Superman's child(brought about through mapping of his Genetic Code, done ironically by Lex Luthor as before his death, a conversation with Superman made him realize he'd wasted his life and Lex had reformed, at least for the moment). This allowed Lois to have a second child with the late Mr.Kent. Despite this a Superman/Dirty Pair crossover by Adam Warren occurred with the classic Superman.
Changes had occurred to Batman as well. He had been crippled by the new villain Bane and briefly replaced by Jean Paul Valley in the role of Batman. Eventually, Bruce would return to the role he created. Jean Paul Valley would meanwhile become close with another of Batman's new apprentices, Cassandra Cain( introduced earlier than OTL due to John Byrne requesting an Asian American Batgirl, which he found fitting since Bats are good luck in several East Asian countries). Outside of the Batman franchise, its most famous alternate version was under attack. Frank Miller began to dislike other artists providing takes on his Universe as Alan Moore had written his own continuation to
The Dark Knight Returns by connecting it with
Twilight of the Superheroes. DC found Miller harder to work with and Miller angrily quit DC, vowing never to work for them again. He then seemingly retired from Comics for good after injuring his writing hand(OTL he was present for the September 11 attacks and later wrote the horribly racist
Holy Terror, based on his experience. Seeing as most of his works after the event are considered terrible, he does not write again, he retires. The September 11 Terror attacks do not happen due to a Butterfly effect. Namely the song "
Baby It's Cold Outside". Was Never written, which was the deciding factor in convincing Islamist Sayyid Qutb to become radicalized against the West since the song comes off as "Date-Rapey" and he was disturbed by the (to him) sexual dances that were made(fairly safe by today's standards). His writings were later read and inspired Osama Bin Laden, who split off from the Brotherhood which Qutb was the Godfather of through his teachings, and formed his own group in Al Qaeda. Without the song existing, Qutb does not start his movement and Osama Bin Laden does not form Al Qaeda meaning there are no September 11 attacks. I gave myself a rule that I could only alter Pop Culture or how it effects thing. While this limits my powers. Preventing 9/11 is one thing I feel I can do).
After the Crisis. The Team Titans were introduced as future version of the Teen Titans. Their mysterious leader was a grown-up Danny Chase from the future, something which should have been impossible given his death. There was also a team of teenage, alternate universe versions of the Wolfman/Perez Titans that wound up interacting with their current selves. Wolfman also had a Titans group modeled after the original five-member '60s team, but with more modern attitudes to contrast the originals' campy "goody-two shoes" personalities. Phil Jimenez, Wolfman's successor on the book, did a story with Duela Dent (previously shown as an asylum patient in one issue of his run), who was revealed to be a member of the '60s-70s team. Having been stranded in the future and separated from her team, she went insane and stole a special hourglass that allowed her to warp reality. Jimenez also revealed the Team Titans were from an alternate Earth(likely the
Twilight future), and revealed the Terra from the future, Terra II, to be a lesbian and an earth elemental-type. He also killed off the character of Mirage.
The New Titans had a largely adult cast at the time. The
Team Titans series was created and would start with the cast as Decoy Protagonists, only to get rid of them all around issue #12, introduce the alternate universe Wolfman/Perez Titans as the new protagonists, and then finally rename the book
Teen Titans. The new versions of the classic Titans were much younger, allowing them to bring back the
Teen part of the name without making it an Artifact Title. The series also gave the character of Pantha an origin story, written by Louise Simonson. In it, Pantha was revealed to be a bookish woman transformed into a monstrous creature by the HIVE(OTL, Pantha did not receive an origin story until after she was killed off). Donna Troy would create a new costume after the "Total Chaos" arc, from the villain's cape. Peterson, working as editor, had her husband Terry Long killed off at the hands of a demonic Raven(Somewhat of a Monkey's Paw effect due to keeping Peterson on TTL as Peterson wanted to kill him off, though Terry Long ended up dying anyway and was not popular at the time. Marv Wolfman in OTL pitched Donna Troy and Nightwing becoming a couple but this was because both Donna's marriage to Terry and the Nightwing/Starfire Marriage were his ideas that were nixed by DC, since Wolfman at least gets the Nightwing/Starfire Marriage and the Donna/Terry as the status quo for some time, that idea is never pitched). The Teen Titans continued to grow overtime including adding a character named Split to the team. His name became appropriate as around the same time the Teen Titans team itself split when Marv Wolfman brought Nightwing back to the team only for him to clash with Arsenal(Roy Queen) over leadership, leading to the team being split in two between the Titans West and Titans East teams.
Artist Rob Liefeld was given a spinoff book of the Teen Titans called "The Hybrid" and a team of villains called the Rogue Titans, which an editorial mandate requested be changed to Terror Titans. While Liefeld had his fans, he never gained much popularity, he did later go onto work for Marvel and is known for creating the characters of Deadpool and Cable, the former out of a desire to bring back the deceased Deathstroke. Other teams would take over these characters and give them new life, turning Deadpool into a comedic character and Cable into a hero from the future. Liefeld's design also helped create the modern design for most action figures, allowing them to have more points of articulation at the arms and joints(I seriously considered killing off Rob Liefeld in this Timeline. OTL Rob Liefeld wrote a drew a now infamous Captain America Comic. At the time Marvel was in such a bad situation financially they actually offered their characters to Image, including Liefeld writing Captain America. Comic Veteran Mark Gruenwald, who had written his entire life for Marvel and was one of the biggest Captain America fans, went home with a new copy of Liefeld Captain America. He was found the next day having died of a heart attack with a copy of the Liefeld Captain America issue. Most of the Marvel staff though it was a joke. Gruenwald frequently pulled pranks and did cartwheels in the office. So what I'm saying is...as SF Debris put it....ROB LIEFELD WROTE A COMIC SO BAD IT MAY HAVE KILLED A MAN!".....what does this mean? it means that TTL Mark Gruenwald is alive and so help me I wanted to kill off Rob Liefeld, who would have been 29 at time of Death if I went through with it as a type of way to tip the scales....Anyway moving on).
Tim Drake joined the Teen Titans in Volume 2. Wildcat and Nightwing acted as mentors. Raven and Omen were also members. The group contended with alien hybrid children. Three children were left unaccounted for. One became the villain Sweet 16 while the other two were other wannabe heroes that showed up at a membership drive (Kid Emotion and The Solution). The new series had a spin-off called "Titans LA". It involved Terra II trying to find out the secrets of her past. Jay Faerber wrote a story where Slizzath, nemesis of Tempest, resurrected all the dead Titans as an army to fight the current team. Faerber included Mr. Jupiter(the team's funder) being killed off, with the Titans having to solve the mystery of his murder. Faeber's successor, Barry Kitson did more with specific characters like Bumblebee, Lilith, Terra II, and Risk, Lilith stopped using the Omen codename. Faerber also had Dolphin join the Titans team and become a more active character. The villain Epsilon was introduced and later revealed to be a serial killer that would hop dimensions to murder heroes. He was revealed to be the alternate version of Danny Chase from another Universe where he did not die, serving as a "Take that Scrappy!" moment for the character and revealing he was the leader of the Team Titans.
When Teen Titans volume 3 began, Static Shock was part of the team, as he was coming off of the popular
Static Shock TV show at the time. Geoff Johns had his Titans team to fight the Scarecrow in an early arc. Blackfire also appeared. Johns also wanted to use Supergirl but due to the "reign in Hell" arc(discussed later) couldn't and created Miss Martian as a "Naive, Fun alien Chick". Johns then had Superboy regaining his confidence to fend off the "Titans of Tomorrow" or the Team Titans, who would found a way to attack the present timeline. Johns set up threads for the then-new Aquagirl to join the team. Rob Liefeld's two-issue filler arc with Gail Simone was meant to get his foot in the door at DC. There were plans for Liefeld to do a new Titans East series to help expand the franchise, as well as a possible Teen Titans-based limited series, but the deal fell apart due tension behind the scenes. Liefeld ended up walking away from DC, and had some unkind things to say about the company.
Issue 47 had Duela Dent officially join the volume 3 team, after deciding to stick with them after the "Titans East" arc. Sean McKeever revealed that the villain Sun Girl was pregnant with Inertia's child, upon which she appealed to Bart Allen and the other Titans for help. Kid Devil was resurrected in a story arc sometime after his Heroic Sacrifice. The demon Blaze revived him and used him as her slave, until he was freed by the Titans. JT Krul's run featured the new Aqualad from
Young Justice joining the team, as well as the Teen Titans facing off against a new team of Anti-Hero Titans led by Deathstroke(still alive Post Crisis). Eric Wallace's run on Cinder had him finding child molester Nursery Cryme after she'd accidentally set him free, and metahuman Allegra Garcia joining Deathstroke's team. The finale of the
Titans series before 2011 had Red Arrow and Jericho rebuilding the team.
The 2000's
Grant Morrison wrote
JLA Earth -1, which served as the reintroduction of the Crime Syndicate while introducing the Antimatter Multiverse(later the Dark Multiverse). He would provide more details of this universe in his
Multiversity series. The
JLA / JSA: Virtue and Vice graphic novel was released as a three or four-issue miniseries. The story breaks into almost perfect twenty-two page segments(OTL it was released as one book which readers quickly realized broke the flow). Morrison also wrote Vertigo's
Hellblazer for a time(butterflying away Brain Azzarello's
Hellblazer run being considered terrible by fans).
Paul Dini's Zatanna First Issue Cover.
Paul Dini wrote a Zatanna Prestige Format one-shot for Vertigo, which sold out in a short time. Vertigo gave him a miniseries and eventually a full series. Dini then announced his
Black Canary/Zatanna graphic novel with Amanda Conner on art duties. The series boosted Zatanna's popularity and was canonized.
In his Batman series, Geoff Johns revealed that the new character of the Red Hood was actually the Jason Todd of Earth Two. The Jason Todd of Earth One was long dead and never coming back . This version of Jason was a young man who had idolized Batman while growing up, only to snap and become a violent Anti-Hero after discovering that his world's Batman had been murdered before the Crisis. Red Hood became Deathstroke's Robin on his anti-Titans/Terror Titans team. This inspired the major plot point in the
Teen Titans animated series, where Slade seeks to have Robin become his apprentice by force. Due to the series wrapping up conclusively, The Teen Titans Go Comic Series does not exist(Not to be confused with the animated series) does not exist TTL). Meanwhile the original Robin, Dick Grayson controversially nearly avoided being raped(Knightwing was not raped(This occurred OTL by way of the character of Tarantula since Knightwing was in emotion shock at the time. This encounter is averted by Starfire arriving and blasting Tarantula. Since the two are married TTL. He was also raped again but that event did not happen as that was done by time travelling characters from the
Kingdom Come Universe, which doesn't exist here and is very different.).
Seven Soldiers was a
Justice League Spin-Off focusing on some of the lesser known heroes of the DCU, with Morrison envisioning the new team as a pastiche of Marvel's Avengers. To that end, the cast consisted of characters who each paralleled a specific Avenger, with the Guardian standing in for Captain America (a shield-wielding Badass Normal), the Enchantress for Scarlet Witch (a magical heroine with a bit of a dark side), Mr. Miracle for Thor (a caped Jack Kirby creation with ties to a fantastic other world), Etrigan the Demon for Incredible Hulk (a tormented man with a dangerous Superpowered Alter Ego), obscure Golden Age hero Spyder for Hawkeye (an adventurous archer with an arsenal of Trick Arrows) and Martian Manhunter for The Vision (a stoic green hero with the ability to become intangible)(OTL Morrison was denied permission to have the Demon, Enchantress or Martian Manhunter in the book since they were all being used elsewhere at the time, so he replaced them with Klarion, Zatanna and Frankenstein, respectively. By then, the whole Avenger angle had begun to fade away).
Identity Crisis was not written, consequently Sue Dibny is still alive, Jean Loring does not become the insane Eclipso, Ray Palmer does not disappear into
Countdown. Batman does not become Paranoid and creates Brother Eye and Dr.Light does not become a Rapist. The storyline
Batman: War Games does not exist. Consequently Stephanie Brown does not die and instead continues to act as Robin while developing a relationship with Tim Drake.
Prior to
Infinite Crisis, a Captain Atom series was released(in place of the OTL Breach series the Captain Atom series eventually became). Another series to tie into the event was Supergirl, Sterling Gates used Lara Kent in the 2005 Supergirl series. Lara spent time acting as the Kandorian hero Flamebird while the role of Nightwing was taken by the newly introduced Conner Kent, a clone of Superman introduced in their Young Justice series) with Dick Grayson abandoning the role to become Batman. Gates' 75th issue featured Lara dying, as was alluded to in the annual issue where she traveled to the future. The story revealed Kara Zor-El was trapped in Hell thanks to Lord Satanus. Lara Kent teamed up with soul of Kara's mother Alura to rescue her, but to do that they seeked out Zatanna and Constantine to get them into Hell. Consequently, Because of this event utilizing the Supergirl character, Supergirl was unavailable for One Year Later's Teen Titan series, Geoff Johns, wanting a fun naive alien chick, created Miss Martian(allowing the character to still exist ITTL).
Infinite Crisis kicked off, helping to tie in several threads introduced beforehand. Among the story threads was the formation of the Secret Society of Supervillains, who created a massive Satellite called "Brother Eye"(revealed to be Brainiac) which infected many people with nanites that turned them into OMAC drones. The Justice League International members went to investigate only to be ambushed with the villains killing League funder Maxwell Lord, then turning him into an OMAC drone that shot Ted Kord in the spine. Ted Kord pulled a self sacrifice to allow the Justice League International members to escape, triggering an explosion, causing the Blue Scarab of the Blue Beetle to be discovered by Jaime Reyes, whom Kord was training along with others to be his successor back in his original series(Maxwell Lord OTL killed Ted Kord, which didn't sit well with fans as it was seen as out of character. Lord's inner monologue and Martian Manhunter reading his mind while he was unconscious both confirmed he was a genuinely good guy and wanted to do good). The rest of the Universe has been thrown into the Rann Thanagar War and the Spectre had declared war against Magic itself after being manipulated into doing so by the magical villains. The Society of Supervillains was revealed to have beeb orchestrated by Alexander Luthor Jr, a Lex Luthor from Earth -1, who was under the mind control of the still surviving Anti-Monitor. Among his allies was a brainwashed being named Superman Prime, who was revealed to be a brainwashed Post Crisis Superman. The Anti-Monitor plunged the Multiverse into chaos, even tricking Post Crisis Superman into fighting his
Twilight Version, by restoring the
Twilight Universe so that Post Crisis Superman seemingly killed Lois Lane while under mind control. Eventually the Anti-Monitor is defeated by the Heroes, though the injured
Twilight Superman sadly passes away. The Post Crisis Superman takes the role back, having been thought dead for 10 years.
Gail Simone's 2006 Run on Wonder Woman featured an interracial lesbian wedding between Queen Hippolyta and Phillipus. Simone also introduced more faithful to mythology versions of the Greco-Roman Gods, including a new more faithful costume for Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman received a less "Stripperific" outfit. Instead she was given a Greco-Roman outfit which consisted of armor, including a battle skirt, that kept its coloring the US Flag themes. The Skirt was blue with stars and a golden eagle on the chest plate. More characters appeared in Issue 600, including Rocket from the Icon series. Simone stayed on long enough to write up the event
Amazons Under Siege which involved the US Army invading Themyscira. Speaking of Lesbians, Batwoman AKA Katherine Kane marries her girlfriend Maggie Sawyer(However, no TV show is made). Williams and Blackman were able to explore Alice's origin, and that of Director Bones (clarifying whether or not he was related to the Kanes). Renee Montoya still became the Question after the death of Vic Sage. A Later Arc has a new Question appear and Montoya attempting to discover his identity. He is revealed to be a man named Walter Kovacs, leading into the events of
Doomsday Clock.
Gail Simone introduced Cassandra Cain to Catholicism, which included meetings with the Spectre and Zauriel, two characters with direct connections to God. Cassandra Cain as Batgirl rescued a sincerely faithful Christian preacher to Gotham's homeless population from a mugging and was converted by his strong faith in forgiveness and the teachings of the Bible. Taking up a new, white-colored costume, and devoting herself to the most vulnerable of Gotham's residents — the mentally ill, the homeless, runaways and immigrants — she became known as the Angel of the Bat and, for the first time ever, was genuinely happy. Simone also had Cassandra join the Birds of Prey, partially to answer complaints about the lack of minorities on the team. Simone had Vixen added to the team as well for reasons similar to Cassandra. She also added Flamebird after Lara Kent returned from the
Reign in Hell arc. Barbara Gordon remained as Oracle while helping the Bat family and leading the Birds of Prey to manage a team of younger heroines. Among the other heroes and members are Stephanie Brown as Robin, Bumblebee, Black Alice, and Misfit. Cassandra Cain never turned evil, as she infamously did during this time OTL.
Helena Wayne was born in 2006 to Bruce Wayne and Selina Wayne(nee Kyle) as a reintroduction of the Huntress Concept from the Pre Crisis Earth Two(OTL Helena was teased as the daughter of Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne, only for it to be changed to the daughter of Selina and Golden Age comic character Slam Bradley. Here since the two are married. They go ahead with introducing Helena as Bruce's daughter). Alex Ross wrote a new
Shazam series which saw the Marvel Family traveling the world and trying to reclaim Captain Marvel's powers after they were scattered across the planet. The series officially brought Black Vulcan from the
Super Friends cartoon into DC canon, making him a member of the Marvel Family.
Superman: For Tomorrow, Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, the Question, and the Vigilante all had combined into a storyline concerning the plot of Lex Luthor, who claimed to be reformed, even becoming President before being revealed to have snapped back to villainy due to Superman's return, building a tower which would kill Superman upon being completed. The event was known as the Superstorm. The 2008, Superman story arc
Brainiac occurred. It featured Superman battling Brainiac, revealing that Superman had never actually fought Brainiac before, only robotic duplicates of him. Superman is able to recover the Kryptonian City of Kandor Brainiac had in his possession. Unlike OTL it is not restored in the present. It is instead a Legion of Superheroes Arc which see Kandor being restored in the 31st Century.
The New Krypton storyline does not exist and consequently neither does
Superman: Grounded, a direct follow up to it.
Wendy and Marvin were introduced by Grant Morrison as Morrison loved to bring back and imply all elements of a character's history were canon(They were not mauled in graphic detail by a demonic Wonderdog in the pages of Teen Titans like OTL). Here their introduction is actually an attempt to revive them as had been done with Black Vulcan.
Final Crisis was a Grant Morrison series that brought back the New Gods created by Jack Kirby, now resurrected as humans and concerned the war between Apokolips and Earth. It no longer has the continuity error of having an alive Aquaman(he was dead at the time OTL). The Crisis does however kill off Hawkman and Hawkgirl(as planned OTL and implied). In 2009, J Michael Strazynski reintroduced the Red Circle group in the pages of the Brave and the Bold, However they fell into misuse after awhile and returned to Archie Comics. The Series ends differently and so
Cry for Justice was never made. Kevin Smith's
Batman: The Widening Gyre finished its twelve issues(the last 6 issues have yet to be published).
Smallville continued with a comic series that introduces a Black Stephanie Brown as Knightwing.
The
All Star line was launched as a reimagining of the DC heroes by famous writers without the restraints of continuity. The first storyline was Grant Morrison's
AllS tar Superman. The Storyline was a hit but Frank Miller refused a chance to return to DC to write a follow up involving Batman. It was handed to Geoff Johns instead. This version of Batman is shown to be over his head, somewhat incompetent, as a man in a Bat Suit in a realistic setting would be, but most of all he is shown to be human and flawed. He relies even more on his allies like Gordon. The First Volume is the largely the same at OTL
Batman: Earth One. The second volume lacks the bizarre transformation of Harvey Dent's sister into Two Face and his death, which are largely tacked on toward the end. The series applies by the realistic take that insane people would not become supervillains. Most of this Batman's enemies are organized crime based.
All Star Wonder Woman's lore is much more accurate to Greco-Roman lore courtesy of Gail Simone once more writing, with Ares being the former patron of the Amazons prior to his disappearance (and the revelation that he begged/tricked Athena into looking after them as his last request before going into hiding.) Furthermore, Diana is a demi-goddess, being the child of Hippolyta and Hercules (she was conceived when Hercules visited Hippolyta after he became a full god and spent the night with her. Despite Hippolyta's love for Diana and Hercules, she kept it a secret out of fear of retaliation.) Diana also ended up in a relationship with Steve Trevor, who is black in this setting. She is also bisexual, having a girlfriend on Themyscira while also being fascinated by seeing a man for the first time.
Geoff Johns wanted to use Barry Allen and so was given
Flash: Earth One which was used as the basis for the Flash TV Show and introduced a more sadistic version of Eobard Thrawne. This led directly into his second volume
Flashpoint, a self contained but interesting story. The main Flash series at the time was helmed by Ethan Van Sciver, who created the arc
All Flash, which was often mocked by people who didn't like it as "All Flash, No Substance". The title led to the series being renamed as "
All Star Flash: The Flash was deemed too redundant. The series was instead renamed "Earth Two". Sciver went onto introduce the "Reverse Flash Family" to counter the ever growing Flash Family since he thought Eobard Thawne didn't seem as threatening if he was fighting the family by himself. Eobard was given a wife and a daughter(named Mara Thawne, a pun name) and adopted Bart Allen's nemesis Inertia. During the Blackest Night, Geoff Johns depicted a Black Lantern Barry Allen in order for him to face off against Wally West, forcing Wally to break his mental barriers preventing him from being better than Barry and finally surpass him. Johns returned to
Flash: Earth One and introduced Jai West as the new form of the villain the Turtle to serve as Irey's enemy.