It’s theorized that there are other realities besides ours. Each time we make a decision, that there’s another reality, or parallel world where we make a different decision. That in fact, there are millions of billions of alternate/parallel earths/galaxies/universes that co-exist side by side. It’s a fascinating, authentic, scientific theory. That can never be proven.
But it’s great for comic books! Hoo-CHA! Oh, the comic companies have cherished the alternate realities and parallel world bits for over half a century. They simply can not get enough.
The first big breakthrough came via DC comics with “The Flash of Two Worlds” in The Flash issue #123 in the late 1950’s. It was HUGE, bringing the original golden age Flash of the 1940’s (Jay Garrick) from his world, to the silver age Flash (Barry Allen’s) world. It turns out that parallel worlds simply exist on different vibrational plains. Jay’s super speed allowed him to vibrate his molecules to match the different “frequency” of Barry’s earth and cross over.
It was a big event, opening up unlimited possibilities. When Realities Collide. There would be a lot of it in coming decades, starting with DC building on the Flash’s encounter by bringing the golden age Justice Society of America over to the world of the Justice League of America. This also was HUGE. Oh, the things one could do, playing with realities!
Well, over half a century later, the concept has been utilized, covered, explored, pressed, steamed, folded and abused to the point of ridiculousness. As you do.
Marvel comics has dipped their toe in over the decades, had characters from parallel worlds pop in here are there, mostly to take a dig at DC, bringing in the Squadron Sinister, or Supreme, —different teams that greatly resemble the JLA. But Marvel has done some properly confusing alternate world stuff as well.
But DC has been the main architect of multiverse abuse. By the early 1980’s, DC felt that their collection of other parallel earths (earths X, S, 1, 2, Prime, etc.) had really gotten out of hand and wanted to simplify things. So they had a nasty villain pop up to threaten the existence of all of the realities, destroying one after another. There was a big fight and in the end, there was only one reality. One earth. The series was a huge hit.
Eventually all the other realities came back again, and it eventually devolved into a rinse and repeat. In a comic company, your continuity is only solid as long as the current editor in chief stays in place to keep a steady hand on the reins. Once he’s gone, it’s the wild west. They still mess around with it to this day. Marvel does too, to a certain extent. They’re not innocent in this.
But this brings us to the current era of superhero movies and tv shows. Both Marvel and DC have begun a journey into their respective multiverses, but they’ve taken different paths.
Marvel usually has a plan carefully put together. In the first season of Loki, the actions in the finale result in the timeline being split and diverted into thousands of parallel worlds. Order falls to chaos. Because of this, there will be significant fallout, evidenced in the events that take place in Spider-man: No Way Home this December and Dr. Strange: Multiverse of Madness coming next February. Then we’ll undoubtedly see other dominoes falling farther down the line in future MCU films.
The DC Extended cinematic Universe took a different approach. They let any number of creators do films with DC characters, and whenever they duplicate a character and do something completely different from what came before, they cite the multiverse.
Todd Phillips takes elements from two Scorsese movies and turns them into a Joker movie, featuring a character only remotely resembling the DC villain. A dramatically different actor and version of the character from the Suicide Squad version, or the Dark Knight version. Oh, its not that we’re unorganized regarding what projects we green-light, it’s just a different Joker from a different reality. Multiverse. There’s a Flash character in the Justice League movie that bears little resemblance to the version in the CW tv show. Different Flash. Multiverse.
In fact, the CW group of DC superhero shows did a Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover a while back, cementing the multiverse notion by blending various DC past and present movie and tv characters and elements. While not a resounding success, it definitely had some classic moments, such as when the CW Flash momentarily met the Snyderverse film version in person. They touched on the old ’66 Batman tv show, along with the ’89 film. They even brought back the Donner reality Superman with an older Brandon Routh.
So, the crazy happenings of the multiverse *does* have their advantages. On the horizon in theaters is 2022’s The Flash, based on another comic that tinkers with the multiverse, “Flashpoint”. In it, Barry Allen, the Flash, goes back in time to prevent the death of his mother. In doing this, he inadvertently cracks the time continuum wide open, causing realities to bend, collide, and shatter. He makes a mess. But thankfully, looking into these other realities also brings out different versions of familiar characters to the screen, such as Michael Keaton playing Batman again after 30 + years.
As wonderful and fun as all that is, caution should be observed. Events like this should be rare, and the next year will have more superhero based films than ever before. This is mostly due to the pandemic shifting the movie schedule. For years and years, many have predicted the audience getting burned out on super-flicks. Well, because of COVID-19, we did get a break from the films. Maybe audiences have gotten their second wind?
Let’s hope the year of the multiverse plays out correctly and the whole genre doesn’t simply get played out.
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