The DC Multiverse is a fictional continuity construct used in numerous DC Comics publications. The Multiverse has undergone numerous changes and has included various universes, listed below between the original Multiverse and its successors.

The original Multiverse

Catalogued

Originally, there was no consistency regarding "numbered" Earths—they would be either spelled out as words or use numbers, even within the same story. For example, "Crisis on Earth-Three!" (Justice League of America #29 (August 1964)) uses "Earth-3" and "Earth-Three" interchangeably. However, a tradition of spelling out the numbers emerged in "The Most Dangerous Earth" (Justice League of America #30 (September 1964)). This convention was disregarded in Crisis on Infinite Earths, and it became common practice to refer to the various Earths with numerals instead. Infinite Crisis used both, but Crisis on Infinite Earths: Absolute Edition and everything after 52 have referred to the alternate universes with numerals.

Because 52 introduced another set of Earths, The Flash: Flashpoint changed the nature of many of those Earths. The New 52 and Convergence restored the Pre-Crisis Multiverse; all Pre-Crisis Earths below 52 are spelled out (i.e., Earth-Three), realities from the 52 Multiverse and the New 52 Multiverse use a hyphen (Earth-3), and they later use a space (i.e., Earth 3) after the Dark Multiverse was introduced, which uses negative numbers (i.e., Earth -3).

Also, Earths that were "revealed as a distinct parallel Earth in The Kingdom #2", i.e., part of Hypertime, are marked with an asterisk. Variations of some of these worlds appeared in the 52 and New 52 Multiverses, which are also Hypertime realities.

Note that Wonder Woman met a duplicate version of herself coming from an unnamed twin Earth in "Wonder Woman's Invisible Twin", (Wonder Woman #59 (May–June 1953)). It was the first appearance of an alternate Earth in DC Comics.

Unclassified

Before the formal creation of its Multiverse, DC would use the "imaginary story" label to denote stories that did not fit and never were intended to fit into its canon—a tradition it would continue even after the creation of the Multiverse. Alan Moore's "What Ever happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" (Action Comics #583 and Superman #423) in 1986 was the last Pre-Crisis story to use the label.

By contrast, other stories were clearly intended to be canonical, but various details were wrong or there were stories told in other media that were never said not to be canonical. As a result, fans and editors would create other Earths to explain things like the Super Friends comic (set on what writers referred to as Earth-B).

Also there were many "one-shot" Earths (such as the Earth shown in "Superman, You're Dead, Dead, Dead" in Action Comics #399), for which few details were provided and would not be named until Crisis on Infinite Earths: Absolute Edition (November 2005) was published. Finally, not all alternate reality stories were assigned a name. These included (but were not limited to) the two-page "How Superman Would Win the War" (1940), the ancient Greece/ancient Israel mash-up world from Action Comics #308 (January 1964), the Earth where "The Super-Panhandler of Metropolis" and "The Secret of the Wheel-Chair Superman!" (Action Comics #396-397) take place, and some of the Earths seen in Superboy (vol. 4) #61-62.

DC's one universe, one timeline idea was silently killed off with the creation of the pocket universe (which was to explain why the Legion of Super-Heroes still remembered a Superboy when none existed in the Post-Crisis reality). The Official Crisis on Infinite Earths Index (March 1986) and The Official Crisis on Infinite Earths Crossover Index (July 1986) formally canonized the "Crossover Earth" where the Marvel and DC characters co-existed, making multiverse-changing events problematic at best. Then, you had parallel universes (like that of the Extremists) where the counterpart of Earth had a different name, as well as the realities of the Darkstars and Justice League series.

Crisis on Infinite Earths: Absolute Edition (November 2005) formally canonized and named many imaginary tales, the Tangent Comics universe and some Elseworlds as part of the Pre-Crisis Multiverse, even though some (such as the pocket universe) had clearly existed after the Crisis.

In the "With A Vengeance!" storyline in Superman/Batman, the Multiverse is visited by Bizarro and Batzarro. The Joker and Mr. Mxyzptlk summon Batmen and Supermen from various realities, both previously established worlds as well as unexplored ones.

Convergence retroactively prevented the destruction of the original DC Multiverse, so all the Pre-Crisis earths exist but in an "evolved" form, though all characters in continuity or canon can be used by writers.

The 52 Multiverse

A new Multiverse was revealed at the end of the 52 weekly maxiseries. Unlike the original Multiverse, which was composed of an infinite number of alternate universes, this Multiverse is composed of a predetermined number of alternate universes, which were originally referred to as New Earth and Earths 1 through 51, although erroneously in Tangent: Superman's Reign #1, New Earth is referred to as Earth-1; however, in Final Crisis: Superman Beyond #1, New Earth is instead designated Earth-0. Dan Didio has since explicitly denied that New Earth is Earth-1. The alternate universes were originally identical to New Earth and contained the same history and people until Mister Mind "devoured" portions of each Earth's history, creating new, distinct Earths with their own histories and people, such as the Nazi-themed version of the Justice League that exists in Earth-10. Each of the alternate universes have their own parallel dimensions, divergent timelines, microverses, etc., branching off of them.

The Guardians of the Universe serve as protectors of the new Multiverse. Each universe within the Multiverse is separated by a Source Wall, behind which the Anti-Life Equation keeps the universes apart. The Bleed permeates the Anti-Life Equation in unpredictable places behind the Source Wall, allowing for transport between the universes. The destruction of New Earth would set off a chain reaction that would destroy the other 51 alternate universes at the same time, leaving only the Antimatter Universe in existence. As a consequence of Alexander Luthor, Jr.'s attempts to recreate the Multiverse, 52 new Monitors were created to oversee the 52 universes created afterwards. The Monitors seek to protect the Multiverse from people who crossover from one alternate universe to another, through the Bleed or through innate ability, who the Monitors have labeled "anomalies".

A partial list of some of the alternate universes that make up the new Multiverse was revealed in late November 2007.

The Divine Continuum

The New 52 and DC Rebirth

The Flashpoint story arc ended with a massive change to the Multiverse; to what extent it is entirely new, and to what extent it is as it was formed in the wake of 52, has not fully been established. Some worlds, like Earth-1 and Earth-23, appear to be entirely untouched, while others, like Earth-0, Earth-2, and Earth-16, have changed drastically. A number of worlds from the previous Multiverse were also reassigned; for example, Earth-31, originally the alternate Earth where Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder is set, is now occupied by post-apocalyptic waterworld analogues of Batman and other DC staples. In July 2014, a map of the Multiverse was released, in promotion of Grant Morrison's The Multiversity series.

Death Metal and Dark Crisis

Originally, there were 52 Earths in the local Multiverse home to the DCU Prime Earth. But in Dark Nights: Death Metal, this was confirmed that there are an infinite number of universes existing beyond them. This new model of creation involves multiple incarnations of the Multiverse suspended within a larger Omniverse, with individual Multiverses existing as 'bubble' sets of grouped universes, such as the local 52 or the now-defunct Multiverse 2, which has been identified as the remains of the pre-Crisis Multiverse.

In Dark Crisis (2022), Pariah engineers a revival of many Earths from the original Multiverse, and adds them to the current Multiverse, removing the 52-world cap.

Doomsday Clock and Flashpoint Beyond

In Doomsday Clock #12 (2019) it was revealed that previous incarnations of DC Universe, such as Pre-Crisis Earth-One and New 52's Prime Earth still exist as Earth-1985 and Earth-52, as a way of preserving every era of Superman. Flashpoint Beyond then clarified that the Omniverse and Hypertime exist alongside each other in a larger Divine Continuum, with worlds born of evolution of the timeline existing in Hypertime while worlds based on different conceptual frameworks exist in the Omniverse.

The Omniverse

The Local Multiverse

The Multiverse-2

As it was mentioned in The Multiversity, this multiverse was destroyed by the Empty Hand.

In Infinite Frontier, it is identified as the remnants of the pre-Crisis Multiverse. Pariah uses it to trap various members of the Justice League in private realities that supposedly represent their ideal worlds, as a sort of "honey trap". The only worlds listed here are Pariah's "prison worlds"; for all other Multiverse 2 worlds, see the original Multiverse.

The Dark Multiverse

The Dark Multiverse made its debut on DC's Dark Nights: Metal banner. Characters within this storyline are stated as originating from beyond the core New 52 Multiverse that has been depicted until now and contains Dark Knight Batman analogues of the Flash, Doomsday, Aquawoman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, and the Joker. Many of these Earths appear to be highly unstable and pre-apocalyptic, akin to the depiction of the Earths that were consumed during Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Worlds in the Dark Multiverse are designated with negative numbers, when they're designated at all: the Dark Multiverse always contained infinite Earths, even when the Multiverse only contained 52 Earths; and add such, it doesn't lend itself to numbering — especially as there are many ways to get failed variations of each of the Multiversal worlds.

The Cosmic Forge

The source of all worlds in the Multiverse. Worlds created by the Cosmic Forge rise up into the Dark Multiverse; the ones that do not fail there then find homes in the Multiverse.

Hypertime

Existing alongside the Omniverse, Hypertime consists of worlds that were created by divergences in the timestream. It is likely that every iteration of every world in the Omniverse has a counterpart in Hypertime. However, some worlds that exist in Hypertime do not appear to currently have counterparts in the Omniverse.

Worlds in Hypertime do not appear to have a consistent designation system, as the dynamic nature of Hypertime makes the pursuit of such a system a fool's errand. As such, all designations given here are inherently unreliable.

Likewise, a complete catalogue of Hypertime is impossible. What follows is a selection of worlds that do not appear to have a place in the current Local Multiverse, and likely only exist as alternate timelines or former futures, or are clearly features unique to the concept of Hypertime.

Films

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths and Justice League: Doom

Cinematic universes

DC Extended Universe (DCEU)

DC Universe (DCU) and DC Elseworlds

While it's unclear at this time, it's possible that alternate universes depicted in the DCEU still exist in this multiverse.

DC Animated Movie Universe (DCAMU) and Tomorrowverse

Television series

Superboy

DC Animated Universe (DCAU)

Smallville

Arrowverse

Pre-Crisis

The CW television series Arrow received its first spin-off The Flash in 2014 with both set in the same fictional universe (Earth-1). The Flash's second season began to explore a shared multiverse with the appearance of Earth-2, while the series' titular character also crossed over with the parallel universe home to Supergirl (which was later designated Earth-38). Additional universes have either been visited or mentioned in dialogue in later seasons of the Arrowverse shows, and some older television series such as the 1990 The Flash series and films such as the 1989 Batman film have been retroactively incorporated into the Arrowverse multiverse as their own parallel universes (with the designation ending in the last two digits of the year it was released).

The 2019 crossover event titled "Crisis on Infinite Earths", inspired by the comic of the same name, destroyed all universes within the Arrowverse multiverse, both on- and off-screen.

The NBC series Powerless (2017), which aired alongside the Arrowverse series, has been informally referred to by its producers as existing on "Earth-P". Ezra Miller's Barry Allen from the DC Extended Universe makes a cameo appearance in "Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Four".

Post-Crisis

At the end of "Crisis on Infinite Earths", a new multiverse was created, notably merging Earth-1, Earth-38, the Earth of Black Lightning into the new Earth-Prime, as well as creating new Earths, or restoring others. Guggenheim also confirmed the characters from Smallville who existed on the previous Earth-167 survived. Guggenheim had wanted there to only be the single, new Earth-Prime that remained at the end of the crossover, but had that happened, the crossover would not have been able to visit the worlds of other DC properties. A compromise was done, where these properties were put back to various Earths in the multiverse, and the Arrowverse series were combined to a single Earth.

Transmultiversal multiverse

The creation of the Flashpoint timeline resulted in the splintering of the multiverse into two halves, leading to a version of the multiverse where Flashpoint occurred, and one where it didn't. The timeline of these two multiverses had a number of differences, with the no-Flashpoint multiverse having a Crisis in 2018 and having an Earth-27 with a significantly changed timeline.

Teen Titans Go!

While the series Teen Titans Go! featured alternate universes very rarely, the multiverse was heavily featured in the TV movies Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go! & DC Super Hero Girls: Mayhem in the Multiverse.

My Adventures with Superman

In the series My Adventures with Superman, only Season 1 Episode 7 "Kiss Kiss Fall in Portal" has referenced the multiverse.

Video games

Lego Batman

Injustice

Infinite Crisis

A convergence of Multiverses

The end of the Convergence series resulted in the retroactive saving of the Pre-Crisis DC Multiverse. In an interview Jeff King stated, "The battle to save not one, but two multiverses in Convergence provides it", and later states "In Convergence #8 we reference Multiversity and show you some of the Post-Convergence worlds that make up the reconstituted DC Multiverse. In many ways, the number of Worlds is now infinite. There may even be more than one Multiverse", as well as "Post-Convergence, every character that ever existed, in either Continuity or Canon, is now available to us as storytellers". This leaves open the question of how (or even if) the Pre-Crisis, Hypertime, 52 and post-Flashpoint Multiverses interact.

References