Help me understand Batman and DC's universe?

http://ultimatebatmancomicswebsite.weebly.com

Read ''Batman: History'' for information about the DC Multiverse and Infinite Crisis.

Also, take a look at the Batman timeline and the overview of Batman (and related) comic book series to get an idea where to start/what to read.

 

Hah. Shadynasty.

Genius.

 

I'm not wearing this because it's comfortable, I'm wearing it to turn you on.

 

S you in your A's Don't wear a C and J all over your B's .

 

I want a maid.

A maid I can bang.

 

No, no, the Spainards banged the Mayans and turned them into Mexicans.

 

Bruce is not banging any baby dudes

 

Hah. Okay.

The Multiverse:

Essentially, the DC universe has 52 (at one time it was infinite) dimensions that are similar but different. So there are 52 different earths, with 52 different versions of Batman, Supernan, etc.

It was originally created to explain the continuity errors and inconsistencies caused by DC purchasing various smaller comic companies and integrating their characters into the DCU, as well as explaining continuity errors simply caused by early DC writers' laziness/lack of planning/whatever.

The Crisises:
Crisises are essentially just any time there is an issue that involves multiples of any of the dimensions.

Originally, they were just stories where the Earth-1 and Earth-2 characters would team up once a year, but in the mid-80s DC decided to "simplify" their continuity by uniting all of the infinite earths onto one. This, of course, just made everything even more confusing, as well as rendering decades of comics as no longer in continuity.

Then in 2005, DC decided to once again split the universe back into multiple dimensions, this time creating 52 earths in which all of the "out of continuity" stories take place. Like there's an Earth where Batman is a vampire, there's an Earth where Superman is a communist, etc.

Currently however, you don't have to worry about much of any of that however, as DC has pretty much totally rebooted the entirety of their continuity outside of Batman's history, and even that is tenuously held together at best.

Essentially, comic continuity is ******ed. I suggest ignoring it as much as possible and just appreciate the singular stories as you read them.

 

I'm learning how nuts continuity is. I haven't read any of the rebooted stuff yet. I thought it was supposed to be a completely fresh start, but they left some of Batman's continuity intact? What sense does that make?

 

It doesn't.

 

Yeah, Batman's pretty much the only one with his continuity unchanged. And that's really only because he has so many legendary stories, everyone would be pissed off if they ever declared them null and void.

No, Marvel's continuity is quite a bit cleaner due to never having the integration of multiple universes and characters. They still have multiple dimensions and realities and stuff, but that's more just for individual stories. Of course, they still have "ret-cons" where they go back and rewrite and change continuity after the fact and mess things up that way.

 

Parker is still Spider-Man. You must be talking about the black one. That's Ultimate Spider-Man. Alternate Universe. Parker's still swinging around. He's also a member of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, well, he was anyway. But Spider-Man sucks anyway.

The thing to remember about comic books, particularly characters that have multiple books, is that everything is not happening at the same time. In one book, Batman is fighting Two -Face, but in another he's fighting the Penguin. Each story, despite the fact that an average storyarc is like, six issues, can only take place over the course of a few hours to a few days. Which means while he's doing multiple things in multiple books, it's not all happening at once. Maybe this happened first, or this happened the weekend after that happened, etc.

Not to mention all those writers who don't read anything that happened before they took over a book and proceed to make up history, characters personality's and motivations as they go along.

I mean, it's not as effed up as DC's continuity is now (4 Robin's in 5 Years. Superman died and came back but it didn't happen the same way cuz Superboy didn't exist when that happened. ) but it's pretty damn effed up.

 

If youre very new and just want something to read chronologically, you might check out the Batman Showcase (black and white/cheaper) or Batman Chronicles (full color/more expensive) volumes.

If nothing else they're good to look at on the toilet. Just go into it with the mindset that you'll never know EVERYTHING about Batman, and soon enough you'll know too much about him.

 

Which iscalled "Fractioning".

 

Good to hear

But in the end i think that Marvel has a more diverse franchise, while in the DC i can imagine any character being in the Justice League, for me Marvel has 4 different team franchises that i feel that can hold on their oun continuity:
Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Spider-Man and the X-Men