For those not familiar with DC Comics‘ multiverse (alternate universes), a bit of background.
DC Comics has been publishing their main three superheroes: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Women since the 1930s. They published other superheroes, but these were canceled after WWII. In 1956, DC Comics came out with new versions of these other superheroes (Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Atom, etc), launching what is known as the Silver Age of Comics. The Golden Age would be the late ’30s to early ’50s.
DC then decided that the new superheroes, now gathered as the Justice League of America, resided on Earth-1, and the Golden Age heroes, much older, and who had formed the Justice Society of America, where on Earth-2. And these heroes would start meeting on a regular basis. Soon DC was establishing other alternate earths: Earth-Prime is our world, Earth-3 had the evil counterparts of the JLA: The Crime Syndicate of America, Earth-S had the Fawcett heroes like Captain Marvel, et al, and Earth-X had the Quality heroes (Uncle Sam, Human Bomb, etc) where the Nazis won WWII. And so on.
In the mid-’80s DC decided to get rid of all these alternate Earths, because they felt it was too confusing, so they merged them all together in the Crisis of Infinite Earths max series and crossovers. The first, but sadly not the last, of such “events.” Most recently, DC reversed this by re-creating the multiverse as 52 universes.
DC finally started to use these different Earths in a mini-series by Grant Morrison called Multiversity. Each issue would focus on a different alternate Earth, with the hopes this will launch further stories in these different universes. In addition, heroes from the various Earths came together to face a threat to the whole multiverse.
The one we would be interested in appeared in the first chapter, called The Society of Super-Heroes: Conquerors of the Counter-World. It focused on Earth-20, where there is a pulp-inspired version of the JSA: the Society of Super-Heroes (SOS) who are fighting against an invasion by their villainous (and pulp-like) counterparts from Earth-40.
The SOS is lead by Doc Fate, a pulp-like version of Dr. Fate, an occult superhero. He is also medical doctor, with a fortress of solitude in the Amazon, and packs a pair .45 automatics. He is also black. There is the Immortal Man, an immortal caveman and adventurer, The Mighty Atom, a young man who has completed the “Iron Munro” training regiment, the Lady Blackhawk and her Blackhawks, and Abin Sur, the Green Lantern.
These are all versions of existing DC characters. Dr. Fate is an occult hero from the Golden Age. The Immortal Man is a long-running, but obscure character. The Atom is another Golden Age hero, a young man who had training himself as a fighter. The Blackhawks are a Golden Age independent air fighter squadron (originally published by Quality Comics), but here in an all female version. And Abin Sur was the Green Lantern who died and passed his ring to Hal Jordan, the Silver Age Green Lantern. But his outfit here is more inspired by the Golden Age Green Lantern than the Silver Age version.
The villains from Earth-40 are their counterparts, again, all existing DC villains:
- Felix Faust, sorcerer (vs. Doc Fate)
- Vandal Savage, immortal (vs. Immortal Man)
- Blockbuster, superstrong villain (vs. Mighty Atom)
- Lady Shiva, assassin (vs. Lady Blackhawk)
- Sinestro, a Yellow Lantern (vs. Green Lantern)
While the heroes are able to stop most of the villains, as noted this was part of a larger storyline of the multiverse being threatened. Sadly, they really made little appearance in the main storyline (in Multiversity #1 and 2), though Abin Sur appeared.
I would really like to see more of these characters, as I found them very interesting. There is a lot of potential that is being unused. Check it out and let DC know we want more! DC has just reprinted the whole Multiversity series in trade paperback.
