Source: Superman vol. 2 #8 to Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 3 #38 (1987)
Type: Alternate Earth
Worlds lived, worlds died, and nothing was ever the same. Crisis on Infinite Earths was meant to be DC's big clean-up of its messy continuity, but it didn't take long before we noticed the junk swept under the bed. Superboy was, I think, the first of these (soon followed by others, like Hawkworld coming out after Hawkman and Hawkwoman had already had adventures with the JLI). By rebooting Superman, but NOT Legion of Super-Heroes (not until later), a Superboy-sized hole was punched through continuity. Superboy was always the inspiration for this team of kids 1000 years on, but that would have been easily fixed. The real problem was that Superboy had been a high profile member of the team. With no Superboy, what was the unrebooted Legion to do?
Byrne decided to address this in an admittedly fun way, but it didn't solve everything. His idea was to have the Time Trapper create a pocket universe (in a post-Crisis world where there supposedly are no alternate Earths... so that new rule was broken pretty fast) which was tied to the 30th century. When the Trapper found that the Legion was mistaken in their inspiration and that there was no Superboy, he deviated their time sphere to a world he'd created, where a pre-Crisis Superboy had grown up in Smallville. A Superboy with a super-dog and twenty different kinds of kryptonite. A Superboy who could break the time barrier and who could have adventures with the Legion, and who kept statues of his new friends in his basement next to Superboy robots. In exchange, the Trapper would one day turn his Superboy against the Legion. He failed, of course, and the Legion's greatest hero died stopping him.
Continuity repaired, right? Well, this is still a Legion that's mourning Supergirl's death during Crisis, so... no, definitely not repaired. Nice try though.
Tomorrow: How today's big comic book writers fixed this particular conundrum.
Type: Alternate Earth
Worlds lived, worlds died, and nothing was ever the same. Crisis on Infinite Earths was meant to be DC's big clean-up of its messy continuity, but it didn't take long before we noticed the junk swept under the bed. Superboy was, I think, the first of these (soon followed by others, like Hawkworld coming out after Hawkman and Hawkwoman had already had adventures with the JLI). By rebooting Superman, but NOT Legion of Super-Heroes (not until later), a Superboy-sized hole was punched through continuity. Superboy was always the inspiration for this team of kids 1000 years on, but that would have been easily fixed. The real problem was that Superboy had been a high profile member of the team. With no Superboy, what was the unrebooted Legion to do?Byrne decided to address this in an admittedly fun way, but it didn't solve everything. His idea was to have the Time Trapper create a pocket universe (in a post-Crisis world where there supposedly are no alternate Earths... so that new rule was broken pretty fast) which was tied to the 30th century. When the Trapper found that the Legion was mistaken in their inspiration and that there was no Superboy, he deviated their time sphere to a world he'd created, where a pre-Crisis Superboy had grown up in Smallville. A Superboy with a super-dog and twenty different kinds of kryptonite. A Superboy who could break the time barrier and who could have adventures with the Legion, and who kept statues of his new friends in his basement next to Superboy robots. In exchange, the Trapper would one day turn his Superboy against the Legion. He failed, of course, and the Legion's greatest hero died stopping him.
Continuity repaired, right? Well, this is still a Legion that's mourning Supergirl's death during Crisis, so... no, definitely not repaired. Nice try though.Tomorrow: How today's big comic book writers fixed this particular conundrum.
Comments
No, no, a POCKET universe is COMPLETELY different than an ALTERNATE world.
Completely...
;)