Why are E1 Supes, AL and SB still alive?

[rfahey]

I'm enjoying Infinite Crisis and the companion specials on the whole so far, but I have one nagging question. I thought that the reason that AL and the rest escaped to the 'paradise' dimension was to prevent themselves from being erased from history as a result of unifying the remaining universes. Therefore, shouldn't their appearance in the DC Universe cause them to cease to exist? Otherwise, what was the point of escaping in the first place? I understand that logic usually gives way to convenience in these crossovers (much like how it's possible for positive matter heroes to travel to an antimatter dimension with no ill effects), but is there a coherent theory to explain why they're suddenly free to move about in the DC Universe?

[DDM]

The Golden Age Superman & Lois Lane, Alexander Luthor of Earth-3, & Superboy of Earth Prime existed because they were at the Dawn of Time with the other heroes in Crisis On Infinite Earths #10 (The Earth-2 Huntress & Golden Age Robin existed for this reason as well until they were killed in Crisis On Infinite Earths #12 by shadow demons). They are anomolies for this reason.

Marv Wolfman wanted to have the Earth-2 Superman take out the Anti-Monitor. Afterwards, since the four people no longer existed in the revamped single universe, they could have stayed in the anti-matter universe & die from the shockwaves caused by the Anti-Monitor's death, or they could have escaped into Paradise.

Paradise was never defined after Crisis On Infinite Earths. It was just a clean way to wipe out the remaining heroes who no longer existed in the reformed universe.

[rfahey]

But they did escape because they would no longer exist in the reformed universe, correct? And, wouldn't that hold true if they tried to return? In other words, could they have escaped to the other dimension long enough to ride out the shockwaves and then have immediately returned to the DC Universe with no repurcussions?

[Shellhead]

The Golden Age Superman & Lois Lane, Alexander Luthor of Earth-3, & Superboy of Earth Prime existed because they were at the Dawn of Time with the other heroes in Crisis On Infinite Earths #10 (The Earth-2 Huntress & Golden Age Robin existed for this reason as well until they were killed in Crisis On Infinite Earths #12 by shadow demons). They are anomolies for this reason.


Earth-2 Lois Lane was at the Dawn of Time with all those heroes? Wow, she will stop at nothing to get a scoop on the competition.

[soda]

But they did escape because they would no longer exist in the reformed universe, correct? And, wouldn't that hold true if they tried to return? In other words, could they have escaped to the other dimension long enough to ride out the shockwaves and then have immediately returned to the DC Universe with no repurcussions?

re-read COIE #12.

Here's how I understand it:

- the passage that Alexander Luthor opened back to earth DCU, which allowed the earth to go back to the positive matter universe in COIE #12 was only temporary. Most of the heroes got back through this gate (In fact, in one last brazen act of heroism, SuperBoy Prime throws the earth one Supes through this opening). The reason why Kal-L stays behind is not because he would cease to exist if he went back to earth DCU, or because there was any conflict, it's because "there's nothing left for me there" (the Luke Skywalker line of thinking). Remember, in COIE #11, Kal-L and Kal-el both strode the earth DCU together, trying to piece together what had happened, with no ill effects.

-Alexander Luthor, Superboy Prime, and Kal-L were stranded in the anit-matter universe to finish off the anti-monitor, this has nothing to do with whether or not they could get back to earth DCU.

-after the anti-monitor is finished, Alexander Luthor can't reopen another portal to earth DCU (he barely managed to have enough strength to open the last one that got the earth, and most of the heroes, out). So, he has two choices (because Darkseid is calling the shots), heaven (the paradise dimension) or hell (apokalips). Luthor should have picked hell, as he said in IC SF, if he had picked hell, they could have taken a boom tube back to earth DCU, they were stranded in paradise because that dimensional door was, apparently, one-way. Meta-textually, in 1985, this is merely an elaborate plot device to tuck AL, SBP, E2 Lois and Kal-L in a little box, so that they can be used again, if anyone ever wanted to, or forgotten completely, if that's the order of the day.

-E2 Robin and Huntress aren't dead. It says in COIE #12 that they were given a burial, but that their bodies were never found. In comics, never found == alive, and not dead. This was another plot loophole in crisis, yes, robin and huntress appear to die at the hands of shadow demons, but with no bodies, there's no proof that their dead, and another, future writer could bring back both characters if he or she wanted to.

As an aside, the E2 Wonder Woman, Robin and Huntress are all in the same boat, WW ascended to Olympus, and that was the loophole in her story. Rereading Crisis, with 20 years of hindsight, it's obvious to me now that there are a LOT of story loopholes in this tale.

[Joe Acro]

-E2 Robin and Huntress aren't dead. It says in COIE #12 that they were given a burial, but that their bodies were never found. In comics, never found == alive, and not dead. This was another plot loophole in crisis, yes, robin and huntress appear to die at the hands of shadow demons, but with no bodies, there's no proof that their dead, and another, future writer could bring back both characters if he or she wanted to.

As an aside, the E2 Wonder Woman, Robin and Huntress are all in the same boat, WW ascended to Olympus, and that was the loophole in her story. Rereading Crisis, with 20 years of hindsight, it's obvious to me now that there are a LOT of story loopholes in this tale.

I honestly believe that all those written out of continuity, but still living after time reshaped itself, are indestructable. My theory, as I once expressed in a short story, is that if they were never born, they can never die. How can you end something with no beginning. The only way to kill them would be to restore their beginning.

re-read COIE #12.
Honestly, if people took this simple piece of advice, they'd realize that there would have been no Anti-Monitor body to be used in IC. Eh.

[DarthAstuart]

-E2 Robin and Huntress aren't dead. It says in COIE #12 that they were given a burial, but that their bodies were never found. In comics, never found == alive, and not dead. This was another plot loophole in crisis, yes, robin and huntress appear to die at the hands of shadow demons, but with no bodies, there's no proof that their dead, and another, future writer could bring back both characters if he or she wanted to.

wow, i never realized that. those are two pretty big loopholes, and I'd be surprised if Johns hasn't noticed that.

could that explain the two different Huntress looks we see on the covers of Birds of Prey #92 and Superman/Batman #27? Maybe the latter is actually featuring the Earth-2 Huntress?

i'm reaching, i know.

[Buried Alien]

Kal-L, Superboy Prime, and Alexander Luthor were only ever in danger of being wiped out by the explosion of the Qwardian star into which Kal-L smashed the Anti-Monitor. They were never in danger of being wiped out of existence (at least, not at the point that COIE ended).

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[mswood]

Kal-L, Superboy Prime, and Alexander Luthor were only ever in danger of being wiped out by the explosion of the Qwardian star into which Kal-L smashed the Anti-Monitor. They were never in danger of being wiped out of existence (at least, not at the point that COIE ended).

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)


What I didn't understand is why Superboy Prime or Supes from Earth II were unable to outface the Star's explosion.

[DDM]

Earth-2 Lois Lane was at the Dawn of Time with all those heroes? Wow, she will stop at nothing to get a scoop on the competition.

Earth-2 Lois was inside Alexander Luthor's Paradise when the mutliverse was rebooted into the universe.

[Buried Alien]

What I didn't understand is why Superboy Prime or Supes from Earth II were unable to outface the Star's explosion.

They probably could, but where would they go? The antimatter universe of Qward was not a suitable place for Superman, Superboy, Lois Lane, or Alexander Luthor to spend the remainder of their lives.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Paul Newell]

-E2 Robin and Huntress aren't dead. It says in COIE #12 that they were given a burial, but that their bodies were never found. In comics, never found == alive, and not dead. This was another plot loophole in crisis, yes, robin and huntress appear to die at the hands of shadow demons, but with no bodies, there's no proof that their dead, and another, future writer could bring back both characters if he or she wanted to.
There bodies were never found as they would have been disintegrated by the Shadow-Demons as were everybody elses who were killed by them, such as Dove and Green Arrow I.

[soda]

few things:

- maybe buried can help here, but I'm under the impression that only Superboy Prime would be able to fly fast enough to outrun the shockwave. SBP has silver age Superman power levels, and speed, right? But golden age supes doesn't, he's only "faster than a speeding bullet", not able to fly at nearly the speed of light, or am I wrong about the pre-crisis power levels?

Even if SBP could fly that fast, where would he go? I'm guessing the shockwave would extend pretty far, and even if both he and Kal-L could outrun the wave, AL couldn't.

I was also under the impression that E2 Lois wasn't inside the paradise pocket dimension, but rather, was inside of Alex Luthor, in some mystic sense. If she was inside the paradise dimension, then it should be possible for our heroes to leave the dimension, after all, E2 Lois left it in COIE #12 when she was reunited with supes, so that can't be the paradise dimension that AL had her in. She had to be tucked away someplace else, and the first time she arrived at the paradise was when they all did in COIE #12.

One other thing, if ever I am put in charge of teaching a class on writing, one of the things I might cover is COIE, twenty years of hindsight are giving me a greater appreciation, every day, for a fabuluous job that marv wolfmann did writing this thing. Everything in COIE has a loophole, he accomplished his goal, made the DCU more user friendly and got rid of the multi-verse, but he did it in the most open ended way possible. Nothing is ultimately resolved in crisis, just about everything has a loophole. I had always thought, for almost twenty years, that the E2 Robin and Huntress were dead, I thought they died in COIE. The image of them being attacked by the shadow demons, yeah, they were dead. However, two weeks ago, a week before Crisis SF came out, my comic book guy showed me two panels in COIE #12:

- The panel where Darkseid sees through AL's eyes

- and that, on the next to the last page of COIE #12, there is a panel, with a grave scene and a flag maker above the grave, and various super-heroes mounring, and the caption says:

"and the bodies of Huntress and Robin of E2 were never found, they were given a funeral with an empty grave."

Meaning their bodies were never found, meaning (in comic book speak), they're still fair game for a comeback, because, no bodies == no death (and, as Jason Todd taught us, it's even the case that bodies == no death. However, the comic book rule is no body == no death)

[Buried Alien]

few things:

- maybe buried can help here, but I'm under the impression that only Superboy Prime would be able to fly fast enough to outrun the shockwave. SBP has silver age Superman power levels, and speed, right? But golden age supes doesn't, he's only "faster than a speeding bullet", not able to fly at nearly the speed of light, or am I wrong about the pre-crisis power levels?

Kal-L started out merely "faster than a speeding bullet" in 1938, but by the 1960s (the Silver Age), he was the Earth-One Superman's equal in every way. This was further refined in the 1970s and 1980s (the time of COIE) so that Kal-L was effectively equal to his Earth-One doppelganger Kal-El, but due to older age lacked his younger counterpart's greater stamina. In other words, by the time of COIE, Kal-L could do anything Kal-El could do...but not keep it up for as long.



Even if SBP could fly that fast, where would he go? I'm guessing the shockwave would extend pretty far, and even if both he and Kal-L could outrun the wave, AL couldn't.

Yeah, but they could always carry Alex. :)

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Paul Newell]

- and that, on the next to the last page of COIE #12, there is a panel, with a grave scene and a flag maker above the grave, and various super-heroes mounring, and the caption says:

"and the bodies of Huntress and Robin of E2 were never found, they were given a funeral with an empty grave."

Meaning their bodies were never found, meaning (in comic book speak), they're still fair game for a comeback, because, no bodies == no death (and, as Jason Todd taught us, it's even the case that bodies == no death. However, the comic book rule is no body == no death)
I don't know, I think its really reaching to say that its possible they weren't disintegrated because no bodies were found...

[soda]

I don't know, I think its really reaching to say that its possible they weren't disintegrated because no bodies were found...
the problem is that your thinking realistically, try thinking like a comic book person, try thinking like a fan of a medium where the Joker can (apparently) get disintegrated, eaten by a shark, blown up in a jet crash, stabbed, shot, fall of a ledge on the highest building in gotham, and somehow, always wind up alive because he's got his own personal revolving door in hell. It happens all the time to the Joker, but they never find the body.

[Paul Newell]

the problem is that your thinking realistically, try thinking like a comic book person, try thinking like a fan of a medium where the Joker can (apparently) get disintegrated, eaten by a shark, blown up in a jet crash, stabbed, shot, fall of a ledge on the highest building in gotham, and somehow, always wind up alive because he's got his own personal revolving door in hell. It happens all the time to the Joker, but they never find the body.
But there still has to be some logic behind it, no matter how illogical. :)

Besides, of all the characters who still existed, but had their pasts wiped out, the ones that did survive had "special" circumstances attached. Especially when it comes to the "second wave" that hit after Meckanique and Athena stopped holding back the effects of "reality".

Superman, Lois, Superboy and Alex Luthor were outside of, and walled off from, reality. When reality was reordered in the second wave all surviving memories and actions by those characters were wiped out totally. Same thing with Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor. Even theough they were still present in "reality", they survived as, from the way I understand it, the Pre-Crisis Olympian Gods created a "pocket universe" for them to exist in. Once she left however, the power that kept her existing faded and she became non-existent. Same thing happened with Supergirl and the pocket-universe, Pre-Crisis Superboy. Reality reordered itself.

Apart from Supergirl, the rest of them have or had some kind of protection which prevented them from fading away. Robin I, Huntress, Green Arrow I, etc. didn't.

[DDM]

There bodies were never found as they would have been disintegrated by the Shadow-Demons as were everybody elses who were killed by them, such as Dove and Green Arrow I.

Kole, who died trying to save the Earth-2 Huntress & Robin, is remembered too. But they never found her body either. Anyone who is touched by the shadow demons is instantly disintergrated.

[soda]

****EDIT**** - I reread your post, Paul, and realized that my most post below doesn't address your quote, and I do want to address that. My post below brings up some key points, and I'll get to your post in my next post, my apologies for this bookkeeping error. ****/EDIT****

You know what? I read this post yesterday, and I realized something, as much as I think I know about COIE, I really don't know much. It's like the Holy Bible, in that regard, so this post will probably come off a bit like a sermon (ie long), you have been warned.

Last night, I reread the relevant passages from COIE, and here's what I found:

- Paul, your point quoted above doesn't hold water, because, the E2 Robin and Huntress were there, and present, at the dawn of time when the universe (earth DCU) was reformed, so, they would be protected from the restart of everything for the same reason that Kal-L was protected: they were at the dawn of time. In fact, if you reread COIE, in the splash page during the fight with the anti-monitor at the dawn of time, the two faces front and center on that splash page are the E2 Robin and Huntress. Furthermore, after Earth DCU was reformed, the E2 Huntress went home, checked into her apartment, and changed her clothes, without anyone knowing who she was, a fact that greatly troubled her as she retold it later. In my softcover edition of COIE, this is page 308-309 of the book. The E2 Robin and Huntress are both clearly alive and well both at the dawn of time, when the universe reformed, and on earth DCU for a considerable time thereafter. So, your point above about them being erased by the reformation of the cosmos is moot, they had the same "special circumstances" that Kal-L had: they were there for the universe's reformation, and, in fact, they apparently "die" near the end of COIE #12 (the universe reforms in COIE #11, I believe)

-Second, the way they die is very different from the way Green Arrow and Dove die earlier in COIE, at the hands of shadow demons. Dove dies on camera, you see a shadow demon touch him, pass through him, and you see him scream out in agony. All of this happens on panel. Green Arrow is a little different, you don't actually see the shadow demon kill him, but you see it an inch away from his face, before the panel changes, and the implication is that he's dead. The E2 Robin and Huntress are a different kettle of fish altogether. First, you don't see the E2 Robin and Huntress die on camera (this is page 345 of my COIE softcover, well after the earth DCU has been formed, BTW), what you see is a crystal dome constructed around them in order to "keep the shadow demons out for a few minutes", the shadow demons then apparently penetrate the crystal dome, and that's how the E2 Robin and Huntress die, trapped in there, but it never shows that to us in COIE, there's no proof. It's perfectly plausible to suppose that the crystal dome simply repeled the shadow demons, and that they were destroyed upon attempting to enter it, or that E2 Robin and Huntress were beamed out at the last second, or any one of a million possible, legitmate, and plausible explanations. You ever watch Stargate SG1? I do, from time to time, and it seems like every time, recently, that Daniel Jackson is in a sticky situation, and on the verge of imminent death, bang, a ship drops by and "beams him up".

From a strict meta-textual point of view, encassing a character (or characters) behind a obstruction, like a crystal dome in this case, or a roadsign in delay plaza, or putting them in a separate, off-camera, room, etc., is as old a story telling technique as there is to ambiguously kill off a character while leaving room for the character's plausible return. This is no different than the Joker being trapped in a burning jet about to crash land, and having the camera pan away from him before the impact happens. I submit that the way in which the E2 Robin and Huntress were killed, off-camera, and furthermore behind an obstruction, is very different from the way Green Arrow I and Dove were killed (which is line-of-sight, no obstruction, in the case of green arrow, and on camera amd obvious in the case of dove). In the real world, would there be any difference between these scenarios at all in terms of what the ultimate end result would be? Of course not, but in the world of fiction, where we believe a man can fly, it makes a huge difference how a character meets with their apparent end.

I have no doubt that the E2 Robin and Huntress were offed so ambiguously on purpose (whereas Dove and Green Arrow didn't receive that same consideration) because Marv Wolfman wanted to leave these characters open for a possible return by a future generation of writers. COIE is open-ended, and loophole filled, to the point where everyone can read it and each person will come away with his or her own interpretation (it's like all great religious texts that way). However, it is filled with more loopholes than an enron accounting statement, but unlike enron, this was a tale meticulously put together by a master craftsman.

I want to stress one other thing, at this juncture, I have no particular fascination with the E2 Robin or Huntress. Pre-crisis is before my time, I didn't start with comics until 1990, and I got out of comics for most of the decade of the 90's, before coming back in 2001. I know very little of the E2 Robin and Huntress' exploits. They don't really interest me. What I'm more interested in is the meta-text dynamic of restarting an entire universe, and how carefully and skillfully the wolf-man did it, right down to being careful with characters like the E2 Robin and Huntress, leaving it an open question for future generations of writers, who read COIE carefully enough (like Geoff Johns) to do with these characters what they want. Marv Wolfmann not only restarted, and simplified the DCU, he gave the DCU a great deal of flexibility by not writing the post-crisis world into a corner that a less skilled writer would have definitely done. Very little in COIE is certain and in stone, it's a text written in pencil.

Take, as another example, the issue of Jason Todd. Death in the family was, in many ways, the polar opposite of COIE. There was a story that wasn't open ended whatsoever. Jason Todd was dead. He was deader than dead. He was dead, and he was supposed to remain dead for all stinkin', freakin', honkin' dead time. The Joker killed him not once, but twice, and the world's greatest detective pulled the body out of the rubble and said "he's dead, Jim!" Case closed. Even the world of fiction, where any elbow room is a loophole, Jason Todd was dead. This was a story that was intentionally written to be so iron clad that it would be impossible to ever retcon it, or weasle out of it in any way. That's my problem with Judd Winnick's decision to bring back Todd: it overturns a death that was intended to stand for all time. Many comic book deaths are written the way the E2 Robin and Huntress were, no proof of being dead, just "missing", Jason Todd was not that. This again goes back to Marv Wolfmann, DC gave him an impossible job to do: he took 50 years of DC continuity and be put it all in a little box, and put that box off to a corner, and started fresh with a rebuilt universe, but he didn't seal the box, cover it with concrete, and bury it at the bottom of the east river, after a grissly death (like Jason Todd), he stuck the box in a corner of the DC office, so that future generations could go back and use those old motiffs, if the fancy struck them.

[soda]

But there still has to be some logic behind it, no matter how illogical. :)

Besides, of all the characters who still existed, but had their pasts wiped out, the ones that did survive had "special" circumstances attached. Especially when it comes to the "second wave" that hit after Meckanique and Athena stopped holding back the effects of "reality".

Superman, Lois, Superboy and Alex Luthor were outside of, and walled off from, reality. When reality was reordered in the second wave all surviving memories and actions by those characters were wiped out totally. Same thing with Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor. Even theough they were still present in "reality", they survived as, from the way I understand it, the Pre-Crisis Olympian Gods created a "pocket universe" for them to exist in. Once she left however, the power that kept her existing faded and she became non-existent. Same thing happened with Supergirl and the pocket-universe, Pre-Crisis Superboy. Reality reordered itself.

Apart from Supergirl, the rest of them have or had some kind of protection which prevented them from fading away. Robin I, Huntress, Green Arrow I, etc. didn't.

Okay, in my post above, I addressed the "first wave" and showed how E2 Robin and Huntress easily survived that. Now, I'll get to the second issue, the second wave of reality alteration that resulted from the "delayed crisis". Keep in mind that I have never read this story (as I indicated above, I didn't start in comics until 1990) so some, or a lot, of my details might be wrong. Here's my understanding of the second wave:

The second crisis wave was unlike the first in that the first altered reality fundamentally by completely reforming the earth and rebooting the entire DCU from the very dawn of time (the big bang, I guess), so anyone not either a native of earth DCU, or who was present at the dawn of time, would have been erased from existence simply by the fact that reality was being unmade and remade. In contrast, my understanding of the second crisis wave is that this is more of an integrative process, rather than a rebuilding / destructive process, that seeks to integrate / reconcile the inconsistencies of the old multi-verse with the new earth DCU. Meta-textually, the second wave was used to smooth out the rough edges caused by the fact that different characters were rebooted at different times. Is there anything, here, that suggest the E2 Robin and Huntress couldn't have survived this wave? No, I don't think so, for a few reasons:

- first, correct me if I'm wrong, but there were several inconsistencies in the second wave, characters who it should have wiped out, but didn't (particularly, power girl is often cited as an example of someone who shouldn't exist, but who does).

- Second, we have no proof that the second wave subscribes to any kind of "only one of every type" rule, otherwise, there would be no post-crisis golden age flash and no post-crisis golden age Green Lantern in the JSA. (no Jay Garrick and no Alan Scott), if those two could make it, why not E2 Robin and Huntress? This is particularly striking when you consider that there is a giagantic continuity hole left over by crisis: there is (at least, until recently), no earth-1 huntress, Helena Bertenelli is an earth-8 native, so supposedly, what the second wave did when it amalgamated the universe was to pick and choose, and create a patchwork earth that is our current earth DCU, in this reality, the earth-8 huntress was imported into earth DCU, but, and this is key, there never was a silver age, earth-1 huntress, that's why the earth-8 huntress had to be pulled (meta-textually, you couldn't have a pre-crisis Bruce and Selina child running around given the nature of Bruce and Selina's post-crisis relationship), other characters, like the flash and green lantern, who have a surviving golden age counterpart, also had silver age incarnations, I see no reason why the E2 Huntress and Robin couldn't have also "slipped through the cracks"

One other thing that I want to make clear: I am not trying to show that E2 Robin and Huntress are definitely alive, that's impossible, what I am trying to show is that there's reasonable doubt that they are dead, and, in the comic book world, that's enough for a comeback.

[Paul Newell]

- Paul, your point quoted above doesn't hold water, because, the E2 Robin and Huntress were there, and present, at the dawn of time when the universe (earth DCU) was reformed, so, they would be protected from the restart of everything for the same reason that Kal-L was protected: they were at the dawn of time. In fact, if you reread COIE, in the splash page during the fight with the anti-monitor at the dawn of time, the two faces front and center on that splash page are the E2 Robin and Huntress. Furthermore, after Earth DCU was reformed, the E2 Huntress went home, checked into her apartment, and changed her clothes, without anyone knowing who she was, a fact that greatly troubled her as she retold it later. In my softcover edition of COIE, this is page 308-309 of the book. The E2 Robin and Huntress are both clearly alive and well both at the dawn of time, when the universe reformed, and on earth DCU for a considerable time thereafter. So, your point above about them being erased by the reformation of the cosmos is moot, they had the same "special circumstances" that Kal-L had: they were there for the universe's reformation, and, in fact, they apparently "die" near the end of COIE #12 (the universe reforms in COIE #11, I believe)
Well, the special circumstances I'm talking about are different as the events I'm talking about didn't happen in COIE itself, I'll address that in your second post. But one point should be clarified, Robin and Huntress were still alive, but, in the new timeline, never actually existed to begin with. Huntress never entered her apartment as it was no longer hers...A Mr. Bundzai was living there...And Robin only found evidence of the Earth-1 Robin existing. The Golden Age Batman's grave had disappeared as it no longer existed. Huntress & Robin had become anomalies.
-Second, the way they die is very different from the way Green Arrow and Dove die earlier in COIE, at the hands of shadow demons. Dove dies on camera, you see a shadow demon touch him, pass through him, and you see him scream out in agony. All of this happens on panel. Green Arrow is a little different, you don't actually see the shadow demon kill him, but you see it an inch away from his face, before the panel changes, and the implication is that he's dead. The E2 Robin and Huntress are a different kettle of fish altogether. First, you don't see the E2 Robin and Huntress die on camera (this is page 345 of my COIE softcover, well after the earth DCU has been formed, BTW), what you see is a crystal dome constructed around them in order to "keep the shadow demons out for a few minutes", the shadow demons then apparently penetrate the crystal dome, and that's how the E2 Robin and Huntress die, trapped in there, but it never shows that to us in COIE, there's no proof. It's perfectly plausible to suppose that the crystal dome simply repeled the shadow demons, and that they were destroyed upon attempting to enter it, or that E2 Robin and Huntress were beamed out at the last second, or any one of a million possible, legitmate, and plausible explanations. You ever watch Stargate SG1? I do, from time to time, and it seems like every time, recently, that Daniel Jackson is in a sticky situation, and on the verge of imminent death, bang, a ship drops by and "beams him up".
I'm not sure what your copy shows, but mine shows a Shadow Demon passing through Green Arrow and his torso disintegrating. As to the death of Robin and Huntress, you see the shadows penetrate the crystal...Shards break off, as they do as you see the the dome itself enveloped in darkness with energy spilling out. Later, when they mention the bodies were never found, it shows somw of the heroes crouching amongst the rubble of the dome. True, there are no bodies, but it looks pretty conclusive...Also who would pull off a last minute save? All the heroes are busy fighting shadow demons and nobody else out side of them knowthe two exist.
I have no doubt that the E2 Robin and Huntress were offed so ambiguously on purpose (whereas Dove and Green Arrow didn't receive that same consideration) because Marv Wolfman wanted to leave these characters open for a possible return by a future generation of writers. COIE is open-ended, and loophole filled, to the point where everyone can read it and each person will come away with his or her own interpretation (it's like all great religious texts that way). However, it is filled with more loopholes than an enron accounting statement, but unlike enron, this was a tale meticulously put together by a master craftsman.
From interviews I've read its not because he wanted to leave the option for the heroes to return, it was more that he didn't want to kill any heroes created before he was born....But at the same time he had to "get rid" of the dopplegangers...I think he was fudging the death of Huntress & Robin to accomplish both purposes...Gets rid of them but keeps their dignity intact.

[jadegiant77]

I take it that if the four (E-2 Superman, et al) had been on Earth when the full effects of the Crisis took hold, they would have been wiped from existence, but that no longer applies. Of course, we are then left with the gaping plothole of the E-2 Wonder Woman being erased from existence after she leaves Olympus to help "our" Diana reconnect with her humanity. If she was erased, why shouldn't E-2 Superman and his gang be eradicated as well?

[Paul Newell]

Okay, in my post above, I addressed the "first wave" and showed how E2 Robin and Huntress easily survived that. Now, I'll get to the second issue, the second wave of reality alteration that resulted from the "delayed crisis". Keep in mind that I have never read this story (as I indicated above, I didn't start in comics until 1990) so some, or a lot, of my details might be wrong. Here's my understanding of the second wave:

The second crisis wave was unlike the first in that the first altered reality fundamentally by completely reforming the earth and rebooting the entire DCU from the very dawn of time (the big bang, I guess), so anyone not either a native of earth DCU, or who was present at the dawn of time, would have been erased from existence simply by the fact that reality was being unmade and remade. In contrast, my understanding of the second crisis wave is that this is more of an integrative process, rather than a rebuilding / destructive process, that seeks to integrate / reconcile the inconsistencies of the old multi-verse with the new earth DCU. Meta-textually, the second wave was used to smooth out the rough edges caused by the fact that different characters were rebooted at different times. Is there anything, here, that suggest the E2 Robin and Huntress couldn't have survived this wave? No, I don't think so, for a few reasons:

- first, correct me if I'm wrong, but there were several inconsistencies in the second wave, characters who it should have wiped out, but didn't (particularly, power girl is often cited as an example of someone who shouldn't exist, but who does).

- Second, we have no proof that the second wave subscribes to any kind of "only one of every type" rule, otherwise, there would be no post-crisis golden age flash and no post-crisis golden age Green Lantern in the JSA. (no Jay Garrick and no Alan Scott), if those two could make it, why not E2 Robin and Huntress? This is particularly striking when you consider that there is a giagantic continuity hole left over by crisis: there is (at least, until recently), no earth-1 huntress, Helena Bertenelli is an earth-8 native, so supposedly, what the second wave did when it amalgamated the universe was to pick and choose, and create a patchwork earth that is our current earth DCU, in this reality, the earth-8 huntress was imported into earth DCU, but, and this is key, there never was a silver age, earth-1 huntress, that's why the earth-8 huntress had to be pulled (meta-textually, you couldn't have a pre-crisis Bruce and Selina child running around given the nature of Bruce and Selina's post-crisis relationship), other characters, like the flash and green lantern, who have a surviving golden age counterpart, also had silver age incarnations, I see no reason why the E2 Huntress and Robin couldn't have also "slipped through the cracks"

One other thing that I want to make clear: I am not trying to show that E2 Robin and Huntress are definitely alive, that's impossible, what I am trying to show is that there's reasonable doubt that they are dead, and, in the comic book world, that's enough for a comeback.
Track down All-Star Squadron #60 and Legends of Wonder Woman #4 for the "second wave" which was a second "reordering" of the universe. It's shown specifically that the Golden Age Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman & Green Arrow suddenly cease to exist totally in reality. The heroes that still remembered them forgot they ever existed...The same thing happened to Supergirl...After COIE #11 she still existed....After the second wave she ceased to exist and had never existed.

The first wave rebooted...The second wave did as well. Between COIE #11 and All-Star Squadron #60 is a sort of interim period that was a mix of Pre and Post-Crisis.

[soda]

Paul, I'll get to your last two posts in just a second, first, let me take a short aside and let you in on a dumb theory that me and my pals cooked up concerning the upcoming IC #6. One of the theories we were talking about, amongst ourselves (in real life) is the possible return of the E2 Robin, not in any kind of extended role, but in the form of a brief cameo, like the E2 Wonder Woman got in IC #5. We actually started thinking about this at the time of IC #3, because, to us, the scene between Batman and Kal-L stuck out like a sore thumb. So, here's batman, right, everything's gone wrong, and he has this moment where he realizes it's all gone to hell, and that's all his fault, and all he wants to do is start over, and Kal-L shows up, and tells him he can start over. What's Batman's reply? "What about Dick Grayson?" We thought that was cool on batman's part, but that wasn't the part of the book that struck us, what struck us wasn't that Batman didn't want to live in a world where Dick Grayson wasn't such a great guy, what struck us was that even after Kal-L left the batcave, Kal-L is still thinking about what Batman said. So, Kal-L gets back to Alexander Luthor and the tower in the artic, and there's a scene that reminds me of the Bible story of Abraham bargaining with God to spare Sodom and Gemorrah (where God tells Abraham, "if you can find just one righteous person in this city, I won't burn it down", and Abraham says "my relative, Lot, is righteous", and God replies "okay, if you can find two righteous people who live in this city, I won't burn it down." Abraham "I got nothing")

Kal-L tells Alexander that he's having second throughts about what they're doing. Alexander asks him what he means, and Kal-L says that Dick Grayson of this earth is such a great guy, and a way better hero than the earth two version was. Alexander essentially says that Dick is indeed great, but that one guy doesn't redeem an entire planet, or words to that effect. To me, this entire sequence sticks out too much to be a coincidence. Johns has said that Nightwing has a pretty big role in IC #6, and we've seen some of what that might be going to, but I always felt that this sequence in IC #3 was clear set-up for something else relating to nightwing down the line in crisis. Very little that happens in IC is arbitrary. We all know that the small scene with the Joker in IC #2 will have reprucussions in IC #7 (we just don't know what).

I've always felt that Dick Grayson, our Nightwing, is the Captain America of the DCU, as Supergirl said "he just like Batman, only not creepy." If DC ever did an Earth X type of event, I think Nightwing would be the guy who would pretty much be running things after the big guns of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman's generation left. I also think that DC editorial is beginning to lean in this direction, and I'm hoping Nightwing gets a more prominent role. With the reign of old multi-verse dopplegangers being the order of the day, it seems, Nightwing's might be next. Just a theory.

[soda]

Well, the special circumstances I'm talking about are different as the events I'm talking about didn't happen in COIE itself, I'll address that in your second post. But one point should be clarified, Robin and Huntress were still alive, but, in the new timeline, never actually existed to begin with. Huntress never entered her apartment as it was no longer hers...A Mr. Bundzai was living there...And Robin only found evidence of the Earth-1 Robin existing. The Golden Age Batman's grave had disappeared as it no longer existed. Huntress & Robin had become anomalies.


However, and again, you know a lot more about post-crisis DCU history than I do, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that this isn't that relevant. Whether or not the E2 Huntress or Robin existed in the reformed earth DCU, or whether the golden age Batman's grave was missing isn't that relevant. What is relevant is that E2 Robin and Huntress where there with the other heroes in the darkness before time when the universe was reformed, and thus, weren't erased automatically by the reforming of the cosmos. If they survived crisis, then the E2 Robin and Huntress would simply become Atlantean, or whatever other origin they gave Power Girl, post-crisis. Therefore, the fact that Helena Wayne's apartment no longer existed post-crisis (a fact I pointed out when I remarked that she was crying about it) is not that impotant.



I'm not sure what your copy shows, but mine shows a Shadow Demon passing through Green Arrow and his torso disintegrating. As to the death of Robin and Huntress, you see the shadows penetrate the crystal...Shards break off, as they do as you see the the dome itself enveloped in darkness with energy spilling out. Later, when they mention the bodies were never found, it shows somw of the heroes crouching amongst the rubble of the dome. True, there are no bodies, but it looks pretty conclusive...Also who would pull off a last minute save? All the heroes are busy fighting shadow demons and nobody else out side of them knowthe two exist.


That's exactly what my copy shows. Again, I'm not arguing for probability of survival, and, in any case, the question doesn't really interest me. It doesn't much matter to me whether the E2 Robin or Huntress are alive or not, I'll sleep the same tonight either way. What I'm arguing for is ease of, for lack of a better word, bringing-back-ness (I butchered that). In my little corner of the world, there are two extremes, on the one end there's Bucky, and on the other, there's Jason Todd.

To me, Bucky makes perfect sense. End of the Second world war, it makes perfect sense that a Russian sub would be in the English channel, secretly, at this time, and that if this valuable American state secret, like the Super Soldier serum, fell into the English Channel, and the Russian sub happened to be johnny on the spot, that they'd secretly recover the soldier, and not tell anyone. Stalin's Russia? Makes perfect sense. Makes perfect sense that they'd take him back to Russia, nurse him back to health, and then, when they found out they couldn't gain the super soldier serum from him, it makes perfect sense that he'd lose his memories as a result of the fall, and that the Russians would exploit him. Basically, Bru weaves together this story so well that I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for it, but at every step, the story is so plausible that I don't have to do any such thing. That's what makes the winter soldier a classic. Stan Lee set this up. The only proof you ever had, for forty years, that Bucky was dead was the panel where Captain America told you Bucky was dead, you never saw it on camera, you never saw the body, heck, you never saw bucky hit water, cap himself doesn't remember anything following the explosion on the plane. That's what makes this story so easy to tell, this is a resurrection that was set up by the fact that the story that "killed off" Bucky was open ended, very open ended.

Jason Todd, as I said before, died a death that was the ultimate in close ended. That's why I so strongly disagreed with Winnick's decision to bring him back. Here's an idea I would propose: any resurrection, in comics, must be accompained by a story of high enough quality to justify the suspension of disbelief required to believe that the person involved came back from the dead. With Bucky, Bru simply finished Stan Lee's story, and told us that Bucky had, in fact never died at all (bucky never "died", so Bru never had to actually "bring him back", that's how open ended stan lee's killing of Bucky was), Bucky's story was easily, more than worth the suspension of disbelief. Jason Todd's, IMHO, wasn't (there is personal taste involved), to me, it would have been better if the Red Hood had removed his mask and been revealed to be the Joker (that would have been funny, at least).

I'm just arguing, in the case of the E2 Robin and Huntress, that while their cases aren't as open ended as Bucky's, they aren't as closed ended as Jason Todd's, and that they're much closer to be open ended the way Bucky's is than to being closed the way Jason Todd's was.



From interviews I've read its not because he wanted to leave the option for the heroes to return, it was more that he didn't want to kill any heroes created before he was born....But at the same time he had to "get rid" of the dopplegangers...I think he was fudging the death of Huntress & Robin to accomplish both purposes...Gets rid of them but keeps their dignity intact.

I heard that too, "I'm not going to kill anyone who appeared before I was born", however, I do think that the overarching point of crisis was to put the entire DCU's past into a little box that could be used again at some future time, or discarded. I think Marv Wolfmann was great at not limiting the flexibility of future writers.

[Paul Newell]

However, and again, you know a lot more about post-crisis DCU history than I do, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that this isn't that relevant. Whether or not the E2 Huntress or Robin existed in the reformed earth DCU, or whether the golden age Batman's grave was missing isn't that relevant. What is relevant is that E2 Robin and Huntress where there with the other heroes in the darkness before time when the universe was reformed, and thus, weren't erased automatically by the reforming of the cosmos. If they survived crisis, then the E2 Robin and Huntress would simply become Atlantean, or whatever other origin they gave Power Girl, post-crisis. Therefore, the fact that Helena Wayne's apartment no longer existed post-crisis (a fact I pointed out when I remarked that she was crying about it) is not that impotant.
It's actually different. They had no history on this interim Earth, Power Girl did. Everyone remembered Power Girl being around for years....The heroes remembered Huntress and Robin, but no-one else did and whatever they had done in the past no longer happened. Same thing happened with Kal-L. And, as shown in All-Star Squadron, the events they participated in either no longer happened or there was someone else doing it instead.
That's exactly what my copy shows. Again, I'm not arguing for probability of survival, and, in any case, the question doesn't really interest me. It doesn't much matter to me whether the E2 Robin or Huntress are alive or not, I'll sleep the same tonight either way. What I'm arguing for is ease of, for lack of a better word, bringing-back-ness (I butchered that). In my little corner of the world, there are two extremes, on the one end there's Bucky, and on the other, there's Jason Todd.

To me, Bucky makes perfect sense. End of the Second world war, it makes perfect sense that a Russian sub would be in the English channel, secretly, at this time, and that if this valuable American state secret, like the Super Soldier serum, fell into the English Channel, and the Russian sub happened to be johnny on the spot, that they'd secretly recover the soldier, and not tell anyone. Stalin's Russia? Makes perfect sense. Makes perfect sense that they'd take him back to Russia, nurse him back to health, and then, when they found out they couldn't gain the super soldier serum from him, it makes perfect sense that he'd lose his memories as a result of the fall, and that the Russians would exploit him. Basically, Bru weaves together this story so well that I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for it, but at every step, the story is so plausible that I don't have to do any such thing. That's what makes the winter soldier a classic. Stan Lee set this up. The only proof you ever had, for forty years, that Bucky was dead was the panel where Captain America told you Bucky was dead, you never saw it on camera, you never saw the body, heck, you never saw bucky hit water, cap himself doesn't remember anything following the explosion on the plane. That's what makes this story so easy to tell, this is a resurrection that was set up by the fact that the story that "killed off" Bucky was open ended, very open ended.

Jason Todd, as I said before, died a death that was the ultimate in close ended. That's why I so strongly disagreed with Winnick's decision to bring him back. Here's an idea I would propose: any resurrection, in comics, must be accompained by a story of high enough quality to justify the suspension of disbelief required to believe that the person involved came back from the dead. With Bucky, Bru simply finished Stan Lee's story, and told us that Bucky had, in fact never died at all (bucky never "died", so Bru never had to actually "bring him back", that's how open ended stan lee's killing of Bucky was), Bucky's story was easily, more than worth the suspension of disbelief. Jason Todd's, IMHO, wasn't (there is personal taste involved), to me, it would have been better if the Red Hood had removed his mask and been revealed to be the Joker (that would have been funny, at least).

I'm just arguing, in the case of the E2 Robin and Huntress, that while their cases aren't as open ended as Bucky's, they aren't as closed ended as Jason Todd's, and that they're much closer to be open ended the way Bucky's is than to being closed the way Jason Todd's was.
See the problem with your comparison is that Jason Todd, even though he died, still existed. After All-Star Squadron #60, Huntress and Robin no longer existed, they were wiped from reality. Unless Superboy Prime was able to retcon punch 'em back into existence, that would probably be the most believable way for them to return. But, as far as I've seen, his punches never brought back any of those removed after the Crisis.

[Paul Newell]

I take it that if the four (E-2 Superman, et al) had been on Earth when the full effects of the Crisis took hold, they would have been wiped from existence, but that no longer applies. Of course, we are then left with the gaping plothole of the E-2 Wonder Woman being erased from existence after she leaves Olympus to help "our" Diana reconnect with her humanity. If she was erased, why shouldn't E-2 Superman and his gang be eradicated as well?
It was shown in Legend of Wonder Woman #4 that the goddess Athena was able to hold back the effects of the Crisis for awhile by creating a "pocket universe" in which WW and Steve Trevor lived. My understanding is that this "universe" was still part of reality so Wonder Woman was affected after she left its protection. Whereas Kal-L, Lois, SPB and Alex were outside of and walled off from reality and avoided the effects of the Crisis that wiped out heroes such as Supergirl from reality.

[Buried Alien]

It's actually different. They had no history on this interim Earth, Power Girl did. Everyone remembered Power Girl being around for years...

Since Power Girl was derived from Kal-L's personal history and nobody else's, why was this so? It would seem that Power Girl's ongoing existence in the Post-COIE DCU would depend on Kal-L's ongoing existence (unless his ongoing existence in the paradise dimension counted). Wouldn't it make more sense if Power Girl were deleted from history along with Kal-L?

Or was the new continuum that arbitrary on whom it retained and whom it discarded?


Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Paul Newell]

Since Power Girl was derived from Kal-L's personal history and nobody else's, why was this so? It would seem that Power Girl's ongoing existence in the Post-COIE DCU would depend on Kal-L's ongoing existence (unless his ongoing existence in the paradise dimension counted). Wouldn't it make more sense if Power Girl were deleted from history along with Kal-L?

Or was the new continuum that arbitrary on whom it retained and whom it discarded?


Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)
My guess is that it has something to do with dopplegangers. Its been shown that Donna Troy ended being merged with all her various selves from the multiverse. After what happened to Kal-L in #5, it shows this merging happened to almost everybody with the "dominant" version being the one that was left. I assume that if Kal-L hadn't left reality he would have merged with Kal-El in the same way....Interestingly enough, it appears that most dominant versions were the Earth-1 version, which explains why Earth-2 was mostly deserted, aopart from some of the JSA and others like Flamebird.

Power Girl has never been a complete doppleganger of Supergirl, so, presumably, she is a different person entirely, reality recognised her as such, and that's why she didn't fade from reality. But that doesn't mean to say that she caused problems for this new continnuum.

[Tom]

Power Girl has never been a complete doppleganger of Supergirl,How do you figure? Same name, same parents, same powers, same relationship to Superman, blonde and blue-eyed. How's that not a doppelganger?

[Agentum]

She really is but with a diffrent name (much better namn imho, i hate those women and kid version of a male character, who the hell would lika a name like that?) so i guess they decided to have her around like a "supergirl" for the future, and why not?

[soda]

I have to agree with Tom, Powergirl "is a" Supergirl, to me, she's the Supergirl of Earth-2, in the same exact way that Kal-L is the Superman of Earth two, and Diana Prince is the Wonder Woman of earth two, Jay Garrick is the Flash of earth two, and Alan Scott is the Green Lantern of earth two.

[glennsim]

Since Power Girl was derived from Kal-L's personal history and nobody else's, why was this so? It would seem that Power Girl's ongoing existence in the Post-COIE DCU would depend on Kal-L's ongoing existence (unless his ongoing existence in the paradise dimension counted). Wouldn't it make more sense if Power Girl were deleted from history along with Kal-L?

Or was the new continuum that arbitrary on whom it retained and whom it discarded?


Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Well, basically, it was.

Metatextually, DC wanted to keep Power Girl around. So I think the idea was that while she THOUGHT she had ties to Kal-L, she was wrong, and that she had NEVER been Kal-L's cousin - she was Arion's granddaughter. Theoretically she was already Arion's granddaughter even back when Earth 1 and Earth 2 were different places. It could even be argued that Arion used Supergirl as the template for giving Power Girl a past.

With that being true, the fact that Kal-L never existed did not affect her ability to exist in the post-Crisis universe, since she was no longer tied to him. That's the answer to her question in Crisis about why she's still around.

Once her memories of the pre-Crisis universe went away, in the post-Crisis universe, she now had spent a period thinking she was the modern Superman's cousin, but that was just to keep her early stories mostly intact, it didn't actually have anything to do with her ability to survive the Crisis.

That was all fine and good, until now we get the "no, you really ARE Kal-L's cousin"...which sorta screws up that explanation for why she survived.

Which brings us back to arbitrary.

What I think Alex and Co. are saying in IC is that the current Earth is unstable, and one of the symptoms of that is that Power Girl, who shouldn't exist, still does. Theoretically, this symptom goes all the way back to Crisis #11 - she shouldn't have been remembered, but she was anyway. The new Earth is an imperfect place.

[soda]

that "unstability" is what I was trying to ask Paul about when I brough up Power Girl in relation to the E2 Huntress and Robin, that's how I'm thinking they'd survive the second wave without a Superboy Prime Retcon punch (which I agree with Paul, I don't think it works that way either), I just didn't express it very well. If Power Girl managed to survive the second crisis wave, when she wasn't supposed to, or intended to survive, then clearly there is a flaw in the system somewhere.

[wellsoul2]

that "unstability" is what I was trying to ask Paul about when I brough up Power Girl in relation to the E2 Huntress and Robin, that's how I'm thinking they'd survive the second wave without a Superboy Prime Retcon punch (which I agree with Paul, I don't think it works that way either), I just didn't express it very well. If Power Girl managed to survive the second crisis wave, when she wasn't supposed to, or intended to survive, then clearly there is a flaw in the system somewhere.

It's totally flawed. Marvel's continuity is much better.
I really love DC and the current developments with Wonder Woman
et all but am sick of retcons/disapointments.

What a mess! Now they are killing off the Uncle Sam/Freedom Force..

Seriously..can't they have some editorial control?

They need a multiverse like Marvel..

[Paul Newell]

How do you figure? Same name, same parents, same powers, same relationship to Superman, blonde and blue-eyed. How's that not a doppelganger?
But unlike the other dopplegangers, she's not an exact duplicate to Supergirl. Different body shape and personality. She's not a completely different character like Jay Garrick or Alan Scott, but she's never been portrayed as exactly the same as Supergirl. To me there's enough difference in the character herself to distinguish her from her Earth-1 "counterpart". She's not an exact match.

[Paul Newell]

I have to agree with Tom, Powergirl "is a" Supergirl, to me, she's the Supergirl of Earth-2, in the same exact way that Kal-L is the Superman of Earth two, and Diana Prince is the Wonder Woman of earth two, Jay Garrick is the Flash of earth two, and Alan Scott is the Green Lantern of earth two.
There's still a difference between the characters you mentioned...Some are completely different characters to their Earth-1 counterparts, others are exact duplicates. Power Girl has much in common with Supergirl, but she isn't an exact duplicate like Wonder Woman.

EDIT: Which is the point I'm trying to make. This is why I think she slipped through the cracks...She's not exact which is why she survived.

[soda]

To me, the ONLY difference between Jay Garrick's Flash and Wally West's Flash on the one hand, and Kara Zor-el and Powergirl on the other, is in the name: both of the Flashs are named "flash", but one is named "powergirl" and one is named "supergirl". The earth 2 versions of the heroes have different body types than the earth one versions, in fact, not a single one of the earth two dopplegangers is an exact copy of his or her earth one counterpart, there are no exact duplicates. So your point that "some are exact duplicates" doesn't hold water, in fact, not one of them is an exact duplicate! Face it, if powergirl were exactly the same character she is, in origin, personality, look, everything, but her name was Supergirl, instead of Powergirl.....To me, that's not enough of a difference, Powergirl "is a" Supergirl, every bit as much as Kal-L is a Superman.

[Paul Newell]

To me, the ONLY difference between Jay Garrick's Flash and Wally West's Flash on the one hand, and Kara Zor-el and Powergirl on the other, is in the name: both of the Flashs are named "flash", but one is named "powergirl" and one is named "supergirl". The earth 2 versions of the heroes have different body types than the earth one versions, in fact, not a single one of the earth two dopplegangers is an exact copy of his or her earth one counterpart, there are no exact duplicates. So your point that "some are exact duplicates" doesn't hold water, in fact, not one of them is an exact duplicate! Face it, if powergirl were exactly the same character she is, in origin, personality, look, everything, but her name was Supergirl, instead of Powergirl.....To me, that's not enough of a difference, Powergirl "is a" Supergirl, every bit as much as Kal-L is a Superman.
When the Earth-2 Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Green Arrow were shown in their younger days they were ALWAYS exact duplicates of their Earth-1 counterparts. That was the whole point of them to begin with...To explain away the stories where the characters fought in WWII and why they hadn't aged twenty years. Those stories happened to a different version of the character from a parallel Earth. They became more distinctive only when artists began portraying them as being older.

And the Flash's aren't dopplegangers, they never were. They were always portrayed as being different people, which is why Jay Garrick survived. He was never the same character as Barry Allen or Wally West.

[Tom]

But unlike the other dopplegangers, she's not an exact duplicate to Supergirl. Different body shape and personality. She's not a completely different character like Jay Garrick or Alan Scott, but she's never been portrayed as exactly the same as Supergirl. To me there's enough difference in the character herself to distinguish her from her Earth-1 "counterpart". She's not an exact match.
But E2 and E1 Supes have been portrayed as having slightly different body types and personalities as have E2 and E1 Bats.

[Tom]

There's still a difference between the characters you mentioned...Some are completely different characters to their Earth-1 counterparts, others are exact duplicates. Power Girl has much in common with Supergirl, but she isn't an exact duplicate like Wonder Woman.But the Wonder Women did have minor differences and those differences weren't any less significant than the ones between the two Karas.

[Paul Newell]

Only later from what I remember....Heck, the Silver Age Superman's look didn't deviate from the Golden Age Wayne Boring model...Even Curt Swan stuck to that and didn't modify his design until Julius Schwartz took over the titles and the Neal Adams version became the norm.
But as to Supergirl we're talking two completely different body shapes entirely. Supergirl was always tall, willowy and thin. Power Girl was more compact and muscular with whoppin' great breasts.
And I don't remember seeing any stories Pre-Crisis tieing the two in together. I always thought of PG as a counterpart to, not a doppleganger of, Supergirl because of those two looks.

[Paul Newell]

But the Wonder Women did have minor differences and those differences weren't any less significant than the ones between the two Karas.
OOPS! My previous reply was to your previous reply. :o

So what were the differences between the two Wonder Women?

[Tom]

Slight differences in their origins, mainly. They had visually different mothers and different explanations for their powers. The E1 WW had an adventuring "career" that stretched back to her childhood, as well as an adopted sister. E2 WW married and had a grown daughter.

[Buried Alien]

Slight differences in their origins, mainly. They had visually different mothers and different explanations for their powers. The E1 WW had an adventuring "career" that stretched back to her childhood, as well as an adopted sister. E2 WW married and had a grown daughter.

Additionally, the Earth-Two Wonder Woman had been active during the World War II era on her Earth while the Earth-One Wonder Woman did not emerge in her world until years after World War II had ended.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Paul Newell]

Slight differences in their origins, mainly. They had visually different mothers and different explanations for their powers. The E1 WW had an adventuring "career" that stretched back to her childhood, as well as an adopted sister. E2 WW married and had a grown daughter.
I remember the thing about Hippolyta/Hippolyte now...And I just checked Who's Who about the fountain of Youth stuff... :)

So personality-wise and physically was there any diffeence between the two?

[glennsim]

Trying to work out the science behind the Earth 1/Earth 2 counterparts can be a bit of a headache.

At the simplest level, each earth had a Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Lantern. They were counterparts. As far as we know, Earth 1 didn't have a Jay Garrick and Earth 2 didn't have a Barry Allen. Ergo all of these would be considered "the same person". The Crisis, however, took it to the next level...

Which is that some were what you'd call "exact counterparts". The definition of these was where the characters real name and general appearance was the same. Superman, Batman, Robin, Catwoman, Wonder Woman, Power Girl, Green Arrow, Speedy, and Aquaman fell into this category. Jay and Barry did not. For the MOST part, this was the level that Crisis hit, with the exception of Power Girl. Because, y'know, DC wanted to keep using her.

Now you can actually take it to the next level. I think if you took a 20-year-old Kal-L and a 20-year-old Kal-El and stood them next to each other in the same clothing, they would be identical (aside from minor haircut differences reflecting the decade they live in, and of course this is Superman so even that's not likely to be an issue). I think the same would hold true of the Bruce Waynes, the Dick Graysons, and the Dianas. Probably Aquaman too, but we didn't see that much of him.

However, Green Arrow and Speedy had different hair colors on Earth 1 and Earth 2, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume different facial features. And I think Paul has a point about physical differences between Kara and Kara, but I think the Green Arrow example shows that they didn't have to be EXACT duplicates to be sufficiently the same person for Crisis to knock out one of them. Plus, when it comes to body shape, you can't really judge from the art because different artists draw differently. Sure, Power Girls boobs have been almost a plot point, but who's to say that Supergirl didn't actually have the same rockin' bod, it just never got mentioned? Or, to really stretch, some difference between the lives they led prior to coming to Earth and exposure to yellow sunlight could have made a difference in boob size. So I think it still comes down to DC making an exception that made no sense to make other than they just wanted to keep using the character.

Oddly enough, when All-Star Squadron showed the post-Crisis All-Stars, they kept Green Arrow and Speedy due to an editorial mistake (this was immediately ignored and the GA GA (heh) was never referenced again, and his role in the Seven Soldiers replaced, etc.

[Paul Newell]

One thing that should be mentioned about Green arrow's brown hair, it's a retcon that was added later, like Earth-2 Superman's chest symbol. He originally had blonde hair, but it was cxhanged later to differentiate between both Oliver Queens. Which is strange as, by that point, the Earth-1 Ollie had changed to his 70's costume and had the beard.

[Buried Alien]

One thing that should be mentioned about Green arrow's brown hair, it's a retcon that was added later, like Earth-2 Superman's chest symbol. He originally had blonde hair, but it was cxhanged later to differentiate between both Oliver Queens. Which is strange as, by that point, the Earth-1 Ollie had changed to his 70's costume and had the beard.

The Earth-One and Earth-Two Ollies never met each other, did they?

I think there were at least one or two cases of Earth-One and Earth-Two doppelgangers having not met each other during the Pre-COIE era. The Aquamen would be another pair that didn't encounter each other, I think.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Paul Newell]

The Earth-One and Earth-Two Ollies never met each other, did they?

I think there were at least one or two cases of Earth-One and Earth-Two doppelgangers having not met each other during the Pre-COIE era. The Aquamen would be another pair that didn't encounter each other, I think.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)
I think they met when the JLA & JSA rescued the Seven Soldiers of Victory in JLoA #100-102.

[phantom1592]

I take it that if the four (E-2 Superman, et al) had been on Earth when the full effects of the Crisis took hold, they would have been wiped from existence, but that no longer applies. Of course, we are then left with the gaping plothole of the E-2 Wonder Woman being erased from existence after she leaves Olympus to help "our" Diana reconnect with her humanity. If she was erased, why shouldn't E-2 Superman and his gang be eradicated as well?


Remember the gods of Olympus were retreating. I assumed that included Diana. When the gods retreated so did their powers. It's why Wondergirl lost her powers.