hypertime...

[curefreak]

can someone explain this hypertime to me in succint manner,
ive tried to read about it and understand three times and its still not making sense(feels stupid)

[Brian Cronin]

All stories happened.

That's all you need to know.

All stories happened.

It is a brilliant concept that DC just muddled the heck up.

All stories happened.

You want to use a character, but they're "out of continuity"? Use them.

For all stories happened.

Essentially, it allows writers to pick and choose continuity based on what helps them write their stories. You are not constrained by the decisions of writers before you - your only responsibility is to write a good story.

And if you choose NOT to use someone else's story?

Doesn't matter.

For all stories happened, so if someone ELSE wants to use that story in the future, they can.

For all stories happened.

-Brian

[curefreak]

All stories happened.

That's all you need to know.

All stories happened.

It is a brilliant concept that DC just muddled the heck up.

All stories happened.

You want to use a character, but they're "out of continuity"? Use them.

For all stories happened.

Essentially, it allows writers to pick and choose continuity based on what helps them write their stories. You are not constrained by the decisions of writers before you - your only responsibility is to write a good story.

And if you choose NOT to use someone else's story?

Doesn't matter.

For all stories happened, so if someone ELSE wants to use that story in the future, they can.

For all stories happened.

-Briansounds simple enough dc is not good with continunity( has anyone ever tried pronouncing that word outloud? its hard !)

[jaguarshark]

Also, I don't know if anyone mentioned this yet, but all stories happened.
Oh, wait, that's been covered.




...


All stories happened.

[Brian Cronin]

It IS simple.

But DC basically gave up on the concept soon after it happened, especially as the two guys who came up with the idea were no longer working for DC (those guys being Mark Waid and Grant Morrison).

And instead of Waid and Morrison's brilliantly simple Hypertime, we instead got Infinite Crisis.

Not a good tradeoff.

-Brian

[jaguarshark]

It IS simple.

But DC basically gave up on the concept soon after it happened, especially as the two guys who came up with the idea were no longer working for DC (those guys being Mark Waid and Grant Morrison).

And instead of Waid and Morrison's brilliantly simple Hypertime, we instead got Infinite Crisis.

Not a good tradeoff.

-Brian

What makes it even more bizarre is that Waid and Morrison are firmly entrenched in DC's creative stable now, and we still got Infinite Crisis.

[Brian Cronin]

Yeah, I know!

The timing is so annoying.

They leave, so we lose Hypertime.

Then they come BACK, but by then, DC had already committed to Infinite Crisis.

So annoying.

-Brian

[dancj]

sounds simple enough dc is not good with continunity( has anyone ever tried pronouncing that word outloud? its hard !)

It's easier when you don't have an extra 'n' in it

[curefreak]

It's easier when you don't have an extra 'n' in it
yeah but its easier to pronounce i find (tho harder to spell:o )

[dreyga2000]

Basically, hypertime works like this: the main, or "official" timeline is like a river, with a nearly infinite number of tributaries—alternate timelines—abranching off. Most of the time, these alternate timelines go off on their own and never intersect with the main timeline. On occasion, the branches return, feeding back into the main timeline - sometimes permanently, sometimes temporarily. Thus, history can sometimes change momentarily and then change back (or not). If characters from a very different Hypertimeline move into our own, this accelerates the process, causing more noticeable (but shorter) changes to the timeline (for example when the Titans were visited by their counterparts from The Kingdom, Jesse Quick was briefly replaced by a version who had taken her mother's Liberty Belle identity).

[Alex L]

^^ Pretty much what everyone said.

I think of it (breaking the fourth-wall wise) as a way to explain little quirks and changes in characters.

Jack Knight Starman makes an appearance, all tatooed up (he had lost them in Rann)?

Hypertime. Alternate Jack Knight briefly merged with Regular Jack.

The Captain Atom nuclear experiment happened a year earlier? Hypertime.

[Lorendiac]

I think of it as going something like this:

"Hypertime" used to be the buzzword that people at DC could use to "explain" deliberate retcons, accidental contradictions, reboots, etc., when one writer's work contradicted another writer's previous work.

A year ago Dan DiDio said "Hypertime is gone from the DCU" in a panel at the San Diego Comic Con, but apparently did not choose to elaborate upon just what that meant.

From things that have been published since then, I gather that "Hypertime" has been tossed out the window so that "Superboy-Prime's Retcon Punch" (and other matters associated with Infinite Crisis) can become the new set of buzzwords that people at DC can use to "explain" deliberate retcons, accidental contradictions, reboots, etc., when one writer's work contradicts another writer's previous work.

In another five or ten years, I expect they'll give us some other fancy set of buzzwords to explain such things. "Oh, you're wondering why this new writer says that Dick Grayson was never intimate with the Tarantula at all, and certainly never married her? As if Devin Grayson's run is being retconned? Why, that's because of The Big Splash and its Spacetime Ripples! The Big Splash was this Groundbreaking Universal Crossover Event we had last summer, and it shook up all the previous continuity with Spacetime Ripples that arbitrarily rewrote various bits and pieces of the biographies of our regular characters in the DCU!"

[CjP]

Where can I get me some of this?

Boss: This report is due in 40 minutes!!!

/me pushes Hypertime button.

Boss: This report isn't due for another two weeks. Martini Lunch?

;)

[curefreak]

I think of it as going something like this:

"Hypertime" used to be the buzzword that people at DC could use to "explain" deliberate retcons, accidental contradictions, reboots, etc., when one writer's work contradicted another writer's previous work.

A year ago Dan DiDio said "Hypertime is gone from the DCU" in a panel at the San Diego Comic Con, but apparently did not choose to elaborate upon just what that meant.

From things that have been published since then, I gather that "Hypertime" has been tossed out the window so that "Superboy-Prime's Retcon Punch" (and other matters associated with Infinite Crisis) can become the new set of buzzwords that people at DC can use to "explain" deliberate retcons, accidental contradictions, reboots, etc., when one writer's work contradicts another writer's previous work.

In another five or ten years, I expect they'll give us some other fancy set of buzzwords to explain such things. "Oh, you're wondering why this new writer says that Dick Grayson was never intimate with the Tarantula at all, and certainly never married her? As if Devin Grayson's run is being retconned? Why, that's because of The Big Splash and its Spacetime Ripples! The Big Splash was this Groundbreaking Universal Crossover Event we had last summer, and it shook up all the previous continuity with Spacetime Ripples that arbitrarily rewrote various bits and pieces of the biographies of our regular characters in the DCU!"
thats pretty funny and dead on accurate.

[Lorendiac]

thats pretty funny and dead on accurate.

Thank you, that's exactly the effect I was going for! Humorous, yet informative :)

(I think this falls into the category of: "If I didn't laugh, I'd cry!")

[Cayman]

Happily Superboy Prime has RETCON PUNCH'D every thing that needed to be fixed, and now DC's editorial will be so on top of things that there will never be anything that needs fixing again. For example, Shadowpact characters will not appear in 52 at the same time they are supposedly trapped behind an impervious magical barrier in a small town. Who needs hypertime?

Cay

[ducklord]

Stop!

Hypertime!

Dons parachute pants, shuffles right and left,
Mike.