What 'Countdown' tells us about Metropolis

[Loren]

When we see Superman's profile, it reads:

Location: Metropolis, N.Y.

So apparently Superman's hometown is now officially in New York state, not in Delaware or some other state. (This makes it difficult to imagine where Metropolis could be located, though, since it has a waterfront, but NYC occupies pretty much the entire NY coastline.)

Loren

[Mainline]

This kind of data is pretty throwaway and not particularly binding. But for the short term it's entertaining.

[666MasterOfPuppets]

Damn, and here we have DC messing things up again.

As far as I knEw,Metropolis was in Delaware. Besides, there's nothing in Birthright that implies that Metropolis is in other state than Delaware.

Yeah, I know. Continuity can suck, but sometimes it's necessary.

[jam37wcc]

I always thought that Metropolis was close to smallville maybe a three hour drive at most. Is there anything stated in the comics besides Countdown to suggest that they are that far away.

[666MasterOfPuppets]

I always thought that Metropolis was close to smallville maybe a three hour drive at most. Is there anything stated in the comics besides Countdown to suggest that they are that far away.

Smallville= Kansas.
Metropolis= Delaware (or NY?)

So, they are far from each other.

[TCJohnson]

According to the guy who did the atlas of the DC universe for their role playing game, Metropolis was in Delaware and Gotham was in New Jersey.

[Loren]

I always thought that Metropolis was close to smallville maybe a three hour drive at most.

That's true on "Smallville," but only the TV show has ever put Metropolis in Kansas. It was basically a means of tying a small rural town to a bigger city.

And I've long been bothered by the "three-hour drive" distance that the show's creators set down. That's an awfully long distance, and probably puts Smallville closer to another big city. And as often as characters travel to Metropolis, they must spend a lot of time on the road. Had it been my call, I would have put an hour and a half between them. Two hours tops.

Loren

[Slam_Bradley]

And I've long been bothered by the "three-hour drive" distance that the show's creators set down. That's an awfully long distance, and probably puts Smallville closer to another big city. And as often as characters travel to Metropolis, they must spend a lot of time on the road. Had it been my call, I would have put an hour and a half between them. Two hours tops.

Loren


I think you're using East Coast logic here. Three hours is 165-240 miles at freeway speed, depending on where you live and how you drive. There are large tracts of the intermountain west where you can go 200 miles and not reach anyplace 1/20th the size of Metropolis. It's been years since I've traveled extensively in the plains states, but I'm pretty sure that's still the case there as well.

[cactusmaac]

I doubt it's binding.

It's probably a shout-out to how Metropolis is seen as something of a NYC stand-in a la the Donner movie.

[bjtrdff]

I was never really up on Metropolis' location, but Gotham was always just referred to as
an industrial city in the northeastern United States" a few hours from Metropolis. Nice and generic, DC style.

[Kevinroc]

One of Countdown's writers was Greg Rucka, writer of Adventures of Superman. And Geoff Johns and Judd Winick are two other influential writers at DC. This could stick. After all, Smallville was originally supposed to be very close to Metropolis and wasn't nailed down as being in Kansas. And now it is firmly established as being in Kansas.

[PatrickG]

The Metropolis/Smallville travel distance in Smallville is an homage to the old Superboy comics. Before Smallville was established as being in Kansas (which was circa 1986 in the actual comics, I think) it was thought to be a short to moderate drive away. It often has the FEEL of a New England town in many of those stories.

The idea of Smallville being in Kansas, I believe, originates with Superman: The Movie.

[Toonimator]

That's true on "Smallville," but only the TV show has ever put Metropolis in Kansas. It was basically a means of tying a small rural town to a bigger city.

And I've long been bothered by the "three-hour drive" distance that the show's creators set down. That's an awfully long distance, and probably puts Smallville closer to another big city. And as often as characters travel to Metropolis, they must spend a lot of time on the road. Had it been my call, I would have put an hour and a half between them. Two hours tops.
Not to mention pesky things like Lex flying into Metropolis via helicopter, and Clark showing up 15 minutes later, then Chloe or whoever Clark was with back in Smallville doesn't think it's odd (very often) how Clark got to Metropolis so fast to stop the bad guy when he did.

Also the 3-hour drive makes the whole "Metropolis view from atop the windmill" almost impossible, doesn't it? at least the view presented on the show. It should be a tiny smudge, if that.

A somewhat recent Birds of Prey, the start of the "let's go stop the heroes that've gone too far" storyline showed Metropolis VERY close to Smallville, so it'd have to be Kansas or Illinois it looked like.

Fact of the matter is, in the comics, Metropolis fronts on the Atlantic Ocean, so it's GOTTA be coastal. That Ed McGuinness Superman tale of Aquaman setting a whale monster on Metropolis kinda made that obvious, in addition to many other instances over the years.

I like Metropolis in Delaware, myself, and Gotham in Jersey makes great sense.

[HartyPotter]

I think Countdown putting Metropolis in New York is probably more legit than any argument I've heard for Delaware. All I've heard about Delaware is that some roleplaying game spent some time taking a description of coastline of Metropolis and comparing it to the coast of Delaware. That's hardly conclusive evidence.

[PatrickG]

Well, the RPG got all their facts approved by DC at the time.

In 1988, there was a TV special where people argued over where Metropolis was.

There's even been debate over the years whether it's in the U.S. or Canada and there have been decent suggestions that would place it in Ohio as well.

The comics themselves tend to be inconsistant, showing it on a map anywhere from Ohio to Maine and occasionally in Toronto's spot.

As for how it could be in NY, Kurt Busiek addressed that in JLA/Avengers. The DCU earth is physically larger than the regular earth. I think 50 percent larger. So most of the "real" cities occupy a smaller percentage of landmass than the do in the world.

But, for instance, in the DCU, it's 7,500 miles from South Carolina to California rather than 5 and the world is, I believe, closer to 30,000 miles around than 20,000.

[Toonimator]

So THAT'S why so many DC heroes run fast or fly... so they can cover the greater distances in time to be of use! :)

[Huh?]

Who says that Metropolis and Gotham have to exist anywhere in America as we know it? I always thought of it as an alternate reality.

[noodleboy]

I still want DC to put out a map (poster) of all the locations of their fictional cities.

[Loren]

I think you're using East Coast logic here. Three hours is 165-240 miles at freeway speed, depending on where you live and how you drive. There are large tracts of the intermountain west where you can go 200 miles and not reach anyplace 1/20th the size of Metropolis. It's been years since I've traveled extensively in the plains states, but I'm pretty sure that's still the case there as well.

Perhaps. Here's a map of Kansas:

http://www.geocities.com/louisebrookssociety/images/kansas-map.gif

Kansas is about 400 miles wide, so three hours can easily put Smallville halfway across the state from Metropolis. But characters talk of it like it was much closer than that.

Assuming that Wichita and Topeka exist in "Smallville"s universe, then Smallville has to exist in the west part of the state (otherwise it'd be just as close to the other big cities). And as you approach the west side of the state, you get close to 160 miles from Denver.

And as Toonimator detailed further, a big part of the problem is the rather casual attitude the characters seem to take to this 3-hour separation. Characters make this 6-hour round trip for fairly petty reasons sometimes. And Lex never questions why Clark regularly makes this 3-hour trip on a hunch, and usually does so without a vehicle.

The best example of this might've been in the episode "Delete." Clark has just saved Lex in Metropolis when he is warned that his parents are in danger in Smallville. So he leaves Lex, runs back to Smallville in a few seconds, and arrives just in time to save his parents from Chloe. And yet no one asks any questions. This is actually bad writing regardless of the distance involved, but the three-hour time made it seem particularly egregious.

Plus there was that time that Clark and Lana actually saw the Metropolis skyline from Smallville, and it was big. The creators admitted that it was bigger than they intended, but I have my doubts that even in a place as flat as Kansas that you can see over 160 miles away.

Loren

[Guts/Batman]

I still want DC to put out a map (poster) of all the locations of their fictional cities.

Like Oracle did in NML, showing who controlled what land? lol

[Rich L]

I still want DC to put out a map (poster) of all the locations of their fictional cities.

I'd go with Delaware as the home of Metropolis despite Countdown...

Take a look at the Eastern Seabord here (http://www.karridian.net/dcusa_ne.html); you can navigate around the DCU Earth here (http://www.karridian.net/dcatlas.html)!

[noodleboy]

I'd go with Delaware as the home of Metropolis despite Countdown...

Take a look at the Eastern Seabord here (http://www.karridian.net/dcusa_ne.html); you can navigate around the DCU Earth here (http://www.karridian.net/dcatlas.html)!

thanks Rich!

[666MasterOfPuppets]

I'd go with Delaware as the home of Metropolis despite Countdown...

Take a look at the Eastern Seabord here (http://www.karridian.net/dcusa_ne.html); you can navigate around the DCU Earth here (http://www.karridian.net/dcatlas.html)!

Really nice link. Thanks. And according to this, Metropolis is in NY...

Kinda weird.