What if there were no crossovers between Earths?

[johnreiter902]

As the title says, how would the history of Earth-1, 2, and so forth be if there were no crossovers between the Earths?

In this scenario, the barriers between the Earths appear much earlier, say in the mid-1950s

Some examples:

In Flash #123, Barry Allen's magic show goes off without a hitch. Meanwhile, on Earth-2, Jay Garrick must defeat the Thinker, the Fiddler, and the Shade on his own

In Flash #129, Barry will have to defeat Captain Cold and the Trickster on his own. Meanwhile Jay will have to either track down what happened to the anti-radiation meteor on Earth-2, or find some other way to save the Earth (maybe Dr. Fate would have to come out of retirement).

In Flash #137, nothing happens on Earth-1 at all. Jay will probably be captured by Vandal Savage without Barry to rescue him. Some other hero may have to save the JSA

In Justice League of America #21, the Crime Champions (as such) do not form. There would be two separate teams. On Earth-2, the Icicle, the Fiddler, and the Wizard would team up against the JSA. Meanwhile, on Earth-1, Chronos, Dr. Alchemy, and Felix Faust would team up against the JLA.

[redsycorax]

I can see some problems from this perspective. When it came to "Crisis on Earth-Three", the Crime Syndicate wouldn't be apprehended and would continue to terrorise Earth-Three. Earth-Two would have been destroyed when Aquarius erased it from existence, and although Larry Lance might still be alive, Black Canary would have never come to Earth-One. As a consequence, Green Arrow might have been more radicalised as a result. Red Tornado would never have come to Earth-One either. Earth-X would still be under Nazi AI control.

[jonclark]

Do we assume no crossovers ever or jusy none in "modern" times (as in the post Flash #123 ones). If none ever can we allow for somethings native to each Earth to replace things later claimed to result from prior crossovers. Thinking mainly of the Roy Thomas stuff like moving Quality characters from Earth-Two to Earth-X or having random Earth-One magic gathered and dumped by the Earth-One Oans resulting in the Starheart. Plus that bit where the Earth-One Superboy inspired Kal-L's Golden Age Earth-Two Superman career.

And was it originally that Barry just discovered Jay existing on Earth-Two or was it also that Barry somehow convinced Jay to re-don the Flash suit? Cause I'm not sure if this is multiple retellings (both pre and post Crisis) but I remember Barry's meeting with Jay restarting the JSA. Barry gets Jay to become the Flash (after the HUAC stuff in the 1950's) and jay (or the events of Flash #137) being when the other JSAers returned to heroics. So removing the events of Flash #123 might butterfly the JSA remaining retired permanently. This may or may not result in Earth-Two being destroyed in some Crisis before the 1980's.

If the Roy Thomas stuff is still canon then Earth-X bever has any super-heroes and is permanently under the Nazi Thumb even without taking the JSA/JLA story.

Do we lose all the Bob Haney Earth-B stuff? Might be the one shining light if Earth-B never exists.

Does Earth Prime get to keep Ultraa and Superboy-Prime?  I want that now.  No JLAers to take away our chance to have real superheroes.

[dans]

during the Crisis, there are probably times when teamwork, and trusting your team, leads to a win that a bunch of random heroes who have never met before would not be able to replicate and the universe will be destroyed... Or does no crossovers mean that that the Monitor and Anti-monitor are unable to cross over either and therefore there is no Crisis, or at most a single universe is destroyed?

[dans]

Is anyone on any of the Earths aware of the other universes? is there anyone who can cross over or nobody? Is there still leakage between universes that allows writers in one universe to write accurate stories about events in other universes?

[johnreiter902]

Aug 13, 2023 2:18:13 GMT redsycorax said:

I can see some problems from this perspective. When it came to "Crisis on Earth-Three", the Crime Syndicate wouldn't be apprehended and would continue to terrorise Earth-Three. Earth-Two would have been destroyed when Aquarius erased it from existence, and although Larry Lance might still be alive, Black Canary would have never come to Earth-One. As a consequence, Green Arrow might have been more radicalised as a result. Red Tornado would never have come to Earth-One either. Earth-X would still be under Nazi AI control.

Red Tornado would probably not even exist. T.O. Morrow would never go to Earth-2, and he specifically created the Red Tornado to destroy the Justice Society.

I didn't think about Aquarius. Earth-2 might be destroyed before the 60s even end. It's possible that instead of waiting for reinforcements that will never come, the Society might be able to get help from the Parliament of Stars or some other cosmic being to stop Aquarius, but it is unlikely.

[johnreiter902]

Aug 13, 2023 7:28:58 GMT jonclark said:

Do we assume no crossovers ever or jusy none in "modern" times (as in the post Flash #123 ones). If none ever can we allow for somethings native to each Earth to replace things later claimed to result from prior crossovers. Thinking mainly of the Roy Thomas stuff like moving Quality characters from Earth-Two to Earth-X or having random Earth-One magic gathered and dumped by the Earth-One Oans resulting in the Starheart. Plus that bit where the Earth-One Superboy inspired Kal-L's Golden Age Earth-Two Superman career.

And was it originally that Barry just discovered Jay existing on Earth-Two or was it also that Barry somehow convinced Jay to re-don the Flash suit? Cause I'm not sure if this is multiple retellings (both pre and post Crisis) but I remember Barry's meeting with Jay restarting the JSA. Barry gets Jay to become the Flash (after the HUAC stuff in the 1950's) and jay (or the events of Flash #137) being when the other JSAers returned to heroics. So removing the events of Flash #123 might butterfly the JSA remaining retired permanently. This may or may not result in Earth-Two being destroyed in some Crisis before the 1980's.

If the Roy Thomas stuff is still canon then Earth-X bever has any super-heroes and is permanently under the Nazi Thumb even without taking the JSA/JLA story.

Do we lose all the Bob Haney Earth-B stuff? Might be the one shining light if Earth-B never exists.

Does Earth Prime get to keep Ultraa and Superboy-Prime?  I want that now.  No JLAers to take away our chance to have real superheroes.

I deliberately had the barriers go up in the mid 1950s to avoid too much temporal confusion. the crossovers from the golden age will still happen.

Jay said that he was planning to come out of retirement anyway, before Barry arrived, because of the crime wave launched by the Thinker, the Fiddler, and the Shade.

Earth-B will still exist out there in the multiverse, just like all the worlds. They just can't contact each other.

I can't think of any reason that Ultraa and Superboy would not exist on Earth-Prime

[johnreiter902]

Aug 13, 2023 11:46:38 GMT dans said:

during the Crisis, there are probably times when teamwork, and trusting your team, leads to a win that a bunch of random heroes who have never met before would not be able to replicate and the universe will be destroyed... Or does no crossovers mean that that the Monitor and Anti-monitor are unable to cross over either and therefore there is no Crisis, or at most a single universe is destroyed?

Good question! I think that Pariah will not be able to perform his experiment, and therefore the Monitor and the Anti-Monitor will remain imprisoned. So there will be no Crisis on Infinite Earths

[johnreiter902]

Aug 13, 2023 16:08:29 GMT dans said:

Is anyone on any of the Earths aware of the other universes? is there anyone who can cross over or nobody? Is there still leakage between universes that allows writers in one universe to write accurate stories about events in other universes?

Of course, all the heroes will remember the crossovers from the 1930s and 40s, so they know other Earths exist. However, nobody is able to cross over after 1955

[redsycorax]

I've always pictured Earth-B/the Haneyverse as existing in the "Dork Multiverse", those alternate DC Earths that were badly constructed or just plain don't make much sense, like Earth-12 and the other parodyverses.

[dans]

what crossoevers existed in the 30s and 40s? Wasn't the first crossover when Barry Flash met Jay Flash? Other than Wonder Woman, who crossed into totally separate universes (not E2 or E3), we had no indication that Earth 2 or Earth 3 existed before that event. And none of the heroes had any memories of earlier crossovers either, as best I remember...

[redsycorax]

Actually, Dan, that's not strictly speaking true when it comes to the Justice League. Shortly after the team's formation, they had an encounter with three magical entities from an alternate Earth called Magic Land. (Magic Land is obviously an alternate Earth- the sorcerors point to a map that clearly demonstrates its geographical equivalence:  Asgard is North and South America, Olympus is Eurasia and Oceania is Australasia):
Justice League 2 (January 1961): "Secret of the Sinister Sorcerors": dc.fandom.com/wiki/Justice_League_Vol_1_2

So, that particular event would also have to not happen, if we're going to rule out alternate Earth interactions altogether.

[johnreiter902]

Aug 14, 2023 13:52:22 GMT dans said:

what crossoevers existed in the 30s and 40s? Wasn't the first crossover when Barry Flash met Jay Flash? Other than Wonder Woman, who crossed into totally separate universes (not E2 or E3), we had no indication that Earth 2 or Earth 3 existed before that event. And none of the heroes had any memories of earlier crossovers either, as best I remember...

In the All-Star Squadron, they crossed over with Earth-X and Earth-S in 1942

And there was an issue of Superboy where he went back to Earth-2 in the 1930s and met the Clark Kent of Earth-2

[johnreiter902]

Aug 15, 2023 0:45:03 GMT redsycorax said:

Actually, Dan, that's not strictly speaking true when it comes to the Justice League. Shortly after the team's formation, they had an encounter with three magical entities from an alternate Earth called Magic Land. (Magic Land is obviously an alternate Earth- the sorcerors point to a map that clearly demonstrates its geographical equivalence:  Asgard is North and South America, Olympus is Eurasia and Oceania is Australasia):
Justice League 2 (January 1961): "Secret of the Sinister Sorcerors": dc.fandom.com/wiki/Justice_League_Vol_1_2

So, that particular event would also have to not happen, if we're going to rule out alternate Earth interactions altogether.

I forgot about Magic Land! Good catch

The loss of that adventure won't affect the league too much. It just means they have one less trophy in their trophy room

[dans]

what about the Wonder Woman stories that are considered the first 'alternate Earth' stories, where she meets other Wonder Women? The only 1 I remember for sure had a giant Wonder Woman, but I think there was at least one more.