Infinitely Regressing Crisis: Dan DiDio Says All Crisis Stories Are No Longer Canon

So, one of the many things that followers of DC comics wondered about feverishly during the lead up to the New 52 is what parts of the DC Universe would remain canon, and we were told that Infinite Crisis and its precursors would remain canonical… despite the modern DC timeline being shortened from about ten or fifteen years to five. This leaves a lot of stuff that has to happen in a very short time, and today somebody asked Dan DiDio specifically about those Crisis events on his Facebook page, where he said:

Brace yourself, but after further review, there have been no Crisis events in the New DCU.

But we thought that those of you who are not scholars of the DC universe and it’s twisting labyrinthine ways might not understand what this means exactly, and we have prepared a number of similes to help you out. Probably at least one of them will make sense to you.

Just imagine a canon change that would make you go: “But, then how did… EVERYTHING?”

Dan DiDio facebooking that every Crisis event has ceased to be canonical is like:

• Steven Moffat tweeting that every season finale of Doctor Who is now non-canonical.
• Joss Whedon blogging that the Angel spin-off doesn’t count.
• Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse telling Comic-Con attendees that the Lost flashbacks were a dream.
• J.K. Rowling writing that Prisoner of Azkaban didn’t happen.
• Hideaki Anno revealing that the mothers of all of the main characters of Neon Genesis Evangelion are alive somewhere.
• George R. R. Martin Facebooking that the Lannisters weren’t actually incestuous.
• The creators of the Battlestar Galactica reboot sending you a letter to tell you that all of New Caprica was actually Commander Adama’s cylon-induced prophetic dream, but everything else still happened.
• Christopher Tolkien discovering that Gollum was supposed to sacrifice himself to save Sam and Frodo from Shelob.
• K.A. Applegate posting on Reddit that Tobias was actually a boy the whole time; being trapped in the body of a hawk was a metaphor.
• Lauren Faust YouTubing that Nightmare Moon and Princess Celestia are actually the same pony.
• George Lucas LiveJournaling that Jar Jar never actually existed.

Well, actually that last one would be great, but our statements stand. It’s not exactly that we’re happy or unhappy with these changes or not-changes, it’s just that they only serve to make the continuity question muddier. For example, if A Death in the Family is still canon, and Jason Todd is alive and in Red Hood and the Outlaws, how did he come back to life if not under the reality altering powers of an alternate universe Superboy punching the space-time continuum? Is the DC universe a multiverse, as it was before Crisis on Infinite Earths? If Identity Crisis never happened, then did the events of 52?

This sounds like a joke, but we’d actually really like it if DC would just release a checklist or something and save us the stress.

(via Comics Alliance.)

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Susana Polo

Susana Polo thought she'd get her Creative Writing degree from Oberlin, work a crap job, and fake it until she made it into comics. Instead she stumbled into a great job: founding and running this very website (she's Editor at Large now, very fancy). She's spoken at events like Geek Girl Con, New York Comic Con, and Comic Book City Con, wants to get a Batwoman tattoo and write a graphic novel, and one of her canine teeth is in backwards.

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