DC Comics’ World War III

Newsarama released a teaser pic from DC concerning the upcoming World War III that is to take place after 52 concludes. It is extremely interesting for several reasons. First and foremost, it appears that the Multiverse may be alive and well. Personally, I would be thrilled if DC brings back the Multiverse. I always thought that getting rid of the Multiverse was a massive mistake on DC’s part that caused many more continuity problems than it ever solved.

Bringing back the Multiverse would allow DC the flexibility and plot device to explain away various continuity discrepancies. Plus, it would enable readers to enjoy different characters on other Earths that may be dead on our Earth. Also, the Multiverse is just a great platform to write plenty of cool “What if” and Elseworlds stories. And the Multiverse also can celebrate DC’s deep and storied history which is much older than Marvel’s and is one of DC’s biggest assets.

In this teaser pic, we see an Elseworlds version of Batman, we see Donna Troy back in her Wonder Girl costume (One of my all-time favorite costume designs), Red Robin from Kingdom Come, and maybe the close relationship between Wonder Woman and Superman that we saw over in Kingdom Come, Kyle with a power ring, Mary Marvel alive and well despite being totally incapacitated over in Trials of Shazam, a rift between Green Arrow and Black Canary, Big Barda with Scott Free who is supposed to be dead and The Flash who I like to think is none other than Barry Allen.

On the ground are the characters that have died during Infinite Crisis and 52 including Jade, Maxwell Lord, Blue Beetle, and The Question. On the ground next to Blue Beetle is a Legion flight ring. I won’t take credit for figuring that out. I saw it posted over on Newsarama and Michael over at The Legion Omnicom also discusses it. There is an object lying between Maxwell Lord and Jade that I don’t recognize.

This picture gets me psyched and slightly disappointed. Let’s hit what disappoints me first. I can’t believe that DC would spoil the events of 52 by showing us that The Question gets killed. I know it seems pretty obvious that Dan Didio wants to kill off The Question just to replace him with Renee Montoya, but I was hoping that with the lack of success of the new Firestorm, new Atom, and new Blue Beetle, DC would avoid doing that. Evidently, I am wrong.

Now, everything else definitely gets me excited for this upcoming WW III. Based on the fact that we see characters alive who are supposed to be dead, and we see old versions of existing characters and characters from Elseworlds stories and characters from Kingdom Come, that the Multiverse must be alive and well.

To what extent is the Multiverse back is the question. I don’t think we will get the Multiverse of old that had an infinite amount of Earths. But, hey, even if we only get 52 different Earths, I’d be thrilled. Honestly, I’d be thrilled if we only got three different Earths. Any form of the Multiverse is a great idea. Personally, I’m rooting for “52” to be a reference to the number of multiple Earths that exist.

While I was surfing the ‘net I read a pretty interesting observation about this pic. Someone mentioned how unusual for DC to place this event in a real American city instead of one of their fictional cities that dominate the DCU like Metropolis, Gotham, Keystone City, and Star City. That is one of the major differences between the DC Universe and the Marvel Universe. Marvel always boasts that their universe is more “realistic” and is based in real cities across America. Whereas, DC’s universe isn’t based in real cities.

This picture shows a real departure by DC by having the heroes assembled in New York City. It probably means nothing and was chosen because a headless Statue of Liberty has a fantastic dramatic effect. However, it still is an interesting observation.

I’ve really enjoyed 52 and this preview pic of WW III certainly gets me more excited about this upcoming event than I was for Infinite Crisis or Civil War. DC has a storyline that has so much potential. I hope that they don’t squander this golden opportunity to do something really special.

UPDATE: Loyal Revolutionary Anthony astutely spied the Atom’s arm coming out of the ground near Blue Beetle’s legs. Another follower of the Revolution informed me that WW III actually takes place during Week 50 of 52. And after checking out the high res pictures on Newsarama, I’m pretty sure that the Flash is Barry Allen. He has blue eyes. Wally had green eyes. Bart always had yellow eyes. Barry had blue eyes.