Comment Log

It is the coolest thing in the world that people are even reading this website in the first place.  It's a very personal project; the content is the product of a very small group of friends, while the actual text of the website is almost completely my own.  This is really "Matt's headcannon, the website", and any time anyone ever spends reading it is just a gift.

I started posting people's comments a few years ago, but it got a little hard to keep track of, so I decided to move it all to it's own page.  I'll be keeping the most recent comments here, while moving the older ones over to the Comment Archive.

Also, I'm going to start setting up a FAQ, because some questions just aren't ever going to stop happening.  If nothing else, it will give me something to link people to when they insist on explaining to me why the extra Lantern Corps are actually cool.  (They're not.)

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~"​Makes me curious if you think there's any room for Bat Mite"

I don't know if it's all the same person, but we had three really great questions this week all about possibly including other characters, all of which have some pretty fun answers. 

We actually do have an idea for how we'd use Bat Mite.  It's one of those times where we're really changing things around so that it all fits much better into my own personal headcanon, it's not based on any sort of canon story... I just happen to like the idea.  

The idea would specifically be that Bat Mite would appear in a single story, one that plays out on the page for Mister Mxyzptlk (I wrote that from memory just now!).  It would be a particular encounter that also includes Batman, in which Batman is ALSO visited by an imp of his own, one that is trying to be Batman's biggest fan... but over the course of the story it's revealed that Bat Mite is actually one of the creations of Mxyzptlk.  Undeterred, Bat Mite actually uses his abilities to help Superman and Batman defeat Mxyptlk even though he knows it will unmake him, allowing him to actually help his hero for real.

If we were going to use Bat Mite, that's how we'd do it.  Does anyone like that?  Do you want to see it in a future update?  

~"​ are you ever going to make a page for Joe Chill?"

Similar to Bat Mite, we actually have a specific idea for Joe Chill that isn't supported by any comic reference, it's just an thought that I have personally that I'm actually pretty insistent about.  Here we go: PERSONALLY... I don't think it helps Batman's story for him to actually know who killed his parents. 

Part of what he does for Dick is help him actually get closure early on.  He empowers him to capture (and chose to arrest) Boss Zucco, so he doesn't follow the same path Bruce did.  That's something we all agree on and I think we're all on board with. What I'm suggesting is that this is a stronger story beat if, in contrast with Dick, Bruce never found his parents killer.  He never got any sort of closure. It gives Bruce this lingering specter of that crime that, without a shape of it's own, morphs into something broader and intangible, making a small piece of that crime become part of the DNA of EVERY crime he stops.  

So... in my mind, I like to imagine that "Joe Chill" is literally young Bruce's Rollo Tomassi.  A name he invented as a child to give the faceless killer of his parents a persona. I know that's a completely non-canon idea, but personally it just works so so much better for me that for my personal headcanon, that's the way I'm going to go. 

(BTW that's Rollo Tomassi, the LA Confidental character. Not the manosphere hack.)

~"Any room for Jon Valor, the Black Pirate?"

One more new question about our character plans, and this time it's not someone I've ever thought about before.  DC has a ton of non-superhero historical characters from the 50s post-Golden Age era of publication.  Black Pirate is one of them, but there's also the Silent Knight, the Viking Prince, Captain Fear, the Golden Gladiator... you could even make arguments that World War II characters like Enemy Ace sort of hold a similar place in DC's lexicon.  These characters don't (and shouldn't) really interact with the main web of events that make up DC's tapestry of continuity, so it would be hard to populate their timeline without events to give it structure...

We DID include one of these characters already, though, in Super Chief, and you could make an argument that including DC's culture of Western Heroes is a similar undertaking.  

So to answer your question, yea I do think there's room.  I would basically need to just go read a bunch of atomic age comics to work out enough content to build a timeline from, since it would by definition need to stand alone, but I think we can safely say this is a worthwhile thing to do.  Are there any other characters like these that you think deserve to be examined?

~"​Hola, my friend As always, enjoying what you are doing on the site. I just am asking a question on the Light. Are those the only members that the group has? Why not Lex Luthor? Or is that the purpose of that is the long range control and developement of Humanity and those guys are people who can agree on that idea? If so, I think that the Ultra Humanite really would ve a worthy add. See you Adios"

Hola!  This is actually a really good question, because we had brought this up in the discord once upon a time and I actually couldn't remember the result... turns out we never actually finished the conversation!  

So the question is still kind of up in the air.  It's important to point out here, in the DCCP the Light aren't the same thing they are in the Young Justice cartoon, which invented them; they're just a supervillain think tank, they're not doing any of the Development of Humanity stuff.  Arguably that could make MORE sense for Lex to be a member, but he did just get out of the whole Injustice Gang and being manipulated by Mageddon to try to end the world thing... so honestly I'm not sure?  Maybe?

You second suggestion, about Ultra-Humanite, is actually really interesting, because lest we forget, he's actually dead.  However, we have some really interesting plans branching out of that death that actually do effect the Light, so you'll have to stay tuned for that one! 

~"Any plans for the Mad Mod? Animated series gave me a soft spot for the guy, plus I don't think you have an Edna Mode type yet."

Thank you for asking, I added him to the Do You Have Plans For This Character? FAQ.

~"​Love me some Mari"

Hell yea.  Vixen rules.

~"Just a thought, but couldn't there be a place for Lord Death Man (and then by extension Flatline) with your various Asian Heroes, rather than with Batman?"

You're certainly right that that's where he would go, specifically in Japan.  He's too street level to challenge Big Science Action, but he comes preloaded with his own heroic nemesis, Mr. Unknown, so If we were going to put him in the timeline it's pretty much a gimmie that this would be part of it.  

The truth, though, is that this just isn't a character you're likely to see on the site any time soon.  I added them to the Do You Have A Plan For This Character? FAQ, so you can see why.  

~"I genuinely didn’t know about Isis’ history besides 52, I assumed that was her first appearance. I had no idea she had her own tv show! Thanks for teaching me about her long and cool history!"

Well hey, I'm glad you enjoyed our update!  This is really cool to find out about, I'm really glad we could show you some new cool comic stuff!  This is exactly the sort of comment we love getting. If any of you guys feel compelled to let us know about stuff you learned from our website, we'd love to hear from you!

~"Did Harvey know Bruce growing up in this timeline or did they only become friends when they were adults? They're relatively close in age and even if they didn't go to the same school, they could've known each other through Leslie Thompkins like in the Arkhamverse Also since he became Two-Face years after Dick made his debut as Robin, I'm curious what their relationship beforehand was, if they ever got the proper chance to interact. Modern Batman stories tend to retroactively put Harvey's transformation into Two-Face before Dick becoming Robin, so him knowing Harvey beforehand adds a interesting element to their antagonistic relationship"

I don't think they would know each other from childhood... honestly I tend not to incorporate most stories that have much to do with Bruce's childhood.  He was kind of busy being horribly broken.  This relationship makes way more sense as a sort of casual one in their adulthood, insasmuch as they likely moved in a lot of the same circles. I think the animated series, as usual, is a really good model to follow. 

~"Slam Bradley was originally created by Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. Siegel and Shuster are the co-creators. “The Major,” communicated to Jerry Siegel in a letter dated May 13, 1936. He described a new magazine to be published, which would become Detective Comics."

This commenter went on to provide a really cool quote from Wheeler-Nicholson, which you can read on this unrelated but also cool article about the development of Superman. 

This is a really interesting point, because it does sort of speak to how we define "created", right?  Is Slam Bradley the creation of the guy who provided the artist and writer with the outline of what he wanted to see for his new comic magazine, or was it the artist and writer who actually did the thing?  I can see it going both ways, but I think that as a person who regularly commissions artwork, I wouldn't be comfortable then claiming that the artwork is mine, you know what I mean?  

~"Since the International Heroes are being fleshed out more now, I think having Freedom Beast around as a liberating force in early Apartheid South Africa akin to how Amazing-Man embodies the Civil Rights struggles of the early-to-mid 1900s would be really interesting. Obviously it's a very serious subject to delve into, but it's what the character was created for and even just from a lore perspective having this champion of justice standing up to an oppressive White Supremacist regime would naturally be a massive source of inspiration for the African heroes who'd come after him. Hell, even the name "The Kingdom" is evocative of the Animal Kingdom that Freedom Beast draws his power from, so there's probably some way you could tie that name choice back to him."

That's a pretty neat idea.  It looks like early Apartheid South Africa would be 1948 with the victory of the National Party, so that is certainly a time when we could safely integrate a new international hero.  

I think there are a few hurdles that we'd need to clear to make this work, but we can certainly talk about them.  We did have Bwana Beast in the timeline once upon a time, but we ultimately took him out for any one of a number of reasons.  Mostly, the concept just feels sort of silly at it's core, in a sort of playful Police Comics way. That would be fine, if there wasn't also something fundamentally associated with race built into the character.  I know that the creation of Freedom Beast ostensibly resolves the racial undertones of the character by replacing him with a black hero... but now we're left with a black character dressing in a notably jungle-themed costume, and honestly I don't know that I'm quite the person to determine if that's appropriate or not.  Coupled with the fact that its STILL kind of a silly character concept, I just don't think I'm comfortable with the character as-is.

I think if the core concept of Freedom Beast can be reimagined in a way that sets aside some of those concerns, so we can have fun with this character in a way that doesn't quite raise as many hackles, your concept here is a really good one.  

~"Did Bruce Wayne ever take Carmine up on the offer he was promised? If so, what did he ask?"

​This is an EXCELLENT question.  I know that in most takes on this story (which specifically comes from Long Halloween) the fact that Bruce rejects this offer and instead chooses to take apart the systems of power that allow Falcone to make this offer in the first place is kind of the whole point, but I was curious if it's ever gone another way?  It turns out it HAS; this is a choice you can make in the Telltale Game, forging a short-lived alliance with Falcone.  This game is obviously very non-canon for several spoilers reasons far beyond this one, but what an interesting little divergence that I don't think I ever even noticed before!

~"On King Arthur’s page, Mordred’s link on the bottom goes to Lady Guinevere"

Lord it is insane how many of these there are. I think there's a thing that happens when I create these things where if I go too quick with the update, the actual link part of the link doesn't take.  No excuse for it really... this is just what happens when there's only one person doing this, and that person is usually doing it late at night after a full day of work :)  

There's no way to search for these, unfortunately, I'm just going to have to keep relying on you eagle-eyed tigers to find them  I'm trying to be more careful when I do them, but in the meantime, I went out and got these special, ultra-rare, limited edition No-Prizes specifically for people who find these broken links.  Do NOT start trading these and then set up a speculative market, okay?  

~"Why is there a Related Characters link back to Batman's page on Plas' page?"

Specifically because Batman is the reason Plastic Man has that resurgence in his career?  He's pretty much retired and just raising Luke, but Batman recognizes just how unbelievably powerful and useful he is and brings him into the Watchtower.  I hopped in and made that a little clearer in his page.

​

~"I think there is definitely something in connecting Alan Scott with the Starheart and the villain called Evil Star."

Thank you!  This is admittedly a controversial direction we took his story in... we've had some people let us know that we could just as easily have him internalized the power of the Starheart... which is more or less canon, and would allow him to just stop aging... but we didn't really want to go that way.  We didn't want a godlike Alan, we wanted a very human one.  So this is a departure and not everyone liked it... but we're glad you do! 

~"There are a few pages (such as the Batman one) that refer to Bill Finger as the artist and Bob Kane as the writer. But to my knowledge it is the opposite, with Finger as writer and Kane as artist or editor."

~"On the Red Hood page, the Detective Comics issue mentioned credits the story as "the Kane" era, but misses an opportunity to more specifically credit Bill Finger as the writer of the first Red Hood story."

~"Superman's link redirects to Batman on Perry White's page in the related characters section"

~"Bloodwynd's actual first appearance was Justice League Spectacular #1, a story that was continued in Justice League America #61, which was published over a month later."

A lot of these are all from one person, who did specifically say that I don't NEED to include their contribution here... but they didn't say that I COULDN'T, and I really do like making sure people see all the ways readers have helped me work out all the kinks on a website that, at this point, is probably big enough that people might be surprised that it's just me doing it. 

Obviously there was a specific interest in protecting the legacy of Bill Finger here, which is a noble enough effort.  I tried to reword them to correct for it... but this IS one of those times where the comment indicates a mistake without telling me what pages to go to, which means I have to go hunting. 

The other two comments are more traditional... yet another incorrect page link, a feature that I honestly think will never fully go away... and apparently I had Bloodwynd's first appearance wrong... but I mean, you can hardly blame me for having missed this... 

In any case, thank you so much for your help!  As always, I went and made sure I had an ultra-rare No-Prize for your efforts!  I need you to be careful with this one, It's very new, and I worry about how it will react to direct sunlight. 

~"HOLY $#!^ MARVEL CONTINUITY PROJECT!!!!"

~"You brilliant &@$^@%*, you made a Marvel Timeline! Thank you so %^#&ing much!"

~"Will you be updating each website at the same time? Or will they both have different schedules"

~"If you’re looking for inspiration for your Marvel Continuity project, I’d highly recommend artist Green-Mamba on deviantart. He’s drawn over almost 400 Marvel characters, and he has some really interesting ideas and stories."

Boy did this get a big response.  The funny thing here?  This site has actually been up since maybe 2017?

The big innovation here is just that I wanted to make it possible to have this site grow more organically.  So you're not going to see updates with whole "finished" pages being uploaded, but instead I'll just add events to the timeline on one character or another.

I do enjoy Green Mamba quite a bit.  My focus is generally more on building the timelines than the character designs, but you can't do this as long as I've been doing it and miss such a big fandom contributor as GM.  If you haven't already, shoot me an email @ [email protected] for a discord invite, where we're often talking about this stuff. 

~"Accidentally discovered your site. I'm greatly enjoying your timeline and reading through the different profiles. However, I've discovered a couple of typos. I'll start making comments to help you identify and edit them. Under the "Marvel Family" section, there is an error: Mary is written as having "Freeman" as a surname. ...'He created characters like Mary Freeman's "Mary Marvel", Freddy Freeman's "Captain Marvel Jr"'..."

Welcome to the site!  Usually I would give you a No-Prize for finding an error, but I'm pretty sure you also did the next few comments, so I thought I'd try to keep them all together.  

​~"I love how you've updated the Captain Marvel family mythos. Mergimg the old and new continuities, like Uncle Dudley as a foster parent, was genius. I also love that you're preserving the original trio. I was initially perturbed by making Mary lower tiered; as a twin myself, I loved her being Billy's sister and having the potential to be equally powerful. They said, I respect your take, which takes into account her meta history... a character who has always functionally been a derivative and often a sidekick. So foster sister and side character do make sense. This overall project is fascinating to me. I've found myself opening up tons of tabs (I have at least 20 open now) and can't wait to read more. A friend of mine and I did a similar DC shared universe years ago, where I ended up remaking the timeline. How inspiring me in one day posting my own take. Keep up this awesome work! I hope you do more with it, like stories, if you haven't already."

I'm glad you approve!  Dating all the way back to our original timelines, we actually had skipped giving Mary & Freddy their own powers at first... our goal was to prioritize Billy and the small army of Marvels felt like it diminished that, but I'm really glad we were able to make this change as a way to sort of have the best of both worlds. 

I maintain that we ALL build a sort of internal head canon, that its actually a core part of just being a comic fan.  I've had some amazing conversations with other fans about their personal fan timelines, and I have absolutely used more than a few ideas I got from them.  I don't mean to push the discord in every response, but I bet you would really enjoy joining the conversation!

~"I really love what you did with Lana. While I have grown accustomed to get current superpowered status, and her relationship to John Henry, I do love that she has agency in her life. I really love that she is the one to help Clark and Lois understand the affect they have on each other, and that she gets to move on from Clark before Clark and Lois get together, so that she doesn't feel like an afterthought, or second best. Great stuff."

Thank you very much!  This is one we really worked very, very hard on.  Creating a story for Lana that honored her tried and true role in Clarks story but also made her the star of her own life was a big priority for us.  This is one of those times where we REALLY like what we did, but I worry how well I did at conveying the idea to you?  So the feedback is extremely appreciated.  

Everybody else... this is the type of comment I'm looking for.  I'm going to feed off of this for a month. 

~"Maybe Count Vertigo could use an update? His page mentions his sister dying and Perdita becoming queen twice"

~"The Troy War could be from 1204 ... Before Christ. If we talk about 1204 a.c you are more into crusades' time."

~""Canon" It's often misspelled as "cannon" on a few pages (last noticed on Anansi's page)."

Ooo... these were all savage this time.  

Count Vertigo was hard because I's apparently recreated the story where his sister dies and his niece becomes queen THREE times in his timeline.  They must somehow be artifacts left over from an update I did at some point  (probably the Merlyn update), and I had to work backward and figure out which one was the real one.  

The Trojan War one was just a blow to my pride.  This is stuff I usually do pretty well... I literally just looked up the date of the Trojan War (which is part of the original Zealot lore), and I literally just missed the BC.  I took your advice and used a reference to the Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople, and honestly I kind of like that even more than the Trojan War reference.  So this all worked out, but I still feel embarrassed about this one!

And this last one was just brutal.  They were absolutely right, I make that error a lot... but to fix all of them I had to spend a whole afternoon searching out the word "cannon" and correct every.  single.  one. of. them. This is the sort of homework feeling that you really thought you weren't going to experience once you graduated. 

Still... I can't thank you all enough.  This is the sort of help that totally sustains the project.  As a thank you, I'd like you all to look under your chair.  you'll find a brand new state of the art No-Prize.  ​

~"Rest well, hope you feel better soon!"

Thank you! I've been adapting to an appendix-free lifestyle really nicely!

~"​I don't really get how Black Alice's power-set is poorly defined? She's just Parasite but confined to stealing powers from other beings powered by magic. Her only issue is that she had an unlimited range originally, which is admittedly ridiculously busted, but if it's tweaked to being within a city block or so she becomes a lot more reasonably usable."

Maybe poorly defined was inaccurate.  Lets instead say "insufficient".  If she had her own power set and fueled it by absorbing the magic of others, that would be a different thing, but the whole thing where she keeps manifesting the powers and look of other people isn't quite a complete idea for me. It's an arbitrary standard, I know, but it really just comes down to my personal preference. 

As it happens, we've talked in the discord about characters like this who have random abilities. It was pointed out to me that liking Crazy Jane but not liking Dial H for Hero is incongruous.  I think what I ultimately want is for that hero to have a set of specific power sets they're swapping between rather than it being completely original every time.  Think more Ben 10. 

~"​​What is your source material for the early historical stories regarding Atlan, Jebediah of Canaan, and the first Shadowpact? This story sounds fascinating but I can’t find where to read it."

Boy that's a tall one.  It's more or less original; the Shadowpact is understood to be group that has gathered previously in the past, so we used that to create a history of Shadowpacts... going all the way back to an event more or less built from different cataclysmic past events, most notably the origins of Atlantis as depicted in the Peter David series the Atlantis Chronicles.  We've also taken some liberties with the character Atlan, who is a blend of a few different mystic characters... but I have a suspicion we're going to rethink that by the time we get to him.  Jebediah is one of the origins that's been presented for the Wizard Shazam, who was an obvious candidate to be part of that first Shadowpact. 

So I guess the short answer is that it's kinda just built from lots of little bits?

~"​Wow, I really love this idea, and I'd love to see how this school expands over time. Off the top of my head I feel like Galaxy is a very fitting pull for one of the new students, and Miss Martian getting involved as maybe a Teacher's Assistant or (like in YJ S3) a school counselor also makes a lot of sense to me."

This was posted on our new Haven Project, and honestly I breathed a sigh of relief when I got some positive feedback on the idea, because it's more original than we usually get, and it's really nice to have that validation.

We have had quite a few suggestions for other characters that can be involved, and yes, Galaxy and Miss Martian have both absolutely come up.  I actually really liked the idea of using Beast Girl from the Dennis Culver Doom Patrol, and it also feels like there's a window here somewhere where you could work out a way to use Miguel Devante from the 2005 Scott Beaty Son of Vulcan series as a sort of apprentice space paladin?  

I think the trick here is that we don't want this to be the sum total of a character's story, right?  There are characters that can absolutely be incorporated here, but they also need to have an ongoing story of their own.  We'll see how it works!

~"​You’ve mentioned him in Lois Lane’s page, but do you have plans to make a separate page for her father; General Sam Lane?"

We do!  The Superman Supporting Characters we've done so far are all from my original Black Book timelines, but there are characters we still want to do that weren't in there.  Sam (and probably Lucy) Lane, Bibbo, and Steve Lombard come to mind.

~"​Greetings from Brazil. I've been a huge fan of this website for a while. I have a question regarding Miss America: in your timeline, she has a love interest named Derek Verheyen, but I couldn't find a reference to him in the comics. Is this a wholly original creation or an amalgamation of several different characters?"

Hi back! Thank you do much for reading!

You caught a very specific little change we made, and it's a pretty fun one.  In comic canon, Miss America's husband's name is actually Admiral Derek Trevor.  He's a function of the attempt to keep Infinity Inc character Fury in canon post-crisis.  She'd previously been Lyta Trevor, daughter of Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor, but post crisis she's actually the biological daughter of a new Golden Age Fury, and the adopted daughter of Miss America and her husband. 

Of course, we don't have to deal with that, and we thought we could put some distance from that by changing Derek's name.  It's a Dutch name, so we just looked up common Dutch surnames and liked the sound of Verheyen.

~"​Why did you leave out harlequin??"

This one confused me at first before I realized this comment was left on Flamebird's page, so this is actually a reference to Duela Dent. 

I don't really ever need a reason to leave someone out.  It's probably more accurate to say that I need a reason to ADD them.  I absolutely acknowledge that every character, no matter how obscure, has their fans.  What's more, sometimes the point of something is just to exist for it's own sake, because that thing is cool and we like it.  That is subjective, though, so if a character doesn't present as fun or necessary or relevant to ME (or to one of my friends or followers willing to really go to bat and try to convince me), then I just don't have a reason to include them. 

~"​If you ever make a spin-off project centered around the mess that is Marvel Continuity, that would be the best day of my month!"

Well stay tuned, right?

Rather than be cryptic about it I can just say... Of course I work on a Marvel Timeline also.  This whole project was just something I was turning over in my head and chatting with friends about long before it ever became a website, and yes, There is absolutely a Marvel timeline taking shape as well.  

I think that, for a long time, the fact that the MCU existed kind of gave me an excuse not to work to hard on it?  Marvel was kind of GOOD, you know?  It didn't feel like a big mess I needed to clean up?  Of course... NOW... :)

For a while I've been intending to get to the Marvel Continuity Project... when I got to it, you know what I mean?  But the reality that's become evident is that I'm not ever going to be DONE with the DCCP.  It's my main hobby, I do this every single day.  So there just isn't going to be a point where I'm done with this and can start doing Marvel.  This is something we're going to think about in the new year, just what is the most sustainable way to start to include a Marvel project into the 'work' I do here.  I have a kind of weird method in my head that would be very different from the way the DC project works but might just work better for a very differently structured mythology. 

~"​I think you should flesh-out The Phantom Stranger’s page"

Well thank you, I will!

Of course, there's tons of pages I need to eventually get to, that's what the poll is for.  So as per your request, you'll find that the Phantom Stranger has been added to the poll!  Please let me know if there are other characters whose pages you'd like to see redone next!

~"Love this. Great Job!"

Thank you, we love you too!  

~"How did Rick Flag die in this universe?"

He died on mission with the Suicide Squad.  It's one cataclysmically bad mission that leads to his death and the escape of several members. 

~"How do you decide when the wartime JSA debuted? Like Hawkman and Hawkwoman becoming heroes back in the 20s and the rest becoming heroes somewhere in the early to mid 30s"

Over time, as the timeline takes more and more shape, you find the dates of things as they relate to other stuff?  Starting out, though... you just pick one. The main reason I have the JSA operating in wartime at all is because it's meant to be a response to World War II to me, so that's when I had it start. 

~ "Neat to have you back, love the updates!"

I'm glad you like them!  It doesn't really feel like I was gone all that long on my end.  You know that feeling when you look up at your calendar after a few weeks and all of a sudden it's September? I'm going to keep on plugging away... this website is MOSTLY for me anyway :)

~ "Any plans for Black Alice?"

~ "Any ideas/plans for Sasha Bordeaux?"

Thank you for these!  I actually really like maintaining the Do You Have a Plan 4 This Character? FAQ.  Believe it or not, it does give me some resources I can think about in the future, so even if I don't have a plan NOW, it might show up in the future!

~ “Is the Scavenger cult a thing from the comics? Was Boston killed by Hook because he had a connection to Rama-Kushna?”

That’s 100% an us thing.  Canonically the Hook killed Boston (entirely because he was an easy target) to earn his way into the Society of Assassins, a group led by the character Sensai… all well before Ra’s Al Ghul and the League of Assassins were introduced.  The two organizations were merged into one literary device later.

It’s kind of a tough knot to untangle, and it doesn’t actually get you anywhere once you do.  We just built an alternate take on the idea that does the same thing narratively and can stand alone. The name is from a couple different villains including a fairly cool Superboy baddy and one of the many Aquaman villains that was just a dude in a diving suit.

~ “I love your website. Even though I don’t agree with all of your choices, it's a great reference for finding alternative ways to think about characters and their place in the larger DC Universe. I’ve been working on a project similar to this called the DC Future-Verse (on the nose I know) consisting of custom action figures and again this has been a great resource for sparking the imagination. I ended up going with Knightowl for Tim. It just fits with his propensity to stay up late, his intelligence (wise as an owl), and you can do things with his uniform akin to Owlman from the Crisis on Two Earths animated movie to really lean into the tech aspect.”

Thank you for reading, I’m glad you’re enjoying it! I hope you find an avenue to share your creation with everyone… Shoot me an email for a discord invite so we can talk about it!

The Tim Drake hero name is always a sticky point for me because I love the name we came up with and to my mind the matter is settled, so I always bristle when people keep discussing it.  Don’t you people know I solved this already? But Knightowl is a good one, we should add that to the list of names people like that I’m ignoring.  As it happens… Talon IS the name of Owlman’s sidekick?  Is that something?

~ “Love this site; been building my own headcannon for a long time now. When I found this I was in love. Cool to see where other people take it.”

Thank you for enjoying it and letting me know!  I really do think part of being a fan of comics is constructing your own functioning headcanon because I don't think you can really follow a story this twisty and self-contradictory without one, and I KNOW I’m not the only person for whom that is absolutely their favorite part.  Just like for the last guy, shoot me an email so we can talk about your headcanon in the discord!

~ “Just "thanks."”

Just “You’re welcome!”

~ “I know this would be pretty hard to do considering the amount of characters on this site and the fact that some of these events are pure headcanon and haven't actually happened in the comics or adaptations, but I think it would be cool if the timeline included citations to the stories that inspired certain events. It's something I really liked about Waid's New History of the DC Universe and I think it would be cool to include here. Definitely not necessary, just cool.”

It certainly would be!  Are you offering to do it? :)

~ “Hi, what happened to Arion? I’ve been looking over the history in the timeline, and there are a lot of mentions of Atlan and Atlantis, but no mention of Arion and the complete 40.000 year history of Atlantis. I also can’t find Arion in any character lists. Is Arion not a part of your continuity? Is the 1990 epic mini series about the origins of Atlantis (by Peter David) not a part of the continuity? Or did I just miss something? Thanks”

I can tell you exactly what happened.  Really early on we sort of mooshed Arion up with a few other major Atlantean figures… if you look at the page for Atlan, you’ll find we reference Arion in there.  We talk about the Atlantis Chronicles quite a bit on the site as a series we loved, but no I don’t think we actually draw that much content from it.  Our history of Atlantis is tied up with the earliest Shadopact… you can find more of it there. That said, there probably is room for Arion to be a separate character with his own adventures. His actual canon stories, the good stuff, isn't actually canon to the core DC continuity, that came after the crisis... but that doesn't mean they can't be.  It would take some doing, but it's not impossible.

~ “I'm expecting the answer to this to be a no, as the KGB has been defunct since 1991, meaning it can't be part of a sliding timeline, but out of curiosity, I'll still ask. Do you have any plans for KGBeast?”

I went ahead and added KGBeast to the Plans 4 This Character? Faq, but since you went into a little more depth with him; You’re right that we can’t specifically reference the end of the KGB in our timeline, but there’s nothing saying we can’t just reference… the idea that the KGB used to exist?  The character could use that name, reference the old organization, without it being time-specific.

~ “I had an idea for the Shining Knight I thought I’d tell you. What if sir Justin is transgender and becomes Ystina in modern times?”

That's a very out of the box idea… and you picked a really interesting time to share it, because take a look how this actually came out.  We’re not that far off from each other!

~ “Also, in the related characters section on Oracle's page, Batgirl's link directs to Black Canary”

As usual; a very hard error for me to find!  I should really create a special reward for these.  You are the first recipient of the “Character Link” No-Prize!  It’s slightly more sincere.

~ "​Are you guys alright? It’s been over a month since your last update"

It certainly has.  Sorry about that.  

I explain this over in the update log, but the short answer is just that I have a real life too, and sometimes it takes priority.  Summertime is a busy time for me, and this is, as much time and energy and love as I put into it, a hobby.  Sometimes I can only get to it a little bit.  

Although I will say this?  The fact that you NOTICE a long delay means that I've actually been able to put up a pretty regular update schedule recently, so I'm pretty proud of that!

~ "​I just wanna saw I absolutely LOVE your updates on the Green Arrow family. Major improvement"

Thank you!  I'm not sure, but I think that was the biggest full rewrite I've ever tried to do.  It was the result of a bunch of different rewrites I had stacked up waiting to do, and suddenly I had to do them all at once!

~ "​Hey want to say you're amazing I can't give anything to help other than saying what you're doing is really great because I'm in poor country Thank you for this website and stay healthy"

Wow, thank you!  Please don't feel like you need to contribute anything... I would be doing this hobby even if there was no website associated with it (and did, for years).  I do still have the patreon, but I really don't do anything with it, it's just there as a way for people to contribute if they want to.  If anything, we've only occasionally had a gofundme around here for certain projects, like the art for Big Science Action!

That's actually a good question though.  If there WAS a specific part of this website you think we should commission some new art for, what do you think it would be?

​~ "Mmm... Red Canary... And Catwoman Holly Robinson. Both too big for future Damian's Titans... And not very into an actual group. And more or less in the age... Plus very street gals Why then you can add both in the future as Birds of Prey? Adios, amigo!"

Definitely Red Canary, right?  Their story right now is really going to be centered more on whether Sin should follow in Dinah's fishnets at all, and I do think it might be good for her to just be a solo hero for a little while... but it's practically a given that sooner or later She's going to join the team that Dinah helped found.  

Holly, though?  I wonder.  Selina popped up with the Birds of Prey a few times, the same way she popped up for practically everything else, but I don't know if you'd ever really think of her as a joiner.  She was kind of the pure opposite.  Does that mean Holly is going to be the same way?  I don't really know... but I do know we have a team-up for her that's going to be happening once we get to certain other characters.

~ "​What's the sources of the first and last pictures of Jimmy Olsen on this page?"

Those are both from the 2011 Jimmy Olsen one-shot by Nick Spencer, with art by R B Silva.  As I understand it it collected a bunch of second features from from Paul Cornell Action Comics run.  It's a really fantastic book, It's only a single issue, and it's not that hard to get. Other than All-Star Superman, I really think this was the big return of fun Silver Age Jimmy.  

~ "​I think Bart Allen’s page could use an update"

He actually already HAD his update, but that was some time ago.  Anything in particular about him you want to see updated?

~ "​Perhaps Danny could eventually grow to the size a small town as more and more "like minded" people move in. However, have him have amenities (Law Enforcement, First Responders, etc.) but somehow have them just as or better equipped than the big cities. Also the agricultural, commercial, and industrial venues have always seem to have whatever the customer is looking for. Essentially, he ends of become a "Super Liberal Amalgamation of Green Acres and Mayberry R,F.D.""

This is fun.  I think our DCCP version of Danny is good as he is, but this would be a fun take to see in, perhaps, a Danny-centric series? Maybe even a TV show, like you're proposing?

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