Earth 1956

Earth-1956

Earth 1956 was the name of the universe the Super Friends lived in. This universe had many striking parallels with Earth-One.

One of the most striking elements of this reality was that its heroes were pretty much absolute paragons of virtue, with no fault or flaws to speak of.

They were incorruptible and wholly committed to helping others while preserving the doctrines of “truth, justice and peace for all mankind.”

History

The Distant Past

70,000,000 BC: In 1978, using Gorilla Grodd's Time Conveyor, Black Manta and Giganta trapped Aquaman and Apache Chief in 70,000,000 BC when they stole diamonds from South Africa.

In 1980, Doctor Wells attempted to escape from The Atom and Wonder Woman in his Time Elevator.

The two superheroes chased him back to the year 70,000,000 BC, where they had to rescue him from becoming the dinner of a Tyrannosaurus.

1941

• On Paradise Island, Diana was molded from clay by Hippolyta.

1957

• Time traveling from 1983, the Phantom Zoners Hul, Logar and Rom-Lok try to destroy Superboy.

Years before JLA debut

• Bruce Wayne's parents are murdered by a robber in Crime Alley. The youngster devotes his life to make criminals pay for their crimes, training his body and mind for years and becoming the Batman.
• In Smallville, when saving Lex Luthor from a fire, Superboy acidentally spreads unknown substances on Luthor's head, causing him to lose hair. An enraged Luthor vows to use his intellect to destroy Superman from now on.
• The pilot Hal Jordan is chosen by the dying alien Abin Sur as the next Green Lantern.

JLA Debut

• After joining forces on a mission, several heroes unite to form the Justice League of America. In answer, several supercriminals band together as the Legion of Doom, establishing their headquarters known as the Hall of Doom in Slaughter Swamp.

1976

• Hermes 20 is presented as America's 20th Manned Launch to the Moon.

1978

• The World Trade Center is attacked by the Legion of Doom using a powerful monolith that they located in the Molten region of the center of the Earth.

1979

• Superman and his counterpart from a Universe of Evil temporarily switch places.

1984

• Darkseid comes to Earth for the first time.
• Brainiac appears in a new, metallic-skeleton look.

3984

• A time-traveling Legion of Doom conquers the whole galaxy.

11978

After wandering into a library's ruins, Flash, Green Lantern and Superman find a book describing history of the world from the year 2000 to 7000, and how the Legion of Doom conquered the world in 3984.

Crisis on Infinite Earths

John Constantine and the others about to learn about the destruction of Earth-508.

Earth-508 getting consumed by antimatter.

Batman reads a transcript detailing the fate of their planet.

In one of the timelines in which the multiverse was being destroyed by the Anti-Monitor, several of the Earths isolated themselves in the Bleed, which was located outside of the multiverse.

This was done in the hopes of keeping them hidden from the Anti-Monitor. Still, the Anti-Monitor managed to breakthrough the dimensional barrier and into the Bleed.

One of the many Earths he destroyed with his antimatter "armada" as it was referred to, was Earth 1956, or Earth-508 as the Mister Terrific of Earth-2 called it.

From the Monitor's Satellite, Mister Terrific watched as the enormous wall of antimatter approached the planet. He then informed the other superheroes there with him in the satellite.

While on the surface of that soon-to-be-doomed world, the Super Friends are all assembled inside the Hall of Justice. The Justice League Monitor is tuned into the image of the approaching wall of antimatter that is about to consume the Earth. The TroubAlert then prints out a piece of paper. Batman then grabs the paper and he reads it.

Behind him, Superman, Aquaman, Robin, and the Wonder Twins Zan and Jayna are also present, with seriously concerned expressions on their faces. Wonder Woman too is present, and she briefly steps forward, almost as if she was about to ask Batman what he had just read -- but chances are, she already knew...and one can't be certain if she was truly about to ask him anything, because in the next moment, Batman lifts his head up from the paper he was reading...and looks straight forward. At this point, it's pretty clear that he knew his world was doomed. And it seems he had accepted his fate. Before anyone could react to anything though...the entire Hall of Justice was consumed with antimatter along with the Super Friends and their entire planet.

Back on the satellite, Mr. Terrific watches the Super Friends world fade from his computer screen, and he hangs his head down and tells the others "Earth-508 is gone."

Aliases

This universe was known by a number of different names, depending on whose perspective it was. The interdimensional travelling group known as the League of Lanes referred to Earth 1956 as Earth-50, whereas the people of Earth-F referred to Earth 1956 as Earth-One. It should also be noted, that the Justice League of Earth 1956 referred to their own universe as Earth-One, whereas they referred to Earth-F as Earth-Two.

The Mister Terrific of Earth-2 likewise referred to Earth 1956 as Earth-508. This might have been due to the confusion that the Justice League of this Earth were known as the Super Friends, just as they were known as on the real Earth-508.

Naming the universe

This article is written
from the Real World perspective

• Note, this portion of the article is to be understood from the real world perspective.

The naming of the universe of the Super Friends franchise is a bit complicated. When the Super Friends comic first came out, E. Nelson Bridwell wanted the setting to be Earth-One. There were multiple references to other comics that were clearly set on that Earth, and there were even stories that firmly named it Earth-One. However later episodes of Super Friends and also DC books made it impossible for the Super Friends to exist in that Earth, which at the time was the mainstream world of the DC Multiverse. One thing is for sure though, that the Super Friends consider their Earth Earth-One, no matter what otherworlders call it.

Because of the obvious fact that the two Earths were in different universes, fans used the name Earth-1A while Bob Rozakis suggested the name Earth-B for the universe that the Super Friends franchise took place in.

Some people included DC's humor comics (like the Inferior Five) as part of Earth-B while others listed it as a separate reality called Earth-Twelve. In any case E. Nelson Bridwell was the writer of the Super Friends comic series which clearly put it on "Earth-B" and since it tied into the Super Friends television show, that also took place on "Earth-B". More recently, Super Powers comics volumes 1-3 were formally assigned to Earth-Thirty-Two. The Super Powers comics have always been considered more or less part of the Super Friends Universe, or at least sort of...there were clear contradictions but still...it stood to reason because the Super Powers comics were part of Earth-Thirty-Two, the universe that the Super Friends were part of was indeed Earth-Thirty-Two.

Still, more clarification came out on December 14, 2022. In Dark Crisis: Big Bang # 1 (February 2023), it was established that The Adventures of Superboy and Superfriends took place on Earth 1956. This was established by an appearance by Superboy and Krypto. Although there's been no clarification as to whether or not The New Adventures of Superman, The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure or The Batman/Superman Hour are also a part of this universe, in my opinion, it would be silly to assume they aren't, because they were all essentially part of the same show. Besides, here on the Super Friends Wiki, we've always considered all of the DC Comics television series from Filmation as part of the Super Friends universe. But at least as of 2022, it's official.

Continuity With 'Other' Universes

Here are a few of the similarities between Earth-1A and Earth-One

• Most of the Heroes and Villains resembled the Silver Age / Earth-One Characters exactly

(Earth-One characters link directly to the DC Database wiki):

Silver Age / Earth One Clark Kent / Superman (Earth-One) Katar Hol / Hawkman (Earth-One) Ray Palmer / The Atom (Earth-One) Barry Allen / The Flash (Earth-One) Hal Jordan / Green Lantern (Earth-One)

Earth-1A Superman (Earth-1A) Hawkman (Earth-1A) The Atom (Earth-1A) The Flash (Earth-1A) Green Lantern (Earth-1A)

• The Batman of Earth-One and the Batman of Earth-1A (according to the SuperFriends Comic Book issue #14) had a relationship with Silver St. Cloud.

Earth-1A effectively merged the histories of Earth-One and Earth-Two

• The SuperFriends Universe included characters that had counterparts on Earth-Two but not Earth-One

(Earth-Two characters link directly to the DC Database wiki):

Golden Age / Earth Two T.N.T (Earth-Two) Dan the Dyna-Mite (Earth-Two) Huntress (Earth-Two) Icicle (Earth-Two)

Earth-1A T.N.T. (Earth-1A) Dan the Dyna-Mite (Earth-1A) Huntress (Earth-Two / Earth-1A) Icicle (Earth-1A)

Earth-1A effectively merged the histories of Earth-One and Earth-S

• The SuperFriends Universe also had a Captain Marvel - as seen in Legends of the Superheroes (1979)
• The main version of Captain Marvel existed on Earth-S.
  • NOTE: he did have close analogs such as Captain Thunder (who was Billy Batson on Earth-Forty and William Fawcett on Earth-276). There was another unnamed analog who with a different version of Superwoman was seen on Earth-423.

Characters Created for This Reality:

• Black Vulcan
• Samurai
• Apache Chief
• El Dorado

To date a few of these characters have been recreated for various TV shows (links below are external).
From the DCAU Universe, we have:

• Black Vulcan aka Juice
• Samurai aka Wind Dragon
• Apache Chief aka Long Shadow

From the Young Justice Universe we have:

• Apache Chief aka Tye Longshadow

Earth-Thirty-Two

Earth-Thirty-Two is the official designation of the universe that Jack Kirby's Super Powers comic series (1984-1986) takes place in. It is in many ways a very similar Earth to Earth 1956, and there's very little to distinguish the two realities.

The Crisis on Infinite Earths: The Compendium assigned these stories to Earth-Thirty-Two which seems to be a hypertime reality. Furthermore, CoIEAE has an "Earth-B2" which refers back to a Earth-Forty-Six which has no listing in the index so how it figures in all this is unknown though the name suggests something similar to "Earth-B".

List of similarities

• In both universes the Justice League are referred to as the Super Powers Team.
• In both universes the Super Powers Team's headquarters is the Hall of Justice. (Note: On Earth-One, there never was a Hall of Justice. There was a version on New Earth and Earth 0, however.)
• Robin is a member of the team on both earths, whereas on Earth-One, he's only part of the Teen Titans, and he was known as Nightwing at that point.

Wildstorm Universe

Gen¹³

Whether or not the Wildstorm Productions such as Gen¹³ and Jim Lee's WildC.A.T.S: Covert Action Teams take place in the same reality as the Superfriends or in a different one altogether was not made clear.

This is further complicated by the fact that the Superfriends were name dropped, when Gen¹³ were compared to the Superfriends. This indicates that they are part of the same reality.

On the other hand, it's not entirely clear if the Superfriends reference was about real or fictional characters. If the Superfriends were intended to be a reference to fictional characters, then more than likely their universes are separate.

Still, this is impossible to know for sure, and in 2011 in DC Comics, the "Wildstorm Universe" no longer existed, as its' reality was folded into the greater DC Universe, making it part of the same reality.

See Also

• Multi-Universes
• Known Universes
• Continuity with Earth-One
• Earth-One
• Earth-1A Timeline

External Link

• Earth 1956 at the DC Database