Flash travels back to change the past on Paradise Island so that Princess Diana wins the contest, thereby restoring the timeline to its' original state, although slightly modified. This change in the timeline is just one example of the distortions caused by hypertime.[1]
Hypertime is the over arcing alternate timeline framework on which all versions of the various DC multiverses reside.[2][3]
One key aspect of Hypertime is that diverging timelines can intersect, causing distortions to memories, actual historical records, and even present events.[4][5]
Hypertime realities range in stability from effectively being parallel universes to so unstable that they eventually fall apart (As with the Dark Multiverse realties).
Due to the fact that time travel was commonly practiced among the Super Friends; as well as their enemies the Legion of Doom, the potential for hypertime instability increased.[6] Theoretically, this in turn made the Superfriends reality very susceptible to not only alterations in the timeline but interactions with other hypertime realties as well. In fact, it can be proven that Giganta and Grodd remembered events from the hypertime reality Earth-Forty as if they had actually happened to them[7] but that Giagana's actual history was very different.[8]
This concept would help explain how a character such as Samurai, who was with the Super Friends since the 1970s, didn't become a superhero until his origin story in the mid-1980s. Clearly two or more hypertime realties were interacting distorting history and current events.
It would also explain how in some versions of Superman's past, he was Superboy,[9] whereas in others, it is implied that he didn't even become a superhero until he moved to Metropolis, and became Superman.[10]
Also, the story of the Wonder Twins' parents is also contradictory, according to one account, they are killed by a plague on Exxor when the Wonder Twins are still infants. In this version of the story Zan and Jayna's mother is named Rua;[11] however in another alternate version of the story, her name was Rayna, and she was killed by the Sphinx, and the Wonder Twins were teenagers when this happened.[12] These two contradictory accounts were likely due to interactions with other timelines via hypertime.
Notes[]
- Hypertime first appeared in The Kingdom # 2 (February 1999).[13]
- Hypertime was a concept created by Mark Waid for DC Comics to explain certain contradictions that were mistakenly made during the history of DC's run. It has never been directly referenced by name in any Super Friends related material[14], and it is simply being used to help explain such inconsistencies within the Earth-1A universe. Nevertheless, this is all conjecture.
References[]
- ↑ As seen in the Season 3 episode Secret Origins of the Superfriends (1978).
- ↑ Flash Vol 2 159
- ↑ The Multiversity Guidebook Vol 1 1
- ↑ The Kingdom Vol 1 2
- ↑ Flash Vol 2 159
- ↑ Legionnaires Vol 1 18
- ↑ Super Friends 30
- ↑ As depicted on the Season 3 episode: History of Doom.
- ↑ As seen in the Filmation series and two episodes of the Super Friends.
- ↑ This is conjecture based upon the 1988 Superman series. It's not entirely clear if he was Superboy during his youth in that show; but he is never shown to be...this isn't really a complete contradiction, but it's strange that it wasn't brought up, since his youth was extensively shown. Also, it might explain why Lex Luthor was a businessman in that series, rather than a publicly known supervillain. But even that isn't necessarily a contradiction, as it was three years after the end of the final season of the Super Friends, and thus he may have reformed and founded LexCorp during that period. That would also explain why Superman would be so mistrusting of him.
- ↑ As seen in Super Friends # 14 (November 1978).
- ↑ As seen in Cave Carson # 4 (March 2017) (2017).
- ↑ For more information about that DC comic book, click here.
- ↑ To this editor's knowledge.
External Links[]
- Hypertime at the DC Database