Earth-One


Earth-One is a name given to two fictional universes that have appeared in American comic book stories published by DC Comics. The first Earth-One was given its name in Justice League of America #21, after The Flash #123 explained how Golden Age versions of characters such as the Flash could appear in stories with their Silver Age counterparts. This Earth-One continuity included the DC Silver Age heroes, including the Justice League of America. Earth-One, along with the four other surviving Earths of the DC Multiverse, are merged into one in the 1985 miniseries Crisis on Infinite Earths. This Earth's versions of characters were primarily the Earth-One versions, but some characters from the four other worlds were also "folded" in. In Infinite Crisis, Earth-One was resurrected and merged with the primary Earth of the publication era to create a New Earth that brought back more aspects of Earth-One's original history. In 2007, a new version of Earth-One was created in the aftermath of events that occurred within the 52 series.

Pre-Crisis version

Flash of Two Worlds

Characters from DC Comics were originally suggestive of each existing in their own world, as superheroes never encountered each other. This was soon changed with alliances being formed between certain protagonists. Several publications, including All-Star Comics, Leading Comics and other comic books introduced a "shared-universe" among several characters during the 1940s until the present day.
Alternative reality Earths had been used in DC stories before, but were usually not referred to after that particular story. Also most of these alternative Earths were usually so vastly different that no one would confuse that Earth and its history with the so-called real Earth. That would change when the existence of another reliable Earth was established in a story titled "Flash of Two Worlds" in which Barry Allen, the modern Flash later referred to as Earth-One first travels to another Earth, accidentally vibrating at just the right speed to appear on Earth-Two, where he meets Jay Garrick, his Earth-Two counterpart.

Major events

Crisis on Infinite Earths was an effort by DC Comics to clean up their continuity, resulting in the multiple universes, including that of Earth-One, combining into one. This involved the destruction of the multiverse, including Earth-One and the first appearance of the post-Crisis Earth.

Post-''52'' version

At the end of the Infinite Crisis limited series, the realigned world is called "New Earth". There are now 52 universes: "New Earth", and Earths-1 to 51. In the final issue of the 52 weekly series, it is revealed that fifty-two duplicate worlds have been created and all but New Earth have been altered from the original incarnation.
Earth-1 is featured in the ' and ' graphic novels.

In other media