The DC Universe remains a strange setting and object. A tattered together tapestry that feels more like an archipelago than a unified land mass like the Marvel Universe. It’s a strange beast. It’s an assembly from the various acquisitions and power grabs that united a disparate number of publishers under one banner. The DCU is a place of paper and ink that defies and slips out of any attempts to create a ‘clean’ and contradiction-free tapestry. It’s a setting where ‘continuity’ and ‘canon’ feel like loaded and dangerous words, as the crisis-afflicted setting resists any certainty those imply. It feels like a taped-together mess that barely holds, and yet when it does, it can be magnificent. Astonishing tales can be woven from its tendrils of impossible absurdity. It’s a reality operating on vibrations, wherein Superman sings to save existence.
There’s something broken and yet beautiful about it.