DC All In Special #1 – Various
Art by Wes Craig and Daniel Sampere
It’s been a long time since I really paid much attention to the DC Universe. Sure, I’ve dipped my toes in every now and then, read a few graphic novels and collected editions here and there, but never really followed an ongoing arc across multiple titles. So maybe it’s time to change that.
Enter the All In Saga. This is effectively a(nother) reboot of the DC Universe, though this time there’s a lot going on, and there are two universes to keep an eye on.
See, it started with a storyline called Absolute Power (which I haven’t read yet) which basically ended with the old DC Universe getting a little bit battered and Darkseid, a villain I only have a passing familiarity with, got his ass kicked and wound up creating his own little universe where the good guys are the underdogs.
So in one corner, there’s the DC Universe as most people know it, with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and all the other spandex-clad superheroes fighting for a better world with the newly-created Justice League Unlimited, from their technomagical base of operations the Watchtower. This is the Earth-Prime universe.
And then in the opposite corner we have Darkseid’s universe, the Absolute Universe, where all the heroes get a new origin story that’s nothing like the ones we’re used to, and almost nothing is familiar. Batman’s not a gazillionaire, Superman grew up on Krypton, Wonder Woman grew up in Hell, and a whole bunch of other changes make this a very fresh new take on the DC IP. There’s not even a Justice League. This is the Earth-Alpha universe.
So this book, the All In One-Shot, is a jumping-off point for all of that, and I have to say it’s a great little read. Two great little reads. (It’s a flip book, two stories in one, you get the idea.)
If this is a taste of what’s to come going forward with this saga then I think I’m going to enjoy it. Given that it’s almost two years since the party started I’m going to mainly focus on the Absolute side of things, but time (and money) allowing, I may dip into the DC Universe side from time to time, just to see what’s happening with the vanilla versions of the Justice Gang.
