Earth-S

The DC Multiverse is a fictional continuity construct that is used in DC Comics publications. The Multiverse has undergone numerous changes and has included various universes, listed below between the original Multiverse and its successors.

Originally there was no consistency regarding "numbered" Earths—they would be either spelled out as words or use numbers even within the same story. For example, "Crisis on Earth-Three!" (Justice League of America (vol. 1) #29, August 1964) uses "Earth-3" and "Earth-Three" interchangeably. However, a tradition of spelling out the numbers emerged in "The Most Dangerous Earth" (Justice League of America (vol. 1) #30, September 1964). This convention was disregarded in Crisis on Infinite Earths, and it became common practice to refer to the various Earths with numerals instead. Infinite Crisis used both but Crisis On Infinite Earths: Absolute Edition and everything after 52 have referred to the alternate universes with numerals.

Because 52 introduced another set of earths and Convergence restored the Pre-Crisis multiverse all Pre-Crisis Earths below 52 are spelled out to help avoid confusion. Also Earths that were "revealed as a distinct parallel Earth in The Kingdom #2" i.e. part of hypertime are marked with a "*".

Showcase #62 (June 1966) for Earth-Twelve

Before the formal creation of its Multiverse, DC would use the "imaginary story" label to denote stories that did not fit and were never intended to fit into its canon—a tradition it would continue even after the creation of the Multiverse. Alan Moore's "What Ever happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" (Action Comics vol. 1 #583 and Superman vol. 1 #423) in 1986 was the last pre-Crisis story to use the label.

By contrast, other stories were clearly intended to be canonical, but various details were wrong or there were stories told in other media that were never said not to be canonical. As a result, fans and editors would create other Earths to explain things like the Super Friends comic (set on what fans referred to as Earth-1A).

Also there were many "one shot" Earths (such as the reality shown in "Superman, You're Dead, Dead, Dead" in Action Comics vol. 1 #399), for which few details were provided and would not be named until Crisis on Infinite Earth: Absolute Edition (Nov 2005).

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