'Krypton' Showrunner on Whether the Show Is an Elseworlds Tale

After last night's mind-bending Season One finale, could SYFY's freshman hit Krypton be officially [...]

After last night's mind-bending Season One finale, could SYFY's freshman hit Krypton be officially classified as an Elseworlds story?

Not long ago, one of the many reports centering on Warner Bros. Pictures' flailing strategy for their DC movies centered on a rumor that the studio would bring to life a number of films that would stand alone and not be tied -- either by their cast or their continuity -- to the so-called DC Extended Universe films. Since examples of potential movies to adapt included the popular Elseworlds story Superman: Red Son, fans took to calling the prospective line "Elseworlds."

Elseworlds, a line of comics that were set outside of the main DC Universe, were the latter-day descendants of the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths "imaginary stories" which would take place on alternate worlds, usually something revealed only at the end of a story fans were meant to believe "counted."

Spoilers ahead for the Krypton finale.

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(Photo: Syfy, DC Entertainment)

"Kandor didn't get taken," executive producer Cameron Welsh told ComicBook.com. "We established and probably repeated across the season the course of events that led to Krypton's destruction and ultimately to the birth of Superman. Those events have passed now, and so we're very much on a different timeline, so that cloud of inevitability that was perhaps hanging over the show, in terms of where it would always naturally end, has lifted. It's liberating. We're free from that and even though we've been saying it all along, hopefully now people will genuinely see that, on this show, literally anything can happen."

That "anything can happen" line is easy enough to say in a show with time-travel, but few in the audience really believed that they would make the kind of sweeping changes to the timeline that are in place now.

And at this point, even if changes are made to right the course of history, there will be elements of Krypton's timeline and Seg-El's personal history that are altered forever.

We asked Welsh point-blank whether he sees his show as the main DC timeline, or more like a standalone/Elseworlds timeline along the lines of "What if General Zod prevented the bottling of Kandor?"

"I think it's probably the latter," Welsh said after a long moment of thought. "I think there's, you know, we introduce Superman and it's such a big part of the inciting incident that kicks off our story, that I think we still want to keep that idea alive to a point -- but also I feel like there's something liberating about now being on a very different path and seeing where that leads. Whether it still leads to the same result, or whether it's something entirely different, it still kind of remains to be seen. I probably have my own thoughts on what I would prefer, but it's also something that I think, I would get in the room and discuss that with the rest of the writers and all of our creative partners, but it's a big question and it's a good question to ask. I think there's, there's probably a few different opinions on what would be the best way. Certainly for now, I like the idea of exploring this particular timeline that is detached from the one that we all know."

So while Welsh stops short of saying this is a straight-up alternate reality that will remain changed forever, he certainly want to keep that option open. So far, fans have accepted most or all of Krypton's big changes to the mythology because it has been entertaining, so that likely buys him some flexibility.

And if you're worried about Superman, just remember: it's an imaginary story.

(Aren't they all?)

Krypton aired its finale last night and will return next year for a second season on SYFY. Meanwhile, you can buy the series on streaming services or stream them on demand from your cable provider or the SYFY website.

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