Superman is DC’s number one superhero. Heck, he was the first-ever superhero, leaping onto the scene and establishing the genre all the way back in 1938. Ever since, he’s been the benchmark from which all heroes are judged. He’s been the central focus and main driving force behind so much of DC’s evolution, always staying in the middle of the action. Some stories even say that the nature of DC itself is bent towards Superman and the hope he creates. One of Superman’s most important roles is as the inspiration for the Legion of Super-Heroes, the heroes of the future. They are the living representation that heroism continues far into the future, creating the better tomorrow they all fought for.
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However, while the Legion has always represented the future of the DC Universe, that future is almost always in flux. Several different Legions have battled for the right to be the one true future, but they usually end up existing as paradoxes of each other. That issue has finally been resolved, thanks to Superman 2026 Annual: Year One Thousand #1. For too long, time has been DC’s biggest enemy, but Superman just unbound time, freeing Hypertime to be whatever it will without any need for paradoxes.
Time Freed From Paradoxes and Expectations
After winning the DC K.O. tournament and gaining the powers of the King Omega, Superman traveled to the future to purify it of Darkseid’s influence. Even with his godlike powers, he found that easier said than done. The Infinite Man stood in his way, hoping to destabilize time and space to destroy the Legion once and for all. Superman fought him, but the Infinite Man simply taunted the Man of Steel, saying that fixing time would involve wiping out every Legion except for one. Superman would have to choose who lived and who died, and the Infinite Man would win no matter what by forcing him to break his principles.
In the end, Superman found a way to save everyone, but how he did it is massively important to the DC cosmos. Superman used the last of his Omega and Alpha Energy, the latter absorbed from the Time Trapper’s sacrifice, to not only heal time but expand it. He burned the last of his godhood to alter time on a fundamental level, untethering it. The future went from a fixed thing to a bastion of infinite potential, like a blank page. Because every Legion was possible, they could all exist without overwriting each other or creating paradoxes. This action even created a new timeline with a brand-new Legion. Of course, making it so all of time is now possible is something with massive implications far beyond the Legion.
A Future Unwritten Is a Future of Potential
Superman’s actions made it so that every Legion could exist in their own distinct timeline, but unlike before, these potential futures were all equally possible, allowing them to survive. This massive shift calls the very idea of Hypertime into question. Hypertime is the concept that different timelines branch off from the original, creating distinct parallel realities based on ht possibilities from every choice. However, while Hypertime provided an explanation for numerous timelines, it functioned under the idea that there was one true future. The branches all broke off from a single trunk.
Superman’s actions transformed time into something else. Now, there is no set future for ideas to branch off of. Instead, the future is a fluid thing that has no set form. This means that time paradoxes literally cannot exist anymore, as no set future must exist, so there must not be a single past that has to be true for it to come to pass. Time can truly be whatever it wants without fear of collapse or consequence, so multiple versions of characters could theoretically exist without chaos or risk of time breaking apart. The possibilities of what this could mean in practice are as endless as the potential futures of DC itself.
Superman 2026 Annual: Year One Thousand #1 is on sale now!
What’s your idea for how this set rule for time travel could play out? I’m most excited to see how the Legions of all Earths respond, and learn how someone like the Reverse-Flash could operate.
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