"Why should I change? He's the one who sucks."

Gail Simone recently explained how Black Canary's actions in a recent issue of Birds of Prey, which looked odd in light of her actions in Identity Crisis (SPOILERS: She gives Batman a lot of grief, which would seem to be an odd knowing that Dinah was among the group of Justice League members who erased Batman's memory because Batman walked in on them giving Dr. Light a lobotomy), was in keeping with the characterization of Black Canary.

It was a fine explanation and I had no problem with it (although, to be honest, it did not even occur to me that the scene would play out as hypocritical, for reasons I will explain later), but really, all I could think of while reading it was the scene in Office Space that I reference in the entry title.

In the scene, two characters are talking about their names, and how much they dislike them. One character tells the other one, who is frustrated to be named Michael Bolton, "Well, why don't you just go by Mike instead of Michael?" to which the Bolton character replies, "No way. Why should I change? He's the one who sucks!"

That is one of the most annoying aspects of continuity to me, the whole "I must acknowledge other stories that do not add anything beneficial to my story, because they are in continuity."

This is why we need a return to Hypertime.

Hypertime, co-developed by Mark Waid and Grant Morrison (I have no idea who did what, Waid seems to talk about it more, so I presume he did more in coming up with the idea) over SIX years ago, was an idea that was supposed to take the DC Universe by storm, but sadly, both Waid and Morrison left the DC Universe a year or so later, and the idea was eventually (seemingly) dropped in favor of the current DC continuity approach of (and this is said with love...hehe) "Geoff Johns details what happened on every calandar day in the DC Universe since 1938."

I say let us have Hypertime again!

You may first ask, "What IS Hypertime?"

The basic concept of Hypertime, via the mouth (or keyboard) of Mark Waid is as follows:

Hypertime is our name for the vast collective of parallel universes out there, in which you can somewhere find every DC story ever published - but it's also more than that. The standard model of parallel timelines is the branches of a river, right? The main timeline is the main stream while tributaries symbolize the alternate timelines? Well, imagine that sometimes those tributaries feed back IN to the main stream, sometimes for a while, sometimes forever. Other times, they cross OVER for only a MOMENT before going in an altogether NEW direction - and for the most part, no one notices these discrepancies but the fans. In short, the reality of the main DC Universe is a lot more malleable than we've ever given it credit for and allows for more wonder and more possibilities than we'd ever imagined.

The way this would apply today is that Simone would not have to worry about the effect of Identity Crisis upon her characters. She would not have to worry if the characterization of one of her stars is retroactively messed with in some other comic, she is free to ignore it.

That is the approach I take when I read comics nowadays. Therefore, that Black Canary scene did not strike me as odd, because I am not actually considering Black Canary's actions in Identity Crisis as "canon" or anything like that.

Bringing it all back home, Grant Morrison, in his return to the DC Universe a few months ago, described his approach to continuity in JLA: Classified as:

Aquaman has no beard and John Stewart is Green Lantern so it's pretty much set in some kind of current continuity but I'm afraid it's not the gloomy 'adult' world of Sue Dibny's shredded lycra pants; so keep well away if it's attempted rape you crave. Cannibalism, yes, rape, no. My DCU is a day-glo, non-stop funhouse, where the world is threatened every five minutes and godlike beings clash in the skies like fireworks.

That's Hypertime, folks.

And it is good.