However, a tradition of spelling out the numbers emerged in "The Most Dangerous Earth" (Justice League of America #30 (September 1964)).
The Earth-One Batman and Gotham City first appeared in Detective Comics #327 (May 1964)[4][5] (Earth-B2) (Earth-AD) The Adventures of Bob Hope #94 (September 1965) for Earth-Twelve (Earth-692)[18] (Earth-9602)[19] (Earth-496)[20] (Earth-7642)[21] Before the formal creation of its Multiverse, DC would use the "imaginary story" label to denote stories that did not fit and never were intended to fit into its canon—a tradition it would continue even after the creation of the Multiverse.
As a result, fans and editors would create other Earths to explain things like the Super Friends comic (set on what writers referred to as Earth-B[24]).
Then, you had parallel universes (like that of the Extremists) where the counterpart of Earth had a different name, as well as the realities of the Darkstars and Justice League series.
Crisis on Infinite Earths: Absolute Edition (November 2005) formally canonized and named many imaginary tales, the Tangent Comics universe and some Elseworlds as part of the Pre-Crisis Multiverse, even though some (such as the pocket universe) had clearly existed after the Crisis.
The Joker and Mr. Mxyzptlk summon Batmen and Supermen from various realities, both previously established worlds as well as unexplored ones.
[13] Convergence retroactively prevented the destruction of the original DC Multiverse, so all the Pre-Crisis earths exist but in an "evolved" form, though all characters in continuity or canon can be used by writers.
revised: JLA #108 (January 2005) comics: Super Friends #1 (November 1976) A new Multiverse was revealed at the end of the 52 weekly maxiseries.
[34] The Bleed permeates the Anti-Life Equation in unpredictable places[34] behind the Source Wall,[33] allowing for transport between the universes.
A number of worlds from the previous Multiverse were also reassigned; for example, Earth-31, originally the alternate Earth where Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder is set, is now occupied by post-apocalyptic waterworld analogues of Batman and other DC staples.
[77][78] The end of the Convergence series resulted in the retroactive saving of the Pre-Crisis DC Multiverse.
[80] In Doomsday Clock #12 (2019) it was revealed that previous incarnations of DC Universe, such as Pre-Crisis Earth-One and New 52's Prime Earth still exist as Earth-1985 and Earth-52, as a way of preserving every era of Superman.
[160] Characters within this storyline are stated as originating from beyond the core New 52 Multiverse that has been depicted until now and contains Dark Knight Batman analogues of the Flash, Doomsday, Aquawoman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, and the Joker.
What follows is a selection of worlds that do not appear to have a place in the current Local Multiverse, and likely only exist as alternate timelines or former futures, or are clearly features unique to the concept of Hypertime.
The CW television series Arrow received its first spin-off The Flash in 2014 with both set in the same fictional universe (Earth-1).
The Flash's second season began to explore a shared multiverse with the appearance of Earth-2, while the series' titular character also crossed over with the parallel universe home to Supergirl (which was later designated Earth-38).
Additional universes have either been visited or mentioned in dialogue in later seasons of the Arrowverse shows, and some older television series such as the 1990 The Flash series and films such as the 1989 Batman film have been retroactively incorporated into the Arrowverse multiverse as their own parallel universes (with the designation ending in the last two digits of the year it was released).
The 2019 crossover event titled "Crisis on Infinite Earths", inspired by the comic of the same name, destroyed all universes within the Arrowverse multiverse.
[222] Ezra Miller's Barry Allen from the DC Extended Universe makes a cameo appearance in "Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Four".