The Dark Knight Rises – A Brief History of Selina Kyle

Now, when I try to explain Earth-1 and Earth-2 to people who haven’t read thousands of DC comics, they get bored and hostile.  So the simple version is that they started publishing superheroes in the 40s.  After a few years, Flash, Green Lantern, and the rest dropped off the schedule, leaving only Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman still being published on a regular basis.  In 1956, DC introduced a new version of the Flash, and the other characters followed.  After the fact, it was decided that the 40s characters lived on a parallel Earth, Earth-2, while the new versions hailed from Earth-1.  That worked fine, except for the characters who didn’t get Earth-1 revamps.  It was easy to put Jay Garrick Flash on one world and Barry Allen Flash on the other, but when all you have is Clark Kent Superman and Bruce Wayne Batman, it’s not so clear.  Eventually, all of the stories before some mostly arbitrary time were retconned over to Earth-2.