Lots have been made and discussed so far about the newly announced DC Timeline soon coming out of the New York Comic Con (NYCC) this month. Although Dan Didio, co-publisher of the DC comics, had earlier teased of the Timeline project. But the official announcement of the project at NYCC has clarified all the doubts now.
The Timeline project will be dotted with stories from DC’s past that will be split into four sections. As Didio puts it, the Timeline Project will be the “basis for all of DC Comics in the future. While we won’t go into what the future is, we want to show you that what’s happening now is a high level of planning.”
So well the Timeline project has structured the DC universe and its into four different ages or “generations”, as they call it. And it goes in this way:
First Generation- The Heroic Age:
This first age covers the Golden Age of Comics and the Atomic Age of Comics, from the late 30s to the late 50s, right at the onset of the Silver Age of Comics. Wonder Woman is the first DC hero of this timeline.
Second Generation- The Space Age:
This age marks the debut of Superman in the DC universe and covers the Silver Age of Comics and the Bronze Age of Comics. This is the era of the emergence of The Justice League, Teen Titans and Doom Patrol. The era closes with the heroic sacrifice of Barry Allen.
Third Generation- The Age of Crisis:
As the name suggests, the era is the witness of numerous crises, like Zero Hour Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, and the Final Crisis. The era spans from the late 80s to the 2000s, right until the Flashpoint.
Fourth Generation- The Flashpoint Age:
This is a new age, the current age, and generation. This is the era where Bart Allen and Wally West disappear, one where Cyborg becomes a key figure Justice League.
Now if this the division of generations, the question arises as to what is the 5G rumor about. So essentially, this is the idea of a new generation, the one that will come after the fourth generation. This 5th generation involves the re-launch of a lot of the key DC heroes and their titles, with the classic “old guard” heroes replaced with new, younger heroes made in the recent years, during the 2010s in a post-New 52/DCYou/Rebirth landscape.