Warning: Spoilers for DC All In Special #1Over the years, the DC Universe Future has been explored many times in comics. Buster Gold Often shares glimpses of the time he hails from and illustrates how the impact of the Justice League will remain in his idyllic future for many centuries. However, a recent development has rewritten history, and Darkseid is at the epicenter of this alteration to the fabric of time. As a result, there isn’t a clear answer to how the DC Universe ends anymore.
The “alpha” story of DC All In Special #1 by Joshua Williamson, Scott Snyder, Daniel Sampere, Dan Mora, Tamra Bonvillain, Alejandro Sánchez and Steve Wands follow the Justice League as they reform, bigger and better than ever. Superman invites Buster Gold to join their ranks, but things soon take a turn for the worse when Darkseid strikes the League and deals a harsh blow to DC’s established timeline. A blank Justice League membership card is corrupted by Darkseid, and Skeets tells Buster: “The future has changed.”
The corruption may not seem important, but it changes everything for DC’s heroes. The membership card is A symbol of the way the DC Universe ends in the distant future. Now, it has been converted into a doorway to Darkseid’s Absolute Universe. With this change, everything DC’s heroes thought they knew about their fate was called into question.
It’s official: the future of Buster Gold is no more
Darkseid changes the timeline of the DC Universe
The Justice League membership card that Booster Gold Watches turns into is significant because it is what he calls a “touchstone number,“What are Objects he remembers from his future that are universal constants over time. He lists several, including Green Lantern rings, and they are all iconic items from DC’s canon. They, along with the blank Justice League card, represent key moments in the timeline. The museum in which they are kept in honor of the heroes from whom they come and memorialize them long after they are gone. As long as the card is intact, so is the future.
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Because Darkseid corrupted the Justice League membership card, Booster Gold’s future is no longer set in stone. This card no longer resembles the Touchstone number of Buster Gold’s Time, instead of Darkseid’s Energy. The Hall of Heroes cannot keep the card in its original state if it is transformed by Darkseid, and the transformation has consequences that reverberate throughout DC’s timeline. As Skeets informs Buster, they can’t go back home due to the changes that have occurred – meaning that The future Buster Gold originates from where the Justice League are revered as legends, is gone for good.
For the first time, the fate of the DC Universe is unknown
The future of DC superheroes hangs in the balance
Superman mentions in this issue that he finds comfort in Buster Gold being a time traveler, because it reminds him that there will still be heroes in the future. That comfort was lost with the revelation that the future had changed. Normally, the timeline of the DC Universe culminates in the formation of the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st century to honor past heroes, but the ending may just be recondite. Buster no longer has a future to return to, So it is plausible that the Legion will also cease to exist. The Legion’s status is uncertain, and the Justice League isn’t in a much better position.
The legacy of the Justice League in the future is not guaranteed after Darkseid’s intervention, which makes it impossible to predict what lies ahead. The membership card is a haunting sign that what was once a fixed point in time can be undone in the blink of an eye, and it remains to be seen how exactly that will affect the timeline. With the fate of the US DC Universe up in the air, Buster Gold must now watch events unfold without the security of knowing how the story ends.
DC All In Special #1 is available now from DC Comics.