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Wonder Woman or Shade the Changing Man? Creating the New History of the DC Universe is "a constant juggling act" as well as "a blast," says writer Mark Waid

"It’s important that I’m telling a story. It can't read like a 120 page Wikipedia entry, because then I failed," says Waid about the four-part retelling of all DC lore

News by Graeme McMillan, Editor

Published on Fri Apr 11 2025

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Mark Waid is a master of DC continuity, both in terms of remembering the most obscure pieces of DC lore (both pre- and post-Crisis), and in bringing it all together as a writer so that it makes sense. Both skillsets are about to come into play with his big summer project, New History of the DC Universe — a four-issue comic book series that sees him team with some of comics’ top artists to tell the canonical history of the DCU from start to… well, maybe “end” is the wrong term for a superhero universe, but we’re expecting to see both the 31st century Legion of Super-Heroes and maybe the 853rd century Justice Legion A if we’re lucky.

Crafting the miniseries is “a herculean effort,” Waid told Popverse’s Pierce Lydon. “For instance, my outline for the first issue was 37 single space pages of everything that happened between the dawn of time and the Crisis on Infinite Earths. That's the level of detail we're going into.”

That said, fans shouldn’t be going into the series expecting a textbook, the writer admits. “It’s important that I’m telling a story. It can't read like a 120 page Wikipedia entry, because then I failed,” Waid said. “It has to have some narrative to it.”

How to achieve that, given the material Waid is working with? By making the hard decisions.

“It is a constant juggling act,” he confessed. “Yesterday, I'm choosing whether or not to show Nubia or do I show Shade the Changing Man on this page. I only have room for one. These are the kind of Sophie's Choice moments I'm having on every page, but it's a blast to do.”

New History of the DC Universe will launch June 25. You can read Waid's full interview, in which he also talks about the Justice League Unlimited and Batman/Superman: World's Finest crossover 'We Are Yesterday,' right here.

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Graeme McMillan: Popverse Editor Graeme McMillan (he/him) has been writing about comics, culture, and comics culture on the internet for close to two decades at this point, which is terrifying to admit. He completely understands if you have problems understanding his accent.