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I will take a swing as well...
CoIE happened because the DCU had become cluttered with characters who shouldn't be around any more due to age. Over the years this had been dealt with by creating pockets of the DCU where, for example, WWII was still on. In CoIE it was revealed that these pockets were actually alternate earths.
At the end, the multiverse was wiped out, leaving one true reality. Now, because Monitor and Harbinger had been grabbing heroes from all realities when reality reset they were still around, and the universe retconned them into the story (JSU (I think) and Powergirl for examples). There were also some redundant people, Superboy, Old Superman, Old Lois and Alexander Luthor (the son of a Lex Luthor on a doomed Krypton-like world). Alexander had some crazy reality bending powers and was able to create a very small pocket universe for the 4 of them, small enough, I assume, that it wouldn't totally jack reality.
Life went on in the DCU, the people living in it remembered something happening, but with history rewriting itself most didn't remember the multi verse and the countless trillions of people who died/were never there.
Time went on and the DCU got more and more fucked up (SEE: Women in refrigerators) while Alex and company watched. Eventually Old Supes decided (with pushing from Alex I believe) that during CoIE the wrong world was saved, and his happy go lucky 50s good time version of Earth should have become the one true reality. HE and Superboy are so bad ass they PUNCH THROUGH REALITY and re-enter continuity.
It all turned out to be a scheme by Alex to recreate the multiverse so he could look at all the possible realities, pick the one he liked best, and wipe out the rest. The heroes got together to stop him, Superboy, who in his reality was like a trillion times stronger then modern era Superman, kills a bunch of people and gets taken down by Superman with the help of Old Supes, but not before he killed Clone-Superboy. This, of course, after he vanished for an issue or two because the Flashes pushed him outside of time, losing their powers or dying in the process. I am still not sure how Superboy built himself anti-monitor style armor while trapped in the Speed Force or whatever.
When Alexander's machine was destroyed it was assumed that the multiverse he had made was destroyed as well. At that point a bunch of people who had not been around for a while (Batwoman) were dumped into the 'Prime' reality with fully retconned backstories, much like after CoIE. This is where the idea that the multiverse collapsed came from. However, there is no reason for the 'new' multiverse to not still exist, and since it IS infinite by nature, all the multiverse stuff from pre CoIE would still be out there somewhere.
I am hoping for some Time Tailor/Yellow alien action written by Grant during the rest of 52, personally. |
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