Who came up with the multiverse first, DC or Marvel?

>>93960575
DC is more timeline related isn't it?

DC's Silver Age was before Marvel's, and the Golden Age of DC was originally concieved as Earth 2. So, technically DC.

DC, but who was first never really matters.

>>93960575
DC. Marvel usually just "borrows" DC's ideas. Stan the man Lee just "borrowed" Doom Patrol and made the X-Men and Fantastic Four.

>>93960613
Fantastic Four was meant to match the Justice League

>>93960613
Sorta like DC stole Mr.Marvel

>>93960632
Weird. I always imagined it was supposed to be the Challengers of the Unknown. Never researched it though.

>>93960655
Well when the Amalgam comics came out FF and Challengers were merged. But at their inception, they were meant to rival the Justice League.

>>93960575
Why are there stars and what seems to be moons outside of the universes?

>>93960575
I think Andre Norton's The Crossroads of Time did it first.

>>93960647
>Marvel such a petty bunch of crooks that they stole Captain Marvel's name and then sued DC

Good shit

>>93960671
or Men Like Gods

I don't think anyone came up with the idea of the multiverse, at least not in the comic industry. But DC always had a multiverse, starting with their Imaginary Stories in the 1940s which were basically just early Elseworlds. For the most part Marvel still treats their multiverse like a series of Elseworlds until very recently. Consistent interaction between the multiverse and the multiverse itself being important to the plot has been a thing DC adopted after crisis was so popular.

>>93960682
yep only Marvel are the bad guys, uh huh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Comics_Publications,_Inc._v._Fawcett_Publications,_Inc.

>>93960698
Yes, they have the right to defend themselves against copyright infringement.

>>93960682
>DC such a petty bunch of crooks that they stole DC shoes logo and then sued DC
>However, DC Shoes' lawyers looked into DC Comic's trademarks and discovered that, despite the fuss when their new logo was launched, they'd never actually got around to trademarking it properly.
>In fact, DC Shoes discovered they had a case of trademark infringement from DC Comics. So Warner Bros had to pay a significant sum to continue using the DC Comics logo.

>>93960575
That's a good picture of goatse.

>>93960684
>For the most part Marvel still treats their multiverse like a series of Elseworlds until very recently.
Someone hasn't read very much Captain Britain or Exiles.

>>93960655
>>93960667
What most likely happened was that they were indeed supposed to match the Justice League but because Kirby was the co-creator he carried over some of his concepts/designs from his last project as he was prone to do and thus there were the Challengers of the Unknown similarities.

>>93960960
Captain Brit does bring it all together

>>93960575
JUST A REMINDER THAT JLA/AVENGERS IS ONE OF THE BEST CROSSOVERS EVER AND YOU SHOULD TOTALLY READ IT IF YOU ARE A CAPE FAN

>>93960613
Also, it's been pointed out that while there are general similarities between the Doom Patrol and the X-men, the two properties were released close enough to each other that the only way one could've copied the other is if there was an insider at one of the companies. Which, I mean, could be possible but that's kinda out there.

The Doom Patrol, on the other hand, made their first appearance well after the Fantastic Four had been on the market. Both were teams featuring an orange brute stock in a body that made him feel like a monster, both had a character with stretchy powers, a hotheaded youngster who's powers involved the appearance of fire and flight, a supergenius and both had only one female member, at least at first. The Fantastic Four's first appearance was in November 1961, The Doom Patrol's first appearance was in June 1963 and the X-men's first appearance was in September 1963. I know this is the internet so we have to take Stan Lee down a peg but he's not as bad as he's made out to be.

>>93960575
DC created the multiverse before Atlas ever became Marvel.

Also, the DC Multiverse first knowingly appeared in 1956, Multiverse theory was first talked about in 1952 and was considered crazy at the time. I have nothing to add, just wanna say that's pretty cool.

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>>93961085
>1952

>1,9, 52
>1900+52
>1952-1900

>>93960583
No.

>>93961085
Chronicles of Narnia was 1950 and had a multiverse even though it wasn't called that. Are we just talking about the specific "multiverse" term itself or just the concept in general?

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>>93960575
DC did it first. Even way back in the Golden Age.

>>93960684
Post crisis, no. They removed all earths. Only pocket earth and milestone existed outside but neither are multiverse earths.

Zero hour only eventually brought in Hypertime, while wildstorm had a multiverse.
It took Morrisons pitch to bring back the multiverse. In 52. That was post infinte crisis.

It should be noted Johns, Didio, even Quesada prefer post crisis single earth.

>>93962478
>It should be noted Johns, Didio, even Quesada prefer post crisis single earth.
Why?

It's so much better to say "Fuck it, multiverse/timelines" than to be anal about continuity.

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>>93962478
Zero hour was either gonna bring back earth 1 or earth 2 but it got aborted.

Infinte crisis was going to bring back earth 2 only.

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>>93962673
>>93962652

Nah. Johns prefers unifying history and grew up on post crisis. Didio prefers throwing most things out over time.

Quesada thinks multiverses are silly and used secret wars to get rid of the 616 number.

For a long time the DC universe for decades had no real multiverse.m

>>93962716
>Screencap of TvTropes as a source

>>93962735
No it was taken from dc writers summit. Now the links are gone. Plus anything from creators websites and Usenet.

Wolfman confrimed and jurgens what they was gonna do post crisis and zero hour.

Wolfman wanted all diversty hero earth post crisis and made one in a Hypertime book withered earth 1 meets earth d.

>>93960785
How is Cap copyright infringement besides being a flying brick.

>>93962673
Yeah, but Warner stopped Jurgens.

The real Coie happen was to get sales. The actual rebooting happen later. Even then done to get sales.

In the mid 80s most surrealistic parts of DC didn't appeal to non readers. And Titans and swamp thing outsold most characters. So DC decided to make their new characters relatable and remove most sci fi things.
If Warners said to Johns to kill the multiverse, they will.

>>93962891
Have to keep in mind even the 52 multiverse is limited and harder to travel to.

It operates like wildstorm but like the old Barry vibrates next to another world way. It's also not commonly used a lot either outside of superman stories.

Morrison said the orgional idea was many writers doing multiversity. Waid ,Geoff etc.

Only Waid really showed interest then left.

>>93962937
I mean not like the old Barry way.

>>93962891
Yeah, pre crisis fans attacked Bryne in fan pages about trying to marvelize Superman.

Some consider Wally a Peter Parker in flash clothes as well.

Older DC fans want escapism, the main core of pre crisis comics. Having characters who got their shit together dealing with fantastic adventures.

>>93962996
Jim shooter wanted to buy out DC one time. He pitched bryne to do a mock SuperMan update. Most of that stuff did went to the pitch bryne used in DC.

http://jimshooter.com/2011/08/superman-first-marvel-issue.html/

DC sales was so low Marvel was dominating nearly 70 percent of the market.

>>93963034
I know post crisis fans who hate the multiverse concept.


Morrison is the one who brought Barry and multiverse back.

Johns was content to do Wally and didn't mind.

>>93961085
Multiverse, even called something different, existed in SF, but Mark Gruenwald really developed the ideas for comics in the 80's. Look for his OMNIVERSE magazine, and be amazed.

But who did it better? DC or Marvel?

>>93960786
DC has a bad track record of proactive lawsuits that backfire.

>>93963583
DC was more interconnected. Marve however actually made the most and used more when DC removed theirs for decades.

The modern DC multiverse is rare to see in the core books.

Nu 52 /rebirth Barry never went to another earth.

>>93961085
Late 40s after the war ...
Nuclear physics is ongoing; theoretical physics getting a big boost.

String Theory was finally getting legs in the scientific community. And the theory included allusions of up to eight 'different vibrational universes'. Of course modern mathematical computations allude to multiples of eight ad infinitum.

>>93960575
Has Marvel's multiverse even produced anything of interest?

>>93963791
Ultimate universe spawned multiple hit titles ...

>>93963791
Yes more than DC. I say this as a DC fan.

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>>93960575
Flash of two worlds

>>93963791
I prefer DC because Crisis (from JLA/JSA, Infinite eaths to Final), Multiversity...even I like some of Convergence, Forever Evil or Superman, etc. Dark Days looks good and the Watchmen crossover could be good.

In marvel I liked Exiles and when the Avengers used to travel and battle the squadron supreme. also ages of apocalypse with the x-men and so on. The 616/ultimate cross over were shit.

>>93962353
Holy shit...I thought Dc's multiverse wasn't a thing until Flash 123

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>>93963916

>>93964034
Wonder Woman had the first in super hero fiction.

The silver age came up with infinite multiverse which Jla and Green Lantern expanded on.

Kronos hand. And the crime syndicate and Earth s and X in jla. Most other earths was one off or not in canon. Earth 4 only existed during Coie.

While elseworlds have produced the most earths, they're was first outside of canon and not connected to a multiverse.

>>93964077
>elseworlds
You now remember that Gotham by Gaslight ... the book came out before the idea of "Elseworlds" book line. GbG wasn't a multiversal title then, it was a modern comicbook story put in another time ...

>>93964156
Yeah but it became a elseworld title later. Later on it was explained they existed in Hypertime or destroyed multiverse earths pre Coie.


Only for Morrison to take elseworld ideas and remix them for new 52 multiverse. Gotg earth got merged with a different world Wonder Woman.

There's a lot of universes outside, drk, bombshells, injustice. Etc.

>>93963583
I guess that depends on your drfinition of better.

DC has historically had other Earths interact with each other more, which in my opinion is better than keeping them mostly isolated.

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>>93964218
Merge of two earths with more stuff added.

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>>93964293
Earth 31 is a merge with civil war superman and pirate batman with more stuff added.

Plus the elseworld book was set in the past while this is a post apocalypse earth.

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>>93964330
Earth 32 was a elseworld but is remixed to have More mashed characters.

The old book had Superman and Wonder Woman and Flash as green lanterns.

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>>93964356

>>93960575
Moses

>>93960583
Yes and no. It has timelines which essentially function as alternate universes but it also has actual alternate universes.

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>>93964356
Earth 37 is trillkiller merged with twilight and earth ones old 61st century.

>>93960575
Michael Moorcock created the concept in his Eternal Champion novels way back in the 60's

>>93963853
well actually Wonder Woman did the whole alternative parallel world first, way back in 1953 in issue #59 Wonder Woman’s Invisible Twin

there's a Earth with exact duplicates of everyone in it

The Essential Wonder Woman Encyclopedia lists this Earth as Earth-59

>>93961085
>1952
>52

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>>93964700

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>>93964634
Earth is based on Justice Riders.

But whereas Justice Riders is superheros in the west in the past, Earth 18 is merging cowboy characters with the the jla characters.

Plus the world tech and culture stopped in the 19 century. It's actually present times.

>>93964638
Oh fuck off. DC has been doing it since the Golden Age.

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>>93964775
Earth 17 is a merge of the atomic knights earth 86 but using Jla characters as the Knights.

They want the travel lantern of Earth 15.

>>93962353
Did her story do this consistently or was this a one time thing?

>>93963824
I wasn't being sarcastic, I literally just don't know anything about Marvel's multiverse. DC's multiverse is fairly iconic of the company, if largely inconsequential at times, but I couldn't think of any actual examples of a Marvel multiverse off hand. I wasn't even aware Ultimate Marvel was specifically another universe.

>>93964918
One time. Most earths are throwaway desu.

Most appeared in Superman books. Where Superboy logos is reverse or SuperGirl all werewolf planet. Or Superman world where everyone has a cape and Clark is a evil human.

Another where Hal Jordan is married to Carol. Making him the only other Hal Jordan Green Lantern in the multiverse.

SuperSons was a universe where Aquaman is a grump, Green-Arrow and The Flash exist. There's SuperSons world. One got retconned into being a hologram.

Many legion multiverse worlds existed but adult legion only one used more.

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>>93965013
Jmmy Olsons Earth X.

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>>93965013

>>93965050
Why not call him the SuperBatmam? It's less of a mouthful.

>>93965123
Or Superbat.

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>>93962039
Multiverse concept is quite ancient. In comics, the who done it first question usually pertains to the field of comics exclusively.

>>93965123
>>93965142
Those would imply
a batman that is super
a superman that is a bat

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>>93965013
Earth 5, in which Earth 1 Batman saves young Bruce Wayne parents from being shot. The kid grows up to be inspired by batman.

There are no other heros like Earth prime but there's also no heros in fiction or anything on that world.

>>93965192
Pretty sure they've done that as an Elseworlds already, where Kal gets found by the Waynes.

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>>93965203
An Earth where Inferior 12 existed with loose canon and multiple jla version and parody marvel characters.

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>>93965203
An Earth where all non Kirby New Gods stuff existed. Earth 14.

Later Morrison said it has purple butterflies.

>>93960575
DC did multiverse stuff first, and did so a little retroactively in the silver age, making golden age heroes in a sort of Earth 2.

I've been reading Supergods a little bit (basically history of comics according to Grant Morrison with some autobiography sprinkled in there).

Marvel had a more curated single universe at first in the silver age, and did more crossovers between its lines, Spiderman Meeting the Fantastic Four early on in his run for example.

DC kept most stories separate for the early part of the sixties. The Flash did a fair share of crossovers though.

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>>93965376
An Earth where a kid becomes president. Earth 72.

Most didn't get names until later on in Animal man or 2005.

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>>93965521
Where Daine Jensen is Superboy. King of the Wolfpack.

Other stories was imagination stories aka existing in dream like or not canon. They did get numbers later but I'm not doing those. Only doing those that existed as a vibrating dimension.

>>93964638
Was going to say, bronze age DC multiverse borrowed heavily from Moorcock with the whole lords of chaos and order thing. (Marvel used the same idea but very lightly by comparison.) As stated though, the many worlds shtick predates that considerably.

>>93960604
This, is good to know who did it first, but also who did it the best In this case also being DC

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>>93965620
An earth where Wonder Girl amd Wonder tot and WonderWoman existed as 3 separate Diana's.

Later on DC used Wondergirl for Earth 1 and called her Donna.

DC embraces the concept of the Multiverse.
Marvel does not wish to bother mapping their out.

DC has a number of worlds that are sadly underused, if used at all.
Marvel has many worlds as well, but only a handful are used; currently, the Spider-Gwen and Gwenpool universes are the only two being put forth in ongoing comics.

DC uses Crisis events to alter the entire shape of their Multiverse.
Marvel used "Secret Wars" to wipe out their Multiverse and then bring it right back, but without the Ultimate Universe because they've been trying to kill that since, like, Ultimates 3.

DC's Multiverse worlds are widely varied yet are limited to a grand total of 52 worlds, at least in this local multiverse.
Marvel's Multiverse worlds are also varied, but are infinite in scope and almost erratically numbered. Did you know there's a separate universe for every "What If?" story?

Any other comparisons?

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>>93965821
An Earth where hot is cold, Steves marry Diana with bad thing happening.

Also Bruce Wayne becomes a crime fighter fighting the blue bat. A take on the red hood.

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>>93965951
An Earth where krypton never exploded. Earth Astronauts come to krypton.

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>>93965951
An Earth where Superboy becomes evil from red kryptonite. Later to wear off but his dad told him never to come back to Earth. Leaving Earth behind.

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>>93965951
A world where Bruce Wayne is the Superman and nobody remembers the Batman.

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>>93966224
A world where Superman saves atlantis, insuring Aquaman never exists. Also moves all kryptonians to Earth.

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>>93966405
A world where Superman, Batman, Wonder woman , Flash are villians. But Luthor, Clayface, Mirror Master are heroes.

>>93964356
"Hey Aquaflash, how's your mother?"

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>>93966405
A world where superman is Lex Luthor and Clark Kent is the Batman.

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>>93966619
A world where Superboy was raised by apes.

>>93964218
According to one of the Rebirth Superman issues with Mr. Mxy, Lego is a canon universe; probably one of the 7 undiscovered.

>>93963583
DC

DC has clusterfucked it a lot, but we've gotten some great stuff like the original Crisis, Jay/Barry stuff, and the Crime Syndicate. Marvel always screws up multiverse stories badly.

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>>93966732
A world where CaptainThunder existed.

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>>93966732
A world where the great disaster is natural not atomic War.

Earths B batman meets Kamandi.

>>93966817
Well, Marvel had eXiles going for it.

>>93960575
DC. Marvel was the first one to use a shared universe for heroes, though.
Original Human Torch vs Namor fight ran through both of their comics.

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>>93966732
A world where kal el landed in 1976, calls himself skyboy then Superman of the year 2001.

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>>93966977
A world where Thomas and Martha Wayne adopts Kal el. Superman then marries Barbara Gordon.

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>>93966977
A world of clone Supermen. Black people freed earlier.

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>>93966977
A world where Superboy Retired.

>>93962353
I wonder if they'll bring her back.

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>>93967257
Superman Of Mars.

>>93960669
They literally explain that in the panel, if it wasn't a picture for ants.

>>93962716
>Quesada thinks multiverses are silly and used secret wars to get rid of the 616 number.

Quesada didn't have anything to do with Secret Wars as far as I can tell.

>>93960575
Who do you think?

>>93960596
Not technically. They featured the multiverse first, Marvel copied, like they admittedly always have.

>>93960604
Sure it doesn't

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>>93967257
A world where nobody dies.

>>93967315
There's plenty of interviws where Joe derides the concept of Dc Earths and hating 616 number.

Post sw, Tom Brevoort gloats in his tumblr how they got rid of that 616 number

>>93963197
>I know post crisis fans who hate the multiverse concept.

Yeah, you can see it in Wizard back in the 90's. It's fucking dumb to hate it because the Multiverse done right can have story potential. the Pre-COIE Earth-2 was great because the idea was it acknowledged the old comics and operated the whole thing in real time. So Superman got married to Lois, Batman got married to Catwoman and both died but have a daughter Helena who became the Huntress. I'd wonder what an Earth-2 that never got affected by COIE and continued on as it was would've been like.

Even so, I did like the merged Earth that came about after COIE. I liked the Flash generational thing for instance.

>>93965203
That was a good story though I'm still thrown by the idea that world somehow doesn't have legends to inspire them. Then again Sherlock Holmes books exist so I guess Dick didn't research the library carefully.

>>93967359
Now I want to go back to 52 universe and the dark multiverse.
>>93967286
What Earth Number would you give? It was a planet with not much technology developed.

>>93965228
There's Superman: Speeding Bullets where he gets found by the Waynes. And then there was one done before COIE where he's found by Jim Gordon who takes him to the Waynes to be raised.

>>93963034
>Jim shooter wanted to buy out DC one time. He pitched bryne to do a mock SuperMan update. Most of that stuff did went to the pitch bryne used in DC.
>http://jimshooter.com/2011/08/superman-first-marvel-issue.html/
>DC sales was so low Marvel was dominating nearly 70 percent of the market.
wonder what the world would be like if that had happened

>>93967257
This was an interesting one. Basically he loses his powers back when he was Superboy and lives a life in Smallville, also helping to turn his dad's shop into a supermarket franchise. And then Lex Luthor comes back...

>>93967521
>>93967521
Post crisis superman and a small line of books. More marvel relatable charcters style

>>93966805
Lego universe as canon
Would be nice
Also wonder what would happen if a normal looking character entered the Lego universe
Would he be Lego-fied?
Or would he remain normal looking, thus being incredibly different from everyone else

>>93967257
> Issue 404
> Superman not found, literally missing
Heh.
>1985
This was before computers and internet were really widespread right?
Cause I'm not sure if this was intentional or not

>>93968301
All media adaptions exist in their own multiverse. Either video game or movies.

Tv has their own. Which is infinite. Injustice has one too.

Older comuc universe evolved in the ones you see in Morrisons multiverse but reborn.

The rest probably went into the dark multiverse.

>>93967441
Yeah but Quesada doesn't oversee the comics at all by the time Secret Wars was out.

Reminder that in Alan Moore's headcanon, Marvel is Earth-616 of the DC multiverse.

>>93968393
>This was before computers and internet were really widespread right?

Yeah. The internet was around during the 80's and 404 error was around then too, but definitely not widespread. I don't think Paul Kupperberg was using the internet then so having that issue be #404 was probably just a coincidence.

>>93968502
Still the reason. He is now in control overseeing everything. Beyond e.i.c.

>>93964807
>>93964638
The way it's being used now was done first by Alan Moore with Captain Britain. Who got the ideas from Moorcock.

>>93960575
Marvel has used an explicit (and infinite, as described by Uatu) multi-universe structure since at least the first What If..? volume, beginning in 1977. There were stories prior to this which dealt with the What If...? style, showing deviations from the established canon, which ran as back-up features in other titles.

Alan Moore was reputedly the one who came up with Marvel's universe-numbering system when he was working on Captain Britain for Marvel UK, building on the work of Dave Thorpe and Chris Claremont before him. This would have been around 1982; he came up with the designation 616.

DC's Crisis series actually has its roots in the early 1960s, with 1963's Crisis on Earth One! and Crisis on Earth Two! stories, which featured a classic crossover caper where the villains of both worlds find a way to escape to the opposite world to the one they started out in, a little like 1951's Strangers on a Train, in that they'd committed no crime in their "new" worlds. Following this first meeting of the JLA and JSA, the two teams would continue to meet once a year until 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths* *Earths not infinite, one per universe, which attempted to further explain DC's ancient and conflicting continuities.

However, the "Crisis" stories, until 1985, did not include more than a handful of Earths/universes (-1, -2, -A, the future, etc) and there was no indication that they were representative of an infinite set or even a much larger set; they hadn't even been numbered consistently.

The concept of a multiverse (scientifically speaking) was broached by Erwin Schrödinger in the early 1950s, and would have been quite well known before then to readers of sci-fi literature (which is most people working in comics even then, it has to be said). The exact details are left to each publisher to figure out; nobody really owns the concept itself, or ever really did.