Shared Universe - Expansion of Existing Material

Expansion of Existing Material

In 1941, writer Gardner Fox at All-American Comics (later part of DC Comics) created the Justice Society of America in All-Star Comics #3, credited with being the first superhero team-up and laying the groundwork for the DC Universe, the first comic book shared universe. By 1961, Marvel Comics writer and editor Stan Lee, working with artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, merged the bulk of the publisher's comics characters into the Marvel Universe. Both settings have suffered from the creative difficulties of maintaining a complex shared universe handled by large numbers of writers and editors. DC has substantially altered its in-universe chronology several times, in series such as Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985, Zero Hour in 1994, and Infinite Crisis in 2005. As of 2007, Marvel has rebooted its continuity only once, in Spider-Man: One More Day. They instead set stories in an increasing number of alternate realities, each with an assigned number in a greater multiverse. DC and Marvel have also periodically co-published series in which their respective characters meet and interact. These intercompany crossovers have typically been written as self-limiting events that avoid implying that the DC Universe and Marvel Universe co-exist. Exceptions include the twenty-four comics released under the metafictional imprint Amalgam Comics in 1996, depicting a shared universe populated by hybridizations of the two companies' characters. Marvel has since referred to this as part of its setting's greater multiverse by labeling it Earth-692.

The Star Wars franchise takes a unique view regarding the canon properties of its expanded universe, introducing a four-tier system based on compatibility with the six films. Star Trek canon is less well-defined, generally excluding not only licensed works such as books and video games and acknowledging that "even events in some of the movies have been called into question". Furthermore, both franchises have blurred the lines between canon and non-canon content by adopting unofficial material into later official productions. The spin-off media making up an extension of the universe originating in Doctor Who is particularly complex due to the permissive stance on licensing and canon taken by the BBC. This Expanded Universe has relatively little consistency given its division into audio plays produced by Big Finish and the BBC, the New Adventures universe novel, or a universe based on comics published in Doctor Who Magazine and other publications. Reviewer Robert F.W. Smith attempted to summarize the conflicting continuities:

As far as I understand it, the situation is this: the New Adventures universe is inside the bottle universe seen in Interference, which was built by BBC universe Time Lords, and in it, the NA Time Lords are all gone – they’ve gone to another bottle and left the NA universe to the Gods/Kings of Space. Most of the New Adventures happened in the BBC universe anyway, except in that universe, the 7th Doctor was the reincarnation of the Other and Rassilon escaped to roam the universe – in the BBC universe, he may or may not have been, and Rassilon probably didn’t. In the BBC universe, Faction Paradox, the Doctor and the Enemy between them have vaped the Time Lords, with the result that there are no longer any Time Lords in the BBC universe, except for five, the fundamental laws of the universe (the magic-and-science thing) have changed, and the Doctor is no longer a Time Lord at all originally but a crystal man named Soul from the end of time. Also in the BBC universe, an infinity of different universes have been released, which helpfully explains how all the shock companion-killings in the novels ever since Eternity Weeps either did or didn’t happen in our universe, according to whatever criteria you like, but Gallifrey didn’t survive in any of them. Despite this, Gallifrey will still be rebuilt in the BBC universe in some form, but it will presumably be much less powerful because it will now be a planet without the original’s special relationship with time, and it won’t have always been there. Where the Big Finish audios fit in is anybody’s guess; the new series can just about be assumed to follow on from the end of The Gallifrey Chronicles, even though the Doc says he’s a Time Lord – not a crystal man from the end of time – in the second episode. There.

Even Smith's summary does not address spin-offs such as the Bernice Summerfield novels and the Faction Paradox series that are legally distinct from the origins of their characters in officially licensed novels. Many fans consider only the television series canon and all other media apocrypha. The television series has never explicitly acknowledged any of the spin-offs, partly because the BBC's status as a public service broadcaster prohibits them from producing a programme that can only be fully understood by those who have purchased licensed products.

The expansion of existing material into a shared universe is not restricted to settings licensed from movies and television. For example, Larry Niven opened his Known Space setting to other writers initially because he considered his lack of military experience to prevent him from adequately describing the wars between mankind and the Kzinti. The degree to which he has made the setting available for other writers became a topic of controversy, when Elf Sternberg created an erotic short story set in Known Space following an author's note from Niven indicating that "f you want more Known Space stories, you'll have to write them yourself". Niven has since clarified that his setting is still to be used only "under restricted circumstances and with permission", which Niven granted to the several authors of the Man-Kzin Wars series. By contrast, author Eric Flint has edited and published collaborations with fan fiction writers directly, expanding his 1632 series.

A setting may also be expanded in a similar manner after the death of its creator, although this posthumous expansion does not meet some strict definitions of a shared universe. One such example is August Derleth's development of the Cthulhu Mythos from the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, an approach whose result is considered by some to be "completely dissimilar" to Lovecraft's own works. Less controversial posthumous expansions include Ruth Plumly Thompson's and later authors' sequels to L. Frank Baum's Oz stories and the further development of Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe by Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, and David Brin.