Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Virtually all of your Marvel examples canonically represent alternate universes; they've published books specifically about this phenomenon. The Marvel have always at least made an effort towards an explanation, so that things hang together at least in broad strokes terms. That is impressive given the many decades of history involved, and I have always appreciated it.Comics is a whole nother ball game!
For example, in Marvel, is the Universe really the same Universe after the Age of Apocalypse was resolved, or is it sort of the same but yet different with the subtle change made to it (X-Man actually exists in the universe after that, coming out of nowhere). Or did it cease to exist when Scarlet Witch wiped out 99% of Mutants and changed the entirety of reality after The House of M debacle?
Or...a dozen other times when they wiped out the existing known universe and replaced it with something new (I prefer any of the universes where Peter Parker stayed married with MJ and thus had more character growth and showed progress then the regression they did...though he still is married to MJ supposedly, but in yet another universe...).
I mean, in one Marvel Universe...Reign happens...in the current Marvel Universe...that's never going to happen due to paradoxes between that storyline and Reigns...which means they must be in a different universe...etc...etc...etc.
And that's just Marvel...DC is far far far worse. When did their Universe actually end...was it in the 70s? The 80s? The 90s? the 10s?
And those were complete wipes and reboots as opposed to what Marvel did (more of soft reboots).
DC even admitted that the original universe was different than the one they were using in the 80s (I think that's when it came out) and have had that same type of thing occur over and over again.
MCU...the 616 (is it really though? the current 616 would be impossible to match up to the canon future of older 616 universes...so which was the REAL 616 universe...because they contradict each other and the future that would have come)...Ultimate (remember that universe...the one where Miles was one of the ONLY survivors)...I think the editors get confused about which universe is the actual Marvel universe and which one is the copy these days.
DC, as you say however, is a different kettle of fish.