Earth 11 is a world in the DC Multiverse where gender is flipped. It’s a society lead by women, where the biological sex of many high profile characters are the opposite of what we know from the main DC Earth. So instead of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman they have Superwoman, Batwoman, and Wonderous Man. Some appearances call him Wonder Man, but hopefully they’ll settle on just calling him Wonderous Man, because Marvel already has a character named Wonder Man, and we don’t need another Captain Marvel problem.
DC’s Multiverse has always been a work in progress, and there have been different worlds called Earth 11 before, but the specific one we’re talking about today first appeared in 2005 as part of the “With A Vengeance!” storyline in the Superman/Batman team-up book, and characters from that world have been popping up across the DC Universe ever since.
As far as the Lanterns are concerned, we met our first Earth 11 Green Lantern in the one-shot titled “Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer: Superwoman/Batwoman #1”. There was a time when Kyle Rayner, Donna Troy, and Jason Todd were exploring the Multiverse to try and find Ray Palmer (aka the Atom), because Ray had some vital piece of information that could help stop an impending Crisis. Their journey took them on a tour of many popular Elseworlds locations like Superman Red Son and Gotham by Gaslight, before eventually arriving on Earth 11. Here we’re introduced to Kylie Rayner, the female version of Kyle Rayner. We unfortunately don’t get any information about her, other than her name, since this one-shot was meant to be a whirlwind tour of Earth 11, and crammed in as many characters and events as possible. One thing of note is that Earth 11 does seem to have a similar history to the main DC Earth, since the conflict in this issue is the result of Wonder Man being exiled after killing Maxine Lord, mirroring what Wonder Woman did to Maxwell Lord in the buildup to Infinite Crisis. Now Wonder Man is leading his army of all-male Amazonians to get revenge against the Justice League for casting him out.
There’s a lot packed into this issue, to the point that it’s frustrating to not have more space to explore everything that makes Earth 11 tick. For example, instead of making the the Earth 11 Flash a female version of Barry Allen or Wally West, they instead went with Jesse Quick. On the main DC Earth, Jesse Quick is a speedster who’s a member of the Flash family, but the version of her from Earth 11 gets to be The Flash. It’s a really interesting choice, because it draws attention to all the times they didn’t do, like why aren’t Mera and Kara the Aquawoman and Superwoman of this world? Why wouldn’t Jade be their Green Lantern instead of Kylie Rayner? Unfortunately, there’s rarely any time to explore these ideas. The heroes of Earth 11 usually only make brief appearances, whenever characters from the main DC Earth need to interact with the Multiverse in some way, and they don’t normally get to be the main characters when they do show up.
All of that started to change once writer Grant Morrison came along. As part of their Multiversity mini-series, Morrison devoted an issue to making a Multiverse guide book, giving a number and description to every Earth, while showing off a hand full of the characters who live there. Morrison presented an updated version of Earth 11, though most of the changes seemed to be pretty minor, if not purely cosmetic, with several characters getting new costumes, and Wonder Man becoming Wonderous Man. The biggest addition seemed to be the lore, as a single sentence gave Earth 11 some much-needed world building. According to their guidebook entry, Earth 11 is the way it is because the female Amazons of Themyscira basically conquered the world, imposing their will and spreading their ideology across the globe, leading to entire generations of women who grew up feeling empowered to take charge of society.
Surprisingly, the character from Earth 11 who gets the most spotlight is Aquawoman. Not only is she the leader of the Justice Guild (the updated name of that Earth’s Justice League), but she’s also a member of Justice Incarnate, the Multiversal Justice League lead by President Superman, made up of members from all across the Multiverse. Being a member of Justice Incarnate has given Aquawoman a lot of exposure, and in a way she’s kind of become the face of Earth 11…but one of her Justice Guild teammates would outshine her, as far as Green Lantern fans are concerned. I’m talking about Carol Jordan, the Star Sapphire, in the pages of Grant Morrison’s run on Green Lantern.
This is where the concept of Earth 11 starts to get blown wide open, because Grant Morrison took some of the inconsistencies present in stories like The Search for Ray Palmer, and used them as a way to expand on the concept of Earth 11. In the same way that Jesse Quick became The Flash, Star Sapphire became the main Lantern of Earth and a member of the Justice Guild. But what about Green Lantern? We already had Kylie Rayner, and why is Carol’s last name Jordan anyway? This is where it gets complicated.
See, the Amazons eventually expanded their reach to the stars, and shared their culture with the Zamarons of Oa. The men of Oan society didn’t like this one bit, and rejected everything the Zamarons had come to embrace, namely emotion and intimacy, and decided that instead they would go all-in on logic and celibacy. And when the Oan women succeeded at creating the Star Sapphires to promote love throughout space, the Oan men retaliated by proclaiming themselves the Patrons of the Pancosmos (instead of the Guardians of the Universe) and created the Green Lanterns, armed with rings that verbally reinforce the thoughts and behaviors that align with the ideology of the Patrons. So the Green Lantern Corps exists in Earth 11 as a literal fraternity of incels motivated by their own persecution complex and a resentment of women.
Hal is there, only this version of him is named Hal Ferris. I’m not sure why Morrison decided to switch the last names, giving us Carol Jordan and Hal Ferris. Maybe it has something to do with the Carol of Earth 11 having some of the personality traits of Hal Jordan, like the fact that she always just jumps in without a plan and figures things out on the fly, but part of me thinks it was just Morrison wanting to reverse something for the hell of it.
Now we could argue all day about the decision to go this rout with the Earth 11 version of Hal and the Green Lanterns, but I do believe that introducing these ideas into their world will benefit Earth 11 in the long run. By spotlighting how men react in a female-lead society, it challenges us to think about our own society from a different perspective. And it reminds us that, while women might be in charge, there’s still plenty of men everywhere, and exploring what life is like for them is just as fundamental to fleshing out that world. And yes, so far the only men from Earth 11 we’ve spent any significant amount of time with have been complete jackasses, but chalk that up to Earth 11 being a concept that needs more room to breath. Not every man from that world will be a beacon of toxic masculinity, but I do think Earth 11 is a perfect setting to explore concepts like that one.
Honestly, I think the worst part about Grant Morrison’s revision of Earth 11 is that it basically erases Kylie Rayner, because there is no chance in hell that this version of the Green Lantern Corps would ever even consider letting a woman join. It’s always possible that she could just be a Star Sapphire instead, but considering that on this world Hal is still a man and Carol is still a woman, I don’t know that there would even be a female version of Kyle Rayner anymore. Maybe he exists as a man on Earth 11, maybe he’s even a Green Lantern, or maybe there’s another option we haven’t thought of. Because as much as this expands our understanding of what Earth 11 can be, it does create more questions, and leaves the door open for other writers to take a stab at figuring it all out.
Ultimately, I think the biggest problem with Earth 11 is that there’s never enough time dedicated to growing these characters and exploring their world. There’s never been an ongoing narrative set on Earth 11, starring Earth 11 characters…that is, until now. DC is about to release Multiversity: Teen Justice, a six issue mini-series all about Earth 11 and its characters, without anyone from the main DC Earth to hog the spotlight. This is a great opportunity to more clearly define Earth 11, and hopefully iron out some of the inconsistencies that’ve come as a result of only making brief appearances every so often. This is a universe unto itself that is primed for expansion, and we already know this mini-series going to be exploring corners of the world we haven’t seen much of, since the book is focusing on a newly formed Teen Titans equivalent that’s only ever appeared once, in a Holiday anthology. I don’t know if we’ll end up seeing any Lanterns or Sapphires in this book, but Carol tends to be there whenever the rest of the Justice Guild shows up, so the best way to learn more about her and the other Lanterns is to support mini-series like Teen Justice and send DC a message that we want more pages devoted to this corner of the Multiverse.
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