The Superman

According to Dan Jurgens, the reconceptualization of Superman "went through many permutations". An early idea eschewed powers altogether and revolved around highlighting the "man" in "Superman", and making him "a cop, or a doctor or something different. A guy with no powers but tremendous character who fights on behalf of his fellow man". Writer Millar noted that "the classic Superman role is already filled by the Atom", and wanted to echo "Kafka's metamorphosis where we actually see this likable, regular guy transform into a superhuman". Thus Millar took Jurgens' early idea "of the average Joe as the superMAN" and used artist Guice's "unique approach to the flashback scenes" (as seen in his Resurrection Man work) to create a different style than that used by Guice on his Action Comics work. The character and his storyline also draw influence from the story The Reign of the Superman written by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster prior to the creation of their iconic character. The Tangent Universe's Superman utilizes the name of DC villain Two-Face (Harvey Dent) rather than the name 'Clark Kent'. Superman's powers, according to his writer, are that "his brain is evolving at an accelerated rate" thanks to a 'god-force'.^[3]

Wonder Woman

Writer Peter David worked from Jurgens' concept that Tangent's Wonder Woman is "a female warrior" exiled to Earth for sins committed on another world. Seeking a twist to make her different from the original DCU character, David thought up Wanda's origin as "a symbol of what [her] world could be if [her people] were united". Combining two diverse aspects, she "seems distracted in any combat situation" and "would rather not fight", preferring "pondering some deep philosophical point". After the character conception, artist Gene Ha produced design artwork, initially of a bearded lady, but eventually merely "a very alien woman".^[4]

Nightwing: Nightforce

Writer John Ostrander previously wrote Nightwing for the first wave of Tangent issues and for his second wave issue christened the team (Hex, Black Orchid and Wildcat) "Nightforce". Citing the benefit of the Tangent line as giving "a far greater freedom to sculpt the world in any fashion we want", Jurgens said that for the second wave he hoped to "see Earth totally and completely subjugated". As the Tangent Universe's premiere covert team, much of the "mammoth task" of staging a pivotal Tangent event fell to Ostrander, who installed an undead, vampire Stalin as head of a Soviet Empire. Ostrander also revealed the "Dark Circle", whose members could be killed and "resurrected as a warrior, Night of the Living Dead style, for the Ultra-Humanite".^[5]

1997 titles

• The Atom
  • The grandson of the Tangent Earth's first superhero, an atomic veteran, takes on the mantle and learns a horrible truth about his family. Written and penciled by Dan Jurgens, with finishes by Paul Ryan.
• Doom Patrol
  • A team from the future arrives in the present, warning of the impending destruction of the Earth. Team members include Doomsday, Star Sapphire, Firehawk and Rampage. Written by Jurgens, art by Sean Chen.
• The Flash
  • Lia Nelson, the first baby born in space, grows up to become a teenage superhero with light-based powers. She can move at the speed of light and create holographic constructs. Written by Todd Dezago, art by Gary Frank.
• Green Lantern
  • A woman with a lantern which, when placed upon a grave, can bring the dead back to life just long enough to complete unfinished business. Written by James Robinson, art by J. H. Williams III.
• The Joker
  • A costumed anarchist in the city of New Atlantis uses pranks to highlight the failings and hypocrisy of those in power. Written by Karl Kesel, art by Matt Haley.
• Metal Men
  • The Metal Men are a covert military group, so named because they came back from every mission unscathed. The members are nicknamed "Hawkman", "Lobo", "Gravedigger" and "Black Lightning". Written by Ron Marz, art by Mike McKone.
• Nightwing
  • A group of agents from a mystical secret society that controls much of the world go renegade. Written by John Ostrander, art by Jan Duursema.
• Sea Devils
  • A society of mer-people are created by the nuclear exchange that destroyed Cuba and Florida in 1962. Written by Kurt Busiek, art by Vince Giarrano.
• Secret Six
  • The Secret Six are a covert group of heroes who are formed when the Flash, Atom, the Joker, the Spectre, Plastic Man and the Manhunter join forces to combat Dr. Aquadus, a living ocean. Written by Chuck Dixon, art by Tom Grummett.^[7]

1998 titles

Because the Tangent Comics titles were not linked to DC Comics' shared universe, they were free to make sweeping changes. In the Tangent one-shot issues published in 1998, a huge electromagnetic pulse disables all technology worldwide and an incredibly powerful being called the Ultra-Humanite begins taking over the world.

• Powergirl
  • U.S. agents attempt to kidnap China's genetically-engineered superhuman. Written by Ron Marz, with art by Dusty Abell.
• Nightwing: Nightforce
  • The rogue Nightwing agents (including Jade, Obsidian, Black Orchid and Wildcat) attempt to rescue the Doom Patrol (Star Sapphire, Doomsday, Firehawk and Rampage) from the Soviet Union, only to unleash the Ultra-Humanite. Written by John Ostrander, art by Jan Duursema.
• The Superman
  • An ordinary man finds himself evolving into something millions of years beyond human. Written by Mark Millar, art by Jackson Guice.
• Tales of the Green Lantern
  • The Green Lantern tells three possible, and contradictory, stories of her origin. The framing sequence was written by James Robinson and drawn by J. H. Williams III and Mick Gray. The first two alternate origins were written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, with art by Mike Mayhew and Wade von Grawbadger; Georges Jeanty and Drew Geraci. The third was written by John Ostrander, with art by Ryan Sook.
• The Batman
  • A knight who once fought King Arthur is forced to atone for his sins, seeking justice through an empty suit of armor for all eternity.
• The Joker's Wild
  • The story focuses on three mischievous but essentially good superheroines (Madame Xanadu, Mary Marvel and Lori Lemaris) all masquerading as the Joker in the post-apocalyptic rebuilt city of New Atlantis. Written by Karl Kesel and Tom Simmons, art by Joe Phillips.
• The Trials of the Flash
  • The Flash teams up with her friends in the Secret Six to rescue one of their own from Nightwing. Written by Todd Dezago, art by Paul Pelletier.
• Wonder Woman
  • An alien warrior, meant to be the symbol of unity for her fractured world, is instead pursued to Earth. She battles her pursuers in Las Vegas, all the while wondering about her role in the cosmos. Written by Peter David and drawn by Angel Unzueta from designs by Gene Ha.
• JLA
  • A covert group of operatives is formed to take out several superhumans (the Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and the Superman). Eventually, the four targets come together and form their own Justice League. Written by Dan Jurgens, with art by Darryl Banks and Norm Rapmund.

Tangent: Superman's Reign (2008)

The 12-issue miniseries revisits the Tangent Universe 10 years later, both in reality and fiction. The series ran between March 2008 until February 2009 and was written by Dan Jurgens with art by Jamal Igle and Carlos Magno. The series was met with favorable reviews, noting strong character development and plotting.^[8][9]

In efforts to aid an alternate-reality-displaced Tangent Flash (Lia Nelson), Green Lantern (John Stewart) and the Flash (Wally West) are inexplicably transported to Earth-9, the Tangent Universe, by the Tangent Green Lantern. The trio joins the Tangent Spectre and the Tangent Manhunter in freeing the Atom, leaving John Stewart captured by the Tangent Superman, ruler of Earth-9. While being interrogated by the Tangent Superman, John Stewart's ring is contacted by Hal Jordan's ring, which the Tangent Green Lantern uses to bring additional members of the Justice League to Earth-9. The rescued Atom is revealed to be the Tangent Powergirl, lover to the Tangent Superman, and a fight ensues. The Tangent Manhunter is brutally murdered. The Tangent Superman takes Stewart's power ring and uses the ring, augmented by his psychic powers and the magic of the Tangent Orion, to travel to New Earth of the mainstream DC Universe. Meanwhile, Batman infiltrates the Core, the hub of information on Earth-9, and is saved by the Tangent Batman while escaping, who is mounting a revolution against the Tangent Superman. The Tangent Superman and the Tangent Powergirl battle their New Earth counterparts, only to escape and destroy the White House. The Tangent Superman proceeds to kidnap the world's leaders, cede power from them and detonate a nuclear weapon to distract New Earth's heroes. While on Earth-9, the heroes find and recruit the Tangent Superman's last tie to humanity, his wife Lola Dent. The heroes on Earth-9 transport themselves back to New Earth, where the combined forces of New Earth's and Earth-9's heroes fight against the Tangent Superman, the Tangent Powergirl and a cadre of villains that the Earth-9 ruler has gathered from New Earth (Lex Luthor, the Joker, Mr. Freeze, the Icicle, Black Manta, Poison Ivy and Felix Faust), as well as the Tangent Ultra-Humanite. The raging battle against the Tangent Superman weakens him, allowing him to be ultimately defeated by his wife, concluding the story.

Convergence (2015)

Convergence is a two-month weekly miniseries, published by DC Comics, that ran from April–May 2015. Convergence spins out of the final issues of the weekly series Earth 2: World's End and The New 52: Futures End. The story involves Brainiac trapping cities from various timelines and planets that have ended, transporting them in domes to a planet outside of time and space and "opening them for a great experiment to see what happens when all these folks meet". Notable during this event is the return of DC characters from before the 2011 Flashpoint story arc that led to the creation of The New 52 universe.^[10]

Earth-9

The "History of the Multiverse" backup stories in the 2007-2008 series Countdown to Final Crisis established that the Tangent Universe now exists as one of the new 52 alternate universes. DC's official list of the current known multiverse lists the Tangent Universe as Earth-9.