Mark D. White

According to a brand spanking new press release in USA Today, DC is launching six "new" titles in May, including the long-hinted JSA title Earth 2 (supposedly written by James Robinson and pencilled by Nicola Scott) and Worlds' Finest, which is said to feature Power Girl and Huntress. The article they both spotlight "alternate worlds," so we can presume that this Power Girl and Huntess are on Earth 2 (the post-52 version of it) and are not Karen Starr as seen in Mister Terrific and Helena Bertinelli as seen in Paul Levitz and Marcus To's current (and excellent) Huntress mini. (I wonder about the Huntress, though, since Paul Levitz created the original Huntress, daughter of the Earth 2 Batman and Catwoman. And are we sure Mister Terrific doesn't take place on Earth 2 already? Hmm…)

UPDATE: A second article at USA Today gives more details on these two books:

Writer James Robinson reteams with the Justice Society for the new series Earth 2, which is being drawn by Nicola Scott, while Huntress and Power Girl are stranded on our world and want to return to theirs in Worlds' Finest, written by Paul Levitz with art by George Perez and Kevin Maguire in rotating story arcs. "What does that mean to be exiles from that Earth 2?" Harras says. "We thought it'd be a nice thing to bring this concept back and to really, as we did with the 52 initially, reconceive it and freshen it up."

UPDATE 2: This article just up at Newsarama confirms that the Huntress in Worlds' Finest is Helena Wayne, not Helena Bertinelli.

Of course, it is far too early to tell if (or, more likely, when) the residents of Earth 2 will meet the rest of the DCnU. (Note all that Worlds' is plural; I wonder if this will be an anthology title featuring other alternate universes as well, perhaps after Grant Morrison gets "done" with the multiverse.) I hope these books will restart to restore the sense of legacy that the traditional DCU possessed since the first Crisis collapsed the original multiverse and put the JSA and JLA on the same world (and earlier, given the frequent crossovers between Earth 1 and Earth 2). I don't mind the essential concept of superheroes being explored in a reinvented world that is meeting them for the first time–that has marvelous story possibilities–but at the same time I am partial to younger generations learning from these elders.

And I dream of seeing DCnU Superman get schooled by the older, wiser Earth 2 Superman–if Kal-L was upset in Infinite Crisis, wait til he sees the DCU now!