MCU vs DCU Multiverse: What’s the actual difference?

DC’s Separate Universes

In contrast, the DC Universe doesn’t incorporate the idea of branching timelines. Their introduction to the multiverse concept came with The Flash, where Barry Allen, in his mission to save his mother, accidentally found himself in a completely new reality – a divergence from Marvel’s multiverse that sees every choice creating a new, branching timeline.

The DC Universe operates under different multiversal rules. For example, instead of branching realities resulting from different decisions, Barry’s time travel altered the past and the future, essentially rewriting the entire timeline.

When we take into account DC Elseworlds projects like Joker and The Batman, it becomes clear that the DC multiverse isn’t a product of an infinite variation of decisions, but rather independent universes existing parallel to each other.

Journeying Through the Multiverse

The MCU has also introduced characters capable of hopping between realities. America Chavez, introduced in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, can open portals to alternate realities, making inter-dimensional travel surprisingly accessible in the MCU.

Meanwhile, in the DC Universe, characters cross timelines through time travel but don’t possess the same ease of traversing universes.