Okay useless discussion about the lore of DC Comics’ Earth-13, a. k. a. Arcane Earth.
So technically speaking there are at least 2 different versions of Earth 13 with a possible third that could also just be part of the backstory for one of the other two.
First we have the technically noncanon version referred to as Arcane Earth. It had it’s first comic appearance in Infinite Crisis: Fight For The Multiverse #4 (Oct-Dec 2014) written by Dan Abnett, and fearures characters that appeared in the short lived infinite crisis moba game (March 2015). Which in turn was based on the original infinite crisis story arc of 2005-2006.
Not much is known, all we know is that some time ago in the past the league of shadows tried to extinguish the sun. The sun was rekindled using magic and because of it’s new magic core, earth 13 became more magical by being constantly exposed to mystic sunlight. We also know that many great abd terrible beasts such as doomsday were sealed away in tombs to slumber until prophesied to rise again in a lovecraftian fashion.
We only meet 5 characters from this world, Zatanna The Silent Sorceress, General Zod, Supergirl, the Titan Doomsday, and The Emerald Knight Hal Jordan.
Of the 5, Zatanna is stated to be more powerful than Supergirl and Zod due to her wielding blood magic through her scythe. And that through the sacrifice of her voice the sun was rekindled (implying that she alone is responsible for the mystic sun). Hal is considered to be one of their greatest heroes. Supergirl uses magic she calls “the flamebird” and general zod wields an axe that grants him necromancy and kryokinetic powers. (Called Icy necromancy, and said to come from the phantom lords). Kara says krypton was home to the hidden ones and that during the extinguishing of the sun she is the last survivor. sort of implying that Kal-el didn’t survive either.
Then we have the second version of earth 13 which made it’s comic appearance in “the guide to the multiversity” written by grant morrison in March of 2015.
We know less about this earths history but what we do know is that it’s an occult world with 13 hour days, 13 month years, and is in a perpetual state of twilight. In this world the league of shadows are the good guys. And we meet the whole league in multiversity #2
The league is lead by Superdemon, who rocketed to earth from Kamelot by Merlin. His league members are Annataz, Deadman, Enchantress, Hellblazer, Ragman, Swampman, Witchboy, and Fate (Jared Stevens). We only see 3 of them in action where Annataz speaks fully reversed sentences, and Fate and Etrigan dispatch vampires.
Personal thoughts:
I find the very different yet similar versions very interesting. I think they both have a lot of potential but I think itd be best to merge the two. Seeing as Arcane earth came first and Earth-13 is canon. I much prefer Silent Sorceress Zatanna but i think it’d be cool to make her a woc character like in morrisons version. Enchantress looks so cool, hellblazer does not. The others looks I’m indifferent about. I hate superdemon being the leader or this worlds superman because almost all of the other magic heroes could defeat him and that’s just facts. His backstory is a clever twist on the superman story but in my opinion Zatanna should be this earths“superman”. I like the 13 hour and 13 month thing but the sun should be magic like in the arcane earth history.
While i enjoy arcane versions of other characters, they should not be considered as powerful as the normal magic users. This is tge arcane, magic earth of the multiverse so the magic heroes absolutely deserve the spotlight and recognition as most powerful.
The end
