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Crisis on Infinite Earths

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Crisis on Infinite Earths was a 12-issue comic book limited series (identified as a "12 part maxi-series") and crossover event, produced by DC Comics in 1985 in order to simplify their fifty-year-old continuity. The series was written by Marv Wolfman, and illustrated by George Pérez (pencils/layouts), with Mike DeCarlo, Dick Giordano, and Jerry Ordway (who shared inking/embellishing chores). The series eliminated the concept of the Multiverse in the fictional DC Universe, and depicted the deaths of such long-standing superheroes as Supergirl and the Barry Allen incarnation of the Flash.

The title of the series was inspired by earlier crossover stories involving the multiple parallel Earths of the Multiverse, such as "Crisis on Earth-Two" and "Crisis on Earth-Three", but instead of lasting two to five issues and involving members from as many superhero teams from as many parallel worlds, it involved virtually every significant character from every parallel universe in DC's history. It has in turn inspired the title of the late-2005 DC crossover series Infinite Crisis.

Contents

Overview

The editorial objective of the series was to make the DC Universe more accessible to new readers and to free the company's writers from the "baggage" of fifty years of continuity. In particular, DC's system of parallel worlds with different versions of various characters was cited as confusing to new readers.

The series (usually referred to as simply Crisis) was highly successful from a marketing standpoint, generating renewed interest in the company's books, enticing readers with the clichéd – but in this case accurate – promise that "things will never be the same". The story itself was rooted firmly in the cliché of "superheroes battle to save the world", but its unprecedented scope and its great attention to both drama and detail satisfied readers with its story. Along with Alan Moore's Watchmen and Frank Miller's , it contributed to the commercial and creative revitalization of DC Comics, which had been dominated in the market by Marvel Comics through the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Crisis also helped popularize the formula of the line-wide "crossover" comic book series (a concept first seen in Marvel Comics' Contest of Champions (1983) and Secret Wars (1984). Since 1985, superhero publishers such as DC and Marvel have had frequent "summer crossover" series designed to tie many of their comic book titles together under a single storyline (and thus sell more comic books).

Origins

The title was originally conceived to be a celebration of DC's 50th anniversary; however, Marv Wolfman and Len Wein saw it as a chance to clean up DC's rather convoluted continuity (which was thought to have put many new readers off buying DC titles) that had built up over that time.

Wolfman came up with an idea which would reach across the entirety of the DC Universe and its 50-year history. First of all, he came up with the character of the Monitor who was initially a faceless character used in many of DC's titles over the course of a year. The Monitor supplied DC's villains with equipment in order to test its heroes for the Crisis ahead. As a result, the character was seen to be a villain himself and his real reasons were not revealed to the reader until Crisis #1.

Plot summary

Crisis on Infinite Earths #12. Earth's heroes fight the Anti-Monitor.
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Crisis on Infinite Earths #12. Earth's heroes fight the Anti-Monitor.

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The story introduced readers to two near-omnipotent beings, the good Monitor and the evil Anti-Monitor, who had been created as a result of the same experiment that created the Multiverse. The Monitor had made cameo appearances in various DC comic book series for two years preceding the publication of the series and at first appeared to be a new supervillain, but with the onset of the Crisis, he was revealed to be working on a desperate plan to save the entire Multiverse from destruction at the hands of the Anti-Monitor. The Crisis series highlighted the efforts of DC Comics' superheroes to stop the Anti-Monitor's plan. Under the initial guidance of the Monitor, a select group of heroes was assigned to protect massive "tuning forks" designed to merge the surviving Earths into one that could be protected from the antimatter that had already annihilated untold numbers of alternate Earths. Eventually the conflict grew, and nearly every DC hero became involved in the battle.

The Monitor was murdered by his own assistant, Harbinger, while she was temporarily possessed by one of the Anti-Monitor's "shadow demons", but he was expecting the attack and allowed it to happen so his death would release enough energy to protect the last five parallel Earths (the homes of the known DC Universe) long enough for the heroes to lead an assault on the Anti-Monitor, under the guidance of the Monitor's assistants, Harbinger, Alexander Luthor, Jr. and Pariah. The villain was forced to retreat, but at the cost of Supergirl's life.

This lull in the war provided some breathing room for the heroes, but the various supervillains joined forces under Brainiac and Lex Luthor to attempt the conquest of the Earths, while the Anti-Monitor caused chaos on the Earths by forcing the Psycho-Pirate to manipulate the emotions of their inhabitants. The second Flash died stopping the Anti-Monitor's backup scheme of destruction (to use an anti-matter cannon to penetrate the protective aura.) The Spectre halted the hero/villain conflict, warning that the Anti-Monitor was traveling to the beginning of time to prevent the Multiverse's creation (The Spectre himself was unable to enter the Anti-Matter universe because it weakened magic, as well as the invulnerability of some of the heroes.) Heroes and villains joined forces in response with the heroes traveling to stop the Anti-Monitor, and the villains traveling to the planet Oa in antiquity to prevent the renegade scientist Krona from performing a historic experiment that would have allowed the Anti-Monitor to succeed in his efforts.

The villains failed, and Krona proceeded with his experiment, while the heroes supported the Spectre, whose battle with the Anti-Monitor created an energy overload that shattered space and time. With that, a single universe was created and all the superheroes returned to a present-day reality where the various elements of the five Earths were fused into one, with no one except the people present at the battle at the dawn of time remembering the original reality. The Anti-Monitor attacked one last time, but fell to a carefully planned counter-attack with some unexpected last-second help from the New Gods' adversary, Darkseid.

Post-Crisis

Characters and other elements established before Crisis on Infinite Earths (especially those eliminated by it) are considered "pre-Crisis" and revised ones are considered "post-Crisis". (Note: With the advent of the 2005-2006 mini-series Infinite Crisis (see below and main article), another continuity-altering storyline, "pre-/post-Crisis" alone is no longer a definitive identifier; it is now necessary to make clear which Crisis one is referring to).

Crisis was used by DC as an opportunity to wipe much of its slate clean and make major changes to many of their major revenue-generating comic book series. Frank Miller's revamp of Batman with , George Perez's relaunching of Wonder Woman, and John Byrne's reboot of Superman (see The Man of Steel) all took place shortly following Crisis on Infinite Earths, and changed substantial elements of the characters' backstories.

Several other titles which were not significantly retconned were taken in very different directions following Crisis. The Flash was relaunched starring a younger main character, the previous Flash's sidekick, Kid Flash (also known as Wally West). The Justice League of America title was cancelled, to be replaced by a new series entitled simply Justice League, featuring a new cast, many of them drawn from what had been different universes in DC's pre-Crisis multiverse. While some of these revamps of classic superheroes were less successful than others, their new beginnings can generally be attributed to the success of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

In the post-Crisis timeline, an epic "Crisis" still occurred in which numerous heroes opposed the Anti-Monitor's attempts to destroy the (singular) universe. While the Flash still died, Supergirl did not, as she had "never existed".

The majority of DC Universe characters are unaware that the Crisis on Infinite Earths occurred. Although the characters who were present at the epic battle at the dawn of time (Crisis on Infinite Earths #10, "Death at the Dawn of Time") - Psycho-Pirate, Lady Quark, Harbinger, and Pariah - were initially treated as exceptions, this idea did not stick. There have been occasional references to the event. A 2002 storyline in the Supergirl comic book saw the original pre-Crisis Supergirl landing on post-Crisis Earth, for example, and established that the Spectre, being able to see across dimensions and timelines, is aware the Crisis occurred. In addition, Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man, heralded for its deconstruction of the concept of the comic book, initiated a "Second Crisis" in which characters such as the original Crime Syndicate of America from Earth-Three came back to life thanks to the Medusa Mask owned by the Psycho Pirate, who remembered the original Crisis. Per Degaton is aware of the Pre-Crisis timeline; he told the JSA's of the present and of 1951 that he would retcon them out of existence the same way the Huntress of Earth-Two was. With the Fourth World existing outside the Multiverse proper, Darkseid has also acknowledged the events of the Crisis.

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Deaths during Crisis

The following DC characters died during Crisis: Gunner showed up alive and well later in the comic Creature Commandos (albeit with cybernetic enchancements), a Hawkman issue revealed that Nighthawk is believed to have died under different circumstances, Wonder Woman was revealed not to have died but just been sent back through her own timeline to the point before she was formed from clay, which paved the way for the re-launch of the title, Lori Lemaris' death has been erased from continuity, the Crime Syndicate were later brought back into continuity in the comic (however, this is a different version of the Crime Syndicate, from the anti-matter earth in the universe of Qward, as opposed to the Pre-Crisis version on Earth-Three), and it was revealed in James Robinson's Starman comics that Prince Gavyn's spirit actually survived and bonded with the superhero Will Payton.

New characters and changes

Several new characters were introduced in Crisis. The Monitor's assistant, Harbinger, and scientist Pariah played major roles in the story. Lady Quark was introduced as a survivor of one of the destroyed worlds. A new Doctor Light, this time heroic and female, was introduced. The former Charlton Comics characters - notably Blue Beetle II - were introduced to the DC Universe.

After the Crisis, former Kid Flash Wally West took over the mantle of his predecessor The Flash. Jonah Hex was transported to a post-apocalyptic future but this did not prove popular and subsequent stories brought him back to the Wild West. The JSA member Wildcat was briefly replaced by his god-daughter, Yolanda Montez.

Criticisms

Many readers unfamiliar with the complicated continuity of the DC universe found the story confusing, as it was written especially for readers who were intimately familiar with the countless characters created in the pages of DC comics over the space of fifty years, including multiple versions of characters such as Superman and Wonder Woman.

The changes made in the wake of Crisis were not ushered in consistently. The series itself was published over the course of a year with ongoing series continuing at the same time, and several months of stories set in the "old" continuity continued to be published following its last issue. Furthermore, revamped or relaunched versions of series did not debut at the same time, and DC continued to feature the "old" versions of characters until new versions were launched, sometimes a year or more later. The character of Hawkman was one of the most problematic, as a new version did not appear until 1989; this raised the question as to who this "Hawkman" character was who had been running around with the post-Crisis heroes since 1986. Similar problems faced the Legion of Super-Heroes, which had been affected by the removal of Superboy from DC continuity, and successive attempts to "repair" it had met with mixed results. Two major female characters, Donna Troy and Power Girl also had their place in the DC Universe become problematic. In 1994, DC produced a mini-series titled Zero Hour, which attempted to resolve these problems by again rebooting the DCU, but this time with fewer wholesale revisions.

Many fans of characters that were eliminated or dramatically affected by Crisis were unhappy with these changes. They argued that the company's five decades of publishing were a rich foundation upon which to build, and complained that the post-Crisis universe was one with which they had no connection. The complete erasure of Superman's cousin Supergirl was particularly controversial, with fans complaining that it rendered her heroic self-sacrifice in Crisis meaningless (the fact that the Flash's heroic self-sacrifice was remembered by DC characters as almost martyrdom made her treatment seem even less respectful by comparison.) An irregular variety of similar replacement characters named Supergirl were introduced to mixed reactions. DC relented in 2004 and introduced a Supergirl who closely matched the pre-Crisis Kara Zor-El of Krypton.

Infinite Crisis

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The Infinite Crisis storyline, a seven-issue limited series launched during 2005, revisits many elements of the original Crisis, with Earth Two's Superman Kal-L having chosen to return to mainstream "reality" with Earth-Three's Alexander Luthor, Jr. and Earth-Prime's Superboy. Events in this ongoing series suggest a decision by DC Comics editors to create a "New Earth", which effectively is a different arrangement of the DC Universe, with it a return of some of the Earth-Two continuity for characters such as Power Girl. Also, Infinite Crisis appears to be an attempt to address the perception on the part of some that the DC Universe, and comics in general, has become too dark and "gritty". For Example: on New Earth, Post-Infinite Crisis continuity, the murderer of Bruce Wayne's parents has been brought to justice, just as he had been on Earth-One.

New Earth's streamlined continuity has upset some fans, in much the same way the original had, with characters such as the Matrix, also known as Supergirl, removed from continuity (Note: Dan Didio stated that Matrix is gone, but Geoff Johns stated that related character Linda Danvers is not). Other changes include the reinstatement of Wonder Woman as a founding member of the Justice League.

Secret Crisis Of The Infinity Hour

Various issues of Amalgam Comics would refer to an event called Secret Crisis Of The Infinity Hour. The summary of the supposed 12 issues:

SECRET CRISIS OF THE INFINITY HOUR -- In brief: Thanoseid acquires the Infinity Links, forging them into the Infinity Loop. With the Loop in his power he will destroy all of reality in exactly one hour. His first act is to erase Super Soldier from existence. It takes the combined efforts of the heroes from Earth, New Genesis, Apokolips, and the future to stop Thanoseid, his ally Doctor Doomsday, and a planet full of supervillains, in order to break the Infinity Loop. The casualties run high; the Golden Age Speed Demon, Scott Free, Orion, and the modern-day American Girl perish in the conflict. Super Soldier, on the other hand, returns to continuity in time to help repair some of the damage. At the story's end, Doc Alternity succeeds in his task of re-spinning the Infinity Loop. [BULLETS AND BRACELETS #1, 1996] [SPIDER-BOY TEAM-UP #1, JUN 1997] [THORION AND THE NEW ASGODS #1, JUN 1997] [AMALGAM TRADING CARD #43] [AMALGAM CLASSICS: POWER BLAST #9 of 9] [SECRET CRISIS OF THE INFINITY HOUR: CANVAS CARDS #1-9 OF 9][link]

Parodies and homage references

Blackthorne Comics' Freak-Out on Infant Earths

Crisis (along with other crossovers and "event" comics of the period) was parodied by Simpsons Comics' Radioactive Man series: Radioactive Man #679 (Sept 1994), entitled "Who Washes The Washmen's Infinite Secrets Of Legendary Crossover Knight Wars?" by Steve Vance.

Crisis was also parodied in Marvel Comics' Mighty Mouse comic book in 1991. Issues #4 and 5, titled "Mices on Infinite Earths" had Mighty Mouse meeting Mighty Mousette and helping the Minatour and Harebinger fight the evil and powerful Anti-Minatour. Issue #4 has a cover by George Perez that parodies Crisis #7, and Perez also drew the cover of issue #5, which parodies Crisis #12.

Various issues of Amalgam Comics would refer to an event called Secret Crisis Of The Infinity Hour see more detail in external links.

Crisis was again parodied in MAD Magazine issue #448, with the review of the fictional "Infinite Secret Crisis on All Earthly Worlds," which sought to solve the continuity problems by killing absolutely everyone, in alphabetical order.

It is also worth noting that many images and themes from Crisis are repeated in JLA/Avengers written by Kurt Busiek and pencilled (as was Crisis) by George Perez. These are also a joke made at the expense of the original series.

In the Justice League episode "A Better World, Part 1", the story that the alternate Martian Manhunter uses to lure the Justice League into a trap describes the maxi-series: the parts that can be heard is "...and the dimensions appear to be collapsing on each other" and "...perhaps by combining our forces, we may be able to avert this crisis which threatens all the infinite earths and all the divergent timestreams".

In the Justice League Unlimited episode "The Once And Future Thing, Part 2," Chronos's disruption of the timeline results in history nearly being erased with a "white field" effect similar to the anti-matter wave of the Crisis. Also, Batman and Green Lantern chase Chronos to the beginning of time, where they view the Anti-Monitor's hand.

Action Figures

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC Direct issued a series of Crisis action figures. However, due to quality-control problems, DC Direct recalled the toys and asked retailers to cut off the heads and ship them back to DC Direct. They are scheduled to be re-released on June 28th, 2006.

The first wave includes action figure representations of Earth-2 Robin, Supergirl, the Monitor, Harbinger and Psycho Pirate. The second wave includes action figure representations of the Flash (Barry Allen), Earth-2 Superman, the Anti-Monitor, Lex Luthor and Brainiac.

Bibliography

External links

 

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