The year was 1985, Marv Wolfman and George Perez set out to do something never before attempted, and still (now 23 years later) never equaled. Taking 50 years of comics history the pair revamped the DC Comics landscape from the ground-up eliminating the Multiverse and streamlining a history filled with numerous continuity problems which had crept up over the years. Not all heroes would survive, and, as promised, the DC Universe would never be the same.
With DC Comics ready to launch Final Crisis we begin our look back in history at the event which started it all.
Crisis on Infinite Earths
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Crisis on Infinite Earths was a first. There had been mini-series before, but nothing on the scale which Marv Wolfman had conceived. Over twenty-years later events from Crisis still reverberate across many corners of the DCU. No other series can make such a claim.
For decades the continuity of the DC Universe had grown harder and harder to rectify. This twelve-issue maxi-series would reboot the entire DCU, removing the parallel worlds which made up the vast Multiverse and creating a single earth. Universes died, as did heroes – most notably Supergirl and The Flash (Barry Allen), but many others as well.
The entire DC Universe was put in danger by an alien scientist who disrupted the balance between the matter and anti-matter realities. Through his experiments he released the Anti-Monitor from slumber and set in motion a series of events which would destroy the Monitor of our dimension and all but one universe which would remain.
It was an epic tale of all of existence versus a power-hungry god wanting to wipe it out. And the Anti-Monitor was too strong for Superman (or even Supermen) to tackle alone. Eventually even the villains of the DCU were forced to help save reality from non-existence.
From every corner of the DCU heroes banded together and stood against the rapidly shrinking reality and managed to save one Earth, a single reality from which continuity would restart and heroes across the DCU, most notably Superman, would be relaunched.
The event did what it set out to do – it reset the DCU and served as a jumping off point for many characters and a welcome for new fans to jump on board from “the beginning,” making it one of the most unique and important series ever launched. It also had the negative effect of inspiring countless self-important “events” being launched every year by both Marvel and DC (how many of you remember Millennium?). So far only Marvel’s Civil War has come close to the scope of Crisis, but from current storylines, such as Secret Invasion, it seems unlikely it will have the same lasting impact.
And it still holds up. The death and sacrifice still mean something, all these years later. And it did what it promised by changing the fabric of the DCU, in some good ways (return Hal Jordan to the Corps, folding the Charlton characters into the DCU) , some sad ways (the death of Barry Allen), and some bad (the loss and removal of several characters from the DCU for years). Crisis on Infinite Earths is available in a trade paperback and a mammoth Absolute Edition complete with several cross-over issues, notes, the official index to the series, and the aftereffects. Whether you’ve never read it, or it’s been a few years take a look and this landmark of comic history again, especially now as DC gears up for Final Crisis.