Moments That Made the Bronze (and Modern) Age: Crisis On Infinite Earths

In the mid-80's, DC took a bold step and admitted it had a problem. They just had too many different Earths floating around out there! Initially it was used to explain how the Justice Society of the 40's could exist and still work with the JLA 20 years later, which was a good idea. Unfortunately, they soon started creating new worlds whenever they needed a convenient excuse, giving us Earth 3 with the Crime Syndicate, Earth X with the Freedom Fighters, and many more.

The time came for a clean-up, and DC gave it to the world in a big way. Creating a 12-issue maxi-series, giving it to one of their best artists ever (George Perez), and deciding it was time to kill some major heroes, DC boldly stepped forward and blew my mind with every issue. But the one that truly blew me away had to be the death of my favorite hero at the time: The Flash.

Now I've mentioned Barry Allen's death before in other posts, but that pivotal moment in the series changed the landscape of the comic book world for me. This was years before the Internet, so finding exact issues where other heroes had died wasn't something I'd been able to do with regularity. Yes, I knew the Batman of Earth 2 had died somehow, and I'd seen the JLA issue where Mr. Terrific died, but most hero deaths were stuff that happened in books I would never get to read. The Flash's death, however, I held in my trembling little hands and couldn't believe as I sat in the floor of the drug store in front of the magazine rack.

The Flash's death was preceded by Supergirl's in the previous issue, but I'd never been a big fan of her's so it didn't bother me nearly as much. I kept waiting for the next issue to come out and say that Barry was alive somehow, but it never happened. Wally West stepped in and became the first major sidekick to take on the role of his mentor.

Marvel didn't sit on the sidelines though, as they unleashed Secret Wars and tried to make some changes. They gave us the symbiote Spider-Man suit, and...and...um...well, the suit was cool. They just weren't able to pull off the universe-altering effect DC did with this series.

Another favorite of mine who died was the original Dove, Don Hall (his death is pictured in our blog's title image). Again, I'd hoped for a return, but it never happened. Even up to this day, Don has never come back, even though Supergirl, Barry Allen, and even the Crime Syndicate has found their way back to the land of the living. Oh well, if I ever get the chance to write for DC...

The thing that makes this series stand out is that the changes here were long-lasting--for comic books anyway. Wally West stayed the Flash for the next 20 years as Barry Allen stayed dead. We had just one Earth to deal with, but all the heroes were on it.

Then someone got the stupid idea to try and write a sequel to this hit and we ended up with the "Phantom Menace" of the comic book world: Infinite Crisis. That series decided the hero of the last maxi-series should actually become the villain of the new one. Fortunately for them, Grant Morrison took everyone on such a mind trip in the follow-up Final Crisis, that he was able to make IC look almost readable.

All cruel words aside, Crisis on Infinite Earths was, to me, a pinnacle for the 80's. I still hold it as a standard I judge other miniseries by and think DC really knocked it out of the park with this one. I consider the Absolute Edition of this story a must-have simply because seeing George's artwork in the larger-than-life format is a real treat.

I have just a couple more stories to mention over the next two weeks, and then I want to dive into the black hole decade of the comic book world as we discuss what went horribly, horribly wrong in the 90's. But first, next week: A guest shot in another comic had this hero defeated in his first fight, but his next appearance in the comic world helped create one of the most popular titles of all time...

Looking Back at the "O*'s" - The 5 Worst Stories of the Decade

Since we are officially closing out the first decade of the 21st century, I thought it would be appropriate to reflect back over the next few posts on what we've had happen. There have been some winners, and oh boy have there been some stinkers. Let's start this off by looking at the 5 worst storylines of the decade:

1 - Spider Man - "One More Day"

I know I've picked on this storyline a number of times already, but I'm not alone in my hatred of it. In four issues, Marvel decided to completely change the character of its core hero. He wasn't this superhero/husband...he was just this stupid little selfish boy child.

The man gladly without hesitation sacrifices his super-model wife who has stood by him unceasingly through the whole "Civil War" fiasco and numerous other attempts on his and her life. And why does he do it? Well, that would be just to save his Aunt May, who has already died and returned several times before.

Many people (myself included) thought this was just a stunt and that Marvel wouldn't be so stupid as to stab their faithful readers in the back like that, but they did. Twenty years of comic continuity wiped out in a few pages. Stupid beyond compare.

2 - DC - Final Crisis

DC has nailed up the word "crisis" so much that Marvel doesn't even bother touching it in any of their titles. When DC announced a "Final" crisis, we were all so excited and thought it would be something amazing. Then someone forgot to keep Grant Morrison sober long enough to write the thing and we get a storyline so convoluted no one can understand more than two pages at a time.

I have no idea what he was smoking, popping, or drinking when he came up with this, but they should have included free samples with each issue. Even when you buy the collected edition, you have no idea what's going on.

The incredible thing is that it had a 52-issue lead-in called "Countdown to Final Crisis" meant to prepare the way for the story...but then Morrison completely ignored the series and just jump-started the storyline where he wanted. Then we had "Death of the New Gods", in which all the new gods died...and then Morrison killed them again in this series in a different way. More on Countdown in a minute...

3 - Batman - "R.I.P."

So you want to ride the "Captain America's Dead" wave and kill your own flagship hero? How do you do that? Well, if you're DC you give it to the man who brought you the tripe that is "Final Crisis".

After successfully killing Batman in "Final Crisis", Morrison did it again in "Batman: R.I.P."--but in a different way. Yes, the man who wrote both series killed the same character in two different ways.

While this could have been an iconic moment filled with great moments, instead this was another Grant Morrison twisted storyline that you had to have a Master's Degree in obscure comic book moments to fully appreciate (or understand). Why was he a purple/yellow/red Batman? Why did the villain look like Bruce Wayne (hasn't Hush already pulled that little trick?)? What in the world was going on?

Rather than take this to the same storytelling level of Marvel's death of Captain America, we ended up with a hero death that wasn't worth telling.

4. - Marvel - Secret Invasion's "Mighty Avengers" and "New Avengers" era

While Secret Invasion may have been a good story (not the best, but good), Marvel felt the need to do some massive backstory explanations to let you see where it all came from and what had been going on behind the scenes. Rather than put out another mini-series, or even condense it all into one or two issues, Marvel took both Avengers series hostage and filled each month with story after story of things you really didn't have to know.

The problems were everywhere. Many of the covers had nothing to do with the characters or stories inside. Most of the stories were told in one issue, ending in a cliffhanger that wasn't resolved. The vast majority of the stories were interesting moments that could have been condensed to one-page flashbacks in the main title. It was nothing more than months of "filler". If they didn't want to progress the titles, they should have suspended them until the Invasion was over. As it was, subscribers like myself ended up with issues we've read once and thrown away.

5. - DC - Countdown
When DC put out "52", it was a fairly cool concept and was an interesting story. It has its moments and showcased some great otherwise-unnoticed characters like Question and Booster Gold. DC's follow-up was a little gem called "Countdown to Final Crisis". It had the potential to be awesome, but instead died a slow, painful death.


Look at the moments we had in this storyline: the death of Karate Kid, the birth of Red Robin (Jason Todd), and multiple trips throughout the Elseworlds to revisit some of the better stories from then. 


Unfortunately, immediately after this series ended, DC erased every bit of continuity from it. Jason Todd's trip from angry vigilante to Red Robin was, in a word, "epic". They had found a way to get him into the suit and give him a reason to be a hero...and then as soon as  it was over they took him out of the suit and turned him back into Red Hood. And I'm not even mentioning how Darksied suddenly goes from this story to Final Crisis.

Next week, we look at the best the first ten years had to offer us! Feel free to sound off below of any suggestions or changes to this list or the next one you'd make.

Final Crisis #7 - the crisis is over

Shipping only 2 weeks after issue #6, Final Crisis #7 brings DC's mega-crossover event to a close. Maybe it's because it came out so soon after the previous issue, but this one actually seemed a little easier to follow.

It starts with Captain Marvel recruiting an army of Supermen from various alternate realities to help fight the crisis. I don't know where that started from (I don't remember it from any previous issue) but it's a cool concept. It leads to a pretty awesome scene in the next pages as well. Then we see Superman holding the charred carcass of Batman, and we're off.

Barry Allen and Wally West continue their race against death and the way they end the race is a real treat. Darkseid gets what's coming to him, that's for sure.

The biggest moment of this final issue for me was a little obscure set of panels you probably would have skimmed over. Morrison takes this minor miniseries from last year's unsatisfactory ending and brings back a true hero to the DC Universe. That's right, Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew are back! Just like I asked for! Thanks, Grant!

The series also closes with a revelation of the final fate of the Batman. I don't know if it was a good or bad move to prove up front that he's not dead before the "Battle for the Cowl" storyline has even begun, but it's what they wanted to do. In all honesty, who really believed he was gone forever anyway? We all knew he would eventually be brought back, though the suspense of where he'd been hiding and doing and all that is pretty much gone now. I guess Morrison wanted to make sure whoever took the Batman story from here understood this was how it had to be done. Of course, if whoever it is decides to take Grant's route, he'll ignore the ending and just bring Batman back his own way. If they follow Morrison's ending, how will he be rescued? Well, Booster Gold regularly goes through time in each of his issues, so he'd be the obvious choice...but I'm sure they'll go another route.

I don't know if DC learned anything from this miniseries or not. Perhaps tying a miniseries in to so many other off-shoot minis wasn't the best idea. Because of publishing problems, if one issue was delayed it caused them to have to delay the entire rest of the series so it was read in proper order. Maybe next time they have a "Crisis" (and contrary to what they say, they will), they can do it all in one linear storyline and just make it a 12 issue series again.

Final Crisis #6 - Thank heaven it's almost over!

I honestly didn't plan on reviewing any of these issues anymore, but I had to have some loyalty to the book. After all, I actually began this blog because of the horrible first issue of the miniseries (thus our title). It keeps getting mired in more and more continuity and crossover problems that make it almost unbearable, but hey, let's tear it apart anyway, shall we?

So with the penultimate issue of the miniseries-that-makes-no-sense, we are treated to the death of the Batman...again, but in a different way. Now I know you're thinking "Wait, didn't he die in a plane crash in Batman #681?" and you'd be right. However, this is Final Crisis, Grant Morrison's amazing story that involves every aspect of the DC universe, but doesn't actually interact with any of it. So even though Bruce died a flaming death in his own book, he gets the chance to do it again here. Even better, Morrison has him break one of the cardinal rules of the character (he never uses a gun because of the way his parents were killed) and lets him shoot Darkseid with the god-killing virus bullet that took out Orion (another hero who died a couple of different ways thanks to this series). Morrison keeps batting them out of the park. Next issue, perhaps he'll have Superman rape Wonder Woman so she'll break out of her Darkseid spell, or maybe Captain Marvel can rip the head off of Mary Marvel to make up for the bad things she's done. Grant Morrison will not be bound by the rules of character continuity!

Aside from the rest of the jumping different-scene-each-page format that would actually overload a kid with ADD, we also see Barry Allen as he and Wally prepare to outrun the Black Racer. Will they make it? Who knows...but the Flash:Rebirth title coming out in February might have spoiled that little cliffhanger.

This will never be regarded in the caliber of Crisis on Infinite Earths--or even Infinite Crisis, for that matter. There's just so much to hate about this incredibly confusing title that it boggles the mind. Thank goodness it's almost over. DC has said this will reshape the multiverse forever, but if I could make a suggestion it would be to let Grant take a year-long sabbatical to gather his thoughts and wits before putting him on another title. He used to write good stuff, but this is not his shining moment.

Final Crisis #3 - There's a reason you aren't reading this crap

The results of my recent poll on this blog tell the tale. Almost half of the folks who answered (44%) said they aren't reading Final Crisis, and over a third of the rest (31%) said they had no clue what was going on. To understand why, you don't need to look any further than Final Crisis # 3.

I swear this book appears to have been written by either 8 different writers or one schizophrenic. Grant Morrison's "New Storyline Every Page" writing style hasn't changed, and you'll need some serious background in DC history to catch the significance of everything happening here. I've been reading comics for over thirty years, and I still have no clue what most of this stuff is supposed to mean. There are entire websites devoted to nothing but answering the questions from this one series!

The bright spot in this story is the fact that it leads to the return of Barry Allen. Oh, I know tons of folks are complaining about that on the Internet because "Wally is the Flash now! It's not fair for Barry to take that away from him!", but it's the only good thing coming out of this acid trip known as Final Crisis. Jay Garrick appears long enough to confirm that it is indeed Barry we're seeing, and to admit that he's not as fast as either Barry or Wally. The Black Racer is chasing the two speedsters to presumably take Barry back, but they're leading him on quite the run.

Superman makes an appearance to mourn the loss of Lois (who isn't going to die, but who would for one second think she really is anyway?) and to set the stage for his own little FC miniseries offshoot starting next month. He claims his heat vision is the only thing keeping Lois alive, but how is that possible? All the medical marvels the hospital has at their disposal, and it's heat that's keeping her heart pumping? Can someone please keep Grant away from the crackhouse long enough to write just these simple seven issues?

We have that powerful "group shot" every major story is supposed to have. Alan Scott has formed this emergency Justice League of sorts to help contain the oncoming problems. Of course, we never actually get to see them fight, and this issue ends pretty conclusively that the Earth is doomed and the heroes failed, so I guess it was just one of those "Makes sense to me!" moments for Morrison.

There is this brutal and graphic fight between Wonder Woman and Mary Marvel (in her new "spank me, spank me hard" S&M outfit), but I'm not going to show any of it. For no reason other than shock value Mary rips one of the Atomic Knights in half, then gives Wonder Woman a virus.

Mercifully, the story is almost over by then. We see one last glimpse of the Flashes as they've overshot the present to appear one month in the future. Barry is upset trying to figure out why he's been brought back but still unable to save Orion, and then we close on what is supposed to be this big climactic scene of Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Giganta, and some other lady turned bad and ready to destroy our heroes. Tune in two months from now to see one page of this storyline, I suppose.

This story ends telling you to read three different miniseries offshoot titles before coming back in two months for Final Crisis #4! You have to read Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, Final Crisis: Revelations, and Final Crisis: Superman Beyond 3D before coming back to just the Final Crisis main storyline. How does this make sense to anyone?

I know I keep comparing this story to Crisis on Infinite Earths, but I do that for a reason: DC started it saying this was the conclusion of the "Crisis Trilogy". Yet this trip down the rabbit hole every month makes no sense whatsoever. Can you imagine if DC ever tried to put out an Absolute Edition of this? It would be twice the size of the Los Angeles phonebook if they were going to include everything you'd need to have a complete story!

I think it's safe to say you can avoid this title and most of the DC books for the rest of the year. At some point reality is going to set in and someone at DC is going to say, "Hey, remember when stories used to make sense? Let's try doing that again just to see what happens!"

Final Crisis - Requiem

While Final Crisis had a big part to play in my creation of this blog, I don't plan to cover every single offshoot issue from the convoluted storyline. But when I read Requiem, I knew there was something here to talk about.

One of the problems with Final Crisis is the way Grant Morrison is trying to tell a dozen stories in each issue, and everything only gets a passing mention before being tossed aside and the fans being told, "If you like that story, grab the one-shot or miniseries coming out about it." I can't say I've ever really seen a time before when a publisher would do a miniseries about a miniseries while it's still trying to publish the original, but this is DC.

One of the major moments so far has been the one-panel death of Martian Manhunter, a hero that's been around since the creation of the JLA. I have never seen the fascination folks have with him, as he was--to me--a second-rate Superman rip-off who could be defeated if you just lit a match, so his death really didn't grab me. The fact that they've slowly tried to devolve his look into something from an X-Files episode over recent years didn't help the matter. Still, even I thought he deserved more than a toss-off death scene.

Enter Final Crisis: Requiem.

This one-shot is supposed to fill in the blanks about what led up to the Martian Manhunter's death, how it affected his friends, and just how they found out about it (as well as the obligatory funeral scene). The problem is this is a great story, and if they'd just put this into Final Crisis itself it could have helped the miniseries so much.

Instead of just being dragged into the room and stabbed, MM actually puts up a fight in this issue by playing with the minds of the villains in the room, making them think the heroes are killing them. For a moment it seems like he might make it out of this alive--except we know how this ends for him. And even though I didn't care for MM, this fight gave me new respect for what he could have been if DC had just let him cut loose. And after the bad guys get through really killing him off, his body still has to be found. Tell me this wouldn't have been an incredible shot in Final Crisis:
This would have been a much more powerful statement in the miniseries itself. Nightwing finding his body impaled on a rooftop...this is the stuff the miniseries is missing right now.

DC has pushed Final Crisis as "the last one". This was the end of the "Crisis Trilogy" (Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, and Final Crisis), and it was supposed to be this universe-altering storyline that would change the DC Universe forever. Instead, it's like grabbing a sampler comic every issue with the main stories being pushed to one-shots like this one. If they want to fix this, they should go back and read "Crisis on Infinite Earths" again and see how self-contained this maxi-series really was. All the major events happened in those 12 issues, and it was what made the story powerful. Requiem just proves that DC still has the storytelling chops in them somewhere, they just need to pile it all into that main story!

Pick up this issue. Yes, parts of it are sappy, but it's a much better story than the series it comes from.

The Mess That is "Final Crisis"

Well, the big moment has finally arrived folks and DC's much-hyped "Final Crisis" is upon us. We've had 53 weeks of the "Countdown to Final Crisis", so we should be well-versed in exactly what awaits us, right? Well, after two issues, it's safe to say: "Huh?"

"Countdown" wasn't the greatest thing in the world, but it did manage to have some sparkling moments. One of the biggest was when Jason Todd took on the mantle of Red Robin from Alex Ross's "Kingdom Come". Even though the character had all of one page and really no action sequences, it was something fans everywhere loved. Seeing the costume in the final issues of "Countdown" was great, and Jason turned the character into a tougher version of Batman. I was looking forward to seeing him really be a big player in "Final Crisis". Alas, it was not to be.

Looking at the first two issues of FC, it's safe to say Grant Morrison never bothered to read any of the comics DC had put out in recent years. Instead, he decided to start his own series and hope the rest of the books could keep up.

Two issues so far and we've seen the death of a major character (Martian Manhunter) in a beautiful ONE PANEL death scene. I've never been a huge fan of MM, but even he deserved some sort of better send-off than this.

Then issue 2 comes out and readers everywhere are going "What in the world?" and trying to find the missing pages of the book. There aren't any. This incoherent mess really was published this way on purpose. And we end on what's supposed to be the biggest bombshell moment of DC in recent years: the return of the Flash.

Is this the "YEAH!" moment comic fans everywhere have been looking for? Has Barry Allen returned to bring the Flash back to the comic icon he once was? Given Morrison's track record so far, don't hold your breath. More than likely, Bart Allen would return permanently before Barry did. A guest shot, maybe, but is Barry sticking around? Nope. DC hasn't done well lately in keeping a story strong, so there's no reason to think they would start now.

So where do we go from here? Given the patchwork storytelling we've seen so far, I think it will be another 2 or 3 issues before any of the storylines started here are resolved. We'll probably see about 4 more tragic beginnings next issue and have to pick up the one-shot or mini-series that finishes it. But hey, it's not like Marvel's doing much better with the Skrull war. More on that one later.

DC, the fans are beginning you to tell a coherent story. When "Crisis on Infinite Earths" came out, it did manage to cross over a few titles. All the same, you can read the collected maxi-series and keep up with everything going on. Even "Infinite Crisis" made sense in that format. This one is relying way too much on other books to clean up the mess they're starting. You've still got 6 issues left of this. Fix it...please.