Raison d’être
Many of the columns, reviews, and even discussions on our message board / forum here at 411 that have spoken to DC titles eventually mention “a not-so-little thing” called The Crisis on Infinite Earths. This was the industry’s preeminent maxi-series crossover that tore asunder DC’s multiple earths in the mid-1980s.
In this Crisis column, we’ll explore the Golden and Silver Age events that led to a need for a massive DC Universe overhaul as well as the more corporate influences, such as DC’s acquisition of other comic book companies.
Three-in-one
The company that we know today as DC Comics has an origin as interesting as many of the characters that populate its super-hero universe(s). Its roots go back to three comic companies from the early 1930s: National Allied Publications (NA), Detective Comics Inc. (DC), and All-American Publications (AA).
In February of 1935, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson launched NA with New Fun, an oversized black and white comic book with a colored cover – a cover that actually featured a “Jack Woods” multi-panel Cowboy-Western comic strip.
This new title also featured new material, not reprints of newspaper comic strips that were quite popular and common at the time. Later that same year, in December of 1935, NA launched its second title, a more slapstick oriented title called New Comics with a more conventional cover – one big picture not a comic strip. However, due to its cumbersome size, and other issues, the comic book company didn’t catch on with readers of the day, and encountered some financial problems.
In 1936 two businessman, Harry Donenfield and Jack Liebowitz, partnered with NA founder Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson to keep his struggling new NA imprint afloat. In March of 1937, the three men partnered together on a third title, Detective Comics. A few months later NA’s New Comics title became New Adventure Comics. Later still that year, Wheeler-Nicholson’s financial troubles caught up with him and he went bankrupt. His two business partners bought out his interest in Detective Comics Inc., as well went to the courts to buy New Fun and New Adventure Comics – the latter title would drop its adjective and become one of the longest running titles next to Detective Comics.
In 1939, DC co-founder Jack Liebowitz partnered with Maxwell Charles Gaines to form All American Comics and debuting a comic of the same name. AA also launched Flash Comics in January 1940 which debuted the same-named speedster hero.
While Liebowitz was partners in two different comic book companies, the relationship between the two companies was very entangled. They shared office space at some point and all books being published by both displayed the “DC” bullet on all its covers from 1940 onwards (for the most part). They even shared a universe of sorts as they teamed a bunch of their super-hero properties together in a re-branded All-Stars Comics in issue #3 creating the first super-team with the Justice Society of America.
In the mid-1940s, the two companies would eventually and officially merge with Liebowitz’s buy-out of Gaines, who himself went on to form EC Comics.
This quasi-new comic book company with its stable of titles was officially called National Comics, to be later renamed, yet again, to National Periodical Publications. Interestingly enough the comic book company would only officially change its name to DC Comics in the late 1970s – renaming itself after the bullet that adorned its books covers for many years and what the company was commonly referred to as anyway.
For the remainder of this column, for clarity sake, I will refer to this company as it was known “unofficially” and later “officially” as “DC Comics”.
The Golden Age beginnings of Super-hero Comics
In June of 1938, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two teenagers from Cleveland, launched Action Comics, after DC bought the rights to their odd looking, super-powered, man-in-tights Superman.
In May of 1939, Detective Comics was re-branded with issue #27 and the creation of Batman by Bob Kane and Bill Finger.
With comic book super-hero sales soaring, two and a half years after Action Comics #1 ushered in the super-hero genre, All-Star Comics #3 built on the genre by creating the first super-team, the JSA. The book brought together many DC and AA properties such as AA’s the Flash (Jay Garrick), Hawkman (Carter Hall), Green Lantern (Alan Scott), the Atom (Al Pratt), and Johnny Thunder with DC’s the Spectre (Jim Corrigan), Dr. Fate (Kent Nelson), the Hourman (Rex Tyler), and Sandman (Wesley Dodds).
William Moulton Marston’s Wonder Woman debuted with an 8-page insert in All Star Comics #8 and she later become JSA’s first female team member in All Star Comics #11 – adding another layer to the super-hero and super-team genres.
As others saw the success of DC and super-hero comics, many other companies got into the business. Quality Comics debuted its most famous hero in Plastic Man among others, Fawcett Publications and its Captain Marvel (Shazam) boy-turned-hero (who rivaled and surpassed Superman in sales at some points in its heyday) plus a growing stable of heroes, and Charlton Comics with characters such as Blue Beetle and others.
However, super-hero sales started to slump resulting in many of DC’s (and the other “pretender” companies) titles being canceled including the adventures of the JSA with the abrupt cancellation of All-Star Comics in 1951 with issues #57.
The Silver Age’s Birth
For whatever reason, DC decided to expand its super-hero books in 1956. It began with Showcase #4 and the debut of a new Flash (Barry Allen). This character had the same nom de guerre and powers (for the most part) as his Golden Age counterpart, but everything else was virtually different. The Flash series of the Golden Age relaunched and continued its numbering, but now starred a new hero. Many of the readers of the adventures of this new Flash didn’t even realize that there were super-heroes prior to 1956.
The success of this new Flash led to DC’s repackaging of many of its large stable of heroes including Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Hawkman (Katar Hol), Atom (Ray Palmer), and others. Many of these “Silver Age” heroes would band together in the most recognizable super-team of all-time, the Justice League of America.
In 1961, the Barry Allen and Jay Garrick Flashes, of the Silver and Golden Ages respectively, met in the classic “Flash of Two Worlds” adventure chronicled in Flash #123.
As I wrote in our inaugural NMM column:
“Barry Allen accidentally bridged the “vibrational barrier” of his Earth and a similar Earth – one where the JSA had been justice’s champion twenty years previous – and came face-to-face with his comic-book-turned-flesh heroic inspiration, Jay Garrick, the Flash of DC’s Golden Age. The world that Barry had thought fictitious, to his surprise, was an actual parallel Earth.
……. So enthralling was the “Flash of Two Worlds” tale that DC contrived further team-ups, between the Golden Age Flash of, a newly-named, Earth 2, and Earth 1’s Silver Age Flash, to meet fan demand.
These inter-Earth cross-overs extended past the Flash series. Each “Age’s” respective super-team – Earth 1’s JLA and Earth 2’s JSA – started their own contrived annual meeting tradition that began with 1963’s Crisis on Earth One in Justice League of America #21. From then on, the summer issues of the JLA title would feature a “Crisis” of some kind that would require a JLA / JSA team-up to avert disaster. ”
This annual team-up tradition of the JSA and JLA would last a good twenty years and extend, a little bit, past the events of the Crisis. It was during one of these early meetings, in 1964’s Justice League #29 that Earth 3 debuted – a world where villains ruled and banded together in an almost mirror JLA called Crime Syndicate of America.
In addition, it appeared that a Batman and a Superman resided on both Earths. While Batman and Superman were charter members of the JLA, their Earth 2 counterparts were not seen and usually referenced off-panel during some of the team cross-overs.
Corporate Raiding
DC added to its multiverse and grew it from its “few” Earths.
In 1956, at the beginning of the Silver Age, DC Comics acquired the rights to the stable of Quality Comics properties, but only used Plastic Man and Blackhawk initially. All the Quality heroes would reside in DC’s Earth X
In 1973, DC licensed the Captain Marvel property from Fawcett Publications and launched With One Mighty Word… Shazam!. Shortly after, DC would purchase the Fawcett properties outright. The Fawcett heroes, including the ever-growing Shazam family, Spy Smasher, Bulletman, and others would now live in their own corner of the DC Universe called Earth S
In 1983, Charlton Comics’ large stable of properties was purchased by DC as well. This heroes, including Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, and others resided on Earth 4 (so named during the Crisis maxi-series).
A huge fist full of Earths
So, for those keeping score, prior to the Crisis, here are the most well-known Earths of DC’s multiverse:
Earth Prime – The “real” world, i.e. the world you and I live.
Earth 1 – The world that sprung from the Silver Age.
Earth 2 – The world where the Golden Age heroes resided.
Earth 3 – The villain-dominated world of the Crime Syndicate of America.
Earth 4 – Where the Charlton Comics heroes lived.
Earth S – The world of Fawcett Publications properties.
Earth X – The place where the Quality Comics heroes made their home.
….. and other Earths as revealed or alluded to in the Crisis.
So, you can see why DC had to clean up their playground. Oh, the confusion!
The Crisis and Beyond
Tune in next week when NMM tackles part 2 of Creating a Crisis – looking at the Crisis series itself and its implications for today’s DC Universe.
