Near Mint Memories: Creating A Crisis – Part 2

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I’d first like to start off this column with a hearty thank you to my colleague Jesse Baker. His knowledge of DC history is truly wonderful, and he gave me several interesting areas to take this difficult column. Make a very special effort to check out Jesse’s review of Crisis: On Infinite Earths which should be appearing now!


Convenience, chaos, and cleaning house

The Crisis: On Infinite Earths can be called a great many things, but a bad story isn’t one of them. Marv Wolfman, with the aid of Len Wein, and Dick Giordano came up with a story that will be long remembered. Wolfman’s aim was simple enough; to take the vast amount of disparate continuity from DC and the many smaller companies they purchased over the years, and integrate it all into one clear, comprehensible, seamless history.

One of the oddest factoids I’ve come across, concerning the creation of the series, was that a man by the name of Peter Sanderson was brought in to read and take notes on all 50 years of DC’s publications. You would think reading comics would be a fun job, but that is a hell of a lot of reading. This really was a very important step though. For a project of this magnitude, first you must make some semblance of the past, then you can attempt to make the necessary fixes.

When you look at the still choppy DC timeline, the first assumption would be that Crisis: On Infinite Earths failed completely and totally. The entire undertaking was far too grandiose, and while things never become perfectly cohesive, the series succeeded marvelously in several key areas. The series attracted attention, brought in a great deal of new readers, set a clear trend for the future, and in many ways made DC more accessible. So, while things didn’t work out exactly as planned, the event was as successful as anyone ever could have hoped for.


A time like no other

When I look back on Crisis, the first thing that usually comes to mind are the exceptional characters that were introduced for the series. I’m not talking about the new breed of superheroes that came out of it, like: Wally West’s Flash, the new Dr. Light, or the introduction of the classic Charlton heroes into the DC Universe proper. While these characters were very interesting in their own right, they aren’t the ones that made Crisis so special. The characters that I’m talking about are the ones created specifically for the story, and played an enormous role therein. The Monitor, Anti-Monitor, Harbinger, Alex Luthor, and Pariah were wonderful characters, which took an enormous role in the event, and are a huge reason why the series succeeded on a creative level. These are hands down the best group of characters created for any event series.

The major goal of the series was to take the Multiverse, that my colleague John Babos wrote about in the first-part of our look at the Crisis, and turn it into one integrated universe. The monumental story was twelve-issues in length and included fifty official crossovers, but never overly complex. What it came down to was “matter vs. anti-matter” or “the Monitor vs. the Anti-Monitor.” The sides were set, and an epic struggle between the forces of good and evil, which saw the involvement of hundreds of characters.

The Anti-Monitor’s legions of shadow-demons and waves of anti-matter brought down many a universe. The last few issues feel a bit like a John Woo film; or to use a wrestling term there are a ton of “false-finishes” that finally lead to the much anticipated ending. Finally good wins out, but it is a pyrhic victory as untold heroes, and villains perish for all-time.

The strong cast of characters created for Crisis , not to mention the hundreds of heroes/villains, and a plotline that made sense in the grand scheme of what DC wanted from both a creative as well as a reader point of view, all coalesced into the greatest of all comic mega-events. The elements worked together and created a crossover that actually had meaning, and didn’t degenerate into the hollow money grab many future events were.


Changes, we got your stinking changes!

Change, change, and more change was the result of the monstrous success that was Crisis: On Infinite Earths. The changes can best be described as either: reboots, frequent mega-events, and character death. A rash of 1st issues and tweaked origins followed, which were voraciously devoured by the comic buying public. The customer by buying into Crisis and even more so the later events, vicariously put their stamp of approval on the “change is good” era in comics, directly leading the industry down the path of the damned.


May I have your best reboot in a size three, sir

Almost nothing was sacred with regard to reboots Post-Crisis.

Superman’s new beginning was easily the biggest of these reboots. John Byrne effectively threw away 50 years of history with the Man of Steel mini-series, but created a more modernly accessible and likable character. Depowering was the order of the day for Superman, and many characters that followed. While there are pros and cons to what Byrne did, for the most part it worked wonders for the character. Superman, a fairly boring icon, was injected with new life; the character shone, as creators took advantage of their newfound freedom.

Wonder Woman also saw her entire history thrown away, followed by a new beginning with Crisis artist supreme George Perez, as the guiding force. Perez was so intent on doing great work that DC gave him a full year to research Greek Mythology before reinventing the character. John Babos’ Near Mint Memories column, a while back, recounted Wonder Woman’s history, and gives a nice rundown of this important time in the “life” of everyone’s favorite Amazon.

Reboots, and what would become known as a retcon (retroactive continuity), were rampant during this time period.

While Batman was largely left alone, Jason Todd his ward at the time, as well as the Robin of the moment, was granted a major origin change. Instead of his pre-Crisis origin, which made him, a veritable clone of Dick Grayson, he was turned into a tough street kid, who didn’t listen to authority. While Crisis started the mega-event craze, I feel Jason Todd’s death a few years later was the catalyst that lead to the comic industries current problems. If you would like to know more about Jason, check out yet another recent Near Mint Memories column.

The group that saw the greatest changes to their “history” was without a doubt the Earth 2 superheroes of the JSA, and their progeny. Lost was their Earth 2 home, instead the JSA became the old guard of the DC Universe. They didn’t immediately get into the action though. To make things simpler the JSA disappeared for a time. Following the one-shot “Last Days of the Justice Society” the team was damned to fight a never ending battle for all-time. Thankfully this “damnation” did not last long, and soon the team was returned to their former glory.

Making the JSA the old guard, was a truly wonderful addition to the DCU, creating a team that the JLA and all heroes could look back to for inspiration. If you haven’t realized yet, the Near Mint Memories columns that came before laid the seeds for this Crisis column. So, for those interested in reading more about the JSA’s proud history, check out our inaugural Near Mint Memories column.

Of course all of the changes were not greeted with accolades. Batgirl was removed from continuity during Batman: Year One written by the legendary Frank Miller. With the loss of Supergirl already, this was too much for many fans. The outcry gave Barbara Gordon new life, with Secret Origins issue # 20. The biggest change was Barbara’s lineage; instead of being the daughter of Commissioner Gordon, Barbara became his niece.


Today’s major event will be…

The rapid-fire succession of events on a once, twice, or multi-yearly basis was spawned by the unparalleled success that was Crisis: On Infinite Earths. More and more crossovers occurred as they too sold very well. The problem for me was never the mega-events, which while they didn’t have the impact Crisis did, always served the purpose of telling a grandiose story. Crisis made the “lame” crossover a huge moneymaking gimmick. For a great deal of the late 80’s and most of the 90’s you’d have a hard time picking up a series without buying several other books, you might have no interest in, several times a year. Six-issue, or longer, “events” regularly took place within two or more series. On their own the issues often made no sense, so if you cared for any coherence, you had to buy into the hype. This worked tremendously well for a time, in the end though this was just another reason for the drastic drop in comic readership in the mid-90’s.


Killing as many characters as possible in a short a time!

Several previous Near Mint Memories columns have talked about the deaths that came out of Crisis. While the majority were redundant other Earth versions of characters like the Earth 2 Huntress, the two major losses were the Silver-Age Flash (Barry Allen), and of course Supergirl. These deaths made sense at the time, and for the most part still do today. Barry’s death especially, has been used frequently and to great effect as a defining moment in the DCU.

The real horror that came from Crisis, was the one-upmanship that Marvel and DC seemed to employ half a decade later. Using two small factors of Crisis: On Infinite Earths they nearly destroy their publishing empires. The death of major characters and the reboot of others, started as a huge turn on for readers, but later became the final nail in the coffin for the interest of many of the same people. The Spider-Clone saga, the fall of Hal Jordan, the Death of Superman, Reed Richards death, the breaking of Batman, Heroes Reborn, and various other “events” occurred at very regular intervals, and eventually reached rapidly declining returns both creatively and monetarily.

Characters that had been important top sellers were wantonly ruined, supposedly to never return again. While Crisis: On Infinite Earths delivered the radical changes on the DCU that were promised, most of these other events only appeared to bring change. Really of all the ludicrous events of the 90’s, only Hal Jordan has not returned to his former glory. Of course the long rumored return of Hal may be closer than most people think, thus finally throwing away all of the missteps off the 90’s.


Nearly twenty years later, and still resonating.

Looking back on Crisis I don’t think of it as some stupid marketing gimmick. While this was a way to create epic changes within the DC Universes, notice the plural, it was really a celebration of 50 years of publishing, and a way to inject new life into the line. Crisis, as a publishing event, captured the minds of new readers, and attained the accessibility DC desired. It even was a huge success creatively, telling a great story, which will be long remembered. Of course, the miscues that followed can never be forgotten either. So to all involved in Crisis: On Infinite Earths, you receive my praise for telling a wonderful story, but also some degree of damnation for helping to unleash the floodgates that have nearly drowned this great industry.

In the end, it was just impossible to fix everything and create the perfect history for the vast DC Universe. DC has since made further attempts to “fix” their timeline. Look for future Near Mint Memories that will cover the 1994 crossover event Zero Hour: Crisis in Time, as well as the convoluted concept of “Hypertime” which in many ways brought back the “Multiverse”. Both attempted to further streamline things, neither was as successful as Crisis, and have really made things more of a mess.

Personally I look at continuity as a means to an end. It should be followed reasonably, but these are stories and there is no reason to classify it like a true history. What I want more than anything else is to read great stories. Even real history has inconsistencies, so why not the DCU as well.


The Reading Rack

Obviously for those interested in the story itself, you should pick up the Crisis: On Infinite Earths trade paperback. Don’t overlook the History of the DC Universe trade paperback either, which helps to make sense of the “new” DC.

I also would like to include a couple of invaluable web pages dedicated to Crisis: On Infinite Earths and its effects. If you want even more information on Crisis here are a couple of great places to start…

The Captain’s Unoffical Justice League Page

The Annotated Crisis On Infinite Earths

Fanzing’s Barbara Gordon timeline