Infinite Crisis Was Perfect (Even if it Wrecked the DC Universe)

Infinite Crisis, by Geoff Johns, Phil Jimenez, George Perez, Ivan Reis, and Jerry Ordway, is a legendary comic. The story of Infinite Crisis is one of the most interesting in the history of comics, and it begins with the mess that is DC continuity. DC Comics changed the face of comics forever with Crisis on Infinite Earths, completely rebooting its universe.

However, an entire generation of readers had grown up loving the tail end of the pre-Crisis DC Multiverse, and they soon became the people who were in charge at DC in the ’00s. With the 20 year anniversary of Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC went all out to give fans the kind of epic story that they had been crazing ever since the end of Crisis. Infinite Crisis hit the comic industry like a bomb, its set-up creating a story that would change DC for years to come.



However, the aftermath of Infinite Crisis would lead to a fall in sales overall, and that failure would lead to the birth of the New 52. Infinite Crisis and its aftermath are a very interesting time in comics. Infinite Crisis is in many ways a perfect story, both in its set-up and in the story itself, and it brought a classic energy to the DC Universe that had missing for years.

This “new” DC led to events of the caliber of Final Crisis and Blackest Night, as well as best of all time runs on books like Action Comics, Batman, Justice League of America, Justice Society of America, Secret Six, and many others. However, sales continued to get worse, until Flashpoint was used to flush it all away. So, how did it all go wrong?Infinite Crisis‘s Set-Up Seemed More Well-Planned than Its AftermathThe set-up for Infinite Crisis was truly something special.

DC began to plan the book years before it dropped, incorporating plot elements from Titans/Legion of Superheroes: Universe Ablaze and Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day. Superman/Batman‘s first story arc ended with Lex Luthor promising a crisis. Behind the scenes, DC was charting the course to Infinite Crisis, laying out clues across their entire line.

Being a DC fan from about 2002 to 2005 was an exciting time because you never knew when you were come across something intriguing whose answer wouldn’t come for years. Infinite Crisis‘s set-up would swing into full gear after Countdown to Infinite Crisis, leading to The OMAC Project, Day of Vengeance, Villains United, and The Rann-Thanagr War. All of these books had important clues for what Infinite Crisis would be.

Infinite Crisis brought back the heroes of Crisis on Infinite Earths — Earth-Two Superman and Lois Lane, Alexander Luthor of Earth-Three, and Superboy-Prime — as they decided to try to create a perfect DC Universe, one that was worthy of their actions to save it, but two of them weren’t the heroes they seemed to be. Guess which ones. Infinite Crisis is amazing.

There’s really no other way to describe it. Infinite Crisis took years of plot threads and weaved them all together, giving readers an amazing ride that paid homage to Crisis, gave them answers to years worth of questions, and was all about the return of hope to the DC Universe (this was the first time Geoff Johns wrote a story about that, but it wouldn’t be the last). Infinite Crisis was basically the reverse of Crisis on Infinite Earths; it undid many of the changes.

The seeds of the return of the Multiverse were planted, Superman’s history was made more like it was in the pre-Crisis years, the old school Legion of Superheroes returned and DC returned to a more modern feeling Bronze Age, for lack of a better term. However, this is where the whole thing went wrong.RELATED: Batman Hush 2: DC Redesigns the Riddler With a Puzzling New LookPost-Crisis DC brought a lot of new fans to the publisher, ones that had never read the old Silver and Bronze Age DC Multiverse.

These fans were excited to get a return to pre-Crisis concepts because this would be the first time many DC fans would be experiencing these kinds of stories. Things were really great for a while there. Superman, Action Comics, Batman, Justice League of America, Wonder Woman, Justice Society of America, and many others all got A-list creative teams.

Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps kicked off the “War of Light” stories with “The Sinestro Corps War”. DC was on fire, with 52 giving readers a brilliant weekly DC romp. “One Year Later” dropped readers into a future, and was full of cool stories.

It was an amazing time to be a DC fan, but the cracks would start to show soon. The first indications of this was Countdown to Final Crisis, a weekly series meant to set-up Final Crisis. However, this tightly editorially controlled book couldn’t match the chaotic creativity of 52.

The biggest problem with this time in DC was that things went south quickly, vis-a-vis the quality of the books. While the initial stories of the post-Infinite Crisis DC Multiverse were all pretty great, eventually everything just felt like more of the same. The tone of the DC Universe, that return of hope, never really happened.

Instead, we got Bronze Age pre-Crisis DC books with more mature themes. DC seemed scared to completely throw away the entirety of post-Crisis DC, and the publisher just couldn’t compete with Marvel. At that point, Marvel was doing things that had never been done at the publisher.

Meanwhile, DC was trying to recapture the past. Fans could see that, and they started buying more Marvel. DC and Marvel were neck and neck at the time of Infinite Crisis, but Marvel pulled so far ahead it wasn’t funny.

When given the choice between a Marvel Universe that was striding into the 21st century or DC putting out books written by people trying to recapture the late ’70s/early ’80s, readers chose Marvel.DC Dropped the Ball After Infinite CrisisI remember buying DC books in the run-up to Infinite Crisis. It was a super exciting time to be a DC fan and I was massively hyped for Infinite Crisis.

The book didn’t disappoint, and I was super excited for a return to classic DC. I got a lot of great stories — “The Tornado’s Path”, “Camelot Falls”, “Last Son”, “Thy Kingdom Come”, “The Lightning Saga”, “Batman and Son”, “The Sinestro Corps War”, and the opus that is Final Crisis (2006-2009 DC Comics are full of straight-up brilliant stories). However, my excitement seemed to fade away.

I still loved some DC books, but I never got what I wanted out of the line, and I think that was part of what happened for everyone. DC was being run by people obsessed with the past, and the stories they tried to tell were sometimes pale reflections of what came before. There were tons of good books, but there weren’t a whole lot of great ones.

Meanwhile, Marvel was putting out books that demanded attention. The ’00s were an amazing time to be a comic fan, all told, and we’d get to watch the fall of DC in real time.DC seemed to plan out Infinite Crisis meticulously, but their plan for afterwards just seemed to be, “Do the Bronze Age with more blood.

” That was why DC lost the sales war and never recovered. Infinite Crisis could have been a massive change like Crisis on Infinite Earths was. Instead, DC was too scared to go all in on undoing Crisis and that reticence was obvious throughout the line.

Marvel, however, wasn’t scared. Marvel was willing to go in wild directions and while it wasn’t always the best, it grabbed attention. Even today, there are people who like something like Secret Invasion more Final Crisis, despite Secret Invasion being a simple mystery box story compared to Final Crisis‘s deep meditation on comics and creativity.

DC dropped the ball after Infinite Crisis, and the cycle of diminishing return they started led to the panic reboot of the New 52, which led to years of even more diminishing returns. DC’s failures after Infinite Crisis led us into the superhero comic industry we have today.The post Infinite Crisis Was Perfect (Even if it Wrecked the DC Universe) appeared first on ComicBook.

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