Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities A Look Back: Crisis on Infinite Earths #1-12

Love those pointed jabs at Zero Hour and Genesis! Zero Hour, which came along only 3 years into my first immersion into superhero comics, was the proverbial final straw for me, coming on top of Emerald Twilight, which came on top of Wonder Artemis, which came on top of Azrael Bats, which came on top of Superman getting "killed" by a lame monster with a one-word vocabulary. I almost stopped reading DC altogether at that point.

LOL



Don't they have psychotherapists in the realms beyond space and time? One of them woulda done Pariah a world of good!

Ah, Infinite Crisis. and Final Crisis. more Crises designed to make the original Crisis on Infinite Earths look even better Seriously, I'm hard-pressed to find a crossover even that can stand up to Crisis. Er, make that stand up at all. I think Final Night, Invasion, Blackest Night and Panic in the Sky are the only other DC events that I liked well enough.



She has also become a linchpin of most Suicide Squad lineups after

DCCP was a book I bought regularly for a year or two as a kid, until I went X-Men-crazy for a while and completely dropped DC and the Legion to buy more Marvel. But I cherish my memories of DCCP and how it did such an excellent job educating me on the breadth of the DCU. And that "Whatever Happened to...?" back-up feature that ran for a while was excellent, too. (IIRC, the WHT featuring the Crimson Avenger may have been the first story I'd ever read in which a costumed hero died! I think I read it before I read the classic Seven Soldiers of Victory story in one of DC's digests.) I can definitely attest to there being some real gems in DCCP. B&B had some solid stories as well, but I think DCCP was more consistently good and more of a must-get for young me.

It all so seems, btw, that there were a number of good Luthor stories in that first half of the '80s. I count the DCCP Annual with Alexander Luthor among them.



Boy, Infinite Crisis really shit ALL OVER CoIE, didn't it? It's hard to read the touching E3-as-Krypton scene and not remember what Johns did later with Alexander Luthor, Jr. And don't even start about Superboy Prime!

Yeah. DCCP did exactly what superhero team-up books ideally *should* do, as you described in the quote above. And it did it a lot more often than B&B and, for that matter, Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-In-One (although the Project Pegasus Saga from M2IO has a special place in my heart -- put it this way, I bought a copy of the trade back around '94 or '95, and I still have it. The only trade I've owned longer than that is my copy of the X-Men's Dark Phoenix Saga, which I bought in '91.



It really and truly was a travesty. I think anyone who has ever given Johns the benefit of the doubt need only look at his treatment of Luthor Junior over the course of several years and multiple storylines, and they will see Johns as the calculating cynic I truly believe he is.

So, nobody's up for an Infinite Crisis re-read after this?

ROTFLMAO

I swear I almost spit a mouthful chamomile of tea right after I read that!

As I recall, my post on LW right after I finished the last issue of IC: "Well, that was crap."

As the familiar quotation goes, "Honesty is the best policy."

She should totally be pushed, she's a great character. I have a knee-jerk issue with opposite-gender or race-bent versions of pre-existing characters, instead of characters who stand on their own, so I'll always prefer a Vixen or a Black Canary to a Supergirl or a Batwoman, and Nightshade is another great example of a character who stands on her own and isn't 'the female Green Lantern' or Mary Marvel or whatever.

As for the Crime Syndicate and Crisis on Infinite Earths, I was a teenager when it came out, and even then I thought it was an odd choice for the *heroes* of Earth 2, Earth S, etc. all skated clear of the deaths of the billions of people on their respective Earths, while the *villains* of Earth 3 went down fighting to save their world, and died along with all of the civilian people. I know that the writers didn't *intend* that to be the take away, but it struck me odd as a teen that the super-heroes of the Justice Society, Freedom Fighters, Charlton heroes and Marvel family were spared and merged onto Earth 1, while billions of others died, and yet, they were the heroes of the story? Yeah, the Crime Syndicate died stupidly, charging walls of antimatter, and didn't do so for any heroic reasons, just fighting to protect a world they considered their property, but still, it was an odd notion, that the villains *appeared* to be the only ones dedicated enough to die trying to protecting their worlds.

It's odd, how much I loved the grand spectacle of Crisis back in the day, and how, all these years later, it's just a series of terrible missteps, that damaged the Legion property, pretty much led to the abandonment of the Justice Society for years, killed off Kole (one of my favorite Titans), etc., etc. And, over the years, it was mostly undone anyway. There's a multiverse again. Barry Allen is alive again. Supergirl was back in less than a year! The only long-term effects is that we are unlikely to see like Kid Psycho, Mirror Master and the Earth 2 Huntress and Robin again...

It's been far too long since I've read Crisis on Infinite Earths to offer any sort of meaningful input but I will be following this thread closely as I absolutely LOVE that series. Is it perfect? No. But it's still the best 'event' series DC has ever published IMO.

I don't think many would disagree with you on that.

I could swear someone made a comment about why Hal Jordan was absent from this huge event series, but I can't find the comment to quote. I've often wondered myself. Here's an article (scroll past the first part to the second) that explains what was going on in the GL title. I also could have sworn that Hal got at least one un-costumed cameo in CoIE, but the article says he was completely absent.

Having read the thread now I thought I'd offer a few thoughts:

1) My DCU-reading roadmap is similar to Emily and IB and a few others in that I didn't start reading DC comics until after CoIE was finished. My introduction to the DCU was via a combination of pre-CoIE Justice League of America and New Teen Titans comics which I bought from the only dedicated comic book shop in Perth, and post-CoIE Superman (around the 'Exile' era), Batman (just after 'A Death in the Family') and Wonder Woman (around when the Bana-Mighdalls were introduced) comics which my brother bought from local newsstands. To say this mix of pre- and post-CoIE comics was a confusing introduction to the DCU is an understatement! The first issues of CoIE I ever read were #s 3 and 4 (which served as my introduction to many of the characters in the DCU, including the Legion - boy, was I misled as to Kid Psycho's importance to the team!) and then I eventually filled in the rest randomly over many years. Ironically, the last issue I managed to read was #1.

2) I absolutely agree with everyone who mentioned that the tragic fate of Earth-3 and the final stand of the Crime Syndicate and Alexander Luthor was the most powerful moment in the first issue. It's one of the most powerful moments in the whole series IMO and a helluva way to kick it off!

3) That said, I echo everyone else who thinks that Earth-3's loss was that much more tragic (in a frustrating way!) in that it was a world with so much story potential that went severely untapped before its destruction. For that reason, and the many others that have made themselves known over the years, and even though I love this series, my answer to Ann's question at the beginning of this thread is that "No, CoIE was not and never will be worth the loss of the pre-CoIE DC universe'.

I think it was IB who mentioned it. Yes, Hal Jordan was definitely completely absent. That seems like a weird oversight in retrospect (de-powered or not) but I do like that it gave John Stewart a chance to shine, further increasing his profile. IB also mentions that Raven was absent from the series (but not the big Ross/Perez poster/cover) but I thought I remembered seeing her on one of the Monitor's or Anti-Monitor's... monitors in an issue?

that was me commenting on Hal being absent, yes. thanks for the article!

I remember Raven appearing in a monitor, and the Monitor saying he wanted to recruit her to replace Psycho Pirate. but he couldn’t find her, as if everything about her had been changed. that was when she was missing in the Titans book for a while

I agree 100% with both statements. Every time I reread COIE, I try to forget all that came after so I can try and enjoy the story itself

I also hated that Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman were erased from much of justice league history

Great discussion to kick off the CoIE thread!

At least the changes from Crisis lasted a while (with some exceptions, as Set noted) - until 2005's Infinite Crisis. Now they seem to do major reboots of the DCU every few years.

I forgot to quote this earlier. I agree with Set,I gravitate towards stand-on-their-own characters. Which is why I tend to be cool towards legacy characters, unless they are written in a way that differentiates them from their predecessors.

Kimiyo Hoshi, who features prominently in COIE, is a mixed bag for me. I encountered her in the post-Breakdowns League first, and this was before I ever knew Arthur Light existed. I had already become fond of the character (plus she was one of the few Asian heroes being published at all!) Thankfully, she's different enough from Arthur Light that it didn't affect my liking of her.

Not COIE-related, but Kid Quantum II almost doesn't count as a legacy in my mind, because Kid Quantum I was around for such a short time.

I am fond of Supergirl, Power Girl and Mary Marvel as well, though it's also because they have been differentiated from their male counterpants quite well.

I guess to put it more succinctly, it takes longer for me to warm up to a "legacy", gender-bent or race-bent character who follows from an existing one. But if they are written well, I can become a big fan.

COIE ended with the March 1986 issue.
In July 1986, John Byrne's Man of Steel debuted, re-imagining the Superman mythos from the ground up, and writing over all the changes made in COIE.
This had repercussions throughout the DC Universe, from Justice League to *choke* Legion of Super-Heroes.
(It resulted in the super-strict No Superboy! policy... until Byrne himself introduced the Pocket Universe Superboy.)
So, yeah, the well thought out changes in Crisis lasted about three months.

The choice of characters that missed the Crisis is interesting. I remember reading the Titans books that were published shortly after the Crisis, and Nightwing had no recollection of the Crisis (I guess because he was in Tamaran space and it was protected by X'Hal?). I am guessing that the Batman Office was able to fight for themselves as Batman continuity was largely safe from the effects from the Crisis.

I also think they largely left the Fourth World alone out of respect for Jack Kirby.

Yeah, that's true for me as well. I prefer She-Hulk, John Stewart and X-23 for instance, more than Hulk, Hal Jordan or Wolverine, but it's because those characters have grown away from their legacy roots and established their own identities.

Reading between the fairly comprehensively detailed lines, the original intent was that the best positions for those vibratory Plot Device forks to be placed was still to be found. That's why Dawnstar was picked. Doctor Polaris would have been another one partly due to his ability to detect magnetic fields but mainly because he wore one on his head.

The rest of the teams were to include those with local knowledge/ appearance, such as Arion and Solivar standing in for Kamandi's world. Other's would be champions such as Golden Age Superman and Blue Beetle (because The monitor thought he had access to the whole Scarab). The likes of Beetle and GA Superman were characters with arcs/ Big Push potential so they were in early.




Hal was missing, the Titans were off in space, the JLA was JLDetroit and the Hawks were into their Shadow War, only popping in to fill in a mark on the checklist. The Atom was off in South America only popping in for a few scenes and the New Gods were off the table due to The Hunger Dogs graphic novel. Only Darkseid shows up in any real capacity.

Plenty of big guns missing out on this Woodstock event. There were a lot of creative teams pulling their characters in various directions at the time, with plenty of mini series in the pipeline too. It took a lot of effort just to get them to put in the monitor appearances and red skies. It was only later in the series that a lot other writers would actively look for tie ins. DC hadn't got a cohesive plan for their characters put in place, despite Wolfman pitching that everything start form #1 after the end of Crisis #10 was published.



A black Doctor Light replacement preceded Kimiyo around this time on one of the DC Samplers.

I Thought this might be helpful here A comprehensive calendar to the Crisis from Amazing Heroes #91 that deals with the Crisis. It also breaks down panel by panel the character appearing in each issue along with a lot of other information deaths, new charcters ect.

One thing that strikes me is how rarely characters created for events really take off. Crisis on Infinite Earths is probably the most notable 'event' I can think of, and yet Pariah and Harbinger kind of landed with a wet plotz and sank into the swamp, unremembered.

And it's not just Crisis. Characters like Monarch or Waverider or Ulysses or Veranke seemed to begin and end with the events that spawned them.