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22 December 2023
As I sat on the steps of Mt. Rushmore National Park, I realized that I was looking at a masterpiece. The precision. The scale. The scope and the grandeur. I am, of course, referring to the comic trade paperback I was reading: Crisis on Infinite Earths. Oh yeah,.. and that big rock presidential head thing was cool, too.
Mrs. Comic Book John had convinced me to load the family into the mini-van and take a REALLY LONG drive to South Dakota. The most important question to me was what reading material I should pack. I wanted to bring something special to commemorate this foolhardy excursion. (Did I mention how long the drive was?)
Crisis redefined the DC Universe. Prior to 1985, comics took themselves a lot less seriously. Every time a writer came up with an idea, regardless of how much it altered the character or previous stories, the story was published. As the average age of comic book readers rose, fans paid more attention to continuity. They wanted explanations, and hated contradictions. DC\'s solution at the time was to create alternate earths for these stories. Earth One had the Justice League. Earth Two had the Justice Society. Earth Three had the Crime Syndicate. Eventually, the earths were double digit numbers and most letters. By the mid-‘80s, it was impossible to explain DC\'s continuity without charts, graphs, and a lot of time.
The solution? Hit the Big Cosmic Reset Button and start over. That\'s Crisis on Infinite Earths. A comic series that actually lived up to its hype by truly changing the status quo. Heroes died and were replaced. Entire earths were destroyed. Continuity was literally rewritten. Some stories simply never happened. Crisis gave new readers what they needed: a starting point.
It\'s 17 years later, and I think this story still holds up. Of course, there were continuity problems from the moment Crisis ended. But that\'s what happens when you publish serialized material continuously for 60-plus years.
On a personal level, I was very entertained while re-reading it. That\'s not always true. That \"totally rad\" episode of Thundercats from your youth seems less so now. That \"awesome\" series of novels you read in seventh grade seems boring and formulaic. Crisis wasn\'t like that. To me, it was a huge story with literally hundreds of characters, and it still was pretty “rad.” Crisis on Infinite Earths was written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by George Perez. It\'s available in softcover, and goes very well with national monuments and long car rides.
PURCHASE THIS OR SIMILAR ITEMS
Mrs. Comic Book John had convinced me to load the family into the mini-van and take a REALLY LONG drive to South Dakota. The most important question to me was what reading material I should pack. I wanted to bring something special to commemorate this foolhardy excursion. (Did I mention how long the drive was?)
Crisis redefined the DC Universe. Prior to 1985, comics took themselves a lot less seriously. Every time a writer came up with an idea, regardless of how much it altered the character or previous stories, the story was published. As the average age of comic book readers rose, fans paid more attention to continuity. They wanted explanations, and hated contradictions. DC\'s solution at the time was to create alternate earths for these stories. Earth One had the Justice League. Earth Two had the Justice Society. Earth Three had the Crime Syndicate. Eventually, the earths were double digit numbers and most letters. By the mid-‘80s, it was impossible to explain DC\'s continuity without charts, graphs, and a lot of time.
The solution? Hit the Big Cosmic Reset Button and start over. That\'s Crisis on Infinite Earths. A comic series that actually lived up to its hype by truly changing the status quo. Heroes died and were replaced. Entire earths were destroyed. Continuity was literally rewritten. Some stories simply never happened. Crisis gave new readers what they needed: a starting point.
It\'s 17 years later, and I think this story still holds up. Of course, there were continuity problems from the moment Crisis ended. But that\'s what happens when you publish serialized material continuously for 60-plus years.
On a personal level, I was very entertained while re-reading it. That\'s not always true. That \"totally rad\" episode of Thundercats from your youth seems less so now. That \"awesome\" series of novels you read in seventh grade seems boring and formulaic. Crisis wasn\'t like that. To me, it was a huge story with literally hundreds of characters, and it still was pretty “rad.” Crisis on Infinite Earths was written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by George Perez. It\'s available in softcover, and goes very well with national monuments and long car rides.
PURCHASE THIS OR SIMILAR ITEMS
artid
1339
Old Image
5_9_longbox.jpg
issue
vol 5 - issue 09 (may 2003)
section
entertainmental