Crisis on Infinite Earths

DC

Writer : Marv Wolfman

Artist : George Perez

Inks: Dick Giordano, Mike De Carlo, Jerry ordway,
Colours: Anthony Tolkin, Tom Ziuho, Carl Galberd
 Letters: John Costanza
Reconstruction: Tom McCraw


I picked this up as a collected TPB in a massive job lot of DC and other random stuff from a friend who wanted to clear space in their house for normal human possessions.

There is an introduction from the writer, Marv Wolfman, who explains that he thought it would be really cool to have all the DC characters from all the different DC Universes meeting up to fight off one giant threat to the 'Multiverse' - The idea that there are many different Universes all sat next to each other where slightly different realities play out. DC used the idea to try and squash much of their characters backstories together, trim up characters and explain where other properties had come from. -DC had purchased other properties from other companies over the years and then created comic books for each one.

The story was run over 12 issues from 1985 through to 1986.

The story starts with a massive white void consuming a whole Universe, throwing all the people in it out of reality. The Monitor, a being who sits outside of reality, is murdered by Harbinger, his assistant. In his dying throes he launches the last five parallel Earths into Limbo. Here the Anti-Monitor, the villain behind the destruction of the different universes, can not destroy them. Instead he sets about conquoring them through the use of Earth villain - The Psycho Pirate. This triggers a massive war between the heroes and eventually the villains of the five Earths to try and stop the Anti-Monitor. There is much convuluted story telling as we weave different Supermen and throw other characters from other realities all in together to fight the common enemy.

I mainly grew up reading Marvel titles, although I had gotten a hold of different DC titles over the las forty years. In 1978 I bought a copy of The Atom and The Avengers and my comic book buying habits could easily have shifted the other way. My main problem in reading this story was getting attached to any of the characters. Also much of the action takes place 'outside of reality'. When the big bad releases his awesome powers of destruction it is a huge white light that devours reality. This does not allow me to feel too much attachment to the characters undergoing destruction.

I won't spoil the ending but the continuation of DC comic books since 1986 can tell you the outcome.

I can see why DC ran this story. It was a good idea to clean up their continuity and try and make their characters backstories match up a bit better. Overall it was a success simply because DC sold more comic books after the story than before. Reading it all these years later it is hard to connect, especially knowing that a lot of the characters they killed off eventually came back. Added to this they have run very similar stories, even using the same 'Crisis' theme. Still it is a recommend because of the history of the work.

Edit: Also found out after writing this that DC had run 'Crisis' stories before this one. I guess they kind of like that word.