Infinite Crisis contains the story of DC Comics' most recent generational cleanup of continuity, designed to "end an era" of sorts and signal the beginning of a new one. To some degree, it succeeds at that, but the road is not...
See more »
Infinite Crisis contains the story of DC Comics' most recent generational cleanup of continuity, designed to "end an era" of sorts and signal the beginning of a new one. To some degree, it succeeds at that, but the road is not nearly as smooth as it should have been. And despite sales success, the story comes filled with problems that disappointed me. The first problem is that Infinite Crisis does not stand alone. There are four separate prelude mini-series that lead up to this new Crisis. To be sure, the events of the trade paperback collection "The OMAC Project" are as much a part of this story as anything within the Crisis collection itself. The other three lead-ins (Villains United, Day of Vengeance and the Rann-Thanagar War) are not quite so tightly connected, but even in that, there is a problem. Those three minis (especially the last two) ended without clear resolutions, but the story in Crisis only tangentially touches on them again, so we are left without a clear resolution to these stories, after a rather hefty total investment to read Infinite Crisis in it's entirety. To the actual Infinite Crisis collection itself, the story was in many ways surprisingly small in scope when compared to the original Crisis, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Just different, and something I didn't really expect. Here, the focus is more on a small group of key characters with everyone else in the background, as opposed to the original Crisis that had huge armies of heroes and villains engaged in constant strategic maneuvers. The benefit of Geoff Johns' approach in Infinite Crisis is that it allows for more emotional connection (though nothing herein quite equaled the deaths of the original Supergirl and the Barry Allen Flash for impact, I must say). The more intimate focus gave more room for the "spiritual crisis" hurting the heroes to take root and be fleshed out. Later, when the story does become more cosmic, the book suffers. Multiple earths all floating in close orbit to one another? Flying through Oa to restart the universe? The metaphysical shortcuts really began to break down, having been stretched just a little further than they were stretched during the original Crisis, it seems. In the end, the death of arguably the most important hero ever created seemed rushed and anti-climactic. In his previous "last appearance" twenty years ago, he saved all existence and went to live forever in paradise, so why bring him back from that just to give him an end without impact? It makes no sense. Indeed, the entire resolution seemed anticlimatic. After promising and teasing with a huge shift in the status quo of the DCU (including bringing back an entire universe that oldtime fans clamor for), the only thing changed was a few minor details in the histories of the characters. Ho hum. The original Crisis smashed multiple parallel universes into a new single world that dramatically changed every DC book on the stands. How can this compare? From a continuity perspective, perhaps the single biggest change was the revelation that the current DCU is in fact NOT the old "Earth One" with other universes merged with it, as everyone assumed. It's a whole other universe. Couple that with dead classic characters being "drawn away", and I would assume that means the real Earth One and/or the Multiverse are still out there somewhere, no doubt to return in some later Crisis. But that tease, coming in just a few lines here and there, is more interesting than the actual story of that made up Infinite Crisis. The biggest plus was the artwork. Phil Jiminez did a decent job, but the book really takes off with the art of Jerry Ordway and George Perez, who admirably pencil later sections of the book. Both are master craftsmen, and they made a disappointing story at least LOOK really, really good. The other issue I want to address is the raw brutality of Infinite Crisis. Not only is there a body count, but decapitation and dismemberment is fairly common. In the end commentary, the creators defend this by saying they needed to show the consequences of
See less »
Kaboodle will send you a newsletter and updates from your friends. You can unsubscribe at any time. Kaboodle does not sell or share your email address or personal information with anyone.
Kaboodle requires all users to provide their real date of birth as both a safety precaution and as a means
of preserving the integrity of the site. You will be able to hide this information from your profile if you wish.
Added by 2 people