Comics 101: The Crisis on Infinite Earths

Comics are a large and convoluted beast, often filled with stories, both wonderful and confusing. Perhaps the best example of this belongs to DC Comics themselves, stretching back into the beginning of their 85-year history and spanning most of it. To fully understand where the Crisis came to be, though, means we have to go back to 1956.

1956 is often considered the start of the “Silver Age” of American comics, where stories began to change and use more science in their stories. Comics in America became incredibly family-friendly, and almost entirely superhero based thanks to rules crafted by the Comics Code Authority to ensure that comics remained what they considered family-friendly. DC (then known as National Comics) had been running superheroes constantly since 1939, but the only comics that were still popular were Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Other heroes like Green Lantern, the Flash, and even the first superhero team known as The Justice Society were all canceled and ended publication by 1951 at the latest. With the fourth issue of DC Showcase, an anthology comic, DC, decided to begin relaunching their older properties with a new twist.

The Flash was now Barry Allen, a police forensic scientist who was struck by lightning and doused with chemicals that then granted him super speed. There was almost no reference to the previous Flash, Jay Garrick, anywhere in the comic except for one page…

Yes, the Flash of the Golden Age was now a comic character in DC comics. Barry was soon joined by new creations like the Hal Jordan incarnation of Green Lantern, and other updates of classic heroes. Some would just be new names with similar powers, as Green Lantern would go from a reporter with a weakness to wood into a fighter pilot with a weakness to yellow. Other re-imaginings would be entirely different except for the name and scheme, like Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Rather than being (white) reincarnations of ancient (white) Egyptians who used magic-science, they became space cops and alien bird people. However, as the comics continued to be published, lifelong National/DC fans had one question: Where did all the old heroes go?

Also, when did Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman come into this new iteration of the comics? But that would never really be answered.

Flash #123, published in 1961, would be the answer. This legendary issue was written by Gardner Fox, drawn by Carmine Infantino, inked by Joe Giella… and colored by someone uncredited, as was the case back in the day. As it turns out, DC’s old heroes never went away. They just happened on another Earth in a different plane of reality. Both worlds were somehow connected on a subconscious level, which is why the classic Flash existed as a comic character for Barry Allen to take inspiration from. It seemed to be pretty selective, as no one looked into a Superman comic and noticed that their Superman was also Clark Kent, but it was something that worked enough for most fans.

What resulted from there was a near-yearly event in the Justice League comics that would run up through the 80s. Beginning with the 1963 two-parter, Crisis on Earth-One and Crisis on Earth-Two, the Justice Society of the days gone by and the Justice League of now would team up to face the most dangerous foes each world had to offer. Whoever was working on the Justice League that month, usually Gardner Fox would come up with a new twist. The evil world of Earth-3, where the Justice League met their evil counterparts and a heroic Alexander Luthor, fought to keep the world safe. Earth-A, a parallel world where the Justice League was replaced by thugs in the right place at the right time.

1973 brought a twist to the alternate universe shenanigans. DC had purchased the archive of comics from former publisher Quality Comics, themselves having gone out of business in 1956, DC would keep a few of their higher-selling books running, like the Blackhawks and GI Combat. However, the 1973 crossover between the JSA and the Justice League brought them to Earth-X, the world where World War II was still continuing.

Even in 1973, DC knew fighting Nazis was the right thing to do.

This crossover brought in heroes from Quality’s WWII comics. In this case, Uncle Sam and other characters like the Human Bomb and The Ray. Heroes from Earth 1 and 2 would return multiple times over the years, though Earth-X was freed from Nazi rule by the end of the storyline.

1976 would bring another crossover milestone. Another company had been obtained by National/DC back in the 1950s: Fawcett Publishing. Famous for publishing the works of Shazam (then known as DC’s Captain Marvel), Bulletman, Ibis the Invincible, and others. Now under Earth-S, DC refused to blend these heroes in with their main world either. Perhaps because they were still smarting from Captain Marvel being more popular than Superman until they sued Fawcett and drove them bankrupt. 

Honestly, by the 1980s, this did begin to get really confusing. DC has a massive list of heroes and villains across their Multiverse, many of them stemming from other comic companies that once were DC’s rivals. It’s unknown if keeping them separate stemmed from DC not wanting to treat them the same as their own creations, but this did at least keep their original stories intact. However, it was also somewhat daunting to newer readers, as a book could feature heroes or villains from anywhere in this incredibly long list. Earth 1, Earth 2, Earth 3, Earth A, Earth X, Earth S… these were soon joined by:

Earth 4, home to characters from publisher Charlton, including some created by comics industry legend Steve Ditko. These included the Question, Blue Beetle, and Captain Atom. These characters were used as inspiration for Alan Moore’s Watchmen comic. Amusingly, Alan Moore had intended to use these characters himself but was asked by DC to make some changes so they could still use them in the main timeline.

Earth 14, where all the stories about the New Gods that Jack Kirby didn’t write took place. Yes, DC was now working on selective canon, which became especially befuddling when New Gods would show up in other books at random without an editor’s note claiming this now took place on another Earth.

Earth 72, where the comic Prez took place. This was DC’s stab at relevancy in the 1970s by having a teenager elected to the highest office in the land when teens were given the right to vote. The book ran out of ideas fast and was canceled when the entire DC line suffered a mass sales crash in the late-70s.

Earth-86, home to Jack Kirby creations like Kamandi, the Last Man, and OMAC. Again, DC seemed hesitant to work in off the wall creations with worlds like this, although DC characters would commonly jump in to team up with these guys. These were also joined with other one-shot Earths from the Imaginary Stories that DC became obsessed with in the 1950s:

Where “Captain Thunder” (aka Shazam) existed alongside Superman, Batman, and other heroes. Superman was raised in New York, and Batman retired in the 1960s.

Where Superman died fighting Lex Luthor.

Where Lois Lane came from Krypton and killed Clark Kent.

Where Superman married all three of his Siver Age love interests, only for them to all die.

Where Superman married both Lois and Lana by being divided into two people (Superman Red and Superman Blue), and Jimmy Olsen also married Supergirl.

Where Lois married Batman.

Where Lois was blind and married Superman, only for Superman to be disfigured by a mix of different Kryptonite. 

Where Superman was adopted by the Waynes, where he and Bruce became Superboy and Batboy, only for Batman to go into the 30th Century to be a superhero.

Where Superman’s entire immediate family came to Earth… which happened multiple times, each one in their own world.

You get the idea. Quite a few stories would make an Earth and leave it forever in the back-issues of DC. Other stories would literally copy a tale that came before, making an identical Earth from before rather than continue the story. New readers were getting confused, allegedly, and it’s hard to blame the market research that showed it. But what could be done?

Enter Marv Wolfman and George Perez. While they were working on the Teen Titans, Wolfman approached DC with an idea for the company’s 50th anniversary. According to Wolfman, the multiple Earths and timelines were just plain confusing. It was time to do away with them entirely. Starting in 1982, the two would begin to work in hints of a greater crisis building in the Multiverse. New Teen Titans featured the first hints via a character called The Monitor, but he was allowed to blend into other books as he was revealed.

The Monitor began as a germ of an idea ages ago, according to Wolfman. Originally called The Librarian, he was a being who would know all about the DC Multiverse but was apparently a villain. By this time, Marvel already had The Watcher, who performed a similar task without villainy, but Wolfman had bigger ideas. By the time April 1985 had rolled around, fans were asking questions about the Monitor. And they were about to get an answer.

Quick! Find your favorite hero, and place a bet on if they’ll survive!

Opening with a folding cover that is utterly shocking in concept, Wolfman and Perez waste no time in cleaning up the DC continuity. Focusing on a new character named Pariah, we see his despair as a world is slowly wiped from existence by a wall of white light. Established as a wall of anti-matter, we watch as the villains from Earth-3 are forced to come to terms with their sudden and abrupt mortality. Even Ultraman, the brutish and corrupt Superman analog, finds some nobility in his end.

Meanwhile, heroes from across the multiple worlds are drawn from their history by a mysterious woman named Harbinger. Solivar from Gorilla City, Dawnstar from the 30th Century, the second Firebrand, the Blue Beetle, Aron the Lord of Atlantis, the elder Superman of Earth-2, and many others. Even villains like Doctor Polaris and Psimon are drawn in by a mystery woman named Harbinger, and they are all gathered in a single location - a mystery station in space. All of them are greeted by the Monitor, who describes a great horror that is facing the DC Multiverse. 

At the same time, reality seems to be breaking down. A herd of woolly mammoths re-emerge from a rift in time in the 30th Century, a city of the future shows up in the past of Anthro the First Human. A dying Flash appears before Batman and the Joker, begging for help, only to vanish once more. As the Monitor explains, he has planted a series of giant metal columns throughout the Multiverse to try and halt the spread of the anti-matter wave. As the heroes of each world defend the columns, led by those chosen by the Monitor, demons made out of shadows begin to fight back. There certainly is a foe behind this, but Perez and Wolfman play it close to their vest, not revealing the villain.

Until the Monitor is slain by Harbinger herself, possessed by the ultimate evil: The Anti-Monitor.

While the remaining heroes and worlds are gathered by Alexander Luthor, the child of the good Luthor from Earth-3, those few worlds that remain begin to dwindle. The Earth-X heroes die in a wave of anti-matter, as do dozens of Green Lanterns when their core world of Oa is attacked. The death count mounts as heroes from worlds that aren’t in danger also perish, and the Anti-Monitor relishes in the destruction. As worlds fall to his anti-matter, he grows in strength and desires only ultimate power.

Using a little-known villain called the Psyco Pirate, the Monitor forces the emotion of fear and rage onto some of the worlds that remain. Even the normally cheery Captain Marvel (now Shazam) is under their sway, trying to slay Supergirl. In spite of all the death and lost lives, DC begins what would become their theme for the 1990s: Legacy. Left paralyzed from the waist down, the original Earth-2 Wildcat inspires a young woman named Yolanda Montez to take up his costume and become Wildcat anew. A heroic Doctor Light comes from Japan after being empowered with light from the Monitor’s station. Unfortunately, the losses would begin to surpass any of the new characters and Legacy created, especially with issue 7.

With five of the Earths spared from destruction (Earths 1 and 2 among them), a group of heroes are led by Alexander Luthor to the Anti-Matter world of Qward, where the Anti-Monitor has taken up residence. A fierce fight rips the world asunder, forcing the Anti-Monitor to flee. However, the Monitor does not flee without taking his revenge.

Much to Superman’s agony, his cousin dies in the line of duty. The Man of Steel never fully recovers from this, spending the rest of the storyline (and his own books at the time) mourning his loss. Unfortunately, the heroes of Earth-1 would lose another of their family with issue 8.

Barry Allen, having been kidnapped by the Anti-Monitor some issues back, finally breaks free from his imprisonment. The Anti-Monitor has built a cannon with the residents of the Anti-Matter Universe to annihilate the remaining worlds. It’s up to Barry Allen to reverse time and force the energy of the cannon back into its power source, to overload the cannon. He pushes himself faster, ever faster. So fast that he fades from reality itself.

As a lighter note, DC would make use of this death of Barry Allen to actually put a new twist on his origin story. In 1988, DC would put out a story in Secret Origins to showcase an alternate take on his origin of the Flash. Rather than dying in the Crisis, Barry Allen was changed into the single bolt of lightning that turned him into the Flash, making his character a never-ending Mobius strip.

Marvel would also use this idea to bring Barry Allen into their own comics with Quasar #17. Mark Gruenwald would feature an intergalactic race featuring the title character… only for a bolt of lightning in space to create a familiar face and have him win.

And before you think this is just a reference…

Crazy stuff like this is why I love comics. But so far as DC was concerned, Barry Allen was dead. At least until he was brought back in 2009. But that’s another story.

With one of the founding members of the Justice League dead, the Anti-Monitor’s crusade was hitting closer and closer to home for many fans. Even the legion of surviving villains would team up to try and save what remained of their homes, although more brutal in their own way. In issue 10, the real impact of what happened would hit home for almost everyone. Characters would begin to take stock of what happened, with a running black and white strip at the bottom of each page narrated by Harbinger herself. She would list what happened to those worlds long gone, and who survived. 

A newly created character would also be introduced in tragedy. Superboy, or rather the Clark Kent of our own world, was recently introduced as a legacy of the original Superboy a few weeks back in DC Comics Presents issue 87. A normal human empowered by a wish on a falling star, Clark joined his elder counterpart Superman to fight the Anti-Monitor’s forces… only to see his entire world wiped from existence (and thus the readers as well). In a last-ditch effort, the magically empowered super beings of each Earth left would team up with the hand of God, the Spectre, to try and force the five worlds into one. While the cliffhanger of issue 10 would make it look like it failed and all of creation ended, that was not the case.

The heroes of Earths 1 and 2, along with heroes from other worlds, now found themselves on a combined Earth. Earth-1 seemed to take a priority, as the Clark Kent of former Earth-1 was working for the Daily Planet, rather than the Clark Kent of Earth-2 being the Editor in Chief of the Daily Star. When both Supermen teamed up with the Flashes to travel across dimensions, the reality of their new situation sank in.

As if that wasn’t enough, the ghostly energies of the Anti-Monitor would drag this new Earth into the Anti-Matter universe. Not defeated, and nowhere near done with his reign of terror, the Anti-Monitor now threatened the last vestiges of reality with destruction. With the final issue to go, the few heroes who remained gathered up their strength and vowed to spend their last taking down the greatest threat they ever faced.

More heroes would fall, and even the Wonder Woman of Earth-1 would die. However, the villains had found the one being who was powerful enough to aid in the destruction of the Anti-Monitor: Darkseid himself. The living incarnation of the darkness that exists within man’s soul would not allow another being to take out creation before he could do it himself. It would land the final blow that would finish off the Anti-Monitor’s physical form, while the old Superman of Earth-2 would strike down the soul of the Anti-Monitor.

Unfortunately, while the rest of the heroes of Earth were able to make it back home, a few characters were stuck behind in an imploding universe. The elder Superman of Earth-2, the new Superboy, and Alexander Luthor were all stranded in a rapidly shrinking dead universe… but Alexander Luthor had one trick up his sleeve.

With the ultimate evil struck down, life began to slowly move on. Most people did not remember the Crisis, and those few that did often didn’t remember the exact details. However, the Psyco Pirate would remember, tossed into an asylum as he jibbered on about worlds that died and how nothing was the same.

The Crisis was the most ambitious story that DC had ever considered, and it was one hell of a way to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Not a single character was left out from at least making a guest-appearance, and even the companies that DC had absorbed were included in the celebration. The impact of the Crisis would also carry on, as DC would use the end results as a springboard for a new “Post-Crisis” universe.

John Byrne would be brought on to reboot Superman in a six-issue miniseries, The Man of Steel. This would update Clark’s life to more modern existence, and update Lex Luthor from a mad scientist to a Trumpian evil businessman. The Justice League would also be updated, using characters popular and obscure for an international team of heroes. Wonder Woman no longer existed and would be introduced a few years down the line as a new character. In fact, almost all the books would begin anew or treat the Crisis as a reboot point. Unfortunately, some at DC just couldn’t quite let go, and some cracks began to show in the new foundation for DC before it even dried.

While characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, and almost everyone else was rebooted or otherwise changed, three were not. Batman, Green Lantern, and the Legion of Superheroes were left unchanged, without a changed numbering or break in the books to establish what happened. This is likely due to high sales for the books at the time. While characters like Superman were purposefully rebooted. Instead, DC would release a small series of stories that would retcon Batman and the various Green Lanterns’ origins. Batman would receive Year One and Year Two tales in his main books, with Year One being written by Frank Miller himself. Green Lantern would take longer, telling Hal Jordan’s origin in 1989 with Emerald Dawn. 1991’s Emerald Dawn II would focus on the fall of Hal’s greatest enemy, Sinestro. The Legion… we’ll get there in a moment.

The rest of the DC Universe honestly seemed confused by the Crisis reboot, however. The Justice League books would introduce Hawkman and Hawkgirl as a pair of humans with magical items. The problem was, these were originally Earth-2 heroes from World War II, who had become relegated to the actual WWII era on this New Earth. They would become replaced by the Earth-1 versions of Hawkman and Hawkgirl, with an added twist of reincarnation, making them both the same people at different points in reality. But the real issue was the Legion of Superheroes.

You see, early on in Clark Kent’s career in the Silver Age, it was established he ran around in Smallville as Superboy. He would also travel multiple times into the future, into the 30th Century, where he would join their ranks as a major character and be established as having inspired them directly. Except now, there was no Superboy. John Byrne established that Clark wouldn’t become Superman until his adulthood, and his powers barely manifested themselves when he was a boy. And unlike before, DC couldn’t wave their hands and claim they came from another universe, as they had destroyed them all.

Writers would try to cover these cracks in the foundation with the narrative equivalent of Papier-mâché. Some would work, with the Legion of Superheroes having visited a pocket universe (with a fake Superboy) made by one of their deadliest foes as a way of sabotaging them from within. Superman would also visit this pocket dimension a few times, as the Silver Age would come back with a vengeance with some of the worst villains from that era receiving a more serious update. What would result is Superman being forced to kill for the first time in his career, leaving him emotionally and mentally wrecked for months of comics in a bold move by DC at the time.

However, the new DC Universe began to unravel slightly as several writers would put in their favorite characters or narrative stories that came from the previous continuity. In the case of Wonder Woman, her book was continually published by DC until her official relaunch in 1988 with the event Legends. The same would apply to the previously mentioned Hawkmen, with no one really sure what was the deal with the modern-day human Hawkman from 1986. Other books that crossed over from Crisis to Post-Crisis didn’t receive a relaunch, such as most of the other Superman books that weren’t Man of Steel, had no solid cut-off point for where this new universe began, or the old one stopped. Further convoluting the problem, the alternate futures from each alternate Earth were often preserved… but no one knew when they heck they fit anymore.

The past also no longer quite fit, with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman being only modern heroes. Roy Thomas, a former Editor in Chief of Marvel, had made a career out of working on older timelines and characters. His All-Star Squadron, launched back in 1981, had spent a lot of time filling in the cracks of the old stories from the Golden Age of comics, only to be completely nullified by the Crisis. His book made extensive use of the Golden Age DC heroes, including their Superman and Wonder Woman. With those heroes gone, he spent the remaining time on the book, re-telling origins for the heroes who no longer had a fixed origin until the book was canceled a year later. Luckily, Thomas would get to launch a new book intended to fill in those Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman shaped holes in DC’s history, the Young All-Stars.

Grant Morrison would take advantage of a lot of this confusion in his run on Animal Man, with the conclusion of the story featuring Morrison himself meeting with the title character and explaining why his life had become so convoluted. Pre-Crisis versions of heroes would show up in a narrative limbo, including missing members of the Legion of Super-Heroes. It was a fitting end cap on an increasingly bizarre run.

In 1994, DC decided to try once more. Zero Hour: A Crisis in Time would be another line-wide crossover. Hal Jordan, having recently become the evil lantern known as Parallax, would try to rewrite time and space to save his hometown of Coast City from being destroyed. Every DC comic would be hit with a Zero issue to tie in, with each hero facing some kind of disaster caused by time going crazy, or some facet of their past. WWII heroes from the old Earth-2 would be hit with a real-world equivalent of age, forcing most of them into retirement to try and streamline comics. This would also reboot the Legion of Super-Heroes, still causing minor frustration in any fans trying to figure out a solid DC timeline, but would at least straighten out most of the problems DC had caused with the Crisis.

Another effect of the Crisis was Barry Allen’s death. Not only was the Flash dead and gone, but it left writers with Wally West to take up the mantle of his uncle and hero. What resulted was a fantastic pair of runs by Mark Waid and Geoff Johns across decades, and a serious solidification of the concept of Legacy. Throughout his first 100 issues, less than half under Waid’s run, Wally would go from an unsure wreck of a human being to a confident superhero comfortable standing in the boots Barry left empty. Waid’s run would focus on Wally personally, with a few new villains and only a smattering of older villains. Waid would also introduce the concept of a Flash Family, tying in just about every super-speed hero or villain into the same Speed Force that powered them all.

Ironically, almost everything the Crisis did has become undone in many ways in the years since. Barry Allen is alive again as of 2009. The Multiverse returned in 2006 with the event Infinite Crisis (and expanded on in the series 52). Supergirl was reintroduced multiple times before his cousin was re-created in 2003. The Anti-Monitor himself actually returned in a Green Lantern storyline, and the Monitor would be re-created as a species that kept watch over the Multiverse. However, it’s impossible to overstate the impact that DC made on itself with this storyline. Almost every major crossover has become some kind of reflection on the Crisis, but few have had a similar impact.

Considering DC is currently making a televised version of the Crisis for their CW-verse of shows, it looks like the Crisis will have a strong effect for years to come. But is it worth checking out today?

Arguably, yes. The story is massive, at 12 double-sized issues, and crammed full of more lore and characters than you can shake a stick at. If your favorite character was in publication at some point before 1986, they show up here in some form. Marv Wolfman and George Perez also work wonderfully together, and the book oozes charm from every page. Perez’s smooth art makes it incredibly easy to follow even the most convoluted pages, and Wolfman’s purple prose makes it hard not to care for even minor characters.

However, the book is also dense and can be confusing as hell for new comic readers. Introductions aren’t bothered with, and timid readers can quickly be left in the dust. As a 50th anniversary special for the fans, Perez and Wolfman do expect readers to have some basic form of familiarity with the characters and concepts used. This especially threw me back in the day when Earth-2 Superman showed up before Earth-1 Superman, although this was 2004, long before things like Wikipedia and fan-wikis existed. The duo of the Monitor and Anti-Monitor are also rather shallow concepts overall but work well with the plot needed.

The epic take that Wolfman and Perez crafted, however, keeps feeling grand in scope even when major characters come out of left field. If you’re looking for the best that the 1980s DC has to offer, and one of the events with the largest impact in comics, it’s worth picking up.