Books : Infinite Crisis (DC Comics)

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Rating:

- One of the most powerful DC series ever
Twenty years ago four paragons of virtue and bravery: the original Earth 2 Superman, Lois Lane, Alexander Luthor and Earth Prime Superboy disappeared into a heavenly light having saved the universe from complete destruction. Now they've returned and the current state of the DCU has left them decidedly nonplussed. Planets are at war, The Specter has destroyed all magic, OMAC's are killing metahuman's and Wonder Woman has committed murder. After witnessing the degradation of mankind and the heroes who protect them Superman, Superboy and Earth 3's Luthor decide it's time to set things straight and reorder the universe. It's said that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. In this case the four heroes have paved the road wide and long. Infinite Crisis is considerably more tragic than the original Crisis on Infinite Earths because it involves the descent of some of DC comic's greatest heroes. None are more tragic than Superboy Prime who completely loses his soul in a misguided quest to restore order.

When I bought the original Crisis on Infinite Earths series it didn't make a huge impact on me. Before I went off to college I sold most of my collection and the 12 Crisis issues failed to make the cut of comics I kept. In all fairness Watchmen were sold too so my taste back then is rather suspect. My expectations for Infinite Crisis were pretty tempered but the series exceeded on almost every level. After a decade and a half off of comic book abstinence I just recently started getting back into things by purchasing some of the more popular graphic novels but this is the first book that really brought back the love of comic reading that I used to feel back in the 70's and 80's. It's not the greatest story ever told, in fact it's rather bloated and unwieldy. What it lacks in brevity and eloquence it more than makes up for in emotion and impact. If I have one complaint it's that Superboy Prime's fall is a bit too abrupt. The other issue is that the Crisis series requires a TON of back story knowledge and without that readers will be completely lost. To fully enjoy it I suggest starting with Crisis on Infinite Earths followed by Identity Crisis, Villains United and The O.M.A.C. project. It's a lot of required reading but Infinite Crisis ties all the stories together. If you love DC comics this one is a definite keeper.

Rating:

- A BLOW STRUCK AGAINST MODERN REVISIONISM!
"Infinite Crisis" is one of those storylines that are supposed to delight the fan-boy types but anger old-timers like myself by messing with our long established views of the DC Universe. But what long-time fans like me (over 30 years!) have to realize that change has always been essential to the comic book world. This is basically what DC realized in the late 50's and early 60's when they conceived the updated versions of characters like The Flash, Green Lantern, The Atom, Hawkman, and others. Ironic since these updated versions are what led to the chaos of multiple worlds addressed in the original Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline over twenty years ago.

Now, writer Geoff Johns is a very smart man. Johns uses Infinite Crisis both as a sequel to the first Crisis, but more importantly, to address a problem with superhero comics that has been festering for nearly two decades. Beginning with Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns in 1986, superheroes have become increasingly darker, fraying the line between good and evil. The 80's and 90's saw the rise of the anti-hero with characters such as The Punisher, Lobo, Guy Gardner, Wolverine, and The Ghost Rider enjoying enormous popularity among comic fans. Johns is clearly making his own feelings well known with Infinite Crisis. Frankly, superheroes these days just aren't that heroic. At the same time, I think Johns is also taking a clear shot at other modern day comic book writers (Bendis?) for the way they've handled superhero titles as their own personal amusement parks (Avengers Disassembled?). Johns is one modern comic writer who seems keenly aware that these characters will be around long after he is done writing their stories.

Thus, the plot of Infinite Crisis isn't quite as important as the motivation. As such, we can judge the story strictly on its merits alone, but I think it's more prudent that Infinite Crisis be judged a year or two down the road to see if things "stuck". As the story begins we learn that there were four survivors of the original Crisis, long thought dead. Superman and Lois Lane of Earth 2, Alexander Luthor of Earth 3, and Superboy of Earth Prime; these four have managed to survive in a pocket universe and have been observing the surviving Earth 1 all along. They are not happy by what they've seen! They've seen heroes actually kill or wipe the minds of their foes. They believe Earth 1 is infected and rotting from the inside, and it'd infecting the world's heroes and they intend to do something about it, namely bring Earth 2 back in existence which they believe should have been the one, true Earth all along.

As one might expect, Alexander Luthor has even darker designs and we find that it was his machinations that led to the events in the Infinite Crisis lead-ins "Day of Vengeance", "Villains United", "Rann-Thanagar War", "The OMAC Project" and the others. For his part, the Superman of Earth 2 plays the always hopeful yet hopelessly naive Boy Scout, duped by Luthor. Yes, the plot may be hokey and thoroughly improbably but it's a means to get to the end and the enema of the DC superhero landscape is what Johns is after. There are a lot of losses and some characters finally get the proper sendoff that they didn't get in Crisis on Infinite Earths. A lot of character's futures, notably the Spectre, Wally West, and Captain Marvel, are left up in the air.

Perhaps Johns can be accused of having an old-fashioned, Idyllic view of superheroes but what's wrong with that? The times we live in have enough doom and gloom, do we really need that to intrude on one of the few escapist pursuits we have left? I for one applaud Johns as well as artist Phil Jimenez. Job well done!

Reviewed by Tim Janson

Rating:

- Infinite Crisis is here....
I hated the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. It was too long, too convulated, the conversations bordered on cheesiness etc...the only redeeming factor in my opinion was that it cleaned out the multivese and set foundations for a more coherent continuity. Fast forward 20+ years and the Crisis has returned. This book has a lot going for it and has foundations based on many previous events. The plot is not simple but I will try my best to provide a synopsis.

After the original Crisis, the four surviving memebers were Superman and Lois Lane of Earth 2 (from The Golden Age type comics ); Superboy from Earth Prime (the Superboy from the early Superboy stories) and Alexander Luthor of Earth 3 (son of Lex Luthor who is actually a good guy amongst the CSA which has evil versions of the JLA, Owlman, Ultraman, etc). After surviving and playing pivotal roles in the original crisis, these folks have been on a self-imposed exile in "paradise" and have been watching Earth 1 (this is the Earth with our regular characters). But much to their disappointment, despite their sacrifices, the heroes of Earth 1 have lost their ways...i.e. Batman being mindwiped, JLA is disbanded, Superman can't lead, Wonder Woman kills Maxwell Lord, Batman's Brother I satellite turning on the superheros etc.). They decided to break out and return to Earth 1 to teach the Earth 1 heroes what it means to be heroes...at least that's what Earth 2 Superman wants. Superboy Prime simply misses his old world, his parents, his girl and wants to return home. The real culprit here is Alex Luthor who channels these emotions as a fuel to get what he wants....a perfect Earth.

We also find out that Alex has been impersonating the real Lex Luthor and creating the Society of Villains to round up heroes such as Powergirl, Black Adam, Martian Manhunter to fuel a tower he is building to restore the multiverse and then pick and choose the Earths he wants and combine them to form the perfect Earth.

That's as far as I am going to go with the synopsis, since I felt that this was the ultimate motivation for Infinite Crisis going off the ground.

There's many more stories going on. You have Superboy prime vs. everybody, Superman Earth 1 vs. Superman Earth 2, Supermen of both Earth 1 & 2 vs. Superboy Prime, Batman vs. Bother Eye, Alex Luthor takes on the Titans...it's basically an epic battle where every DC characters are thown into. There are also changes that occur as a result of the Crisis. The big three, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are taken back to their roots. I can go on but there's too much stuff and trust me that it's well worth the read.

The story is very well done. As someone who was not very familiar with the original Crisis, Geoff Johns does an excellent job of filling in new readers on the stuff that has gone on before. And he manages to tie up almost all the loose ends from The Omac Project, JLA: Crisis of Conscience, etc. This is not an easy task to do but Geoff manages to do it and excels at it.

And let's not forget the art. Phil Jimenez and George Perez are masters at drawing small panels featuring hordes of superheroes in action and they are pushed to the limit. I also love that the had Jerry Ordway for the Supermen vs. Superboy sequences. I have heard complaints with the art when it was originally issued in the monthly format but the editors went back and corrected and added a lot of new art work to make the story flow smoothly.

If you managed to read thorough all of this and are still here....go get this book. "Add to shopping cart" right now and read an excellent epic story with excellent art. Highly recommended.

Rating:

- Awful
I gave this two stars only because I got to see some characters I haven't in a long time. The writing is disjointed, poorly characterized and the art was so bad in the original that they had to fix or finish it here.
There do seem to be some revelations that the changes in this edition (versus the actual series) hint at, but at this point, who cares?
The story itself makes little sense. Characters are brought back into continuity just to be killed off. Major events come out of nowhere, and seem to have been made up out of desperation.
For example, Superboy Prime tries to re-start the universe by flying through Oa at light speed, which makes no sense at all, and there seem to be pages devoted to the most tenuous connections to other series. The whole thing is incredibly contrived and forced, just to fit a plot that seems to have changed during the story.
The worst part is that this isn't even a whole story, given that 52 is still going on, and you need to have read more than 4 other stories to get all of what is going on.
No thanks.

Rating:

- Felt like a Marvel story, but then again...
There is no perfect Earth.

The DC universe is corrupt? Let's see...Joker actually turns out to be a hero (I know, he's not presented as one, but he offs AL, so he's a hero). Wonder Woman kills someone? Yeah, right. Batman actually points a gun at someone? Yeah, right again. The big blue schoolboy saves the universe? Hack, ptooey.

Everybody makes mistakes (the big idea from the series along with there's no perfect Earth). It's too bad that DC didn't realize that this series was one of them.

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