Books : Crisis on Infinite Earths

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Rating:

- Stick to what you do well, Marv.
Poor Marv Wolfman. The only work he's done for DC comics lately is a few gaming texts for the Teen Titans.
A lot of fans were looking forward to this book for a few reasons:
1. Marv is a great COMICS writer. His New Teen Titans and Crisis on Infinite Earths set a standard for 1980s super-hero comics that, for many were only surpassed by Alan Moore and Frank Miller's work.
2. Crisis on Infinite Earths was complicated. You could spend a lifetime tracking down all of the cross-overs and related comics to learn the "secrets" of the event (Hunting every pre-Crisis appearance of the Monitor in his observation satellite is a particular obsession that some share). The novel tantalised with the chance of more "secrets" about this multiverse shattering comics event.
3. "Infinite Crisis" is coming... Marv is writing a special story for "Infinite Crisis Secret Files" which will supposedly draw a clear line between the Crisis of 1985 and this year's (2005) DC Comics cross-over event. Fan boys the world over are digging out their plastic baggied copies of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series and reading it in preparation for the new Crisis.
By the way, if you're lost by now and don't know what an "Infinite Crisis" is, you're reading the wrong review. The one on this page by Devlin Tay is excellent - try that one.

But Marv isn't a great novelist. Aside from the fact that I can see what he was trying to do - change the perspective of the whole Crisis event so that it is seen from a more personal viewpoint rather than on the epic scale of the original - his sentence structure often lets him down (like I can talk...) and you get the feeling that the whole job was rushed.
Certainly, no-one seems to have bothered to proof-read it. When the Flash comments that his intangible hands would pass through a "copmuter" (sic), or references are made to the character "Obsideon" (rather than the correct name "Obsidian") you know that no-one has bothered to use a spell-check either.
The cover features detail from a painting by George Perez and Alex Ross, the other (missing) half of which shows the Earth 2 Superman mourning the death of Wonder Woman. Yet this event is completely missing from the novel. Obviously, Marv was trying to cater for a broader audience than the one which read Crisis in the first place and, as such, fails to cater for either his orginal audience or a new audience. And the death of Supergirl is dealt with within two pages! The whole shebang seems rushed.
Inevitably, the condensation of a 12 issue comic series into a 320 page novel misses some detail and changes a few events slightly for more cohesion, and I accept that. But Marv should have realised that whatever suspension of disbelief readers will accept in a comic drawn so beautifully by George Perez, they will not be so forgiving about in a novel.

Rating:

- Crisis-Not for non-fans
While I was really happy to finally get to read this, I have to say that I had to dig out my Crisis comic hard cover to match some of the stuff up. If you do not know the DC characters and universe pre-Crisis, you might not understand all of this. You are not given the character background like in a normal book so you have to already know them and some of the inserts, like Wonder Woman's return to Paradise Island, don't really make since unless you remember the time. And I have to point out some things are moved or jumbled with current continuity. I liked this, but only because I knew how it fit in and I was already a fan.

Rating:

- Barry Allen Flash should have been the title
If you love Barry Allen as the Flash this is the book for you! I never was that attached to him. I'm plodding through this book and it's all about his perspective. Crisis was a great series from so many perspectives but this book is a Flash-sentric book.
If you never cared that much about Flash then this is definitely not the book for you!

Rating:

- Flash fans and fans of human-centered drama will LIKE it!
There's no question that Crisis on Infinite Earths: The Novel doesn't have the complete scope of the original comic book mini-series. I think it's impossible to translate the mini-series into a 310-page verbal novel and frankly not worth the effort to redo the EXACT SAME STORY. It would have been very boring to me to read the EXACT same thing that I got in the original mini-series. I LIKE having new angles on stories and in this case I do feel that Crisis: The Novel has new angles to offer on the story as much as the Kingdom Come novel had to offer new insights with respect to the Kingdom Come graphic novel, too.

That said, I like the angle Marv Wolfman used to retell this story. If you love The Flash and human-centered drama, this is a nice book to get. Be aware that there is time-skipping through the novel (without giving away revelations completely, The Flash IS time-travelling). I know some people can't get their heads around time-travel, but it's not that bad in the novel.

If there's a sore point that this novel brings up, it's how DC Comics completely wasted the Barry Allen character. The 1950s/1960s Flash IS the definitive iconic version of that character but for reasons that defy logic DC essentially abandoned the character in favor of a hipper, frankly less-sophisticated successor. As much as I like Wally West, he doesn't have the police scientists/forensics specialist background of his predecessor (Barry Allen) and has added little to The Flash saga. Wally has basically inherited Barry's rogues gallery and costume and in effect become Barry Allen, Mark II minus the innnovations and science that made Barry Allen stand out. DC missed an opportunity to revitalize The Flash by cashing in on the crime drama renaissance currently happening on TV with shows like NYPD Blue, CSI, Law & Order, etc. DC Comics HAD its crime scene investigator in Barry Allen and blew a chance to utilize that aspect of the character in a superheroic or realistic setting...

My main criticisms of this novel are its lack of proper editing and interior illustrations. It would have been nice to get new B & W illustrations (like the Kingdom Come novel) from George Perez, Alex Ross, or Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez to accompany the narrative, but the only illustration is on the dustjacket. There are very few grammatical errors in the novel, but it's frustrating to see some spelling errors pop up with certain character names again and again. This book either wasn't edited at all or was edited by a non-comic fan.

Those nitpicks aside...
Frankly, I don't think you have to be a big reader of DC Comics to enjoy this novel. Be aware that there are 2 versions of Superman in this novel but their differences are explained explicitly.

The biggest mysteries of this novel are NOT the storyline and changes from the original comic book version but why the distribution and print numbers on this novel are so lousy!

I had a hard time finding this book in stores and probably bought the last copy in the ENTIRE city of Columbus, Ohio! There should have been more copies of this book printed and distribution should have been much better than it was...

It puzzles me why this book WASN'T published and distributed by Warner Books seeing that its parent corporation owns the characters in this novel. Crisis on Infinite Earths is one of the most talked-about storylines in comics in the past 20 years and for the better part of the 1980s Marv Wolfman was one of DC Comics' (another Warner subsidiary) best-selling and most prolific writers. The Crisis novel and its author deserved support from Warner Books based on Wolfman's past record and reverence for these characters.

Rating:

- Get the original graphic novel and forget this book.
In 1985, DC Comics made comic book history by publishing a 12-issue maxi series that totally reshaped the DC Universe. Prior to 1985, the DC Universe was a confusion of alternate worlds, timelines and continuities that left readers confused: Did Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Hawkman and others fight the Nazis during World War II or didn't they? Did Clark Kent ever marry to Lois Lane or didn't he? Was Superman's cousin called Supergirl or Power Girl? Did Wonder Woman have a daughter named Fury or didn't she? The problem was, DC Comics was publishing a whole lot of stories that apparently took place on different Earths in different universes. There was Earth-1, where all the modern-day superheroes we are familiar with lived: Superman, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, etc. And then there was Earth-2, where identical or similar heroes appeared decades earlier to fight the Nazis in World War II. And then there was Earth-3, where all the familiar characters were super-villains and the only superhero was Lex Luthor. And Earth-S. And Earth-X. Ad infinitum. Something had to be done, and "Crisis on Infinite Earths" was born. In one stroke, this array of confusing alternate universes was compressed into a single universe. Along the way, the origin of the so-called multiverse was explained, some existing heroes died and some new ones were born, battles were fought and sacrifices were made. Established major characters like Supergirl, the Flash and Wonder Woman were allowed to die, along with a multitude of other minor characters. The resulting DC Universe had a rebooted continuity that was unified, streamlined and easier to keep track of. Twenty years on, no major comic book publishing event has surpassed the epic that was "Crisis on Infinite Earths".

All of which makes the mediocrity of this novel, which retells the story of "Crisis" from the point of view of the Flash, all the more disappointing. Marv Wolfman's attempt to flesh out the original story (which he crafted with artist George Perez back in 1985) into a full-scale novel simply fails to measure up to the original tale - "Crisis" the novel is strangely lacking in the grandeur that "Crisis" the comic book had in spades. "Crisis" the comic was an epic - "Crisis" the novel is simply a bore. Yes, there is always a problem with translating visuals from a movie, TV show, or even comic book into plain old boring words, but the problem with "Crisis" simply isn't that. For the record, I thoroughly enjoyed "Kingdom Come" by Elliot S. Maggin, "No Man's Land" by Greg Rucka, and "The Death and Life of Superman" by Roger Stern. These novels, which retold the stories of some of DC other successful comic books, added something to the original stories by fleshing out the characters and expanding on the events therein. You could read these books on their own merits and enjoy them without ever having read the original comics.

"Crisis" simply fails to achieve this. The whole exercise reeks of a rush job. Reading "Crisis', one gets the feeling that either Marv Wolfman (i) simply ran out of time, or (ii) lost interest totally midway through writing the novel, which should have been at least a third longer. The whole narration feels terribly compressed, and its pacing is just awful. The events from the first 7 issues of the original 12-issue epic fill up much of the book, taking up almost 80% of the novel. The events of the last 5 issues were relegated to the remaining 20%. I find this really weird, given that most of the crucial action in "Crisis" actually happened in the last 5 issues, as were the emotional ramifications of these events on the characters. Events from the tail-end of "Crisis" were inexplicably skipped over while lots of boring bits were added to the front section. Major characters were randomly dropped - where were Wonder Woman-2 or Superboy-Prime? What happened to Darkseid, who played such a pivotal role in the final battle in the original story? The origin of another vital character, Dr Light, was totally unexplained, as was her transformation from a selfish and uncaring person into a self-sacrificing superhero. What happened to the villains' betrayal of their allies? And after spending a couple of pages writing about how Wonder Woman pleaded with her mother, Queen Hippolyta, to allow her to take the Amazons into battle, Marv Wolfman did not even mention her subsequent death during the final battle! The sacrifices of many other minor characters were given short shrift (e.g. Aquagirl, Lori Lemaris, Dove, Kole, Robin-2 and the Huntress). This renders the whole narration emotionally uninvolving - the whole point about the original "Crisis" was about loss and sacrifice for the greater good. Even the deaths of Supergirl and the Flash seem strangely sterile here compared with how they were depicted in the original comic book. How can readers feel any emotional connection to the story if the deaths of well-established and well-loved characters only merited throw-off one-liners? That last 20% of the book really should have been expanded.

My advice? Read the original comic book - it is available as a reprint in both hardcover and trade paperback formats. Wait for the paperback version of the novel if you must read it.

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