COMICS MY WAY: Crisis On Infinite Mistakes Pt. 1

I grew up with comic books, they were a life line for me and my primary source of entertainment. I had done as much research as I could into the many different eras of comics, their genres, and most of all their superheroes when I was younger. I always gravitated towards the superhero teams: Avengers, New Gods, Defenders, and JLA were some of my very favorite titles. The more heroes the better, the more interaction the better as well, the geekiest times for me as a kid was when these super teams crossed paths with each other. Some of my fondest memories were around the Avengers versus The Defenders war, and the once yearly crossover of the Justice League and the Justice Society.

I knew who the Justice Society were before I ever read one of their adventures, and growing up through my teens I always enjoyed the annual multiple earth stories of Earth 1’s Justice League and Earth 2’s Justice Society. These stories never confused or “threw me” in fact, just the opposite, they enticed me to wrap my head around their version of Stephen Hawking’s string theory rather easily and (and here’s the REALLY important point) THEY WERE COOL AND FUN TO READ. One of my favorite stories of all time was JLA 107-108 when the transporter between worlds malfunctions, thanks to an over eager Red Tornado, and characters from both teams are sent to the Nazified Eath X to meet the Quality Comics line of characters (later known as The Freedom Fighters). When Uncle Sam mentions in the story that both Plastic Man and the Blackhawks were dead that never phased me as a kid, even though I was really into both characters, this was a different earth, and they were gone, and the story continued- like I said above, it was SO cool and fun that you couldn’t help but go along and be entertained.

A few years later DC reintroduced another of my favorites titles to the newsstands ALL-STAR COMICS which featured stories of a modern Justice Society, aged to the point that Robin was mature, and Batman and Catwoman’s kid was now a full fledged member known as The Huntress.
Easy to follow explanations, great entertainment, and a chance to read about characters that you could only read in reprint collections, or the by then defunct 100 Page Super Spectaculars (which is an item that warrants perhaps another posting for a later time). I never had a problem keeping the Earths separated, never had a rough time understanding the multiple Supermen and Batmen, and the fact that these characters all lived on separate earths, perhaps even worlds where time moved differently that other earths, or characters died but the same character on another earth still existed, like I said it was like a primer introduction to string theory physics, and as a kid it was a joy to read and figure out. In my travels and geekfest discussions at cons and comic shops, I have yet to ever meet or know of anyone who could not grasp the multi-earth concept, the idea of multiple versions of icon superheroes on multiple earths, and who didn’t find the discussion of individual earth’s continuity a favorite subject right behind the “what if” fight scenario- you know- the “What If (insert favorite comic character here) got into a fight with (another comic book character)?”

In fact the alternate reality cliché’ was/is/and always will be a comic book plot staple. There is no escaping it, like the “evil twin” and the hiding of one’s secret identity. Even Star Trek has its’ “Mirror, Mirror” universe. Alternate, Multiple, earths is an entertaining cliché’ that will always keep giving for as long as writers keep an imagination.

Then in the mid 80’s someone (some one who honestly does NOT deserve a job in the imaginative world of comics) decided that too many kids were getting wayt too confused about all these multiple earths in the DC stable, so Dc decided to collapse all of these earths into one and have a 12 issue “maxi-series” entitled CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. They brought out their best to perform it (Wolfman and Wein writing it I believe and Perez riding shotgun over the art) and over a courser of little over a year managed to collapse everything down to one earth, with one continuity flow, one handy umbrella for all their creative “talents” to use when writing any character in the main DCU (DC Universe as it came to be known).

Then, as the old cliché’ goes it all went straight to shit. The writiers spent much more time trying to explain their inane timeline (even coming out with a definitive “History Of The DC Universe” a 2 issue prestige format booklength explaination of just how the entire time line was supposed to go. Frankly it was another excuse to get the great George Perez to draw every last character in the DCU, but that’s as far as the touchstone that that title ever saw. From the time that Crisis ended (technically even BEFORE it ended, DC has been on what can only be described as a clusterfuck parade of turning their one world logic into a holey slice of swiss cheese, literally confusing more older readers that the multiverse system EVER did, and is largely responsible, at least by my reckoning, to a large portion of their audience giving up on reading DC comics altogether.

Looking over the history of the art form, Crisis On Infinite IS the touchstone mark in the industry. Inside the series they introduced a number of new characters, but two of them really drive this point home, Pariah and Harbinger. This series was literally the Pariah of the DCU (which like the character upon his appearance things started going staright to hell) and has been the Harbinger (who appeared to warn everyone that things were going straight to hell) of the decay of the entire industry in general.

From the late 80’s the numbers have declined, the readers have declined, the talent working on comics in general has declined, and the attention to the media has steadily eroded. Case in point; if not all then an enormous portion of the comic book movie adaptions from both Marvel and DC are largely from material created BEFORE 1985- OVER TWENTY YEARS AGO!! Dark Knight, every movie from Marvel, even a large portion of the Superman movie are all based on material from BEFORE Crisis. Anyone OUTSIDE of comics all recall the BEST stuff being from BEFORE Crisis took place. Since the late eighties comics have become progressively darker, more “realistic”, the story telling more “decompressed”, and MUCH more confusing than ever before.



The series should become known as Crisis On Infinite Mistakes, because comics as a money generating “mainstream” art form all went downhill from there, with one confusing mistake in storytelling and continuity after the next. Over the last few years DC has played with returning the multiverse system and have always fallen just short of doing so, adding even more confusion and holes as they go along, with no end in the confusion in sight. It is true that more and more money IS being generated by DC in the comic book direct market, but it is income generated from a smaller and smaller number of readers all more and more willing to spend more of their spare money (which in today’s economy is getting less and less) on comics that continually promise huge changes in continuity, but rarely if ever, delivering little more than a messy lead-in to their next “ground breaking continuity altering” series. More and more fans are dropping off and a breaking point is well within sight.

I totally blame Crisis and the DC execs for squashing the fun out of their products and consistently not caring enough to cure it. It IS a simple fix, after all, and one of those fixes that fans would welcome with totally open arms, no matter who was confused. DC underestimates the intelligence of their readers- their readers and ANY age mind you- and are way too chicken shit to correct their mistake. I mean seriously, look at how long it took them to make Hal Jordan a Green Lantern again, not to mention alter everything they tried to accomplish with Crisis. Like I mentioned before, one clusterfuck on top of another.

Finally, adding sheer insult to injury, DC already has a number of separate earths running via their outside media. The Dark Knight movie has NOTHING to do with the current DCU Batman, the first Batman animated series has nothing to do with the current Batman animated series. Most would argue that the JLA animated series has nothing to do with any other animated series (as does the Teen Titans and the Legion cartoons), and in comics The Super Friends comic book has nothing to do with the other DCU comics OR anything currently animated. They ALREADY have multiple versions of their own characters STILL running within their company, STILL making some profit (albeit here and there depending upon the product), and yet they seem to be afraid to devise a solid, explainable reason for all of those earths to co-exist. Honestly, what are they afraid of? Making MORE money by allowing their talent and readers to have even more fun with more multiple versions of their characters?

I have to admit at this point that I stopped reading all the DCU books awhile back, but I’ve basically kept in touch with what both “mainstream” companies have been doing with most of their respective titles. NOT a rough thing to do anymore since most of their 6 part “epic” book collections can usually be summarized in a sentence or two.


Secondly, I also have to admit that the above OPINIONS are my own, but I KNOW they are shared by a HUGE number of readers inside as well as outside of comics. Also, I recognize that these opinions and suggestions I place here are in a PUBLIC forum and can be mimicked, stolen, borrowed, and used by anyone at any time. Really I am openly making suggestions and marking the time on which I publicly do so. I invite anyone to take from these ideas what they will- believe me if they would only put some of them into practice it can only make comics BETTER from an entertaining standpoint. Let us continue next time when I give you my version of the way to fix this CRISIS ON INFINITE MISTAKES.

Wake Up.