Alex Ross put over 300 characters on this painting
Crisis on Infinite Earths is the father of all mega event crossovers. Period. This year is its 25th anniversary (we share a birth year!) and to go back through the pages of the comic is to travel back in time to a very different type of crossover. Most mega events today are around eight issues, but this mammoth of a book stretches it all out to twelve issues. And since it’s an 80’s comic (meaning, before splash pages) this is a beast to read because of how many panels are crammed onto the page. The writer of CoIE was Marv Wolfman and since he was killing off every single world except for one singular Earth, he had a lot of story to tell.
Pre-1985, the DC Universe was bursting at the seams with too many characters. Some books were set in alternate universes and some characters couldn’t interact with one another. In order to simplify the line, CoIE came along to get rid of the clutter. The series would effectively restart the universe back at the beginning to freshen up the heroes of the DCU. Also, nothing of this scale had ever occurred in comics before and it was a bold experiment.
All of this is pretty well known, but it’s fascinating to think about. There had NEVER been a comic like this one. From CoIE on forward, both DC and Marvel saw event crossovers as something that needed to be done frequently. After all, if these characters all live in the same world, they have to all work together at some point, don’t they?
On to the breakdown
#1 – Memorable Deaths – With the biggest body count in the history of all comics, this series killed a LOT of people. Two deaths in particular were the most poignant; Supergirl and the Flash. DC wanted to make Superman the last Kryptonian in the new universe, so that meant that Kara Zor-El had to go. In the sixth issue of the series, Kara died while battling the Anti-Monitor (the villain of the story) but at least she went out like a warrior. Looking back over her death, it’s amazing to see how quiet it’s done. A blast of anti-matter energy is the kill shot and a silent panel as Superman holds her is particularly touching. It takes 28 panels in two pages to kill Kara, and to show the reactions as she dies. It’s an incredibly powerful scene and one of the best moments of the series.
Good Flashes don't die out; they just fade away . . . and return later.
One issue later, Barry Allen sacrifices his life to destroy the Anti-monitor’s ultimate weapon. The set-up to Barry’s death had been a long time coming within the series because many heroes kept seeing images of Barry as he tried to warn them of something. As Barry runs around the machine in this issue, he travels back to the past and sees events that the reader had already witnessed. There is only one problem with this, in the second to last panel on page 22, Barry sees an image of Batman and the reader can see what Batman is thinking, but it’s from Barry’s perspective, so it seems as if Barry is reading Batman’s thoughts. Guh . . . it’s confusing.
The more Barry runs, the more the anti-matter is stealing his life force. Eventually, he runs until the anti-matter cannon explodes. It doesn’t make much sense, but it’s an epic death and a heroic end to the character’s life.
"Buried Alien"
Two interesting facts about Barry’s death: 1) Wolfman never really wanted to kill Barry, so he wrote an out so that involved time travel of some sort to bring him back. 2) A world displaced Barry Allen actually appears in Marvel’s Quasar. Of course, he barely looks like the Flash, and he is never explicitly named, but it’s a cool fun fact anyway.
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- “Fear how generic I am!”
#2 – Powerful villains – Technically, the Anti-monitor breaks my rule about villains needing to have been established prior to the series. The Anti-monitor’s first appearance is in issue 2 of CoIE and I am torn on how I feel about the character. He has existed since the dawn of time, so that establishes him as being worthy of battling the entire multi-verse, but his design feels a little flat and uninspired. Essentially, he’s just a big robot that blasts evil energy at people. Also, he hates all living things, so he wants them all to die. End of story. Nothing more needed.
It's hard to be fearsome without pants.
The Anti-monitor’s minions fall on both ends of the spectrum with the shadow creatures being completely uninspired and the Weaponers of Qward looking just absolutely ridiculous. Throw in Psycho Pirate for good measure and you’ve got the weirdest damn team of universe destroyers ever. Eventually, the Anti-monitor gets all of the villains of the DCU together to battle the heroes, but nothing much happens there . . . at least nothing memorable.
I’m sorry to say that the Anti-monitor is a weak villain for such an epic series. He’s got a dumb name, a lame costume, and not much motivation, but at least he gets the job done.
#3 – Everyone gets involved – There isn’t a single person in the DCU that DOESN’T do something in this series. For better or for worse, all of the heroes get involved in some way. From Jonah Hex to the Blue Beetle, from the Legion of Superheroes to Arion the sorcerer, the whole universe (technically, the whole multiverse) is in on the act. It’s pretty overwhelming, so at times, it can be difficult to get through.
#4 – Memorable Showdowns – The very first few pages feature the last stand of the Crime Syndicate of America falling at the hands of the Anti-monitor wave. It’s a scene so beautiful and powerful that Alan Moore stopped doing magic just long enough to praise Wolfman for his handling of the scene.
With so much going on in this book, it’s sort of shocking to realize that there aren’t many cinematic, memorable moments outside of a character death. The final showdown between all of the heroes and the Anti-monitor is epic, but outside of that and the death of Supergirl, there aren’t many moments that really stand out as being “epic.” Sort of strange to think about considering this was the crossover to begin all crossovers, but I chalk it up to the fact that this was before splash pages and iconic imagery was done on a far smaller scale.
#5 – Ending – The last words of the entire series read “Not the end. The beginning of the future.” Nothing could say it better. CoIE gives one a sense of closure. Upon finishing the series, one realizes that it was all a love letter to 50 years of DC history. It’s a phenomenal book that closes out many storylines, but with the rebirth of the universe, gives the promise of so much more to come. By all accounts, a perfect ending.
So, while Crisis on Infinite Earths might have begun all crossovers, it certainly wasn’t close to perfect. The death scenes were well played out, but the story is too dense and the villain just doesn’t pop enough. Still, it’s an incredibly important piece of comic history and well worth a look to see how far we have come.
Surely this scene will never come back later . . .
I actually own a poster of the picture at the top, its rolled up somewhere in a cardboard tube, and is i;m thinking about well over three feet wide. It also came with a smaller black and white version with all the characters numbered on one side, and then listed on the other side so you can look to see who is who and where they are.
I’d hang it up but its hard to find enough wall space, and i dont want pin holes ruining it any more, so i plan on eventually looking for a frame and plastic cover display, but the size will probably make it difficult.
But yea i love CoIE, one of the deaths of it that i remember most was when Ted Grant the then wildcat dies and Yolanda whats her name who was a friend and trained under him showed up as the new wildcat. I’m glad Ted came back. Plus poor psycho=pirate being the only one who remembered everything and it basically driving him mad.
The death of Supergirl in COIE is one of the most poignant deaths in comics because Perez and Wolfman did such an incredible job depicting it. As a kid, the first Spider-Man book I picked up was “Marvel Tales,” a reprint book (not very popular anymore unless it has a lame variant cover) that depicted Gwen Stacy’s death at the hands of the Goblin. It made me look at comics in a different way, as the only comics I had collected prior to that were movie or toy tie-ins (Star Wars, Rom, Micronauts, John Carter of Mars, et al), and Marvel books (Uncanny X-Men, Amazing Spider Man, too many more to name). That single moment in COIE made me buy DC comics regularly instead of the random issue of Batman or Wolfman and Perez’s amazing Teen Titans run.
The Anti-Monitor? Ridiculous name. Stupid, Kirby-esque costume. Yet, somehow, Perez made it look…cool.
The death of Barry Allen didn’t feel as permanent to me when I read it. Perhaps I was jaded…I was a senior in high school at the time and of course, too cool for my own damn good…or perhaps Wolfman’s “out” that you describe above made it obvious to me that he’d be back. I don’t know. At the