The Effect DC's ‘Crisis On Infinite Earths' Had On Comics And Their Fans
"Worlds will live, worlds will die and nothing will ever be the same"
DC Comics’ Crisis on Infinite Earths was a pivotal moment. Both for the publisher and the wider comic book industry, as a whole. The original idea was conceived when Marv Wolfman, editor at DC, put forward a proposal for nothing less than a rewrite of the entire DC universe.
By 1981, DC’s legacy of storytelling had been going for almost 50 years, and with that history came continuity problems. A point Wolfman was all too aware of after a Green Lantern fan questioned why two characters within the book failed to recognise each other, despite working together in a previous issue only a couple of years earlier.
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Until now, the go-to solution was to simply shunt different eras of continuity onto different parallel earths within the DC Universe - an added necessity since DC’s acquisition of several book publishers and their characters over the years. As a result, the Golden age versions of Superman, Batman, JSA, etc were located on Earth-Two; Kirby’s New Gods on Earth-Fourteen; Chorlton Characters (Peacemaker, Blue Beetle, The Question, etc) would inhabit Earth-Four, while Fawcett’s Captain Marvel/Shazam would reside on Earth-S. Confusing? Wolfman thought so and looked for a way to resolve the situation.
Wolfman believed the multiple earth set-up to be unfriendly to readers - new ones especially - and posited the idea of an event that would see DC continuity streamlined into one single timeline. This would (hopefully) achieve two things: the first would be a solid, sole universe that would allow new readers to jump on board and not feel lost, and secondly, It would sell like hot cakes.
For the most part, the characters of DC’s respective Earths remained within their own continuity, although when the need arose for a cross-over event, they would - on occasion - stray to another realm, as seen in ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ - introduced in The Flash Vol 1 #123 (the book that introduced the concept of Earth-Two), and ‘Crisis on Earth-One!/Crisis on Earth-Two’ (Justice League of America #21-22) that saw the Justice League team up with their Justice Society counterparts. The publisher may have released the occasional crossover book before now, (The Super Powers series, for example, to promote the Kenner toyline) but Wolfman envisioned an altogether different event with which to jumpstart the next era of DC.
The publisher was unsure if the series would sell, but decided to take the risk anyway, bringing on board DC President Jenette Kahn, Executive Editor Dick Giordano, and legendary artist, the late George Perez. They began work on the project in 1981, unfortunately, a series of delays (including having a researcher read every single DC book in existence) led to the project being held back till DC’s 50th anniversary in January of 1985 (cover-dated April 1985).
The book ran for twelve issues, with every DC title published over that period releasing tie-ins to the event. It was a massive undertaking. Ironically, the delays in getting the title to publication saw their rival Marvel introduce their own major crossover event, Secret Wars, approximately one year earlier. However, with Marvel’s book - though a good seller - not initially lauded by reviewers, Crisis on Infinite Earths was both a best-seller and well-received critically.
That the book took so many risks immediately set it apart from anything that had come before, both from DC and its competitors. In a stroke, hundreds of characters were killed and removed from continuity. As the tagline to the series proclaimed: Worlds Will Live, Worlds Will Die, and Nothing Will Ever Be The Same. And for a time, it was true. Major characters were despatched, most notably among these Barry Allen AKA The Flash, and Supergirl (glimpsed on that now-iconic Perez cover), and while no one stays dead in comic books forever, these changes lasted for years afterwards. In comic book time, that's pretty much an eternity.
The project was pioneering in comic book storytelling if only for the sheer number of characters it had to juggle. It may not have nailed everything 100% (Hawkman needed a whole other event for his continuity issues to be resolved), but it was as close to, in my opinion, perfection, as we’ve ever come before, or since.
In 1985 I was a DC fan only in so far as what I’d seen on television, or from the odd Justice League comic my dad would pick up. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman may have been familiar thanks to their respective media content, but characters like Green Lantern and Flash - despite their recognisable imagery - were relative unknowns to me. I was eleven years old when the book was released and was a complete novice to the DC universe. I stumbled upon a copy of issue #5 on a news rack in a local bus station and was utterly fascinated by Perez’s cover. There were characters I recognised, of course: Superman, The Joker, and Doctor Fate, but for every character I could name, there were another five I had no idea who they were. My mother picked up the book for me, and I devoured it. I literally had no idea who most of these people were, but I loved every panel and every page. I made it my mission to collect every Crisis book I could find, and in the process picked up as many DC titles as I could afford from nearby newsagents. The entire event enthralled me so much that I became a DC fan for decades afterwards. So, from a personal standpoint, it was a resounding success.
And I was not alone. To this day, Crisis on Infinite Earths is - to many - the greatest comic book crossover of all time. Wolfman’s gamble, in the end, paid off. So much so that even now, almost forty years later, It has been marked as a turning point in the comic book industry. It has been reprinted on several occasions, inspired countless sequels and reinterpretations, and even formed the basis for a crossover event of the same name in the CW Arrowverse television universe. Its success (and to some extent, the success of Marvel’s Secret Wars in the same period) has led to the crossover event - for better, or worse - being an annual tradition in both major houses. They’re now a regular fixture of comic book publishing. And though several have enjoyed both critical and commercial success, none of them has come close to having the impact that Crisis on Infinite Earths did.
Such was the success of the endeavour, that over the years, the word ‘Crisis’ has become almost synonymous with DC, as they return to that same well time and again in an effort to recreate the success of the original. The official sequels: Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis round out the trilogy, as well as the numerous stand-alone events that feature the term: Zero Hour: Crisis in Time, Identity Crisis, Heroes in Crisis, and the upcoming Dark Crisis, which sees the character of Pariah from the original event return as the antagonist for our DC heroes. Will this one prove to be as successful as its namesake? Doubtful. As great as the story may be, the publishing world is very different from what it was in 1985, and the more others strive to create something that has the same impact as the original, the more it cements just how groundbreaking that original twelve-issue series was.
Indeed, nothing ever was the same, again.
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