An Infinite number of Worlds, an Infinite number of You. All alike and yet each unique in their own way. No reason that should be confusing to anyone, should it?
I had no such confusing with Earth 1, 2, 3, S, X and so forth, or even Earth Prime where the reader exists. Earth Prime became part of the universe, for as Barry Allen’s Flash had first visited Earth 2 and met The Flash he had read about in comics as he kid; he would also end up visiting a world where super heroes only existed in comics, there he met Julius Schwartz the Editor-in-Chief of DC Comics who help him get back to Earth 1 and defeat an alien monster.
Though not everyone was a fan of the Multiple Earths of DC Comics, some were confused but I never was. So, someone thought that should be corrected. At least they gave the assignment to someone who knew what to do with all those super heroes and all those Earths.
Marv Wolfman, was has been writing comic books for over fifty years now, and if his name was on it, you knew your comic was in good hands.
Marv was giving the tremendous duty to write a comic book series as part of the Fiftieth Anniversary of DC Comics. The best way to celebrate was by destroying the entire DC Universe… and building back together again.
CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS
As Each Earth fell so did their heroes, many of those heroes had been forgotten, while others were well known. Most shocking was the heroic death of Supergirl. Part of the reason it was shocking was that the Supergirl movie had just recently come out.
I absolutely enjoyed the story, wondering where it would be resolved. What I also enjoyed was the art, George Perez was one of the greatest artists that was able to draw details in a scene and massive crowed. Here was a book with hundreds of characters, dozens or more on every page. On top of that they soon added Jerry Ordway, my favorite artist, as the inker and finisher to the book.
Up until that time, for me George Perez was the artist of The New Teen Titans, while Jerry Ordway was the main artist on the All-Star Squadron. So, in my mind I saw Earth 1 through Perez’s art, and Ordway was the artist of Earth 2. So, to have them together drawing the entire DC multi-verse was just perfect.
Then everything was put back together again, bringing the Charlton heroes, and all the other heroes and created a single new world.
As great as it was, and I was determined to enjoy this New Single World of Super Heroes, there was a problem. From what I understand, a lot of editors, writers, and artists weren’t prepared to work in this new world.
Some books tried to carry on with their stories from where they were before the Crisis happened, not many of them were successful. The only way to make it work properly was if all the books started over from scratch once the Crisis was over, but that would have required months of planning based on what had happened, but publishers couldn’t allow for an extensive period of time of nothing being released as everyone planned for the start of the new world.
Some books carried on relatively successfully, the Batman books did well, while there was a mini-series published called BATMAN YEAR ONE (written by Frank Miller after the success of his DARK KNIGHT RETURNS mini-series,) that re interpreted his origin in a more modern sense (whatever that means).
The Justice League of America would continue from where it left off, even if some of its main characters no longer existed or hadn’t yet come into existence in their own books. This JLA would end in the middle of the next companywide cross over series called LEGENDS and be reborn in a new series called: JUSTICE LEAGUE (A New Beginning). I may go into that further later, but for now, what happened to the other characters?
Marv Wolfman along with John Byrne and artist Jerry Ordway would write and draw the new Superman books: Action Comics, Adventures of Superman, and Superman. John Byrne would also do a miniseries to get it all started, giving him an updated secret origin. I liked the internal logic that Byrne and Wolfman brought to the backstory and his story.
George Perez, after doing such a marvels job on drawing nearly every character (and background character) in the DC Universe within the Crisis, would turn his attention to the Greek pantheon of Gods as he developed, wrote, and drew the new Wonder Woman series. In the myths of gods would play an important part of Diana’s story. This detail and the story were marvelously done and I enjoyed it very much.
Then there were the characters who were left hanging at the end of the Crisis.
The Earth 2 Robin and The Huntress were last seen morning over the fact that their Batman, her father, no longer existed, not even the grave site they had been too many times. So what happened to them? Well, Robin basically vanished, maybe his psych became one of the many Robins that currently exists. Helena Wayne would also disappear, but the Huntress would soon return as a different person with a new origin. This woman had a great story to her, but for me she wasn’t who she was meant to be.
In a way, Huntress had been the Earth 2 Batgirl, but entirely different and unique as the daughter of Batman and Catwoman. There was no dispute that Power Girl was the Earth 2 Supergirl, but she had issues with being Superman’s ‘secret weapon’ being kept in hiding for years (part of Supergirl’s past) so she refused to wear the Super ‘S’ Shield and hence her white costume (I’ll right post about her costume someday).
Power Girl did exist in the New Earth world; the problem is her cousin Superman no longer exist (and the new Superman didn’t show up yet). So, a new origin had to be created for her, instead of escaping the dying planet Krypton as a baby, she escaped the shrinking of Atlantis (from the period of a fantasy comic called Arion of Atlantis. The sunken Atlantis would later be ruled by Aquaman). It wasn’t a half bad idea, but they probably should have developed her character to reflect that more. That new origin just didn’t stick, over the years her Earth 2 origin would come back to haunt her.
The Justice Society of America itself went through a lot of mess. Did they exist in the current world or didn’t they. Were they in the past or in the present? Great characters but where they were in the world kept changing.
Lastly, there was poor Donna Troy, Wonder Girl. Best known as a member of the New Teen Titans. She had never really had an origin, because her first appearance was basically Wonder Woman as a kid, and that young Wonder Woman—Girl, joined the earlier version of the Teen Titans. Marv Wolfman gave her so much more in The New Teen Titans, that he gave her a very grounded new origin. It was a beautiful story.
Then the Crisis happened, and Marv had to write a whole new origin for her, which didn’t last very long. By the time John Byrne was writing and drawing the Wonder Woman comic, all of Donna’s previous origins had been lost and got scrambled even more. Who Is Donna Troy would be a question asked over and over again.
Merging all these worlds into one was to stream line the DC Universe and make it less confusing… It didn’t last long.
In the past certain books had large annuals, but after the CRISIS happened, DC wanted another success big crossover series which would sell well on its own while also getting people to buy other books. LEGENDS was a great series; MILLENNIUM was a fun concept with a few side story lines that were really interesting. INVASION had aliens attempting to take over the world while figuring out what created the super heroes. This introduced the ‘mega-gene’ which would be used to explain powers from then on including references in tv shows and the like. Each year there would be another big cross-over series and it had to be bigger than the one in the past. More and more referred back to the events of the Crisis, perhaps it wasn’t over and so forth, and the world got rebuilt time and again.
Since then, the concept of a multi-verse has become part of pop-culture, and every day references. Even in the news sometimes we wonder what Earth we’re on, “what time line are we living in.”
This is a continuing series on comic books as part of an assignment for Toastmasters which will result in a speech on the top of these blogs.
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