First, a little bit of history...
Crisis on Infinite Earths was written by Marv Wolfman and illustrated by George Perez. The 12 part maxi-series was designed to simplify 50 years of Multiverses, alternate Earth characters, and crossovers. It did do exactly that, the post-Crisis DC was a much simpler place for many years. This was the first major crossover event for D.C., and the second released after Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, although it was developed before hand and D.C. delayed the release to get it right.
I will admit I came into this with quite high expectations. This was THE Event. Between this and Secret Wars for Marvel, these launched the event driven comic world we now live in.
Unfortunately I found this story to be boring. A lot of it didn't make any sense, the art work was cluttered and messy, the story over-complicated. Very basically, the D.C. universe was split many years ago into the Multiverse, and an antimatter version of it did the same. Both matter and antimatter universes had a character called Monitor. Antimatter Monitor worked out that if he destroyed the matter universe, he would get stronger. Matter Monitor works this out and tries to stop him by calling together many heroes from various universes in the Multiverse, with specific powers. Are you bored yet? Exactly! Personally it comes across like a self indulgent mess.
Next up is Zero Hour: Crisis in Time. This is practically the same story as Crisis on Infinite Earths, with time being eliminated instead of the Multiverse. For me the story works a lot better than the original Crisis by being smaller, only 5 parts. It is still confusing, and tries to include too many characters, but the time travel aspect of the story works a lot better for me. Overall a better read than Crisis on Infinite Earths, but still not great.
Next will be Infinite Crisis.
The stem of the problem comes from the idea to include all the characters up to this point in D.C.'s history. This just leaves panels too full, and characters with not a lot to do except look at each other, and say "Oh no, what can we do?"
What the story does do right is handle some of the deaths well. As, I believe, the first time for major character deaths, they have genuine meaning and impact. It does also resolve the Multiverse problem of too many intertwined universes and alternate characters. However Sadly this isn't enough for me to enjoy this "classic" story. I found it overly hard to read and not very satisfying to conclude.
What the story does do right is handle some of the deaths well. As, I believe, the first time for major character deaths, they have genuine meaning and impact. It does also resolve the Multiverse problem of too many intertwined universes and alternate characters. However Sadly this isn't enough for me to enjoy this "classic" story. I found it overly hard to read and not very satisfying to conclude.
Next up is Zero Hour: Crisis in Time. This is practically the same story as Crisis on Infinite Earths, with time being eliminated instead of the Multiverse. For me the story works a lot better than the original Crisis by being smaller, only 5 parts. It is still confusing, and tries to include too many characters, but the time travel aspect of the story works a lot better for me. Overall a better read than Crisis on Infinite Earths, but still not great.
Next will be Infinite Crisis.
No comments:
Post a Comment