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DC COMICS CELEBRATED ITS 50th ANNIVERSARY
by blowing itself up.
For many comic fans and creators, it had to be done. Years of
accumulated history were beginning to slow down DC's mightiest
champions, and the "parallel
worlds" theory that allowed superheroes from the 1940s
and the 1980s to co-exist was starting to interfere with the
ideas of a new generation of comic writers, who wanted the
freedom to re-interpret their childhood heroes. And given the
success that revitalized heroes such as Marvel's Daredevil
and Uncanny
X-Men were enjoying (not to mention DC's own New
Teen Titans and Swamp
Thing), it's easy to see how DC was anxious not to let
its biggest cash cows fall too far behind the rest of the herd.
Crisis on Infinite Earths was the company's answer to
its own creative crisis. The sweeping 12-issue series included
just about every hero and villain ever published by DC, saw
trillions of lives snuffed out and even dared to picture the
deaths of two of DC's most beloved characters. Simply put, Crisis
was a message from the comics industry to the world: Assume
nothing.
The story itself is nothing less than awe-inspiring. The
millions of universes in DC's "multiverse" are slowly
fading out of existence in order to feed the Anti-Monitor's
insatiable need for power. The Monitor, his benevolent opposite
in our universe, moves quickly to mobilize the superbeings for
battle, but only the death of the Flash secures the safety of
the five remaining universes. Eventually, those five are saved
by the actions of the near-omnipotent Spectre, who restarts time
from the beginning to save Creation itself.
The series ends with only one universe in existence, an
amalgam of the five that survived the Anti-Monitor's onslaught.
The heroes that survive are given new histories, and other
heroes and villains considered redundant or unnecessary are
simply erased from existence.
The impact of the series on the entire industry cannot be
overestimated. Any discussion of DC's history will now and
forevermore have to make reference to the "pre-Crisis"
or the "post-Crisis" universes. Never before
had any comic publisher swept away 50 years of history to
restart the universe, and it's unlikely fans will ever see it
again.
Crisis introduced a new level of sophistication into
the comic-book world. Not only was it the starting point for the
re-introduction of every major DC character, it also marked the
beginning of a universe in which major heroes died and stayed
dead, millions of lives could be snuffed out on a whim, and a
hero's life could be dramatically changed without warning. The
slate was wiped clean by the actions in Crisis, and a new
generation of DC writers and artists were eager to make their
own mark upon it.
Crisis also caught the attention of the mainstream
media, who for the most part saw comics as juvenile
entertainment. Columnists in national magazines looked at what
the series represented, and for the most part they saw a loss of
innocence, a sad funeral for the heroes who gave so much for
their world.
Maybe so, but Crisis could also be seen as something a
little more uplifting. It was proof that even a large comic
company could change with the times, and that it wasn't afraid
to shake things up. Mourn all you want for the lost heroes, but Crisis
will always serve as the prime example of how far a comic
company will go to keep its characters fresh and its purpose
clear.
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