Throwback Tuesday-Crisis on Infinite Earths

This brilliant Alex Ross and George Perez cover is from the fifth printing of the Crisis on Infinite Earths Trade Paperback. Property of DC Comics.

Warning! Spoilers are ahead in this blog entry.

“Worlds lived, worlds died. Nothing will ever be the same.”-Psycho Pirate on the summary of DC Comics’ mega event.

This Throwback Tuesday focuses on one of the DC Comics’ most powerful storylines of the 1980s: Crisis on Infinite Earths.  Just like this year’s Flashpoint, Crisis on Infinite Earths changed the DC Universe forever.   Before Crisis happened, there were many different Earths that had too many Supermans, Batmans, Lex Luthors and Jokers.   It was so hard for fans to differentiate the Man of Steel of Earth-3 from the Man of Steel of Earth-1, so the heads of DC Comics turned to creative team Marv Wolfman and George Perez to clean up the DC Universe.

The story brings together a group of superheroes from different worlds together to defend the Multiverse from an omnipotent evil force named the Anti-Monitor, whose goal is to wipeout every single world in the Multiverse.   With the help of new allies including the Monitor, Pariah, Harbinger and Alexander Luthor of Earth-3, the heroes were able to save five remaining Earths from extinction.    The heroes were able to sent Anti-Monitor to retreat but it came with a huge cost: the death of Supergirl.

While the heroes were trying to catch their breath, Lex Luthor and Brainiac lead a villain army to invade each of the five remaining Earths in order to take over each of them.   Among the villains participating in the invasion included the Joker, Sinestro, two Cheetahs, Solomon Grundy, Starro, Poison Ivy, the Flash Rogues Gallery and dozens more.   The remaining heroes banned together to stop the villain invasion until the godlike Spectre forces the heroes and villains to stop the war.

The Spectre learned that the Anti-Monitor decided to head back in time to prevent the Multiverse to coming into existence.  It was decided that the villains would head to stop Krona, a renegade scientist who created the Multiverse, while the heroes would join forces with the Spectre to defeat the Anti-Monitor.   Unfortunately, the villains failed in their task and after the huge battle a single Earth formed which had one Superman, one Batman, one Luthor, one Joker and so on.

But the heroes had no time to mourn the loss of their existence as the Anti-Monitor revealed that he transported the single Earth into his universe so he can wipe them out.   However, the most powerful heroes rallied to take on the omnipotent evil one final time but they had a secret weapon: the villainous Darkseid who channeled Alexander Luthor’s energies to defeat the Anti-Monitor.    After the battle, the heroes mourned their losses and Wonder Woman of Earth-Two was sent to Mount Olympus to be with the gods as Earth-Two’s Superman and Lois Lane, Earth-3 Alexander Luthor and Superboy-Prime faded from existence.

There was a huge aftermath from Crisis on Infinite Earths including Wally West becoming the new Flash, brand new starting points for Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman and a new Justice League that featured the Dark Knight teaming up with obscure characters including Guy Gardner, Booster Gold and Blue Beetle (Ted Kord), who eventually become classic icons to DC Comics fans.    This author would strongly recommend this book for both old and new DC Comics fans because it is a fine example of storytelling in comics and how comic events should be done.