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Cover-dated April 1985, the first issue of this ground-breaking event precipitated the destruction of the “Multiverse” in favour of a unified DC canon. Though DC returned to this concept again and again, that doesn’t change how influential this massive crossover was and what better way to celebrate than with a “Crossover Crisis” of my own?

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Published: 3 January 1985 (cover-dated: April 1985) to March 1986 (cover date)
Writer: Marv Wolfman
Artist: George Pérez

The Background:
In Showcase #4 (1956), writer Robert Kanigher and artist Carmine Infantino debuted Barry Allen/The Flash, the successor to Jay Garrick, who was established as an alternative version of the Fastest Man Alive. This concept was taken to the next level when Barry and Jay met face-to-face, revealing an infinite number of parallel worlds. Regular crossovers between the likes the Justice Society of America and the Justice League of America soon followed, allowing alternative heroes and various stories to exist simultaneously. Over time, writers like Mark Wolfman became frustrated with this concept, which made keeping track of continuity difficult and it was hard for both writers and readers to connect with the stories. Wolfman initially pitched a reader guide to simplify the DC universe, which then evolved into a sprawling tale of multiversal destruction seen as a risky proposition as it meant erasing all continuity and starting from scratch to attract new readers. Such an event was unprecedented and DC spent two years laying the foundation for this Crisis, hiring researchers to document every character and event in their library and bringing in George Pérez to illustrate, with the artist excited at the idea of illustrating every DC character. Crisis on Infinite Earths became a bestseller for DC Comics and was heralded as a turning point for both the publisher and the industry. The fallout saw every DC character rebooted, with Clark Kent/Superman notably being reimagined as a more grounded character and Wally West taking over as the Flash, though Carter Hall/Hawkman was irrevocably damaged for years as DC struggled to reconcile certain elements of his character. Praised as the greatest comic book crossover in history, the event popularised massive, cosmic crossovers and DC revisited this concept numerous times in subsequent years. The event was even adapted into an ambitious and well received television event and an impressive three-part animated feature.

The Review:
Confused by the concept of the multiverse? Well, Crisis on Infinite Earths has you covered, to a degree, as it opens with (and features throughout) narration and exposition from the tragic Kell Mossa/Pariah. In the beginning, before there was light and life, there was only darkness. Then, from nowhere, came a single light that grew and expanded and finally exploded in “pain [and] relief” as the multiverse was born. The idea is infinite parallel realities all co-exist at once, separated by vibrational planes, though this is noted to not have been the intention when the light burst into being. The story the shifts to one such Earth where the hooded, weeping Pariah witnesses the destruction of not only that world, but the entire reality, at the hands of an all-encompassing white light. As entropy erases everything it touches, Pariah begs to be taken with it, sparing him his grim fate, only to be teleported away as the universe meets its destructive end. We then jump to Earth-3, home of the Crime Syndicate, an evil alternative version of the Justice League. There, Harold Jordan/Power Ring and Clark Kent/Ultraman desperately try to stop the cataclysmic natural disasters springing up across their world as the anti-matter wave approaches. While Thomas Wayne Jr./Owlman and Jonathan Allen/Johnny Quick lament their helplessness against such awesome power, the world’s only superhero, Alexander Luthor, watches helplessly as lifelong enemies like Diana/Superwoman are devoured by the anti-matter wave. With no way to save his world, Alexander rushes to be with his wife, Lois, and baby son, Alexander Luthor, Jr. In a parallel to Superman’s iconic origin, the baby is loaded into a specially prepared rocket and spirited away to Earth-1 as his world dies.

The mysterious Mar Novu/The Monitor observes this from his orbiting, spherical space station alongside Lyla Michaels/Harbinger, whom he sends to recruit Earth’s greatest heroes and villains to stop the pending Crisis. Harbinger recruits King Solovar from Gorilla City, Dawnstar from the 30^th century Legion of Super-Heroes, Danette Reilly/Firebrand from Earth-2 1942, Ted Kord/The Blue Beetle from Earth-4, and Roger Hayden/Psycho-Pirate from present-day Earth-2. She returns Psycho-Pirate’s emotion manipulating Medusa Mask and coerces him into quelling Louise Lincoln/Killer Frost’s bloodlust and bringing both her and Ronnie Raymond and Professor Martin Stein/Firestorm to the cause. Though Harbinger is possessed by a Shadow Demon when recruiting Ahri’ahn/Arion the Sorcerer, he joins the other recruits, including Kal-L/Superman, John Stewart/Green Lantern, Neal Emerson/Doctor Polaris, Victor Stone/Cyborg, Simon Jones/Psimon, and Todd Rice/Obsidian. With tensions running high, the group are attacked by Shadow Demons, which seem impervious to physical, mental, and energy-based attacks. While the likes of the Blue Beetle can only run and Firestorm struggles with Killer Frost’s newfound affections, Obsidian and the arrogant Dr. Polaris put their shadow- and magnetism-based powers to good use. The Monitor halts the attack and introduces both himself and the threat to their universes. Weakened by the spread of anti-matter and facing suspicion from his assembled forces, the Monitor reveals that he’s judged them as the best hope of protecting five devices spread across the different eras that he hopes will halt the anti-matter wave. Meanwhile, reality is warped across the multiverse: in prehistoric times, Anthro the Cave-Boy is as astonished to spot a futuristic city amongst the wilds as Querl Dox/Brainiac-5 is to see mammoths stampeding through the 30^th century. Half a galaxy away on Oa, the Guardians of the Universe prepare to summon their entire Green Lantern Corps to meet the threat, only for a mysterious voice to corrupt the Central Battery and trap them in a stasis beam. On Earth-1, Bruce Wayne/Batman is busy confronting the Joker during his latest crime spree and is astonished when an emaciated, confused Flash suddenly appears babbling about the end of the world and begging for help before disintegrating before the Dark Knight’s eyes!

On the post-apocalyptic Earth-AD, Kal-L, King Solovar, and Dawnstar meet Kamandi, the last boy on Earth, and discover the Monitor’s device, a towering, golden Cosmic Tuning Fork that’s immediately (though only briefly) attacked by Shadow Demons. Arion, Obsidian and the Psycho-Pirate watch over another tower in Atlantis, only for the Psycho-Pirate to be transported to a dark realm and coerced into turning against the Monitor just as Harbinger secretly conspires with that same dark force. Oblivious, the Monitor experiments on the rapidly aging Alexander Luthor, Jr., an impossible merger of matter and anti-matter who potentially holds the key to defeating the anti-matter spread, whom Harbinger’s dark master wants destroyed before he can threaten his schemes. Meanwhile, in the far future of Earth-1, the Flash races to keep his world from being torn apart from natural disasters but is forced to vibrate at super-speed to escape death. This same anti-matter energy arrives on present-day Earth-1, much to the horror of the Teen Titans, who desperately try to both halt the destructive wave and save lives alongside Batman and Superman. As Linda Lee/Kara Zor-El/Supergirl does the same, Barbara Gordon/Batgirl gives in to self-doubt, and John Constantine arrogantly believes it’ll all work out, Vril Dox/Brainiac coldly observes the events concludes that, if he’s to survive, he must team up with Lex Luthor. While defending a Cosmic Tuning Fork from both Nazi forces and Shadow Demons in 1942 Markovia, the Blue Beetle discovers the mysterious Scarab fused to his suit is lethal to the shadowy entities but is wounded before he can put this to good use and returned to his world by the Monitor to spare him. Back on Earth-AD, the skies turn red and King Solovar succumbs to his wounds while Cyborg, Firebrand, John Stewart, and Psimon team up with some local heroes (including Jonah Hex) in 1879 to defend another tower, only to be as overwhelmed by anti-matter as the far-flung future of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Elsewhere, the terrified heroes of Earth-6 blame Pariah for the looming threat, to no avail (though Pariah does save Tashana/Lady Quark to ease his suffering). While the unseen villain forcibly recruits the Red Tornado, the Monitor activates an “ion-based energy ray” to empower Doctor Kimiyo Hoshi, transforming her into the new Doctor Light and sending her to defend his tower on Earth-1.

When the heroes attack her, believing she and the tower caused the entropy, Superman quells the fighting, though things take a turn when the Shadow Demons combine into one gigantic, terrifying entity in each era. Even Princess Diana Prince/Wonder Woman’s hopes of recruiting her Amazonian sisters fail. When Pariah berates the Monitor for not doing more to intervene, he reveals just how weak he’s become and then nobly faces his end at Harbinger’s hands. Distraught, Pariah weeps as Earth-1 and Earth-2 are finally consumed; confused to find his strength hasn’t increased as a result, the dark villain delights in having the Psycho-Pirate torture the Flash. Depowered, Lyla is distressed by her actions but a pre-recorded message from the Monitor reveals that his death allowed his essence to empower his Cosmic Tuning Forks and create a “netherverse”, a pocket dimension to keep Earth-1 and Earth-2 safe. After giving the Monitor an appropriate burial, Lyla, Pariah, and the now teenage Alexander Luthor, Jr. gather both world’s champions on the Monitor’s satellite to merge all existing realities into one lest all worlds and realities be lost. Since there are some doubters, Alexander has them witness the Red Tornado be forcibly transformed into a being of pure, primal force, one easily subdued by sorcerers like Kent Nelson/Doctor Fate and Zatanna Zatara (though Ted Grant/Wildcat’s legs are shattered during the fracas). Thus, even the most sceptical agree to defend their worlds, only for the satellite to disintegrate courtesy of the event’s big bad, the Anti-Monitor! Fleeing to the emptiness of limbo, Alexander moves to save Earth-4, -S, and -X, only for Harbinger to subdue him and take his place. While Yolanda Montez continues Wildcat’s legacy on Earth-2, the Freedom Fighters and the Monitor’s agents come to blows on Earth-X when the Psycho-Pirate, his powers augmented by the demonic Anti-Monitor, stirs fear and hatred amongst them. Similarly, on Earth-1, Billy Batson/Captain Marvel and his siblings mindlessly attack Supergirl and Wonder Woman, though the fighting ends when Harbinger forces Earth-4, -S, and -X into the netherverse alongside Earth-1 and Earth-2, exhausting her incredible powers but dooming them to be slowly merged together.

Thus, Lyla, Pariah, and Alexander assemble Earth-1’s Superman, Earth-2’s (Kal-L), Captain Marvel, the Blue Beetle, Lady Quark, and Uncle Sam and reveal that, ten billion years ago, the Oan scientist Krona dared to seek the beginning of the universe, witnessing a giant hand clutching a star cluster. This caused a cosmic fracture, creating not just the multiverse, but an anti-matter universe and a counterpart to Oa, Qward. After banishing Kronoa, the Oans created peacekeeping forces like the defective Manhunters and the Green Lantern Corps but were fractured by a civil war, birthing the Controllers. Amidst the fighting, the Monitor and his evil, anti-matter counterpart came into being. The Anti-Matter conquered Qward and created the Shadow Demons to spread his influence throughout the anti-matter universe before waging war against the Monitor upon sensing his presence. Evenly matched, they were rendered unconscious for nine billion years before being awoken by the misguided Pariah, once a celebrated healer and scientist who also investigated the origin of the universe. Pariah’s world paid the price, and he was damned to live forever and watch all worlds die, though the Monitor also saw him as instrumental in saving all reality. Alexander uses his unique matter/anti-matter powers to create a dimensional tear to the anti-matter universe, which Pariah leads the heroes to the Anti-Monitor’s vast stone fortress. Enraged that the Psycho-Pirate is too drained to corrupt them, the Anti-Monitor has his stronghold attack, injuring the usually invulnerable Kal-L. Dr. Light and Superman discover the Anti-Monitor’s solar collector but are attacked before they can destroy it and halt the merger of the Earths. Hearing her cousin’s agony, Supergirl flies to Superman’s aid, brutally beating the villain in a rage and chastising his disdain for life, tearing through his protective armour. Furious, the Anti-Monitor prepares to explode with all his energy and, in a last-ditch effort to destroy him, his machine, and save everyone, Supergirl tackles him, destroying his machine but being fatally blasted. As the Anti-Monitor’s deteriorating, incorporeal form slinks away, Superman mourns his cousin’s death and vows to kill the Anti-Monitor. Kal-L calms his counterpart and they escape, and a memorial service is held on Earth-2, where Superman pays homage to Supergirl, vowing to remember her and fight in her name. Despite the loss, the five worlds are saved; similarly, the Green Lantern Corps free their masters and almighty Darkseid wisely cloaks Apokalips from the Anti-Monitor’s gaze. However, the Anti-Monitor reconstitutes himself on his ship, where the Flash is imprisoned, and prepares a counterattack from Qward.

Though saved, the five worlds are still overlapping, causing anomalies and damage to each while  the Anti-Monitor oversees the creation of the anti-matter cannon, which he plans to use to obliterate the worlds. Just as the Psycho-Pirate feels his powers return, the Flash escapes and angrily attacks the sadistic villain, forcing him to turn the Anti-Monitor’s slaves against their master as a distraction. Though stunned to find the anti-matter cannon is powered by concentrated anti-matter and realising that destroying it would kill him, the Flash bravely circles the weapon’s core to turn its destructive energy back on it. Staving off the agony with memories of his loved ones, the Flash runs fast enough to move back in time (explaining his earlier, sudden appearances). Though Barry successfully destroys the weapon, it costs him his life. Enraged, the Anti-Matter absorbs the anti-matter universe, literally sucking the life out of over a million worlds to feed his lust for power and vengeance, an act so awesome that it’s detected by both the Challengers of the Unknown and the embodiment of the Lord’s wrath, Jim Corrigan/The Spectre. In the face of multiversal destruction, the Guardians of the Universe offer Guy Gardner the chance to become a Green Lantern once again and, when all but one of them are all slaughtered by a sudden explosion, Guy vows to avenge them as their champion. The Brainiac/Luthor team then recruit dozens of villains to strike while the remaining Earths are weak and in disarray. As time runs amok on Earth-1 and Alexander, Lyla, and Pariah address the United Nations, the villains make their move, having conquered Earth-4, -S, and -X, encasing them within impenetrable barriers, and threatening to destroy the remaining worlds. Lyla and Jay recruit a reluctant Wally West/Kid Flash to breach the barrier with the cosmic treadmill, though neither Luthor or Brainiac care much about their losses since they still possess the power to destroy everything. However, the Spectre ends the hostilities by revealing that the Anti-Monitor still lives and plans to corrupt the flow of time and formation of life by travelling to the dawn of time.

With the villains back on side, Kal-L bids an emotional farewell to his wife, Lois Lane, to join the counterattack, alongside a surprising newcomer: the Superboy from Earth-Prime (a fictional approximation of the real world where he’s the only superhero). After a rousing speech from Uncle Sam, heroes and villains alike pool their technology and powers to travel to the dawn of time and confront the anxious Anti-Monitor. The Anti-Monitor reveals that he, not Pariah, was responsible for the destruction of Pariah’s world after he took advantage of Pariah’s experiments to rebuild his power, absolving the tragic figure of his sins. Now grown to immense proportions, the Anti-Monitor withstands the assault of those assembled (with guys like Batman offering only support), absorbing their life energy to add to his power and allowing his hand to be the one that shapes all reality, as witnessed by Kronoa. His grasp is intercepted by the Spectre and the combined magic of the unified sorcerers, reducing the battle to a literal arm wrestle between the Anti-Monitor and the Spectre. Thanks to their bickering, Luthor’s underlings fail to kill Kronoa before he can cause the creation of the multiverse and the Anti-Monitor, and all seems lost. However, following a blinding light and the literal shattering of all time and space, Kal-L awakens on present-day Earth to find he’s on the same world as his Earth-1 counterpart. Sharing the same fragmented memories, Superman explains that time seems to be healing (albeit wonkily) and that elements of multiple Earths have been merged into one. For example, everyone knows Supergirl died but not how, the Flash is presumed vanished, and Earth-2’s Keystone City and Jay Garrick now live on this Earth. Jay, Wally, and the Supermen use the cosmic treadmill to discover Earth-2 is missing. Realising that the multiverse no longer exists, Superman has to force his older counterpart to return rather than throw himself into the endless void in despair. With the cosmic treadmill irreparably damaged, Wally assembles everyone at Titans Tower, discovering guys like Captain Marvel, Superbody-Prime, Uncle Sam, and the Earth-2 Dick Grayson/Robin also exist on this world, where they’re all shocked to see Harbinger alive and powered back up. The refugees are despondent and horrified to learn their worlds, pasts, and many loved ones are gone thanks to “cosmic irony” as Harbinger explains that there is now one Earth with one coherent timeline that folds their disparate lives into its flow, sending Kal-L into a crazed distress at having lost his wife and home.

After questioning the imprisoned Lex Luthor, Batman, Jason Todd/Robin, and Alexander confirm that, while some duplicates remain and some lives were restored, others weren’t and only those who present at the dawn of time remember the multiverse. Just as they’re processing this, the skies turn red and the world suddenly shifts to the anti-matter universe, where the titanic, disembodied Anti-Monitor still lives! Though incensed by their efforts, the Anti-Monitor congratulates them for handing him his first defeat in ten billion years and then decrees that they must all die. Wally’s shock at his mentor’s death is mirrored by the abject panic that sweeps the civilians following the Anti-Monitor’s threat, which doubles when the Shadow Demons kill Don Hall/Dove, Helena Wayne/Huntress, and Tula Marius/Aquagirl. While the sorcerers remove the Shadow Demons, Harbinger assembles one last effort to stop the Anti-Monitor on Qward. Though the Anti-Monitor is too large and powerful to be damaged, Harbinger has Dr. Light absorb the star feeding him power, weakening him enough for Alexander to breach the villain’s armour. With the threat seemingly ended by a combined energy blast, Alexander struggles to return Earth home and the Anti-Monitor absorbs his exiled Shadow Demons to rise again and vaporise Wonder Woman. Rather than see anyone else die, Kal-L tackles the Anti-Monitor, believing he’s got nothing to lose, and Alexander and Superboy-Prime are trapped with him. Though Darkseid, watching from Apokalips, strikes a fatal blow through Alexander’s eyes, the Anti-Monitor refuses to die, so Kal-L delivers a final strike that obliterates the tyrant. Faced with the pending destruction of the anti-matter universe, Kal-L and Superboy-Prime prepare to meet their end only for Alexander to teleport them, alongside Kal-L’s Lois, to a pocket dimension. In the aftermath, Wonder Woman returns to the clay that forms Themyscira, her Earth-2 counterpart is welcomed among the Gods, the dead heroes are memorialised, and Wally assumes the Flash mangle. Confined to Arkham Asylum, the Psycho-Pirate is dubbed a raving lunatic since he’s the only one who remembers the multiverse and the catastrophic events of the Crisis.

The Summary:
Whew, there’s a lot happening in Crisis on Infinite Earths. There’s a reason I’ve put off reviewing it for so long, and why I rarely revisit it. It’s a very dense and complex story, full of exposition and cameos and faces both obscure and iconic. As a celebration of DC’s rich history and characters, it’s hard to find much better than Crisis on Infinite Earths, which stuffs just about every costumed character, hero or villain, into its dense twelve issues! My hat’s off to George Pérez; it must’ve been painstaking to sketch all these group shots, action sequences, montages, and dramatic events. Equal praise to Marv Wolfman as I can’t imagine how difficult it was to make sense of all these different worlds and come up with a cohesive way to explain, link, and destroy them all. In the end, the solution was simple: pure, destructive, unstoppable entropy. It’s fitting that the anti-matter wave is depicted as a blinding white light that erases everything it touches, for it symbolically represents a blank page or an artist’s eraser, indicating that these colourful and convoluted worlds are being literally wiped clean for a new status quo. Our guide through most of this is Pariah, a tragic figure doomed to watch each world die as penance for kick-starting the events that follow. Immortal but seemingly powerless to intervene, all he can do is shout desperate warnings and is powerless to rescue anyone and constantly met with aggression, suspicion, and accusations. He’s merely a pawn in a much larger game, however, much like Harbinger, who acts as an all-powerful emissary of the Monitor and deliver exposition in his stead. A conflicted individual burdened with the knowledge that she will betray and murder the man to whom she owes her life, Harbinger, nevertheless works to uphold the Monitor’s legacy and bring together heroes and villains alike to stand against his dark counterpart.

The dreaded inevitability of death is a focal point in Crisis on Infinite Earths. When the anti-matter wave hits, heroes and villains set aside their differences and use all their powers and resources to either stop it or save people from its destructive touch. Even the abhorrent Crime Syndicate find themselves fighting to save their world and Ultraman willingly enters the wave to die on his terms. Even before the wave arrives, the worlds are shaken to their core by natural disasters; volcanoes, tsunamis, and ominous, crackling red skies precipitate the disaster as much as Pariah. Perhaps no character is more synonymous with the coming destruction than the Flash; thanks to his super-speed, he ends up travelling through time, arriving before the likes of Batman and Wally as an omen of what’s to come and taking on an appearance that resembles Death itself. The Anti-Monitor echoes this in his design; though shrouded by his all-powerful armour, he sports a skull-like visage and dark, piercing eyes. Commanding demonic shadows, he’s very much the embodiment of Death and his lust for utter annihilation drives him to snuff out all life and light. Sadistic to the core, he employs the Psycho-Pirate to foster fear and hate, turning his would-be opponents against each other and causing countless more deaths. His ruthlessness seemingly knows no boundaries as he gleefully corrupts Harbinger, relishes the death of his counterpart, and nonchalantly obliterates his rebellious slaves without a second thought. His power and cruelty are so great that even the mighty Darkseid is driven to hide rather than confront him, striking when the villain is at his most vulnerable and largely avoiding the greater conflict. For all his God-like power, the Anti-Monitor still relies on technology; his merger and destruction of worlds can be halted or stopped by Cosmic Tuning Forks or destroying his solar collector. Indeed, it’s only after his massive, world-ending cannon is destroyed that the Anti-Monitor eschews all other methods and absorbs the entire lifeforce of the anti-matter universe into himself to literally take matters into his own hands.

There is no one central character in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Instead, it’s a team-up story through and through, meaning some of your favourites may be sidelined. In some respects, I don’t mind this; Batman outright admits how useless he is against the Anti-Monitor and it’s clear only beings of incredible power can stand against him. Yet, the Blue Beetle is said to be pivotal in opposing the villain, the Red Tornado is briefly said to be incredibly important, and Lex Luthor comes close to co-ruling five entire worlds and even leads the charge to assassinate Kronoa. The Earth-2 Superman, Kal-L, is often at the heart of the conflict, leading the others and inspiring confidence, as is his Earth-1 counterpart. It’s therefore more tragic seeing Superman’s grief-stricken reaction to his cousin’s death; holding Supergirl in his arms, the Man of Steel briefly forgets his morals and vows to kill the Anti-Monitor as recompense. This is but one of the unforgettable deaths featured in Crisis on Infinite Earths as the Flash sacrifices himself to deal a critical blow to the Anti-Monitor, making a martyr of himself for decades before DC made the bone-headed decision to revive him. There’s an odd dichotomy in Crisis on Infinite Earths; these alternative worlds and characters co-exist and are even folded into one by the end. Rather than wiping everything away and starting afresh by the conclusion, the story clunkily has the survivors forget key events and weaves characters like Captain Marvel and the Justice Society into a unified timeline. This works for me as I prefer a coherent narrative, but it essentially means Crisis on Infinite Earth takes place mid-way through the early years of the post-Crisis reboot and reimaginings like John Byrne’s Superman stories happen before and during this event, rather than after it.

These days, Crisis on Infinite Earths may be a lot for modern readers to take in. Many of its characters and concepts are either forgotten, wildly different, or have been done to death thanks to the multiple reality-altering events that followed (many specifically to address loose ends from this story). At the time, though, I’d wager many long-term DC readers appreciated the cameos and call-backs weaved into the story. I’m glad DC devoted twelve issues to the story and didn’t rush it, but it does get repetitive and convoluted as it drags on. The secondary threat of Brainiac and Luthor directing a team of villains to conquer the five worlds, for example, could probably be skipped or relegated to a tie-in comic. Similarly, the defending of the Cosmic Tuning Forks isn’t very interesting and doesn’t really add to the story since we barely see any action around this, the Shadow Demons are too powerful to be interesting, and it’s all negated by the Monitor’s death. In this respect, I think the event could’ve been cut down to eight or ten issues and still been just as effective, especially as many Earths and characters feature as quick cameos to be obliterated. The remaining five Earths are said to be the most important, which is a little disrespectful to those that perished by the Anti-Monitor’s hand and a bit of an insult to any fans of those worlds. I liked seeing new heroes rise during the chaos, like a new Dr. Light (who was an aggressive bitch throughout), Wildcat, and Guy being Green Lantern again, though it falls a little flat when you know the canon is going to be altered after this to return the status quo. I liked the Anti-Monitor’s design and his characterisation as a reprehensible being who craved only power and destruction, but it was hard to get a sense of his power and limitations. One minute he’s weakened by giant towers, then his armour is containing his energy, and then he’s being powered by a black sun despite having absorbed the lifeforce of his anti-matter universe. Still, the unification of heroes and villains to oppose him was fun to see, the sacrifices and determination were poignant, and the weaving together of a singular continuity, while flawed, was ambitious and visually engaging to behold.

My Rating:

Great Stuff

Have you ever read Crisis on Infinite Earths? What did you think of this unprecedented mash-up of DC’s various worlds and characters? Which parallel world was your favourite and were you upset to see destroyed? What did you think to the Anti-Monitor, his vast power and his stubborn refusal to die? Were you shocked to see Supergirl and the Flash die so dramatically? Do you agree that the story dragged on a bit by the end? Which of the subsequent Crisis events was your favourite and what are some of your favourite cosmic events? Drop a comment below to share your thoughts about Crisis on Infinite Earths and feel free to check out my reviews of other notable crossovers.