I have not read the Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series in its entirety for 30 years. I keep meaning to re-read the whole thing, but I have read just #11-12 many many times, most recently in 2010 and 2019. For the past year (almost), DC has been reprinting repica editions of Crisis on Infinite Earths one issue at a time. Finally they are up to #11-12, reprinting my two favorite issues on slick paper stock, which I have long wanted to file with the other various "Crisis" series (because ya gotta figure, for infinite Earths, the original COIE depicted just a handful of 'em).
CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS 100-PAGE GIANT! #1-2:
These were tie-ins to the various "Arrow-verse" television shows which broadcast their own version of "Crisis." Each issue featured two new stories as well as reprints from the original, such as the death of Supergirl and the death of the Flash.
DCU: LEGACIES #5-6:
Even on "New Earth" (i.e., the post-Crisis DCU), some version of the Crisis "happened" even though there no longer were "infinite earths" and never had been. I always wanted to read that story but never thought I'd ever be able to. These issues tell that story, so now I no longer have to imagine it. [NOTE: Legacies #5 can be substituted for Crisis on Infinite Earths #1-10. Because of the Legacies framing sequence, it is possible read Crisis on Infinite Earths #11-12 then move directly into Legacies #5-6 for an alternate (again, post-Crisis) four-issue version of events.]
TALES FROM THE DARK MULTIVERSE: CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #1:
This is the only "Dark Multiverse" comic I read.
JUST IMAGINE STAN LEE'S CRISIS:
The culmination of Stan Lee's DC writing tenure (with John Cassaday).
The Crisis on Infinite Earths #11 reprint ships this week.
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but I have read just #11-12 many many times,
Those two comics (and a copy of Avengers #239 I picked up while waiting in a bus terminal some months earlier. It's the issue where some Avengers go on David Letterman) were my re-introduction to comics in university, after having stopped reading them in my early teens. I had to scramble backwards to find the others, and much later bought the collected Crisis on Infinite Earths.
The Crisis on Infinite Earths #11 reprint ships this week.
...and the Crisis on Infinite Earths #12 reprint shipped today.
Moving away from the "DC" section of the multiverse, we have...
ASSORTED CRISIS EVENTS:
Time is having a crisis!
Mingling in the red-light district, you can find actual cavemen, medieval knights, and cyborg soldiers on leave from World War IV. Victorian debutantes amble their way into cell phone stores, confused and bewildered (what is a data plan?). On their way to work, bleary-eyed commuters get trapped in time-loops, assaulted by alternate-reality versions of themselves, and try to avoid post-apocalyptic wastelands. And LOOK: the 3:15 bus just took a wrong turn… into the neolithic era.
Described as "an ongoing, zig-zagging anthology series about the compromised clicks of our clocks-full of one-shot stories both beautiful and ugly, tragic and redemptive, surreal and somehow all too familiar," the first issue features the story of a woman named Ashley. The man on the cover appears in only two scenes. The second issue shipped yesterday and features a man name Jesus Gomez. These stories are difficult to describe, but reality shifts around the respective main characters like the pan-dimensional city of Cynosure in overdrive. The man on the cover of #1 appears in one scene of #2, so perhaps he's the key to resolving the (dare I say it?) crisis.
ASSORTED CRISIS EVENTS #3:
"There once was a town called Hearth. ...actually, there were two towns called Hearth, located in adjacent parallel dimensions, almost exactly identical. (...actually, there are infinite towns called Hearth, in infinite universes, all existing simultaneously, infinitely different and infinitely the same...) ...but for the purposes of this story, only two are imnportant. Let's call them Hearth-One and Hearth-Two." Both towns are stuck on a planet that is dying fast... "but Hearth-Two was stuck on a planet that was dying faster." Conditions eventually get so bad on Hearth-Two the the "Hearthlings" (as they call themselves) must flee to Hearth-One. The two populations of counterparts integrate seemlessly at first, but then rumors began to circulate "that the Twos were infiltrators, sent by the twisted survivors of their original universe to prepare the way for a full-on invasion... or that they came from a universe where good was evil and evil was good. that they were stealing, killing, and eating Heath-One's pets." Eventually, the Ones built a wall to separate the two Hearths. The entire story is told with alternating pages of the same events told from Hearth-One's and Hearth-Two's respective perspectives. This is easily the most thought-provoking comic book I have read this year. The whole way through I kept trying to anticipate how it would end. Recommended.