This is what I gave:
"By the early 1980's, DC Comics continuity was somewhat tangled, with their characters existing on several different "Earths" (Earth-One for the Silver Age versions, Earth-Two for the Golden Age versions, Earth-Three as a sort "Mirror Universe", Earth-S for the Fawcett Comics characters they had purchased, Earth-X for the Quality Comics characters, and so on.) The editors decided to collapse these various Earths into one coherent timeline in order to make things easier for the writers and editors readers to follow. They set out to rationalize their continuity in the pages of a "maxi-series" called Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-86). In this, they failed utterly. Subsequent comics "events" have been made to correct the errors made in the previous corrections but instead they rendered DC continuity increasingly convoluted, eventually undoing any good the CoIE might be said to have done."
How'd I do?
Replies
Personally, I don't think they "failed utterly." I happen to like some of the "corrections to the corrections" (such as the "Pocket Universe" and the revised origin of Wonder Girl), but that (as we say) is what makes horse races. That minor quibble aside, good job.
I didn't say it was an objective summary, of course.
I feel like they spent so many later stories undoing what the CoIE had done, that I don't know why they bothered. Of course, I never liked doing away with the multiverse. Cleaning it up, sure, but not doing away with it.
I really liked the concept of "hypertime," but they never did much with it.
Ya wanna talk about something that "failed utterly": Flashpoint. That discarded years of continuity in a way Crisis on Infinite Earths never did.
I had successfully blotted Flashpoint out of my mind. I liked Hypertime,too.
Jeff of Earth-J said:
Failed utterly?
I wouldn't say utterly. They got tonnes of media attention, brought in new (and former) readers, and Crisis contributed to trends that made DC #1 again for at least a decade.
Ultimately, subsequent events took DC in other directions, but that was bound to happen. Comics always change-- that's why we even have a "Golden Age" and "Silver Age." Crisis was an instance of comic books acknowledging those changes internally. The story-telling was wonky, but...
My revision of your summary would read:
By the early 1980s, DC Comics' continuity had become tangled, with various characters existing on several different "Earths" in separate universes. The editors decided to collapse these various Earths into one new, coherent timeline to make things easier for writers and new readers. To that end, they created a limited run series called Crisis on Infinite Earths in which the universes ended and were reborn as a single universe where the most marketable characters existed in one coherent timeline. Chracter's histories were revised to appeal to the readers of that time.
I have no problem with anything you said, Bob -- I think most of it is objectively true.
Yes, including your use of the word "utterly," which can be a lever to defeat your argument. Because the story DID utter fail to do what the editors themselves said was the purpose.
They created problems with Superboy, Hawkman, Wonder Girl, etc. -- that didn't exist before. They suddenly had this huge problem of explaining what stories "counted" and what "didn't count" and that went on forever, with every title, with every character, and that confused everybody. They didn't have that problem before, either. Their avowed purpose -- to simplify things -- went the other way. So, Yeah, had I been the editor of the project, I would call it an "utter" failure.
In fact, I would say that today's DC stories are still dealing with "Crisis on Infinite Earths" in a way that they never had to with "Crisis on Earth-One/Earth-Two". The 1962 story set up a premise where any number of stories could be told, any way you wanted to, and if it didn't fit previously printed stories, you just assigned it to another place.
Earth-1 Batman and Earth-2 Wildcat in a "Brave and Bold" story? It's on Earth-Haney!
But "Crisis on Inifinite Earths'" went the opposite way, establishing that ALL stories had to fit in a single straitjacket. And, of course, it didn't work.
Heck, when they did "In Blackest Night," many of the stories had to deal with the seismic repercussion of "Crisis on Infinite Earths," and were still trying to explain them. Had that story happened without a "Crisis on Infinite Earths," the cast, the plot points and half of the story gymnastics would have been unnecessary. It could have just used "Earth-1" history and characters, and been simpler. Or it could have assigned the story to Earth-Geoff Johns. But no, not after "Crisis on Infinite Earths" -- yards of exposition had to be expended to make sense of the straightforward.
DC is still trying to explain stuff from "Crisis on Infinite Earths"! That's just nuts.
This wasn't the goal, but ever since that series launched, every comic published by DC -- and arguably every comic published by anybody -- is defined as "pre-Crisis" and "post-Crisis." That's a certain kid of success.
Captain Comics said:
That was the biggest flaw in the execution of the post-Crisis: DC didn't declare
I'd say the problems multiplied with every reboot of the DC Universe, because those reboots didn't wipe the slate clean either, making it necessary to keep track of story elements from multiple iterations of the DC Universe.
Captain Comics said:
There used to be a movie critic named Joe Bob Briggs who specialized in writing about B-movies, grindhouse flicks, drive-in movie fare and such like. He often made the point that various films had too much plot getting in the way of the story. I didn't understand what he meant until I saw the wreckage from Crisis On Infinite Earths.
About Hypertime, as I said over here:
ClarkKent_DC said:
Oh, and
To my earlier summary I should add, probably, "but they didn't think much about what the Post-Crisis continuity would be in advance..."