If you read comics, you know what Crisis
is, and no doubt have your own opinion about it. If you don't,
here's a quick rundown: Crisis is
a mega-series run by DC Comics in 1985 for the dual purpose
of celebrating their history as a comics publisher and cleaning
up the confusing (to some; just as many people liked it, but
that's neither here nor their) parallel-worlds setup of the
DC Universe. It was a big deal, and is one of the things that
you pretty much have to read if you're going to even attempt
to follow the history of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, or
anyone else in the DC stable.
Unfortunately, Crisis sort of sucks.
The sins of Crisis are legion: It's too long. The
caption narration is so purple that it moves into the ultraviolet.
The dialogue is stilted even by 80s comic book standards.
Despite George Perez's rightfully-earned reputation as an
ace artist, all of the new characters created specifically
for Crisis look ridiculous (The Monitor is an old man with
muttonchops AND CORNROWS! Pariah suffers from a terrible purple
haircut, a lot of eye makeup, and a constant crybaby face.
Lyla looks OK as Lyla, but her Harbinger getup is the worst
sort of 80s cyborg cheesecake). Many of the old characters
just show up for a panel or two, reinforcing the notion that
Wolfman and Perez had a checklist of all possible DC characters
who had to be represented, whether or not they actually contributed
to the story. The big villain, the Anti-Monitor (whose character
design is also pretty silly), is an archetypal unmotivated
villain. he's bad just because the plot requires him. Worse,
he's always exactly as powerful as the plot requires-he spends
most of the book annihilating universes, but when it's time
to wrap things up, all it takes is a punch from a stupendously
pissed-off Superman to take him out.
Crisis isn't all bad-the deaths
of the Flash and Supergirl are great moments in comics, and
the subplot wherein Lex Luthor and Brainiac marshal all supervillains
into an army is pretty fun. But for the most part, Crisis
is to comics fandom as The Faerie Queene
is to English lit: you've got to read it, but damn, it's a
drag.
For a deeper explanation of Crisis, check out:
Comics
101
and
The
Howling
Curmudgeons
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