Crisis on Infinite Earths

I own the trade, so I figured I'd buy the novel. It's been a great read thus far.

Now that it's 20 years later and Marv Wolfman's insanely complex 12-issue comic book series "The Crisis on Infinite Earths" is being sequelized (by DC's current "Infinite Crisis" mini), I figured it was time to try and make a little sense out of the old story. I knew the basic plot outline: these two feuding godlike beings known only as the Monitor and the Anti-Monitor are kind of the god-beings of the matter and anti-matter universes. The Monitor's matter universe had an infinity of variations, as each instant spawned endless new realities in accordance with Einstein's theory of relativity. The antimatter universe was a singular, uninhabited field of antimatter with nothing in it except one desolate planet that couldn't support life. Somehow or other the Anti-Monitor started destroying the universes on the "matter" side, and the end result was that a whole buttload of superheroes had to team up to stop him, eventually resulting in one, unified reality. The new reality created chaos for comic book readers, as the DC Universe (home to Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash and Green Lantern, among hundreds of other, less well-known characters) now had to cope with reconciling the numerous "realities" it had created over the years. Ever since 1985, DC has been getting farther and farther away from the idea of a single, unified reality, essentially deciding with the 2001 series "The Kingdom" that they would undo the CRISIS without actually undoing it, by introducing a concept called Hypertime, which allows for alternate realities but understands that they exist only with the singular DC Universe timeline as a reference point. No matter how different each reality is from the "main" one, they only exist because they're somehow connected to it. At any rate, the book. Marv Wolfman recently wrote a novelization of "The Crisis on Infinite Earths," which I read because I thought it might be marginally easier to follow than the graphic novel (released in 2001) by Wolfman and his fellow "New Teen Titans" alum George Perez. I was right; the novel is concise and clear in a way that the "Crisis" comics couldn't be, as they were pandering to the loyal fans of 1985 in the way that, I'm sure, it seemed to most casual readers that stories like "The Final Night" and "Zero Hour: A Crisis in Time" were pandering to people like me in the '90s. Because I didn't read many pre-Crisis DC books, I never really understood a lot of it, but Wolfman's process of building from the ground up, and of using Barry Allen (the Flash, who died in the CRISIS) as a narratorial voice, is inspired. I understand the story in a way that I've never come close to in the past after reading it, and can almost--almost--say that it's as good as the hype has always been. Certainly the new novel is indispensible for any comic geek who really never "got" the CRISIS, because it's a story so important to mainstream DC continuity that you can't ever properly understand a lot of things unless you kno

While my parents grew up remembering where they were when JFK died, I grew up with a slightly different life-changing memory: where I was when the Flash died. I still vividly remember that spot on the floor in front of the magazine rack at the drug store as I watched my little world crashing around me with the death of my favorite super-hero. But he didn't die in his own series. He was just one of the many casualties of Crisis on Infinite Earths, a comic book mini-series put out by DC Comics in an attempt to "clean up the mess they'd made" by creating hundreds of alternate Earths with different heroes on each one. The mini-series was ground-breaking because it was the first time any comic book publisher had decided to kill off dozens of major characters in one book. Before they were through, heroes like Earth-2's Superman and Wonder Woman, Superboy, Dove, Supergirl (yes, the series was rough on the Kryptonians), and of course, The Flash were all dead just to name a few. Now on the twentieth anniversary of the series, the original writer Marv Wolfman has come up with a novelization of the events that rocked the DC universe. But instead of telling the story linearly and in great detail (as was done with the awesome Kingdom Come novel), he's told the story from the perspective of its greatest sacrifice: the Flash. Barry Allen narrates the story of his death and life during the cataclysmic moments of the crisis. For some unknown reason, the Flash is thrown into an ethereal state and must watch helplessly as worlds and heroes die around him. Told from this perspective, we see how the Flash actually shaped some of the events from "behind the scenes". How in the world does a dead guy get to describe his moment of death in detail and the things that occurred afterward? Time-travel, dimension-hopping, and all the other little quirks that make comics so much fun. The chapters in this book are extremely short (literally one or two pages on average), which makes the flow a little disjointed at times. And since this isn't a blow-by-blow retelling of the story (imagine how thick that novel would have to be!), there are numerous highlights of the comic series that either never get mentioned or are just touched upon briefly. Still, the book could be considered essential reading for a complete picture of what really happened, and why the story truly was a "crisis". There are a few chapters describing events involving other heroes, slowing the breakneck pace otherwise permeating the book. If you've never read the comic book, you'll definitely want to read it first. Some of the major twists and jaw-dropping moments (and deaths) will only get a cursory nod here. Savor the depth of the story in comic form, then read this book for the icing on the cake. The Flash's death has always been considered a sacred moment for DC Comics. He's one of the only major characters who've ever died that hasn't returned (Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Superman, and Supergirl hav

There's no question that Crisis on Infinite Earths: The Novel doesn't have the complete scope of the original comic book mini-series. I think it's impossible to translate the mini-series into a 310-page verbal novel and frankly not worth the effort to redo the EXACT SAME STORY. It would have been very boring to me to read the EXACT same thing that I got in the original mini-series. I LIKE having new angles on stories and in this case I do feel that Crisis: The Novel has new angles to offer on the story as much as the Kingdom Come novel had to offer new insights with respect to the Kingdom Come graphic novel, too. That said, I like the angle Marv Wolfman used to retell this story. If you love The Flash and human-centered drama, this is a nice book to get. Be aware that there is time-skipping through the novel (without giving away revelations completely, The Flash IS time-travelling). I know some people can't get their heads around time-travel, but it's not that bad in the novel. If there's a sore point that this novel brings up, it's how DC Comics completely wasted the Barry Allen character. The 1950s/1960s Flash IS the definitive iconic version of that character but for reasons that defy logic DC essentially abandoned the character in favor of a hipper, frankly less-sophisticated successor. As much as I like Wally West, he doesn't have the police scientists/forensics specialist background of his predecessor (Barry Allen) and has added little to The Flash saga. Wally has basically inherited Barry's rogues gallery and costume and in effect become Barry Allen, Mark II minus the innnovations and science that made Barry Allen stand out. DC missed an opportunity to revitalize The Flash by cashing in on the crime drama renaissance currently happening on TV with shows like NYPD Blue, CSI, Law & Order, etc. DC Comics HAD its crime scene investigator in Barry Allen and blew a chance to utilize that aspect of the character in a superheroic or realistic setting... My main criticisms of this novel are its lack of proper editing and interior illustrations. It would have been nice to get new B & W illustrations (like the Kingdom Come novel) from George Perez, Alex Ross, or Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez to accompany the narrative, but the only illustration is on the dustjacket. There are very few grammatical errors in the novel, but it's frustrating to see some spelling errors pop up with certain character names again and again. This book either wasn't edited at all or was edited by a non-comic fan. Those nitpicks aside... Frankly, I don't think you have to be a big reader of DC Comics to enjoy this novel. Be aware that there are 2 versions of Superman in this novel but their differences are explained explicitly. The biggest mysteries of this novel are NOT the storyline and changes from the original comic book version but why the distribution and print numbers on this novel are so lousy! I had a hard time finding this book in stores and probabl

Comic fans are probably wondering how this classic tale can be re-told from the POV of Barry Allen as he dies well before the story ends. Without giving too much away, in the seconds before his death Barry begins to bounce around in time to a greater extent then readers of the original comic were lead to believe. The result of this timeshifting narrative is sort of a "Lovely Bones" for superheroes wherein we watch the Flash react to his colleagues struggle against the collapse of the old DC comics multiverse. Hardcore fanboys will no doubt rail against the minor changes to the original story but most were obviously omissions for the sake of brevity. Marv Wolfman uses the Flash to get to the heart of a very complicated narrative and makes this story accesible to the non- comics fan. In the end, "Crisis" is a worthwhile companion to Wolfman and Perez's original collection