Okay, I can understand liking DC One Million; it was fun and didn't need to be taken seriously to be enjoyed. And, naturally, Invasion and Sins of Youth were great, so they are getting lots of votes.
But Crisis? Blech!
Yes, it was important. But it was AWFUL, folks. Drawn-out and byzantine plot, ridiculous and poorly-motivated villain, parodic ersatz interlocutory characters, eye-painingly complicated artwork, and overblown expository dialog.
I can respect someone liking it despite its faults; but I DARE you to read it again first before you vote on whether you like it...
8 comments:
I actually bought the $100 hardcover years back. I reread it every few years and enjoy it each time. Yeah, it was drawn out and some of it doesn't hold up well, but I think it's generally a fun read.
Still, everyone has different tastes.
I have a few trade paperbacks that I hand out to friends of mine that either don't read comics or aren't big fans of DC in particular.
Crisis is not one of them.
It's dense, it's complicated... I don't know how the hell the casual fan at the time took it all in, especially one issue at a time. And I sure as hell don't get what the hell purpose Pariah served in the thing.
But every time I read it I find some new detail, some new level of understanding.
I can't say as I "get it," but I do like it. I certainly like it a lot more than subsequent attempts to ALTER THE DCU FOREVER (Millennium, Zero Hour, etc.).
Could it have been done better? Absolutely. I think the attempts at redoing continuity in Zero Hour shows that the impact of Crisis wasn't as perfect or as complete as it could have been.
But I think the fact that people still know major events and scenes from Crisis more than other crossovers (the scene where Helena Wayne realizes she shouldn't exist will stick with me forever) proves that, at its core, Crisis is still a damn good story.
The moment where the two Superman and two Flashes emerge into the vibrational space where Earth-2 should have been - and there was only void - was another moment.
Sins of Youth is probably my favourite, though, in terms of sheer goofy Silver Age fun. Partly because Stargirl got to have a big part in it as Starwoman.
We disagree on many things, Thannie. But on this we are as one. Crisis on Infinite Earths is an unreadable piece of shit. The spaghetti art, the brainless plot, the precedent it set . . .it is Bad Comics with capital letters.
I've read it 5 times and still enjoy it.
I grew up with that kinda stuff though.
I reread Chrisis a few months back and I enjoy it. Sure, there are problems with it. It was too long, there wasn't a clear idea what to do with the new characters, there was no point to getting characters from the past/future, etc.
However, I enjoyed the epic scope of it, I enjoyed the art(sorry, but I did), and I enjoyed many, many scenes that still stick with me today. Earth 3 dying out in a page. The last run of Barry Allen. Hal Jordan getting his ring back from his dying friend (ok, that happened in a GL crossover, but it was a part of the overall story). Superman of Earth 2 in final battle with the Anti-Monitor. There are a lot of little ones as well that I don't recall now, but enjoy when I re-read it.
So while I definitely agree there are many problems with the story, the sum of all those little scenes produce a whole that I enjoy.
If only they would have left some extra Earths around...
I like Crisis well enough, just for the sheer audacity of trying to tell a story that big. And I love Perez's artwork... each panel is like a Who's Who.
But I voted for Invasion.
Actually one of my favorite crossovers was the Checkmate, Peacemaker, Suicide Squad crossover they had during those runs. I think it was the Janus Directive or something like that. Kobra was manipulating all the agencies into turing on each other. Good stuff, pick it up if you don't have it already.
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