Crisis on Infinite Earths

I liked the comic it was in good condition when it arrived and showed up at a decent time and was very enjoyable i am glad to finally be able to add this comic to my collection after three tries to purchase it(not from this seller.)

If you love Barry Allen as the Flash this is the book for you! I never was that attached to him. I'm plodding through this book and it's all about his perspective. Crisis was a great series from so many perspectives but this book is a Flash-sentric book.

If you never cared that much about Flash then this is definitely not the book for you!

I'm just getting into the DC Universe. Now I don't expect art to look amazing or modern since this is an older title but still….the art gave me somewhat of a head ache and the story was confusing as hell. Even for multiple dimensions this graphic novel was a confused story to read. About half way through I gave up trying to understand it and just skimmed to the ending.

Good as a historical reference but writing is very dated and not an enjoyable read. Unweildly plot and disjointed flow to the story. Characters seem to be thrown in to the plot just to have them appear versus any real integration or substance to story. A historical milestone in comic book history but not a story that stands truly test of time.

The book idea of ending the carrier of some DC Comics characters and heros is logical and acceptable in a way, giving the chance for future major changings.
But the way that idea terminated was so poor, unfortunately.
It needed a writer like Alan Moore or Cary bates to write it, and Curt Swan to pencil it.
After 30 years of reading the Flash, Barry Allen deserves a better end than the one we read in this book, an ownered death, not a terrified "silly" dead after weakened by a silly Fear Master.
Barry Allen deserved to die in the field.
Also, the way Kara, Supergirl died, is so not logical.
At least let some Kryptonite radiation appears before killing her, and at leat let the Superman Reaction be more emotional toward it.
I dont know what to say, i am disappointed.

God Bless Cary Bates, Alan Moore, Curt Swan, and others writers and penicellers, who made our imagination grows up.

I hate to sound like a cranky old man here, but the book, in digital/Kindle format is unable to be zoomed in on or rotated, such that much of the writing remains to small to read. I'm sure it's a great story otherwise, but I'll never be able to read it at its current size.

The story was OK, no qualms there. The formatting however, was atrocious on all of my kindle devices. Instead of zooming in on the frames sometimes it world just grab white boxes or skip whole sections altogether.

Crisis on Infinite Earths is the ultimate big comic book crossover book. It brings together the entire history of the DC Universe in the same 12 issue Maxi-series. The story is massive but it's not impenetrable. The more you know of the DC Universe as it existed pre-Crisis, the easier the story was to follow.

The art by George Perez is epic and breathtaking perfectly suited to the task of this major event. While, there are some pages that just seem full of moving from one character to another, it handles it's major cast including the Flash, Superman, and Supergirl, as well as the Harbinger, Monitor, and others very well. There are several pages that actually brought tears to my eyes.

The book manages to chart a new course for the DC Universe while being respectful to what's come before. The book was planned out over the course of several years, which allowed it to have a good flow and an understanding of DC Continuity. The story is creative and epic, as well as written with a lot of love and care.

I held off for a long time for reading this volume because the worst thing to come out of Crisis and that is the slew of gigantic crossover events. Yet, reading the book, I see that what has made comic books that tried to imitate Crisis so often be disappointing is that they're, in many ways, the opposite of Crisis: disrespectful to the past and to the characters being written about, unoriginal, boring, and with poor art work. To top it all off, most serve to actually make continuity more convoluted rather than less.

Crisis on Infinite Earth works as a classic and probably the biggest comic book story to be a true classic. It's the one giant companywide crossover that actually worked even while the imitators failed miserably. This book is a must-read for any serious Superhero fan.

Originally written 5-14-11

The multiverse is in great peril when a dangerous anti-matter cloud appears, and begins to erase the alternate Earth's that inhabit the universe. Billions die while planets are consumed, and a being called the Monitor is set on putting an end to it. The Monitor dispatches his assistant Harbinger to gather powerful heroes from each of the surviving realities, to do battle with the mastermind behind the anti-matter catastrophe, named the Anti-Monitor. Soon, many heroes become involved to prevent the possible extinction of life as they know it. -summary

In 1985, DC decided to celebrate their 50th anniversary by putting together an epic tale. After all, 50 years in the business is a very long time, and they truly needed something that will not only set off an explosion of sorts, but something that would appeal to new readers, as well as maintain a balance with their rival Marvel Comics, who all but pretty much conquered the comic book world. To put the plan in motion, they called Marv Wolfman to the carpet to put together something mind blowing, and he didn't fail to deliver, that's for sure.

Crisis on Infinite Earths is a 12 part epic series that features every known character of the DC universe; past, present, alternate futures and pasts, presents, everything. As they seek to put an end to the all powerful Anti-Monitors plan and avoid total annihilation. During this story, you will see up to three versions of Superman, two or three Wonder Woman's etc, and they're all working together. For a seasoned vet of the DC Universe, it all makes perfect sense. For the newbie reader, "what the hell is going on here?"

The first five chapters deals with the heroes being sent to different realities, with their mission being to defend some type of towers from the Anti-Monitors minions called the Shadow-Beast. Admittedly, these are the hardest chapters to get through because so much is taking place, and so many things are being thrown at the reader, that it's very possible multiple reads can be necessary. Unfortunately, some readers are going to be so put off that they're going to be too frustrated by the dialog; Wolfman is very wordy. In addition, even though there is a single clear threat, there's not a single main character because the focus is constantly shifting to someone else. Fortunately, the last 7 issues clear things up a little more, and the plot has more of a focus.

Wolfman's story is indeed dialogue heavy but it's very well written, and once the reader can get a grasp of what's going on, then the story is much easier to absorb. Along the way, heroes go into battle and major characters are even killed off, and two of them die heroes deaths. Later, a second plot forms when the android menace Brainiac joins forces with Lex Luthor in an attempt to gather up the villains, and take over the Earth's for themselves. Everything is cleared up eventually, and the series delivers one of, or quite possibly the most memorable endings in comics. The artwork by George Perez, although dated, is fantastic with some nice character designs, and his incredible ability to jam pack so many characters on one page was just something else.

Now what was the purpose of this story?

Earlier I mentioned DC's 50 years in the comic business being a very long time, and that was something to admire then and still now. However, that amount of time in the business would also prove to be their achilles heel. Long time heroes; Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, to only name a few, had been around since the late 30's to 40's. There were even stories with them fighting in World War II, but these characters never seemed to age, and newer audiences that came around in the 60's apparently wasn't that interested in all of them. I mean you can only suspend disbelief so far, so they thought. To patch things up easily, these Golden Age heroes were placed in a different reality, or a world that would be called Earth - Two, where they could grow old. The Silver Age characters that we all know, such as the Barry Allen Flash and Hal Jordan Green Lantern were placed on Earth - One. Due to legal rights, DC would obtain Captain Marvel (the guy who says Shazaam!) who was placed on Earth - S. There would soon be other worlds created, at times, these characters would cross-over, but in the long run this presented problems such as continuity issues.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was meant to rectify the matter by destroying most of these Earth's, and combining the surviving Earth's into one Earth. In other words, DC obliterated 50 years of history with the intention being for these new stories to be easily accessible to new readers. Great move! And I do mean that because all of these different worlds were just too silly.

In closing, the story did its job that's for sure, and its presence would be felt for way over 20 years. Crisis on Infinite Earths is an important piece of comic lore. However, serious fans with knowledge on the DC Universe will have a much easier time getting through it. Unfortunately, brand new readers will find it very hard to follow, many will be very confused as to what's going on, and the wordy dialog will just be an issue for them. But if you can make it past the first five issues, then everything will be made clear for you. Only recommended to serious comic fans and the graphic novel is 364 pages.

Pros: Gorgeous artwork, intricate narrative, truly an epic tale

Cons: Hard to follow at first, many will be confused

As many times as I've read Crisis on Infinite Earths I never tire of it. It is as advertised; a celebration of the history of DC comics up to 1985 and every time I reread it I am struck with a warm wave of nostalgia. It features DC characters from Anthro (the first boy) to Kamandi (the last) and all points in-between including the various western, war, fantasy and of course super heroes. There is a heavy presence of Charlton and Fawcett characters and the introduction of some great new characters including Alexander Luthor, The Anti-Monitor, Harbinger and Pariah. This is in many ways the apex of DC Comics. It's surely not the best DC story ever written or even the best of the 80's but I cannot think of another story that felt so large, so *ahem* multi-versal in scope and its not that DC hasn't tried to catch lightning in a bottle again. In some ways it owes a nod to The Great Darkness Saga by Paul Levitz from three years prior, which felt like the rough template for a comic event, and of course there were something like a dozen crisis storylines that preceded this one but Crisis on Infinite Earths remains the biggest event story in the history of DC.

Crisis on Infinite Earths is a story that is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. The pacing of the story can be quite wonky and it often felt like Marv Wolfman was making it up as he went along. The main plot points were planned out including the conclusion but a lot of stuff seems to go nowhere. For instance the heroes are sent to defend some tuning towers set up by the Monitor but they really felt like a McGuffin and were quickly forgotten about. It must have been quite a challenge to create a twelve month long series with a tight storyline and this one really meanders with the Anti-Monitor being beaten not once, not twice but three times... maybe four. I think I lost count at some point. The Watchmen is a case study in how to create a tight year long story but that was written by Alan Moore and mere mortals cannot be expected to reach such lofty heights. Readers will also have to get used to small story threads that spawn off into other comics not included here. This is, after all, a major crossover event but now 25+ years later the only purpose they serve is to distract and annoy. No review would be complete without mentioning the amazing job of George Perez who is peerless when it comes to drawing dozens of heroes on a single panel. It was an inspired choice to use Perez on DC's biggest event ever and he delivered a homerun.

This is a series created for DC comic fans, not casual readers. If you're not at least somewhat aware of the DC characters you will be completely lost because there are no introductions; the reader is immediately thrown into the deep end. Even the idea of the various Earth (1, 2, 3, X, S etc...) will bewilder someone not intimately familiar with the DC multi-verse. It's an emotional ride and although emphasis is placed on Barry Allen, the death of a character is something we all can relate to. What was far more horrifying was what happened to characters like Earth 2's Dick Grayson who saw his whole reality erased as if it never existed. Every struggle, every accomplishment, every friend was wiped from reality having never been. In fact Earth 2 as a whole pretty much gets shafted. I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about the treatment of Alexander Luthor and Superboy Prime in Infinite Crisis but I still gave it five stars and likewise I give this one five stars. This is one story I never get tired of reading although I have a feeling it's most impactful to someone who actually read it back in 1985.

For whatever reason, I basically started my journey into the DC Universe through Crisis on Infinite Earths. I rated the book 4 stars here to even out the score a bit, even though I truly think it's a 3.5* novel. The first thing you have to understand about this graphic novel is that it is filled with characters which you've probably never even heard of, which might make it a little more confusing and a little less interesting.

At this point in comics in the 1980's, DC's continuity was starting to overlap itself. So what did they do? They decided in one fell swoop that they would fix as many issues as they could (but not without creating more at the same time). This book is essentially useless at this point in time, as the New 52 has basically restarted the DCU, though upon it's release it was significantly important. All in all it's a long and grueling read but it will help shape what you see in the DCU after this point.

This book was one of the biggest events in DC years ago. Heard a lot about it. They had a lot of different Earths and they were combining all of them. You really have to be a big DC fan because I did not know half of the superheroes and viillians in the beginning They went so far back they brought in SGT. Rock. A threat is destroying all the worlds and a group of heroes and villians have to to stop it. A course a group of villians try to take advantage and take over. In the end a few heroes die and some lose there existence. Overall it is a long but interesting book. Picked up more toward the end. Do things get solved ? I guess so for DC. It is kind of confusing because a lot of heroes lost there earths. If you are a DC fan I say pick it up and also if you want a deep comic to read then go for it.

The idea of merging multiple versions of the universe into one sounds quite interesting, but the execution was not impressive to me.

There are almost every DC hero and villain in this story, most of them little known, unless you were following pre-Crisis DC comics quite closely. The main characters were The Monitor, Harbinger, Pariah (of all who I've never heard before and didn't care about) and, later in the story, two Supermans. Except for a few good bits with Batgirl, Supergirl and Flash, the most of this story is just explosions, light effects and tights-and-capes galore. The dialogues were way over the top and the constant screaming by characters got annoying after the first two chapters. I liked the epilogue though. The drawing style was good actually, but way too crowded.

Not recommended for total newbies to DC universe and also those who are not familiar with pre-Crisis DC comics, as 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' in the end to those comics. Read this only if you're interested in DC comics history. All in all, this story is better as a spot-the-hero exercise, than a graphic tale.

Back in the 1980's Marvel and DC determined that creating a miniseries that incorporates all the superheroes in their respective universes could be huge sellers. So Marvel created Secret Wars, and DC came out with Crisis on Infinite Earths. By far, Crisis was a much more impressive work of writing and art. It blew Secret Wars away in quality, although not necessarily in sales. Crisis remains as a classic mini-series, and one that is a great read, even over 20 years later.

Crisis is also the series that finally cleaned up the various 'universes' in D.C. It helped to pave the way for all successive universe-wide mini-series. The art is beautiful, the writing superb, and it presents the deaths of some very prominent characters, such as Supergirl and the Flash. Very highly recommended!

If you want to read Marvel's comparison, then check out Secret Wars. Although no Crisis, it's a worthwhile and fun read. Don't bother with Secret Wars II. That one is terrible.

This book, unfortunately, has one of the worst jobs of editing that I have ever seen. Egregious spelling mistakes like 'coat hangar', misplaced full stops, words reversed in phrases and other bad things.

It did improve in the second half of the book, luckily.

I also think this is too short. It was based on a dense, 12 issue maxi-series, and suffered from being in two minds.

The main part of the novel is from the point of view of The Flash. He is a pivotal character, with his ability to travel between the various parts of the Universe, so The Monitor is trying to use him to help, and the Anti-Monitor to get rid of him.

He is also dead at the time, and being so far, he is still travelling the multiverse and helping out before this catches up with him.

This part of the book is by far the best, seeing what The Flash is thinking, and how he is involved in the Crisis behind the scenes, where the other heroes don't know.

There are some cursory attempts at some of the other important scenes - the death of Supergirl, the heroes controlled by the Psycho Pirate on the last few Earths that are left, and that sort of thing. To do justice to all those, the book needed to be longer. If it had have just stuck The Flash, it would have been ok.

For some reason, there was some pseudo-updating. Mentions of cell phones, and internet map services that didn't exist in the 1980s, when this happened. This is somewhat jarring, and DC's influence on trying to make everything always 'current time' for Superman, et. al., I suppose.

So, rather disappointing as a whole. I can't recommend buying this as a hardback, or trade or oversized-and-hence-more expensive paperback.

I would wait for a cheap paperback, or get it second hand. If you have no interest in collecting books like this, just get it from the library.

Do you remember the 80's? Do you remember DC comics in the 80's? Nothing changed forever and nothing broke the status quo. Storylines spanned one or two issues with maybe a few sub plots spanning multiple issues. When the story arc came to an end everything was as before...

Crisis on Infinite Earths was the first major shake up of the DC universe it was the herald of new strategies for storyline development. Writers could at last permanently affect the characters within the DC universe. It was an event that closed the book on the fanciful heroes and villains of the gold and silver age of comics and opened the doors to the darker and grittier modern day heroes and villains.

Crisis on Infinite Earths came out and tested the boundaries of what the comic buying fans wanted from the DC universe. Crisis on Infinite Earths laid the ground work for the must read graphic novels and story arcs of the late 80's like the works of Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta and Killing joke), Frank Miller (The Dark Knight returns and Batman: Year One) and Grant Morrison (Arkham Asylum)

It allowed the darker side of 'reality' to creep into storylines. Heroes didn't need to be perfect all the time and villans could acutally be vile and do the unthinkable.

By todays standards the story seems tame but don't discount it. It is packed full DC universe lore and effectively sinches off the loose ends into a more reasonable DC setting. If you have read the comics of the era the sub pots within the Crisis on Infinite Earths will make more sense to you but don't let that hold you back.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was a major event and needs to be read to draw the connection between the comics of today with the comics of the past.

With the new season of the animated Justice league spotlighting more of the characters from this era Crisis on Infinite Earths will have more relevance.

For those who are unfamiliar with Graphic Audio's work, it's top notch and includes multiple actors, great sound effects, and generally top-notch production values. The audiobooks are generally adapted from prose stories (which are themselves often adaptations of comic stories), which is good and bad. I've listened to Crisis on Infinite Earths (this one, for which you're reading my rambling review), Infinite Crisis, and 52. Of those, Crisis on Infinite Earths is a strong second place for me. Marv Wolfman (the writer for the original comic mini-series) wrote the novelation years later. To his credit, he decided to adopt a completely different point of view from the 12-issue limited series, and wrote the novel in the viewpoint of Barry Allen, aka the Flash. I commend him for trying something new and different, but it didn't really work for me... at least not as well as the original mini-series. I think the reader who's read the original Crisis comic series will get a bit more out this than somebody coming to the series cold (this is in contrast to Infinite Crisis and 52, where I think it can easily be ones first exposure). Wolfman tried to update the Flash's dialogue with contemporary phrases--this annoyed me, since (a) to me, Crisis on Infinite Earths defined comics of the mid-eighties, and (b) anytime you try to make such an effort to make something hip and contemporary, it quickly becomes dated.

Despite my criticisms, this *is* a very entertaining audiobook. For the record, I thought that 52 was the best superhero audiobook I'd ever listened to; but that's in two parts, while Crisis on Infinite Earths is in single set. So... while I definitely recommend 52 to any reader (listener?), if you're unsure about paying twice the money, or just love that Alex Ross cover of Superman holding his dying cousin, you won't go wrong with this one. If you've read the original Crisis maxi-series, it's an interesting perspective on the events depicted there.

One of the most phenomenal comic book events of all time was the classic 1985 maxiseries "Crisis on Infinite Earths." In this book, Marv Wolfman and George Perez told an epic, universe-spanning saga, explaining the DC Comics Multiverse and merging all the various worlds into one. The idea was to streamline the line and make it easier to understand. Now personally, even at the time I didn't find the concept of multiple realities hard to comprehend. But the fact remains that the comic was a seminal work and is the base against which all crossovers since have been measured.

So when word came out that Marv Wolfman was releasing a novel based on the comic, I knew I'd have to read it. Most of the book is written from the point of view of Barry Allen, the second Flash, which makes for an interesting read since he knows from the first page that he's going to die during the course of the story. That interesting perspective is probably the biggest thing going for it. The story is a bit too widespread, pulling in a myriad characters that I'm familiar with, but that the casual fan wouldn't recognize, and Wolfman doesn't really give any character other than Barry much development at all. This isn't as big a deal in a comic, where it's presumed that the readers have followed them and know who they are, but in a novel you can't make that assumption. In the long run, it's an okay book, but not a great one. Some comic-to-novel projects have worked very well - Elliot S. Maggin's "Kingdom Come" and Greg Rucka's "Batman: No Man's Land" for example. But this may have been a story better left in comic form.

I purchased this as i have been getting back into comics and this is pretty much required reading for the DC universe. I had to force myself through it. It's a whole lot of text for what is at the core, a pretty simple plot. I get it's importance to the DCU, but it's not a great story... Maybe it could have been without all the worthless banter. How many times do you have to defeat the same villian in the same book? My suggestion is to read the synopsis on Wikipedia. I explained the plotline to my girlfriend and she said it sounded interesting. When thinking about what happens that is story related, it is interesting and a great idea, just cut out all the BS.

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 know what happened in that epic 1985 series. To try would be like studying American history and refusing to acknowledge the Civil War.

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 probably bought the last copy in the ENTIRE city of Columbus, Ohio! There should have been more copies of this book printed and distribution should have been much better than it was...

It puzzles me why this book WASN'T published and distributed by Warner Books seeing that its parent corporation owns the characters in this novel. Crisis on Infinite Earths is one of the most talked-about storylines in comics in the past 20 years and for the better part of the 1980s Marv Wolfman was one of DC Comics' (another Warner subsidiary) best-selling and most prolific writers. The Crisis novel and its author deserved support from Warner Books based on Wolfman's past record and reverence for these characters.

Yes, there is a lot of nonsense and impossible to understand stuff in this comic book. Yes, there are some characters, lines and situations so ridiculous that will make you feel embarrassed just for reading comics. Yes, half the time you will be found yourself asking "Who is this guy?", "What's this guy doing here, and who and why invited him/her?" or "What and how the hell has just happened?". And, yes, you have to be ready for a the unexplainable (even for the super heroes conceived universe).

But also, yes, you should definitely read this book. This is epicness at its highest. This is probably the greatest crossover story ever told, and a unstopping roller coaster from start to end. Just sit back, relax, and let the fireworks begin. There will be pages where you will have to hold your breath until the tension is relieved, and then be able to smile with satisfaction for the rush that just passed.

"Worlds will die, worlds will live... and the universe will never be the same again".
Buy this comic book. Now.

4.5/5

On the paperback edition:
While the edition is pretty good (paper, color, cover; binding does not convince me) I would have expected at least a couple more extras, being this a collected edition. Apparently, you still get the 1998 recopilation, with a foreword from Wolfman and last words from Giordano. I expected a final summary of the events, past and future of the DC universe, a list of the characters with a special participation in the story (and a casualties list). You can easily get all that in Wikipedia, but anyway, it would have been a great add-on to this now old edition.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was originally proposed as a way to simplify the convoluted multiple earths and realities and characters of the DC Universe (which also had to absorb the Charlton Comics characters like Blue Beetle). Wolfman and Perez were, at the time of this series, putting out great work on the New Teen Titans which crashed and burned when DC made the stupid mistake of turning that series into a prestige format series available only at direct outlets and thus alienating many fans. With Crisis though, Wolfman and Perez formulated a plan that would make the DC universe coherent and also entertain the socks off of comicbook afficionados. They suceeded with great style. Most of the characters who meet with tragic ends are unimportant bit players (obviously killing Batman permanently would make about as much sense as killing Spiderman or Superman) or characters with little appeal. It can be confusing to many people to see an elderly Superman, Superboy, and Superman or Green Lanterns of various types, but it all made sense in the old DC pre-Crisis universe! The cosmic battle between the Monitor and Anti-Monitor is interesting as are is the story of the Guardians of Green Lantern fame and how ancient they are in the universe. Wolfman's script ranging from dealing with cosmic infinity (and done far better than the laughably inept Secret Wars from Marvel) to dealing with regular people's lives. It's kind of cool when timelines start to overlap and you have dinosaurs and cowboys in one place. It's no secret that Barry Allen (the Flash before Wally West) and Supergirl die in this series and they die memorably (especially Supergirl). Perez's art is crisp and detailed and some of his best work. Wolfman and Perez treated all the characters as if they were legendary greats whether they were 2nd rate heroes or flagship characters and that added to the drama and importance of the story. I won't give anything away for new readers, but what enhances reading this series is checking out the History of the DC Universe also. This book is highly recommended for the young and young at heart.

Originally issued in 12 installments back in 1985, Crisis On Infinite Earths is a comprehensive revision of the gigantic, sprawling, multileveled DC Universe. Marv Wolfman and George Perez took on the challenge of simplifying things with entertaining and relatively definitive results.
This epic tale is very much "old school", with Wolfman's dialogue and plot devices representing the traditional DC style of storytelling at the time. There's cliched dialogue, as well the heavy handed emphasis on true blue heroism. But then, that's pretty much what one would have expected from mainstream comics circa 1985. Perez does a great job cramming the panels full of the hundreds of heroes and villains. He obviously did his research, faithfully rendering everyone in great detail. He also manages to keep the plot moving despite being burdened with so many characters.
As a semi-regular follower of the DC Universe for the decade or so preceding Crisis, I was pleased with the multitudes of cameos from familiar, as well as unfamiliar, characters. This work brings virtually all of the existing DC characters together in a reasonably plausible tale. What else, but the end of everything, could result in such unification? Even the bad guys sign up to face this even greater evil. Sure, there are too many characters, and some of the characters' contributions to the overall plot becomes muddled at times, but the scope of this project is so huge that I can easily forgive Wolfman and Perez.
If you're looking for something ground breaking, look into Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman, or Grant Morrison (to name a few). If you're looking for some old school DC action, a superhero tale of epic proportions, featuring virtually the entire DC Universe up to 1985, then get Crisis On Infinite Earths. Read it, then keep it on your shelf for later reference. Plus you may be intrigued enough to search for back issues of DC titles featuring the likes of The Phantom Stranger, Captain Atom, Deadman, Green Lantern Corps, Freedom Fighters, and on and on.

The greatest moment in "Crisis?" "I love you."

I was a comic book collector when "Crisis on Infinite Earths" was first published in 1985, and I eagerly devoured the series as I watched the changes to the "DC Universe" happen before my eyes. Since then, many other so-called "epic crossover series" have been produced by DC and by Marvel Comics, and while some attempted to approach the scope and "epic" stance of "Crisis" (see also "The Infinity Gauntlet" and "Infinite Crisis,") none of these series came close to the emotional story-telling given in the original "Crisis" series by Marv Wolfman and George Perez.

What? Emotional story-telling? Yes, I'll certainly agree that the episodic make-up of the "Crisis" series does result in a convoluted, confusing, and sometimes even self-contradicting story. In its attempt to include "every" major character in DC Comics' fifty year history, a number of story arcs were barely touched on and then discarded (such as the introduction of the "New Wildcat!"). But despite this, Wolfman and Perez's storytelling still manages to evoke a feeling of sympathy, and even of desperation -- a feeling that resonates with the reader and makes you care for these characters, even twenty-five years after the publication of the series.

Two elements of "Crisis on Infinite Earths" were present that make this series truly unique among "epic crossover" series. One of these was good fortune on Wolfman and Perez's part: they were essentially given a blank slate and permission to wipe away vast areas of the DC Universe. This resulted in the aspect of the series most commented on by fans and critics alike, namely the incredible number of comic characters who died. A number of these deaths weren't permanent, and some were simply re-written and nullified in the future; but the character deaths themselves were just the most obvious aspect of the major changes that took place. The "Crisis" series was meant to "change" the DC Universe, and because of this the readers of the series honestly did not know what would happen next. Who would live? Who would die? What changes to my favorite comic book series would take place? All major comic book "changes" are the result of marketing decisions by the publishers, of course; but the changes evoked by the first "Crisis" series were truly unique because Wolfman and Perez were given permission to change *everything.* All of the later series, even "Zero Hour" and "Infinite Crisis," were presented to an audience who knew beforehand that certain aspects of the DC Universe were cast in stone, and despite the claims that these would be "major" series in which "changes" would take place, nothing really changed. Our favorite characters were still there during "Zero Hour" and "Final Crisis," and everything continued pretty much the way it did before. Some soap-opera cliffhangers and plot twists were added to a number of ongoing series, but they weren't really world-shattering "changes." In "Crisis," we had the feeling of mystery and suspense in knowing that the "changes" taking place would really be "changes," so we honestly did not know what would happen next. When Supergirl and The Flash died -- and Wonder Woman, also -- we knew that these were major events that would not merely be re-written; even though the characters themselves were indeed brought back to life, we still knew that the original Supergirl and Flash that we grew up with were gone. They would never be the same. Likewise when the "Multiverse" itself was reborn -- it was not just the fact that a weird supervillain had destroyed the universe and it was now reborn. We felt that this really was a rebirth, that the original DC Comics universe we knew really was gone and had been replaced by something different. It wasn't just an update to the ongoing story...it was indeed a new beginning. This is something that has never happened since in mainstream comic books, despite the attempts by both Marvel *and* DC to re-create it.

But there's another aspect of "Crisis on Infinite Earths" that has never been repeated in any of the major comic book "epic" series -- and the credit for this can be given to Mssrs. Wolfman and Perez, who were at the peak of their creative era at that moment. This writer-and-artist pair had used their time together in the "Teen Titans" series to give us a number of wonderfully emotional moments of character development, which culminated in several storylines that are still fondly remembered (and re-used in the "Animated DC Universe" TV series) today, especially "The Judas Contract" and "The Fall of Trigon." It wasn't just the exciting superhero action and George Perez wonderful, powerful artwork that made these moments unforgettable to comic book readers -- it was the way they made us feel for these characters, care for them, and even love them. Wolfman and Perez knew how to bring out real feelings for their characters, such as in the famous "Who Is Donna Troy?" storyline, and they used this ability to its fullest in "Crisis on Infinite Earths." The characters in "Crisis" were scared, more than they had ever been before. For the first time since superhero comics debuted, we were reading a story in which the characters knew they really were facing death -- real death, from which they might never return -- and we, the readers, felt this in a manner unlike anything we'd ever read before in superhero comic books. The best way to demonstrate this is to point out the number of times in the "Crisis" series in which someone says "I love you" to someone else. From the first issue in which Lex Luthor and Lois Lane of Earth-3 say "I love you" for the final time, as they are wiped out forever by the unstoppable wave of anti-matter, to the way Lord Volt and Lady Quark desperately scream "We love you, Liana! We love you!" when their daughter is lost forever before their eyes, to Harbinger's regret for betraying The Monitor without being able to tell him that she loved him, to the number of heroes who say these words to their loved ones (especially Superman of Earth-2 and his true love, Lois), the characters in "Crisis" let their emotions come to the fore in a manner that has *never* been emulated or recreated in any of the other "epic" superhero sagas published since. Even when "minor" characters race to save the ones they love, and sometimes succeed, we feel for them and we see their feelings with the tears of sadness that they reveal. Was there ever a moment in "Identity Crisis" or "The Infinity War" that equaled the moment when Superman of Earth-2 screamed "NO!" as he realized that he had been reborn in a "new" universe...only to have lost the woman he loved forever? Or when Batgirl and Supergirl were sitting and watching helplessly as the anti-matter slowly devoured their world, trying to keep each other from despairing even as they felt as though they were going to die? Moments like this occur only rarely in comic books -- especially market-driven superhero action comics -- and it's for moments like this that "Crisis on Infinite Earths" is still the greatest of all the "epic crossover" superhero stories.

Over twenty-five years later, we've seen the Anti-Monitor come back, and Superman of Earth-2 come back from the paradise he and Lois entered at the end of "Crisis," and Superboy become an insane villain, and Green Lantern written and re-written, and Wonder Woman reborn (gloriously), and The Flash and Superman and Batman and so many others still fighting evil with fists and brains. But in 1985, it all changed -- and we, the readers, can read the story that gave us a moment of comic book history that happened and will never be repeated. So enjoy this moment, read "Crisis on Infinite Earths," and send a note of thanks to Marv Wolfman and George Perez for giving us a superhero story that is still a joy to read and experience today.

Way back in 1985, the editors at DC Comics realized they had a bit of a problem. Since the the beginning of DC Comics, there had been a huge number of alternate multi-verses containing differing Earth's (Earth 1, Earth 2, Earth X, etc.) and different heroes and villians as well. Enter Marv Wolfman, the writer who would create the villian The Monitor who would destroy the countless universes and change the face of the DC universe for years. This entire huge 12 issue series is collected here and is an epic in every sense of the word. Here we witness the deaths of the original Supergirl and the Barry Allen Flash, along with countless other lesser known older age DC characters. George Perez' art is nicely done, but Wolfman's dialogue among the heroes and the storyline in general is just so cliche for a comic story (then again, I shouldn't expect anything different considering this is a major mainstream comic series) that some readers may be turned off. Not to mention the inclusion of many characters from the 1940's, 50's, and 60's are here as well, and younger comic fans will care less about what happens to them. All in all, Crisis on Infinite Earths is an epic collection that is essential for any DC fanboy, but that's just about it.

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 know what happened in that epic 1985 series. To try would be like studying American history and refusing to acknowledge the Civil War.

For a storyline that tore the ultra-complex DC Universe apart and streamlined it, Crisis On Infinite Earths is, in retrospect, an oddity in the DCU's overall history. It promised to fix the majority of the inconsistencies that had existed more or less comfortably in the DCU (as long as you didn't think about them too much). After 20 years or so, it appears to hold little relevance, however, as many of its "fixes" became undone or completely ignored, and many more contradictions have occured since. And even more so, did all of this really need to be done? I'm torn... honestly, I prefer inter-dimensional team-ups between Earths-1 and 2, but if not for COIE, then Kingdom Come wouldn't make much sense.
Even still, DC did the right thing by collecting it. It is certainly a classic story, and it was some ambitious and entertaining work for its time. I look at it more as a relic of the times than as gospel. Indeed, since its reprinting led to the publishing of the excellent Crisis On Multiple Earths volumes (which refreshed my memory of how much fun things used to be), I prefer to remain in the pre-Crisis years and view COIE as alternate history. Still, Wolfman does an admirable job of sorting through the various realities of the DCU and making some sense of them, even if his overall story is repetitive and is much longer than it needs to be. George Perez, while not my favorite artist, definitely does an amazing job of capturing the epic scope of the story. DC's getting Alex Ross and Perez to collaborate on the cover of the collection resulted in one of the most amazing pieces of comic art I've ever seen.
If the actual choice of reprinting COIE had any problems, it was definitely in the way DC marketed it. It was originally pushed on us as an expensive, slipcased, limited hardcover edition, and DC swore up and down that there would be no trade edition. Sure enough, along comes a trade at a fraction of the price about a year or so later. This one instance has negatively affected my opinion of DC's marketing practices ever since.

Despite what one of the above reviews says, this was not an attempt by DC to capitalize on Marvel's success with Secret Wars. Indeed, if you were a fan of DC in the 80's, you would have seen that this story was brewing at least since 1982 in The New Teen Titans issue # 20 or 21 (the issue that opens with Starfire and Raven saving a baseball stadium from a bomb)and the actual Crisis didn't occur until 1985. Secret Wars was actually Marvel's attempt to cash in FIRST.. a year earlier. Read the two miniseries again, and then see which was the more innovative, interesting and better drawn. No contest there.
But enough about that, I just wanted to clear up that little bit of misinformation. This book (and from hereon in will discuss the books) is a gerat collectors item. The entire crisis is here, in wonderfully restored colors. Also a bonus is the commentary from the people who were involved in the whole story at the time. It's always interesting to hear a reminiscence so many years after the fact. As for the fact that this story may have ruined the DC Universe and spun off way too many series that attempted to clean up the fray, well, this may be true as well... but accept this for what it is, the reprinting of a great story in an improved format. It's a wonderful way to remember things...

The multiverse is on the verge of destruction. A powerful and evil ruler of an anti-matter universe, wishes to destroy and absorb the other universes into his, thus creating only one universe in which he rules! To aid him he uses Shadow Demons, Thunderers and a souped up Psycho Pirate. To win he will have to face the heroes of the multi-verse and it looks like he's winning! A few choosen heroes are sent by the Anti-Monitors alternate universe version named the Monitor. It seems like the heroes have been victorious. Except time and space is still distorted! And the Anti-Monitor may not be dead after all. Flash and Supergirl give their lives and it's still not enough. Things look very grim. In the end one universe will survive and history will be rewritten. But by who?
In an earnest and mostly successful attempt to clean up DC continuity George Perez and Marv Wolfman create the greatest threat the DC Universe has faced or will ever face. And while it is overrated, the art is fantastic (how can Perez fit so many characters on a page). And the threat does feel threatening to even the Triple Threat of Superboy, and two Supermen. Well written, though confusing, Marv manages to clean up most of the problems and make the heroes seem defeated before the fight begins and yet allows them to prevail with major wounds and deaths. Chapter seven is the most touching as Flash runs himself to death, alone yet having his death witnessed by those closest to him. Pick up this book unless superhero books confuse you. In that case say far away.

The best thing about this comic is the cover, a magnificent Alex Ross/George Perez painting with 562 figures from the DC universe (and which can be explored in more detail at the DC Web site). But what is inside is sadly unsatisfactory. The title is catchy but misleading: only about five or six other worlds figure in the story � the alternate worlds of the DC universe which this mini-series was intended to tidy up. The cosmology is hokey, especially the conjoined matter-anti-matter good-evil duality. The time travel and other physics are highly arbitrary and powered by buzzwords; and like any villain with ill-defined attributes, the evil Anti-Monitor can apparently come back from being killed any number of times. Anti-Monitor, the primary bad guy, is not particularly charismatic (but then the best villains are all from Marvel, anyway), and is a much more effective presence early on when we don�t know anything about him. His good counterpart, The Monitor, is not particularly engaging either (and he should never have been given those sideburns), although Anti-Monitor�s sidekick, the craven Psycho-Pirate is OK. Blue Beetle seems to get a disproportionate amount of ice time in the first half, but then inexplicably drops out later on. We also get to see rather a lot of the somewhat anachronistic Uncle Sam, as well as Sgt Rock and Easy Company, who require extra contortions in the already squiggly plot line to be incorporated into the story. Apparently WWII still loomed a little larger in the zeitgeist back in �85 than is the case today. The ending is mostly Superman.
The major shortcoming is the lack of narrative drive. The action cuts from scene to disconnected scene as the story line disintegrates under the requirement that every last character be given a speaking part. Writer Marv Wolfman is overwhelmed by the sheer number of heroes (and villains) he has to fit in. The most dramatic sequence is the death of Supergirl. Much of the rest is pretty flat. The dialogue leans to the stilted old-school comics formula. The art by Georeg Perez is decent but conventional and the layout of panels is highly linear.
The major reasons for buying this are that it has historical value and gives a lot of backstory to the current DC universe in one place. The major reason for not buying it is the exorbitant price. If you don�t have to have it, read a friend�s. Once will be enough.

There is an interesting story here, and George Perez does a fine job of illustrating it, but this book (published as a 12-issue series of comic books in 1985) is so flawed that any but the most dedicated fanboy will have trouble getting past more than a few pages. The major obstacle is the dialogue. It's almost a caricature of the writing style that makes superhero comics an object of ridicule in most of the English-speaking world; you know, where the characters narrate what they're doing and what's happening, even when it's obvious, and the superheroes keep calling each other by their absurd names, just in case the reader has forgotten who's who. (On the other hand, what else could one except from someone who calls himself "Marv Wolfman"?) If only you could ignore all those over-inflated speech balloons and still be able to enjoy the book, it might be worth $23.95, but, alas, you actually have to plow through all that melodramatic, annoying prose in order to understand what's going on. (It actually has a certain camp appeal for a while, but that gets old real quick.) The editors of this book could have at least made it a bit more user friendly by providing an appendix that introduces the hundreds of superheroes ("Negative Woman"? "Lightning Lass"!?) who appear (and, for the most part, die) in these 368 pages. But, ultimately, I suppose the book is meant for people who wouldn't require such an appendix.

It's difficult to convey to somebody who didn't grow up obsessed with the detail of comic book universes, and who didn't spend their days poring over issues of `Who's Who in DC Comics' and `The Encyclopaedia of the Marvel Universe', what a joyous experience reading `Crisis on Infinite Earths' is.
The original thinking behind this 12-issue maxi-series is common knowledge. The system of multiple universes that DC Comics had used to rationalise various conflicts in continuity had become cumbersome, and the aim was to use a crisis of cosmic proportions as a pretext for amalgamating all of the different DC universes into one.
`Crisis on Infinite Earths' completely failed to achieve this aim. It failed at an emotional level - a number of comic book fans (myself included) were nostalgic for the `pre-crisis' stories, and found it hard to adjust to characters being reintroduced from scratch. And it failed logistically - conflicts in continuity persisted, and new stories such as the sequel `Zero Hour: Crisis in Time' (nowhere near as good as this, but still worth buying) were required to mop up the mess.
That aside, the research that writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez put into `Crisis on Infinite Earths' is phenomenal. They made it their duty to include and do justice to 50 years of complex comic book history, trawling through the DC archives and making sure that every character and era got a look-in. Wolfman's love for these characters is evident, and Pérez's painstaking renditions - down to the different-shaped `S's on the chests of the Supermans of Earth-1 and Earth-2 - are a real achievement.
`Crisis on Infinite Earths' concerns a conflict between two cosmic beings (the heroic Monitor and the evil anti-Monitor), that threatens the existence of every DC Comics universe and the multiple Earths residing within them. These include Earth-1 (home of Silver Age characters), Earth-2 (home of Golden Age characters), Earth-3 (where heroes are villains and the only hero is Lex Luthor), Earth-4 (Charlton Comics characters), Earth-S (Fawcett Comics characters), and Earth X (where the Second World War lasted for 40 years).
Anyone confused by all of this (and it is very confusing), who wants to understand the intricacies of the various Earths, would be well-advised to buy the two companion volumes to this: `Crisis on Multiple Earths' (which collects some early landmark `crossover' stories in which characters from different Earths joined forces), and `The History of the DC Universe' (which explains how the histories of the various Earths are reconciled into the single history of the Earth seen at the end of `Crisis on Infinite Earths').
I can understand why some people don't like `Crisis on Infinite Earths'. The plot is hyperbolic and nonsensical, and relies too heavily upon endless pseudo-science and ever-increasing explosions. The dialogue is goofy as hell, intended more to give every character a look-in than to make the story credible. And the story's subtext - the entire crisis is precipitated by two characters who seek to understand the origins of the universe, ignoring the warnings of their peers - is offensively anti-science.
But you have to put the series in context. This is the historical pinnacle of corny, larger-than-life comic book storytelling. It is the culmination of 50 years of superhero adventures, from a time when comic book readers were expected to suspend their disbelief, when superheroes constantly explained the obvious to one another, and when superheroes never failed to address one another by their full superhero names - no matter how silly those names were.
From a broader perspective, `Crisis on Infinite Earths' represents the end of a political era, and of the kind of superheroes that were possible in that era. American superhero comics were born in the Second World War and nurtured by the Cold War, but by 1985, the Cold War was winding down and `Crisis on Infinite Earths' was the last time American superheroes upholding American values could claim to speak not just on behalf of humanity, but on behalf of the entire universe. (Yes, there have been attempts to revive this political spirit in comic books since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, but these are superficial and mawkish.)
In fact, in a strange way `Crisis on Infinite Earths' is a companion piece to Alan Moore's `Watchmen' - another 12-issue DC maxi-series, which was published shortly after `Crisis'. `Watchmen' confronts the political realities that undermine American superheroism by adopting a mature, unsentimental tone - its three key characters are Dr Manhattan (who represents American atomic weapons), Ozymandias (who represents the ruthlessly healthy, intelligent and dominating American businessman), and the Comedian (who represents American thuggery, misogyny, and Vietnam massacre). `Crisis on Infinite Earths', on the other hand, evades the political realities that undermine American superheroism by adopting an exuberant, childish manner - its three key characters are Superman of Earth-2 (who represents the American confidence of the Second World War), Superman of Earth-1 (who represents the American confidence of the Cold War), and Uncle Sam of the Freedom Fighters (who represents timeless apple-pie values and wisdom).
And yet while `Watchmen' is bleak, it is informed by the same love for superhero lore that is evident on every page of `Crisis on Infinite Earths'. And while `Crisis on Infinite Earths' is larger-than-life, it is informed by the same melancholy recognition that an age of comics has come to a close that is evident on every page of `Watchmen'.
This melancholy is particularly evident in the final two issues of `Crisis', as character inconsistencies on the single recombined Earth are ironed out. You can even put your finger on the precise moment when the original raison d'être of American comic books died. It's in the final issue of `Crisis', when the Superman of Earth-2, stranded in the abyss with Superboy after defeating the Anti-Monitor one last time, sees a vision of Lois Lane in the afterlife, asking him to join her - and steps off the pages of comic books forever.

...CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS was DC's 1985/1986 attempt to clean house, to condense the numerous characters scattered across many (though not actually infinite) alternate realities into one main universe. This attempt can only be judged a failure, seeing as how they attempted it again in 1992 (with the abysmal ZERO HOUR) and now seem to have simply given up (as some of the supposedly destroyed universes have been seen again).
But what of the story's own merits and flaws?
On the positive side, this twelve issue series contains some spectacular art by George Perez. Some of the new characters are interesting, especially Pariah. The Anti-Monitor is certainly a powerful villain, and seeing so many comic book superstars in one story is a bit of a guilty pleasure.
On the negative side, however, Marv Wolfman is forced to use huge chunks of expository dialogue that will seem cumbersome even to comic book fans who have read such clunky dialogue hundreds of times before. Also, Wolfman doesn't explain many of the events in other comics (e.g., the Flash in the future) that have an effect on this story. As a result of this, combined with the huge number of characters whose names aren't given, CRISIS is not the easiest book for 'casual' comic fans to pick up and understand. There are a few plot holes as well, to be sure.
Now time for a couple of personal gripes. I own this in the hardcover collection, because at the time DC said that that was the only form this story would ever be collected in, and like a gullible fool I believed them. Then they come out with this thing, 66% cheaper than what I paid. Lesson: Don't trust DC.
Also, this story ruined many good characters. For example, Captain Marvel, the Marvel Family, and all the other Fawcett characters simply haven't been the same since they were forced to occupy the same universe as everyone else. On the upside, though, this story led to the Giffen/Dematteis era of the Justice League, which contain some of the funniest comics I've ever read.
Bottom line-- Big-time DC collectors and George Perez fans will want to buy this. Casual readers should steer clear until they've educated themselves a bit on DC. To see how this kind of thing can be done right, I recommend Marvel's "Avengers Forever" by Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco.

I have always wanted to read this storyline as I know it to be one of the most famous in DC history. Now that I finally have, I thought it was terrible. I actually could not wait for it to end and could not believe how long it was. A comic book story should not take almost a month to read but I just had no interest in getting back to it. I am very happy yo finally have finished it so I can go back to reading a normal book that I will enjoy much more. My advice to people would be to stay away.

I've long considered this one of my favorite series. a reread of the series tells me that it definitely holds up to the test of time.

dc promised the world a series that would change their universe forever, and even though characters that were killed off in here have since made a return, there were some serious changes that are still seen in the dc universe of today.

but the real star here is the ability to have the plethora of characters showcased within these pages and truly get to see them do more than just act as filler. characters that you may not ever see outside this series become favorites quickly as they risk their lives to save world that aren't even their own.

and villains get the chance to show their heroic sides as well!

This book truly has something for everyone who enjoys the comic book medium and I can't recommend it enough

The book is absolutely innocuous. Anyone who reads the novelization is obviously a "superfan", someone who has dissected and digested every other Crisis on Infinite Earths-related media of the past 20 years. The book tells a different perspective and isn't particularly outstanding. However, let's face the rigid truth, worms...we're gonna buy it, anyway, because THAT'S WHAT WE DO.

The proofreaders were negligent; a multitude of grammatical inconsistencies litter this book. I'm an English teacher, and I hope my students think I'm a damn good one. I live by the code. I'm SPRACHGEFUHL.

I recommend the book to the collectors. JUST GO BUY IT. STOP READING THE REVIEW AND RESIGN YOURSELF TO THE INTANGIBLE AND INEXTRICABLE REALITY THAT YOU CANNOT BREATHE COMFORTABLY UNTIL YOU HAVE FULFILLED YOUR MONOMANIACAL INSENSIBILITIES. Life's short...blah blah blah...

I do not recommend the book to tyros. Tyros can read The DaVinci Code. Trust me, you'll be more comfortable.

I was one of the people who purchased the limited printed hardcover version of this book. At the time, there were no plans to publish this trade paperback version. Having read Crisis when it first came out, I wanted to have a copy with clean printing to keep for posterity.
Crisis tells the classic, history making event that reshaped the DC Universe. This storyline takes DC's various Earths and consolidates them into one, seemless history. While the story can be disjointed in a few places, it does an incredible job bringing all the various characters together. And George Perez does an outstanding job in ilustrating practically every character that ever appeared in a DC comic up to 1985 (when the story was first published).
Even for the price, this trade paperback is worth the cost. If you have a sense of comic book history and are a big fan of the DC universe, this is a must book.

There was a bit of chaos caused by Flash #123, way back in 1961. The events in that book -- with Jay Garrick and Barry Allen meeting each other for the first time -- spawned what would become known as the DC Multiverse. Some 24 years later, the multiverse and collected histories of the characters within the multiverse got very muddled and confusing. Which Superman was that? And does he know about the events happening on Earth-2?

From the business side of the comics industry, people were having a hard time joining in on comics, because of this confusion, along with almost 50 years of history that may be needed to understand some of the storylines. Because of all this, DC decided to do something. And with the 50 year anniversary looming in 1985, they decided to do something BIG.

This is the series that changed everything, and continues to impact the DC Universe twenty years later with Infinite Crisis. For that reason alone, don't expect to just casually pick this up and enjoy it like "Formerly Known as the Justice League". This is a book that is very involving, encompasing and changing some 50 years of history, and requires the reader's attention to be adequately enjoyed. But for those that want to see how a massive fictional history can be effectively rebooted, this is required reading. After all, characters have been referred to as pre-Crisis and post-Crisis for a reason.

Well, this is one story that changed the DC universe for about 2 years. Okay, that's a bit of a exaggeration, but something happen recently that reset the status quo! The story in question was done to get rid of all the other existing earths. Because, the Authors letter in the front of the page, the foreward, states that DC was writing about two different earths and they had a well-spring of other earths' to choose from in their stories. Fans not only had to follow what was happening on main/prime earth, let's call it earth prime! But, they had to follow what was happening on earth 1, 2, 3 ... A, B, C, and even X.

The solution is simple, destroy all those earths and leave only one earth! Therefore, continuity won't be hard to follow anymore. They must not check out there main competitor from time to time. Anyway, this is the main reason for this story. I don't think it's Marv Wolfman's best work. His best work is 'the Judas Contract!' But, then again he's not dead yet and he's still cranking out some pretty fantastic stories. However, I digress! The story is written like a marvel comic book. That's not a bad thing, at this point in the game, back in the eighties, marvel was treating there consumers like idiots. Read 'Secert Wars' if you don't believe me.

The reason I don't give it more stars is because too much was happening in this story. There was a lot to follow and I don't believe that the story covered everybody properly. But, how can you with a story this big? I guess, that is why older fans have told me about 'zero hour' and other similar smaller stories to correct on bring clarity to 'Crisis on Infinite Earths'. Moreover, I know that Marv can do a better story. Maybe I'm being to harsh. This was about 20 years ago, he could have grown into a much better storyteller by the time I started to read him.

A lot of people like this story, so I say give it a chance, but people it's not that great. Just get it from the library or buy a used copy. Trust me, which you have absolutly no reason to do, that this is worth a read but not worth putting in your collection!

I missed this when it originally came out in 1985. I did not have the patience to look for copies of this long winded series as specialty comics store were not yet in vogue then. Only now did I have the opportunity to read this tale that changed the DC Universe. After reading a third of the book, I lost interest as it does not have the pizazz that I expected it to have. Perhaps now, the tale appears mundane as visual elements excellently drawn by George Perez, are now so common in the cinemas. What the artists visialized then could now be easily translated to the screen with more verb. Hence, the profligacy of comic based movies. That aside, the attempt to consolidate the universe into one resulted in an aftermath that heroes and villains familiar to us then, now appear (to those who lived the golden and silver age of comics) unfamiliar. This is why I no longer have the addictive tendency to open a Superman or a Batman comics now. The tension, the expectancy, and the longing for the next issue to come out, a feeling I relished then, has long since dissipated; the consequence of COIE. Marvel is no better. But at least their movies, based on the original premise of their silver age characters, are definitley a visual and storytelling pleasure to experience. I hope DC does the same with their rejuvinated BATMAN Begins. Anyone for COIE in cinema?

I won't get into the storyline, which is really involved and at times confusing, with so many different heroes and earths that it's hard to keep track of.

But, I will say that the re-production of the 12 or so individual comics in one book is top notch. The pages are in full color and semi-gloss finish, which is nice, and re-colored according to the back cover.

So, if you remember the original stories this will be a nice addition. If you don't remember this series and aren't a huge DC fan, the story does get a little convoluted and can be very confusing. Nevertheless, it's an intriguing story and enjoyable, even if the reader doesn't know that Wonder Woman was married with a daughter on one earth, while Superman was married to Lois Lane and going grey on another.

There are few bigger stories than the destruction of all existence. And there are few more complicated stories than Crisis on Infinite Earth. Despite the attempts to make it as dramatic as possible, this is a technical excercise, clearing up the history of the DC universe. Basically, a lot of old characters had to be eliminated, and so, in a huge (but not that huge) battle against the super-supervillain the Anti-Monitor, they do.
There is one intresting aspect; the Anti-Monitor destroys different planets with an all-consuming white ball. These characters are literallly being rubed out, erased, the ultimate threat to a comicbook character.
Sadly, the entire book seems to consist of this. There are a huge ammount of characters, and each have about one or two lines through out. There are a lot of panels on each page, each full of superheroes explaining to each other what has just happened. Repeatedly. The plot is extremely basic, but it takes so long for every character to become involved and be told what to do next, it becomes ridiculously drawn out.
There is no central hero, but since they all talk and act the same way, they could all be the same character. Ultraguy dies? Who cares? We still have three-hundred other superheroes who are virtually indistinguishable from him, plus two parallel universe version of the character.
And if you expect window-smashing, wall-crushing battles - forget it. The fight scenes ammount to little more than good guys shooting laser beams at endless, faceless bad guys. There is so little threat, so little excitement.
And there are over three hundred pages of this. Crisis on Infinite Pages.

So... I finished 'Crisis on Infinite Earths'. Too much info to process and make compact enough into a review that will make any sense. As a part of DC history, and if you're interested in a pretty important piece, you should read it. This was DC's effort to realign and merge the Multiverses into one Earth to make following their story lines a bit easier. Did it work? Yes. Seamlessly? Probably not. Is it worth the read? that's up to you. I'm glad I did... but man, it was a task.

I went ahead and reread Crisis on infinite earths about 6 months before Infinite Crisis (the sequel that came out the end of 2005), to make sure I was up to speed on the story. A lot of comments came to my mind as I finished it up...To much to fast in too little a time.

Crisis on infinite earths originally was a 12 issue run but should have been 14-16 issues. It feels poorly edited and you constantly are feeling like you are missing something.

Overall, the story is fun to read though and enjoyable but could have been done better. If there ever was a "writer's cut" of a comic book this should have been it. Still, I do recommend it to readers especially those that read DC comics regularly.

This was a pivotal point in the history of DC comics as they strove to clean up a ton of loose ends that had accumulated over the past half century and they did as good a job as anyone could given the enormous task they had ahead of them. Wolfman is servicable at the writer but it's mostly Perez and Ordway's inks (issue 5 to 12) that mark this series as a high quality event. This series was 3 years in the planning and execution. It was going to be SO big, that after they had started, Marvel found out about it and quickly ground out Secret Wars so it could hit BEFORE Crisis and the quality shows it. They knew Crisis and Perez would be a whopper in terms of sales so they had to throw something out there to compete. Secret Wars is basically thought of as a joke now but Crisis's quality has stood the test of time, even if some of the changes made have not. Definitely worth the buy though.

Maybe it's just that I'm a child of the Modern Age, but, how can I put this ...
This book is just silly. The dialogue is bad, the story is drawn out much more than it needs to be and doesn't really tell us anything (besides lots of people are heroic), certain people are given godlike powers for no readily apparent reason ... ***POSSIBLE SPOILER*** and it doesn't even do a good job of cleaning up continuity. If everyone who fought the Anti-Monitor at the beginning of time remember the old earths, why doesn't the post-Byrne Clark Kent fondly remember his old friend Kal-L? Maybe the Linear Men fixed the timeline, I don't know, Marv sure didn't.
Two stars for having lots of high-quality pages, all the cover art, and a nice new cover by Perez and Ross.

Poor Marv Wolfman. The only work he's done for DC comics lately is a few gaming texts for the Teen Titans.
A lot of fans were looking forward to this book for a few reasons:
1. Marv is a great COMICS writer. His New Teen Titans and Crisis on Infinite Earths set a standard for 1980s super-hero comics that, for many were only surpassed by Alan Moore and Frank Miller's work.
2. Crisis on Infinite Earths was complicated. You could spend a lifetime tracking down all of the cross-overs and related comics to learn the "secrets" of the event (Hunting every pre-Crisis appearance of the Monitor in his observation satellite is a particular obsession that some share). The novel tantalised with the chance of more "secrets" about this multiverse shattering comics event.
3. "Infinite Crisis" is coming... Marv is writing a special story for "Infinite Crisis Secret Files" which will supposedly draw a clear line between the Crisis of 1985 and this year's (2005) DC Comics cross-over event. Fan boys the world over are digging out their plastic baggied copies of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series and reading it in preparation for the new Crisis.
By the way, if you're lost by now and don't know what an "Infinite Crisis" is, you're reading the wrong review. The one on this page by Devlin Tay is excellent - try that one.

But Marv isn't a great novelist. Aside from the fact that I can see what he was trying to do - change the perspective of the whole Crisis event so that it is seen from a more personal viewpoint rather than on the epic scale of the original - his sentence structure often lets him down (like I can talk...) and you get the feeling that the whole job was rushed.
Certainly, no-one seems to have bothered to proof-read it. When the Flash comments that his intangible hands would pass through a "copmuter" (sic), or references are made to the character "Obsideon" (rather than the correct name "Obsidian") you know that no-one has bothered to use a spell-check either.
The cover features detail from a painting by George Perez and Alex Ross, the other (missing) half of which shows the Earth 2 Superman mourning the death of Wonder Woman. Yet this event is completely missing from the novel. Obviously, Marv was trying to cater for a broader audience than the one which read Crisis in the first place and, as such, fails to cater for either his orginal audience or a new audience. And the death of Supergirl is dealt with within two pages! The whole shebang seems rushed.
Inevitably, the condensation of a 12 issue comic series into a 320 page novel misses some detail and changes a few events slightly for more cohesion, and I accept that. But Marv should have realised that whatever suspension of disbelief readers will accept in a comic drawn so beautifully by George Perez, they will not be so forgiving about in a novel.

In 1985, DC decided to streamline their continuity by destroying all but one of the many universes and dimensions in the multiverse. What happened was one of the most epic comic book novels of the 80s.....perhaps of all time.

This novel quite literally spands the entire DC universe, and not JUST the superheroes. You'll also have the sci-fi comics (Like Kimandi) and the Westerns (Like Bat Lash). And the massive scale of the over all destruction is almost overwhelming at times.

This story is quite thrilling......and complex. I'd compare it to the Lord of the Rings in its complexity. I've always suggested that their should be a companion volume to this particular book.

I give this my highest reccomendation. Five stars all the way.

Wow, what a read! Lots of info, LOTS of info. (my head hurts). I started reading this almost completly out of obligation (after all it's the big one, the one all the stories to come come from, the grand illustrious potentate of DC comics, ect). Aside from the several sittings it took me to get through, it was, after all the fat is cut away, a good story. It was a needed story, and less of a fun tale but an endurance test. Word of advice, take notes. It does get confusing but by the end Earth 1,2,3,X, and Prime all become realatively understandable (sort of). I wouldn't suggest this to a casual reader. To a hardcore fan, a must (but chances are, they already read it).

DC Comics thought that their universe was perhaps too complex for new readers. An idea by a couple of their staff was circulated, and the
Crisis was born. This was obviously hugely successful, and has now led
the major comic companies to be obsessed with creating high profile and
publicity events such as this, as temporary sales boosts.

It is still dubious whether or not comic readers, or readers at all are put off by complex storylines, or histories.

That being said, this story of cataclysm, tragedy, and heroism is very good.

In 1985, DC decided to streamline their continuity by destroying all but one of the many universes and dimensions in the multiverse. What happened was one of the most epic comic book novels of the 80s.....perhaps of all time.

This novel quite literally spands the entire DC universe, and not JUST the superheroes. You'll also have the sci-fi comics (Like Kimandi) and the Westerns (Like Bat Lash). And the massive scale of the over all destruction is almost overwhelming at times.

This story is quite thrilling......and complex. I'd compare it to the Lord of the Rings in its complexity. I've always suggested that their should be a companion volume to this particular book.

I give this my highest reccomendation. Five stars all the way.

Wow, what a read! Lots of info, LOTS of info. (my head hurts). I started reading this almost completly out of obligation (after all it's the big one, the one all the stories to come come from, the grand illustrious potentate of DC comics, ect). Aside from the several sittings it took me to get through, it was, after all the fat is cut away, a good story. It was a needed story, and less of a fun tale but an endurance test. Word of advice, take notes. It does get confusing but by the end Earth 1,2,3,X, and Prime all become realatively understandable (sort of). I wouldn't suggest this to a casual reader. To a hardcore fan, a must (but chances are, they already read it).

DC Comics thought that their universe was perhaps too complex for new readers. An idea by a couple of their staff was circulated, and the
Crisis was born. This was obviously hugely successful, and has now led
the major comic companies to be obsessed with creating high profile and
publicity events such as this, as temporary sales boosts.

It is still dubious whether or not comic readers, or readers at all are put off by complex storylines, or histories.

That being said, this story of cataclysm, tragedy, and heroism is very good.

Maybe if I read this back in the 80's I would have been blown away by this story, this being the first of it's kind, but since I first read it in 2001 I wasn't very impressed. It is a very interesting look into DC history but suffers from bad dialogue, lame characters, lame customes, and bad hair-do's. Everyone says that Marv Wolfman is a great writer but I have yet to see him earn this reputation (did you read that ViroXX story he did in Superman, it's awful). Perez does some good art and I know those lame costumes aren't all his fault but I can't stand that poofy-hair he draws on so many characters. Somethings I learned from reading this, they were even lamer characters in the Pre-Crisis than in the Post-Crisis, the single universe created in Crisis is not the current DCU created in Man of Steel, and Alex Luthor II is the gayest character in comics and was proably hoping that Superboy would "tunnel into that other place" "inside him" (read the end you'll get it).

You can't talk about the DC Universe with anyone without referring to post-Crisis and pre-Crisis events.For these reasons alone, any DC Comics fan has to read the brilliant Crisis on Infinite Earths by Marv Wolfan and George Perez. It is also unique in that it chronicles the deaths of several DC characters, most of whome have since remained dead. These include the deaths of Kara (the original Supergirl) and Barry Allen (the silver age Flash, who was the main Flash character for almost 30 years). These are some of the best deaths ever written in comics, especially the Flash's horific death against the story's antagonist the Anti-Monitor.
The Crisis is a massive, ambitious project which DC undertook in 1985 to simplify the DC Multiverse and turn it into a universe. The multiverse was too confusing with different versions of the same characters living in different parralel universes. The end result wasa single coherent universe in which different universes were merged into one. So it is obviously a very important story.
But that's not all because it also holds its own as a story. The Monitor is in a mission to save the positive universe from being devoured by the negative universe, ruled by the Anti-monitor. To do this, he gathers key heroes and villains from both the positive nad negative unverses to stop this.
The end result, as the advertisements of the time said, world lived, world died, but the unverse was never hte same again.
Like, say Lord of the Rings, Crisis has a main antagonist but does not seem to have a main character. In the beginning it seems that perhaps the Monitor and his helper the Harbinger are the main characters but at some points the focus shifts on other characters. There are literally hundreds of characters making appearances in this story and this is one of the things I like about it. In addition to the superheroes you would expect to see, characters like Swamp Thing, John Constantine, Jonah Hex, The Demon, Sgt Rock, Enemy Ace, Vandal Savage, Sam Simeon, Tomahawk, Johnny Double and others make appearances.
Although there are dozens of comics that crossover with the main Crisis story, its not necessary to read all of them to get the main storyline, which is good.
Unfortunately it seems that Crisi opened a Pandora's Box of crossover events, which now seem to be an almost annual occurance. Some have been good, such as Legends and Zero Hour, but others we could have done without (The Final Night for example).
A final note on the art. It is simply brilliant. Very few artists could have pulled this story off and I can't think ofanyone better than Perez. He is so good at drawing dozens of characters in single panels. He has an average about 10 or 11 panels on every page which makes for good storytelling, ideal for such a complex tale. In one page I counted 18 panels!!!
I bought the hardcover edition of this book... and I can tell you it was worth every cent. Its such a complex story that you can read it again every six months or a year and it still seems fresh because there is no way you can possibly remember all its intracacies. For me its best on the third reading.
There is also a brilliant cover by Alex Ross. Sometimes I like to just take out the book and pass time just by looking at the cover and trying to identify as many characters as I can.

I loved this series as a teen but these days while the story grabs me - it just does not do it as much now as it does then. History is the problem. Then it was watching the DCU change into a new form. Now nearly two decades later it is more of a relic than anything else.
However the George Perez art is still breath taking. While I don't love the story as a whole there are some wonderful bits to be read by Marv Wolfman that do entertain even today.

How is it possible to review this graphic novel objectively? People seem to either love it or hate it. And both with good reason. It was a story 50 years in the making that still has major ramifications, both positive and negative, for comics today.

Longtime comicbook readers feel that they need "continuity" in the stories they read. Continuity is the idea that a fictional universe, such as the one in which DC's superhero comics take place, operates with a certain logic and is internally consistent. By 1961, however, DC was having trouble with continuity. How could they explain that, twenty years ago, Batman and Robin were fighting Nazis and hanging out with FDR, while in the present they were fighting Commies and hanging out with JFK ... but Robin was still only a teenager???

Since DC's WW2 stories were too fondly remembered to just be ignored, the editors decided that they all took place in an alternate universe, dubbed Earth-2. The present-day DC heroes lived on Earth-1 and were a good deal younger than their Earth-2 counterparts, not having debuted until after WW2. Every year Earth-1's Justice League teamed up with Earth-2's Justice Society, whose Robin was an adult, whose Superman had grey hair, etc., etc.

By the early 1980s, DC decided that the multiplicity of Earths-- of Supermen, Batmen, and Wonder Women--was hurting the company's ability to attract new readers. The DC universes needed to be simplified into a single universe and duplicate characters eliminated. This move has remained controversial ever since, but I maintain that it was the right thing to do, because I only became a DC reader in the aftermath of CRISIS.

When I was growing up, my first knowledge of superheroes came through Saturday morning cartoons, namely Superfriends and Spider-Man. The first comic book I ever bought was a pre-Crisis JLA/JSA teamup. It was confusing as hell because it didn't fit into the template I had picked up from Superfriends: Who was this grown-up Robin? Why did Superman have grey hair? And just what was going on in the WW2 flashbacks? Then I realized that, over at Marvel Comics, Spider-Man was the same guy I saw on TV. I realized that if I bought a Marvel comic, Spider-Man would always be Peter Parker from the cartoons and not some geezer from "Earth-P." Marvel was still a young company, without all of DC's editorial baggage. And so I said, "Make Mine Marvel!"

CRISIS came and went without much notice from my pre-adolescent eyes. So what if they killed Supergirl? Her movie sucked. Adult Robin died? Hey, he was never on "Challenge of the Superfriends," so how important could he be? The good thing about CRISIS was that it swept DC's creative playing field clean. If John Byrne had never written Superman, Frank Miller never revised Batman, and George Perez never graced Wonder Woman, the Marvel zombies of the world would still dismiss these characters as naive throwbacks. It was these titles that made me sit up and notice DC. I became a fan of DC's iconic characters. I dug up that JLA/JSA crossover, reread it, enjoyed it, and even bought more back issues of the '70s Earth-1/Earth-2 teamups.

So in that sense, CRISIS was a success. DC's late '80s relaunches brought new readers to the company and redefined their characters for a new generation. But the editorial staff never really made explicit what had and hadn't changed in the new post-Crisis universe, so contradictions started creeping in. Some writers decided to ignore the Crisis altogether. And now, 20 years later, the DC universe looks more convoluted than it did back in 1961. That means that CRISIS failed in its goal of revising continuity. Rather, it wrecked continuity so badly that DC's creators threw out the concept altogether.

So people who hate CRISIS can blame people like me--Generation X babies brainwashed by too many TV channels--for why DC thought the Crisis was necessary. But now I look through my back issue collection and see stories like "The Freedom Fighters of Earth-X! The Crime Syndicate of Earth-3! The Marvel Family of Earth-S!" and can understand the excitement that those tales must have caused when they first appeared. CRISIS is the last, greatest, and by far the saddest of those classic stories.

If DC's heroes have any resonance in your memory, whether pre- or post-Crisis, buy this book, read it, love it or hate it, and then put it on your shelf knowing that it's a piece of pop culture history.

This was one of the most convoluted, redundant, sloppy, wordy, cramped comic stories I have ever read/seen.

The dialogue is at times painful to trudge through. Phrases and circumstances repeated just for the sake of showing as many characters as possible. There were actually times when reading it where I mouthed the words "this is bad" to myself. The artwork is mushed together by endless TOTALLY uninteresting and unnecessary banter that adds nothing to the empty story, page after page.

*MILD SPOILER*
DC felt the need to reboot it's universe, and that I get. This was a transparently lazy attempt at doing so. The use of characters was totally baffling.. Batman, one of DC's cornerstones did nothing but "share my courage" as he watched superman and others punch an indestructible antimatter being.

This story was so poorly written, it makes me want to take time before reading another DC book. How this is considered a classic by some, makes absolutely no sense to me.

There are three main reasons that the CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS 12 issues maxi-series was written: marketing publicity, a "youth movement" involving DC characters, and the "infinite earths" concept which (apparently somewhat inept) DC writers could not handle. In the case of the first, one cannot blame any publisher for attempting to publicize any publication and project (although in this case I think DC went a bit too far with a project that was unnecessary, and "unnecessary" elements included the deaths of various super-heroes). The second reason for CRISIS, the "de-aging" of sorts of its various characters and heroes, is also understandable to a degree. But, I'm not sure that a universal cataclysm was needed to accomplish that goal. As for the last reason, any "garbage" accumulated by the "infinite earths" concept -- which did NOT initiate as "infinite," but rather as MULTIPLE parallel earths -- could have been avoided by observant and detail-oriented writers and editors. In essence, DC supposedly felt the neccessity of correcting problems which NEVER should have existed.
As time had passed, and it's difficult to believe, various DC writers/editors sometimes became confused about which super-characters existed the various parallel earths. And, there often was criticism about the many "Super-" characters within the Superman Family of comics magazines. Following CRISIS, DC was revamped to but a single universe -- well, at least until the "parallel worlds" concept rears its head at some future date. And, the various "Super-" beings which spun off from Superman disappeared. Or, at least for a time they did, because a Supergirl and a Superboy are now back, albeit in somewhat different concepts!
CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS is NOT a "terrible" series, rather an average and unnecessary one. To quote the famous Bard, CRISIS could be summed up as "Much Ado About Nothing." And, CRISIS will no doubt be outdated fairly soon. Many writers following CRISIS themselves had no clear idea of exactly what had occurred and was newly defined, and new "clutter" continues to be introduced into the newly-formed DC Universe. Whether the new guard of writers will simply ignore, or othewise cogently explain away such clutter -- either or both of what should have been done in lieu of CRISIS -- remains to be seen.
Art-wise CRISIS is a gem! It contains beautiful pencil art by the great George Perez, and the inking by Jerry Ordway is also exquisite. Add the book's new cover art by the team of Perez and the awesome Alex Ross and you have a breathtaking visual package, which somewhat atones for the lack of concept and writing.

There aren't words to describe this epic, except those contained in the book itself. DC's convoluted 60-odd years of 'continuity' was wiped out by this bold 12 issue maxi-series. Anachronisms and characters unheard from for years as well as new characters created specifically for the story are blended together and succinctly wiped out of existence. Marv Wolfman's senses-shattering story is threaded together perfectly by the only artist able to weave so many characters together, George Perez. Together, the two men weave a story that is grand with cosmic action as the entire DC Universe is pitted against the ultimate foe...entropy. At the same time, it is a very personal story, as we are allowed to share the fates and feelings of the characters as they fight and watch their existence hang by a thread. Punctuated by epic battles and the deaths of two of DC's major players, Marv and George streamline an infinite number of universes and histories into one. This series was the first of the 'crossover' books, titles that are linked to other titles, and stands as one of the best reads in DC's history.

In 1985, DC Comics made comic book history by publishing a 12-issue maxi series that totally reshaped the DC Universe. Prior to 1985, the DC Universe was a confusion of alternate worlds, timelines and continuities that left readers confused: Did Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Hawkman and others fight the Nazis during World War II or didn't they? Did Clark Kent ever marry to Lois Lane or didn't he? Was Superman's cousin called Supergirl or Power Girl? Did Wonder Woman have a daughter named Fury or didn't she? The problem was, DC Comics was publishing a whole lot of stories that apparently took place on different Earths in different universes. There was Earth-1, where all the modern-day superheroes we are familiar with lived: Superman, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, etc. And then there was Earth-2, where identical or similar heroes appeared decades earlier to fight the Nazis in World War II. And then there was Earth-3, where all the familiar characters were super-villains and the only superhero was Lex Luthor. And Earth-S. And Earth-X. Ad infinitum. Something had to be done, and "Crisis on Infinite Earths" was born. In one stroke, this array of confusing alternate universes was compressed into a single universe. Along the way, the origin of the so-called multiverse was explained, some existing heroes died and some new ones were born, battles were fought and sacrifices were made. Established major characters like Supergirl, the Flash and Wonder Woman were allowed to die, along with a multitude of other minor characters. The resulting DC Universe had a rebooted continuity that was unified, streamlined and easier to keep track of. Twenty years on, no major comic book publishing event has surpassed the epic that was "Crisis on Infinite Earths".

All of which makes the mediocrity of this novel, which retells the story of "Crisis" from the point of view of the Flash, all the more disappointing. Marv Wolfman's attempt to flesh out the original story (which he crafted with artist George Perez back in 1985) into a full-scale novel simply fails to measure up to the original tale - "Crisis" the novel is strangely lacking in the grandeur that "Crisis" the comic book had in spades. "Crisis" the comic was an epic - "Crisis" the novel is simply a bore. Yes, there is always a problem with translating visuals from a movie, TV show, or even comic book into plain old boring words, but the problem with "Crisis" simply isn't that. For the record, I thoroughly enjoyed "Kingdom Come" by Elliot S. Maggin, "No Man's Land" by Greg Rucka, and "The Death and Life of Superman" by Roger Stern. These novels, which retold the stories of some of DC other successful comic books, added something to the original stories by fleshing out the characters and expanding on the events therein. You could read these books on their own merits and enjoy them without ever having read the original comics.

"Crisis" simply fails to achieve this. The whole exercise reeks of a rush job. Reading "Crisis', one gets the feeling that either Marv Wolfman (i) simply ran out of time, or (ii) lost interest totally midway through writing the novel, which should have been at least a third longer. The whole narration feels terribly compressed, and its pacing is just awful. The events from the first 7 issues of the original 12-issue epic fill up much of the book, taking up almost 80% of the novel. The events of the last 5 issues were relegated to the remaining 20%. I find this really weird, given that most of the crucial action in "Crisis" actually happened in the last 5 issues, as were the emotional ramifications of these events on the characters. Events from the tail-end of "Crisis" were inexplicably skipped over while lots of boring bits were added to the front section. Major characters were randomly dropped - where were Wonder Woman-2 or Superboy-Prime? What happened to Darkseid, who played such a pivotal role in the final battle in the original story? The origin of another vital character, Dr Light, was totally unexplained, as was her transformation from a selfish and uncaring person into a self-sacrificing superhero. What happened to the villains' betrayal of their allies? And after spending a couple of pages writing about how Wonder Woman pleaded with her mother, Queen Hippolyta, to allow her to take the the stores into battle, Marv Wolfman did not even mention her subsequent death during the final battle! The sacrifices of many other minor characters were given short shrift (e.g. Aquagirl, Lori Lemaris, Dove, Kole, Robin-2 and the Huntress). This renders the whole narration emotionally uninvolving - the whole point about the original "Crisis" was about loss and sacrifice for the greater good. Even the deaths of Supergirl and the Flash seem strangely sterile here compared with how they were depicted in the original comic book. How can readers feel any emotional connection to the story if the deaths of well-established and well-loved characters only merited throw-off one-liners? That last 20% of the book really should have been expanded.

My advice? Read the original comic book - it is available as a reprint in both hardcover and trade paperback formats. Wait for the paperback version of the novel if you must read it.

You Can tell a book by it's cover sometimes. For example, this graphic novel has tremendous art throughout the entire series. George Perez is the best there is at what he does, which is cramming in as many characters as humanly possible in a very small frame. However, the writing of Marv Wolfman could possibly have been better. It's hard to be too critical of him, though. It was a daunting task to clean up 60 years of convoluted DC history in twelve issues. What made this so enjoyable for me was the build up of this series before it ever hit the stands. The Monitor was pulling the strings of every hero and villain in the DCU for months, leaving everyone wondering "who is this guy?". It was also one of the first times in comic history when major characters were killed off and actually stayed dead. This is almost unthinkable to writers these days, who use death as a selling point for an issue and then, miraculously, they are somehow resurrected the next issue. Hats off to Marv Wolfman for writing it, and the bosses at DC for sticking with it.

Now, I only really know (roughly) whats going on in the DC universe since the great crisis in the eighties, but up until I read this epic, I didn't really know why everything that happened since all of this, actually happened (if that makes sense, well done.) Whenever I got my hands on a comic from before the eighties, none of it seemed to make sense.

I read the paperback book first, and that was great, but this collection (of the same story by Wolfman)was amazing to read. If you want to know more about your favourite characters, especially along the lines of 'what happened to all the different Supermen?' then this is the one for you!

I know this may seem like I work for them or something, but, it's really just that good. The artwork is a little dated, but it still stands up. You can really see where the inspiration has come from for modern comics.

For anyone interested on the whole Superman timeline, read this, and then read the volumes of Man of Steel, by John Bryne. Fantastic.

This is hands down, one of the best, most beautifully drawn, most satisfying comics reading experiences ever produced. If you like superheroes, and DC heroes in particular, you need to own this. If nothing else, you'll come away from the series intrigued by DC's vast and colorful history, and the sheer inventiveness of the people who worked there, building the modern myhts that so many of us love. Highly recommended.

While I was really happy to finally get to read this, I have to say that I had to dig out my Crisis comic hard cover to match some of the stuff up. If you do not know the DC characters and universe pre-Crisis, you might not understand all of this. You are not given the character background like in a normal book so you have to already know them and some of the inserts, like Wonder Woman's return to Paradise Island, don't really make since unless you remember the time. And I have to point out some things are moved or jumbled with current continuity. I liked this, but only because I knew how it fit in and I was already a fan.

Along with the Watchmen, this is the quintessential comic story involving hundreds of superheroes against a threat to the entire multiverse. Over 20 years later, this story still resonates and packs a powerful punch. For those of you who miss the original DC Comics Universe, and long for the days before the hideous revamp that is the New 52, take a few hours and sit down and read (or re-read) this awesome book. You will not be let down.

Crisis on Infinite Earths is frankly not worth the money unless you have a desperate desire to learn some of the backstory of current DC characters.
The plot isnt particularly good, and is hampered by the desperate need to simplify the DC world (which failed in any case, as JLA:Earth 2 conveniently recycles ideas from the pre CoIE era).
Even if you think you're up to date on current JLA and Golden Age timelines there will undoubtedly be a lot of backstory you do not understand.
The DC universe changes so often that keeping up with it isnt worth it: it's a sucker's market. For a comic or this era that is readable I recommend 'The Return of Superman', which has its detractors but remains one of the few Superman books that doesnt bore me to death. Better still, check out Kingdom Come, Astro City, V for Vendetta or Sandman.

This book is an important book to the DC universe, sort of ties up all these multiple characters and loose ends. And as a story it isn't bad (though the art is a bit dull), but the cast was too big, and those that got the most page time were not the most interesting. I get why they did it, and it is necessary to read it (especially now with the Infinite Crisis that happened) but I didn't enjoy it that much.

Perhaps the most powerful moment in the DC Universe was the streamlining of all the myriad different earths in their Crisis On Infinite Earths story. While I disagreed with a lot of the choices made, this story still is a cornerstone MUST-READ for any DC fan. 16 years after its publication, the Crisis is still a center of controversy and debate among fans. 50+ years of comics. Wiped out. End of story. LET'S SEE ANYONE ELSE DO THAT!! Only DC has the balls to do it twice (another time in Zero Hour). I highly recommend the book. But go easy on the dialogue. Back in the 80s, we expected heroes to be corny. Don't judge them on today's standards.

Crisis On Infinite Earths is possibly the best comic book I've ever read. There are so many characters and stories that you get thrown into, you can't help but fall in love with something, if not everything. Crisis is also great because it introduces you to the massive DC universe. You could seriously not know anything about DC characters and pick up Crisis, love it, and use it as your platform for every DC book you get afterward.

Why DC has decided to re-release Crisis on Infinite Earths 16 years after its original release is a mystery. Perhaps because they want a bite out of the wallets of gullible folks like myself. By 1985 I had "grown out" of comics, but I did hear about the Crisis storyline and I was intrigued--certainly not enough to follow a series through a year of comic books (I was getting a doctorate and had no inclination for such frivolity!), but enough to remember it. When I saw Crisis at the bookstore recently I thought I'd indulge in a little nostalgia and see how the universe of DC changed. In particular I was interested in how the single dimensional characters so poorly drawn in such flat colors became the more complex, better drawn and imagined characters I occasionally glimpse today. For instance, when I was young, Aquaman was a clean shaven Bruce Jenner-type in a silly orange top and green trunks, but now he's Poseidon with a flowing beard, Cap'n Hook hand and bad attitude. I imagined this transformation started, at least, with the Crisis.
If you've read it, you are no doubt snickering at my naivete. For, sure enough, for all the hype, very little changed forever with Crisis. Certainly it was not the stage for which DC's heroes became more complex and more visually interesting. The most significant things it contains are the death of the Flash (but he gets replaced with another Flash in the same costume) and Supergirl. Sure, other superheroes and supervillains die, but most of them are characters we hadn't seen or cared about in decades anyway. And therein lies the first of the two enormous problems with Crisis--in an attempt to incorporate literally every DC hero to date, the plot is convoluted and the characters watered down so that we simply don't care about any of their fates. Bat Lash? The Human Bomb? Why? And oddly, The Blue Beetle gets what appears to be a major role for the first several episodes, then gets dropped like a hot potato bug. Imagine a movie about the end of the universe in which every major actor in Hollywood in the last 50 years gets a cameo and only a cameo, and you'll have some sense of the scope of the problem. Writer Marv Wolfman isn't up to the challenge, but in fairness I'm not sure anyone would be.
The second problem is that, in spite of the affection many reviewers here obviously have for artist George Perez, he's not really that good. Look carefully at the pictures--sure, there are an awful lot of superheroes crammed into every panel, but the perspective and anatomy are often flawed. Especially where an object comes in front of another figure, often the line of the background figure does not come out where it ought. And although one reviewer recommends judging this book by its cover, I disagree. The quality of work on the cover, with its shading, is far superior to anything contained within, and not at all reflective of the book itself. Likewise, the detail of the pictures and the quality of the color I find lacking. For example, horrible shadow creatures plague the various Earths repeatedly, but they look so silly they can't be taken seriously. Perhaps I'm asking too much from a comic, but I think that Crisis set itself up to be taken seriously. And certainly the artwork and storylines of Marvel comics even 10 or more years earlier was of much higher quality. Remember the short lived New Gods, done at DC but by Jack Kirby, longtime Marvel artist? In fact, those characters return here--in particular Darkseid has an important role--and they are some of the most visually interesting in the lot.
In short, Crisis on Infinite Earths is only worth purchasing (and look at the price--it ain't cheap!) if you've already read the story and simply can't live without it. If you missed it first time around, do yourself a favor and avoid this Crisis altogether.

Great story, even better art by a true master. The art by George Perez is truly fantastic. No need to go into the story since most reviews will give you that, just know that if youre a DC fan or just want to read a great story with great art then read "Crisis"

I love comics, I love DC comics best of all, but I didn't much like this book.

"Crisis on Infinite Earths" was a huge, complex, sweeping re-write of DC comics history. When it was originally being published, I tried to keep up with all the cross-over, cross-ties, and side effects that were being spawned by this huge ...... mess .... When I saw this book being published I thought "Ah Ha! Now it'll all make sense!" Uh-uh; nope; not a bit.

This book is an overview of the Crisis, told from the perspective of Barry Allen, the Flash. It is just as muddled, illogical, and confused as the original sources.

Most disappointing, I didn't even find it to be a "good read."

I recieved the novel promptly with all professional documents. I bought it to read not to collect, ere go; the minor crease on the rear cover did not bother me. A decent comic book, very 80's plot, It was definitely revoluionary for it's time and age, not the best I've ever read but will be appreciated by anyone who wants to understand sequential art history.

I have always disliked this story. I enjoyed all the various alternate earths in the DC universe... Earth-1, the current superheroes, Earth-2, the Silver Age heroes, Earth-S, the Fawcett characters (Shazam, etc.). Even Earth-C, with Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew (don't ask, it was a guilty pleasure even then ;)
This is the storyline that killed them all. Garbage collection for the DC universe. Of course, I've always tended to dislike "revisionist" ideas. Give me all the "alternate" versions you like, just don't mess with the originals.
And now, DC has "Elseworlds" stories, and recently did a re-telling of an old JLA story involving an alternate earth with villainous versions of the JLA (the JLA: Earth-2 graphic novel). So it was all for naught, anyway.
I've been a big Marv Wolfman and George Perez fan for a long time, but pass this one by. A lame villain and pointless revisionism make this story not worthwhile.

This is one of the classic stories about the DC Universe. Many of the things found in the Crisis will come back around again when reading the recent Infinite Crisis storyline. While it is a little bit hard to follow and requires a lot of thinking as you read due to the tons of characters and action, COIE is an awesome story with great artwork. It is highly recommended for anyone who is a fan of DC.

I started reading DC comics in the late 1980s, so everything I've ever known has been post-Crisis. I'd often heard that "everything changed" after Crisis, but for me it didn't matter because as far as I was concerned, this was how things had always been.

I've seen countless references to this series over the past two decades, however, so I figured it was finally time to see what all the talk was about.

The Writing:

For some reason, I had formulated the impression that this series was well written. Perhaps that idea was based on the assumption that people don't spend two decades talking about a story that's poorly written. Well, apparently they do. Marv Wolfman's writing is painful to read. Characters constantly refer to themselves in the third person (a horribly awkward way of helping readers learn their names). The heroes give hackneyed soliloquies to explain why they're fighting the good fight. The villains give equally trite speeches to explain their motives. Perhaps all comics had such cheesy writing in the mid-80s; I haven't read much from that era, so for all I know this was just par for the course. But Crisis took place during Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing, so certainly not all writers were as clumsy and stiff as Wolfman.

The Art:

George Perez has plenty of fans, but I can't count myself as one of them. I won't dispute the fact that he has loads of talent, but his tendency to fill every page with as many panels as possible just leaves the whole thing looking like a cluttered, chaotic mess. (In Perez's defense, there's really no way he could have done it differently, due to the extreme wordiness of Wolfman's script.) While I appreciate the effort to include as many characters in the story as possible (it was, after all, a celebration of DC's 50th anniversary), I wish Perez would have exercised at least a small amount of restraint. Just because you can fit 200 characters on a single page, it doesn't mean you should. By focusing on everybody, the series really focuses on nobody.

Overall Value:

Crisis may have been important in its day, but nostalgia is the only value that this series has anymore. Yet if it's nostalgia you're seeking, you'd be better off looking for the original 12 comics on eBay. At least that way you'll get to read them the way they were originally presented. This collection suffers greatly from its sleekness. The updated coloring and the glossy pages give the collection a feeling of modernity that is completely at odds with the story itself. Read this series on pulpy paper with muddy coloring, and you might be able to appreciate it for what it is: a relic.

In one years time, DC Comics killed off the original Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Silver Age Flash and Supergirl and it all made sense. Written by legendary scribe Marv Wolfman and pencil genius George Perez, Crisis is by far, one of the more important masterpieces of comic book literature.

I know of a great companion piece in the form of a book entitled "The Adventures of Darkeye: Cyber Hunter" whose odd manner of having log-entries over chapters reads exactly like the script for a graphic novel, even though it is in the science fiction/high-tech and cyberpunk genre along with books like "Cryptonomicon", "Snow Crash", "Prey", and "Altered Carbon". Very fast-paced, incredibly visual, and very exciting due to its action-packed pages.

I've always appreciated that old adage:"You can't have your cake and eat it too." Thing is, if one of the theories of alternate realities is true, you CAN have your cake AND eat it too! Because in one reality you have it and in the other you eat it! And that's why many of us sci-fi and comic book readers have always loved that concept. Think of H.Beam Piper's series of "Paratime" stories or Keith Laumer's "World's of the Imperium" stories. When comic book writers had that particular device to work with, the results were some of the most enjoyable reading I've ever had. I consider the seminal story in FLASH # 123(Silver Age,Sept.1961)by Gardner Fox, Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella "Flash Of Two Worlds", where Barry Allen encountered Jay Garrick to be nothing short of pure genius! TRUELY INSPIRED, the idea that the heroes of the Golden Age comic books were inhabitants of an alternate reality. (Although I think they mislabeled Earth-1 and Earth-2. Earth-1 should have in all fairness been the original Golden Age world.) I looked forward every year to the annual team-up between the JSA and the JLA. The notion that there were different versions of our beloved heroes in parallel universes was purely exhilirating! I can't imagine what entered into the minds of Marv Wolfman and his minions to try and destroy that wondrous multiplicity of parallel earths. To this day, nearly 20 years after the events of COIE, IT JUST REALLY PISSES ME OFF!In fact it reminds me of the way the Soviets purged their history books every year, actually touching up old photographs, removing or restoring people in them by who was in favor with Stalin and who wasn't. George Orwell also wrote about that kind of revisionism in "1984". Who could have imagined that the editors of DC Comics would resort to such a device? I keep reading the justification for this was to clear up the confusion of all the multiple versions of their characters and restore a sense of "continuity". HUH? I was eleven years old when I read that original FLASH story and I wasn't confused! As for continuity? In a Comic Book Universe? Come on,GIMME A BREAK! Sure, I take my comic books seriouly, but by removing the alternate reality option from the DC Universe, you've taken away the best device writers have for explaining all those inevitable discontiniuties that will arise when you have scores of various writers and artists all chronicling the adventures of a particular character over the course of around 65 years. Anyway, as I see the DC Universe, it's still a mess with plenty of discontinuites and contradictions. And I know they are just dying to do alternate realities and parallel universes at DC: in the Silver Age they were called "Imaginery Stories", now they call them "Elseworlds". How do you classify these stories? Imaginary stories of an already imagined reality? SHEESH! When DC writers were allowed the parallel world option, it was a far more elegant solution than the so-called "Elseworlds" mess they seem to have imposed on themselves. Untie the hands of the DC staff and bring back all our beloved parallel Earths! UNDO the chaos that has existed since the COIE debacle that actually spawned far more confusion than it (supposedly) cleared up. Besides, as all of us lovers of the parallel Earths know: ALL THOSE SUPPOSEDLY ERADICATED WORLDS CONTINUE TO EXIST! If you follow the time-line back to the time of COIE, the time-stream split into at least two or more tributaries: the current DC Universe and those in which THOSE EVENTS NEVER TOOK PLACE! At least that's the case if the theory of alternate time-lines is true. SO COME DC GIVE US ACCESS TO THAT OTHER TIME-LINE, where the chaotic and ill-considered events of COIE never took place! AND WHILE YOU'RE AT IT, SINCE YOU BROUGHT BACK OLIVER QUEEN AND HAL JORDAN, YOU MIGHT AS WELL BRING BACK BARRY ALLEN!!!!!

Crisis On Infinite Earths, is a very good read if you have any knowledge of the DC Universe and/or are interested in the characters. The story it self is too long to make it a great read, it has many nice plot twists but also the unneccesary death of Flash. The art is good and very detailed, though not as great as the artists today. In overall i recommend to read the book in one read instead of reading it like it was supposed to be, a 12 month read.

I Originally sat down dying to read this book. After the first hour or so of reading i decided that it had become more a chore than anything else. Not saying the book is boring, cuz its not. But its so dang long...it was almost painful. Otherwise the story is good, if not a little chaotic at times. If you have some bad A.D.D. then you may have trouble following most the pages in this book as about a million things happen in the span of like 5 pages. I gotta say though, when i finished the book, I felt alot better about it, and realized just how much i enjoyed it. If you dont know alot about some of the smaller characters in the dc universe, this will update you just fine.

I just finished reading this book, and boy am I glad. If it wasn't for George Perez, I never would have bought it. I already know why DC did this book, to clean up their continuity. They also had to kill off a few major characters so it would be "eventful." The story is highly overrated, as are most stories now-a-days by "acclaimed" writers. But, I'm a sucker for George Perez art, so I did not really have a choice. Same goes for Byrne, Zeck, and Bright. No matter who writes the stuff they draw, I'll buy it. Too bad Bright and Zeck don't do more stuff and Byrne doesn't do more than one book. I have almost all their DC and Marvel stuff.

I totally thought that this was the graphic novel. Although this was sort of fun, it's no graphic novel. It also has all manner of grammar mistakes which is sorta unacceptable. But if you like comic novelizations--give it a whirl, I guess.

The two things I can commend about the Crisis are George Perez's art, which is beautiful; and its sheer scope, (involving nearly every DC character invented over 50 years), which although frequently imitated, has never been matched.
That being said, I consider almost everything else about the story an abomination. Most of the blood-splattering, scenery-chewing, plotless nihilism that defined superhero comics from the late 80's to the late 90's can ultimately be traced back to this story.
The Crisis is the story of a massacre on an unimaginable scale. Almost the entire population of a supposedly infinite multiverse dies in terror and hellish agony. A handful of universes survive, and do so only by amalgamating themselves into a single world in which the survivors' identities are warped beyond recognition. And this is labelled a victory.
The thematic wrongness of this, considering the characters used, has always galled me. For better or for worse, the traditional superheroes like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are melodrama incarnate. While it is possible write an occasional nihilistic story about such characters as a counterpoint to their usual adventures (and it will be all the more poignant because of the seeming inappropriateness of the characters used), these characters cannot be used for nihilistic stories the majority of the time, or the result is absurdity on the level of Sandy Duncan playing King Lear. (Granted, Sandy could probably play a decent Lear, but what if someone declared it was the only part she would be ever be allowed to play?)
And make no mistake, the Crisis imposed a tone of despair to the DC books that it took them over a decade to climb back out of. Batman fit into this bleak new world fairly well, but Superman floundered for fifteen years while writers tried desperately to make him violent and unhappy enough to be "relevent." Only recently have they finally let him be optimistic and happy again, and his comics are selling better because of it.
I have never believed that a story has to be despairing in order to be intelligent, nor do I believe that making a story hopeless automatically makes it clever. My proof is the Crisis: not only is the tone devoid of light or hope, but the plot is an incoherent hash from start to finish. I sometimes pick up the book in a store and leaf through it in the same way a driver slows down to gaze disbelievingly at a train wreck.
Nice cover art by Alex Ross, anyway.

As a story this work is passable. It has beautiful artwork. There is a great credibility gap. Among comments when this was new was the question: Why didn't the heroes enlist the aid of the plant Daxam where everyone is as powerful as Mon-El)? Answer: If they did that, they would win. The story is a stacked deck. Would God really allow his creation to be in effect destroyed (from infinite worlds to one world IS destruction). In another story (Supergirl: Manny Happy Returns) Peter David postulates that to preserve free will, God would allow everyone in the cosmos to be destroyed (elimination of life as well as free will). Of course that makes no sense. One cannot accept the premise. Crisis was written (with its contradictions) for a different purpose. The story doesn't work, but as intended, it was a springboard to a whole new way (that was wrong). Crisis is a mess created so that self-indulgent writers would be freed from any constraints. The lack of constraints was supposed to open up imaginitive possibilities (after history was changed (once) at the dawn of time. Instead, history has been changed at the drop of a hat ever since. Before this, continuity was not a confusing mess (despite what one hears). If it had been, Gardner Fox's earth two (when it was current) would have been condemned, rather than loved. Our sickening culture, devoid of grown-ups caused this. We've been living with it ever since. It practically killed the comic idustry. On top of this, I never heard anyone at DC offer sympathy (at the time) to the long time fans whose heroes were in effect destroyed. If one must do this, at least feel compassion for those who cannot go along with this. They didn't. They didn't even print critical letters. Read this to see what I'm talking about. Make up your own mind.

Without a doubt this is the biggest piece of crap I have ever read. I couldn't get past the 2nd or 3rd chapter. Long, overly involved, overly complex, and just plain old stupid. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes you embarassed to admit you love comic books, and this is exactly the reason DC tanked in the 80s and needed to be revived by Batman and Gaiman's Sandman in the late 80s. Read only if looking for simultaneous cures for insomnia and sanity. This was nothing more than a waste of my time and brain-space.

I read this because it was a legendary tale. It was a big let down. The plot is very simple and stretched very thin. The significance of the story is big but how it plays out is long and slow. It does have a cool moment here and there but most of it is very hoaky and over the top.

this is the most confusing comic ever. it tades place when the many eath of many dementions are being bestroyed one by one. all the DC hearoes are called to one place to fight the evel. what i like about it is that it is long and it keepsyou wnting to reed more.

art it is one of the best drawn out art work i have ever seen. one it is bright and two it capture every deatale.i would say to buy this comic if you want to dea every super hearo and villin in one comic.[two peaple die]

You read it right, apart from having great Perez & Ordway art, this filth ruined a great history of DC characters written by many such as Gardner Fox, Robert Kanigher and trashed Julius Schwartz's concept of alternate Earths.
This also paved other EVENTS book hopefully ending with a real... FINAL CRISES.

If you like books that are well written and stories that are interesting DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS BOOK! The plot is whimsical, the action is sparse, the events are redundant, the drama is forced, and the logistics of the story (He's dead! No he isn't. Yes he is. No he isn't./The world is being destroyed! No it isn't. Is. Isn't. Is. Isn't.) ...well they just want to make you put the book down. Do yourself a favor don't waste your time or money. This story is for OBSESSIVE DC Comics super fans who will just get a kick out of seeing so many characters interact with each other.

If you want a quality, well written DC Comics universe story, try IDENTITY CRISIS instead. That I give 5/5 stars.

I just finished reading this book, and boy am I glad. If it wasn't for George Perez, I never would have bought it. I already know why DC did this book, to clean up their continuity. They also had to kill off a few major characters so it would be "eventful." The story is highly overrated, as are most stories now-a-days by "acclaimed" writers. But, I'm a sucker for George Perez art, so I did not really have a choice. Same goes for Byrne, Zeck, and Bright. No matter who writes the stuff they draw, I'll buy it. Too bad Bright and Zeck don't do more stuff and Byrne doesn't do more than one book. I have almost all their DC and Marvel stuff.

I love comics, I love DC comics best of all, but I didn't much like this book.

"Crisis on Infinite Earths" was a huge, complex, sweeping re-write of DC comics history. When it was originally being published, I tried to keep up with all the cross-over, cross-ties, and side effects that were being spawned by this huge ...... mess .... When I saw this book being published I thought "Ah Ha! Now it'll all make sense!" Uh-uh; nope; not a bit.

This book is an overview of the Crisis, told from the perspective of Barry Allen, the Flash. It is just as muddled, illogical, and confused as the original sources.

Most disappointing, I didn't even find it to be a "good read."