Did Crisis fix things or screw them up?

[Rip]

I've always thought this was an interesting debate. What do you guys think? Some say Crisis was supposed to make the DC Universe easier to understand? Did this happen? Or is it more screwed up than ever? Sometimes I wish it would go back to having Earth Prime, 1, 2, 3, 4, S, X, C- etc. Or am I talking crazy?

[shadroch]

Certainly played havok with the Legion of Super-Heroes.

I gave up on them when they tried to change the origin,threw out all the 20th century stories ect,ect.Thirty years of continuity shoot to hell.Have not read much DC last ten years so my answer is based on the first couple years after the "crisis".I'm hoping Flash and SG somehow,at long last, succeed and the crisis passes.

[Rip]

Certainlly screwed up a lot like from Hawkman, to Power Girl and Supergirl. BTW I hear they are now bringing her back. (not the matrix clone)

[Zonker]

Screwed up.

 

Crisis could have been accomplished I suppose without completely wrecking the previous 50 years' worth of DC stories. But it was the collateral damage caused by Crisis + Byrne Superman + Wonder Woman reboot that really wrecked things:

 

1) As Shadroch mentioned in another thread, none of the Legion of Super-Heroes stories from the 1950s to 1985 can survive intact, since they were so tied to a Superboy who no longer (ever) exists.

 

2) No Wonder Woman in JSA invalidates the Golden Age All-Star Comics from #8 on (though John Byrne at least tried to fix this in his WW run by sending Diana's mother back in time to WWII to be her stand-in).

 

3) No Wonder Woman in JLA invalidates Justice League stories from B&B 28 on up to JLA 69. DC wants us to mentally substitute Black Canary in for WW.

 

And after Crisis, they did another reboot with Zero Hour, then decided with Hyper-Time they didn't really need to worry about straightening out continuity after all!

 

Imagine the Marvel fans outrage if Amazing Spiderman #1-#149 were revealed to have "never really happened?" (But Marvel came close to doing that with their clone saga, eh?)

 

Instead, I think they should have just been a lot less promiscious about the multiple earths storylines-- save it for the annual JLA/JSA summer teamups. (remember those?) Then go ahead with the Byrne Superman and Perez Wonder Woman reboots, but do it in a way that allows the creators to side-step past continuity without going out of the way to invalidate that continuity.

 

Fanboy mode = off

[tilleycs]

Crisis was where they killed Barry Allen, right? MAJOR screw-up, to me. I'm still mad at them for doing that. And don't get me started about them turning Hal Jordan into a bad guy in Zero Hour. Those two were my favorites when I was collecting comics back in the 70's/80's.

[Rip]

Hyper-time.... I have always had this love hate feeling toward Crisis. I do feel this is of the best stories ever... yet (it also got me collecting over 20 DC books off the shelf at the time) I'm left with the bitter after effects of a destroyed DC continuity. I still feel like DC writers are scratching their heads trying to fix things 20 years later.

[tilleycs]

! I know, the question was in terms of the overall universe and organization. I just hate the events because they killed those two guys. Anyway, just babbling, never mind me...

[Kevin Boyd]

No, Crisis didn't screw up the DCU.

 

At the end of Crisis, if the powers that be had followed Wolfman's plan, then everything would have spun out of what happened at the end of the series. Yes, some things would have been out of order - that's why they did the 2 issue History of the DC Universe... to explain exactly how the new timeline fit together.

 

Personally, I like the streamlining. Having Earths 1 and 2 rolled into one gave the DCU a sense of history... and validated the heroic legacies that have become the focus of the DCU ever since.

 

What screwed things up was (a) waiting years before "rebooting" some characters, even after they had been active in DC comics post-Crisis and (b) giving creators free reign to do what they wanted instead of saying from this point forward...

 

So instead of picking up where Crisis left off we get creators creating completely new backstories for the main characters, and reimagining characters who had been actively appearing in the DCU mere months before their "revivals" (like the Katar Hol Hawkman who was in Justice League International before he arrived on earth in the Hawkworld series).

 

Zero Hour didn't help. Hypertime is best left ignored and forgotton.

 

The subsequent problem is that DC has since allowed writers enamored with the pre-Crisis timeline to try to revive elements because they liked them better than the current ones.

 

Kev

[JohnBull]

Everything you say is true, but you can't get away from the fact that comics aren't designed to be appreciated by people who have every character appearance from 1960 up. It is hard for those of us who have 25+ years invested in a character's growth, but the world has moved on. I collect the Legion and I share Shadroch's grievances. I also know Hal Jordan's fans have had kittens in recent years. I also used to collect Dr Strange and what they did to that character in the mid-90's you don't want to know about. At the end of the day though, I'm probably more than 20 years older than the target audience nowadays, so I'm prepared to let the kids have their fun.

[Joanna]

It is my intention to completely screw up the message board continuity in Crisis. Some will die. Some will get grey sideburns. Some will become clones. Some will lose all knowledge of how to grade. Some will switch from Marvel to DC. Some will find themselves inexplicably attractive to women. Some will form a boy band. Some will realize their character only had 2 lines. Some will gain 20 pounds and be unable to lose it. Some will get a new puppy. Some will plan a trip to Florida, hoping to visit CGC, and find out it never existed in this new continuity. And much, much more mayhem.

 

I simply want to make everyone angry in a beautiful fresh start.

 

-- Joanna

[Zonker]

Yes, I do understand that, and I realized I was about to go over the top with the fanboy rant. If the reboots really do bring in new readers/fans, then more power to them. So even though I like the O'Neil/Maggin/Swan/Anderson Superman, I recognize that the Byrne/Ordway/Jurgens version was necessary and superior in many ways, particular in bringing in the new readers. Likewise, the Barry Allen Flash can rest in peace, no complaints here.

 

But I do question whether the various Legion reincarnations are as successful (on relative sales terms) as the 1970s version. And with the new GL-- if it is really selling, then great, but why go out of one's way to trash the Silver Age version? Why not just retire the poor guy?

 

I just think we can have our cake and eat it too-- look at the nice mix of old and new we have seen with Gaiman's Sandman, James Robinson's Starman, and Geoff Johns' JSA and Hawkman revivals.

[Zonker]

It is my intention to completely screw up the message board continuity in Crisis. Some will die. Some will get grey sideburns. Some will become clones. Some will lose all knowledge of how to grade. Some will switch from Marvel to DC. Some will find themselves inexplicably attractive to women. Some will form a boy band. Some will realize their character only had 2 lines. Some will gain 20 pounds and be unable to lose it. Some will get a new puppy. Some will plan a trip to Florida, hoping to visit CGC, and find out it never existed in this new continuity. And much, much more mayhem.

 

I simply want to make everyone angry in a beautiful fresh start.

 

-- Joanna

 

Bring It On, Baby, Bring It On!

[Foolkiller]

I don't think that Crisis screwed things up... it just didn't really fix them completely either. Many who remember the stories that came before crisis remembered them with fondness and weren't all that concerned with all the divergent storylines. However, it was supposed to make the DCU simplier and more accessible to new fans, and I'm not sure that was really accomplished. Most of what it did was to make one version of the hero in question the "real" version and allow Elseworlds to tell the other stories.

 

In the process, DC took some bold steps by killing Supergirl and Barry Allen... both of which I thought were good moves. Making Superman the sole survivor of Krypton gets back to his roots, and in step with what would happen anyway, it's heroic that both heroes died fighting and sacrificing ultimately their own lives in the largest war waged in the DCU.

 

As for Hal Jordan, Zero Hour and the rest of the nonsense... there's nothing which has been done which cannot be undone. But I do think having Hal Jordan change, evolve, go nuts, was a very realistic touch in the super hero world... Eventually, Hal became a hero again... just not GL (incidentally, I hate the Kyle Rayner GL... John Stewart should have taken over).

 

I don't know that we need earth prime, 1, 2, A etc., because new readers need to be able to pick up DC books and not think they're reading a foreign language.

 

[JohnBull]

In the process, DC took some bold steps by killing Supergirl and Barry Allen... both of which I thought were good moves.

 

Wow ! There's a statement. Now tell us why.

[Rip]

BTW who remembers the comic that took place on Earth C–?

[Foolkiller]

The most important reason is that it made Crisis a truly remarkable, important, historical and thus ultimately sellable (and later resellable) product for DC. If there's no major story change, or character development (or death in this case) then the story isn't really all that novel. For instance... how many times have we seen on comic covers... in this issue SOMEONE DIES!!!! And then (let's take the recent Avengers storyline) it turns out to be... the Jack of Hearts... Jack of hearts... who the f--- cares?

 

As for why specifically killing Supergirl is a "good" move, I like the idea of turning Superman back into a unique loner with powers that are unique as well. It got to a point where everyone had Superman's powers and there were a 1000 other survivors from Krypton who we never knew about... and Supergirl was the ultimate representation of that trend. Her demise signaled for me an end to that era and the elimination of all other survivors and a committment to that ideal.

 

As for Barry Allen... as much as I loved him as the Flash... his moment of death was classic Barry... the ultimate sacrifice for the universe. A great moment in comics. Barry had been around for a long time... there was another character to assume the mantle of the Flash (Wally West) so the character himself wasn't eliminated and it gave substance to the life of Barry Allen... his death made his stories siginificant in the sense that we got a chance to see a true hero develop, go through his peak, and then make the ultimate sacrifice.

 

I think it was good because it gave Crisis credence, and a major story which does not make you feel, is not on some level controversial, isn't moving the reader at all. It doesn't always have to be death, and it shouldn't be overused, but when done right, with a major character... it can give the story real depth and meaning... especially a story as epic as Crisis.

[PedigreeMan]

BTW who remembers the comic that took place on Earth C–?

 

Oz-Wonderland War?

[Rip]

Yep, Cap. Carrot and the Zoo crew

[PedigreeMan]

Yep, Cap. Carrot and the Zoo crew