|
In 1985, in an effort to scrape the barnacles off 50 years of continuity, DC
Comics published The Crisis on Infinite Earths, the end result of which
was a simpler, more streamlined DC Universe. While Crisis for the most
part achieved what it set out to accomplish, some problems remained, some of
which have lingered to this day.
In 1994, DC published another "attempt" with Zero Hour, which achieved
nothing. Now, in 2005, it appears DC is going for round three with Infinite
Crisis, written by Geoff Johns and penciled by Phil Jiminez.
The groundwork for Infinite Crisis was first laid over two years ago, on
the last page of Superman/Batman #6. Lex Luthor (who has been a big part
of the events building up to Infinite Crisis), taken out of power by
Superman and Batman, vowed there would be "a reckoning…a Crisis." That same
year, DC published Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day, in which Donna
Troy (the former Wonder Girl and another major player in Infinite Crisis'
buildup) was killed. Rather than moving to the afterlife, Donna found herself on
a strange, alien world. These two events were planned with Infinite
Crisis in mind.
In April of 2004, DC published Identity Crisis, which exposed the darkest
secrets of the JLA—that over the years, the League had magically mind-wiped the
memories of various super-villains. Batman walked in on the League during one
particular mind wipe. In an attempt to stop the League from doing what he
considered a morally questionable action, Batman was subdued and HIS memory of
the incident was wiped. Of course, being the world's greatest detective, he
figured out later what had happened, which led him to create the Brother Eye
satellite to monitor the other heroes. Once these secrets were brought to the
fore, a schism began to develop amongst the heroes while they served to
galvanize the villain community. All this time, hints were being dropped throughout the DC Universe at large of a forthcoming threat.
Events came to a head this past March in Countdown to Infinite Crisis.
Ted Kord, aka The Blue Beetle, discovered a far reaching conspiracy to eliminate
the super hero threat: someone had sabotaged Batman's Brother Eye satellite and
used it to create an army of murderous cyborgs called OMACs. Beetle paid for
this knowledge with his life.
Meanwhile, the two planets Rann (home of Adam
Strange) and Thanagar (home of Hawkman) went to war, one that would involve the
whole galaxy. In addition, The Spectre, no longer tethered to a human host, went
on a berserk rampage against all magic users. And finally, the villains, brought
together by Lex Luthor and his inner cabal (Talia Al Ghul, The Calculator, Black
Adam, Deathstroke and Dr. Psycho) were beginning to lash out at the heroic
community in a horrific fashion.
Things quickly went from bad to worse when Wonder Woman killed Checkmate leader
Maxwell Lord, resulting in the simultaneous activation of over a million OMACs.
While the heroes were able to eliminate a majority, hundreds of thousands still
remained active. The war between Rann and Thanager continued to escalate,
drawing in more and more planetary systems. The Spectre took his crusade to the
wizard Shazam, resulting in the wizard's death, the destruction of his home The
Rock of Eternity (and its subsequent split into thousands of pieces) and the
freeing of the Seven Deadly Sins. Donna Troy returned from beyond with knowledge
that a major catastrophe is coming, one with its roots in the original Crisis.
We haven't even gotten to issue one yet. Come back next week when I look at
issues one and two of Infinite Crisis, an event which DC promises will
"define the DC Universe for the next generation."
Don't tell Shaun Corley what he can't do!
|
