Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
May 5, 2018 review:
Heavy on page count, light on plot. Crisis on Infinite Earths is a rambling slog that begins with promise only to flatline at the midpoint. Once the villain enters the spotlight, all mystery and excitement just disappear. Furthermore, there are so many words that the action is about as interesting as listening to Ben Stein read the dictionary. Seriously, this shit is mind-numbing.
One would think that a lot of words equates to a lot of plot or a complex narrative. Nope. The Anti-Monitor wants to absorb the positive matter multiverse into the anti-matter universe because someone at DC needed a reason to get every DC hero and villain into one story. That is all. 12 long boring issues of nothing.
Thankfully, the art is pretty and helps divert some attention from the terrible writing. Sure, it's dated, but there is some obvious skill on display. I really wanted to like this book because it is a big event in DC history, but I just can't. It's too long, too stupid, and too goddamn wordy.
If you want a good DC event book, look towards Multiversity, Final Crisis, or Darkseid War (which features an Anti-Monitor that doesn't completely suck). Looking for more worlds colliding in an interesting and meaningful way? Check out Jonathan Hickman's entire Avengers run. Hickman attempts and succeeds in creating a massive story about multiversal collapse where Wolfman and company do not.
This one is recommended only for readers that are heavily interested in DC lore, no matter how stupid.
Original review:
Big. Dumb. Wordy. Epic. This one is important historically for DC, but it just isn't good.
Heavy on page count, light on plot. Crisis on Infinite Earths is a rambling slog that begins with promise only to flatline at the midpoint. Once the villain enters the spotlight, all mystery and excitement just disappear. Furthermore, there are so many words that the action is about as interesting as listening to Ben Stein read the dictionary. Seriously, this shit is mind-numbing.
One would think that a lot of words equates to a lot of plot or a complex narrative. Nope. The Anti-Monitor wants to absorb the positive matter multiverse into the anti-matter universe because someone at DC needed a reason to get every DC hero and villain into one story. That is all. 12 long boring issues of nothing.
Thankfully, the art is pretty and helps divert some attention from the terrible writing. Sure, it's dated, but there is some obvious skill on display. I really wanted to like this book because it is a big event in DC history, but I just can't. It's too long, too stupid, and too goddamn wordy.
If you want a good DC event book, look towards Multiversity, Final Crisis, or Darkseid War (which features an Anti-Monitor that doesn't completely suck). Looking for more worlds colliding in an interesting and meaningful way? Check out Jonathan Hickman's entire Avengers run. Hickman attempts and succeeds in creating a massive story about multiversal collapse where Wolfman and company do not.
This one is recommended only for readers that are heavily interested in DC lore, no matter how stupid.
Original review:
Big. Dumb. Wordy. Epic. This one is important historically for DC, but it just isn't good.
After having read this for the second time, I can say the following: reading this book when you only know a handful of DC's superheroes is a very. bad. idea. That's what I did the first time around, and back when I read this in October '08 I didn't really understand any of it. Most of the time I spent reading it I was horribly confused. But now, a year later, most of the characters who appear in this book were at least a little familiar to me, and so I could focus more on the story. It was a lot more fun, and a lot more emotionally compelling, and it really is epic.
Probably more of a 2.5, but still a bit of a frustrating slog of a read. I feel like it definitely would've been more enjoyable at the time of publication, but reading it now doesn't bring the same hype or feel. Part of this comes from it being pretty dated in terms of the structuring and dialogue; some of it is fairly tough or awkward to read. But for me the biggest issue is just how much of a chore it felt like to get through, I found myself feeling as if I was reading/viewing the same sequences over and over again. Lots of generic panels of heroes fighting hordes of shadow demons followed by longs stretches of info dumps. There were some memorable scenes (particularly the deaths of Supergirl and The Flash), and the final issue was pretty good, particularly the last fight between Kal-L and the Anti-Moniter. But overall I feel like this is a book that does better in its legacy rather than its execution.
This was the comic event that influenced all other comic events, and it’s been the only one I’ve read that really feels that it has any lasting impact (although I know much of it has been reversed and retconned). When characters die, it feels as if they will not just come back a few issues later via magic or time travel or other tropes. There’s real emotion in each issue, and the sheer number of characters, some so obscure I had to Google them after each appearance, does not detract from feeling as if each person has impact and agency. Marv Wolfman and George Perez craft a unique story that more than accomplishes its goal of unifying 50 years of DC Comics history.
Without a doubt one of the most important comic stories ever written, as it was the first time a comics multiverse hit the reset button. The problem is that it was such a huge undertaking untangling the insanely complex and contradictory 50 years of comics continuity, that this story is unbelievably dense. I have read A LOT of DC comics, and I still found this very overwhelming. There’s just SO MANY characters here, many with their own subplots within subplots within subplots. The story unfolds over all of multiple realities, and is therefore difficult to grasp at times. There is just so much going on every single panel in this 350 page behemoth. It’s so easy to get lost.
That being said, I have to acknowledge what Wolfman and Perez accomplished here. They DID manage to clean up the timelines, while also giving some pretty beautiful and poignant send-offs to long-time characters. Although the story is hard to grasp, the concepts are brilliant, especially for their time. Although it happens almost every year now, a huge macro plot where multiverses are at stake must have been completely astounding to readers at the time.
This is also George Perez in his prime, going out of his way to give life and detail to many very obscure characters who had not been seen in decades. He absolutely did not have to do that. But he did anyway, and I am hard pressed to think of another artist who could capture this multi-universe epic in the way he did. It is a stunning achievement of comic art. Not a must-read by any means, but a story to be appreciated for the context of it’s time.
That being said, I have to acknowledge what Wolfman and Perez accomplished here. They DID manage to clean up the timelines, while also giving some pretty beautiful and poignant send-offs to long-time characters. Although the story is hard to grasp, the concepts are brilliant, especially for their time. Although it happens almost every year now, a huge macro plot where multiverses are at stake must have been completely astounding to readers at the time.
This is also George Perez in his prime, going out of his way to give life and detail to many very obscure characters who had not been seen in decades. He absolutely did not have to do that. But he did anyway, and I am hard pressed to think of another artist who could capture this multi-universe epic in the way he did. It is a stunning achievement of comic art. Not a must-read by any means, but a story to be appreciated for the context of it’s time.
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I applaud the effort, but the story was simply too drawn out and the ssme thing happened over and over again - only to be solved by a literal Deus Ex Machina. How dissppointing.
Una de las obras de DC más editadas desde su publicación hasta el presnete. Cuenta al menos con diez ediciones en nuestro idioma pero esta corresponde a la del box set en inglés no publicado en castellano como tal.
adventurous
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No