It's a DC Comics Crisis!

[Darkseid Is]

To my knowledge there are 5 Crisis stories that DC has made over the years. Some were turned into crisis later, I think (Zero Hour wasn't always Crisis in Time, was it?) and some are not Crisis-y (Identity Crisis). What are your favorites? What are your least favorites?

Crisis on Infinite Earths
Zero Hour
Identity Crisis
Infinite Crisis
Final Crisis

I've read them all except Zero Hour and I must say I find them all very enjoyable. They're all unique and so much fun for me. When I was getting into the DC universe, sometimes they were confusing to me but I would notice a character I wasn't familiar with, look them up online and learn about them until I could finally read them and understand who everyone was and what they did. These books may not be good jumping on points for new readers, but if you're curious you'll want to know who everyone is.

It's very difficult for me to pick a favorite because it would probably change day to day. If you ask me right now, I'd have to say Infinite Crisis. I thought it was an excellent sequel to the original Crisis on Infinite Earths and it introduced Jaime Reyes and Superboy Prime.

[Assam]

Review of each in 10 words or less:

Crisis on Infinite Earths- Great story, though Rebooting was unnecessary.

Zero Hour - Weird and dumb, but I dig it.

Identity Crisis - F**K THIS F**KING STORY WITH A RUSTY SHOVEL!!!

Infinite Crisis- There's a decent story here, but too much death.

Final Crisis- I'm not a Morrison fan.

Overall, ranking them, I'd say:

1. CoIE
2. Zero Hour
3. Final Crisis
4. Infinite Crisis
5. Identity Crisis

Though being honest, I don't have particularly fond feelings toward ANY of these stories.

[Lee Stone]

Favorite - Crisis on Infinite Earths
Least favorite - Identity Crisis

And I skipped Final Crisis.

[married guy]

The original is still the best.
I enjoyed Zero Hour, but wasn't keen on the treatment of the JSA.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Zero Hour was indeed subtitled A Crisis in Time from the beginning. Also, the initial title for Legends was Crisis of the Soul and Dark Nights: Metal was original going to be called Dark Crisis: Metal.

Plus, there's all the preceeding JLA/JSA team-ups that preceded Crisis, which were collected in the Crisis on Multiple Earths TPB.

So, really, these are the various Crisis events, some Multiverse-related, and others being a crisis of conscience.

The main Multiverse Crisis events are:

Crisis on Multiple Earths, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour: A Crisis in Time, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, Flashpoint, Dark Nights: Metal and Doomsday Clock.

[Jim Kelly]

I read all the Crisis events except IDENTITY CRISIS. When it was coming out, I would peak inside the issues in the store--as it was illustrated by one of my favourite artists, Rags Morales. But I was disgusted with what was done to Sue Dibny and I would not give one red cent to the people who created that trash.

With ZERO HOUR, my pull list was so big in those days that I had a back log of comics that I never got around to reading. I bought all of the titles that crossed over with it, but I totally missed the event at the time--and it took me a few years to get to that pile of comics and finally read the whole thing. It's not that bad--except that it does not end well.

That seems to be the case with almost every Crisis--they start out promising, but they end poorly. INFINITE CRISIS refused to give a proper ending and made us wait around a whole year to find out how it actually all turned out. FINAL CRISIS also had a cliff-hanger ending that only created confusion in how it intersected with the Batman books.

COIE is the best, but only by comparison with the way all the others fail to set the table. And being the first of these events, it has a lot to answer for.

[Darkseid Is]

Not to turn this into the Identity Crisis thread but is the big problem the rape? The amount of murder that takes place in these stories is atrocious compared to that. I understand it's a very very touchy subject and a subject that I don't take lightly at all, but is it that shocking? I found The Killing Joke much more disturbing.

[Jim Kelly]

Not to turn this into the Identity Crisis thread but is the big problem the rape? The amount of murder that takes place in these stories is atrocious compared to that. I understand it's a very very touchy subject and a subject that I don't take lightly at all, but is it that shocking? I found The Killing Joke much more disturbing.

There's a book called GIVE OUR REGARDS TO THE ATOMSMASHERS which features articles from writers talking about comics--and one of the chapters is by Brad Meltzer, "How I Spent My Summer Vacation with The Judas Contract."

Now I don't want to critique IDENTITY CRISIS too much, because as I say I refuse to read it. I know enough about it and have seen enough pages to know I don't like it. But the thing Meltzer admires in the Judas Contract is the opposite of what he did--although he may have been trying to replicate its effect.

Wolfman and Perez always knew what they were going to do with Terra. They laid the ground work, planted the seeds. Her character goes through a dramatic reversal but it was always part of the plan which is why it is so satisfying, even though it's heart breaking. And this is something that Meltzer clearly points out in his article. That's the true art of the Judas Contract that he admires--that the writers create the characters, set everything up, and then deliver the coup de grace.

Meltzer doesn't do that in IDENTITY CRISIS. If he had, then the argument could be made that he has every right to introduce those reversals in character and plot--because he planted all the seeds. But he's lifting the work from Gardner Fox and subverting it for his own ends to pull off that reversal.

That's what doesn't sit right with me. I'm sure Meltzer wanted to use those Fox inventions because he loved them, but it really would have been better if he created an original story of his own design.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

The biggest problem with Identity Crisis is that it reads like like fan fiction, which is something that a lot of modern comics can be accused of, but Meltzer took it to new heights. As a mystery, it doesn't really hold up, to the point that Geoff Johns had to work his magic to make it work by retconning Eclipso's manipulations and Jean Loring already being a bit nutty. As a re-examination of our heroes, it did some serious damage that several writers had to work real hard to rehabilitate. And, yes, it pretty much made Dr. Light impossible to use without rape being his primary feature.

[Jekyll]

Crisis on Infinite Earths- Really good and I enjoyed it. It was a neat idea at the time on how to declutter the DC universe. 8 out of 10.

Zero Hour- I have read some and the only reason was to see the JSA fight Extant. I will give it a 5 out of 10.

Identity Crisis- Here is the thing with Idenity Crisis. I think it would have worked better as a, "What if" story, instead of making it canon. Ralph and Sue did not deserve what happened, though I will say before this story I had never heard of Ralph and it certainly made me care for the character. The mind wipe thing was really dumb and out of character. I also did not like that after this story Ray Palmer pretty much drops off the face of the earth.
However, it did have one of the coolest fight scenes of all time when the league fought Deathstroke. 5/10.

Infinite Crisis- Really enjoyed this one, though the violence was a bit over the top. 8/10.

Final Crisis- Thanks to Grant Morrison, I now know what it feels like to drop acid. This one was of the most confusing, WTF, stories I have ever read. 3/10.

[The Darknight Detective]

Identity Crisis- Here is the thing with Idenity Crisis. I think it would have worked better as a, "What if" story, instead of making it canon.

The same could be said for The Killing Joke, which I dislike just about as much as Identity Crisis. As Elseworld stories instead, I could handle them a whole lot better.

[GrifterWC]

Crisis on Infinite Earths - The best of the "crisis" events I've read. 8 stars

Zero Hour - Interesting enough, some good some bad. 6 stars

Identity Crisis - Let's just say that this was the beginning of the end of my DC buying. -5 stars (One Year Later made that official).

[Assam]

Identity Crisis - Let's just say that this was the beginning of the end of my DC buying .

Yeah, if things like Graduation Day and and War Games got the ball rolling, Identity Crisis was truly the end of the DCU I loved (With OYL managing to make things even WORSE)

[Buried Alien]

The same could be said for The Killing Joke, which I dislike just about as much as Identity Crisis. As Elseworld stories instead, I could handle them a whole lot better.

THE KILLING JOKE had and continues to have a strong ELSEWORLDS feeling to it. It never felt like it fit in with the ongoing BATMAN canon. In fact, the only thing that *forced* THE KILLING JOKE into the canon was the decision to make Barbara Gordon's crippling a part of the regular continuity.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[j9ac9k]

Not to turn this into the Identity Crisis thread but is the big problem the rape? The amount of murder that takes place in these stories is atrocious compared to that. I understand it's a very very touchy subject and a subject that I don't take lightly at all, but is it that shocking? I found The Killing Joke much more disturbing.

Rape can certainly be handled well in fiction, but this was one of the worst.

*****SPOILERS FOR IDENTITY CRISIS***********
For me, it's not just that they showed her being raped, this revelation came on top of the fact that she had just been murdered, and her body horribly mutilated. (as an attempt to cover up the cause of death) THEN, on top of that, her murder and rape both were used as motivations for other characters to act - the murder was an accident that was meant to illicit a reaction from Atom, and the murder was there so that the League could be split on the whole mind-wiping thing. Sue was used as a complete plot device in both instances, where she was not treated as an actual character who had any agency and neither actually had to do with her life or her choices as a heroic person. Then of course, there's the fact that those TWO horrible indignities didn't even really have anything to do with each other - it was just heaping one horrible victimization on after another in a very short time.