It's 2004 and you're tasked with writing a sequel to COIE. What do you do?

[MajorHoy]

At the end of the event, Cassie Sandsmark wakes up and hears the shower running in the bathroom . . .

[Thezmage]

Wait I just realized I'm the writer, not the editor, so I can't do anything about Identity Crisis.
WELL for starter I'm not going with evil Max Lord or evil COIE characters...

Issue 1: The survivors of the first Crisis look at a futuristic TV-looking thing displaying scenes from Identity Crisis. Alexander Luthor says "thankfully that's not the real world, just the way the world would look if it was written by a terrible writer who hates women."

[Restingvoice]

Issue 1: The survivors of the first Crisis look at a futuristic TV-looking thing displaying scenes from Identity Crisis. Alexander Luthor says "thankfully that's not the real world, just the way the world would look if it was written by a terrible writer who hates women."

Thanks but by that point the effect of Identity Crisis is already felt by the characters in their respective titles. Robin, for example.

[Stanlos]

I was surprised people were okay with the premise of Identity Crisis even before we got to the certainly-not-misogynist-no-way-no-how plot details. As I understood it, it rendered the League as fakers znd wannabes who don't really best their opponents but rather handicap them so they reek. I didn't get why that was lauded but maybe I misread it.

[MajorHoy]

I was surprised people were okay with the premise of Identity Crisis even before we got to the certainly-not-misogynist-no-way-no-how plot details. As I understood it, it rendered the League as fakers znd wannabes who don't really best their opponents but rather handicap them so they reek. I didn't get why that was lauded but maybe I misread it.

Who said people were okay with any part of it?

[Captain Nostalgia]

I didn't mid Infinite Crisis at the time. (even though it had a bit of that junky commercial feel to it; often associated with big events)

- I remember liking the fact that the Anti Monitor had not returned, but rather his corpse was just being used to power Alexander Luthor's contraption.

- I also liked how Alexander Luthor met his end, being offed in a dirty back alley by DC's two most famous villains (Joker & Luthor)

- I also liked the return of earth 2 Superman, but I didn't enjoy that they killed him, and I was miffed at Psycho Pirate's demise as well.

For me, I liked what Geoff Johns did because it was original, as opposed to the return of the Anti Monitor part 2, which we would eventually get down the road.

[Jon Clark]

Main points:

1) Barry Allen is back for the duration of the story. The back door plot Marv Wolfman left is used. Barry is between panels in that final run in the original Crisis. It's Barry that brings the threat to the heroes' attention.

2) The threat is that in the Anti-Matter Universe someone has discovered the Anti-Monitor's base. They are using the base to attack the merged Earth we saw in Crisis #12 (the one that remembered Supergirl, had the E2 Robin and Huntress buried, had the original Captain Atom, ...)

3) We find that the Luthor of that world is the secret head of the Society whose current goal is largely to occupy the attention of the heroes on the present Earth.

4) The Pre-Crisis Brainiac is assisting Luthor and has seized control of Brother Eye which has left all of Batman's secrets in the hands of the bad guys (secret ID's contingency plans...). This information also led to Luthor being behind the scenes setting up Identity Crisis.

5) The Wizard (of Earth-Two) has been influencing events in the mystic realms leading up to Day of Judgement. His goal was to undermine the nature of magic so that he could gain greater mastery. Behind the scenes his actions were part of a war between Chaos and Order. Chaos trying to make magic more unpredictable and sway the universe towards Chaos. The Lords of Order meanwhile were hoping to unbalance magic entirely with both themselves and Chaos being destroyed leaving only science.

6) The Justice League of Merged Earth- Nightwing (who is in his 30's), Fury (E2 Wonder Woman's daughter), Wally West (far slower than his Earth-Prime counterpart, Kyle Rayner (with Alan Scott's ring), Mary Marvel, Calibre (John Irons w/ Bulletman's powers), Captain Christopher Adam (Captain Atom),

7) Other major players: Hawkman, Donna Troy, Power Girl, Waverider, Extant/Hawk, Elongated Man, Flash, Impulse,

8) Doppelgangers: Supermen of both Earths, Batmen of both Earths, Hal/Parallax, Roy Thomas/Jerry Ordway Captain Marvels

9) Final Battle: Time trapper vs Spectre (of merged Earth)

10) Fallout:

Barry opens the door to the Multiverse for both Earths.

We discover that the Time Tapper has been trying to keep the multiverse out and the two Earths separate. His failures have led to the Pocket Earth, the confusion with the origins of Power Girl/Donna Troy/Hawkman, the creation of Monarch & Parallax, Jason's resurrection and hypertime.

Power Girl returns to Earth-Two. Kyle is either replaced by his Merged Earth counterpart or inspired by him so Kyle now is Alan's successor with the ring, Batman (on the Prime Earth) becomes ostracized by the hero community with Nightwing becoming a member of the Justice League.

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

I have a question. People seem so gung-ho about the idea of Kyle suddenly becoming Alan Scott's successor and wielding his ring, but they seem to entirely ignore Alan Scott in this equation. Why would Alan Scott give Kyle (or anybody) his ring, when Alan isn't going anywhere and isn't going to retire from being Green Lantern? And judging from Alan's origin story, doesn't his lantern or the ring decide who's going to wield it?

[Jon Clark]

I have a question. People seem so gung-ho about the idea of Kyle suddenly becoming Alan Scott's successor and wielding his ring, but they seem to entirely ignore Alan Scott in this equation. Why would Alan Scott give Kyle (or anybody) his ring, when Alan isn't going anywhere and isn't going to retire from being Green Lantern? And judging from Alan's origin story, doesn't his lantern or the ring decide who's going to wield it?

It's 2004. The JSA has lost everyone except Alan, Jay and Ted. Even Doctor Fate and the Spectre have new hosts. Hal is back to being the main Green Lantern, Alan has left the GL name and ring behind sometime in the 90's. The original Infinite Crisis ended with Jade dead and Alan losing an eye.

Take your pick, But Alan wasn't on the most solid ground at the time and Kyle had lost a lot of ground with the GLC coming back into existence. Passing the torch from Alan to Kyle preserves the original concepts for both characters. Kyle gets to be the sole wielder of a unique ring, Alan gets to have a successor that isn't actually the Starheart's living embodiment.

[Timothy Hunter]

Infinite Crisis was... fine. I would leave the majority of the basic plot threads intact. I love the idea of four disparate stories covering four very different aspects of the DC Universe coming together to form a unified narrative. The problem being that those four side stories are more interesting than the main story dealing with Alexander Luthor and Superboy Prime.

The main issue with Infinite Crisis was execution. The attempt at shock value completely soured what could have been a fun Crisis story. I wouldn't have had the Freedom Fighters, Titans, and Bloodlines characters murderered in such a brutal fashion. These were C to D list characters, it's not shocking when characters who the casual reader hasn't even heard of gets unceremoniously killed off. The only effect it has is piss off the 100 people who happen to be huge fans of Baby Wildebeest. In fact, I probably would have done away with Superboy Prime entirely. A near universally hated character who sucks the fun out of comic he appears in.

I wouldn't have had Deathstroke nuke Bludhaven. Slade Wilson when he first appeared in the pages of New Teen Titans was clearly an evil person. Marv Wolfman later walked this back, making Slade more of an anti-hero in his 90s ongoing. This felt more than a little disingenuous, but the way Geoff Johns portrays Slade in his Teen Titans run and here is so far in the other direction that it borders on lunacy. We have three versions of Slade Wilson which might as well be three other characters. The destruction of Bludhaven was detrimental to Nightwing's character as well. Bludhaven was a fully realized and unique location that fitted Dick perfectly. Placing Dick Grayson in New York or Gotham doesn't have the same magic. At least DC didn't go with their original plan to have Nightwing die alongside the rest of Bludhaven. Then perhaps, Infinite Crisis would be just as hated as Identity Crisis.

[magha_regulus]

The Earth 2 Wonder Woman is technically still alive on Olympus. I'd bring her back. If I had to do a sequel to COIE I'd basically undo it in a way where all the characters would still remember their Post Crisis memories, but the Pre-Crisis reality would be restored.

[Restingvoice]

The Earth 2 Wonder Woman is technically still alive on Olympus. I'd bring her back. If I had to do a sequel to COIE I'd basically undo it in a way where all the characters would still remember their Post Crisis memories, but the Pre-Crisis reality would be restored.

aren't the gods also get rebooted?

[king81992]

I wouldn't do it.

[Jon Clark]

I wouldn't do it.

then we move on to the next writer and he just might be willing to go with killing off Dick Grayson ... plys who knows who else that survived even Geoff Johns version.

[kcekada]

First, I'd day 'Hell, no!'.

But if I said 'Yes', I'd want to undo what Crisis did wrong. Put JSA on its own Earth (not the 52 version). I'd do something to explain how JSA members can still be alive -- but I'd probably de-age them to how they looked in the Silver Age. Wonder Girl would be Wonder Woman's younger sister. Fury would be Golden Age Wonder Woman's daughter. Carter Hall and Katar Hol would be two different people.