How would you have done the Crisis differently.

[adamishere1]

Since 1985, we've had Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, Blackest Night, Flashpoint, Forever Evil, Dark Nights Metal and Dark Nights: Death Metal.

Question is how would you have done any of these differently?

Sorry for the same questions in a couple of threads, just things bouncing around my head.

[bat39]

If we're talking just about COIE, then Marv Wolfman has said in an interview that he wished that it was a hard reboot and you didn't have characters who remembered the Pre-Crisis universe. IIRC, his original pitch was that the old universe whites out in COIE # 10, and COIE #11-12 recaps the history of the new universe.

[Jon Clark]

Crisis would have had its outcome only affect 1986 forward.

1) Earth 2 (and the others) exist prior to Crisis so Roy Thomas' books can go on.

2)The Earth-One Superman dies in Crisis #12 while the Earh-Two Superman and his Lois are folded into the New Earth. Kal-L is revealed to be physically the same age he's been since 1938 while Lois is rejuvenated. Helena Wayne is folded in (with her memories intact) as a relative of the New Earth Bruce. Power Girl is folded in with her origin intact.

3) Perez' Wonder Woman is set in the present with Diana just arriving in Man's World. But a little time warping occurs in the first arc. Steve's crash occur during the Cuban Missile Crisis- so Diana brings him back to the US in the 1960's. She also rescues Donna during this and takes her back to the island. Diana will meet Julia Kapatelis several times during this arc at times between 1963 and 1986. And timey-whimey stuff Donna ages to a teen and comes to the US before Diana's 1986 adventures begin.

Zero Hour serves to straighten pout the effects of Crisis,

1)Superman has his adventures with the Legion restored. There was no 20th Century Superboy adventures but young Clark did travel to the 30th Century.

2) Diana meets the Golden Age Wonder Woman and Lyta's backstory is revised to make her a contemporary of Donna's. Dian's own adventures are pushed back so that her place as a founding JLA member are restored.

3) Barry meets Wally with both being the Flash. We are told that Barry can make brief stops during his final run but will always have to return to it. The Speed Force is basically the result of the race between Barry and that tachyon from the dawn of Time through the end of it.

4) Jason's death is undone, but no one except the readers know it.

5) Parallax dies re-defeating the Anti-Monitor after attempts to rewrite history alters the end of the original Crisis.

[Restingvoice]

Since death is cheap now, no deaths
Since infinite earths are back including past earths in the Metaverse, no Crisis either
Since Zero Hour was there to clean up the inconsistency, that part doesn't happen, just Hal's story
Since Infinite Crisis happened because past heroes want their world back, this does not happen either
Final Crisis, Blackest Night and Brightest Day can happen, discounting things related to Pre Crisis continuity
Flashpoint happened because Barry wanted to prevent his mother's death. While that's not a Pre Crisis story, Johns would still be working on the title and made the change on his own, so Flashpoint will happen as it was.
Oh but this is what I want... well, I don't really care much about Barry's back story change. It can happen.

[Kirk Brent]

Some universes are lost but the core Earths of the DCU at the time (Earth-One, Earth-Two, Earth-Three, Earth-Prime, Earth-S, and Earth-X) survive.

The Anti-Monitor has discovered a newly-created universe that is aging rapidly. If he destroys this universe, the resulting energies will give him absolute power.

The heroes and villains of Multiple Earths learn of this. There is a solution: this new universe must be cut off from the rest of the Multiverse. Doing so will prevent the Anti-Monitor from destroying it and leave him weak enough for a final assault. The side-effect of this action will, however, make travel between universes impossible, probably forever.

The heroes must sacrifice friendships and relationships developed across universes. They bid their farewells and help Spectre to seal off the new universe. They all continue their lives, but the reader, too, has been cut off.

Earth in this new universe has aged up to the early 20th century. It's a DCU similar to those before it but brand new. Every issue starts over with a new number one. The new DCU is born.

This keeps the door open for the reintroduction of the Multiverse and avoids all continuity problems created by COIE.

[scary harpy]

If we're talking just about COIE, then Marv Wolfman has said in an interview that he wished that it was a hard reboot and you didn't have characters who remembered the Pre-Crisis universe. IIRC, his original pitch was that the old universe whites out in COIE # 10, and COIE #11-12 recaps the history of the new universe.

I agree with Marv Wolfman: I wish COIE had been a hard reboot.

I agree with other posters about keeping Earth 2. Earth 1 and Earth 2 could have been on opposite sides of the Sun; this would have simplified much.

Charlton heroes could have folded into Earth 1; Quality heroes could have been folded into Earth 2.

I am unsure about Fawcett heroes. I guess it would depend on the direction DC would want to take them.

Earth Prime's Superboy could have become the LSH's Superboy. He'd be the last survivor of Earth Prime/an Earth from a pocket dimension created by the Time Trapper. (That's how everyone would 'remember' it post-COIE.) He could have been adopted by Kal-L and Lois.

I don't know how to save Earth 3 since it was destroyed early. (Perhaps the CSA were Qwardians as suggested in a JLI Quarterly long, long ago.)

734035-crime_syndicate__qwardian_.jpg

I am trying to keep this as simple as possible. (K.I.S.S.)

[kingaliencracker]

I just wouldn't have done it. As great as COIE was, and it's still an epic story, all it did was muddle the DCU and slowly put us on the path we are on today, which is a cluster you-know-what of history and continuity. Ultimately it was just unnecessary, as most of the changes DC wanted could have been accomplished with established continuity, and the changes that were aggressively counter to the pre-Crisis universe (such as Wonder Woman not helping found the JL, lack of multiverse, Superman not being the first super hero) weren't well-received.

[Zero Hunter]

I just wouldn't have done it. As great as COIE was, and it's still an epic story, all it did was muddle the DCU and slowly put us on the path we are on today, which is a cluster you-know-what of history and continuity. Ultimately it was just unnecessary, as most of the changes DC wanted could have been accomplished with established continuity, and the changes that were aggressively counter to the pre-Crisis universe (such as Wonder Woman not helping found the JL, lack of multiverse, Superman not being the first super hero) weren't well-received.

The problem was Crisis was needed. DC was in a death spiral in the late 70s early 80s. Out side of a very few books most people were not reading DC because they were seen as old fashioned and corny. If they had not done something as radical as Crisis to get more (and younger) eyes on their books DC would probably not be around today, and if it was it would be very simple stories aimed at very young kids like Casper or Disney comics.

[scary harpy]

I just wouldn't have done it. As great as COIE was, and it's still an epic story, all it did was muddle the DCU and slowly put us on the path we are on today, which is a cluster you-know-what of history and continuity. Ultimately it was just unnecessary, as most of the changes DC wanted could have been accomplished with established continuity, and the changes that were aggressively counter to the pre-Crisis universe (such as Wonder Woman not helping found the JL, lack of multiverse, Superman not being the first super hero) weren't well-received.

The problem was Crisis was needed. DC was in a death spiral in the late 70s early 80s. Out side of a very few books most people were not reading DC because they were seen as old fashioned and corny. If they had not done something as radical as Crisis to get more (and younger) eyes on their books DC would probably not be around today, and if it was it would be very simple stories aimed at very young kids like Casper or Disney comics.

kingaliencracker, I like your idea.

Zero Hunter, I would enjoy very simple stories aimed at very young kids. I hope Batwheels is as good as Spidey and his Amazing Friends. Superhero comics should be fun! (When I want to feel awful, I can read the newspaper.)

Of course, I'm comparing that idea to what we have now: a DC Universe that feels like a carnival built on top of a cemetery. (Feels like that to me, anyway.)

[John Venus]

I think the good that came out of COIE ultimately outweighs the bad. Maybe it would have been better if only Earth 1 and Earth 2 had remained but that's just speaking from the benefit of hindsight.

Personally, I think Infinite Crisis was a missed opportunity to fix several things and I've mentioned some of them before:

-WW was restored back to being a founding member of JL. This means Vol 2 stretches over a longer period of time and they could have inserted 'untold stories' in between like how she met Pricilla Rich.

-Diana being restored as a founding member should have fixed Donna Troy's origin as well. The 'Titan Seed' stuff should have been treated as her Nightwing phase. I would have a time travelling Hippolyta be the one to rescue Donna. Maybe not time travelling, maybe she was forced to go to Man's World for some reason and ended up rescuing Donna along the way. That would resolve any timeline issues regarding Donna.

-I would have retconned Hippolyta's time as Golden Age WW. She is immortal so she could have left the island at any point and had a few adventures with the JSA. Not as WW, maybe disguised as Miss America (with the original Miss America still around).

-A new earth 2 should have been created with updated and revamped versions of Helena Wayne, Infinity Inc and the Freedom Fighters. I love the JSA but sometimes I think there were too many heroes during the WW2 era. Some of them could have been offloaded onto a different earth. The main earth JSA would have the option to move to this new earth at any time.

-I would adjusted continuity to explain that the JSA's longevity was them being trapped in Ragnarok for a few decades. To them it was a few months, to the rest of the world, it's been decades. That's the best 'evergreen' explanation for their existence.

-Some of the deaths like Phantom Lady's, the Panther and others wouldn't have been done.

-Superboy Prime and Alexander Luthor becoming mustache twirling bad guys....like yeah, no, I wouldn't have preferred that at all.

-Hawkworld should have been adjusted to take place in the time period it should have took place in. That would have automatically fixed all the problems with the Hawks.


52:

-I would have liked Donna's time as WW explored. Most of that happened off screen.


Blackest Night

-Owen Mercer sacrificing women and children to his zombie father.

-The Entities all having biblical ties to their existence.

-The Spectre jobbing (again).

[williamtheday]

Erase Deathstroke; keep Bug Eyed Bandit.

[Digifiend]

All comics would relaunch at the same time, no transitional period. Teen Titans would be rebooted, not doing so when Wonder Woman did is the root of Donna's problems. The Justice League and it's main eight members (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter and Green Arrow) would've been active for a few years already - long enough that Dick is still Nightwing and Jason Todd is still Robin, and Wally's old enough to take over as The Flash. The Titans backstory would be updated to reflect the changes to the Justice Leaguers - the histories of Raven, Cyborg, Jericho and Starfire could be pretty much left intact.

[Thor-Ul]

On infinite Crisis Alex Luthor wasn't trying to recreate the multiverse, he was trying to break the dark walls than separated the main earth from the rest of the multiverse, who believed than the old core earths were destroyed.

[superduperman]

Assuming I don't have a choice in the matter, I would probably have redundant versions of characters "merge" and keep elements of both Earth 1 and Earth 2. So both Supermen would merge and while most of the SA elements would be thrown out, like no history as Superboy, he would probably have an modern day version of his GA origin where he still has powers from day one but not all of them. Maybe go the S&L route and have him wear the Fleischer suit early on. It would basically be the modern Superman with the GA origin. WW would merge with her GA self and she would be a founding member of the JSA who would "retire" after they broke up but still operated in secret. This would allow Donna to keep her pre-Crisis origin. The one big hang up would be the fate of Barry. I am against killing him. If the company was determined to have Wally take over, I would probably have him retire in the future and just have Wally take his place in the present. With Batman's Earth 2 counterpart dead, the Miller origin would probably happen anyway.

[InfamousBG]

The problem was Crisis was needed. DC was in a death spiral in the late 70s early 80s. Out side of a very few books most people were not reading DC because they were seen as old fashioned and corny. If they had not done something as radical as Crisis to get more (and younger) eyes on their books DC would probably not be around today, and if it was it would be very simple stories aimed at very young kids like Casper or Disney comics.

Wow I never really thought about it that way (and I kind of liked the first Crisis even though I read it in like 89 or 90 when I was like 10).

I do agree it had to happen.