What major event in DC Comics history caused the most damage?

[Lee Stone]

If we're talking the Byrne Man of Steel reboot, Byrne had marching orders from DC editorial with the whole Last Son of Krypton bit they wanted to do.

Yeah. I probably put the blame on Byrne, when it really wasn't so much his fault. He was just the poor writer that had to write the stories.
Although, I do think the 'rebooting' of Superman was the carrot that lured Byrne to DC.

[JT221]

Yeah. I probably put the blame on Byrne, when it really wasn't so much his fault. He was just the poor writer that had to write the stories.
Although, I do think the 'rebooting' of Superman was the carrot that lured Byrne to DC.

I am a little biased when it comes to Byrne's Superman stuff. That is genuinely one of my favorite runs for the character. But I get why it bothered some people.

[HsssH]

Also, there were number of good/great titles that emerged during the New 52. But the thing of it is, *most* of those titles didn't really need a line-wide reboot of DC's continuity to exist - they would've been perfectly at home in the post-Crisis DCU.

If someone wanted they could have just done a story where Blue Beetle jumps from E-4 to main Earth and joins JLA. But for some reasons this argument is used only for New 52.

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

If someone wanted they could have just done a story where Blue Beetle jumps from E-4 to main Earth and joins JLA. But for some reasons this argument is used only for New 52.

Because nobody was asking for it. COIE was literally the Charleton heroes' first appearance in the pages of DC Comics. They showed up just in time to be "incorporated" into the mainstream DC universe. You might as well ask why they didn't have Billy Batson jump Earths just so he could appear in Justice League stories. Or the Freedom Fighters, their own book took place on Earth-One, yet nobody thought to have any of them join the Justice League.

[marhawkman]

Because nobody was asking for it. COIE was literally the Charleton heroes' first appearance in the pages of DC Comics. They showed up just in time to be "incorporated" into the mainstream DC universe. You might as well ask why they didn't have Billy Batson jump Earths just so he could appear in Justice League stories. Or the Freedom Fighters, their own book took place on Earth-One, yet nobody thought to have any of them join the Justice League.

Yeah universe hopping was totally a thing pre-CoIE. If they'd wanted to they could have done a story with Earth-1 Superman going to Earth-91 and learning how things had gone horribly wrong for him in that universe.

[HsssH]

Because nobody was asking for it. COIE was literally the Charleton heroes' first appearance in the pages of DC Comics. They showed up just in time to be "incorporated" into the mainstream DC universe. You might as well ask why they didn't have Billy Batson jump Earths just so he could appear in Justice League stories. Or the Freedom Fighters, their own book took place on Earth-One, yet nobody thought to have any of them join the Justice League.

I don't really understand your point? I'm just saying that characters could be moved one from universe to another before CoIE.

[Zero Hunter]

People also need to remember that DC was in the toilet before Crisis. The only hit books they had were Teen Titans, Batman, and Legion. Everything else the sales sucked, and even Batman wasn't selling like he would in a few years after the first movie came out in 1989. As much damage as Crisis did do to some properties it probably saved DC as a whole from going under by bringing in a whole new generation of fans.

[Buried Alien]

People also need to remember that DC was in the toilet before Crisis. The only hit books they had were Teen Titans, Batman, and Legion. Everything else the sales sucked, and even Batman wasn't selling like he would in a few years after the first movie came out in 1989. As much damage as Crisis did do to some properties it probably saved DC as a whole from going under by bringing in a whole new generation of fans.

They could have fixed all those problems without destroying fifty years of continuity to create a new one that has proven perpetually and increasingly incoherent.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[HeartofTheStoriesWeTell]

That's an interesting point.
I feel that Identity Crisis was when DC really went all-in on the dark & gritty crap that tainted it's characters all through the late 90's and 00's.

Identity Crisis was the comic that brought me back to reading comics. It felt more adult and like it was a novel... but in the years since I can honestly say I have come to dislike it.

[superduperman]

People also need to remember that DC was in the toilet before Crisis. The only hit books they had were Teen Titans, Batman, and Legion. Everything else the sales sucked, and even Batman wasn't selling like he would in a few years after the first movie came out in 1989. As much damage as Crisis did do to some properties it probably saved DC as a whole from going under by bringing in a whole new generation of fans.

I'm not going to pretend that I know what the "easy" answer was. Maybe rebooting truly was the only way. In recent years I've kind of leaned in that direction. BUT I also feel like they didn't try very hard in the years leading up to COIE to fix their books either. By the mid-seventies Spider Man was already engaged. Meanwhile Superman wasn't even allowed to let Lois in on his secret. Go back and look at the kinds of stories they were telling in the years leading up to COIE. Then go back and look at the kind of stories Marvel was telling. DC was still publishing super-baby stories well into the eighties! Not that I have a problem with the concept of super-baby but no one wanted to read stories about a toddler plugging up volcanoes in 1981. They could have tried a lot harder than they did and recognized that the audience was growing up.

[Gaius]

The way they rebooted Superman and Batman weren't the problems. Both had stories set in the past (the Man of Steel six-issue series and the "Batman: Year One" arc in his title) to re-establish the new versions. But Wonder Woman having her new story set in the (then) present day wiped out all of her past involvements with the rest of the DC universe, including erasing her as a founding member of the Justice League of America. (They then repeated that mistake a few years later with Hawkworld taking place in the (then) present day.)

Only actual "problem" caused by wiping the slate clean with Wonder Woman was the headache for Donna Troy fans over her origin. Which given Donna is a Titans character, I can see why she wasn't really factored into what do with a WW reboot.

Other than that, doing away with four decades of post-Marston mediocrity was a godsend for WW.

[Frontier]

Only actual "problem" caused by wiping the slate clean with Wonder Woman was the headache for Donna Troy fans over her origin. Which given Donna is a Titans character, I can see why she wasn't really factored into what do with a WW reboot.

Other than that, doing away with four decades of post-Marston mediocrity was a godsend for WW.

All this could have been easily resolved if they'd just inserted a bit of a time-skip into Perez' Wonder Woman...would that have hurt it too much?

[MajorHoy]

Only actual "problem" caused by wiping the slate clean with Wonder Woman was the headache for Donna Troy fans over her origin. Which given Donna is a Titans character, I can see why she wasn't really factored into what do with a WW reboot.

Other than that, doing away with four decades of post-Marston mediocrity was a godsend for WW.

All this could have been easily resolved if they'd just inserted a bit of a time-skip into Perez' Wonder Woman...would that have hurt it too much?

Wonder Woman lost a lot by starting over from scratch in the "present day" vs. Superman and Batman being given their stories that took place in previous time. Diana was no longer on the same footing as Kal-El and Bruce were.

[All Star Superman]

Continuity-wise, it's Crisis On Infinite Earths. The story and art are magnificent, but the "either/or" approach forever weakened the DCU. Every event since has been an attempt to change and/or undo COIE. Had an earlier event, say, Zero Hour or Infinite Crisis repaired the core areas of damaged continuity, things might be very different today. As of now, however, it's too late and COIE, even if it no longer "happened," is to blame.

As Jon Clark says above, TDKR did the most damage to Batman and to superhero comic book storytelling. It was always a "possible future," yet it's success led to Miller's characterization for Batman and Superman becoming more and more prevalent in comics and other media. It's a vastly-overrated story that is eclipsed by dozens of regular runs in Batman's long history. I'll also blame Watchmen for further popularizing the notion that superheroes only work for adult readers when they're deconstructed. Every nightmarish misstep in comics and film (Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, New 52, Nolanman, Snyder's garbage) in the last thirty plus years can be blamed on those two "masterpieces."

[All Star Superman]

As for changes, I think the change COIE could and should have made was that the infinite Multiverse is still there while the focus going forward is on a true "New Earth." This would have meant a full reboot: no Robins, no teams, all new #1s except for Action and Detective. Those could have become anthology books. Even if COIE had just left a vastly reduced "local" Multiverse (say, the five Earths that were collapsed into Clutter Earth) the DCU would have been streamlined and strengthened such that no alterations would really be needed.