Would DC be better off if Crisis on Infinite Earths never happened?

[Tuck]

I think DC would probably be better off if they hadn't rebooted their continuity so sloppily. They could easily have carried on the way Marvel did.

But wasn't being more like Marvel at least part of the reason for Crisis? It gave DC a singular, wholly connected continuity. One where The WWII-era JSA served in the same reality as the modern JLA . . . just like the Invaders and Avengers.

[king of hybrids]

if they had actually done some proper planning and not made exception for NTT and LOSH and started from scratch, yes

considering their 30 year love-hate for the damned thing, no.

i'd say at the least make an earth among the surviving earths that worked off the premise "what if all of DC was in the same earth" alongside the existing Earth-one/two/three/etc

[MajorHoy]

Yes, they would have. New 52 did nothing for them more than alienate old readers and leave them with even a bigger mess in terms of continuity.
Sure, the first issues sold more, but people dropped fast when they saw it was awful. Can think of very examples where things actually got better thanks to new 52. Surveys show that their readerbase increased a paltry 5% with the new 52.

The whole premise of new 52, as a jumping off point for new readers failed spectacularly because both new and old readers had no idea what was happening in the recently rebooted books, thats how much of a convoluted mess it was.

But . . . we're talking about CoIE from back in the 1980s, aren't we?
What does the New52 have to do with that?

[Lhynn]

But . . . we're talking about CoIE from back in the 1980s, aren't we?
What does the New52 have to do with that?

Me just being an idiot, as usual. Pay no mind.

[Sutekh]

The existence of the Multiverse was a clever way to both have cake and eat cake. The older versions of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Hawkman, etc. could continue on in their 'Earth 2' continuity, aging and siring children (like Helena Wayne) and so on and so forth, while the more modern (post WW2 anyway...) versions could remain young and vital. There'd be no need for Hawkman's backstory to be such a dreadful mess, since on one Earth he could be a reincarnated Egyptian prince, while on the other Earth, he could be a Thanagarian space cop. It was such a useful tool for storytelling, that it continued to sneak in, as Elseworlds or Hypertime or whatever, until finally it was admitted that the Multiverse was back.

I liked Crisis at the time it came out, because I am apparently a sucker for George Perez art, but seeing the damage it did to titles like the Legion of Super-Heroes, and how some characters that I really liked, like Helena Wayne and Kole, were sacrificed to the event, I soured on it quickly. Decades later, it's been undone-by-pieces. First Supergirl came back, a couple of times, even. the Crime Syndicate came back. Barry Allen came back. The Multiverse came back. Earth 2, specifically, came back. What was the point, again?

What I won't be getting back, after all it undone, will be thirty years of continuing stories of the Legion of Super-Heroes, from the original continuity. I won't be getting Helena Wayne, daughter of a retired Batman and a retired Catwoman, as a member of the Justice Society. Instead I got confused attempts at merging wildly different Hawkmen, and attempts to use Dr. Fate on Earth 1 that resulted in some idiot melting down the Helmet of Nabu and making it into a knife, and some odd changes to even classic characters like Superman and Wonder Woman, to 'explain' (or remove) references to their WW2 adventures, because the world in which their older versions operated during that war was blowed up. Oy.

[Lee]

But wasn't being more like Marvel at least part of the reason for Crisis? It gave DC a singular, wholly connected continuity. One where The WWII-era JSA served in the same reality as the modern JLA . . . just like the Invaders and Avengers.

Having a singular universe was definitely part of the appeal for DC. Apparently the alternate universes were considered to be confusing. Still, that could also have been accomplished by sending the Charlton, Quality and Fawcett heroes and villains over to Earth-1 and closing the portals between dimensions. And they didn't really know what to do with most of the Earth-2 characters after COIE.

The changes to the continuity of characters who were already on Earth-1 (Superman, Wonder Woman etc) caused the biggest headaches, and affected other characters and teams (Wonder Girl, Justice League, Legion of Super-Heroes etc).

There was also the oddity of the Crisis on Infinite Earths story remaining part of continuity, but without the alternate Earths. The oddity of everyone remembering Barry Allen's death, but Supergirl's death going unremembered because she never existed.

The end result was a DC universe that was way more confusing than the DC multiverse that existed before COIE. And they've been trying to fix it ever since. Then trying to fix those fixes.

[Doctor Bifrost]

I'm voting Yes, but with a caveat.

I think CoIE was both a fantastic series (partially because nothing like it had ever been done before, at least in DC), and probably necessary - especially if you have an interest in continuity. So much of the pre-CoIE material had been written without any concern for continuity that an enormous number of "barnacles" had collected on the DCU, making it inherently self-contradictory. Trying to clean them up one at a time would be a mess. In addition, some of the heroes' origins and backstories (even the Silver Age versions) looked so antiquated that they probably needed a major revision.

So I thought CoIE was a good idea - an opportunity for TPTB to say: "This is what we're going to keep, this is what we're going to let go of, and from now on we'll be more careful with our shared universe (which, after all, is one of our key properties)."

Unfortunately, the follow-through was pretty messy. I just don't think they planned it carefully enough in advance. There was an attempt on the one hand to treat it like a "new slate" (Superman and Batman having just been around for five years, with Year One style stories to give that some shape, and Wonder Woman just starting out). On the other hand, there was a conflicting attempt to just keep some things going (primarily the Titans), changing as little as possible to keep the ongoing stories.

This is not the best way to design a coherent fictional setting. And trying to jam the whole history of the JSA into the past of that setting - with changes, some of which stuck and some of which didn't - also created confusion.

I enjoyed a lot of what came after. Some of the legacy stuff was well done, and I happen to be an enormous fan of the JSA Fury and the Infinity, Inc. Fury.

But still, if I had been in charge, I probably would have done it very differently. I think I would have had three universes emerge from the Crisis:

- An Earth-2 universe, with the JSA in WW II, and Infinity, Inc. a generation later. You could keep your Golden Age Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, along with Aquaman, Green Arrow, and Hawkman.

- An Earth-1 universe, with the JLA and the Titans. In stories set here, I would have let the JLA heroes get a little older, married with young kids, and the Titans taking over the reins. Silver Age Hawkman and Hawkwoman live here! Maybe the LoSH would be in the future of this universe.

- An Earth-0 universe, in which Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are just starting out. Each one would get a 12-part Year One series, and some other heroes could be introduced during that time. At the end of a year, Batman would get his first Robin, and the JLA would be formed.

I'd make interdimensional cross-overs possible, but difficult and rare. And I'd add new universes (Earth-S for the Shazam characters, who deserve their own milieu) very carefully and with much advance thought.

Most of the comics would be set in Earth-0, with the other two universes reserved for just a few (All-Star Squadron and Infinity, Inc.; Titans and LoSH; a few others.)

I have no idea how well this would have worked, but it certainly seems cleaner to me.

I do believe that an ongoing, serialized, multiple-series universe that is not progressing in real time probably needs a major reboot every 30 years or so. But not every 5 to 10 years. And what they're doing currently - with a variety of hyper-powered characters ripping the universe's space-time apart and piecing it together again like a Frankenstein's Monster - doesn't really tend to create a shared universe that I think makes much sense. I'm enjoying seeing characters that are closer to versions I like more, but there's a lot of hand-waving and things labeled "Don't Think About It To Much." But I like to think about the fiction I'm reading, and I like it when it seems like the writers have thought it through carefully as well.

Of course, we're not even a year into Rebirth, so maybe it'll all work out....

Anyway, that's just me.

[colonyofcells]

I think coie was a great idea to put most of the characters on 1 earth (1 universe) and I would prefer to just erase the golden age history similar to what New 52 did. I would equalize the ages of most of the characters including Superman, Spectre, Dr Fate, etc. I would get rid of most of the teen heroes and most of the heroes will be adults including Nightwing, Troia, Changeling, etc. Just retain a few teen heroes like Robin Tim Drake. If I were doing coie, I would also put new gods, qward, crime syndicate on the same clutter earth or clutter universe to make it easier to use these characters and avoid dimensional travel. I would also reboot Legion and put all of the Legion characters in the 21st century instead of in the 31st century.

[The Darknight Detective]

No, they were getting their asses kicked on sales and had to do something to get things going again. A great many people started reading with post-Crisis and it did a lot to help them survive.

Yes, sales was, easily, the number one reason why it was created. DC had no choice but to do something big and that's what we got. A COIE needed to be done, but I just wish the Multiverse hadn't been flushed down the toilet as a result (causing many, many more problems than the "confusing" parallel worlds that preceded the DCU).

[GlennSimpson]

Seriously. a yes to the title question and a yes to the poll question mean two totally different things. Horrible labeling.

That's what happened - I answered the title question not the poll question.

[stephens2177]

I'm voting Yes, but with a caveat.

I think CoIE was both a fantastic series (partially because nothing like it had ever been done before, at least in DC), and probably necessary - especially if you have an interest in continuity. So much of the pre-CoIE material had been written without any concern for continuity that an enormous number of "barnacles" had collected on the DCU, making it inherently self-contradictory. Trying to clean them up one at a time would be a mess. In addition, some of the heroes' origins and backstories (even the Silver Age versions) looked so antiquated that they probably needed a major revision.

So I thought CoIE was a good idea - an opportunity for TPTB to say: "This is what we're going to keep, this is what we're going to let go of, and from now on we'll be more careful with our shared universe (which, after all, is one of our key properties)."

Unfortunately, the follow-through was pretty messy. I just don't think they planned it carefully enough in advance. There was an attempt on the one hand to treat it like a "new slate" (Superman and Batman having just been around for five years, with Year One style stories to give that some shape, and Wonder Woman just starting out). On the other hand, there was a conflicting attempt to just keep some things going (primarily the Titans), changing as little as possible to keep the ongoing stories.

This is not the best way to design a coherent fictional setting. And trying to jam the whole history of the JSA into the past of that setting - with changes, some of which stuck and some of which didn't - also created confusion.

I enjoyed a lot of what came after. Some of the legacy stuff was well done, and I happen to be an enormous fan of the JSA Fury and the Infinity, Inc. Fury.

But still, if I had been in charge, I probably would have done it very differently. I think I would have had three universes emerge from the Crisis:

- An Earth-2 universe, with the JSA in WW II, and Infinity, Inc. a generation later. You could keep your Golden Age Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, along with Aquaman, Green Arrow, and Hawkman.

- An Earth-1 universe, with the JLA and the Titans. In stories set here, I would have let the JLA heroes get a little older, married with young kids, and the Titans taking over the reins. Silver Age Hawkman and Hawkwoman live here! Maybe the LoSH would be in the future of this universe.

- An Earth-0 universe, in which Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are just starting out. Each one would get a 12-part Year One series, and some other heroes could be introduced during that time. At the end of a year, Batman would get his first Robin, and the JLA would be formed.

I'd make interdimensional cross-overs possible, but difficult and rare. And I'd add new universes (Earth-S for the Shazam characters, who deserve their own milieu) very carefully and with much advance thought.

Most of the comics would be set in Earth-0, with the other two universes reserved for just a few (All-Star Squadron and Infinity, Inc.; Titans and LoSH; a few others.)

I have no idea how well this would have worked, but it certainly seems cleaner to me.

I do believe that an ongoing, serialized, multiple-series universe that is not progressing in real time probably needs a major reboot every 30 years or so. But not every 5 to 10 years. And what they're doing currently - with a variety of hyper-powered characters ripping the universe's space-time apart and piecing it together again like a Frankenstein's Monster - doesn't really tend to create a shared universe that I think makes much sense. I'm enjoying seeing characters that are closer to versions I like more, but there's a lot of hand-waving and things labeled "Don't Think About It To Much." But I like to think about the fiction I'm reading, and I like it when it seems like the writers have thought it through carefully as well.

Of course, we're not even a year into Rebirth, so maybe it'll all work out....

Anyway, that's just me.

I wouldn't mind a 3 earth set up myself,1 for each generation (JSA,jl,titans),where the main characters are different ,but they all have the same core.

Course you can do that on clutter earth,and that would feel a lot more complete.have the JSA be the old timers from ww2 who get transported to present,jl be heroes for "at least" 5 or more years,and the titans anywhere from 13 to 24,depending on what team you want them on.

[Zero Hunter]

The main problem with any reboot is how it is handled. Crisis worked very well when it was done right like starting over Superman and Wonder Woman from scratch. Where it failed is not rebooting everything so you still had other series with pretty much unchanged history like Batman, Legion, and the Titans. On top of that you have writer come in latter who wanted to bring back everything they loved as kids even though that was the stuff that Crisis got rid of in the first place. So again bad planning and even worse follow through created a ton of problems latter on.

[Montressor]

They had to have a Crisis at the time--Steve Trevor alone had become a complete mess, they needed to cast off all the barnacles and start fresh. I've often wondered what the DCU would look like now, with no reboot ever. Things had gotten quite stale at DC at the time and the Crisis gave us an (at the time) exciting and fresh start to everything.

[CaptCleghorn]

Seriously. a yes to the title question and a yes to the poll question mean two totally different things. Horrible labeling.

There are people who would claim that I did not properly read the poll question and voted against my belief. That I'm just blaming someone for my own carelessness. I call those people correct.

[Lee]

I would also reboot Legion and put all of the Legion characters in the 21st century instead of in the 31st century.

Yeesh. Then it wouldn't even be Legion of Super-Heroes anymore.

Crisis worked very well when it was done right like starting over Superman and Wonder Woman from scratch. Where it failed is not rebooting everything so you still had other series with pretty much unchanged history like Batman, Legion, and the Titans.

The most confusing thing about post-COIE Batman is that they kept 90% of it intact, mainly tweaking the "early days" (new backstory for Alfred, Catwoman etc) but also decided that all of the stories with the recently introduced Jason Todd were non-canon. Then quickly reintroduced Jason with a completely different background and personality.

Very messy.