Customer Reviews

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS

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In 1985, DC Comics made comic book history by publishing a 12-issue maxi series that totally reshaped the DC Universe. Prior to 1985, the DC Universe was a confusion of alternate worlds, timelines and continuities that left readers confused: Did Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Hawkman and others fight the Nazis during World War II or didn't they? Did Clark Kent ever marry to Lois Lane or didn't he? Was Superman's cousin called Supergirl or Power Girl? Did Wonder Woman have a daughter named Fury or didn't she? The problem was, DC Comics was publishing a whole lot of stories that apparently took place on different Earths in different universes. There was Earth-1, where all the modern-day superheroes we are familiar with lived: Superman, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, etc. And then there was Earth-2, where identical or similar heroes appeared decades earlier to fight the Nazis in World War II. And then there was Earth-3, where all the familiar characters were super-villains and the only superhero was Lex Luthor. And Earth-S. And Earth-X. Ad infinitum. Something had to be done, and "Crisis on Infinite Earths" was born. In one stroke, this array of confusing alternate universes was compressed into a single universe. Along the way, the origin of the so-called multiverse was explained, some existing heroes died and some new ones were born, battles were fought and sacrifices were made. Established major characters like Supergirl, the Flash and Wonder Woman were allowed to die, along with a multitude of other minor characters. The resulting DC Universe had a rebooted continuity that was unified, streamlined and easier to keep track of. Twenty years on, no major comic book publishing event has surpassed the epic that was "Crisis on Infinite Earths".

All of which makes the mediocrity of this novel, which retells the story of "Crisis" from the point of view of the Flash, all the more disappointing. Marv Wolfman's attempt to flesh out the original story (which he crafted with artist George Perez back in 1985) into a full-scale novel simply fails to measure up to the original tale - "Crisis" the novel is strangely lacking in the grandeur that "Crisis" the comic book had in spades. "Crisis" the comic was an epic - "Crisis" the novel is simply a bore. Yes, there is always a problem with translating visuals from a movie, TV show, or even comic book into plain old boring words, but the problem with "Crisis" simply isn't that. For the record, I thoroughly enjoyed "Kingdom Come" by Elliot S. Maggin, "No Man's Land" by Greg Rucka, and "The Death and Life of Superman" by Roger Stern. These novels, which retold the stories of some of DC other successful comic books, added something to the original stories by fleshing out the characters and expanding on the events therein. You could read these books on their own merits and enjoy them without ever having read the original comics.

"Crisis" simply fails to achieve this. The whole exercise reeks of a rush job. Reading "Crisis', one gets the feeling that either Marv Wolfman (i) simply ran out of time, or (ii) lost interest totally midway through writing the novel, which should have been at least a third longer. The whole narration feels terribly compressed, and its pacing is just awful. The events from the first 7 issues of the original 12-issue epic fill up much of the book, taking up almost 80% of the novel. The events of the last 5 issues were relegated to the remaining 20%. I find this really weird, given that most of the crucial action in "Crisis" actually happened in the last 5 issues, as were the emotional ramifications of these events on the characters. Events from the tail-end of "Crisis" were inexplicably skipped over while lots of boring bits were added to the front section. Major characters were randomly dropped - where were Wonder Woman-2 or Superboy-Prime? What happened to Darkseid, who played such a pivotal role in the final battle in the original story? The origin of another vital character, Dr Light, was totally unexplained, as was her transformation from a selfish and uncaring person into a self-sacrificing superhero. What happened to the villains' betrayal of their allies? And after spending a couple of pages writing about how Wonder Woman pleaded with her mother, Queen Hippolyta, to allow her to take the Amazons into battle, Marv Wolfman did not even mention her subsequent death during the final battle! The sacrifices of many other minor characters were given short shrift (e.g. Aquagirl, Lori Lemaris, Dove, Kole, Robin-2 and the Huntress). This renders the whole narration emotionally uninvolving - the whole point about the original "Crisis" was about loss and sacrifice for the greater good. Even the deaths of Supergirl and the Flash seem strangely sterile here compared with how they were depicted in the original comic book. How can readers feel any emotional connection to the story if the deaths of well-established and well-loved characters only merited throw-off one-liners? That last 20% of the book really should have been expanded.

My advice? Read the original comic book - it is available as a reprint in both hardcover and trade paperback formats. Wait for the paperback version of the novel if you must read it.

Comic fans are probably wondering how this classic tale can be re-told from the POV of Barry Allen as he dies well before the story ends. Without giving too much away, in the seconds before his death Barry begins to bounce around in time to a greater extent then readers of the original comic were lead to believe. The result of this timeshifting narrative is sort of a "Lovely Bones" for superheroes wherein we watch the Flash react to his colleagues struggle against the collapse of the old DC comics multiverse.
Hardcore fanboys will no doubt rail against the minor changes to the original story but most were obviously omissions for the sake of brevity. Marv Wolfman uses the Flash to get to the heart of a very complicated narrative and makes this story accesible to the non- comics fan. In the end, "Crisis" is a worthwhile companion to Wolfman and Perez's original collection

There's no question that Crisis on Infinite Earths: The Novel doesn't have the complete scope of the original comic book mini-series. I think it's impossible to translate the mini-series into a 310-page verbal novel and frankly not worth the effort to redo the EXACT SAME STORY. It would have been very boring to me to read the EXACT same thing that I got in the original mini-series. I LIKE having new angles on stories and in this case I do feel that Crisis: The Novel has new angles to offer on the story as much as the Kingdom Come novel had to offer new insights with respect to the Kingdom Come graphic novel, too.

That said, I like the angle Marv Wolfman used to retell this story. If you love The Flash and human-centered drama, this is a nice book to get. Be aware that there is time-skipping through the novel (without giving away revelations completely, The Flash IS time-travelling). I know some people can't get their heads around time-travel, but it's not that bad in the novel.

If there's a sore point that this novel brings up, it's how DC Comics completely wasted the Barry Allen character. The 1950s/1960s Flash IS the definitive iconic version of that character but for reasons that defy logic DC essentially abandoned the character in favor of a hipper, frankly less-sophisticated successor. As much as I like Wally West, he doesn't have the police scientists/forensics specialist background of his predecessor (Barry Allen) and has added little to The Flash saga. Wally has basically inherited Barry's rogues gallery and costume and in effect become Barry Allen, Mark II minus the innnovations and science that made Barry Allen stand out. DC missed an opportunity to revitalize The Flash by cashing in on the crime drama renaissance currently happening on TV with shows like NYPD Blue, CSI, Law & Order, etc. DC Comics HAD its crime scene investigator in Barry Allen and blew a chance to utilize that aspect of the character in a superheroic or realistic setting...

My main criticisms of this novel are its lack of proper editing and interior illustrations. It would have been nice to get new B & W illustrations (like the Kingdom Come novel) from George Perez, Alex Ross, or Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez to accompany the narrative, but the only illustration is on the dustjacket. There are very few grammatical errors in the novel, but it's frustrating to see some spelling errors pop up with certain character names again and again. This book either wasn't edited at all or was edited by a non-comic fan.

Those nitpicks aside...
Frankly, I don't think you have to be a big reader of DC Comics to enjoy this novel. Be aware that there are 2 versions of Superman in this novel but their differences are explained explicitly.

The biggest mysteries of this novel are NOT the storyline and changes from the original comic book version but why the distribution and print numbers on this novel are so lousy!

I had a hard time finding this book in stores and probably bought the last copy in the ENTIRE city of Columbus, Ohio! There should have been more copies of this book printed and distribution should have been much better than it was...

It puzzles me why this book WASN'T published and distributed by Warner Books seeing that its parent corporation owns the characters in this novel. Crisis on Infinite Earths is one of the most talked-about storylines in comics in the past 20 years and for the better part of the 1980s Marv Wolfman was one of DC Comics' (another Warner subsidiary) best-selling and most prolific writers. The Crisis novel and its author deserved support from Warner Books based on Wolfman's past record and reverence for these characters.

While I was really happy to finally get to read this, I have to say that I had to dig out my Crisis comic hard cover to match some of the stuff up. If you do not know the DC characters and universe pre-Crisis, you might not understand all of this. You are not given the character background like in a normal book so you have to already know them and some of the inserts, like Wonder Woman's return to Paradise Island, don't really make since unless you remember the time. And I have to point out some things are moved or jumbled with current continuity. I liked this, but only because I knew how it fit in and I was already a fan.

Poor Marv Wolfman. The only work he's done for DC comics lately is a few gaming texts for the Teen Titans.
A lot of fans were looking forward to this book for a few reasons:
1. Marv is a great COMICS writer. His New Teen Titans and Crisis on Infinite Earths set a standard for 1980s super-hero comics that, for many were only surpassed by Alan Moore and Frank Miller's work.
2. Crisis on Infinite Earths was complicated. You could spend a lifetime tracking down all of the cross-overs and related comics to learn the "secrets" of the event (Hunting every pre-Crisis appearance of the Monitor in his observation satellite is a particular obsession that some share). The novel tantalised with the chance of more "secrets" about this multiverse shattering comics event.
3. "Infinite Crisis" is coming... Marv is writing a special story for "Infinite Crisis Secret Files" which will supposedly draw a clear line between the Crisis of 1985 and this year's (2005) DC Comics cross-over event. Fan boys the world over are digging out their plastic baggied copies of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series and reading it in preparation for the new Crisis.
By the way, if you're lost by now and don't know what an "Infinite Crisis" is, you're reading the wrong review. The one on this page by Devlin Tay is excellent - try that one.

But Marv isn't a great novelist. Aside from the fact that I can see what he was trying to do - change the perspective of the whole Crisis event so that it is seen from a more personal viewpoint rather than on the epic scale of the original - his sentence structure often lets him down (like I can talk...) and you get the feeling that the whole job was rushed.
Certainly, no-one seems to have bothered to proof-read it. When the Flash comments that his intangible hands would pass through a "copmuter" (sic), or references are made to the character "Obsideon" (rather than the correct name "Obsidian") you know that no-one has bothered to use a spell-check either.
The cover features detail from a painting by George Perez and Alex Ross, the other (missing) half of which shows the Earth 2 Superman mourning the death of Wonder Woman. Yet this event is completely missing from the novel. Obviously, Marv was trying to cater for a broader audience than the one which read Crisis in the first place and, as such, fails to cater for either his orginal audience or a new audience. And the death of Supergirl is dealt with within two pages! The whole shebang seems rushed.
Inevitably, the condensation of a 12 issue comic series into a 320 page novel misses some detail and changes a few events slightly for more cohesion, and I accept that. But Marv should have realised that whatever suspension of disbelief readers will accept in a comic drawn so beautifully by George Perez, they will not be so forgiving about in a novel.

This book, unfortunately, has one of the worst jobs of editing that I have ever seen. Egregious spelling mistakes like 'coat hangar', misplaced full stops, words reversed in phrases and other bad things.

It did improve in the second half of the book, luckily.

I also think this is too short. It was based on a dense, 12 issue maxi-series, and suffered from being in two minds.

The main part of the novel is from the point of view of The Flash. He is a pivotal character, with his ability to travel between the various parts of the Universe, so The Monitor is trying to use him to help, and the Anti-Monitor to get rid of him.

He is also dead at the time, and being so far, he is still travelling the multiverse and helping out before this catches up with him.

This part of the book is by far the best, seeing what The Flash is thinking, and how he is involved in the Crisis behind the scenes, where the other heroes don't know.

There are some cursory attempts at some of the other important scenes - the death of Supergirl, the heroes controlled by the Psycho Pirate on the last few Earths that are left, and that sort of thing. To do justice to all those, the book needed to be longer. If it had have just stuck The Flash, it would have been ok.

For some reason, there was some pseudo-updating. Mentions of cell phones, and internet map services that didn't exist in the 1980s, when this happened. This is somewhat jarring, and DC's influence on trying to make everything always 'current time' for Superman, et. al., I suppose.

So, rather disappointing as a whole. I can't recommend buying this as a hardback, or trade or oversized-and-hence-more expensive paperback.

I would wait for a cheap paperback, or get it second hand. If you have no interest in collecting books like this, just get it from the library.

One of the most phenomenal comic book events of all time was the classic 1985 maxiseries "Crisis on Infinite Earths." In this book, Marv Wolfman and George Perez told an epic, universe-spanning saga, explaining the DC Comics Multiverse and merging all the various worlds into one. The idea was to streamline the line and make it easier to understand. Now personally, even at the time I didn't find the concept of multiple realities hard to comprehend. But the fact remains that the comic was a seminal work and is the base against which all crossovers since have been measured.

So when word came out that Marv Wolfman was releasing a novel based on the comic, I knew I'd have to read it. Most of the book is written from the point of view of Barry Allen, the second Flash, which makes for an interesting read since he knows from the first page that he's going to die during the course of the story. That interesting perspective is probably the biggest thing going for it. The story is a bit too widespread, pulling in a myriad characters that I'm familiar with, but that the casual fan wouldn't recognize, and Wolfman doesn't really give any character other than Barry much development at all. This isn't as big a deal in a comic, where it's presumed that the readers have followed them and know who they are, but in a novel you can't make that assumption. In the long run, it's an okay book, but not a great one. Some comic-to-novel projects have worked very well - Elliot S. Maggin's "Kingdom Come" and Greg Rucka's "Batman: No Man's Land" for example. But this may have been a story better left in comic form.

The book is absolutely innocuous. Anyone who reads the novelization is obviously a "superfan", someone who has dissected and digested every other Crisis on Infinite Earths-related media of the past 20 years. The book tells a different perspective and isn't particularly outstanding. However, let's face the rigid truth, worms...we're gonna buy it, anyway, because THAT'S WHAT WE DO.

The proofreaders were negligent; a multitude of grammatical inconsistencies litter this book. I'm an English teacher, and I hope my students think I'm a damn good one. I live by the code. I'm SPRACHGEFUHL.

I recommend the book to the collectors. JUST GO BUY IT. STOP READING THE REVIEW AND RESIGN YOURSELF TO THE INTANGIBLE AND INEXTRICABLE REALITY THAT YOU CANNOT BREATHE COMFORTABLY UNTIL YOU HAVE FULFILLED YOUR MONOMANIACAL INSENSIBILITIES. Life's short...blah blah blah...

I do not recommend the book to tyros. Tyros can read The DaVinci Code. Trust me, you'll be more comfortable.

While my parents grew up remembering where they were when JFK died, I grew up with a slightly different life-changing memory: where I was when the Flash died. I still vividly remember that spot on the floor in front of the magazine rack at the drug store as I watched my little world crashing around me with the death of my favorite super-hero. But he didn't die in his own series. He was just one of the many casualties of Crisis on Infinite Earths, a comic book mini-series put out by DC Comics in an attempt to "clean up the mess they'd made" by creating hundreds of alternate Earths with different heroes on each one. The mini-series was ground-breaking because it was the first time any comic book publisher had decided to kill off dozens of major characters in one book. Before they were through, heroes like Earth-2's Superman and Wonder Woman, Superboy, Dove, Supergirl (yes, the series was rough on the Kryptonians), and of course, The Flash were all dead just to name a few.

Now on the twentieth anniversary of the series, the original writer Marv Wolfman has come up with a novelization of the events that rocked the DC universe. But instead of telling the story linearly and in great detail (as was done with the awesome Kingdom Come novel), he's told the story from the perspective of its greatest sacrifice: the Flash. Barry Allen narrates the story of his death and life during the cataclysmic moments of the crisis. For some unknown reason, the Flash is thrown into an ethereal state and must watch helplessly as worlds and heroes die around him. Told from this perspective, we see how the Flash actually shaped some of the events from "behind the scenes". How in the world does a dead guy get to describe his moment of death in detail and the things that occurred afterward? Time-travel, dimension-hopping, and all the other little quirks that make comics so much fun.

The chapters in this book are extremely short (literally one or two pages on average), which makes the flow a little disjointed at times. And since this isn't a blow-by-blow retelling of the story (imagine how thick that novel would have to be!), there are numerous highlights of the comic series that either never get mentioned or are just touched upon briefly. Still, the book could be considered essential reading for a complete picture of what really happened, and why the story truly was a "crisis". There are a few chapters describing events involving other heroes, slowing the breakneck pace otherwise permeating the book.

If you've never read the comic book, you'll definitely want to read it first. Some of the major twists and jaw-dropping moments (and deaths) will only get a cursory nod here. Savor the depth of the story in comic form, then read this book for the icing on the cake.

The Flash's death has always been considered a sacred moment for DC Comics. He's one of the only major characters who've ever died that hasn't returned (Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Superman, and Supergirl have all come back), showing just how monumental the event truly was. After reading this, you'll see why. Recommended for any true comics fan.

Now that it's 20 years later and Marv Wolfman's insanely complex 12-issue comic book series "The Crisis on Infinite Earths" is being sequelized (by DC's current "Infinite Crisis" mini), I figured it was time to try and make a little sense out of the old story. I knew the basic plot outline: these two feuding godlike beings known only as the Monitor and the Anti-Monitor are kind of the god-beings of the matter and anti-matter universes. The Monitor's matter universe had an infinity of variations, as each instant spawned endless new realities in accordance with Einstein's theory of relativity. The antimatter universe was a singular, uninhabited field of antimatter with nothing in it except one desolate planet that couldn't support life. Somehow or other the Anti-Monitor started destroying the universes on the "matter" side, and the end result was that a whole buttload of superheroes had to team up to stop him, eventually resulting in one, unified reality. The new reality created chaos for comic book readers, as the DC Universe (home to Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash and Green Lantern, among hundreds of other, less well-known characters) now had to cope with reconciling the numerous "realities" it had created over the years. Ever since 1985, DC has been getting farther and farther away from the idea of a single, unified reality, essentially deciding with the 2001 series "The Kingdom" that they would undo the CRISIS without actually undoing it, by introducing a concept called Hypertime, which allows for alternate realities but understands that they exist only with the singular DC Universe timeline as a reference point. No matter how different each reality is from the "main" one, they only exist because they're somehow connected to it.

At any rate, the book. Marv Wolfman recently wrote a novelization of "The Crisis on Infinite Earths," which I read because I thought it might be marginally easier to follow than the graphic novel (released in 2001) by Wolfman and his fellow "New Teen Titans" alum George Perez. I was right; the novel is concise and clear in a way that the "Crisis" comics couldn't be, as they were pandering to the loyal fans of 1985 in the way that, I'm sure, it seemed to most casual readers that stories like "The Final Night" and "Zero Hour: A Crisis in Time" were pandering to people like me in the '90s. Because I didn't read many pre-Crisis DC books, I never really understood a lot of it, but Wolfman's process of building from the ground up, and of using Barry Allen (the Flash, who died in the CRISIS) as a narratorial voice, is inspired. I understand the story in a way that I've never come close to in the past after reading it, and can almost--almost--say that it's as good as the hype has always been. Certainly the new novel is indispensible for any comic geek who really never "got" the CRISIS, because it's a story so important to mainstream DC continuity that you can't ever properly understand a lot of things unless you know what happened in that epic 1985 series. To try would be like studying American history and refusing to acknowledge the Civil War.