Infinite Crisis [Paperback]

Geoff Johns (Author), Phil Jimenez (Illustrator), George Perez (Illustrator)

Book Description

Release date: January 16, 2008

Written by Geoff Johns Art by Phil Jimenez, George Perez, Jerry Ordway, Ivan Reis, Andy Lanning and others Cover by Jimenez The 7-issue miniseries event that rocked the entire DC Universe in 2005-2006 - a sequel to the epic CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS - is now available in an amazing softcover collection! OMAC robots are rampaging, magic is dying, villains are uniting, and a war is raging in space. And in the middle of it all, a critical moment has divided Earth's three greatest heroes: Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. It's the DCU's darkest day, and long-lost heroes from the past have returned to make things right in the universe...at any cost. Heroes will live, heroes will die, and the DCU will never be the same again! This exhaustive volume contains every cover and variant produced for the project, annotations, character designs, excerpts from scripts, unused scenes, and much more!

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 8 Up—One of the most talked about series in comics publishing ever, "Infinite Crisis" is now out in a one-volume set of all seven original issues. It's about the alternative dimensions of Earths Prime, One, and Two, and the multiple characters that cross-pollinate these worlds. The three major DC heroes, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, are trying to work out the causality and relentless spin-offs from the infinite worlds. Panels from older comics are set beside modern renderings, showing the aging DC finally seems to acknowledge. At one point, Batman makes a caustic reference to when Superman died-a major news event from the '90s. In many ways, this title has a sad tone, as one realizes that the publisher is setting aside its legendary triad in favor of the newer, more modern heroes. Although comics frequently use the story line of the "final" appearance, and DC has not used that explicitly here, "Infinite Crisis" does feel like the beginning of the end. There are so many plotlines and moments here that could be mentioned; one that leaps to mind is the intergalactic brotherhood of Green Lanterns, and their final act captured in one mesmerizing panel. Simply put: a must-have for most libraries.—John Leighton, Brooklyn Public Library, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Every so often, the continuity of DC's interlocking comic books gets so convoluted and cluttered that the company clears the boards with an overarching story encompassing all its titles. The seven-issue Infinite Crisis, a sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985), is the latest such tale.A parallel-universe version of Superman, who was relegated to limbo at the end of Infinite Earths, escapes and attempts to replace the Earth that faithful readers have been watching for the past two decades with his own. The conflict that follows affects virtually every superhero in the DC universe, killing off extraneous characters and provoking the revamping of others. Infinite Crisis also aims to veer away from the dark, cynical tone that has infected the superhero genre of late. It skirts incomprehensibility, but so does much else in DC's recent output, and that is what Crisis addresses. The artwork, mostly by Phil Jimenez, creditably corrals a huge cast and keeps the myriad story lines going. Casual readers may be baffled, but for hard-core superhero fans, this is essential. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: DC Comics (January 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401210600
• ISBN-13: 978-1401210601
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 0.5 x 10 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #52,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Geoff Johns originally hails from Detroit, Michigan. He attended Michigan State University, where he earned a degree in Media Arts and Film. He began his comics career creating and writing Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. for DC Comics.

His first comic assignment led to a critically acclaimed run on the The Flash and JSA for DC Comics. Since then, he has quickly become one of the most popular and imaginative writers in comic books today, working on titles including a highly successful re-imagining of Green Lantern, The Flash: Rebirth, Superman: Secret Origin, Action Comics, Adventure Comics, Teen Titans, Justice Society of America, Infinite Crisis and the experimental breakout hit series 52 for DC with Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka and Mark Waid. Geoff received the Wizard Fan Award for Breakout Talent of 2002 and Writer of the Year for 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 as well as the CBG Writer of the Year 2003 thru 2005 and 2007 and 2008 and CBG Best Comic Book Series for JSA 2001 thru 2005. Geoff penned the acclaimed "Legion" episode of SMALLVILLE. He also served as a writer for the fourth season of ROBOT CHICKEN. Geoff is currently working on film projects with Warner Brothers to be announced soon.

Geoff recently became a New York Times Bestselling author with the graphic novel Superman: Brainiac with art by Gary Frank among many others.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 80 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Infinite Crisis is here.... October 20, 2006

By R. SHARIFF VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I hated the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. It was too long, too convulated, the conversations bordered on cheesiness etc...the only redeeming factor in my opinion was that it cleaned out the multivese and set foundations for a more coherent continuity. Fast forward 20+ years and the Crisis has returned. This book has a lot going for it and has foundations based on many previous events. The plot is not simple but I will try my best to provide a synopsis.

After the original Crisis, the four surviving memebers were Superman and Lois Lane of Earth 2 (from The Golden Age type comics ); Superboy from Earth Prime (the Superboy from the early Superboy stories) and Alexander Luthor of Earth 3 (son of Lex Luthor who is actually a good guy amongst the CSA which has evil versions of the JLA, Owlman, Ultraman, etc). After surviving and playing pivotal roles in the original crisis, these folks have been on a self-imposed exile in "paradise" and have been watching Earth 1 (this is the Earth with our regular characters). But much to their disappointment, despite their sacrifices, the heroes of Earth 1 have lost their ways...i.e. Batman being mindwiped, JLA is disbanded, Superman can't lead, Wonder Woman kills Maxwell Lord, Batman's Brother I satellite turning on the superheros etc.). They decided to break out and return to Earth 1 to teach the Earth 1 heroes what it means to be heroes...at least that's what Earth 2 Superman wants. Superboy Prime simply misses his old world, his parents, his girl and wants to return home. The real culprit here is Alex Luthor who channels these emotions as a fuel to get what he wants....a perfect Earth.

We also find out that Alex has been impersonating the real Lex Luthor and creating the Society of Villains to round up heroes such as Powergirl, Black Adam, Martian Manhunter to fuel a tower he is building to restore the multiverse and then pick and choose the Earths he wants and combine them to form the perfect Earth.

That's as far as I am going to go with the synopsis, since I felt that this was the ultimate motivation for Infinite Crisis going off the ground.

There's many more stories going on. You have Superboy prime vs. everybody, Superman Earth 1 vs. Superman Earth 2, Supermen of both Earth 1 & 2 vs. Superboy Prime, Batman vs. Bother Eye, Alex Luthor takes on the Titans...it's basically an epic battle where every DC characters are thown into. There are also changes that occur as a result of the Crisis. The big three, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are taken back to their roots. I can go on but there's too much stuff and trust me that it's well worth the read.

The story is very well done. As someone who was not very familiar with the original Crisis, Geoff Johns does an excellent job of filling in new readers on the stuff that has gone on before. And he manages to tie up almost all the loose ends from The Omac Project, JLA: Crisis of Conscience, etc. This is not an easy task to do but Geoff manages to do it and excels at it.

And let's not forget the art. Phil Jimenez and George Perez are masters at drawing small panels featuring hordes of superheroes in action and they are pushed to the limit. I also love that the had Jerry Ordway for the Supermen vs. Superboy sequences. I have heard complaints with the art when it was originally issued in the monthly format but the editors went back and corrected and added a lot of new art work to make the story flow smoothly.

If you managed to read thorough all of this and are still here....go get this book. "Add to shopping cart" right now and read an excellent epic story with excellent art. Highly recommended.

51 of 61 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Only for the hardcore fans February 3, 2007

By Farouk Samad

Format:Hardcover

Do you have a degree in the DC universe? If not, don't bother with this. I'm a fan of Batman, know a little about Superman, and have read all of Birds of Prey, the latest volume of Teen Titans, and a lot of the JLA from Morrison onwards, and I had a hard time following Crisis. That it's overflowing with minor DC characters who I didn't recognise and references to events that occurred decades ago are only two of the problems. From a storytelling perspective, it's a complete mess. There are so many different threads that not one has any real depth to it and all move slowly. And it's all a bit anti-climatic at the end. This was going to supposedly change the whole face of the DCU, but it hasn't really.

To illustrate how incomprehensible Crisis will be if you're not an avid DCU fan, take a look for those internet sites that trace all the comics that are related to Infinte Crisis. There's a huge number of titles that you need to read just to understand what's happening in the first issue of Infinte Crisis. All in all, not one for the casual fan.

22 of 28 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars The only nice thing I can say about this is...... *spoiler warnings* July 25, 2010

By Michael Zack

Format:Paperback

I went through a lot of the reviews and saw a lot of very insightful comments coming from many people. All I can do is share my own thoughts on the product. I refuse to claim anyone's opinions are right or wrong. All I can do is share my own thoughts and explain why I didn't care for Infinite Crisis. If you liked it, cool. If you didn't, that's cool too.

When I read comics, I see nothing wrong with looking back at what previously happened or closely examining a scene which occurred. To me, a comic is meant to be read slowly and appreciate the art. The artist plays a huge part in telling the overall story, as comic books are primarily a visual medium along side the storytelling. So, it makes sense to take a close look at the picture and examine it to see if it makes any sort of sense along with the story.

The only nice thing I can say about the story was that they tried hard to tell it. I admire the effort DC went through to put this together.

Visually, the story did not work. There were many instances where events happened which doesn't make sense in the context of the DC universe. In DC, Batman may be the smartest man in the world, but he is still only a man. At one point, Mongul was fighting Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman. Batman was backhanded by Mongul. He took the full force of a hit and was knocked far away. Keep in mind, Mongul is strong enough to fight both Superman and Wonder Woman at the same time. He can take hits and give them without problem. And Batman may be wearing some reinforced costume pieces, but he is still just a man. That backhand should have killed him. The fact he lived made no sense at all.

More on the visual aspects of the story! For some reason, the artists got very lazy and decided to use photoshop to create alternative earths. That's all fine and good, but they got really lazy. In art, the artist has to take perspective into account. It's not enough to draw, or present, something. The object has to be positions properly so that it will give the impression of distance. Every Earth presented appeared to be exactly the same size, which indicates they were all equidistant from each other. But that is impossible, because they appeared to overlap. Also, look at the shading for the multiple Earths. They are all shaded exactly the same. This makes no sense. The only light source is the Sun. And if they are positioned in different locations, which they are, they should be shaded differently. The only way to account for this is that the artist was very lazy and/or didn't care enough about the product.

In the build-up to Infinite Crisis, Batman's Kryptonite ring was lost right next to the Sun. Wonder Woman used it in an attempt to defeat Superman. They were next to the Sun during the fight when Superman hit her quite hard, and she lost her grip on the ring. The ring was not of a significant size and, given the size of the solar system, should not be easily found. There wasn't any story which indicated that the ring was found, or that Batman retrieved it. For no apparent reason, Batman had it with him when the Superman from Earth-2 talked to him.

Space is 2 degrees above absolute zero. I remember reading multiple DC stories which confirmed that. Yet Superboy's breath was able to freeze multiple Green Lanterns and shatter them.

Early in the story, Superman was seen staring at a news article of himself. It was pretty clear to the reader that it was a picture of him lying dead. If you were to look at the other newspapers around, one of them was about the Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Crisis was not remembered by anyone but the Superheroes who were at the beginning of time. This was established in the DC Universe. This was canon. But, for no apparent reason, there's a newspaper story dealing with it.

Why was the sky red?

How did Doomsday get knocked out? He's virtually a force of nature. In fact, he was point blank on Green Arrow, but Green Arrow was able to say two sentences before Superman showed up to knock out Doomsday. Doomsday is incredibly fast and should have plowed right through Green Arrow over 50 times by the time he finished his two sentences. Doomsday should not be knocked out. He doesn't have the nervous system to be knocked out. That would contradict what was written about in Hunter/Prey.

Why in the world were Superheroes watching Earths get destroyed at the new center of the universe? Shouldn't they have been doing something to stop it? Why weren't they trying to stop it? They only did something when Superman and Wonder Woman were about to die. That makes zero sense.

There were hundreds of OMACs surrounding Luther's tower. It was established that one OMAC was powerful enough to give Superman trouble. Now, there are hundreds of them. They didn't play a role at all in the defense of the tower at all. Superboy, Wonder Girl, and Nightwing were easily able to fly right in, fight off over 100 OMACs, and free the heroes with no difficulty whatsoever. That contradicted everything that is known on the OMACs. Everything.

Why did Alexander Luther kiss Power Girl? Why did that knock her out?

In Crisis of the Infinite Earths, Anti-Monitor's body was destroyed at the end when it fell into a star and the star went supernova because of the anti-matter in the Anti-Monitor. Yet, somehow the body survived for no apparent reason.

Why did Wally get sucked into the speed force? I'm sure there is a great story to explain it, but while reading the story, it seemed to happen for the sake of it happening rather than it adding to the story in any meaningful way. The event just suddenly happened for no explainable reason. It is the responsibility of the author and/or artist to communicate ideas to the reader. To have an event as important as that demands some sort of explanation within the story which it happens.

Earth-2 comes back and is hovering over Earth-1. So do the heroes rush over and investigate? Nope. They go and pray. Heroes. Going to church and praying. An Earth appeared right over the only Earth the heroes knew about...exactly at the time time quite a few heroes disappeared, namely the entire Justice Society of America, and they go and pray rather than investigate? The heroes claim to be concerned over the disappearance of everyone. If they had time to contact everyone to meet in one specific city and at one specific church, they had more than enough time to go to that Earth to investigate. Why didn't Superman rush over there immediately to see what happened. The fact that the heroes did absolutely nothing was just insulting to the intelligence.

These are only some of the problems I have with the story. This isn't including the story structure, the retcons from the comic books to the tradeback. To me, the problems are just too much for me to take. But I saw other reviewers love it.

Thanks for reading. I shared my opinion. What's yours?