At long last, the wait is over. DC Comics' much-ballyhooed Infinite Crisis #1 hit the stores on Wednesday, the culmination of a several months' buildup and crossovers, including a one-shot double issue titled Countdown to Infinite Crisis as well as several miniseries (The O.M.A.C. Project, The Rann-Thanagar War, The Return of Donna Troy, Villains United, and Day of Vengeance) spanning the DC Universe.... and then some. The premise is simple: the shit has hit the fan for the heroes, thanks in no small part to their own actions. At the center of this mess are Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman -- the iconic triad of the DC mythos -- who as the curtain rises on the first issue of this seven-part event are ready to throttle each other.
Beware -- spoilers ahead!
The Dark Knight, sore that his fellow Justice League members erased his memory in the aftermath of a previous crisis, creates a massive surveillance program called Brother Eye to spy on them only to have the system hijacked and used to hunt down and destroy superheroes. Oops. Having found the responsible party, instead of doing the good guy thing and taking the villain into custody, Wonder Woman goes Amazon apeshit and kills him instead -- which may have been a good idea, had the whole affair not been caught on video and broadcast all over the world to a horrified public. Double oops. Meanwhile, Superman can bring nothing constructive to the table himself save for anger and aloof self-righteousness as the world falls apart before their very eyes, prompting Batman to remark in the quip of the century that the last time the Kryptonian inspired anyone was when he died. It goes downhill from there.
Now while the folks at DC have been spinning Infinite Crisis as one of those comic extravaganzas for casual readers and fanboys alike, the first step towards a massive restructuring of the entire catalog in hopes of luring in new customers, it's hard to imagine a DC newbie making heads or tails of this book without relying heavily on Wikipedia (or Seth Cohen from The O.C.). The climax of the first issue -- which ties the series directly back to the 1985 Crisis on Infinite Earths -- is especially noodle-bending to the relatively uninitiated: we learn that instead of being retconned out of existence as formerly supposed, the heroes of DC's alternate Earths have been watching events unfold from some hitherto undisclosed phantom zone and can no longer simply stand by while their "real" counterparts drop the ball. If that's not accessible, I don't know what is!
But is it good? Mind you, I'm more of a Marvel Comics guy myself -- my recent obsession with Green Lantern notwithstanding -- so I know I'm coming at this from a slightly different perspective than the average DC fan, but for all of the head-scratching and Googling I had to do to understand the finer points of the issue, I rather enjoyed it. I'm a sucker for hero-on-hero conflict, so it doesn't get any better than watching the Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman dynamic play out against a Götterdämmerung backdrop. Besides, I'm curious to see how big this DC cosmic re-org is going to be. Even the The New York Times has a story about it, a testament to the newfound status the once lowly comic book now enjoys in American cultural life. So my recommendation to you is to pick up Infinite Crisis #1, find someone who will patiently explain things (like who Earth-2 Superman is) to you, and enjoy!
p.s. I noticed that my colleague Jason Clarke is also doing the comics review beat these days. How's that for synergy?
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