Crisis on Infinite Earths FAQ

[Paul Newell]

1. What was the Crisis?


Crisis on Infinite Earths was a 12 issue mini-series released in 1985 by DC Comics. The series was written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by George Perez, inked by Dick Giordano and Jerry Ordway. The purpose of the series was to showcase the breadth and depth of the DC Universe while at the same time streamlining it.


2. Why did it need streamlining?

At that time DC’s titles showcased a “Multiverse” of Parallel Earths, with some Earths featuring doppelgangers of heroes. Editorial considered this to be too confusing and needed simplifying.


3. What were the different Earths?


Though not all were featured in Crisis, the list of Earths that existed at the time were:

• Earth-One: Home of the Silver-Age DC heroes, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Justice League.
• Earth-Two: Home of the Golden-Age DC Heroes, including the Justice Society, All-Star Squadron and Infinity Inc.
• Earth-Three: Home of the Crime Syndicate.
• Earth-Four: Home of the Charlton heroes, including Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and the Question.
• Earth-Six: Home of Lady Quark.
• Earth-S: Home of the Fawcett heroes, including the Shazam family.
• Earth-X: Home of the Quality heroes, including the Freedom Fighters and Plastic Man.
• Earth-12: The home of the Inferior Five.
• Earth C: Home of Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew.
• Earth-C-Minus: Home of the Justa Lotta Animals
• Earth-Prime: Originally “our” Earth until the appearance of Ultraa and Superboy.

A further Earth was added by Marv Wolfman in the Adventures of the DCU Special (Crisis 4.5), Earth D, which was the home of a multicultural Justice League.
As well there are a few other Earths posited to exist. Among them Earth- B (Stories with inconsistent continuity that appeared in The Brave and the Bold and World’s Finest. The stories were primarily written by Bob Haney.), Crossover-Earth (Home of the DC/Marvel crossovers) and Earth-Quality (Where the Freedom Fighters never formed and WWII was won in 1945).

[Paul Newell]

4. How was this Multiverse changed?



Primarily it was “wiped out”. The story introduced readers to two near-omnipotent beings, the good "Monitor" and the evil "Anti-Monitor". The Monitor had made cameo appearances in various DC comic book series for two years preceding the publication of the series and at first appeared to be a new supervillain, but with the onset of the Crisis he was revealed to be working on a desperate plan to save the entire Multiverse from destruction at the hands of the Anti-Monitor. The Crisis series highlighted the efforts of the superheroes to stop the Anti-Monitor's. Under the initial guidance of the Monitor, a select group of heroes was assigned to protect massive "tuning forks" designed to hold off the antimatter that had already annihilated untold numbers of alternate Earths. Eventually the conflict grew and nearly every hero became involved in the battle.

The Monitor was murdered, but his death released enough energy to save the last five parallel Earths long enough for the heroes to lead an assault on the Anti-Monitor. The villain retreated, but at the cost of Supergirl's life. This lull in the war provided some breathing room for the heroes, but the various supervillains joined forces under Brainiac and Lex Luthor to attempt the conquest of the remaining Earths, while the second Flash died stopping the Anti-Monitor's back-up scheme of destruction. The Spectre halted the hero/villain conflict, warning that the Anti-Monitor was traveling to the beginning of time to prevent the Multiverse's creation. Heroes and villains joined forces in response with the heroes traveling to stop the Anti-Monitor, and the villains traveling to the planet Oa in antiquity to prevent the renegade scientist Krona from performing a historic experiment that would have allowed Anti-Monitor to succeed in his efforts.

The villains failed, and Krona proceeded with his experiment, while the heroes supported the Spectre, whose battle with the Anti-Monitor created an energy overload that literally shattered space and time. With that, a single universe was created and the surviving superheroes returned to a present-day reality where the various elements of the five Earths were fused into one. The Anti-Monitor then attacked this single universe but was defeated.


5. Surviving Heroes? Who died?

Many heroes and villains died or were wiped from existence during the storyline.

Those that died were:

• The Crime Syndicate: Ultraman, Owlman, Superwoman, Johnny Quick II, and Power Ring
• Luthor III
• Lois Lane-Luthor
• The Losers: Johnny Cloud, Gunner, Sarge, and Captain Storm
• Farmer Boy of Easy Company (some sources claim that this is "Flower", a different, but identical-looking, member of Easy)
• Nighthawk
• Kid Psycho
• Princess Fern
• Lord Volt
• The Justice Alliance of Earth-D (In the Adv.s of the DC Universe Special)
• Supergirl
• Flash II
• Luthor I
• Psimon
• The Shaggy Man
• Aquagirl
• Icicle
• Mirror Master
• Maaldor the Darklord
• Angle Man
• Starman III
• Immortal Man
• Dove
• Green Arrow I
• Prince Ra-Man
• Clayface II
• Sunburst
• Lori Lemaris
• The Ten-Eyed Man
• Bug-Eyed Bandit
• Kole
• Huntress II
• Robin I
• Wonder Woman II (Devolved in time)

Wiped from existence were:

• Superman I
• Lois Lane-Kent
• Alexander Luthor
• Earth-Prime Superboy
• Wonder Woman I
• Steve Trevor I

Some of the heroes that died also were wiped from the timeline, such as Robin I, Green Arrow I, Huntress II and Supergirl.


NOTE: Some of these heroes and villains have re-appeared Post-Crisis.

[Paul Newell]

6. I heard that Marv Wolfman had a secret plot device to bring back the Barry Allen Flash. What was it?



From Marv wolfman’s Questions & Answers page:

So many people actually saw that comment I made in my forward and have asked me how I'd bring back the Flash, that I've finally gotten tired of explaining it. So that I don't ever have to explain it again, here it is now, once and for all. Please remember, this is a very comic booky answer and you can probably blow holes in it somehow (but then nobody really complained how an anti-matter villain could co-exist with a positive matter good guy, so maybe physics isn't anyone's strong suit). This is what I proposed to DC back in 1985. Please note that I didn't think it was a good idea to kill The Flash but those were my marching orders, so I did the best I could to make his death as moving as I could. Here is the given I worked from: Much of the reason the people in charge didn't care for Barry Allen was that he was considered dull. I felt if I could come up with a way of making him vital again while keeping him alive, then perhaps Barry would be given a second lease on life. I came up with the idea of Flash moving back through time, flashing into our dimension even as he was dying. So, thought I, what if Barry was plucked out of the time stream at one of those moments he appeared? What if that meant from this point on Barry knew that he was literally living on borrowed time, that at any moment the time stream could close in on him and take him to his inevitable death. What would this mean to Barry? 1: from now on the fastest man alive would literally be running for his life. 2: He knew he didn't have much time left and believed (as Barry would) that he had to devote it to helping others. 3: This meant Barry would become driven and desperate to help others with each passing tick of the clock. I felt this new revitalized attitude might be enough to make the formerly dull police scientist into someone who now had to push himself as he never had to before. I was hoping that this would make the character interesting enough to live. Earlier, I said my explanation was comic booky. In many ways it is because none of us knows when we are going to die. But this knowledge would haunt a man like Barry Allen and change him from an unassuming character into a driven hero. At least that was the plan!

7. Did Crisis cross over into other titles?

Yes it did. And The Monitor made many appearances in DC titles before the Crisis even started.

The timeline of Crisis tie-ins and crossovers goes something like this:

• New Teen Titans #21 - First Appearance: Monitor. Watches Starfire & Raven save the New York Yankees from a bomb plot.
• New Teen Titans Annual #2 – First Appearance: Lyla. Supplies super-powered mercenaries to a gangster. The mercenaries fight the Teen Titans.
• Green Lantern #173, #176, #178. – At the request of a congressman, sends the Demolition Team against Green Lantern.
• Flash #338, #339 - Behind the scenes in #338. Supply the Rogues with futuristic armour to create Big Sir.
• Tales of the Teen Titans #47 – Records the defeat of H.I.V.E.
• Blue Devil #5 – Watches the Blue Devil fight Nebiros.
• Fury of Firestorm #28 – Supplies Slipknot to fight Firestorm and watches the battle.
• Batman and the Outsiders #14, #15 – Supplies Maxie Zeus with the New Olympians to use against the Outsiders. Observes the battle.
• Action Comics #560 – Gives John Doe a contact to get a super-villain costume and weapons.
• Justice League of America #232 – Observes the final encounter between The Commander and the JLA/JSA, distracting the the villain so the heroes will win.
• Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes #317 – Time travel to the 30th Century to observe Dev-Em.
• Wonder woman #321 – Watches the Huntress.
• Infinity Inc. #8 – Ultra-Humanite reports to the Monitor.
• All-Star Squadron #40 – Leader of the Phantom Empire contacts the Monitor for a replacement android.
• DC Comics Presents #76 – Watches Superman and Wonder Woman clash with Christine Cade.
• Superman #402 – Observes a visiting team of 40th Century doctors.
• Saga of the Swamp Thing #30, #31 – Observes the climactic battle between Swamp Thing and Arcane.
• Justice League of America #234 – Observes the new Justice League battling the Overmaster.
• Vigilante #14 - Behind the scenes only. Supplies Mr. Hammer his shadow suit.
• Superman #403 – Swaps information with the Thief-Master of Ramox.
• World's Finest #311 – To test Superman and Batman, allows a hacker to tap into the computer at the Fortress of Solitude.
• Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes #319, #320 – Provides Universo with the services of Magpie.
• Amethyst #2 – Discovers and observes Amethyst.
• G.I. Combat #275, #276 - First time the Monitors physical appearance isrevealed. Appears before the Haunted Tank.
• Wonder Woman #323 – Manipulates events so that several villains fight an Amazon-powered Etta Candy.
• Action Comics #564 – Gives the Master Jailer a device to use against Superman.
• Warlord #91 – Gives a short history lesson on the Warlord and Skartaris
• Jonah Hex #90 – Gives Jonah Hex a horse, while in disguise.
• Batman #384 – Helps Dr. Fang’s gang hire the Calendar Man.
• Detective Comics #551 - Behind the scenes only. Story continued from Batman #384.
• Tales of the Teen Titans #58 - First chronological appearance of Harbinger. Brings Psimon aboard the Monitor’s satellite.
• DC Comics Presents #78 - Last Pre-Crisis appearance of the Monitor and Lyla as they watch the destruction of Earth 3 begins.

CONT.

[Paul Newell]

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #1

• All-Star Squadron #50 – Harbinger meets Firebrand and takes her to the Monitors Satellite. Their passage through time pulls Mr. Mind to Earth 2 where he creates a “Monster Society of Evil”.
• Fury of Firestorm #41 – Harbinger and Psycho Pirate recruit Firestorm.
• Green Lantern #194 – John Stewart is recruited and the Anti-Monitor strikes down the Guardians.
• Infinity Inc. #18 – Harbinger recruits Obsidian.

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #2

• All-Star Squadron #51 - 52 – Some members fight the Monster Society of Evil, while others travel to Earth S and fight Shadow Demons with Captain Marvel.
• Detective Comics #558 – Batman gets a call that the Joker is on the loose.
• New Teen Titans #13 – The teen Titans team up with the Outsiders.
• Saga of the Swamp Thing #44 – John Constantine and Steve Dayton meet Batman.

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #3

• Green Lantern #195 – Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner are transported to Oa.

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #4

• DC Comics Presents #86 – Supergirl and Superman team up to investigate the Crisis.
• Legends of the DCU: COIE Special – Traveling back in time to find the JLA, the Flash is transported to Earth-D. With the help of Pariah and Lady Quark, he brings members of Earth-1 to help Earth-D's Justice Alliance of America in a vain attempt to save their world from destruction.
• Infinity Inc. #19 – Infinity Inc. and the JLA team up. Mekanique, a robot from the future, is introduced.
• Justice League of America #244 – The JLA and Infinity Inc. team up.
• Infinity Inc. #20 – Infinity Inc. and the JSA battle Crisis-spawned storms.
• Infinity Inc. Annual #1 –Obsidian is returned to Earth Two.
• Wonder Woman #327 – Wonder Woman battles the mad god Tezcatupoca.
• Wonder Woman #328 – Wonder Woman and the Amazons battle the Anti-Monitors shadow demons.
• Infinity Inc. #21 – Harbinger transports the Earth Two heroes to the Monitors satellite.

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #5

• All-Star Squadron #53 – Members of the All-star Squadron appear at the gathering on the Monitors satellite. Later, some members battle the Red Tornado.
• Infinity Inc. #22 – The heroes gather at the Monitors satellite.
• Swamp Thing #46 – Swamp Thing aboard the Monitors satellite.

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #6

• All-Star Squadron #54 - #55 – Members of the All-star Squadron battle the Ultra-Humanite at Cape Canaveral.
• Superman #413 – Lex luthor is abducted by Brainiac during a battle with Superman.

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #7

• DC Comics Presents #95 – Superman teams up with Hawkman.
• DC Comics Presents #87 – Superman meets the Earth-Prime Superboy.
• All-Star Squadron #56 – A Seven Solders of Victory story.
• Infinity Inc. #23 – Wildcat II is introduced.
• Infinity Inc. #24 – The Earth Two heroes discuss the Crisis.
• Legion of Super-Heroes #16 – Brainiac 5 deals with the death of Supergirl.
• Legion of Super-Heroes #18 – The Legion battle the Infinite Man and the effects of the Crisis begin to take hold.
• Superman #414 – Superman returns Supergirls body to New Krypton.
• Superman #415 – Superman meets Supergirls ex-husband.

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #8

• Blue Devil #17 – John Stewart takes Blue Devil to the JLA satellite to help repair Red Tornado.
• Omega Men #31 – The Omega Men pilot their ship into a spacewarp.
• Blue Devil #18 - #19 – Blue Devil and the Omega Men end up in a parallel universe.
• Justice League of America Annual #3 – The JLA battle the Red Tornado.

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #9

• DC Comics Presents #88 – Superman teams up with the Creeper.
• Fury of Firestorm #42 – Wonder Girl and Firehawk search Manhattan for Terry Long.
• Green Lantern #196 – Guy Gardner is given a ring and becomes a Green Lantern.
• Justice League of America #245 – Steel is transported to the far future.
• New Teen Titans #14 – Nightwing and Starfire travel to Tamaran.

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #10

• Omega Men #33 – The Omega Men discover the fate of Nimbus.

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #11

• Amethyst #13 – Dr. Fate takes a blind Amethyst back to Gemworld.
• Wonder Woman #329 – The Anti-Monitor allies himself with Hades.Wonder Woman is married to Steve Trevor before leaving for the final battle against the Anti-Monitor.

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #12

• Green Lantern #198 – Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps battle Guy Gardner in the Anti-Matter Universe.
• Infinity Inc. #25 – The final fate of the Earth 2 Wonder Woman.
• DC Comics Presents #94 – Superman teams up with Harbinger, Lady Quark and Pariah.
• All-Star Squadron #57 - #60 – The All-Star Squadron helps Mekanique to change history. The robot allows the history altering effects of the Crisis to take hold.
• Losers Special #1 – The true fate of the Losers is revealed.

[jadegiant77]

[QUOTE=Paul Newell]6. I heard that Marv Wolfman had a secret plot device to bring back the Barry Allen Flash. What was it?



From Marv wolfman’s Questions & Answers page:

I like this idea. That would be a kick-ass way to bring back Barry without invalidating his sacrifice during the Crisis.

[ke99]

How come we dont see more than one batman in the ordeal. We see more than one wonder woman, etc., but whule there is definitely more than one batman, we dont see him. Also, why was there only a Superboy represented from Earth Prime, who had an extremely short existence prior? What about the original Superboy? Lastly, how does one tell in Pre-COIE stories if one is reading about Batman or Superman from Earth 1, 2 etc.? And shouldnt the Superman from Earth 1 have no knowledge of Supergirl until COIE? She ostensably only appeared in the original superman continuity.

[Paul Newell]

How come we dont see more than one batman in the ordeal. We see more than one wonder woman, etc., but whule there is definitely more than one batman, we dont see him.

The Batman of Earth-2 was dead at the time of COIE. At one point he appears in a view screen in the background, along with other characters who were dead at the time.

Also, why was there only a Superboy represented from Earth Prime, who had an extremely short existence prior? What about the original Superboy?

Well the original Superboy was the Earth-1 Superman. I presume they thought that introducing the Earth-Prime Superboy was a way of including the character of Superboy without having a time paradox.

Lastly, how does one tell in Pre-COIE stories if one is reading about Batman or Superman from Earth 1, 2 etc.?

They usually were pretty clearly marked when stories happened on Earth-2.

And shouldnt the Superman from Earth 1 have no knowledge of Supergirl until COIE? She ostensably only appeared in the original superman continuity.

She appeared in the Earth-1 continuity, not the original Earth-2 continuity.

[pennywisdom]

4. How was this Multiverse changed?

Primarily it was “wiped out”. The story introduced readers to two near-omnipotent beings, the good "Monitor" and the evil "Anti-Monitor". The Monitor had made cameo appearances in various DC comic book series for two years preceding the publication of the series and at first appeared to be a new supervillain, but with the onset of the Crisis he was revealed to be working on a desperate plan to save the entire Multiverse from destruction at the hands of the Anti-Monitor. The Crisis series highlighted the efforts of the superheroes to stop the Anti-Monitor's. Under the initial guidance of the Monitor, a select group of heroes was assigned to protect massive "tuning forks" designed to hold off the antimatter that had already annihilated untold numbers of alternate Earths. Eventually the conflict grew and nearly every hero became involved in the battle.

What was the Anti-Monitor's motivation for destroying the multi-verse in the first place?

[Paul Newell]

What was the Anti-Monitor's motivation for destroying the multi-verse in the first place?

He gained power from the energies of the destroyed universes. And the anti-matter replaced the void that was left expanding his domain.

[Green Goblin]

What was the Anti-Monitor's motivation for destroying the multi-verse in the first place?

belive or the Guradians of Owa were responabile for reating him because they wouldn't let him see the start of creation which lead them to forming the manhunters then later the Green Lantern Corp they were also later spilt into faction one faction didn't want anything to do while the other faction want a more direct confrontation with evil and piked kyle ranyer to be the new green latern at the time hope that helps a bit

[DoctorDoom]

Just read this, thanks for the info. And now I know!

[the big unit]

belive or the Guradians of Owa were responabile for reating him because they wouldn't let him see the start of creation which lead them to forming the manhunters then later the Green Lantern Corp they were also later spilt into faction one faction didn't want anything to do while the other faction want a more direct confrontation with evil and piked kyle ranyer to be the new green latern at the time hope that helps a bit

huh!!!what?

[GovernmentMule]

Hi all - I originally posted this in the general DCU forum before I saw this specific Crisis forum. So apologies for the duplication, but maybe this is the better place for answers...

All this universe-revamping DCnU stuff got me reading Crisis again, and I thought I might see if anyone here can help with a niggling question that's always bugged me.

It's a little difficult to explain though so forgive me if this makes no sense. I read post-Crisis stuff before I ever went back and read Crisis, and had assumed that everyone and everything got reset and rebooted. But reading it, all the characters that were at the battle with the Anti-Monitor when the new, post-Crisis world gets created remember the original multiverse. Earth-2 Clark Kent briefly shows up at the Daily Planet, and Earth-1 Clark passes him off as his uncle, we see Earth-1 Batman burying Earth-2 Robin etc. - All on the new, sole, Earth that we are to assume is the Post-Crisis Earth.

Jay Garrick's 'place' in the new universe is different, his past has changed - but his memories have not. He's not a new, rebooted, Jay Garrick - he's the old Jay Garrick living out a new role with an altered history that he doesn't remember.
If this is the case for all the characters that we are told remember the changes caused by Anti-Monitor, then aren't their post-Crisis selves just their pre-Crisis selves on a new, altered world?

Where does that leave, for example, John Byrne's rebooted Superman? The Superman introduced in Man of Steel seems like a new character, completely separate from all the pre-Crisis versions - but while that may be the new history/origin of Superman in the merged world, the finale of Crisis indicates that the Superman that we read about after the Crisis is just the Earth-1 Superman, insulated from all the changes by the battle, with memories of the multiverse, his original origin, Earth-2 Superman and all the rest, just playing out his new role in the 'Superman' spot on this new Post-Crisis world.

Basically (I warned it would be gibberish) it seems that all the characters at the battle with Anti-Monitor at the dawn of time weren't rebooted at all. They are just the original Earth-1, 2, whatever, characters with their old memories, living on a new Earth where their histories have been changed. This is completely at odds with the usual idea of the post-Crisis characters being new, reset versions with a clean slate.

Have I missed something crucial?

Other than, obviously, it's just a comic book, don't worry about it :)

Thanks in advance for any insight

[Paul Newell]

8. I ‘ve heard the term “Red Sky Issue”. What does that mean?



Not all the tie in issues were relevant to the Crisis storyline. Some would just have acknowledgement of the red skies that appeared Earth as the Crisis was happening. The term came to mean an issue that was an “officially” tied in that actually had very little to do with the crossover in general.




9. What’s the deal with All-Star Squadron changing history?


During the revamps of Superman and Wonder Woman an edict came down that aspects of the DC Universe that were no longer relevant to the new DCU would no longer appear, or something to that order.


Examples included things like the characters that were at the beginning of time remembering the Multiverse, as well as the characters that existed like the Golden Age Superman, Superboy, Supergirl and the Golden Age Wonder Woman.

There was a period where they were still remembered and would "appear". Things like the All-Star Squadron and Infinity Inc. remembering the Earth 2 heroes that no longer existed, Huntress was still considered a member of Infinity Inc., The Legion of Super-Heroes had a statue of Supergirl in their memorial room, Superman remembering the Earth Prime Superboy, etc. The new Earth, at this point, was a mixture of the Pre-Crisis histories, but all situated on one Earth.

After the edict was handed down, all these little details disappeared and to explain the situation there was a story in All-Star Squadron where a robot from the future called Meckanique was using her powers to hold back the "full effects" of the Crisis

After Meckanique stopped doing this, the “final effects” of the Crisis were presumed to have "taken hold". The results were that reality was changed and all characters except the Psycho-Pirate lost their memories of the pre-Crisis history. The Earth-2 Aquaman, Batman, Green Arrow, Huntress, Robin, Speedy, and Wonder Woman, the Golden Age Captain Marvel and Marvel Family, the Earth-Prime Superboy and Earth-1's Hawkman, Hawkwoman, Supergirl, and Wonder Woman ceased to exist, along with all memory of their existence.

[Paul Newell]

10. Does anyone remember the Crisis?

As mentioned, The Psycho-Pirate retained his memories of the Crisis. It’s also been shown, to some extent that the Guardians, The Spectre and Parallax knew of the Crisis. It was shown in the prologue to Zero Hour that the Linear Men had a record of the Crisis.

11. So the Crisis never happened?

The Crisis did happen...But the nature of it was changed.

For years afterwards, the Crisis was mentioned in comic books, but its nature was never revealed until the JLA: Incarnations mini-series which had, in issue #4, the Anti-Monitor destroying different time era's with his anti-matter, causing time to compress and merge, rather than destroying alternate Earths.

12. What were some of the inconsistencies created?

• Superboy and Supergirl were wiped from existence which affected the Legion of Super-Heroes, as the former was its inspiration and appeared in many of the Legion stories. The latter was romantically attached to Brainiac 5, invalidating more stories.
• Wonder Woman was no longer a charter member of the Justice League of America as she now didn’t appear in the DCU until well after the Crisis. She was replaced by Black Canary. This move also invalidated Wonder Girls origin.
• Hawkman didn’t arrive on Earth until much later which invalidated the stories the character appeared in. He was replaced by the Golden Age Hawkman and a “Thanagarian spy”.
• Power Girl was no longer Superman’s cousin.

13. Where can I learn more?

Here's two excellent sites for more details on the Crisis:

The Annotated Crisis on Infinite Earths

Alan Kistler's guide to The Crisis