There hasn't been a "bigger" event in DC Comics
than Infinite Crisis. The first word
in the title seemed, at times, to describe the number of crossovers and related
one-shots and miniseries. Essentially related to its predecessor, Crisis on Infinite Earths and the
yearlong 52, which immediately followed
it, Infinite Crisis stands as a
transition between two eras, a sort of crossroads in the history of DC Comics
more than it is a single standalone work.
Nevertheless, the seven issues of Infinite Crisis itself can be read alone, but woe be to the reader
who picks it up unaware of the voluminous backstory. Writer Geoff Johns expects
the reader to know the basics of COIE
and pre-Crisis history and tries to reward those who also know the fine points
and even the trivia. Several plots from various DC series spanning the year or
two prior to Infinite Crisis are essential
to understanding where Infinite Crisis
picks up in issue #1, which from the very first scene feels much more like the
middle of a longer story than the start of a new one.
Stripped to its barest essence, the plot goes like this:
Alex Luthor, the last crisis' only survivor from Earth Three, aided by the
Superboy from Earth Prime, dupes many villains and Kal-L, the Superman of Earth
Two, into helping him carry out a plan to reboot the universe. Alex, Superboy
Prime, and Kal-L each believe that the DC Universe created by COIE was flawed, unnecessarily dark, and
that Alex should use his scientific skills to start the universe over, better,
based on different foundations. The existing superheroes, notably Superman,
Wonder Woman, and Batman, begin the story in disarray, partly due to their own
conflicts, and partly due to plots that Alex has secretly undertaken against
them. Ultimately, Alex and Superboy Prime are stopped, but at the cost of
several superheroes' lives, including that of Superboy, Conner Kent. In the
process, the universe is indeed rebooted, but New Earth is only moderately
different than the post-Crisis Earth, and not hewn according to Alex's wishes.
At the end of the conflict, the superheroes are more unified and optimistic
than they were when the crisis began.
It's a convoluted story that requires so much effort to
summarize. Infinite Crisis aspires to
higher things than Crisis on Infinite
Earths did: The heroes have noticeably different personalities – which is
what leads to their conflicts – and even the villains are nuanced: Alex
Luthor's plan, at least a sanitized version of it, is presented to heroes like
Batman and Power Girl, and they actually need some time to think it over before
rejecting it. So the story is more nuanced than COIE. But aspiring to nuance and handling it well are not the same
thing, and in trying to do so much, Infinite
Crisis does only some of it well.
The plot is engaging for serious fans, and, defying the usual
expectations of a superhero story, reads like a mystery: First-time readers began
the story not knowing who the villain was, how the universe would be reshaped, or
which characters would die. The use of characters who had been in another
dimension since COIE made a dramatic
splash on the last page of the first issue, breaking a rule that had been
inviolate for the previous 20 years. The kidnapping of a very quirky set of
superheroes (and Black Adam) posed a mystery that some readers solved – that
the hodgepodge of abductees were selected to provide one each from a diverse
collection of the pre-Crisis Earths. When Alex reactivated the many Earths of
the Multiverse, it created a vast menagerie of worlds for readers to survey,
from the prominent Earths like Earth Two to the hyper-obscure world of the
Wonder Woman. The cosmic stakes involved were daring and exciting.
The plot of Infinite
Crisis, unlike that of its predecessor COIE,
is built around complex interpersonal dynamics. This indicates a higher degree
of aspiration in the later story, which is certainly owing to the changing
times – many great works published after COIE demonstrated that interpersonal dynamics and character
development can work in the superhero genre. However, while Infinite Crisis attempts to work on this
level, it does not succeed very well. Conflicts between the superheroes, and
even the villains, are central to the plot, but they are not true to the
characters involved, and do not transition from one status to another in a sensible
way. Johns renders the characters in Infinite
Crisis as unlike real people in their emotions as they are in their special
powers and abilities, and this turns IC's
aspiration to complex interpersonal dynamics into a failure.
This failure is most evident when one reads the first and
last scenes that show the Trinity – Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman – and
searches the story for events that bridge those two scenes. When IC opens, each member of the Trinity has
grave misgivings about the way each of the others operates. Superman and Batman
cannot accept that Wonder Woman killed Max Lord. Superman says that she has to
answer for what she did, and she says that she will, when the time is right.
Superman criticizes Batman's paranoia and spying on other heroes. Batman says
that Superman does too little, and that the last time he inspired anyone was
when he was dead. That's an abundance of discord in the opening. How does it
end? Seven issues later, the Trinity walks off into the metaphorical sunset,
happy and relaxed in their civilian identities. Clark Kent gives a speech about
their common purpose and unity, and Diana concludes, "It's good to have
friends." This is an almost miraculous turnaround from the opening scene.
How did this change take place? There are some scenes that seem like they're
trying to convey that tremendous change, but they are desperately inadequate
for the task:
1) Clark Kent, working at the Daily Planet, hears that supervillains
killed some of the Freedom Fighters. He tells his wife, "Bruce is right,
Lois. He's always right… I want to stay and talk, but it's time for action." From then on forward, he works
tirelessly to stop the chaos caused by Alex and the supervillains until the
story is finished.
2) While Batman's out-of-control creation, Brother Eye, sends
Omacs to kill the Amazons, Batman and Wonder Woman separately contemplate how
his paranoia and her actions led to this outcome.
3) When Superman and Kal-L tussle on a briefly revived Earth
Two, Wonder Woman shows up and argues on Superman's side against Kal-L's
conviction that Earth Two should replace the post-Crisis Earth.
4) After Superboy, Conner Kent, dies stopping Alex's
machine, the Trinity shows up on the scene, just a little too late. Superman
and Batman voice that they should have been there, and need to prevent any such
events in the future. Then they join many other heroes in a final battle
against the villains.
5) When Alex Luthor is subdued, Batman aims a gun at him and
has the opportunity to kill him. Wonder Woman breaks her sword and tells Batman
it isn't worth killing him. He agrees and throws down the gun.
These five scenes are obviously offered as the mechanism by
which the Trinity resolves their conflicts, but they depend upon
characterizations of the heroes that had never been seen before, and as
character development, hardly make sense. (1) indicates that Superman is prone
to stand around as Clark Kent while the world goes to hell – when was that ever
a characteristic of Superman? (5) indicates that killing an incapacitated enemy
is something that Batman or Wonder Woman might normally consider, but such
moments are not typical of either of them. (When Wonder Woman killed Max Lord, he
was physically restrained, but not defeated. Wonder Woman killed him not out of
anger, but in order to solve a problem with, seemingly, no other solution.) (2)
and (4) give the heroes a motive to resolve
their differences, but don't indicate how that resolution should take place.
Cumulatively, these five scenes, along with the series introduction and
conclusion is a ramshackle narration of interpersonal dynamics, and therein the
story wastes several scenes, including the series' bookends, on a subplot that
just doesn't work. It seems as though Johns decided that the story should open
with conflict and end with resolution and then approached the path between them
with little care for how it unfolded.
The conflict between Batman and Hal Jordan, however, is
resolved in a more satisfactory fashion. When Brother Eye reminds Batman that
he had reason to distrust many other superheroes, Batman, flying off with Green
Lantern, says, "I'll take my chances." Though we see that decision arise
in a moment of necessity, and can only guess at the thoughts behind it, the
scene is at least powerful and conveyed with style.
The villains' plan in IC
also offers more nuance than that
of COIE. Though Alex Luthor is a
despicable villain, his plan is curiously sympathetic. In many DC stories, a
timeline-gone-bad begins to shape the world, then is prevented or undone by
some cosmic maneuver or another. This first occurred when the Justice Society
stopped Per Degaton's time travel-based conquest of the world back in 1947, and
has happened many times since then. Alex Luthor merely asserts that the entire
post-Crisis history is one of those bad timelines that should be erased, and he
has some compelling facts to back him up. Even if his conclusion – that
post-Crisis history is so bad that its timeline should be erased – is
wrong, he's got a reasonable point. And, indeed, his basic idea wins over Kal-L
and gets Power Girl to consider it. Even Batman mulls it over for a couple of
panels before he rejects it. Unfortunately, after IC goes through the trouble of producing intrigue that perhaps
Alex's goal is a worthy one, it gets lazy and makes Alex and Superboy Prime
into despicable villains who should be opposed because their methods – not
their goals – are objectionable.
One can see the quality of the story sink rapidly between
the end of issue #2 and the end of issue #3. Both issues end on surprises: IC #2 ends with Kal-L telling Power Girl
that Earth Two should be the basis of a rebooted world, and fans had to wonder
how much this true, and to what extent DC may have planned to make that so.
Several scenes in IC #3 show unlikely
– and interesting – pairs of characters interacting, perhaps none more
intriguing and memorable than the meeting between the Earth Two Superman and
the post-Crisis Batman. But then, at the issue's end, Power Girl says that she
thinks the heroes can come up with a plan to save everybody, Earth One and Two,
and perhaps more, when her thought – one of the most interesting points in
the story – is suddenly obliterated by a punch from Superboy Prime, who knocks
her out with a sneer indicating that he is Evil with a capital 'E' and in so
doing, he knocks the intrigue out of the story with the same punch that robs
Power Girl of her consciousness. From here on out, Alex and Superboy Prime are mustache-twirling
evil villains who will lie, cheat, and kill to force their agenda through. It's
as though Johns met some desired quota of complexity in the first three issues
and decided that the final four issues could get along without any more depth
or nuance. From that point to the end, we see Very Bad characters in conflict
against Very Good characters, and so many interesting possibilities are
dismissed along with Power Girl's hopes.
In issue #4, when Superboy Prime later turns from a bitter
has-been into a sociopathic killer, there's plenty of action and death and not
much resembling normal human character development. In fact, Johns seems to
narrate a criticism of his own work when Pantha (in the character's final
speech balloon) says, "'You started this'? He's just a stupid kid."
Yes, the dialogue is simple and stupid. Why didn't Johns write something less
simple and less stupid instead of putting it in the final draft? Soon
thereafter, when Superboy Prime says, "You're ruining everything! You're
ruining me!" he, like Pantha,
seems to be delivering a sound criticism of the story rather than speaking as a
character within it.
Alex's great threat to the cosmos is, like all of the
interpersonal dynamics in IC, ended
suddenly and with a shrug. Conner Kent destroys the vibrational tuning fork
that Alex needs to reshape the universe, and in so doing, ends Alex's
experimentation. However, this is an uncertain victory. The universe was indeed
changed by whatever the tower did before or during its destruction, and so the
pre-IC universe was effectively
erased and replaced by a new one. This is not so different from Alex's plan
except that the new universe is not so very different from the pre-IC universe and the change is apparently
random rather than any change that Alex or – for that matter – the heroes
desire. The story once again gives up on the potential for interesting
complexity when Wonder Girl tells her dying boyfriend, "You saved the
Earth. You saved everyone." Did
he? A lot of characters were changed by Infinite
Crisis – were they (the old versions of them) saved? How would Wonder Girl
know if they were living in a new timeline that had replaced the old one?
Amnesia regarding old timelines is part of the science fiction in COIE, so she should be unaware whether this
was a new timeline or not. In fact, it is a new timeline, even though it's
similar to the old one, so how does survival and identity work? If someone
exists in a universe that is replaced by a similar universe, does that person
survive or are they deleted and replaced by a new person who happens to be
similar to the first one? Those are interesting philosophical questions, but IC stopped asking interesting
philosophical questions by the end of IC
#6.
When IC does get
philosophical, it also gets vague. What are the heroes like? How should they
behave? When the Trinity criticize one another in the opening issue, Superman
and Wonder Woman debate, using character names instead of ideas:
"I don't know who you are anymore." "…I'm
Wonder Woman." "… I remember a time when you wanted to be called
Diana." "…the world doesn't need Diana. The world needs Wonder
Woman." Does that dialogue mean anything? Are all of the characters and
all of the readers meant to have the same idea of what "Diana" means
as opposed to "Wonder Woman"? I sure don't know what Johns means by
them. The characters are arguing about whether or not she (whatever you want to
call her) is too ruthless. Does "Wonder Woman" connote ruthlessness
whereas "Diana" does not? That's never what those names meant to me.
Johns is on a roll, a bad one, and he uses the same
ineffective style of discourse lower on the same page, with Batman going after
Superman this time: "You're not human. You're Superman." "I know
that." "Then start acting like it." How could Superman not act
like Superman? Isn't however he acts what Superman is like? In real life, when
someone isn't acting the way you like, do you tell them, "You're [the
person's name]"? No, because that would be just as meaningless as it is in
this scene.
It doesn't even feel like Johns finds this dialogue
meaningful. Four issues later, the Earth Two Wonder Woman returns for one
scene, to counsel her counterpart, and tells her, "…the one thing you
haven't been for a very long time is human."
That's exactly what Batman said that Superman shouldn't be! Is being human
something Superman and Wonder Woman should be, or not? Or should they be
"Superman"/"Wonder Woman"? Does anyone read this dialogue
and think they understand what the characters are getting at? I sure don't, and
when I put these scenes side-by-side, I don't think Johns does, either.
If there is something good that "Superman" means,
the demolition of Kal-L, not to mention Superboy Prime, seems to undermine
whatever that is. It must be said that the Kal-L in Infinite Crisis does not very much match the Golden Age character
from 1938, nor the Silver Age character shown with graying temples in the late
Seventies. In fact, he's rather a dupe, tricked by a Luthor into doing the
wrong thing until it's far too late. He's naive, saying with wide eyes,
"Superman always saves Lois Lane" as his wife dies. And, in an
ignominious finale if there ever was one, he is beaten to death, fist-to-face,
by a teenage version of himself. That scene ends with yet another Superman
telling that teenager that being Superman is "about action." Kal-L's
action in Infinite Crisis is a
disappointing version of whatever Superman was ever meant to be.
An unpleasant irony of Infinite
Crisis is that the four COIE
survivors say that the post-Crisis world has gotten too dark and lost its way,
and then Infinite Crisis shows a
Superboy ripping people's arms and heads off while razoring other heroes in
half with his heat vision. Black Adam pokes his fingers through a villain's
face, and the superhero present on the scene is not outraged, but simply asks, "Was
that necessary?" The villain Alex Luthor – the very one who felt that the
world was too dark – promised other villains that they will be allowed to rape
Power Girl. Yes, Alex Luthor is hopelessly sick and contradictory in this
regard, but so is Infinite Crisis itself.
If Johns feels that the DC Universe has gotten too dark, why does he up the
ante? If he doesn't feel that way, why does he have so many characters – even
the original Superman – say so?
Infinite Crisis is
a mixed bag. It has many powerful and memorable scenes, as dark as when an obscenely powerful group of supervillains ambush the Freedom Fighters and as light as when the Flashes zoom in to run Superboy Prime right out of the universe. It dangles interesting
possibilities before the reader, some of which are harder to appreciate now
that the era has passed, but worked very well then as part of a mystery
regarding not only the events in the story, but in the sort of DC Universe that
it would go on to create. And it created a very fine DC Universe, ushering in
an era of comics that were possibly the best DC ever has produced. But as a
single work, it is deeply flawed, repeatedly biting off more than it can chew,
or more than Johns decides to chew. It would have been greatly improved by
trying to do fewer things, and then doing all of those things well. Instead, it
attempts to be a character-driven cosmic, science fiction whodunit and manages
to be a hasty, half-done rendition of all of those things. That extends to the
art, which has multiple artists working on each issue, with unapologetically
rough transitions between scenes, and some panels looking dreadfully rushed.
Crisis on Infinite
Earths was a landmark work with an almost total lack of character
development. Johns clearly took up the challenge of making Infinite Crisis a more complex sequel, but failed to deliver on
that challenge. IC would have been a
better work if the aspirations had simply been lesser. As the older Wonder
Woman tells her younger self, "You can start by not trying to be so
perfect." A simpler IC would
have been a better IC. But when I
spend a moment positing that Geoff Johns should have striven for IC to be something lesser, I quickly
start to dreaming, instead, what if he had striven for something just as great
as he had planned and then had managed to pull it off? That's a story that I
wish I owned.
