The Crisis Tapes Talkback - Episode 10: Crisis on Infinite Earths #1, Part 1

Adam_Murdough

Not a dream! Not a hoax! Not a retcon! The Crisis Tapes are back with a vengeance, as Adam Murdough and Peter Rios (that's right, BOTH of 'em!) finally turn their analytical attention to the first issue of the Crisis maxi-series itself, just in time for the 30th anniversary of its publication! Observations will be made, thesis excerpts will be read, and this podcast will never be the same again! (2:08:47)

Listen here.

JaxUr

Wow! I have a long drive thru Ohio today and will be listening the whole trip. Thanks guys. I too recall purchasing my first copy of Crisis at a local drug store. I still have the indexes too and loved pouring over them.
Adam's thesis can be found via this link:
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/ap/10?0::NO:10:P10_ACCESSION_NUM:bgsu1151329477


https://d1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.net/n_iv/600/715377.jpg

derekwilc

I was really glad to see this in my podcast queue. A couple of questions. I've listened to most of the previous episodes but can't recall if you touched on what i consider to be two pretty good trivia questions: (a) Dick Giordano originally asked which writer/artist to handle a very early incarnation of Crisis (which would end with the DC Universe ending and the following month all issues being restarted at #1) - which writer artist? and (b) which artist was originally announced as the handling the art chores on the book?

JDick

Love these episodes.

Royal_Lantern

OH BOY! OH BOY! OH BOY!!!

I saw this post and it just brought a HUGE smile to my face. Looking forward to listening to it!

Mr_Cosmic

I haven't listened yet but when I saw this pop up in the queue I about fell out of my chair. I'll have to get out my ball crushing absolute edition and give this a listen ASAP!

JaceTheComicSource

As I have only discovered the Geeks in the last 6 months I wonder if I can listen to this or should I go back and listen to the Crisis Tapes 1-9 first? Or should I just continue to listen to the old episodes and just hear the Crisis Tapes as they come up in the feed?

bralinator

Thanks @Adam_Murdough‌ and @Peter‌ for getting the band back together to actually go through the maxi-series issues proper. And from what I've heard so far, it will be worth the wait.

KentShakespeare

I am infinitely glad this is back. Look forward to listening!

shroud68

JaceTheComicSource said:

As I have only discovered the Geeks in the last 6 months I wonder if I can listen to this or should I go back and listen to the Crisis Tapes 1-9 first? Or should I just continue to listen to the old episodes and just hear the Crisis Tapes as they come up in the feed?

I do not think the prelude episodes are required as long as you know the source material of Crisis#1. Those episodes are great in themselves but I think this episode can stand alone if you know the book.

DoctorDoom

Holy crap, I have to listen to this!

JaxUr

Maybe you could have a segment where those of us who read Crisis on its initial release could offer some memories.

What I find interesting is how most of the things that were wiped away came back eventually: Kara, Barry Allen, etc/

fredzilla

Caliban

Crisis math
Total time taken on footnotes and first ten pages = 20hr and 21 mins
time taken for those ten pages was 2 hours plus change, call it 12 minutes a page.
there are another 326 pages to go which is 3912mins or 65 and a bit hours to come!

Time bubble technology might be needed

bendoc55

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you....thank you.

jaydee74

@Adam_Murdough @Peter I forgot how much I missed this. It was an awesome episode and I can't wait for more. Quick question. So at the end of this event, the people of the new DC Universe don't remember the Crisis, right? But they do remember Barry Allen dying in "A Crisis". Am I remembering this correctly because I do remember that Supergirl was written out of history after the event so I didn't understand how that could be a thing yet Barry is still remembered.

JaxUr

I thought that the Psycho Pirate was the only person who recalled the entire truth.

Chuck_Melville

JaxUr said:

I thought that the Psycho Pirate was the only person who recalled the entire truth.

For the most part, but it was evident that there were some other individuals (and very, very few of them) who also remembered, or who had higher suspicions of the truth of the event. The wizard, Shazam, for instance, was shown in one of the Captain Marvel reboots to have recollections of the multiverse and the Crisis, but fought to keep those memories locked in order to maintain his own sanity.

Adam_Murdough

Chuck_Melville said:

JaxUr said:

I thought that the Psycho Pirate was the only person who recalled the entire truth.

For the most part, but it was evident that there were some other individuals (and very, very few of them) who also remembered, or who had higher suspicions of the truth of the event. The wizard, Shazam, for instance, was shown in one of the Captain Marvel reboots to have recollections of the multiverse and the Crisis, but fought to keep those memories locked in order to maintain his own sanity.

Exactly. Harbinger, keeper of the (pre-Crisis) Monitor Tapes and compiler of the (post-Crisis) History of the DC Universe, is another important exception.

DMHaight

Thanks to Adam and Peter for keeping this series going! I'm a huge fan of Crisis going back to when I first bought the issues back in 1985. I've just started listening to the Graphic Audio version of Marv Wolfman's later novelization, which really adds some interesting nuances to the basic story. Hope you cover that eventually, even if it's after you go through the main story as it was originally presented....or are you intending to go through any of the tangents, like either the crossover issues that came out with each month's issues, or that "4.5" issue that came out years later (by Marv Wolfman and Paul Ryan I believe)? In any case, good to see the Crisis Tapes back....:)

wuchmee

Hallelujah!!!!!!!! Now, where were we?

mbatz

So so happy to see this podcast back:) great episode. :)

SolitaireRose

JaxUr said:

I thought that the Psycho Pirate was the only person who recalled the entire truth.

I know in interviews at the time, Wolfman said his initial plan was that anyone who was at the rebirth would remember, but then when they did the reboot of Superman and Wonder Woman, they decided that Psycho Pirate would be the only one who remembered it AS IT WAS TOLD IN CRISIS. Other characters remembered it as The Great Crisis, which happened differently...but they kept the differences vague.

Chuck_Melville

SolitaireRose said:

JaxUr said:

I thought that the Psycho Pirate was the only person who recalled the entire truth.

I know in interviews at the time, Wolfman said his initial plan was that anyone who was at the rebirth would remember, but then when they did the reboot of Superman and Wonder Woman, they decided that Psycho Pirate would be the only one who remembered it AS IT WAS TOLD IN CRISIS. Other characters remembered it as The Great Crisis, which happened differently...but they kept the differences vague.

I think Superman once referred to it as a dimensional Crisis, as opposed to a multiversal Crisis -- which sounds like a subtle splitting of hairs...

BGPhilbin

@Adam_Murdough @Peter - LOVED THIS EPISODE!! You guys are excellent at this stuff and I'm very happy to trip down memory lane with you and pull this apart. My kind of stuff.

On the Flexographic process, a few notes. I was in college when this came out and had been a comics enthusiast for 15 years at this point & reading for 19.

I was *so* looking forward to this issue and Flexographic nearly killed the enjoyment for me when I got the first issue home from the comic shop.

Anyway, Crisis was not the first title to use this process - that dubious distinction belonged to "Spanner's Galaxy", which came out a few months before.

To clarify - the process itself was called Flexographic, but the paper it was printed on was Mando paper (no reflective sheen to it), which was a step below Baxter (which is what covers were - and, essentially, most current comics are).

Flexographic referred to the printing plates, which were of a rubbery type of material instead of the traditional aluminum. They wore out quickly, too - not something you really want when you're pressing hundreds of thousands of copies.

DC hailed it as the "next step" in comics technology. And there was a considerable amount of fanfare surrounding it before a single issue printed by it had appeared on the rack.

The process used a water-based ink (rather than oil-based). Truly, it brought brighter, more vivid colors to the product, but the result wasn't nearly as spectacular as it had been in the test runs. Further on in the print run, water-based ink also stopped sticking as well as the oil-based. In conjunction with the wear of the plates, well, you saw what happened.

As you both mentioned, the weakness of separations became far more apparent in this process (particularly registration problems) and sometimes entire objects were missing from the page.

Thankfully, DC discarded it shortly after the first issue had been printed.

Lastly, your comment about the reprinting reminded me that - when it was published in collected format for the first time in hardback - there had been pencils reproduced *as* pencils running at the bottom section of one of the original issues. When they reprinted it, George inked them for clarity. I didn't care for the effect as much. But I suppose that's for a much later episode.

Again, my thanks for your scholarship on this most wonderful of all special/maxi/series. It was one of the very few comic book events I have ever truly enjoyed.

LOOKING FORWARD TO THE NEXT EPISODE, GUYS!!

Pax, harmonia,

Brian G. Philbin
www.metropolisplus.com

Hellion

Welcome back Peter and Murd! Looking forward to more shows with the two of you.

JaxUr

In case anyone missed the Multiversity Guidebook: the red skies and cosmic hand are back

DoctorDoom

Adam_Murdough said:

Chuck_Melville said:

JaxUr said:

I thought that the Psycho Pirate was the only person who recalled the entire truth.

For the most part, but it was evident that there were some other individuals (and very, very few of them) who also remembered, or who had higher suspicions of the truth of the event. The wizard, Shazam, for instance, was shown in one of the Captain Marvel reboots to have recollections of the multiverse and the Crisis, but fought to keep those memories locked in order to maintain his own sanity.

Exactly. Harbinger, keeper of the (pre-Crisis) Monitor Tapes and compiler of the (post-Crsis) History of the DC Universe, is another important exception.

The Spectre was also aware of it.

DoctorDoom

I forgot, that a few years ago I actually bought the original Crisis series for less than twenty bucks. I'm actually surprised about that. I assumed the Supergirl and Flash issues would cost more than they did (a few dollars a piece).

ChrisBeckett

Gentlemen, your voices in my ears, discussing Crisis, was welcome, indeed. Thank you. Looking forward to the rest of the story.

luckymustard

DoctorDoom said:

I forgot, that a few years ago I actually bought the original Crisis series for less than twenty bucks. I'm actually surprised about that. I assumed the Supergirl and Flash issues would cost more than they did (a few dollars a piece).

I've gotten some of the single issues in $1, maybe less, bins... I have which ones were for how much noted in cbdb.