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Crisis Tapes 15 Talkback: Crisis on Infinite Earths #3, Part 2
i_am_scifi
Posts: 784
The forces of oblivion press on across DC Universe timespace, from World War II Markovia to the American Old West to 30th Century Metropolis, as more heroes meet their doom! Meanwhile, your hosts share some speculation about the upcoming DC Rebirth special event! (3:06:45)
Listen here!
Listen here!
Comments
On the four characters in the Old West being the equivalents of the Fantastic Four - I think that's brilliant, and I agree it can't be a coincidence. Marv wrote the FF in the late 70s, and this may be nostalgia on my part talking but I happen to think it was one of the better overall runs on that title. Heck, in interviews when he talks about creating the New Teen Titans, Wolfman has been quoted saying that he thought of the Titans as DC's answer to the Fantastic Four as opposed to most people thinking it was DC's version of the X-Men. I really think Wolfman has a fondness for the FF, and wouldn't be surprised at all if he saw the likeness of Psimon, Cyborg, Green Lantern and Firebrand to Reed, Ben, Sue, and Johnny when he laid out the plot of which of the 15 were going to work together in the various time eras.
I like your explanation on the last page of the issue with the middle panels showing the Monitor similar to the other images on the left side that are clearly monitor screens instead of the characters shown being physically present, whereas Harbinger's panel on the right is on close inspection square instead of rounded. I recall there were a lot of reviewers at the time (Amazing Heroes 91 comes to mind for example) that took Wolfman to task for this as an error, but I'd like to think Wolfman and Perez didn't just forget the conclusion to this issue while writing out the next.
In regard to using the Crisis characters (i.e. Pariah, Harbinger, Alexander Luthor, and Lady Quark) and Wolfman's comments in Amazing Heroes 66 (which I'm now looking for a copy of btw :)), this discussion makes me think of how other post-Crisis articles discussed the original plans to literally start everything over from scratch immediately after the Crisis with new issues of all DC titles starting over at #1 and all characters revamped and not even remembering that the Crisis ever took place. If DC editorial had allowed that plan to proceed, I suspect the Crisis characters would have been written out of existence. In fact, I wonder if their continued presence in the pages of the DCU contributed to the notion of "leftovers" or "vestiges" of the Crisis remaining that ultimately resulted in the likes of Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, or even the more recent prelude to the Darkseid War storyline in the current Justice League title where Geoff Johns has Metron talking with the Anti-Monitor about how the DCU can't withstand "another Crisis".
In regard to Dan Mishkan's providing input to Marv in the Crisis and his several page memo on Amethyst's role in the Crisis ...I'm surprised by this too considering that I didn't particularly like the direction they took the character in with that crossover. I LOVED the original Amethyst series, but this shift took her fairy tale world and basically shoehorned in other concepts like Dr. Fate's Lords of Order and Chaos and ultimately Mordru from the LOSH and their "Sorceror's World". I'm still not convinced that was the right way to go with Amethyst and the Gemworld characters.
As I'm reading along in your coverage I've started pulling out both the individual issues and the trade paperback, which has the same changes you've noted from the hard cover editions. They're pretty noticeable when you really stop to look at them, and I gotta say in most cases I prefer the original (not withstanding the flexograph printing errors in issue 1, or when you get to issue 10, that whole bottom section of the Monitor Tapes). I remember noting when #10 was published how hard that section was to make out...the hardcover/TPB really helps.
Anyway, that's all for now...looking forward to next time!
What do people think, would DC continuity be better off today if - instead of doing the Crisis - they had just shifted focus to say Earth-7 (or whatever number had never been used) and started over from scratch there? People say that the multiple Earths were "too confusing", but really the solution to that is just not to mention them. Shift to a new Earth, give that it's own unified continuity similar to the post-crisis DCU, and rarely bring up Earth 1, 2, etc. Seems simpler to me.
(Of course then we wouldn't have gotten Crisis, or this podcast, both of which I love.)
I had to comment before finishing the episode because Peter - your theory of Superman of Earth-1 and Rebirth....BLEW. MY. MIND. Wow. I love it, and I really hope that it happens.
However, I'm convinced it will NEVER happen. I don't think they will ever acknowledge that our pre-Crisis Earth-1 Superman is a different character than the post-Crisis / Byrne Superman. That slight started with Who's Who, and continues to this day. The only hope I've had is from Convergence, when we did get to see pre-Crisis Earth-1 Superman and Supergirl acting in tandem.
I will hold out hope though, that this will be true. If there's one character that we haven't seen in 30 years, it's Earth-1 Superman. Peter, your logic is sound. I sure hope it plays out that way. That was my preference back in 1985. And I'd say even to this day, I would have been fine with that. Just shift focus to a new Earth. It happened organically in the late 50s. Just make it happen now (well, 1985 now).
In Infinite Crisis #5, Alexander Luthor talks about Earth Eight. It's mentioned that characters that came into being after COIE, would have existed on Earth Eight, had the original multiverse continued. Specifically called out were Breach, Firestorm Jason Rusch, Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, and Helena Bertinelli Huntress. Wikipedia references an interview with Geoff Jones from Wizard Magazine 174 confirming this.
What do you all think? Would it have been better to allow the past to have kept the multiple earths references?
For all of the talk about how the DC Universe's continuity got messed up by Crisis, the vast majority of the issues were from editors and creators who didn't want to buy in to the "clean slate" approach used on Superman and Wonder Woman.
Even the "yeah, it's there but we won't ever mention it" of Batman worked well.
It's the stuff like Hawkman that caused the endless revisions that have had to be done since.