Exactly. At that time in '85, I would say that as a reader, I was 90% Marvel and 10% DC, that percentage mainly being Flash, Green Lantern, Legion (when I could find it) and New Teen Titans. Though I count myself as a Superman fan, even back then, I only had a sporadic number of his issues along with Batman. The difference as I saw it, was the Bronze Age issues that I had, they were mainly Done-In-One stories or maybe two-parters. They was no real sense of an ongoing continuity like you had with Marvel in that Marvel had the ongoing broad stories and plots, you had a sense of time passing whereas with DC, you can read any issue in any order in any desire. However, by the early 80s, that trend seemed to be changing at DC.

So I had a passing knowledge of DC but nowhere near the depth of knowledge that Crisis was calling for. I bought the maxi-series as it was released though sometimes I was left more bewildered by what was going on. The hype surrounding this event was huge and the team of Wolfman/Perez, of whom I was familiar with through NTT, was certainly a big draw for me as well.

I will say, having been a reader of Flash, certainly near the end of his series, I felt the most emotional impact from #8.

In his intro to the TPB, Wolfman makes some interesting comments such as: "We announced CRISIS in 1981 at a comics convention in New York City, but researching DC's long and convoluted history kept us busy for several years. We decided to hold off publishing CRISIS until 1985 - which was also DC's 50 anniversary."

Man, if Wolfman, who acknowledges being a long-time DC fan, needed that long to research matters, then what hope did a new reader have eh?

Some other comments he made:

He says they are thrilled whenever they hear (even up to today apparently), that #7 is considered one of the best Supergirl stories ever.

On the fate of the JSA: "No JSA hero died in Crisis. It was my policy not to kill any hero who was created before I was born."

On the number of deaths: "We actually didn't kill as many heroes as we're blamed for. Of course, we did kill about 3,000 universes filled with super-heroes but I try not to think about them. Read through the series again, and you'll see that we're right."

So, is part of Crisis' reputation over-exaggerated?

I will say, even if I didn't have the appreciation of the weight of DC history contained within this series, I initially thought it was a grand epic anyway. Based on one of Wolfman's stated goals with streamlining DC canon, this series did urge me to read more of the Post-Crisis DC because in a way, this did feel like a clean start.

However since nero offered, in cracking open my trade, I did read #1 (and will try to add thoughts on successive issues when time permits). A few of my thoughts are:

I do miss exposition like this. Wolfman's narration does lend a grand feel to the dark tragedies being witnessed on the page. It's theater at heart.

Pariah still annoys me though. He comes off as whiny.

I've never really quite understood Ayla/Harbinger. As Cody mentioned, I do like how they built this up by having the Monitor and her make quick appearances in some titles leading up to this but here, it's a little unclear as to what she actually does. Splitting herself up to travel among the multiverse is interesting.

The switching back and forth between Earth-1 and Earth-2 is somewhat jarring, especially if you overlook the little captions telling you so. So on Earth-2, is WWII still being fought concurrently to the 'present' of Earth-1?

Blue Beetle, man, he was so vibrant here. I knew nothing of his history at Charlton at that time but I liked his look and his tone.

 

 

It was the opposite at DC; plots from one era did have influence on stories down the line; notably, Batman, Detective Comics, the Legion of Superheroes and Green Lantern/Green Arrow were just a few titles with running continuity throughout the 1970s and 80s. This is how DC's readers were well aquatinted with so many character's stories, motivations and history which was one of the reasons a massive tale with seemingly endless players--like COIE--was such a major hit: there was reader investment as much as the characters' investment in the story.

Remember, like every comic "event", they were made for longtime readers (the majority) who would feel the emotional weight of said event. For example, in Amazing Spider-Man, the death of Gwen Stacy & the Green Goblin would mean little if comics were being scripted only with new readers in mind. They would have no knowledge of what character meant what, or how important their demise is to the hero or overall story. While new readers were & are--obviously--always welcome, the events are going straight for that massive fanbase who were always there, or new readers who schooled themselves in Whatever Character 101. That's why COIE was such an explosive success--the readers knew the lives of most of its players, and what was at risk.




Not at all. At the end of it all, the reputation was not built on fanboys' with DC glasses on, or latter-day nostalgia for a bygone era of event comics. COIE's mission was--unlike so many event comics of its era and beyond--actually delivered what it promised, which was no small feat, considering the series was trying to set right 50 years of DC history, yet respect the core of its well-remembered past in key areas. This was not change for the sake of it, or some thoughtless, gimmicky hero get-together just to be "cool" or grab a dollar. COIE was as much a beginning as it was an ending--the virtual central passageway of DC's publishing past and future. Everything depended on the success of this series, and that everything was not disappointed at its conclusion. As mentioned up thread, anyone reading COIE should also read History of the DC Universe, the 1986 Wolfman/Perez follow-up, which served to merely show the structure of the new universe (past, present and future) in the wake of the chaos of COIE.

It was also intended to be 10 issues, with issues 11 and 12 setting up the new "History of the DC Universe," which I believe had been a working title for the series, as talked about in Dick Giordano's column. That got spun-off into it's own entity, after Wolfman realized he need the last two issues to wrap up the plot. It still changed, as editorial backed off of a few things and tweaked some ideas that were being tossed about. The finished History of the DC Universe does suggest things like the JLA revamp, use of Son of Vulcan (which only occurred in the DC Challenge), hinted at a bigger role for the Global Guardians (who, instead, pretty much got thrown aside, apart from Fire and Ice).

The ironic thing is that Crisis created as many continuity problems as it solved, since everything wasn't started at square one. It affected the JLA, Hawkman and a few other characters heavily, and some others in a lesser fashion (like some of the Teen Titans). That's part of why I say they should have stuck with Earth 1 and 2; maybe 3, and Earth S. Earth X wasn't particularly necessary and the Freedom Fighters could have easily been folded into Earth 2 (especially after Roy Thomas set up that they travelled from Earth 2 to Earth X). I also preferred that the war comics characters and ones like Jonah Hex and Warlord should be left in their own world, apart from the DCU.

While I will grant you that someone always has their first experience with something, it's kind of hard to spoil something that is 30 years old, advertises the death of very specific characters on the trade cover, and is discussed in the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article! 

Next, you'll tell me not to say that Rosebud is a

Well, the opening post did say, 'My only request is not to get too many direct spoilers. I already know some of the happenings in this series after being part of the online comic community for years, and I don't mind if people talk about character backstories or even stuff that happened to them later, but hopefully no "next issue this happens" stuff.'

Harbinger never says that she wanted the first Psycho-Pirate. In fact, she explicitly says she wants Hayden, the second Psycho-Pirate. Having Harbinger tell Hayden that Halstead is dead is just a vehicle for telling the reader, through an explanation to Hayden that there was a previous Psycho-Pirate who has died.

It does seem that there are some constraints on the Monitor omniscience though, at least with regard to how the Crisis unfolds. He mentions that five heroes he needed are gone because their Earth was destroyed. Is that the Crime Syndicate or some unnamed, undepicted characters? That suggests somethings are unanticipated by the Monitor. 

I like that there is a diverse bunch of character. Story comes before strategy. The assemblage helps to show off the expansiveness of the DC multiverse. Characters are taken from different Earths and different times. Some are solo heroes, some are members of teams, and some are villains. Some are from hidden civilizations. By using characters with a wide range of powers, we can see the impact on characters that are very strong and ones that don't even have super-powers. The ways in which some characters feel powerless will come up again.