An untold tale of the Crisis on Infinite Earths

[superboyprime]

Here's more from DC's Retro-Active series, celebrating the comics of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, a.k.a. before Dan DiDio and his fellow jackals ruined everything, a.k.a. when DC Comics actually had integrity and quality.




For the issue celebrating Superman in the 80s, out this week, we have a new story by none other than Marv Wolfman. It involves Destiny of the Endless and the Crisis on Infinite Earths, which is kind of fitting seeing as how Wolfman co-created the former and wrote the latter.

Destiny shows up and reveals to Superman what his future holds.







So after all these decades, we finally have the answer to why the post-Crisis Earth was so much more similar to Earth-One than the other surviving worlds.

Comments

[jlbarnett]

were there actually only five Earth's left when CoIE started.

[icon_uk]

I think so - Earth 1, Earth 2, Earth S (Where Captain Marvel lived), Earth X (Freedom Fighters) and Earth Prime

Infinite Crisis has Alexander Luthor using heroes from seven "Core Earths"

Earth 1 = Martian Manhunter
Earth 2 = Power Girl
Earth 4 = Nightshade
Earth 6 = Lady Quark
Earth 8 = Breach
Earth S = Black Adam
Earth X = The Ray

But Nightshade being from Earth-4 (Instead of "The Land of the Nightshades") and Breach being from Earth-8 had never been mentioned before.

[jlbarnett]

I knew there were five by the end but at the beginning I'd thought they were still being cut down

[icon_uk]

Well, we saw Three and Six get anti-mattered into oblivion at the start of the series, so I suppose it depends on exactly when this moment was.

[jlbarnett]

now I remember why I was sure we saw Earth's destroyed in the series. Earth-D in the one shot released during the 20th anniversary

[werehawk]

Did they list those herein? Earth-4 is sometimes called Earth-C (for Charlton), which is where Nightshade was from before she was abducted to the land of the Nightshades.

[pyrotwilight]

Actually I think E-Prime wasn't one of the last 5. Unless I'm completely lost I remember the very page Prime shows up out of nowhere during the Crisis has him saying he's from E-Prime and someone going "But I thought their were only 5 worlds left?"

[aeka]

Is it just me or do these pages make Kara's death in COIE that much more sad and tragic? :'(

[ninjapeps]

I found "There will be a crisis of identity so terrible" a lot funnier than I probably should have.

[pyrotwilight]

This was one of the odder stories to come out of this retro thing. Because it's not.

I thought the idea was to print stories originally written in the specific time period that got shelved for some reason or another. Or was it always just to be stories written as if they were written back then?

[flint_marko]

The latter, they weren't real stories that were shelved.

[eyz]

I'm loving the idea behind every single Retro-Active issue!
Will they be collected in one giant-size TradePaperback? One per serie? (Batman, Justice League,..)
Or never collected? (and therefore I should try buying all these issues now...?)

[pyrotwilight]

They don't seem to be selling particularly well...I'd wait to grab them at a convention if you can.

[eyz]

Uh... no convention for me~
:/

Hoping for a TPB!
*crosses fingers* come on! Let's all crosses fingers, hands and feet alike!

[cleome45]

Yeah. "Integrity." I'm still pissed off that they killed Supergirl. If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't touch Original Crisis with a ten-foot pole. In addition to the fridging, all it did was encourage them to put on Big Events and reboot the franchise every time they felt the urge.

Reboot-mania is about one step away from needing an hourly schedule, like the buses on the main drag outside my house. :p

[rickperry]

THAT CAT IS NOT STREAKY! and why is Kara chilling without her Linda wig?