You may recall that a few months back, DC Comics decided to go ahead and kill off the Justice League as the inciting incident for their big event of the year, Dark Crisis. Over the last several months, DC’s been quick to assure us that there wouldn’t be a big multiversal reboot, but since the thing has “Crisis” in the name, it’s not hard to guess the event’s grand ambitions. This is an event that doesn’t just want to be a follow up to to Marv Wolfman and the late George Pérez’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, it’s straight up a sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Yes, go ahead and add “on Infinite Earths” to the Dark Crisis title, because the news officially broke at San Diego Comic-Con on Friday. Speaking about the title change at the panel, writer Josh Williamson discussed the secrecy. “We didn’t want to give away what was happening in the story,” he explained. Artist Daniel Sampere called it “an honor and a dream come true” to create a sequel to such a monumental book.
Released in 1985, Crisis on Infinite Earths was a big maxiseries event that resulted in the collapse of DC’s multiverse into one single timeline. Characters died, others were rebooted, and every few years, the DC characters go through some kind of Crisis that upends their status quo in some form or fashion. (And if that kind of status quo shift isn’t being done in the comics, it’s either in TV or various film attempts.) More recently during the events of Dark Knights: Metal, the Multiverse became the Omniverse, the collection of every multiverse, universe, and dimension that has and will exist.
Like all big comic events, Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths will receive tie-in issues, and new ones were revealed at the DC panel. A Swamp Thing one-shot is coming from Williamson, plus artist Daniel Bayliss and writers Ram V, Alex Paknadel, and Dan Watters. Another miniseries, War Zone, will focus on Linda Park and Iris West during the chaos on the ground floor and provide a more human perspective. Its full creative team wasn’t revealed, but among that group will be writers Jeremy Adams and Stephanie Williams.
Exactly what the full title means for Dark Crisis’ story remains unclear, but Williamson promised some “intense moments” in the remaining issues of the seven-issue event. “It’s going to be a roller coaster...including team-ups that you won’t see coming and a fight scene that is probably one of the more emotional moments I’ve ever written for DC.”
Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths will continue with issue three, releasing on August 2.
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