Solar Flare: Science Fiction News

This is a big year for DC Comics. Last year they had a successful Batman movie and this year they have a hit Superman movie. For the first time in a very long time, DC Comics is seeing some mainstream attention. To capitalize on that they released the heavily promoted (it seems like it started 2 years ago) Infinite Crisis mini-series which spun off to affect pretty much the entire DC superhero universe.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was a defining moment for modern DC Comics and Infinite Crisis (as the name implies) plays heavily off that event. So it won’t be a surprise if I tell you that this isn’t an easy series to read for those unfamiliar with DC Comics. The action isn’t just contained around the usual legends (Superman, Batman, Wonder-Woman) but also a lot of relatively obscure heroes (Uncle Sam, The Ray).

And there’s a lot of action to take in. At the start of the story we have a society of villains attacking superheores, the Justice League is missing, their base destroyed, Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman are unable to agree and the universe seems to be in peril.

It’s really too much actually and as a result it dissolves into a series of rather confusing set pieces some of which I was simply unable to understand the full significance of.

It’s not that the story is bad, in fact the central conceit is really quite clever playing off both the years of DC continuity and a sort of meta-textual argument about the differences between modern and golden/silver age comic storytelling.

However I do come away from the whole thing unsatisfied. It seemed to be largely an exercise in continuity games. Great for long time DC readers or those who are just into continuity, but as a big “event” it comes off rather flat.