Infinite Crisis by Greg Cox

 (Book Review)

This novel, and the comic book series it is based on, is the sequel to “Crisis on Infinite Earths” from 1985. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of “Crisis”, DC comics released a 7 part series that just recently concluded. And this time, we didn’t have to wait 20 years for the novelization. The novel “Infinite Crisis” was just released last month.

For those of you keeping track, this is now the 3rd novel I’ve read that is based on DC comics. But there’s a difference between a novel like “Inheritance” which is a new story based on the characters of the DC Universe, and a novel like “Infinite Crisis”, which is a story that already took place in the comic book medium and is simply being retold through the form of a novel. Clearly you’d have to be a geek to want to read either one (guilty) but especially with the latter case, you might legitimately wonder, “Who would want to read the novelization of a comic book instead of just reading the original comic?” Perhaps it’s similar to those crappy “novelizations based on the screen play” which always hit the bookstores around the same time as recent Hollywood releases. Why would anyone read one of those instead of just going to see the movie?

(Quick digression: has anyone ever read “novelizations based on screenplays”? I’d be interested in confessions. As a kid I used to read a lot of them, mostly ones based movies my mom wouldn’t let me see (“Gremlins” “Arachnophobia” “Indiana Jones”) but I don’t think I’ve read any since 12 or so.)

But to return to novelizations based on comic books: my own reasons are as follows:

1). At 28, I feel guilty spending time reading comics. But I figure novels are always good for improving your mind. There could be some debate on this point, but I’m going on the theory of Stephen King that any book, no matter what, will improve your literary skills. Many of these comic book novels are not particularly well written, but Stephen King argues that reading a bad book can be worth a whole semester of a creative writing course, because it’s a very quick way to teach you what not to do.

2). More complicated story lines, like “Crisis on Infinite Earths” or “Infinite Crisis”, have a lot of confusing things going on. In this case it is nice to read the novel in order to get a more in-depth view of what is happening.

This second point can be touch and go. As I mentioned in my review of “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, I didn’t think the novel helped me out much at all with that story line. In fact it was LESS detailed than the comic book series on which it was based.

But fortunately “Infinite Crisis” comes through on this point. It explains in more detail a lot of the confusing things that happen in the comic book. It also brings in additional information and side stories not collected in the graphic novel edition. After comparing the novel with the comic book, this is one case where the novel is clearly the better read.

Not to say it’s perfect. The mechanics are a bit sloppy. It suffers from adjective/adverb overload, and a bad case of the “Tom Swiftys”. But overall, still a very enjoyable read, and in my opinion much better than the comic on which it was based.

As to the story itself:
As I mentioned above, this is the sequel, 20 years later, to the original “Crisis on Infinite Earths”. And like the original “Crisis”, it attempts to duplicate the original formula of “lots of heroes will die, lots of heroes will be changed, the DC Universe will never be the same, et cetera.”

It has evidently become editorial policy at DC comics to reboot the DC Universe every ten years, erase all known continuity, and start everything over again. “Crisis” in 1985, “Zero Hour” in 1995, and now “Infinite Crisis”. Dan Dido says in the introduction, “Julie Schwartz [former DC editor] said that every ten years or so you needed to give the universe an enema. You know, clear out all the old stories, and make way for new tales rife with Infinite possibilities. Smart man, that Julie Schwartz.”

I’m not sure how I feel about this. For me part of the fun of comics is the idea of following characters and a story line that goes all the way back to the 30s. When the continuity gets re-booted every 10 years that cheapens it somewhat.

However, having resigned myself to the fact that this is how DC chooses to run things, I have to admit that, as long as they’re going to do this anyway, they’ve done a really damn good job of it in this story. It’s the perfect story for the comic book geek. They brought back all the survivors of the original crisis: Superman-2, Lois Lane-2, Superboy-Prime, and Alexander Luthor. The multi verse is even briefly recreated, separating all the super heroes back to the Universe where they originally came from, and returning to a concept that has not been in comic books for the last 20 years. (If none of this makes sense to you, go back and revisit the links from my review of the first “Crisis on Infinite Earths”).

As with the original “Crisis”, the body count in this series is pretty high. Because a lot of this happens very fast, it’s difficult to follow in the original comic book. It’s not always clear who is being killed, and sometimes it is hard to tell the deaths from the injured list. This is another reason why I prefer the novelization.

Marv Wolfman wrote about the origional "Crisis": “it was my policy not to kill any hero who was created before I was born (i.e. heroes from the Golden Age of comics: 30s and 40s). It was a silly rule, but I stuck to it for better or for worse.”

This rule is clearly not in effect the second time around, and a number of golden age heroes bite the dust. I thought it was a reasonable rule to stick to, but I suppose comic book companies sell more comics by always upping the shock value. In particular Golden Age heroes The Human Bomb and Uncle Sam of “Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters” get offed in the opening pages of “Infinite Crisis”. I was very sorry to see these two go, because to me these two super heroes in particular fell into the category of “so dated and cheesy that they’re actually pretty cool”. However no one stays dead for too long in comic books. According to Wikipedia, the body of Uncle Sam is already missing, suggesting a possible resurrection or reincarnation. And a new super hero has assumed the mantle of “The Human Bomb.”

(Quick side note: I’ve come to accept the comic book ploy of killing off a character and then later resurrecting them from the dead as standard, and even part of the fun of comics. But if I were in charge, I’d put a moratorium on having another character just assume a dead Super hero’s identity. For one it’s a really cheap way for comic books to have their cake and eat it too by boosting their sales and not losing a character. Secondly its getting a bit ridiculous and confusing for casual readers. Most super heroes in the DC Universe are already on their 3rd or 4th incarnation.)

Since this book digs back far into the DC Universe and revives a lot of characters from the multi-verse, it made me remember a lot of things I liked about comic books. On the other hand, I couldn’t read it for too long at a time without thinking how silly the whole thing was at the same time. A lot of things that I never thought of when I was 15 started to really bug me. Like, “Isn’t it silly how grown men in comics dress up in silly costumes and masks?” And “with all these super powered heroes and villains, at a certain point don’t things get a bit ridiculous?” And of course the whole good/evil divide. And the Society of Villains. What is that?

But, I guess as any fan will tell you, these are questions you’re not supposed to think about too much.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
According to Lennon, "Glass Onion" was a throwaway song, much like "I am the Walrus." "I threw the line in - 'the Walrus was Paul' - just to confuse everybody. It could have been 'The fox terrier is Paul.' I mean, it's just a bit of poetry. I was having a laugh because there'd been so much goggledegook about Pepper - play it backwards and you stand on your head and all that." "Glass onion" is British slang for a monocle.

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Infinite Crisis by Greg Cox: Book Review (Scripted)