Everybody who reads DC Comics knows that when a comic has “Crisis” in the name, it intends to change everything. The tradition to have company-shaking events include the word “Crisis” started way back with the first ever meeting between the Justice League and Justice Society of America, in “Crisis on Earth-One!” and “Crisis on Earth-Two!”. There were a couple other small-scale multiversal crossovers that included the word, and it was forever cemented as a major game-changer with the release of Infinite Crisis on Infinite Earths. Since then, DC has released quite a few “Crisis” events, each aiming to fundamentally alter the DC Universe, for better or worse. Some of these stories are some of the best comic books ever put to page, but not all are equal in their impact and legacy. Some set the standard, and some have faded into obscurity. With that said, let’s take a look at all of DC’s official “Crisis” events, ranked from worst to best.
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7) Identity Crisis
Although praised by fans and critics alike upon release, Identity Crisis has since fallen from grace pretty hard. On its worst days it is ridiculed for its subject matter and uneven plot, and on its best it’s hardly remembered. After Elongated Man’s wife Sue is murdered, the superhero community comes together to unravel a plot to target their non-heroic loved ones. Along the way, the Justice League’s darkest secret is revealed, showing that some members used Zatana to alter the minds of villains they deemed too dangerous, and when Batman found out they erased his memories of all of it. This revelation shook the Justice League to its core, destroying their faith in each other for years, sending Batman down the path to Tower of Babel, and tarnishing the legacies of some of its most moral characters. Beyond the negative impact the story had in-universe, its plot was all over the place at times, with an underwhelming mystery-reveal, out of character actions in abundance, and a scene where Deathstroke fought nearly the entire Justice League that still makes power-scalers cry and me cringe. It’s probably better off if we forget about this one.
6) Zero Hour: Crisis In Time!
Zero Hour: Crisis In Time! is easily DC’s most forgotten “Crisis,” and also probably its messiest. It’s also the hardest “Crisis” to go back and reread, given how steeped in its then-current continuity it is. This five issue series was released a few years after Crisis on Infinite Earths and was meant to clean up continuity errors that arose from what was kept after the remaining Earths all merged into one. Unfortunately, the way it went about this was even more convoluted than the problems it sought to correct. Its main villain Extant not only was revealed to be Monarch Hank Hall, but also that he was merely a puppet for the real mastermind, Parallax, the former Green Lantern Hal Jordan who sought to bring back the multiverse to create his perfect world by manipulating various timelines. This story’s goal was to smooth out the roughness left over in DC’s jump to its post-Infinite Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity, but the wonky way it went about it made everything far more confusing for the average reader. Power Girl was given a nonsensical pregnancy and a worse origin, Triumph was introduced, and Hawkman’s origin became too convoluted to understand even for the most seasoned comic readers. That’s not to say this story didn’t have anything good spin out of it, as the rebooted Legion of Superheroes and Starman titles are regarded as all time classics, considered to be some of DC’s best works even today. While it didn’t accomplish what it set out to do, this “Crisis” certainly did leave a mark.
5) Heroes in Crisis
Heroes in Crisis is a much smaller scale story. It’s a murder-mystery that focuses on the emotional wellbeing of DC’s heroes and the toll their lifestyles take on them, based on writer Tom King’s own struggles with mental health. Unfortunately, this is DC’s most controversial “Crisis” by a landslide, having received a very mixed reception from the fans. This is in no small part because the murderer of several heroes at the therapy-retreat for heroes known as Sanctuary was revealed to be fan-favorite Flash Wally West. At that point, Wally had been erased from existence for several years following DC’s New 52 reboot, and this story occurred not long after what fans expected to be his triumphant return. King has always excelled at the psychological aspect of the heroes he writes, and there are some genuinely great dives into their characters here, but there are also quite a few misreadings of certain characters to make the plot move. Heroes in Crisis had the potential to be so much more than it was, and while there are certainly weak parts to it, the strong scenes are incredible, and the look into characters’ minds like this is something we need to see more of. Personally, I’d love to see the concept of Sanctuary explored deeper in a future series.
4) Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths
Opinions on this event are the definition of mixed. Originally simply called Dark Crisis, Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths details the arrival of the Great Darkness and the Dark Army, led by Deathstroke and Pariah who intend to eliminate all heroes. It starts with the supposed death of the Justice League, and focuses on the next generation of heroes as they learn to stand up in their predecessor’s place. It did a lot of good for DC, such as restoring the old style of the infinite multiverse, but while it performed well critically, fans generally look at it much less favorably. Ultimately, one of the biggest complaints about this event is how pointless it felt at first, as the readers knew the Justice League wasn’t really dead, and how the promised next generation never reached the heights this “Crisis” promised. Its plot certainly improved in its final issues, but by that point many had written it off. Still, the impact of this “Crisis” are still very much being felt, as it directly ties into the Absolute Power event and the creation of the Absolute Universe, which are justifications for its existence if there ever were any.
3) Infinite Crisis
Infinite Crisis is nothing less than a love letter to the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, released as a celebration of its twentieth anniversary. This is one of DC’s most well-laid events, with hints of it being teased two years before its release. By this point, following events like Identity Crisis, the DC Universe was a much darker place than it had ever been before. The Justice League had dissolved, OMACs were killing metahumans across the planet, and even DC’s Trinity couldn’t talk to each other without risk of a brutal fight. Thus saw the return of Alexander Luthor Jr., Superboy-Prime, and the Earth-3 Superman and Lois Lane-Kent from the “paradise” they resided in since the end of Infinite Crisis on Infinite Earths. They sought to remake the multiverse to “fix” their world, saying it had been corrupted beyond repair and the heroes weren’t meant to be like this. This worked both as a story and from a meta perspective, comparing the modern and darker view of heroism to the simpler versions of DC’s past. This event restored the DC Multiverse, restored much of its lost continuity, and even revealed that much of the DC Universe’s greatest trials had been orchestrated by Alexander and Superboy-Prime to set the stage for their final act. This is still regarded as one of DC’s best events, and laid the groundwork for an even greater one to come.
2) Final Crisis
Penned by the legendary Grant Morrison, Final Crisis is quite possibly the smartest written of any of DC’s events. It is a metafictional masterclass in comic writing, standing as a commentary on the creative process, the comic book industry, and a deep, passionate love for the DC Universe. This story details “the day evil won,” showing Darkseid’s conquering of Earth with the Anti-Life Equation, and the heroes’ stance against impossible odds to save everything. This features some of the most impactful moments in all of comics, including the death of Batman. Not only is this a phenomenal story, but Morrison intended for it to be able to serve as an endpoint for the DC Universe. It brought closure to plot threads that had been set up since the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, and serves as the finale of the “Crisis Trilogy” of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, and itself. This is the type of story that makes you look at every other comic before it with a new appreciation, and is truly unique in what it is.
1) Crisis on Infinite Earths
As era defining as some of the other entries on this list are, the top spot can only be given to the comic that started it all. It all started in 1981, when Greg Wolfman was writing Green Lantern, and he received a letter from a fan asking why a character didn’t know the Emerald Knight when they had worked together three years prior. The DC Multiverse, first introduced in Wonder Woman volume one #59 and popularized into what is today in “Flash of Two Worlds,” had become incomprehensibly complicated. So Wolfman pitched the idea for Crisis on Infinite Earths to editorial, and with DC’s sales plummeting compared to Marvel’s, they agreed it was time. They hired a researcher to read every single DC comic ever produced, which took two years to do, and set laying the groundwork for this soon-to-be epic tale. It tells of the Anti-Monitor, a being who seeks to every world in creation, and the infinite hoards of heroes who banded together to stop him at all costs. Every time it seemed the story couldn’t raise the stakes it would ramp even higher, giving us classic and unimaginable moments like the death of Supergirl and Barry Allen’s sacrifice. To say that this comic set the gold-standard for DC events would actually be underselling it in every regard. Even today, forty years later, its effects are felt and it is called DC’s best ever event. It killed the multiverse, but the post-Crisis reinventions of DC’s characters revolutionized them and made them into the beloved versions we know today. Nothing like this comic had ever been done before, and it changed the comic book landscape forever. Without a doubt, it is the definitive DC event.
So there we have all of DC’s official “Crisis” events, ranked. Regardless of how we think each of them are, each and every one had a major impact on the DC Universe around them. In that regard, they did exactly what their “Crisis” titles set out to do, and they should all be commended for that.
Which “Crisis” was your favorite, and what would you like to see if and when DC does another? Let us know in the comments below!
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