Adventurer's Journal

Journal #3 The Burning Lava Land: Handling A Crisis

Continuing the Ultimate Trinket Adventure, I'm currently on the 3rd Location...The Burning Lava Land.

To clear this area it requires a blogging entry based on a Word Prompt.

There were 4 possible words to choose from: War, Famine, Crisis and Catastrophe. This was an easy choice for me. Most of DC comics major storyline events use the word Crisis in the title and I love the opportunity to talk about Comics. Therefore get ready for a round of...

Crisis Counseling

As much as I wish I could take credit for coming up with that Pun in the title, it actually used a lot by DC comic fans. Anyway let's discuss a little bit of DC's Comic Book Crisis history.

In the past DC has released a lot of major comic book events with the word Crisis in the title:

Crisis on Infinite Earths
Zero Hour - A Crisis in Time
Infinite Crisis
Final Crisis

Crisis on Infinite Earths was the first of the DC Major events. Released in 1985, it was one of the first large scale events in comics. It was used as the opportunity to update the DC comic book universe with several characters origins being retconned giving it characters updated backstories. An example of this was Superman. In comparison with his earlier origin, this version of Superman didn't find out he was was from Krypton until he was an adult. His power set was also weakened compared to the Silver age limiting his strength to make for some more interest stories. To change things the Crisis storyline made some radical moves. In a Game of Thrones like move some popular characters like the Silver Age Flash and Supergirl were killed off in the series. It really raised the stakes for readers as for the first time it wasn't guaranteed that heroes would make it out of the story alive. That said, it is worth noting that any deaths in comics tend to be temporary.

Another interesting aspect of the crisis story was the crossover element. While characters cross over with one another fairly regularly, Crisis on Infinite Earths did it on a large scales as it was responsible for the fate of all the characters in the DC universe... the writers tried to get as many of the DC characters as they could to appear in it. It was great seeing all the characters together for an exciting arc.

Crisis on Infinite Earths proved to be immensely popular and it was followed by several other event stories each sharing the name Crisis. The first Sequel was Zero Hour. A storyline involving a time shift where characters found themselves running into their classic incarnations.

There was also infinite crisis which was basically an Apocalypse on earth and Final Crisis where the DC universe almost met its end. Each one of these had incredibly high stakes and not all character were able to make it through a Crisis storyline unscathed. For example with the Final Crisis storyline Batman was apparently killed off. It was later revealed that he was actually thrown backwards in time. The character had to fight his way back to the present. The stories also took the opportunity to shake things up in their ongoing series. For example in Infinite crisis all of the DC comics jumped forward one year afterwards allowing readers to get a fresh story as writers filled in what happened in the missing year.

There were three events in the DC comic book universe that didn't have the word crisis in the title but still had the same large scale story arcs. The first one was Blackest Night which involved dead characters in the DC universe being brought to life to cause trouble for the DC heroes. The second was Flashpoint involving changes in time that threw the heroes into an alternate timeline where the characters were living radically different lives. This was followed by convergence which was a battle between worlds where old versions of the characters faced off against their modern counterparts to decide the fate of the universe.

The most recent addition to the list is an ongoing event called Dark Crisis which I am currently really enjoying reading. The storyline centers around a future where most of the DC comic book heroes have disappeared. Only younger heroes and the DC villains are left on the planet. There is currently a mystery regarding what happened to the heroes that the younger generation of heroes is trying to figure out. So far all we know is that an unrevealed force was responsible for the disappearance of the heroes currently missing. I am really excited to see how this story plays out in the future.

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