Shaking Up the DCU

The DC Comics universe has gone through many changes over the years, the biggest being the Crisis on Infinite Earths complete overhaul back in 1985. Nine years later Zero Hour was an attempt to fix the continuity nightmare that was left in the wake of Crisis. This fall the cards get shuffled once again with Infinite Crisis. Will another mega-crossover be required in a few years to "fix" Infinite Crisis? I say no.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was brilliantly plotted and very well executed, especially considering that it rewrote 50 years of continuity and had story elements that spilled over into every title that DC produced at the time, in some instances for several months. The main problem with the first Crisis was in the follow-up. There didn't appear to be an all-encompassing plan for proceeding in the new DCU, just a general idea. This resulted in many continuity problems, the biggest being Hawkman and which version was actually canon. The problems only grew over time and finally an attempt was made to correct them all with Zero Hour, but I don't think it really succeeded. Everything was mostly cleared up in various titles in the years following.

Infinite Crisis promises to shake things up again and set the stage for the next few years of storytelling in the DC Universe. From all reports and interviews thus far, it sounds as if this time they have come up with a definite exit strategy. Of course the proof will be in the reading, but I'm more confident that things will flow on a little better from this Crisis.