In 1934, a comics company called National Allied Publications was formed, and after the successful launch of three magazines (New Fun, New Comics, and Detective Comics) they became Detective Comics, Inc. With their release of Action Comics #1 in June of 1938, they released something this world had never seen before: super heroes. They became so popular, that more companies began releasing magazines featuring these heroes, thus starting the Golden Age of Comics. The Golden Age would end in October of 1956 with the introduction of Barry Allen, the second Flash. And although the transition from Golden to Silver was very easy to see, the transition to the Bronze Age of Comics was kind of hazy. Some attribute it to companies shying away from the Comics Code Authority, while other say it was Jack Kirby’s move from Marvel to DC so he could do New Gods. But the switch from Bronze to Modern is very easy to pinpoint. The Modern Age of Comics began in 1986 with DC’s release of Crisis on Infinite Earths. DC wanted to do Crisis on Infinite Earths to sort of clean up their history. Before then, different writers had their own time lines, which were just explained away as being “alternate universes” and therefore not relating to one another in any way. As one could well imagine, it could get a little confusing for some people, but it shouldn’t have been that confusing! Just look on page one for the writer…’nuff said.

But alas, DC decided to reboot the universe with a twelve issue miniseries known as Crisis on Infinite Earths. The mini-series involved a plot by the Anti-Monitor to destroy every parallel universe in existence until he is defeated by a small group of heroes from the five remaining earths. After it ended, DC’s books were restarted. Origins had to be retold, bad guys had to be re-introduced, and sidekicks were mostly given the boot. Of course, this boosted sales like no one would believe, which of course was the plan the whole time. Not only that, but continuity was no longer confusing for people, opening comics to a whole new readership. On the surface, this seemed like a great idea…everyone profited! But alas, this was not to be, as the time line got more convoluted and had to be rebooted again in 1994 by Zero Hour: Crisis in Time. This time, Hal Jordan, a.k.a. Green Lantern goes batshit crazy and starts calling himself Parallax before he starts trying to go back to the beginning of time to prevent any bad event from ever happening, therefore eliminating pain from existence. So after the time lime is reset again, DC didn’t have to restart everything again, as there were only minor changes to the universe. Amazingly, DC went eleven years without fucking anything up…then in 2005 came Infinity Crisis. This time, Superboy-Prime and Alexander Luthor, minor characters from Crisis on Infinite Earths, came back as villains and basically killed a lot of people, including this world’s Superboy, Connor Kent. Infinity Crisis lead in 52, which is way too convoluted for me to go into details here, but basically it’s the rebirth of the multiverse. After 52, there are a total of 52 Earths, each one incredibly unique in its own way, but still way too difficult for a handful of writers to deal with, so these Earths start getting killed off and destroyed. This, of course, leads to yet another event Final Crisis. Now Final Crisis was just terrible. To call it “convoluted” would be an insult to the Metal Gear Solid series of video games, which define “convoluted.” Not only did DC put someone with a history of destroying continuity, Grant Morrison, at the helm, but actually gave him clearence to kill Batman, one of their flagship characters! You don’t see Steve Jobs discontinuing the MacBook to drum up sales for the iPod, so why would DC think this was a good idea? Well, to get back on track, I’m sure they’ll find some asinine way to resurrect Batman within the next year or so, and all this will be moot.

So why is it that they could go over half a decade without crossovers or rebooting the whole universe, yet now we have to do it every six years? Is it the money that they rake in by the millions? Or is it bad writing, writing that is getting so predictable that these people have to “change things” just to keep loyal readers? Maybe its a combination of both, but whatever they’re doing, it’s working.