Book Review: Dark Crisis (On Infinite Earths)

Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the rest of the Justice League are dead. The remaining heroes are left to protect the world from an onslaught of violent attacks by DC’s greatest villains! Leading the charge is a super-powered Slade Wilson...but this time there’s something dark fueling his rage.

Can the younger heroes, led by the 21st century Superman Jonathan Kent, step out of the shadows of the classic icons to form a new Justice League? And will that be enough to stop a darkness greater than anything they’ve ever faced from destroying everything? The world burns as Pariah and the Great Darkness make their play for planet Earth!

The blockbuster creative team of writer Joshua Williamson and artist Daniel Sampere bring years of stories to an explosive crescendo in this massive, cross-generational saga, the latest in DC’s famed canon of Crisis events—and the next evolution of the DC Universe! This volume collects Dark Crisis #1-7.

Ever since 1985, DC Comics has been enacting crisis-level events to shake things up and rebrand their entire line. 2022's Dark Crisis series follows in that tradition. This time, they took the biggest hitters off the playing field so that they could focus on the next tier - the younger generation of characters - to address what it means to be a hero and to step up when the crunch comes. It is a test to be sure, and not everyone is up to task.

I liked that this main mini-series tightly focused on certain aspects of the hero community as it fought back the tide of evil that rises in the void of the League's absence. While I have not been a steady DC reader in recent years, many of the characters and their situations felt "right" and "familiar". With a large cast, it is important to hit those touchstones. The themes about legacy resonate strongly - something that the DC line books have had going for them the last eight decades. It is the foundation that the line has been built, and it is nice to see it again being given a strong focus.

The artwork is equally very strong. The whole book felt like an event and worthy of standing next to other classic Crisis events from the line.