Josh Reviews Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Three

Crisis on Infinite Earths is one of the most famous storylines in the long history of DC Comics.  This twelve-issue mini-series was written by Marv Wolfman and illustrated by George Perez and was released in 1985-86, and it ended and then restarted DC’s comic book continuity. This animated film isn’t the first adaptation of Crisis — it was teased in the previous DC animated film Crisis on Two Earths and adapted into live-action in the massive Arrowverse Crisis crossover five-part series.  I initially thought it was very cool that a three-movie animated adaptation was in the works, but I’ve been disappointed by the end result.  I found the first two parts to be surprisingly flat and uninteresting.  (Click here for my review of part one, and click here for my review of part three.)

I’m also somewhat disappointed that this three-part movie event is being used to end DC’s latest continuity of animated films, the “Tomorroverse” that began only a few years ago with Superman: Man of Tomorrow.  This animated continuity hasn’t been a home run, but I’ve enjoyed many of the films (particularly the very strong two-film adaptation of Batman: The Long Halloween).  It feels like this animated universe was just getting going; I’m bummed it’s being ended so quickly.  (Presumably this is to make way for Jame Gunn’s attempt to reboot the DC/Warner Brothers superhero universe, with various movies and shows that will all be in a shared continuity.)

Unfortunately, I felt Part Three of this animated adaptation of Crisis on Infinite Earths was, for the most part, as flat as the previous two installments.

There were two wonderful surprises.  The first was the brief glimpses of various other DC animated shows, presented here as different universes within the multiverse.  We get to see the Super Friends, the Teen Titans, and most enjoyably we get to return, oh so briefly, to Bruce Timm’s Batman: The Animated Series.  Mark Hamill gives one last performance as the Joker, and the late Kevin Conroy gives his final performance as Batman.  It’s beautiful and bittersweet to hear those two back to voice Batman and the Joker, and Mr. Conroy’s last line as Batman is perfect.

The second surprise was the choice to refer back to the end of the previous continuity of DC’s animated films, the series that began with Justice League: War and ended with Apokolips War.  I was totally surprised that they chose to use the character of John Constantine to connect the “Tomorrowverse” to that previous continuity.  I thought that was very clever!  I loved seeing a few scenes animated in the style used by those earlier animated films.  That was fun.

What else did I like?  There were a few fun moments:

• I loved seeing the bleed (a concept for what lies between the universes of the multiverse that, I believe, was first introduced by Warren Ellis in Wildstorm’s Stormwatch series.  Jim Lee’s Wildstorm universe was purchased by DC, and occasionally characters and concepts from Wildstorm pop up in DC stuff.  (That’s going to apparently be happening in a big way in James Gunn’s rebooted universe, which reportedly will be featuring characters from The Authority.)
• I liked hearing the old Superman say “Great Scott!”
• I liked the way the story pulled together threads from the previous animated films.  I liked seeing Martian Manhunter and Warworld again (from Justice League: Warworld).  I liked seeing the miracle machine again (from The Legion of Superheroes).
• As I commented above, I liked the brief crossovers with previous DC animated series.  I loved seeing the classic blimps from Batman: The Animated Series.  I loved that we got to see the characters from Bruce Timm’s Justice League shows too; it made me happy that they gave Jon Stewart and Shayera a moment for a happy ending together.  (Their romance wove through Bruce Timm’s Justice League shows.)  Watching the Super Friends get annihilated was pretty funny.  (I wish they’d leaned even more heavily into these cartoon crossovers.  Instead of wasting so much time in the first half hour of this film, wouldn’t it have been cool had the characters from those previous DC animated series actually had something more substantial to do?  Maybe they could have teamed up with the main heroes in the third act?  That would have been so fun!!)

I wish I had more good things to say.  There’s a lot about this film that just didn’t work for me.

• There’s a lot of time-wasting in the first 30 minutes.  They spend a lot of time showing us the Justice League battling dinosaurs and the Bat Family battling super-powered Nazis, but those sequences are so clearly a distraction from the main story.  If they were able to give those sequences some excitement, or some fun character stuff, or just a better sense of narrative momentum (in which our heroes can’t get to the real villain, the Anti-Monitor, because they’re so desperately fighting for their lives), maybe this could have worked, but that isn’t the case.
• About 30 minutes in, we see Aquaman’s Earth get destroyed.  This should be a gut punch, but like most of the rest of this story, it falls flat.  It feels like everyone is moving in slow motion; there’s no urgency. Also: why do they beam Aquaman down (to die with his family) instead of beaming Mera and their baby up to safety??
• The visual of each Earth, brought with its own sun, into the Bleed is laughable.  I know this is a cartoon, but did no one making this movie understand how vast a solar system is??
• Nightshade winds up being important at the end, but I had no idea who she was.  I wish she’d been better developed.

Other comments:

• The idea of the heroes talking about killing Baby Darkseid is dark.  I liked that.
• The idea that Darkseid must exist reminds me of John Byrne’s Trial of Galactus storyline from the Fantastic Four in the eighties.  (That’s an incredible story, by the way.)
• It’s Crisis, so of course they have to kill off Supergirl.  I thought it was fairly well executed.  (Though Superman’s super-screams and sobs afterwards were a bit much for me.)
• I liked how Lois uses Superman’s origin to defend the idea of creating one timeline from the multiverse.  That was clever.
• John Constantine as Pariah was a cool idea.
• It’s interesting that Constantine, along with The Question and The Spectre, all survive the reboot at the end.  I wonder if those characters will be picked up anywhere?
• I was confused by the last scene of a young Wonder Woman.  What universe are we seeing?  Is this our first peek at James Gunn’s new continuity?

Well, so ends another attempt at an animated continuity of DC stories.  I wish this was a stronger ending to a continuity that had started out promisingly.  Unfortunately both of these last two attempts at a DC animated continuity have paled in comparison to what Bruce Timm was able to accomplish with his shows (Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Justice League, and Justice League: Unlimited).  Oh well.  I’m curious to see what’s next.

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