Comic books are SO confusing. DC isn't immune to this; in fact, they're one of the most confusing companies out there. WIth tie-ins, reboots, and alternate Earths in the way, it's really hard to understand what's going on. This only results in a fan...
DC is famous for their company-wide events and in-universe reboots. When coming into comics, I heard different words thrown around all the time—First Crisis, New 52, and so on—that confused me a lot. In this chapter, I'll hopefully do my best to clear up that confusion for others, too. It's also just to inform—some of these events make DC history (as said in the title), and they're important to know.
[Note: Things marked between { } are other events to look into if you're interested. I found all of the reading lists + a majority of the information at: https://goo.gl/fCFeTu]
- | CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS: 1985 | -
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The Crisis on Infinite Earths was a catastrophe that resulted in the destruction of countless parallel universes, and the recreation of a single positive matter universe (and an antimatter universe) at the dawn of time. You'll hear this event referred to as "First Crisis" most often.
Or, more simply, the writers at DC decided that all of those "alternate Earths" would seem unfriendly and confusing to readers, so they blew up all of them and left the single one behind. This was the first of the Crisis Trilogy (Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, and Final Crisis), and DC's first reboot. Crisis on Infinite Earths is infamous for its high death count; hundreds of characters died, including DC icons such as Supergirl and Barry Allen.
[Note: A lot of these "branch in" to other issues, which just means that their events connect immediately into the issue mentioned, but you don't read that issue quite yet. For example, read All-Star Squadron #53—which continues through Crisis on Infinite Earths #5—but don't go read #5 yet. Move onto Fury of Firestorm #41 instead.]
Prologue Tales of the Teen Titans (1984) #58 DC Comics Presents #78
Crisis #1 All-Star Squadron #50-53 (#53 continues through Crisis #5) Fury of Firestorm #41 Infinity Inc. #18 New Teen Titans (1984) #13 (continues through Crisis #5) Green Lantern #194 (continues through Crisis #2)
Crisis #2 Detective Comics #558 Green Lantern #194
Crisis #3 New Teen Titans (1984) #13 (also contains material parallel to #9) Green Lantern #195 DC Comics Presents #86 (bridges to Crisis #4)
Crisis #4 DC Comics Presents #86 Swamp Thing #44 (continues through #5) Wonder Woman #327-328 Infinity Inc. #19 Justice League #224 Infinity Inc. #20 Infinity Inc. Annual 1 (bridges to #5)
Crisis #5 All-Star Squadron #53-55 (the final page of #53 is also parallel to #6) Infinity Inc #21-22 Swamp Thing #46
Crisis #6 Superman #413 Infinity Inc. #23-24 (#24 begins during #7)
Crisis #7 DC Comics Presents #95 Infinity Inc. #24 Legion of Superheroes (1984) #16 Wonder Woman #329 DC Comics Presents #87 Superman #414
