Dick Dillin

I had been burning out on these collections, but volume 5 turned out to be the most successful one in a while. The first story here ("Crisis from Yesterday!"/"Crisis from Tomorrow!") is maybe not great-- more heroes fighting each other under mind control (seriously this is the dullest thing ever, stop writing it), but any story that gives a principal role to the Elongated Man is a story that gains my appreciation to some extent. The Huntress, too, which makes this some of my first real experience of the Earth-2 Huntress.

I did quite like "The Murderer Among Us: Crisis above Earth-One!"/"I Accuse...", which forgoes the usual throwdowns for a murder mystery aboard the JLA satellite during the joint JLA/JSA meeting. It's a fun idea, and it lets the personalities of the characters come to the fore more than they're usually able to in these stories.

The best story here, though, is "Crisis on New Genesis, or Where Have All the New Gods Gone?"/"Crisis between Two Earths, or Apokolips Now!"/"Crisis on Apokolips, or Darkseid Rising!" (yeah, really). It maybe is your standard throwdown, but with three issues, the story actually breathes a bit, and the characters' personalities actually do come through. Of course, it involves Darkseid and the New Gods, who are awesome, and I enjoy almost anything that plays with those concepts by default. It's perhaps a standard superhero story, but it's one well told; there's some great stuff in particular with the children in the underground resistance on Apokolips.

Conway gets Darkseid, too. He's resurrected in this story, having apparently been dead, and he observes: "My brief 'death' has given me a new perspective on life, gentlemen. As I floated in the spiritual limbo where Desaad's uni-cannon blast propelled me, I came to treasure the memory of living things... the soft glow of the sun at dawn, the gentle waft of a breeze across one's brow, even the scent of a flower in bloom. Yes, even a god may be affected by his own 'death.'" Darkseid then pauses for a moment, and smells a flower in his hand. "I shall never forgive myself for such weakness! Never!" he shouts, crushing the flower. Perfect.

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The first story in here is one of the weirdest crossovers yet: "Where on Earth am I?" starts on Earth-Prime, which is our Earth, where DC Comics is based. Cary Bates and Elliot S! Maggin, at a loss for a Justice League plot, are sucked into Earth-Two, where Cary Bates promptly (for some reason) becomes a supervillain. Whoops. It's a bit by-the-numbers, despite the premise, but fun enough. The best part is probably the way they write their cranky old editor, Julius Schwartz.

The last two tales are co-written by Martin Pasko (the first with E. Nelson Bridwell, the second with Paul Levitz), and boy are they dull. Lots of fighting to no clear purpose, lots of mind-control so that heroes fight other heroes. Who knew that Superman finally meeting Captain Marvel could be so uninteresting? Worse, who knew that the freakin' Legion of Super-Heroes turning up could be very uninteresting!? And overcomplicated. I don't know if I'm running out of interest in these kind of stories, or if the writers are. Well, just two more volumes of this series to go.

It's worth noting that the last story shows Power Girl flirting with the Earth-One Superman. I guess that if you're gonna try to make out with your cousin, restricting it to his parallel self is a sensible option...

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Dennis O'Neil's run on Justice League is sadly brief, as Volume 3 of Crisis on Multiple Earths sees him replaced by Mike Friedrich for one story and Len Wein for three. Friedrich's "Earth-- The Monster Maker!" / "Solomon Grundy-- The One and Only" tries to use the parallel Earths to advantage by telling the story of an alien and his symbiotic pet stranded between the two Earths, but it turns out to be boring fight scene after boring fight scene until the heroes figure out the kid is lost, not evil. Of vague interest is some interaction between the Robins of both Earths, but vague is as far as the characterization goes. The Robin of Earth-One borrows a costume unused by the Earth-Two Robin-- I can see why, because it's godawful, even if Neal Adams (acknowledged in dialogue!) did design it.

I found both of Len Wein's big event stories ("The Unknown Soldier of Victory!"/"The Hand That Shook the World"/"And One of Us Must Die!" and "Crisis on Earth-X!"/"Thirteen against the Earth!") very uninspired. They're old-school team-ups, where the Justice League/Justice Society/whatever team split up into groups and each fight mini-battle before uniting for the finale. Depressingly formulaic. Wein pulls in more and more obscure heroes, but does nothing to make you care about them. "The Creature in the Velvet Cage" is decent, but it explains something that didn't really need an explanation: why did the Sandman change his costume back to his gas mask one (um, because it's awesome and the purple one sucked?) and what happened to Sandy Hawkins?

Dick Dillin is still pretty awesome, though. Keep rocking it out on art, man.

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