#on the surface he's the outlier of the harbingers

[sohyuki]

hey opinions on childe? 🎤

disgusting.

[quality-street-rat]

The Clown!

How Clowns Have Become Scary

Matthew Burgess

Part One

Clowns, jesters, fools, and other such figures have existed since the days of ancient Egypt. Rome had figures known as Stupidus, and fifth-dynasty Egypt had pygmy clowns. Through the centuries, all clowns had and have one powerful connection; that of misrule, excess, and the unpredictable. They mimic and ridicule, they riddle and tease. They perform over-the-top, crazy antics. They cause mayhem and enjoy it, usurping law and order with unhinged slapstick. However, clowns are just one historical monster that can bring terror to people. Studying monsters brings understanding of the past and the present and shows a great deal of human nature.  

Part Two

The word monster has roots in Latin, and the root words mean to warn. Stone Age humans had monsters of their own, and massive biblical monsters haunted other early humans. The idea of the Devil breaks off into other concepts such as demonic possession, witches, and the Antichrist. Jeffery Jerome Cohen posits that “The Monster Always Escapes.” What he means by this is that no monster is ever really killed or gotten rid of. The death or disappearance of one monster either makes room for a new one or provides an opportunity for the original monster to return with a new face. However, every time the monster returns, its meaning will change based on what is happening in society at that time. No monster ever really dies.  

A monster might be new to some people. For example, if Pennywise the Clown only appears every twenty-seven years, then he is new to the people who are children when he comes back. If an urban legend is forgotten because it is no longer relevant, then when the situation is the same in the future, the urban legend will re-surface. As Poole says in Monsters in America, (page 22) “History is horror.” This also refers to the situation out of which a monster is born. Before the Salem Witch Trials, people were less concerned with piety. Some social switch flipped, and suddenly everyone was obsessed with finding the evil and unworthy in their society.  

There are several other theories that help understand monsters through history and are key concepts that aid in studying them. A few that stand out are integral to monster culture. The monster is never just what it appears to be. It is a representation of some fear or desire that people experience. The monster defies classification, which also means that they clash with the concept of binaries and logic. Monsters in general are made of things that are distinctly “other,” or outliers to the idea of “normal.” They invite the removal of moral dimensions and make excuses for eradication of the “other.”  Monsters are warnings, are representations of both fear and desire, are harbingers of the transitional future. These all tell the story of history and, more specifically, American history. Poole says “The American past...is a haunted house. Ghosts rattle their chains throughout its corridors, under its furniture, and in its small attic places. The historian must resurrect monsters in order to pull history’s victims out of...’the mud of oblivion.’ The historian’s task is necromancy, and it gives us nightmares.” (Monsters in America, Page 24)

Part 3

When my mother was eleven years old, her parents sat her down to watch the original IT movie. She tells me that she had nightmares and trouble sleeping for at least a month afterwards. When I was growing up, clowns were not mentioned. My siblings and I knew that clowns existed because there was a friendly clown named Pooky that we saw once a year at my father’s annual work party. Until I was twelve or thirteen Pooky was the only reference for the word “clown” that I had. After that, I started learning world history and learned about clowns in the context of circuses. To me they were silly people who wore polka dots and colorful wigs, and who painted their faces with the intention to entertain. The concept of the scary clown wasn’t even a shred of an idea to me until later.  

When I was fifteen I started going to school for the first time. I suddenly had access to the internet and began absorbing every piece of pop culture that I could possibly handle. The trailers for the new IT movie were just starting to come out, and people were reporting scary clown sightings all over the country. I personally was not then and am not now scared of clowns. However, I could see that people were terrified of them and that fascinated me. I was more interested in the intentions of the people behind the masks than the unexpected presence of them. Fast forward to 2018, and I started watching American Horror Story. Seasons four and six heavily featured clowns as something scary. There was Twisty the Clown with his terrifying blown off mouth and tendency to kidnap children and attempt to entertain them, and there was the cult who wore clown masks and intimidated Sarah Paulson’s character. The cult was more effective than not because of the character’s coulrophobia, or fear of clowns. 1 Around the same time I watched the movie Suicide Squad, and became similarly fascinated with the character of the Joker. I started doing research and found that Jared Leto’s Joker was not the first one. There was a theory that proposed that there were three different Jokers, regardless of actor or illustrator. One, the thief and killer. Two, the silly one who had no real reason to perform any of his evil deeds, known as the “Clown Prince of Crime.” Third, the homicidal maniac.  

As I’ve said, I am not afraid of clowns. But the reason why people are afraid of them enthrall me. Firstly, clowns are allowed to say things that the rest of us can’t. They dress up their words as jokes, but they can say the most shocking and inappropriate things. They can challenge those in power with no consequences. Second, humans inherit fear. Studies done in Georgia and Canada show that fear of a thing can be passed down through a family line. For example, if a parent was mauled by a tiger, and then had a child and disappeared, the child would be frightened if they saw a tiger. Also, the face paint of a clown elicits the same response as the uncanny valley. Clowns were first thought to be scary in the late 1940’s and 1950’s. Clowns worked very closely with children. Adults began to get paranoid about these clowns, grown men, abusing their children. Maybe some were, but the majority merely wanted to make the children laugh and smile. The adults started to tell their children to avoid the clowns. Later in the 80’s, slasher films were on the rise. Moviemakers were making anything into killers. Audrey the plant, cute little gremlins, worms, blobs, and clowns. Stephen King’s IT was written and released during this time. Since then, many scary clowns have existed. The Joker, Harley Quinn the Harlequin, Pennywise, Twisty, the Jigsaw puppet, the Terrifier. These all serve as a cultural lens to help explain social changes.  

Part 4

The monster of the clown resonates with me because the idea of the scary clown is so wide-spread and can now be passed off as an “everyone knows that” statement. The why fascinates me. Clowns represent the both the fear of truth and the fear of lies. Clowns can say the unsayable and topple those in power with the truth. On the other hand, their fixed grins and otherwise blank faces are the embodiment of a lie, because you can’t tell who they are behind the mask.  

From the earliest days of human history, there was some form of a clown. The clowns always had something to represent, and they always came back. To look at another point of view, most clowns were simple entertainers turned into frighteners by people who wanted to dispose of them. However, the clowns that were actually scary (Pennywise, Jigsaw, etc.) were warnings of what might happen if you mess with the truth. Pennywise changes form; he is the embodiment of lies. Jigsaw is transparent about his intentions; he is the cold, hard, bitter truth.  

The sometimes-maudlin behavior of clowns invites sympathy. It suggests that maybe they are simply misunderstood, that maybe they deserve to be loved. However, they always snap back with something unexpected. It is a general consensus in the monster-f**ker community that clown-f**kers are the lowest of the low. However, if I may loosely quote one of my online followers on the subject: “...Sir Pennywise is a shnack.” Unfortunately, the spelling is a direct quote. I cannot pretend to know why people are attracted to clowns, Pennywise especially, but they are and there’s unfortunately nothing to be done about it.  

Putting aside peoples’ attraction to clowns, to close this thought I’d like to quote Derek Kilmer in saying “the stories we tell say something about us.” Clowns may not be everyone’s fear. However, the culture we as people created also created clowns and the fear of them.  

Part 5

Studying monsters can be a useful endeavor. History of America is the history of monsters. Therefore, if you study monsters, you study America. From the dehumanization of Native Americans by the Pilgrims to the fascination with aliens today, monsters have shaped America and been shaped by American society. This theory is called Reciprocal Determination. Instead of one thing causing another, two things cause each other. America’s society has been shaped by witches, by vampires, by zombies, by clowns. And society has, in return, created the monsters it claims to hate so much. People care about monsters. We created them, as they create us.  

Clowns represent America’s relationship with truth. Depending on the kind of clown and when it appears, we can determine how Americans deal with lies. Early in the century, clowns were more jovial and friendly. People were complacent with letting bad things get swept under the rug. Harsh truths and cruel facts were ignored and glossed over. Abused spouses and homosexual relationships along with literal genocide and corrupt leadership had people looking the other way, because they were more concerned with image than anything else. But as time went on, people became less concerned with image and more concerned with truth. There are of course those who still value image over truth, but they are the minority. Corrupt leaders cannot hide anymore. LGBT+ folk can finally openly live their truth. Abuse is not tolerated. But at the same time, the clowns are getting scarier. Some people might say that this is simply correlation and not causation, and that is also a valid view, but I believe that it is, without a doubt, causation.  

Monsters teach us not only our history, but who we are. They tell us the truth behind our lies. They challenge the master narrative and demonstrate impermanent borders between morality, truth, fear, and desire.  

Footnotes

1 This phobia was also featured in the long-running show Supernatural, however in that show it’s played for humor.

[junker-town]

Are the Warriors too good?

We can appreciate excellence, but understand that it comes at the expense of competitive balance.

OAKLAND — The very first question lobbed at NBA commissioner Adam Silver during his annual state of the game press conference prior to Game 1 of the Finals concerned the lack of competitive playoff series that led to this unprecedented third consecutive meeting between the Warriors and Cavaliers.

The Warriors had pulled a Fo’, Fo’, Fo’ in sweeping their way to the Finals, while the Cavs dropped only one game to the Celtics along the way. Neither team was challenged on their journey and there were only a handful of games that could have gone either way. We all expected this would be the ultimate result of the 2016-17 season, yet the ease in which both teams advanced destroyed any semblance of competitive balance that may have existed.

Even more troubling was the notion that both teams treated the regular season like a warm-up act. The Warriors quickly established that they we would not be gunning for 73 wins again, while the Cavs coasted through large chunks of the calendar with nary a care in the world. The ratings may suggest otherwise, but that doesn’t seem like a sustainable way to carry out a season that stretches almost nine months.

Silver, who came into his post preaching the gospel of parity, has presided over four Finals matchups. Three of them have involved the Cavs and Warriors and the other featured LeBron James in his final season with the Miami Heat. They have all produced great theater even as a generation of marketable stars have never seen the main stage.

Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

Parity may be the NBA’s Holy Grail, but it has rarely been proven to exist and it’s not at all clear that it would be good for the league. The one decade that saw the most fluctuation from year-to-year — the 1970s — was marked by low attendance and scant attention from television networks and sponsors.

Great players have always defined the NBA, and by extension, so have their teams. We mark the eras by their career arcs; whether they be Larry Bird and Magic Johnson who dominated the ‘80s or Michael Jordan in the ‘90s with brief cameos from Isiah Thomas’ Pistons and Hakeem Olajuwon’s Rockets.

The preceding decade of the Aughts was slightly more diffuse, but was still dominated by Kobe Bryant’s Lakers and Tim Duncan’s Spurs. All the way back in the beginning, it was Bill Russell’s Celtics who ruled for as long as he played. This current era is not unique, even if it feels like some kind of outlier in our world of hyper-speed consumption and mass dissemination.

“From a league standpoint, you always want to see great competition,” Silver said. “It’s what our fans want to see. It’s what we provide in this league. But having said that, this is real life. It’s not scripted, and it happens. So, sure, the fan in me would love to see more competition at times, but on the other hand, I’ve said it before, I think we should also celebrate excellence.”

Excellence works. It’s what drives ratings and maintains attention spans. If you care at all about basketball you’ve been waiting patiently for this Finals’ match-up, and if you have even a passing relationship with the game, you are intimately familiar with LeBron’s Cavs and the Warriors’ constellation of stars. It needs no hype or build-up, a rare commodity in this day and age.

Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

If this season felt like little more than a way to pass the time before the inevitable resumption of this trilogy, then that was a bargain many of us were inclined to take. A seven-game epic would quell all but the most inane of dissenters and even a six-game slugfest would satisfy the masses.

Eras routinely establish themselves in the NBA as great players find their comfort zone and smart management teams stock the roster with complimentary All-Stars and capable role players. They are more fleeting than one assumes, however.

A 3- to 4-year window is large enough to collect a trophy or two, but then adjustments need to be made as contracts come due and players age their way into new situations. The Warriors have major contract issues to resolve involving Kevin Durant and Steph Curry and the Cavs have been footing an enormous luxury tax bill to cite two looming examples.

This particular period of time may feel like an eternity at the moment, but at the risk of stating the obvious: things change and shit happens. Nothing lasts forever in this league, not even dynasties. The idea of a trilogy, as unprecedented as it is, feels more like the peak than a lasting set of circumstances.

After Game 1, an even more troubling thought bubbled to the surface: After all the anticipation, what if it’s not close?

Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Much like last year’s Game 1 resulted in a decisive Golden State victory, this year’s opener was also a blowout. The Warriors also won Game 2 convincingly last June and we all know how things unfolded after they took a commanding 3-1 lead back to Oakland. No one should ever write off a LeBron James team and no one will until the series shifts back to Cleveland.

But this felt different, mainly because this year’s Warriors come equipped with Durant, a former MVP who is arguably one of the three best players on the planet. There was no argument about who the best player was in Game 1 on a floor that included 11 former All-Stars and three MVPs.

Durant was brilliant and the Warriors were unstoppable. With 38 points in Game 1, KD is already more than halfway toward reaching Harrison Barnes’ 65-point total for the seven games last season. With Durant in place of Barnes on the wing, there’s nowhere to hide a defender and no space to allow LeBron to roam as a free safety.

“You know how scary things can be, especially when that 7-footer [Kevin Durant] is coming at you full speed with his ball-handling ability and shooters spread across,” Andre Iguodala noted. “It’s pick your poison.”

Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

By and large, the Cavaliers chose poorly. They ran to shooters and allowed Durant to fly down the lane for uncontested dunks. Even if it was a miscommunication, it’s not like there were good alternatives to be found. In the aftermath, Cavs coach Ty Lue was asked a long, winding question about the seemingly impossible task of beating the Warriors.

“Yeah, they’re the best I ever seen,” Lue shot back.

Asked to elaborate, Lue repeated his answer. Pressed further, he sighed and offered the facts.

“I mean, no other team has done this, right? So 13-0, and they constantly break records every year, last year being 73-9, this year starting the playoffs 13-0,” Lue said. “So they’re playing good basketball. But we can play better.”

They can, and they probably will. We didn’t come all this way for a sweep, even if the closest the Warriors have come to a loss in these playoffs was a nailbiter against the Spurs that was notable for including the largest conference finals comeback in 15 years. That’s the kind of firepower they have in reserve, which the Cavs got to experience firsthand right away.

“There’s no way can you simulate the Warriors offense,” Kyrie Irving said. “So, when you come out here, and no matter how greatly prepared you are, you know going against them and being in a game is totally different.”

Adjustments will be made and shots will either fall or rim out. Strange bounces will happen and a call or two may swing a game. We’ve seen enough over the years to know that an opening game blowout between two highly-competitive teams is less of a harbinger than a random occurrence.

Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

And, yet … man, the Warriors are loaded.

If it’s excellence that we’re witnessing, than excellence shall be rewarded and revered, however grudgingly. That’s the nature of sports and competition at the highest levels. The question of whether the league will be sustained and buoyed by that excellence or drowned in double-digit losses and eroding interest by the public has yet to be determined.

These are fascinating times for the NBA. They may also be precarious.

[aion-rsa]

Infinite Crisis Again: What Rebirth Can Learn From Its Cosmic Cousin

DC Comics’ “Rebirth” is both a publishing initiative and a (somewhat subtle) crossover event. On the publishing side, “Rebirth” relaunched almost all of DC’s main-line superhero titles. On the story side, May 2016’s “DC Universe: Rebirth” special brought back the classic version of Wally West — thought to be lost to the New 52 reboot — and explained that characters from “Watchmen” had given the DCU a case of the blahs.

However, that wasn’t the first time writer Geoff Johns and an all-star artistic roster (including Phil Jiminez and Ivan Reis) had crafted a sequel to a seminal Reagan-era miniseries. In 2005’s “Infinite Crisis,” Johns and Jiminez (with help from Reis, George Pérez and Jerry Ordway) revealed that a trio of survivors from 1985’s “Crisis On Infinite Earths” — most thought lost to “COIE’s” reboot — had a plan to bring back the infinite Multiverse. Oh, and all their behind-the-scenes manipulations and plotting were designed to cure the DC Universe’s then-current case of the blahs.

RELATED: Where to Watch the Watchmen: A Rebirth Guide

“Infinite Crisis” enjoyed a substantial buildup and left a significant footprint. It was at the heart of the “Crisis Cycle” of the 2000s — when DC’s superhero line was either preparing for, in the middle of, and/or recovering from some world-shattering calamity. Since “Rebirth” seems to be using some of “Infinite Crisis'” playbook, today we’ll compare and contrast the two to see how the current event might benefit.

OUR BRAND IS CRISIS: 1982-2004

“Identity Crisis” cover art by Michael Turner

We begin in 1982 because that’s when DC started stealth-promoting “Crisis On Infinite Earths.” The Monitor and his signature satellite first appeared in July 1982’s “The New Teen Titans” vol. 1 #21; while his assistant Lyla made her debut over a year later, in 1983’s “New Teen Titans Annual” vol. 1 #2. (Naturally, 1985’s “Crisis” came from the “Titans” team of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez.) Apparently if you want to convince readers that a pair of new characters have been watching a shared superhero universe for a long time, it helps to show them watching that universe for a decent amount of time — even if the Monitor was never fully seen until “Crisis” issue #1, when Harbinger’s powers were also revealed.

By 1986 “Crisis” was over and DC could start building on its effects; but eventually that too led to conflicts. In the summer of 1994 writer/penciller Dan Jurgens and inker Jerry Ordway produced “Zero Hour: Crisis In Time,” which attacked those problems with a different set of cosmic tools; and ten years after that, writer Brad Meltzer and artists Rags Morales and Michael Bair inserted some nasty elements into the history of the Justice League of America. Through it all, DC was careful to use the “Crisis” name sparingly.

On the surface, 2004’s “Identity Crisis” was a mystery about the murder of Sue Dibny, the Elongated Man’s wife and a fixture of the superhero community. Her death brought out a pattern of memory-altering and other Orwellian tactics used by a handful of Leaguers to protect their secret identities. Seems that years ago, Doctor Light had snuck aboard the JLA Satellite and attacked Sue when the team was away. In the wake of that incident, and another body-switching episode involving the Secret Society of Super-Villains (from 1979’s “Justice League of America” issues #166-68), Zatanna made a habit of erasing any compromising information from the bad guys’ brains. Zatanna also put the zap on a disapproving Batman when he found out.

After seven issues of anguished conversations, a few super-fights, andmore death, Sue’s murderer turned out not to be a supervillain at all. The Atom’s ex-wife Jean Loring did it to get his attention. Jean went to Arkham Asylum, the League started to look at itself a little more carefully, and that was it, right?

THE CRISIS CYCLE: 2005-2011

Detail from the cover of “52” issue #24, by J.G. Jones

Not quite. Here’s the “Crisis cycle” in bullet points:

The murder mystery in “Identity Crisis” (2004) had repercussions for the Justice League, the supervillain community, and Batman specifically.

The “Countdown to Infinite Crisis” oversized one-shot (2005) continued the Batman subplot. Turns out he’d built a killer spy satellite and thought he’d put it away safely. Sadly, no — ex-good guy Max Lord repurposed “Brother Eye” and killed off Blue Beetle because Beetle had learned too much about Max’s anti-superhero plans.

Four six-issue 2005 miniseries then got the readership ready for “Infinite Crisis.” First, “The OMAC Project” had Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman investigate Max, who was so powerful he could only be stopped by Wonder Woman snapping his neck. (“OMAC” also included “Sacrifice,” its own 4-issue sub-crossover about the neck-snapping) Next, “Rann-Thanagar War” and “Day of Vengeance” depicted a couple of time-sucking widescreen-style events to keep DC’s space-based and magic-based superheroes busy. Meanwhile, “Villains United” and the “JLA” arc “Crisis Of Conscience” (issues #115-19) dealt with fallout from “Identity Crisis” in the supervillain community and within the Justice League.

“Infinite Crisis” (2005-06) addressed all the miniseries’ business, revealing the comprehensive plan orchestrated by Alex Luthor (of the old Earth-Three) and Superboy (of the old Earth-Prime) to restore the old Multiverse and make DC-Earth a happier place. In the end, the Joker killed Alex, the Green Lanterns imprisoned Superboy-Prime, and things were back to normal, except just a little different in some areas. For example, now DC had a fun-sized Multiverse.

The regular superhero books jumped ahead one year in March 2006, taking advantage of “Infinite Crisis'” shakeups to make tweaks and other adjustments. However, “One Year Later” wasn’t received as fondly as “52” (2006-07), the year-long weekly miniseries which actually chronicled the missing year.

Even after all that, DC still wasn’t done with big events. It followed “52” with another year-long weekly miniseries, 2007-08’s “Countdown to Final Crisis,” which was supposed to gin up excitement for the next event by tying into a) just about every superhero title and b) several affiliated miniseries (like “Countdown Presents: The Search For Ray Palmer” and “Death of the New Gods”).

Thus, despite the title, 2008-09’s “Final Crisis” wasn’t the last blockbuster miniseries, because 2009-10’s “Blackest Night” dealt with (among other things) all the deaths from the various events and the biweekly year-long “Brightest Day” (2010-11) tried to set the superhero books back on a more congenial path.

Accordingly, the “Crisis Cycle” lasted upwards of seven years before the carnage from its events was resolved. DC then went and rendered all that effort moot with 2011’s line-wide New 52 reboot.

THE ROAD TO REBIRTH

Telos presents “Convergence’s” multiversal spread

Just as “Infinite Crisis” was preceded by an apparently-standalone event miniseries, a one-shot and a handful of lead-in miniseries, “Rebirth” has built on an apparently-standalone event miniseries (“Convergence”), the miniseries which followed it (“Titans Hunt” and “Lois & Clark”) and a one-shot (“DC Universe: Rebirth”).

2015’s “Convergence” was billed as the product of DC’s real-world cross-country move, which forced the publisher to create two months’ worth of (for lack of a better term) fill-in comics for the spring of 2015. The 9-issue weekly “Convergence” miniseries explained that the mother of all Brainiacs had been collecting Multiversal remnants and was pitting them against one another; and the several affiliated two-issue miniseries showed the effects of those battles. “Convergence” had some confusing consequences for DC’s cosmic mechanics, but for the most part it was a nostalgia-fest which marked time until the summer’s “DC You” initiative.

Nevertheless, three miniseries came out of “Convergence.” Nobody read the 6-issue “Telos,” about Brainiac’s Silver Surfer-esque assistant; but the 8-issue “Titans Hunt” established the secret history of the original Teen Titans (Dick Grayson, Roy Harper, et al.) and “Lois & Clark’s” 8 issues revealed that the pre-“Flashpoint” Superman and Lois Lane had been living on the New 52’s DC-Earth since the start of its superhero era.

The rest of the superhero line got a “DC You” makeover, with quirky new series like “Black Canary,” “Prez” and “Omega Men” joining radically-changed versions of Batman, Superman and Green Lantern. When “DC You” didn’t bring in the sales, the publisher responded with the “DC Universe: Rebirth” special; and with a series of one-shots which served effectively as “zero issues” for the newest round of relaunches. Among those relaunches were “Titans” and the Superman titles, which continued what “Titans Hunt” and “Lois & Clark” had begun.

Because the Titans, Superman and the Wally West Flash have been most heavily involved in connecting the pre-“Flashpoint” DC Universe with its current version, a good bit of “Rebirth” clues have appeared in their respective series. This is true for other ongoing series like “Detective Comics” and the upcoming “Button” crossover in “Batman” and “Flash.” In this respect the current “Justice League Vs. Suicide Squad” miniseries — which also promises hints about “Rebirth’s” macro-plot — is an outlier. The strategy looks like an inversion of “Infinite Crisis,” because the “Rebirth”-fueled changes precede their explanation (or at least the detailed explanation) and the buildup isn’t allocated largely among tie-in miniseries.

One important “Rebirth” factor still needs discussing, namely Mr. Oz from Geoff Johns and John Romita Jr.’s run on “Superman” (issues #32-39, August 2014-May 2015). Thought currently to be a disguised “Watchmen” character, the fact that Mr. Oz predates “Convergence” suggests that he may have been intended to fulfill some other purpose, like an alternate route to restoring the New 52 Supeman’s powers. (He also reminds us of the Tangent Comics Green Lantern, but that’s probably just coincidental.) In any event, we’re not prepared to speculate that “Rebirth” might have been in the works for some two years — despite precedents going back to those Monitor and Lyla teases — and certainly not before the one-two efforts of “Convergence” and “DC You.” Nevertheless, Mr. Oz has certainly worked out well as the mysterious personification of “Rebirth.”

LESSONS LEARNED?

Detail from the cover of the “DC Universe: Rebirth” special, by Gary Frank

Again, “Rebirth” is using many of the same tools as the Crisis cycle, but in a slightly different order. Where “Identity Crisis” led to “Countdown to Infinite Crisis” and then into the four feeder miniseries, “Convergence” facilitated “Titans Hunt” and “Lois & Clark,” which then led into the “DCU: Rebirth” special. As noted above, the changes to “Rebirth’s” ongoing series are happening now, as opposed to the “One Year Later” books happening after “Infinite Crisis.” (Actually, “1YL” started just as “Infinite Crisis” was ending, but close enough.)

To be sure, it’s a different strategy for a different set of market conditions, but it has paid off. “One Year Later” didn’t do much for ongoing series’ sales, but “Rebirth’s” ongoing series are performing very well. The question now is whether DC can keep it up for the two years Dan DiDio has said “Rebirth” will take. Right now DC is maintaining a good balance between business-as-usual stories and “Rebirth” teases. While more “Rebirth”-specific arcs are on the way, many of DC’s superhero books have little (if anything) to disclose about the event. For example, “Wonder Woman” is explaining changes to Diana’s origins, but that’s not expressly part of “Rebirth”; and the cosmic adventures in the Green Lantern books likewise are mum on “Rebirth.” However, if the rebirthing won’t be over until the summer of 2018, that will probably change; and more of the superhero line will be connected directly to “Rebirth’s” macro-plot.

It’s also possible that DC will go back to the “Crisis cycle” well by stepping up its reliance on “Rebirth”-related miniseries. “Titans Hunt” and “Lois & Clark” arrived with little fanfare — certainly not as much as the four “Infinite Crisis” lead-ins — but they weren’t expected to play much of a role after “Convergence.” With the two-year clock ticking (a countdown, as it were) and “Justice League vs. Suicide Squad” an apparent hit, DC might feel confident enough to launch a couple more event miniseries before the main throwdown begins.

DC needs to tread carefully with those event miniseries, though. Where “52’s” source material made it necessarily self-contained, “Countdown to Final Crisis” went entirely the other way and paid the price. “Countdown” itself was uneven at best, bouncing haphazardly across subplots as its characters bounced around the new Multiverse. That left its tie-ins without much goodwill, which miniseries like “Countdown: Arena” and “Lord Havok and the Extremists” wouldn’t have enjoyed anyway. So far “Rebirth’s” focus on the ongoing series has been successful. It may not stay that way, but for now there’s no reason to change.

By using event miniseries sparingly, DC can also avoid the dreaded “event fatigue.” While there is the notion that event fatigue is really just another name for poor execution, the reception given “One Year Later” argues that enthusiasm for “Infinite Crisis” peaked with that miniseries and didn’t extend to “One Year Later.” Remember, DC spent the better part of a year hyping “Infinite Crisis” with the goal of getting its readers to stay with DC’s ongoing series. Instead, many of them chose to stay with “52,” the only series which described “Infinite Crisis'” immediate aftermath. By contrast, “Rebirth” is building a readership for the ongoing series first, presumably so that the inevitable event miniseries will be more meaningful to that readership.

If we can map “Rebirth’s” mileposts to those of “Infinite Crisis,” we’re past the point where the main miniseries should have occurred. We’ve already had the standalone miniseries, the prelude miniseries and the oversized one-shot. It might be another year before the main event starts. If that’s supposed to be the peak of activity, when the curtains are finally drawn back and all the questions are answered, then DC can’t get comfortable until then.

As much as we lump in “Identity Crisis” with the rest of DC’s big crossovers, we risk forgetting that it wasn’t billed as such. Instead, it was the publisher’s effort to reach out to the non-comics reader by using a well-known mystery novelist who would write to his strengths. “Identity Crisis” only crossed over with a handful of ongoing series, perhaps because DC hadn’t done a proper line-wide crossover for a few years. Therefore, the hype for “Infinite Crisis” hit a comics marketplace which hadn’t been oversaturated with such a thing.

Phil Jiminez’ clue-filled “Countdown” teaser

The problem was, the successes of “Infinite Crisis” and “52” convinced DC that it could keep going in that vein; so over the next few years it did, to diminishing returns. Ironically, the corporate-driven excesses of “Countdown” were in support of writer Grant Morrison’s idiosyncratic “Final Crisis”; and the success of “Blackest Night” was more a reflection of writer Geoff Johns’ crowd-pleasing work on “Green Lantern.” The ecumenical, almost grass-roots appeal of “Rebirth” may be due similarly to the popularity of the individual series, and not so much the mysteries informing them. If that’s true, DC’s real task over the next year or so will be steering that collective appeal into anticipation for “Rebirth’s” endgame.

The Crisis cycle had a few big accomplishments. It revived DC’s Big Events, which had been dormant for a few years. It rebooted the Multiverse, albeit with just 52 parallel universes. It gave the entire superhero line a soft relaunch, led by the likes of writers Geoff Johns and Kurt Busiek on the Superman titles and Grant Morrison and Paul Dini on the Bat-books. Through “52,” it showed that readers would embrace a quirky, detail-driven weekly miniseries (although “Countdown” would show that such a thing didn’t always work).

On the minus side, it fostered a climate of perpetual change — for example, Bart Allen’s brief Flash career and Wally West (and Mark Waid)’s similarly-brief return — coupled with the near-certainty of character death during each new event. “52” turned Ralph and Sue Dibny into ghost detectives; “Countdown” featured Earth-51’s apocalyptic end and the corruption of Mary Marvel; “Final Crisis” both “killed” Batman and planted the seeds of his return; and “Blackest Night” was all about death (although it featured a number of revivals, including Max Lord but not Blue Beetle). Even “Brightest Day,” which was supposed to focus on restoring happiness and cheer, started with the death of a cute baby bird. While the Crisis cycle wasn’t all bad, there was so much grimness and grit that it took a while to clean up.

We hope that proves to be the main difference between the Crisis cycle and “Rebirth’s” two years. It’s not just setting up a big event and watching the payoff, it’s also how much of the event’s negative effects are allowed to linger. “Rebirth” may be over by 2018, but DC must then get back to business as usual; because the Crisis cycle showed how too much of an event atmosphere can snowball out of control. Fortunately, unlike its en-fuego predecessor, “Rebirth” is doing a slow burn. That low-key approach has worked well so far, and DC should remember its effectiveness before getting too bombastic. It can’t afford to lose the readers it has gained.

How do you think “Rebirth” is doing? Let us know in the comments!

The post Infinite Crisis Again: What Rebirth Can Learn From Its Cosmic Cousin appeared first on CBR.com.

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