10 DC Comics Stories That Changed Everything
3. Infinite Crisis/Final Crisis (2005-2009)
Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis are sequels to "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and were conceived for the same reason, to simplify DC's seemingly out of control continuity. The event didn't quite achieve its goal though when compared to Crisis on Infinite Earths. While the effects of COIE lasted for twenty years, the DCU has been in a seemingly continual state of flux since Infinite Crisis.
Infinite Crisis' main antagonist and catalyst is a furious Superboy-Prime, angered by the trend of DC Comics getting progressively darker since his sacrifice in COIE. The story starts proper when, in an infamous splashpage, Superboy-Prime punches reality so hard he breaks it and escapes into main continuity, setting out to destroy the entire multiverse. Seriously.
Final Crisis follows our heroes (again, all of them) as they attempt to defend against Darkseid's invasion of Earth, as he enslaves humanity with the Anti-Life equation. Meanwhile, Flash is messing with the timeline again.
Batman ends up sacrificing himself to defeat Darkseid, only to be brought back to life a year later. Welcome to post-"Death and Return of Superman" comic books, where the stakes are artificially raised and death doesn't matter.
Its ironic that in the act of trying to buck the gritty comics trend, they accidentally started a new one: constant company wide events. Countdown to Infinite Crisis began in 2005, followed directly by Infinite Crisis, 52, Countdown to Final Crisis, and finally Final Crisis ending in 2009. That's four straight years of events with nearly no time in between.