Another of DC's litany of crossovers also dealt with some reality-shattering hijinks. As it happens, Infinite Crisis turned out to be the company straight up trolling a vocal part of their audience, and not caring. Initially, though, it was one of their more promising continuity-fixing events, as a group of characters who had been sequestered in a "paradise" pocket reality following the classic Crisis On Infinite Earths attempted to bring some of their sunshine to the increasingly grim 'n' gritty tone the main DC Universe had been indulging in. That extended to a meta-commentary on the comics themselves, which had become increasingly bogged down in violence and constant deaths of beloved characters for shock value. Infinite Crisis was supposedly not only an attempt for characters within the comic to lighten things up a bit, but marketed as an editorial turn by DC themselves into producing comics that extolled the virtues of heroism and return to the more jovial tone of their golden age of comic books. Writer Mark Waid and editor Dan DiDio (he comes up a lot) both said as much in the run-up to the series. Which was a total bait-and-switch, as the well-meaning alternate reality heroes accidentally instigate even more bloody violence than ever before, with the entire book culminating in a battle with too many fatalities to accurately document. Not only had DC purposefully misled fans, but it also shoved their desire for "happier" comic books right in their face. Which is doubly worse!
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
