And at the End, There is a Beginning
With the Crisis on Infinite Earths event, we were given an end of an era and the beginning of what we have now, the end of those many ages, and the beginning of the Modern Age. The event itself left a defining impression on an age of comic readers, old and new and it’s in this event where we are able to trace the history of the new DC Universe.
By itself, Issue 6 of the crisis lacks any real standout moments. There’s none of the tragic deaths we find in the later issues, there’s no battle between good and evil, as both sides fight to determine the fate of not just one world, but an entire universe of them. There’s nothing defining in that sense. In all truthfulness, Issue 6 is more of an introduction to what we know is to come, a prologue if you will.
What we find in Issue 6, is a sense of foreboding doom, a feeling of helplessness in the characters we’ve come to know and recognize as heroes. We find a more humanizing element in the larger than life Superheroes: A sense that we, the normal humans, are no different than them, at least emotionally.
On a more defined level, Crisis on Infinite Earths is not so much a comic book, as it is a simile for us as human beings. We all are faced with the fact that the world could possibly end at any point in time, and we all go throughout our days hoping that, that end is not in our lifetimes. But if we were ever faced with the fact that the world was to end today, how would we react?
Would we react in anger?
Or would we scream and panic?
Or would we try to do something about it?
And if we take that which is controlling the people in the two scenes below as fear, then we can see the undeniable correlation between them and us.
With Issue 6, we see all of this.
With the end of days approaching, the emotions that the heroes try to hide most come out more evident than ever before and when we realize that those heroes our human in some way, there is connection. The superheroes are no longer beings of unbelievable proportions, they are, in a sense, ourselves.
Crisis on Infinite Earths Issue 6 presents the human awareness of the world’s inevitable end in an enlightened and well thought out way; though the heroes of the world try their best to stop it, the end itself creeps ever closer.
On a basic level, the writing isn't the most outstanding and if you don't pay attention, you'll find yourself lost in the many scene shifts and the multitude of character dialogue. The story saves itself from the literary monotony with the inclusion of symbols that we can take as a representation of ourselves.
Though with the appearances of over 25 characters, it’s hard to actually write a story successfully to where it will actually make sense, Issue 6 never loses itself to what the story is to show succeeding issues. And despite all the shifting scenes and the muddled events, we see what is to occur.
Yet despite the coming end, there is still rise for a new beginning. Symbolized by the inheriting of the mantle of Wildcat. From Ted Grant, to Yolanda Montez. And in the tragedy and the inevitbale sadness, there is hope.
Issue 6 is not about the end that is to come, it is about our approach to that end and how we react to it and that even when the world ends, we can always look forward to the new beginning at that end.
With an end, there is a beginning, and that is what Issue 6 wants us to remember.