Prior to the 1986 DC Comics release of Alan Moore’s Watchmen, David Thompson reports in his article “No Laughing Matter” that comic book publishers were experiencing “falling sales” and a disinterested reader base, a fact which Thompson concludes was a result of countless “throwaway” titles released by the comic-book industry to capture the “casual” comic book reader (Thompson). DC Comics itself had released several titles over the past years that created multiple continuities within the DC universe, in which differing versions of prominent DC characters – like Superman, Batman, and the Flash – existed over a broad fictional spectrum. Essentially, these continuities functioned like “alternate realities” in which separate fictional events could occur in one without affecting the others. This was likely a ploy to increase comic book sales, considering the sheer amount of fictional material that was available (Thompson). Essentially, there were seven “alternate Earths” from which DC comics provided comic book stories, all of them operating under independent continuity, as the History of Comic Books affirms – and readers began to lose interest (The History of Comic Books). In an effort to consolidate these multiple realities, while at the same time reaching for a much needed marketing success, DC Comics published in 1985 the 12-issue mini-series Crisis on Infinite Earths: a story in which all seven “alternate Earths” came together, as well as the endless sea of characters who occupied them. The story washed the multiple realities clean so that a singular, consolidated DC universe could be established: an extermination of multiple characters resulted from the purge (The History of Comic Books). Yet, the complexity and motivation of the story... [read more]

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