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Crisis on Multiple Earths #1
Crisis on Multiple Earths, Vol. 1
In this prequel to one of DC Comics' biggest hits, the first four team-ups between the Justice League of America and its Earth-Two counterpart, the Justice Society, are collected in this graphic novel, depicting their battles against cosmic, all-powerful menaces too big for either team to handle alone. Full color.
Includes material first published in Justice League of America #21, 22, 29, 30, 37, 38, 46 & 47
Includes material first published in Justice League of America #21, 22, 29, 30, 37, 38, 46 & 47
208 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2002
28 people are currently reading
275 people want to read
About the author
Gardner Francis Fox
1,196 books90 followersGardner Francis Cooper Fox was an American writer known best for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics. Comic book historians estimate that he wrote more than 4,000 comics stories, including 1,500 for DC Comics.
Fox is known as the co-creator of DC Comics heroes the Flash, Hawkman, Doctor Fate and the original Sandman, and was the writer who first teamed those and other heroes as the Justice Society of America. Fox introduced the concept of the Multiverse to DC Comics in the 1961 story "Flash of Two Worlds!"
Pseudonyms: Gardner F. Fox, Jefferson Cooper, Bart Sommers, Paul Dean, Ray Gardner, Lynna Cooper, Rod Gray, Larry Dean, Robert Starr, Don Blake, Ed Blake, Warner Blake, Michael Blake, Tex Blane, Willis Blane, Ed Carlisle, Edgar Weston, Tex Slade, Eddie Duane, Simon Majors, James Kendricks, Troy Conway, Kevin Matthews, Glen Chase
Fox is known as the co-creator of DC Comics heroes the Flash, Hawkman, Doctor Fate and the original Sandman, and was the writer who first teamed those and other heroes as the Justice Society of America. Fox introduced the concept of the Multiverse to DC Comics in the 1961 story "Flash of Two Worlds!"
Pseudonyms: Gardner F. Fox, Jefferson Cooper, Bart Sommers, Paul Dean, Ray Gardner, Lynna Cooper, Rod Gray, Larry Dean, Robert Starr, Don Blake, Ed Blake, Warner Blake, Michael Blake, Tex Blane, Willis Blane, Ed Carlisle, Edgar Weston, Tex Slade, Eddie Duane, Simon Majors, James Kendricks, Troy Conway, Kevin Matthews, Glen Chase
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
August 19, 2014
A nostalgia trip for comic book fans like myself. It reprints the original Justice League/ Justice Society crossovers. Once upon a time these were major events and it was fun reading some of these classics for the first time. My personal favorite was "the world without a Justice League", a story where the villain changed history so that the Silver age heroes of the Justice League never existed. It falls to the Justice Society to masquerade as the heroes of the Justice League and defeat the villain.
May 16, 2011
If you've forgotten how incredibly awful comics were in the early-to-mid 1960s, this is the book for you! It's like a steaming turd, carefully gift-wrapped in shiny new paper so you'll open it not realizing just how painfully bad it really is.
Stupid minor characters who are so awful that it's actually hard to believe that anyone human actually made them up (like "The Fiddler", for example). No logic at all, no real stories in any sense of the word, just one pointless, stupid event after another. And the dialog...that painful, torturous dialog. Dick Cheney would love this book.
One thing that stuck in my mind was Dr. Fate trying magical atomic explosions on a colossal anti-matter creature. They didn't work, so Batman ran around it in a circle, Bat-punching it. Yes, many of the classic DC heroes are here, but they're warped out of all resemblance to the archetypes we know and love.
DC thoughtfully put a modern-looking cover on this collection, presumably so that some poor idiots would buy it without realizing that the contents suck in every way imaginable (including, of course, the art).
The stories were originally published from 1963-1966. The Code was in full flower. But even under the Code, it wasn't necessary to produce such utter and absolute crap.
Stupid minor characters who are so awful that it's actually hard to believe that anyone human actually made them up (like "The Fiddler", for example). No logic at all, no real stories in any sense of the word, just one pointless, stupid event after another. And the dialog...that painful, torturous dialog. Dick Cheney would love this book.
One thing that stuck in my mind was Dr. Fate trying magical atomic explosions on a colossal anti-matter creature. They didn't work, so Batman ran around it in a circle, Bat-punching it. Yes, many of the classic DC heroes are here, but they're warped out of all resemblance to the archetypes we know and love.
DC thoughtfully put a modern-looking cover on this collection, presumably so that some poor idiots would buy it without realizing that the contents suck in every way imaginable (including, of course, the art).
The stories were originally published from 1963-1966. The Code was in full flower. But even under the Code, it wasn't necessary to produce such utter and absolute crap.
March 23, 2023
A series of two parters that link the justice society with the justice league in increasingly cosmic battles against villains both lame and powerful.
You really have to like this era of comics to get anything out of this book. It’s hokey, filled with bad overly alliterative writing and thin characters that all act like dorks. Sure it’s historical but it’s a slog to read and makes you feel dumber (if you’re an adult) BUT these were made for children so the jokes on me for reading them past the age of 8.
You really have to like this era of comics to get anything out of this book. It’s hokey, filled with bad overly alliterative writing and thin characters that all act like dorks. Sure it’s historical but it’s a slog to read and makes you feel dumber (if you’re an adult) BUT these were made for children so the jokes on me for reading them past the age of 8.
November 28, 2017
Multiple team-ups of the Justice League of Earth-One and Justice Society of Earth-Two!! There were really interesting stories and I liked the way that each member interacted with the other team members. I also like the fact that this is a good and easy way to read about both the JLA and the JSA in a way that is interesting and has interwoven story lines. Overall, good stories for people that are wanting a JLA and JSA fix!
September 28, 2023
These are the stories that expanded the multiverse concept began in the "Flash of Two Worlds" story a year earlier. Every Crisis tale, Multiversity story and the 52 maxi-series owe everything to Gardner Fox. Here, we get to see how the heroes travel and communicate between worlds, watch the JSA cover for a missing JLA, and meet the Crime Syndicate for the first time. Each story here was later built upon by other writers, notably Marv Wolfman and Grant Morrison.
Is there some Grade A, Silver Age cheesiness in all this? Of course! This is the same era that gave us Jimmy Olson as a giant turtle, Beppo the super-ape and Adam West as Batman! Keep in mind that the Comic Code was in full effect back then, so 'adult stories' are out of the question. Each story has its own charm, so fans of the JLA and JSA should be happy with this volume.
Highly recommended for fans of the Silver Age, multiverse tales, and the JSA and JLA of course.
FIND IT! BUY IT! READ IT!
Is there some Grade A, Silver Age cheesiness in all this? Of course! This is the same era that gave us Jimmy Olson as a giant turtle, Beppo the super-ape and Adam West as Batman! Keep in mind that the Comic Code was in full effect back then, so 'adult stories' are out of the question. Each story has its own charm, so fans of the JLA and JSA should be happy with this volume.
Highly recommended for fans of the Silver Age, multiverse tales, and the JSA and JLA of course.
FIND IT! BUY IT! READ IT!
September 8, 2016
This is the first volume of 1960s DC Comics featuring both the Justice League and the Justice Society of America. Obviously, the stories are from the early to mid 1960s, when comics were bright and happy.
The plot(s) range from sublime comedy to outright ridiculousness courtesy of Gardner Fox. For all the cringe-worthy 60s dialogue, there are moments of brilliance and comedy. This volume includes the first appearance of the Crime Syndicate (most are more familiar with Grant Morrison's great JLA "Earth-2" story) as well as Johnny Thunder and his djinn, Thunderbolt.
The plot(s) range from sublime comedy to outright ridiculousness courtesy of Gardner Fox. For all the cringe-worthy 60s dialogue, there are moments of brilliance and comedy. This volume includes the first appearance of the Crime Syndicate (most are more familiar with Grant Morrison's great JLA "Earth-2" story) as well as Johnny Thunder and his djinn, Thunderbolt.
January 3, 2016
A wonderfully fun romp through history and comics culture! This volume collects the first team ups between the JLA and JSA. The notion of them first crossing over came about in the "Flash of Two Worlds" issue and was brought to fruition in these annual stories. Great, wholesome, and fun stuff! Also, you'll learn of the origin of the Crime Syndicate of America which played a prominent role in the more recent Forever Evil run. Eager to see where things go from here and eventually lead to Crisis on Infinite Earths!
November 7, 2008
Ridiculous in the way only Silver Age comics can be, it's nevertheless notable for starting the JLA/JSA Crisis stories that ran for 20 summers (!) before being done away with in COIE. As a bonus, since this was an era where the prevailing wisdom was that every comic was (possibly) someone's first, you can actually use these stories to introduce someone to the (pre-COIE) DCU fairly well, as it showcases the Golden Age heroes, Silver Age heroes, and (in later volumes) more besides.
April 13, 2021
Primeros crossovers entre Tierra-Uno, Tierra-Dos, Tierra-Tres, la efímera Tierra-A y otras combinaciones de la época.
Incluye personajes que no volvieron a aparecer como el Superman Ripper Jones de la Lawless League.
Incluye personajes que no volvieron a aparecer como el Superman Ripper Jones de la Lawless League.
November 11, 2023
As Mark Waid ably lays out in his introduction to this collection, in the 1940s DC had hit the big time with several super-hero characters such as Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Flash et al but by the early 1950s interest had faded, those characters went away and comics moved onto other genres like westerns and war and romance. Editor Julie Schwartz, who had been around DC during the super-hero boom, decided to revive some of the ideas but reimagined, so in 1956 he brought back the idea of the "fastest man alive" and called him the "Flash" but in most other respects, Barry Allen was a brand new character compared to the old 1940s Jay Garrick. But Schwartz and his indefatigable writer Gardner Fox never forgot the old heroes and in 1961, they engineered a story where the now current Barry Allen crosses the dimensional barrier and finds that the old heroes haven't gone away - they just lived on another earth.
Those character cross-overs became something of a hit and quite a few of them were detailed in the last volume of Fox's work I read "Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team-Ups". In 1963 however Schwartz and Fox decided to expand the roster and had the entire then-current Justice League cross-over into the "Earth 2" of the 1940s Justice Society. This became an annual Summer tradition, and it is those team crossovers which are collected here. Specifically the ones from 1963 through 1966.
Again, it's interesting and a little fun to see how the idea for "Earth 2" and the DC multiverse came about and to get a sense of how far comics have come in the intervening decades but, especially having recently read the previous volume, there were times I found this a bit of a slog. Especially in the early going, Fox's plotting is incredibly repetitive and predictable, his dialogue is overly expository, and the characters, except for their power sets, are largely interchangeable. There's no deeper exploration of character than the idea that some people love and want to fight for justice and some people are just "crime champions".
Particularly galling is the endless way characters repeat information over and over. In one section of a story, the heroes have learned that the villains have arranged things so that if they only touch the heroes, those touched will be magically transported to another dimension. Fair enough. In three CONSECUTIVE panels, Fox has different characters say something like "And don't forget if they touch you, you shall be magically transported away." It's head-bangingly frustrating. But I do remind myself that I am looking back at comics in their infancy and applying today's story-telling conventions which isn't fair. Comics have developed a lot in the interim and so while I try not to judge, it can be frustrating.
In fairness to Fox, he was largely writing for what he assumed were an audience of children, and he never expected that anyone at all would be reading the stories decades hence. Where he does excel is in the simple whack-a-do nature of the plots and capers and his endlessly inventive ways of getting heroes and villains in and out of scrapes based on their powers. It's a simple worldview but it's a joyful one in which the good guys love jumping into a mission and love the simple camaraderie of their team-ups. If you can find pleasure in those things, it pays off as more than just it's historical interest.
It also does get better the later it goes as Fox used up the most obvious villains-of-earth-2-come-to-earth-1 story and had to get more and more inventive about the nature of the crisis facing these two DC dimensions. The introduction of Earth 3 and the random dimensional travel in the last story make for more compelling reading, even if the plots don't entirely add up.
That fact makes me hopeful for the later volumes I still have on the shelf to read.
Those character cross-overs became something of a hit and quite a few of them were detailed in the last volume of Fox's work I read "Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team-Ups". In 1963 however Schwartz and Fox decided to expand the roster and had the entire then-current Justice League cross-over into the "Earth 2" of the 1940s Justice Society. This became an annual Summer tradition, and it is those team crossovers which are collected here. Specifically the ones from 1963 through 1966.
Again, it's interesting and a little fun to see how the idea for "Earth 2" and the DC multiverse came about and to get a sense of how far comics have come in the intervening decades but, especially having recently read the previous volume, there were times I found this a bit of a slog. Especially in the early going, Fox's plotting is incredibly repetitive and predictable, his dialogue is overly expository, and the characters, except for their power sets, are largely interchangeable. There's no deeper exploration of character than the idea that some people love and want to fight for justice and some people are just "crime champions".
Particularly galling is the endless way characters repeat information over and over. In one section of a story, the heroes have learned that the villains have arranged things so that if they only touch the heroes, those touched will be magically transported to another dimension. Fair enough. In three CONSECUTIVE panels, Fox has different characters say something like "And don't forget if they touch you, you shall be magically transported away." It's head-bangingly frustrating. But I do remind myself that I am looking back at comics in their infancy and applying today's story-telling conventions which isn't fair. Comics have developed a lot in the interim and so while I try not to judge, it can be frustrating.
In fairness to Fox, he was largely writing for what he assumed were an audience of children, and he never expected that anyone at all would be reading the stories decades hence. Where he does excel is in the simple whack-a-do nature of the plots and capers and his endlessly inventive ways of getting heroes and villains in and out of scrapes based on their powers. It's a simple worldview but it's a joyful one in which the good guys love jumping into a mission and love the simple camaraderie of their team-ups. If you can find pleasure in those things, it pays off as more than just it's historical interest.
It also does get better the later it goes as Fox used up the most obvious villains-of-earth-2-come-to-earth-1 story and had to get more and more inventive about the nature of the crisis facing these two DC dimensions. The introduction of Earth 3 and the random dimensional travel in the last story make for more compelling reading, even if the plots don't entirely add up.
That fact makes me hopeful for the later volumes I still have on the shelf to read.
December 19, 2019
I’ve already detailed how Gardner Fox, the creator of the original Flash (Jay Garrick) ended up unintentionally opening a tremendous can of worms when writing for the Silver Age Flash book and decided that he wanted to have the new Flash (created by Robert Kanigher, but obviously influenced by Fox’s original) team up with the one he created in 1940. But at the time Fox wrote “Flash of Two Worlds” no one realized the problems it would create going forward and was in fact quite a clever story that rendered the Golden Age DC heroes (now dubbed the “Earth Two” heroes) usable again. And the readers absolutely loved it. And like the gorilla phenomenon (gorilla based characters also sold well), if a team-up between two heroes was a big seller, a team-up between superhero teams had to be money in the bank right? Thus was born the annual Justice League of America/Justice Society of America team up.
It is in these JLA/JSA team-ups where we get the first glimpse of the issues that would be the motivation behind the proposed “clean-up” of the DC continuity in Crisis on Infinite Earths. The presence of Wonder Woman from the first “Crisis” in Justice League of America #21 and 22 (the first story arc in this volume) should have made Fox realize the quandry he was in. How to explain away a character who was in both the JLA and the JSA? Eventually it meant that there were two versions of DC’s “Big Three” but then that was grist for the mill for continuity hawks who would then ask things like: “but which stories belong to Earth-One Superman and which to Earth-Two?” I’m on record that I am perfectly fine with deviating from continuity if it results in quality storytelling. Unfortunately, continuity hawks are a vocal minority. However, they really didn’t exist when the stories in this volume came out, so these “Crises” represent the halcyon days of the annual JLA/JSA team up.
For fans of Crisis on Infinite Earths, the story “Crisis on Earth-Three,” which introduces the evil analog to the Justice League called the Crime Syndicate of America, provides the background for one of the key figures from Crisis, Alexander Luthor. We don’t meet the “Earth-Three” version of Lex Luthor here, but it’s easy to infer that if Superman’s Earth-Three counterpart is evil, then surely his arch-nemesis would be good. Of course, making a true “crisis” is hard work and while the first two “Crises” in this book make some bit of sense, the others come off as kind of silly, especially the one where Johnny Thunder’s Thunderbolt makes a blond haired thug the last scion of Krypton. But the silliness is part of the fun here to be honest, because of how ridiculous the initial premise of these team ups is to begin with.
When it comes to the many Crises on Multiple Earths, I think I enjoy the solo team-ups from The Team Ups more than the annual JLA/JSA crossover. With fewer heroes to manage, the stories in that volume seem tighter and in the case of the Green Lantern story “Secret Origin of the Guardians” provided the spark that would drive Marv Wolfman on Crisis on Infinite Earths. But for all of the flaws, the craziness of these team ups is one of the reasons I fell in love with comics as a kid, and personally I’m at my happiest when engaging my inner ten year old.
It is in these JLA/JSA team-ups where we get the first glimpse of the issues that would be the motivation behind the proposed “clean-up” of the DC continuity in Crisis on Infinite Earths. The presence of Wonder Woman from the first “Crisis” in Justice League of America #21 and 22 (the first story arc in this volume) should have made Fox realize the quandry he was in. How to explain away a character who was in both the JLA and the JSA? Eventually it meant that there were two versions of DC’s “Big Three” but then that was grist for the mill for continuity hawks who would then ask things like: “but which stories belong to Earth-One Superman and which to Earth-Two?” I’m on record that I am perfectly fine with deviating from continuity if it results in quality storytelling. Unfortunately, continuity hawks are a vocal minority. However, they really didn’t exist when the stories in this volume came out, so these “Crises” represent the halcyon days of the annual JLA/JSA team up.
For fans of Crisis on Infinite Earths, the story “Crisis on Earth-Three,” which introduces the evil analog to the Justice League called the Crime Syndicate of America, provides the background for one of the key figures from Crisis, Alexander Luthor. We don’t meet the “Earth-Three” version of Lex Luthor here, but it’s easy to infer that if Superman’s Earth-Three counterpart is evil, then surely his arch-nemesis would be good. Of course, making a true “crisis” is hard work and while the first two “Crises” in this book make some bit of sense, the others come off as kind of silly, especially the one where Johnny Thunder’s Thunderbolt makes a blond haired thug the last scion of Krypton. But the silliness is part of the fun here to be honest, because of how ridiculous the initial premise of these team ups is to begin with.
When it comes to the many Crises on Multiple Earths, I think I enjoy the solo team-ups from The Team Ups more than the annual JLA/JSA crossover. With fewer heroes to manage, the stories in that volume seem tighter and in the case of the Green Lantern story “Secret Origin of the Guardians” provided the spark that would drive Marv Wolfman on Crisis on Infinite Earths. But for all of the flaws, the craziness of these team ups is one of the reasons I fell in love with comics as a kid, and personally I’m at my happiest when engaging my inner ten year old.
July 5, 2024
The first four annual team-ups between the Justice League (who reside on Earth-One) and the Justice Society (the Golden Age heroes who live on Earth-Tw0). These are wild, wonderful tales involving both voluntary and involuntary jumps between dimensions, stolen superpowers and unique threats to both Earths.
The best is arguably the last, when a science experiment gone wrong brings both Earth on a collusion course with each other. A gigantic Spectre holds them apart while an alien explorer from an anti-matter dimension walks across Spectre's back, unaware that his touch would destroy both Earths. It's Comic Book Logic stretched to its limits without quite breaking and its more fun than a barrel of inter-dimensional monkeys.
The best is arguably the last, when a science experiment gone wrong brings both Earth on a collusion course with each other. A gigantic Spectre holds them apart while an alien explorer from an anti-matter dimension walks across Spectre's back, unaware that his touch would destroy both Earths. It's Comic Book Logic stretched to its limits without quite breaking and its more fun than a barrel of inter-dimensional monkeys.
February 3, 2023
La nostalgia ha convertido en objetos de culto los comics de superhéroes de los años 60 y ha hecho olvidar que son un autentico TRUÑO. Aventuras sin ningún sentido parrafazos expositivos que no explican nada, agujeros de guión más grandes que el propio cómic y dibujos penosos nos hacen preguntarnos qué movió al mundillo a definirlo como la Edad de plata. Puede que la aparición de Marvel y el origen de sus héroes más famosos pueda hacer olvidar otras colecciones pero desde luego en DC no es «Plata» la sustancia que yoo usaría para definir esta época.
January 23, 2025
"You do not dare miss the concluding chapters of this tale of terrrific forces which pit super-heroes against the grim giants of Earth-One and Earth-Two -- against the dread danger of Anti-Matter Man -- against the coming crash of two worlds which will mean the utter destruction of mankind!
Is there anything the Justice League and Justice Society members can do to prevent the absolute end of everything?"
Perfect for when you're full of nostalgia for the silliness of the Silver Age of DC.
Is there anything the Justice League and Justice Society members can do to prevent the absolute end of everything?"
Perfect for when you're full of nostalgia for the silliness of the Silver Age of DC.
October 23, 2016
I originally started reading this as a way to better understand 52. I figured I would start all the way at the beginning in order to get the full grasp on the story throughout the years. These volumes were first published in the 60's, and I quickly realized this era of comics are just not my thing. Between the art style and the story, it just wasn't something I really enjoyed. It is very much a product of its time.
October 21, 2019
I really enjoyed Gardner Fox's writing on Hawkman & Batgirl from the 50's/60's it was goofy and corny fun. But the writing on this is just boring and really just awful. I picked this up for $2 on sale at one of my local comic book stores so I thought why not? Other than the recent Heroes in Crisis by Tom King, the "Crisis" theme from DC is one I will carefully avoid at all costs from here on out.
December 23, 2023
Crisis on Multiple Earths Vol. 1
The villains of Earth 1 and Earth 2 swap places with each other to try and outfit the superheroes of their respective worlds.
Some smart writing with fun concepts and bright, bold artwork makes this volume of crossover stories enjoyable. The growth of parallel Earths begins here.
The villains of Earth 1 and Earth 2 swap places with each other to try and outfit the superheroes of their respective worlds.
Some smart writing with fun concepts and bright, bold artwork makes this volume of crossover stories enjoyable. The growth of parallel Earths begins here.
April 12, 2020
An artefact of a different era! Without these early crossovers we’d never have reached the Crisis on Infinite Earths That recently spread to televisions Arrowverse. Bright clean art, cheesy dialogue and a breathless rock em sock em pace. What fun!
December 21, 2017
Great for a nerdiness-fueled laugh!
February 1, 2019
60s comic book writing is pretty cheesy.
November 29, 2020
The first team ups
May 12, 2021
Comics que envejecieron mal pero se dejan disfrutar bien si uno los lee con una pátina de belevolencia.
June 23, 2021
This series is very great.
August 4, 2021
Enjoyably daft in the way most comics of the era from D.C. are, even if it all begins to glaze over into a sort of samey mush after reading more than two issues at a time
December 27, 2021
Una delicia retro.
December 27, 2022
Imposible no querer la Silver Age.
March 20, 2023
Silly goofy silverage fun
September 8, 2023
It's fun and goofy just like Silver Age comics should be!
May 13, 2024
The beginning of every crisis event in DC history. Wonderful collection and a kick-ass cover by Alex Ross. Pretty much required reading for any DC fan.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews