Too Thin

Me thinks the man doth protest too much.

I find it hard to do much besides disagree with Mr. Tamarri's post on the current DC Mega-Event, Infinite Crisis. That it is unpleasant for a reader to pick up their favorite monthly titles only to find out that the story they are reading is finished somewhere else cannot be disputed. However, I still think that Prelude to Infinite Crisis is kind of a nice idea, an easily budgeted book. Not only do I not collect the books that will be reprinted, I'm certainly not going to go to the length of getting Outsiders #N to find out what happened on page 13 panel 5. I think that DC has been incredibly accommodating with this crossover. Crisis Counseling is on the main DC website, and its purpose is to give you those minor tidbits that you may miss every week.

And while Chris throws the logic of math at us, let us not ignore logical fallacies. If Countdown's $1 price point was for those 80 pages, look at how much you are actually losing a week when you pick up your measly 32 page monthlies. Six bucks for 96 pages may not be perfect, but it is still not a bad price per page. We must remember that 80 pages for $1 is non-standard.

I also think that DC is being somewhat accurate in its "You do not have to read everything" stance. I know very little about the normal DCU and I've managed to understand all of the Infinite Crisis minis so far. I even dare to say that my reading of Adam Strange did little to improve my understanding of the recent Rann-Thanagar War #1.

In addition, I think it would be a great disservice to the readers if they saw the "Part 17 of 96" on the cover, because they would then be disappointed when they get two pages of necessary storyline (Marvel's "Zero Tolerance" crossover in the X-Books a few years back comes to mind). With Infinite Crisis it seems that the reader will get as much out of the story as they want, or can afford.

It seems that Chris's problem with Infinite Crisis is the very essence of the universe-changing event. How else would you possibly change the entire universe, without affecting every book? I will probably end up being disappointed with Infinite Crisis when all is said and done, but not due to the logistics of storytelling. My fear is still that this universe changing event will be anything but. This past week I picked up all the first issues of the Countdown books. OMAC Project was interesting, and looks to be the most promising in developing into Infinite Crisis. Rann-Thanagar is setting up to be good old-fashioned Science Fiction, which DC seems to do well. Day of Vengeance was (for some reason) rather charming, if only for its apparent simplicity. As for the last, I must admit that I've already planned on dropping Villains United.

So Chris, let us not bury this crossover in crap until it's done. Then one day we can look back on this event with disdain or delight, and see how the shape of things to come shaped up.