Every time the DC Comics universe has gone into Crisis mode, the ramifications have been huge. Crisis on Infinite Earths, Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis — all of them managed to rejigger its continuity in some way. So it’s genuinely refreshing to find out that Dark Crisis, DC’s next big comic event, won’t be about “reboots, retcons, or rewriting time and space,” according to writer Joshua Williamson. But things in the DC universe will still be going to absolute hell.
Dark Crisis is the result of Justice League #75, in which you may recall the Justice League dies fighting the Great Darkness, recently revealed in Justice League Incarnate #4 to be a malevolent entity that turns out to have secretly been behind almost all of the aforementioned crises (which means the retcon happened before Dark Crisis starts, but I can live with that). Now, Pariah, the sole survivor of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, has a plan to use the Great Darkness to restore the infinite DC multiverse and get revenge. Meanwhile, without the Justice League around, things start to go bad with Dark Crisis #0, which will come out on May’s Free Comic Book Day. Here’s the synopsis:
“Witness the rise and fall of the Justice League! The event years in the making is here with Dark Crisis. The Justice League is comics’ greatest super-team — made up of DC Comics’ legendary Super Heroes, they have saved the world countless times. No crisis was too much for them to handle… until now! The Justice League has been defeated by the Great Darkness and its army of DC’s most dangerous villains — now a new generation of heroes must rise to protect not only the Multiverse… but also the legacy of the DC Universe!”
This will be followed by Justice League: Road to Dark Crisis #1:
“The Justice League has tragically fallen in battle, and now we see the aftermath. How does the world react to the Justice League being gone? Which heroes rise up… and which villains try to take advantage? And what dark forces are lying in wait to attack?”
And that will be followed by the Dark Crisis series proper. Between the art and the talk of “a new generation of heroes,” it does seem to imply that the future seen in last year’s Future State series — in which Yara Flor is Wonder Woman, Jo Mullein is Green Lantern, the Kent brothers as Superboys, and Tim Fox as Batman — will be the new status quo after the Justice League’s death, or perhaps shortly thereafter.
Dark Crisis #0, like the future Dark Crisis series, will be written by Joshua Williamson, and feature art by Daniel Sampere, colours by Alejandro Sánchez, and lettering by Tom Napolitano. It will be out on May 7. Road to Dark Crisis #1 arrives May 31, and features a cavalcade of writers and artists including Joshua Williamson, Dan Jurgens, Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Clayton Henry, Emanuela Lupacchino, Stephanie Phillips, and more.