Crisis on Infinite Earths was DC's attempt to "tidy up" their continuity, by giving the big ol' axe to a nigh silly number of alternate universes. This required merging several teams, several versions of characters, and in the case of the flying whatthefuck that is Hawkman, several histories of the same character into one Earth and one timeline. All this in an effort to simplify continuity. The definitions of both "simplify" and "continuity" must have gotten mistranslated somewhere along the line. It is also important to note that although a handful of characters got "re-boot" origin stories following CoIE (and in Superman's case, a heartfelt goodbye from the master of the graphic medium, Alan Moore) most of what is considered DC history is still DC history. Thomas and Martha Wayne do not get re-shot following every continuity reset. Post-52 DC did not bother to show Krypton exploding 52 times like some sadistic kid with a copy of Titanic and the remote control so he can rewind the part where the dude falls off the boat and hits his head off the propeller accompanied by the wilhelm scream over and over and over and shut up that shit was funny and I am in no way sorry for laughing my ass off about it. What was I talking about?

Oh, right, "Krypton go boom," "mama and dada go bye bye," and "no man to be my baby's daddy so will play-doh work?" are understood and left unsaid. Long time fans don't need to be force-fed the same stories everytime DC performs the literary equivalent of getting Mario stuck inside the bricks going for level " -1" and has to hit reset or blow into their continuity cartridge or [editor's note: metaphor taken too far. Returning to "Crisis on Finite Blogs"] . . . and I said "Wrecked 'em? (rectum) damn near killed 'em! What was I talking about again?

Right, so DC has infinite Earths, has a Crisis on them, and is reduced to one Earth. ROUND! On this one Earth, Superman dies, Hal Jordan turns evil, fans go "what the hell?" Crisis time! Zero Hour comes alons, ends the universe and then re-creates the Big Bang. It also serves as an excuse for them to do a miniseries where they number the issues backwards as a huge joke on the guy who bought those issues from a used bookstore and didn't read all the promotional material and didn't think the story made any sense and . . . oh, you guys just shut the F up!
Now we have multiple Earths. "Elseworlds" and "Hypertime" become part of the vernacular, Blue Beetle bites it (Dead Kord! Get it?) OMACS attack, Thanagar goes to war - again! (imagine George Bush with Hawk wings), the Spectre drops acid and starts killing magicians like he's the visual effects revolution, villains decide to just get along, fans go "make mine Marvel!" Guess what? Crisis Time! Infinte Crisis condensed down to one Earth, followed up by 52, re-creating the multiverse with a finite number of Earths. Guess how many! Go ahead, guess!
So now Countdown was a trainwreck, the New Gods died (some multiple times in multiple contradictory ways) Gotham went to hell (or advanced to the next circle therein) all the villains went to live on a hippie commune planet bordered on three sides by Jurassic Park's older sociopathic brother, fans went "DiDio, please sit down. This is an intervention. We know you're back on the LSD again. I know this isn't easy to hear, but we prepared these letters to read to you about how we loved the DCU who was sober and didn't piss in the bed or on the graves of the people who created these beloved characters and didn't let poor Orion die in three different books in three different ways in the same month. Also, if we see you turning Jimmy Olsen into a giant turtle again, we are no longer friends." So . . . in the paraphrased words of MC Hammer, "Stop! . . . Crisis Time!" Which brings us to the end of this rant. Join us nextt ime for "Final Crisis wasn't THAT bad."