Review: Infinite Crisis

A couple years back, DC, in its annual tradition of massive crossover events, put out Our World At War.
I read the collected volumes (as I am want to do) and it was...OK.
Maybye if I'd read ALL of the issues, ALL of the crossovers, ALL of the titles it ran through, well, maybe then I'd have loved it.
The problem was that...well...it just didn't feel as big as it should have.
It didn't feel important.
It didn't feel epic.
Infinite Crisis.
Wow.
I mean...
OK.
Stop.
Let me start out by saying what I didn't/don't like about all this.
1) the lead in mini-series (except for Identity Crisis) were badly done and, ultimately, pointless. There was nothing that couldn't have been done in a few extra issues. Worse, they were boring and contrived (for the most part).

2) The new Blue Beetle, and his role in this, was very deus ex machina.
3) The One Year Later/52 stuff. Not happy at all. Don't like being forced to read the individual issues to stay in synch.
4) The obvious ploy to make you read titles you don't care about (for example, I give not a rat's ass about Bludhaven)
5) The art was inconsistent
that said

wow.
Seven issues that I just never wanted to see end. It was huge. Epic. Powerful. While I haven't fully understood the outrage over the whole mind-wipe thing (y'know, Dr. Light was a violent psychopath who raped women...fuck him), the emotion behind it all came through clearly.
The world (or, really, worlds) was in danger, peril, everything was in the balance.
At it's core, though, this was a story that has been coming for a while.
It was a story about the darkness of the Warren Ellis' type heros vs the simplistic 1950s heros. A dark grey world vs a black and white one.
It was a story that sets the stage for heros who live in something like the real world, a place with murderers who keep murdering, with villains who never go away for good, with planet devouring monsters, and how they find a way to handle these threats effectively, but still shine as an example of what mankind can and should be.
The seeds have been placed for deeper, more complex heros.
But ones who can also inspire.
Lights in the darkness.

It remains to be seen how those seeds will grow.

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