Mild Mannered Reviews – Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #7

Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 [Final Issue]

Scheduled to arrive in stores: December 20, 2021
Cover date: February 2023

“Chapter Seven: Dawn of DCU”

Writer: Joshua Williamson
Artist: Daniel Sampere, Jack Herbert, Giuseppe Camuncoli & Cam Smith, Rafa Sandoval
Cover: Daniel Sampere and Alejandro Sanchez
Variant Cover: Sampere & Sanchez, Clay Mann, Tony S. Daniel & Tomeu Morey, Felipe Massafera, Ian Churchill, Kyle Hotz & Dan Brown, Vikto Bogdanovic
Dawn of DCU Connecting Variant Covers: Dan Mora
George Perez Tribute Variant Cover: Jim Lee & Scott Williams, Todd McFarlane, Alex Ross, Walter Simonson, Scott Kolins, Phil Jimenez, Colleen Doran, Scott Koblish, Dave Gibbons, Joelle Jones, Darryl Banks, Mike McKone, Klaus Janson, Bruno Redondo, Mikel Janin, Dan Mora, Francis Manapul, Jerry Ordway, Kevin Maguire, Dan Jurgens, Ivan Reis, Gary Frank, Adam Hughes, Daniel Sampere, Nicole Scott, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez with colors by Hi-Fi

Reviewed by: Craig Boehmer

The story starts with Dick in the Darkness as the battle between the superheroes and Deathstroke’s army rages. Somehow Deathstroke is shrugging off the strongest attacks the greatest heroes can throw at him. He meanwhile espouses his philosophical reasons for wanting the current world to be destroyed, and it all hinges on the abuses his children have suffered in their lives. The heroes also must deal with the new Dark Multiverse and its violent reaction to the current Multiverse. Thankfully Dr. Light, who was created by the Monitor, has had an upgrade. With her newly discovered powers she can defeat the Darkness. To fully heal the Multiverse though, she needs the Flash family to run and repair all the connections between the infinite universes to restore what was lost in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Black Adam then attacks Deathstroke’s physical form, while Dick continues to fight his form in the Darkness. In an attempt to turn the tide, Black Adam shares his powers with all of the heroes, freeing Deathstroke of Pariah’s Darkness. The Darkness roots itself to Dick, but the Flashes and Dr. Light succeed in purging and healing the Multiverse. Deathstroke begins to mercilessly beat a powerless Black Adam, but Dick overcomes the Darkness and defeats Deathstroke once and for all. We then get people catching up and splitting off. It is also very much a passing of the torch to the younger generation few pages.

In the epilogues we see a shadowy figure having conversation with a panel of lighted outlines. They discuss the dangers of the metahumans to earth and give the shadowy figure requisite power to commit genocide against the metahumans.

Story – 3: The story was fine, even entertaining. But I’m still left with the feeling of Déjà vu. Weren’t we in this exact same space just prior to Future State? Wasn’t Wonder Woman the hope of the DCU saving the multiverse? I guess I am just confused as to what the “point” of this story was. It was so thematically similar to Death Metal that the impact of regaining the Multiverse is gone. This would have been a much more interesting story if it had divorced itself from the Multiverse, and just focused on the gathering army of Darkness led by Deathstroke. In an attempt to feel grand and epic, it ultimately fell flat, just one more Multiversal threat in an overly crowded history of threats to the Multiverse.

The redeeming moments were intimate character beats. Such as Black Adam finally accepting that he was one of the Justice League, and willing to die with them. The last few chapters of the issue felt like an unnecessary set up for the new DCU. And the rumours were true, there will be no Justice League going forward, only the Teen Titans, or Titans, or whatever you want to call them. This was a completely unsatisfactory ending to the Death of the Justice League storyline. They died, came back, and decided to stop trying to save the world together…WHAT? It is an obvious case of having an endpoint, such as the Teen Titans becoming the premiere team, but no idea how to do that naturally. It comes across as editorial interference that Joshua Williams takes the brunt of as the writer.


Art – 5: Even though there are multiple artists on this book, for the most part it still holds up and creates a visually cohesive book. There are so many characters in this book, that it really is a smorgasbord of visual storytelling. I also love the return of Nightwing to his short shorts Robin costume, not that I want it permanently back, but it was a cool nod to the history between him and Deathstroke.


Cover Art – 5: This cover looks so cool. I really dig the contrast between the glowing reds and blues with the clean crisp white negative space. A great image of Dick saving the multiverse.


Variant Cover Art – 3: This cover with Clark in the background and Jon in the foreground looks fine. Jon looks great, but there is something off about Clark’s facial features. I think it’s the shading around the eyes and cheeks.


Variant Cover Art – 3: I like this cover because it showcases some underutilized characters. However, it doesn’t have a wow factor that draws me to it.


Variant Cover Art – 1: This cover is not for me. I do not like the “buff/emaciated” look they’ve given Superman here. Nor am I a fan of the design for Batman, Wonder Woman looks kind of cool though.


Variant Cover Art – 4: Here we have the virgin variant of the main cover, without the white negative space. In my opinion, the main cover looks much better. Because they removed the white, this cover seems a little imbalanced and generic.


Variant Cover Art – 4: A pretty cool homage to Final Crisis. The lighting is too dark on it though, and that detracts from showing off a very cool image.


George Perez Tribute Cover – 5: I wish I could get this blown up as a big poster for my office. It is beautiful. Many artists worked on it, and they have a legend in the book to show who drew each image. It just looks great, a fitting image to honour an amazingly talented gentleman.


Variant Cover Art – 4: These all look really good. The best one is the Green Lantern and Flash cover, I just think those colours look the best side by side. The worst is the Shazam and Teen Titans cover, the greys and white just look unfinished. Wonder Woman and Aquaman’s colours are too close together, and I wish they would have gone with a different colours for Batman and Superman. Maybe a dark blue for Batman and a bright red for Superman. It would have better reflected the differences between them, and would have been much more visually appealing. I get that they wanted the Flash to be red, but it seems like they sacrificed visual aesthetic in order to create a connecting piece.


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