Breaking News from NYCC: DC Universe’s Next Big Thing

WARNING: This is a sarcastic joke and not meant to, in any way, be construed as a true description of events from NYCC or from Dan Didio or DC comics. We love them.

In the Sunday Morning DC Panel at New York City Comic Con 2013, Dan Didio, co-publisher for DC, made a huge announcement about an upcoming big event. Looking back at the history of DC there have been major changes to the universe roughly every two years, so this new “full-52” crossover event will be bigger than any of them. What could it be, you ask?

First, a brief recent history of time… I mean, of DC. I’ll skip the explanation of Crisis on Infinite Earths, because that was so long ago it is not even relevant anymore. Skip ahead to the 2000’s and Identity Crisis, the storyline about Jean Loring killing the Elongated Man’s wife and trying to blame it on Dr. Light who had his brain scrambled  by the Justice League but remembers and then flips out and tries to kill everyone. Whew…  ran out of breath on that one.

Identity Crisis led us into Infinite Crisis, an attempt to right the wrongs of the past by bringing back lost characters and expanding the DC universe by recreating a smaller version of what we had before, but new and improved with only 52 different earths to deal with, give or take a few. This was a year-long effort that made for some great storytelling and classic moments, but still seemed overly complicated and not the final solution to the plague of pre-Crisis issues.

Then there was Final Crisis. Sounds like a real solution, right? All final? Well, sort of. This was a way to show what might happen if evil finally had its day in the sun. Darkseid tears up the DC universe, kills Batman (or so we think), and overall gives everyone a hard time before being defeated.

Are we done yet? No, the New 52 was the latest big thing, re-launching the entire DC universe with the same characters, but all new sort of re-imagined versions of them. This idea is now two years old and it is time for another big event. I know Forever Evil is ongoing, but not quite as earth shattering as what was announced today.

Thanks for wading through all of that. So, big announcement, here it is. Infinite Crisis was big and Final Crisis was big, so we combine the two titles in the New 52 to create… Infantile Crisis! In this massive crossover event spanning 12-months, every character in the DC universe, hero and villain, is reduced to roughly 1-3 years of age. So, they are all babies. Each book re-launches with a new #1, set 20 years in the future, since we want all the character grown up again, and for the next 3 years we tell the story of the last 20 years in flashbacks and special mini-series.

If that is not enough for you, every new #1 will have three alternate covers, a lenticular 3-D cover and a special foil gate-fold edition limited to 1:500 rarity. This should really make these books true collector’s items for future generations. Of course, we can guarantee short printing on all issues that will require multiple second, third, and fourth printings with new covers. There will even be a special coupon on the back cover of all the first three issues of each book that, if you cut it off and mail it in, in 6-8 weeks you can get a special limited edition print of a random assortment of three of the covers signed by the artists, for a minimal fee.

I hope you folks are all as excited about this new announcement as I was. I was jumping for joy, because it is already not hard enough to get the full story from my favorite characters. And, if you have made it all the way to the end, please know, this was all a joke. At least, I hope it is. I know that DC has some great plans for the future of their company and hopefully it is good for both the bottom line of the company and for the fans of the characters. We can always hope.