Dark Crisis: Big Bang #1: To Catch an Anti-Monitor

There’s no denying that Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s Crisis on Infinite Earths is one of the most influential stories in DC’s publishing history. Its storytelling decisions reverberate from 1989 and the ripples can be felt in every era of DC comics that follow. Even as sequel after sequel was conceived for Crisis, each one felt more and more hollow, invalidating the one that came before. In that respect, it’s a testament to the skill and craft that any follow-up to the series can strike a chord with a jaded audience. While the mainline Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths is a mixed result, it’s the tie-ins that have shown themselves to be the strong works in a dialogue with that seminal crossover event. 

Dark Crisis: Big Bang #1 – written by Mark Waid with art by Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund, colors by Federico Blee, and letters from Troy Peteri – functions as a snapshot of the restored infinite multiverse, resulting from the events of Dark Crisis. Barry Allen’s Flash and the Wallace West Kid Flash investigate the new multiverse while also searching for the Anti-Monitor, who Barry remembers as the being that murdered him during the original Crisis. Barry treates the expanded universes as a crime scene and is ready to defeat the reality-shattering villain. The investigation leads the speedster duo across various universes new and old, before catching up with the Anti-Monitor. The fight throws Flash across even more universes and results in Wallace recruiting a new collection of heroes that help to win the fight. 

Waid’s script is an excellent construction of exposition and character work, using the frame of Barry investigating the Anti-Monitor to build the tension between these two characters with an extensive publishing history. At its core, this one-shot is a chance for Barry to get closure for his death during the original Crisis by stopping the Anti-Monitor. Even after Barry’s contested return, and subsequent stories featuring the Anti-Monitor, this issue feels like the first real opportunity for a writer to tackle that complex relationship. Waid proves his Flash writing chops are still there with his depiction of both Barry and Wallace, giving the two distinct voices and application of their speed force use. 

Another strong element of Waid’s script is the feeling of this one-shot as a direct sequel to the original Crisis, even more so than the events of Dark Crisis itself. Thanks to the focus on the Anti-Monitor, the emotional throughline of Barry’s death, and the reignition of the infinite multiverse, Waid is in direct dialogue with the previous event. Dark Crisis feels less like part two in the story of Crisis, but a spinoff or tangent, building on secondary elements of the seminal event to try and tell a story about legacy to mixed results. In the case of Big Bang, it provides the closure that an epilogue usually offers of a story, while promising a look to the future without directly indicating where the multiverse or the Flashes are going. 

That sense of cohesion between past and present to create a blank slate of a future is never more evident than on the last page of the issue, which is an entry in Barry’s multiverse log. On a design level, it’s a series of text boxes detailing each earth seen in the issue overlaid on the Multiversity map, which has been the primary paradigm for the DC multiverse since Infinite Crisis and 52. The mainline Dark Crisis book has used a graphic representation of the multiverse through the map as an effective tool to contextualize Pariah’s cosmic machinations, and it’s great to see the motif of the map repeated here. By acknowledging that both models, the 52 universes and the infinite, Waid is showcasing that no world in the multiverse is just a throwaway and can be an important part of the DC storytelling sandbox going forward. 

Waid’s script and use of various universes blend well with the artistic sensibilities of Jurgens and Rapmund, giving a wide range of interpretations of well-known characters. The opening page features a recreation of Barry’s death during Crisis that is well rendered, evoking George Perez’s style overlaid with a subtle gray tint to the coloring that gives a sense of time passed combined with the mythic quality of the older printing style.

From that panel, the art only gets stronger, showcasing the artists’ experience at DC over the years. The duo can render the Jurassic League, the Dark Knights of Steel trinity and the Kingdom Come leads with equal care that doesn’t prioritize one over the others. It’s equality through linework and perspective and gives a new meaning to the notion of everything happening, and everything matters for DC. 

Jurgens and Rapmund also prove their might in terms of panel composition in this one-shot, utilizing interesting methods of displaying the Flashes as they cross through the multiverse. In the earlier portion of the issue, before encountering the Anti-Monitor, the speedsters are blurs running through the diagonal gutters on each page, creating the illusion of shifting through the various realities on display. It’s a small series of beats that I didn’t notice until my second read-through, but once aware of this, it becomes a compelling use of real estate on each one of the pages.

Similar uses of creative layouts appear in the back half of the one-shot, the artist breaking up a full-page image into four vertical panels. The breaking of the image helps to add a sense of momentum and kinetic energy to an action sequence of the multiverse heroes attacking the Anti-Monitor’s hulking figure.