Generations Shattered #1: A Crisis in Time!

This book was quite interesting but perhaps not in the ways that it endeavored to be interesting. In a lot of ways, it feels like the purpose of this book is meant to reconcile some conflicting narrative points scattered throughout the Rebirth era at DC Comics while making use of a few abandoned projects, hold-overs from the DiDio era. With the departure of DiDio, it seemed certain from the start the 5G project would at least be altered if not outright scrapped and what we are seeing now with Generations Shattered certainly appears to be the ashes of that project. So in a way, the book that came out of all that reads a bit like an epitaph to the 5G idea. In other ways, it appears poised to do some of the heavy clean-up work after the major events of Death Metal #7, which also comes out today and has massive repercussions for the entirety of the DCU. Not wanting to spoil THAT issue makes discussing this one as candidly as I’d like somewhat difficult, but I’ll do my best.

The central storyline is incredibly similar in feel and execution to Zero Hour. For those that remember Zero Hour, you’ll recall that it too was a dominantly house-keeping event used to sort out some inconsistencies in the post-Crisis DCU by time-hopping and tidying up as they went. Very much the same here as Kamandi is tasked to gather an ace team capable of stopping an unnamed villain from deleting time. While this story could easily have turned out very clunky, the writing team manages to do a pretty good job here keeping the story engaging by reaching out to very specific moments in history and the characterization styles appropriate to those eras. So do does the cavalcade of artists hold true stylistically throughout, from a Finger/Kane style Batman to a distinctly Perezian Starfire.

Ultimately, Generations Shattered #1exceeds expectations for this history nerd but it certainly doesn’t feel like a must-read for all fans. If there are lasting ramifications from this “event,” it feels as though they’ll be mostly minor. This book mostly will appeal to those susceptible to nostalgia-bombs and with big enough wallets to look past the hefty $9.99 price tag.