Comic Review: Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Infinite Crisis #1

Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Infinite Crisis

DC Comics

Writer: James Tynion IV

Artists: Aaron Lopresti, Matt Ryan, and Romulo Fajardo Jr

The original Infinite Crisis event was an event for the ages. There were a lot of moving parts and built off a lot of plot threads from different books at the time. James Tynion IV really does a great job writing this Dark Multiverse spin on it as if it came out in the mid-2000s. 

Ted Kord, the Blue Beetle, is a hero that the majority of fans unequivocally love. His death in Countdown to Infinite Crisis is something that many fans wish didn’t happen. Tynion reverses that critical moment in one of the most interesting Tales from the Dark Multiverse. 

This story really benefits from shades of grey. Unlike the other Dark Multiverse stories, this story isn’t built on one critical moment that descends into evil. This may be the Dark Multiverse, but it’s not the darkest timeline (fans of Community will appreciate that). Things go wrong, but the escalation of it is a lot more subdued than the other stories we were given so far. It’s an artistic decision that serves this story really well. 

Speaking of artistic decisions, Lopresti’s art is absolutely amazing. He draws a lot of panels that are reminiscent of the original event, but with a dark twist. Superboy-Prime vs the Titans was similar to the original event, but it felt even more hopeless than the original. 

One of my favorite little details that Lopresti adds is his use of shadows. There’s a scene of Blue Beetle talking to Batman, and then later Booster Gold. The shadows dance around his face, and he remains masked through both conversations. Later, as he’s talking to Booster, the shadows prevail, until he removes his mask. The readers get to see Ted’s face for the first time in the book, and there are no shadows anywhere on his face. I think it adds so much more nuance to the duality of his character. 

I mentioned that Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Blackest Night was the largest in scale, but the smallest in cast members. Infinite Crisis is on a multiversal scale, but this is Ted Kord’s story. Characters appear and disappear, but he is the central character. This works for the story, especially since Ted changed it from a Crisis to a personal character study. 

If you haven’t read the original Infinite Crisis story and all the different tie-ins to it (like the Rann-Thanagar War, the possession of Jean Loring, or the Secret Society stuff) then you may be a little lost on some of the dialogue and references made. But despite that, it also has one of the most heartwrenching endings and makes me really look forward to what’s coming next. 

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