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Crisis on Infinite Earths Vol 1

Crisis on Infinite Earths was a superhero crossover comic miniseries written by Marv Wolfman and penciled by George Pérez. With twelve issues published between 1985 and 1986, it featured nearly every DC Comics character from across the Golden and Silver Ages banding together to protect the Multiverse from the Anti-Monitor. It was one of the first major company-wide crossover events in comics, and is often celebrated as one of the best.

The series streamlined the convoluted continuity of the DC Universe up to that point by creating the New Earth continuity, and would have lasting ramifications on every future DC story involving the Multiverse. It spawned several sequels, including Zero Hour: Crisis in Time!, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, Dark Crisis and more, and was adapted into a five-part Arrowverse television crossover, as well as an animated film trilogy.

Issues

Specials

Notes

As for whether it was necessary, the answer is yes it was because it got Marvel readers to buy DC Comics for the first time and prior to Crisis they weren't. That each time it's been reprinted it outsells all DC's projections indicate the fan's feelings for it as a real classic. Also, that it was voted in the CBG poll as the 2nd best comics story of the 20th century says what the majority feels.
Publishers do things for only one reason - to sell books. The thinking behind CRISIS was that new readers would be confused by the multiple Earths and various incarnations of the heroes, so doing away with them would make things simpler. Perhaps if they'd come up with a way to wipe the memories of all their current readers clean, this would have worked. Unfortunately, long-time DC fans did not forget all the stories they'd been reading for 25+ years and each attempt to "fix" things just made it worse.[1]

References