Received this Hardcover in the mail the other day and just finished reading it.
This collects Justice League #75 and DCOIE #0-7.
How does it stack up against previous DC CRISIS events?
It is functional.
The art is all over the place-- ranges from very good to average, held together by beautiful modern digital colouring techniques. But most of the characters look like templates with just different costumes. The art lacks the dense detail or emotional depth of Perez or Jimenez or craftsman line work of Jurgens.
Storywise, I am not entirely sure what the purpose of this event was? I guess to clearly establish Dick Grayson is the Heir to the DCU Legacy? Maybe establish that the new generation of heroes are worthy of their Legacy? Though with the exception of Dick and Jon, and a little bit of Wally and Yara, all of the newest generation of heroes were interchangeable background wallpaper. I had no better idea who any of them were by the end of the series.
Certainly in terms of "
nothing will ever be the same again" tagline.... well, that was false. I mean there is this plot line that Pariah (yes, another COIE Hero has been turned into a villain) is using The Great Darkness to bring back "the Infinite Earths". But it is never made clear what that means in the main series. From what I can tell, just more Earths were added to DC's already newly established Multi-Omni-Verse from the Dark Metal and Justice League Incarnate books. There is no status quo change of any true importance within the pages of this book itself from what I could tell.
And that is the biggest weakness of this collection. The majority of Big Reveals and Events
that drive the story forward or Develop the Characters in any significant way
happen off page in the spin-off One Shots that are
NOT included in this Hardcover. It makes the story a very disjointed and unsatisfying read. And to top it off, the story ends with the set-up for another Event.
Compared to the classic COIE or even the later sequels like Infinite Crisis or Zero Hour, this is a thin, pale, and ultimately unnecessary, new chapter in DC's CRISIS brand.