Crisis on Infinite Earths: Every DC Comics event ranked worst to best

15. Forever Evil

The Justice League is defeated and now the villains run the world, but Lex Luthor knows that this isn’t right.

As the first event of The New 52, there was a lot riding on this series. It ended up succeeding in certain ways. As a premise and story, it’s an interesting development in the DC universe that effectively sets up the multiverse again, as well as presenting some high stakes for the Justice League and even some of the villains. The ending is epic and acts as a great build to “The Darkseid War” that would come a couple years later.

But that’s also the problem with this event, sometimes it just feels like it’s setting up “The Darkseid War” rather than being completely its own thing. The Crime Syndicate is defeated in a way that feels much too easy, even if it is very fun to read. And, the art is sometimes annoyingly inconsistent with its continuity in ways that shouldn’t really happen in professional art.

14. Joker: Last Laugh

Thinking that he’s dying from a brain tumor, Joker sets out to “jokerize” the world.

Given the popularity of The Joker, you’d really think that there would be more events with him as the villain. Really though, it’s only Joker: Last Laugh. It’s really fun to see The Joker terrorize more than just Gotham and to see him when he’s actually trying to win. His unpredictably is a constant source of terror for The Joker and that is emphasized in this event. Plus, there’s a lot of focus on Barbara Gordon, which is also welcome as she is often only a side character in event series.

Where this event falls flat is its increasingly convoluted nature that continuously becomes more and more ridiculous. What starts off as a relatively grounded event becomes a sci-fi story. While this can sometimes work, that very much isn’t the case in this series.