I could never quite figure out why, say, Iron Man was packing a shield.

Super Powers was basically the updated Super-Friends series and had figures with built-in "power actions" (e.g. - squeeze the Flash's arms and his legs "ran"...well, more like power wogged but the idea was there ; Darkseid had glowing "Omega Beam" eyes, DeSaad would put his torture device to the sides of another figure's head, Tyr would launch his living arm gun, Joker would swing a giant mallet, Hawkman's wings flapped, etc.)

heh, my Green lantern raises his lantern and hand wearing the ring when you squeeze his legs.
Green Arrow raises his arms at the same time and if he's holding the bow then it simutates him raising the bow to fire an arrow.
If you squeeze Red Tornado's arms at the same time his lower torso spins!
Martian Manhunter..... I think he swings his arms like for a punch if you squeeze his legs.

That's all I remember......

Alot of older comic's are hard to read

especially DC stuff

COIF and Zero Hour are some really tough stuff to run threw if your new to comics.

I purchased and read it for the first time six years ago or so, and I think it's great, though I hadn't read much DC comics prior to it (mostly Batman stuff).

It was confusing indeed, but I learnt a lot about the DCU thanks to it, and it made me want to read some more (and now, when re-reading it, I understand it a lot better).

Since I usually cherry pick storylines, I often find myself lacking a lot of info on the characters whose adventures I read, so I'm used to gathering as many data as I can from the few (superhero) comics I read, hence my lack of DCU knowledge wasn't that big of a deal to me - I know I didn't get a lot of little subleties because of that, but I got over it.

Hope you'll enjoy it too.

Oh, and Perez' art is freaking awesome.

Just my two (euro) cents...

I'm a fan of both, but I think Secret Wars holds up much better. There are some very dated elements (both in terms of the "times" and in the "teams") but it's a very straightforward and simple story. The motivations were sooo straightfoward (i.e. "FIGHT!") that the story allowed for a few twists (the Mutant revolt, Doom winning).

My recollections of CoIE were that every issue or two was essentially just another master plan that didn't quite work out the way the players intended....and so that it finds itself inviting comparisons with "DC Challenge".

The ultimate problem I have with CoIE is that from a story perspective, it wasn't any different than any other Deus Ex Machina story told a hundred times before, except that TPTB went and killed a bunch of beloved characters...and that the (editorial) outcome was essentially that ALL the characters got killed/reborn....so much so that aside from the readers, nobody even grieved for all the dead worlds.

Secret Wars is kinda fun, though. Crisis is NOT.

As somebody who was buying them both at the drugstore each week when they were coming out, my vote is still with Secret Wars.

I guess each person has their own view of fun because, frankly, things like the Assault on the Anti-Monitor's Fortress (issue #7) and, of course, the Villain War were just awesome even as a little kid. Sure, in Secret Wars a handful of heroes fought Doom's forces but in the Villain War section of CoIE -everyone- fought -everyone-. Pure unadulterated sweet-tooth soothing.

So I finally finished reading COIE....man that was rough. There is some cool stuff in there admittedly and some of the "offed" characters really needed it. Ya so what if the Anti Monitor was wiping out entire universes...there shouldve only been one to begin with. I think one of the things that bugs me is that instead of making new characters DC will just remake the same ones slightly tweaked elsewhere and they had to clean up that huge mess with all the different earths....ugh.

How many Surfers or Iron Mans are running around? No Skrull jokes...that doesnt count LOL

Needless to say...its alright and I can appreciate the grand scale and undertaking it took to creat a restart story without having it be about a restart story. Infinity Gauntlet really got me into comics when I was a kid and Ive reread it numerous times. Still the best all out Universe Armeggedon Event in my book.

Onto Annihilation....

Man am I glad to see this thread. I have never been able to finish COIE. It just started to drag for me. I thought I was the only one who didn't like it.

Crisis is the BEST Masterpiece ever create.

I dream come true for creators and fans.

Imagine ALL the characters from 50 years put togueter in a single story!

Everybody is there! in one way or another! Some Heroes and villails are toguteer or fighting each other maybe for one and last time.

The most dangerous "Villain" every create is there!

Time Crossovers, Parallel Earths, everything!

And is a Cosmic and Human story like never before!

Crisis On Infinite Earths is the best Mega Event Ever create ever.

It MAY be better things in comic books, (Like Watchmen, and others) But CoIE is the best Mainstream event from a comic company with all his characters reaunited for once and last time.

I still remember the first time that I hear about this and I was shoked in emotion. I have to wait years before read and when I finally read it, was incredible.

Now several years after read it I have every version of this Event (Even the Novel, very recomended).

This Event is not paper, draws and ink. This is made of what dreams are made of.

Infinity Gauntlet is very nice. I thought it would be like Crisis, but it was a lot smaller, and unfortunatelly not all was draw by Perez.

I've been rereading Crisis myself, for the first time in about 10 years. A lot of what made it sepcial was not knowing what was going to happen, and the fact that nothing like it had been done before.

The art still holds up, and it's still fun to see the huge battles.

Some of the melodrama falls flat. Characterization in comics is generally more complex now, and seeing the characters emote (especially with so little screen time for each) doesn't carry all that well. Some moments still shine however, like the Kal-L/Lois relationship.

Also, it's amusing to see some of the big changes being given a lot of buildup that never went anywhere. A lot of time is devoted to Wildcat getting crippled and the new Wildcat taking his place. That one never stuck.

For all its faults, I'd still hold it up to most other company-wide crossoevers, even after all this time. I haven't reread Infinity Gauntlet, that's probably one of the few contenders for series that's as good. While regular comics have gotten much better, crossovers didn't really evolve much past COIE, and usually have a lot less inspiration. I don't usually enjoy big crossover series, and even when they start well (Infinite Crisis, Civil War, Identity Crisis) they often end in the most lame way possible. Crisis on Infinte Earths was gripping right up to the end.