{"id":{"repo_id":"vt","oai_identifier":"oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/89887"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/vt/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/89887","repository":{"repo_id":"vt","name":"Virginia Tech","base_url":"https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"How to Cope with Crisis: Examining the Regressive state of Comics through DC Comics' Crisis on Infinite Earths","abstract":"The sudden and popular rise of comic book during the last decade has seen many new readers, filmgoers, and television watchers attempt to navigate the world of comics amid a staggering influx of content produced by both Marvel and DC Comics. This process of navigation is, of course, not without precedence: a similar phenomenon occurred during the 1980s in which new readers turned to the genre as superhero comics began to saturate the cultural consciousness after a long period of absence. And, just as was the case during that time, such a navigation can prove difficult as a veritable network of information—much of which is contradictory—vies for attention. How does one navigate a medium to which comic books, graphic novels, movies, television shows, and other supplementary forms all contribute? Such a task has, in the past, proven to be near insurmountable. DC Comics is no stranger to this predicament: during the second boom of superhero comics, it sought to untangle the canonical mess made by decades of overlapping history to the groundbreaking limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, released to streamline its then collection of stories by essentially nullifying its previous canon and starting from scratch. But in its attempt to further impose order on their sprawling body of work, the monolithic comic books company also further solidified a perception of comics as a conservative and retrogressive medium. This thesis will explore Crisis on Infinite Earths as a means of revealing its status as a lens through which the traditionalist nature of comics can be understood. By examining Crisis through three crucial lenses—narrative, historical, and economic—I will argue that the text ostensibly designed to push past the canonical maze erected by its predecessors had the unintended consequence of actually rooting it further in its own history.","abstract_html":"The sudden and popular rise of comic book during the last decade has seen many new readers, filmgoers, and television watchers attempt to navigate the world of comics amid a staggering influx of content produced by both Marvel and DC Comics. This process of navigation is, of course, not without precedence: a similar phenomenon occurred during the 1980s in which new readers turned to the genre as superhero comics began to saturate the cultural consciousness after a long period of absence. And, just as was the case during that time, such a navigation can prove difficult as a veritable network of information—much of which is contradictory—vies for attention. How does one navigate a medium to which comic books, graphic novels, movies, television shows, and other supplementary forms all contribute? Such a task has, in the past, proven to be near insurmountable. DC Comics is no stranger to this predicament: during the second boom of superhero comics, it sought to untangle the canonical mess made by decades of overlapping history to the groundbreaking limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, released to streamline its then collection of stories by essentially nullifying its previous canon and starting from scratch. But in its attempt to further impose order on their sprawling body of work, the monolithic comic books company also further solidified a perception of comics as a conservative and retrogressive medium. This thesis will explore Crisis on Infinite Earths as a means of revealing its status as a lens through which the traditionalist nature of comics can be understood. By examining Crisis through three crucial lenses—narrative, historical, and economic—I will argue that the text ostensibly designed to push past the canonical maze erected by its predecessors had the unintended consequence of actually rooting it further in its own history.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Keyes, Devon Lamonte"],"institution":"Virginia Tech","degree_name":"Master of Arts","degree_level":"masters","degree_discipline":"English","degree_department":"English","school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":["Fowler, Virginia C."],"committee_members":["Vollmer, Matthew","Lavender-Smith, Evan"],"year":2019,"date_issued":"2019-06-05","date_published":"2019-06-05","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:20:29Z","subjects":["Comics Studies","Narratology","Continuity"],"languages":[],"rights":["In Copyright"],"rights_urls":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.other","label":"Dc Identifier Other","values":["vt_gsexam:21309"],"render_values":[{"text":"vt_gsexam:21309","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/10919/89887","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.committeechair","label":"Committee Chair","values":["Fowler, Virginia C."]},{"key":"dc:contributor.committeemember","label":"Committee Member","values":["Vollmer, Matthew","Lavender-Smith, Evan"]},{"key":"dc:contributor.department","label":"Department","values":["English"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Keyes, Devon Lamonte"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2019-06-06T08:00:34Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2019-06-06T08:00:34Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2019-06-05"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["Virginia Tech"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["English"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["masters"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Arts"]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Comics Studies","Narratology","Continuity"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["In Copyright"]},{"key":"dc:rights.uri","label":"Rights URI","values":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.other","label":"Dc Identifier Other","values":["vt_gsexam:21309"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/10919/89887"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["The sudden and popular rise of comic book during the last decade has seen many new readers, filmgoers, and television watchers attempt to navigate the world of comics amid a staggering influx of content produced by both Marvel and DC Comics. This process of navigation is, of course, not without precedence: a similar phenomenon occurred during the 1980s in which new readers turned to the genre as superhero comics began to saturate the cultural consciousness after a long period of absence. And, just as was the case during that time, such a navigation can prove difficult as a veritable network of information—much of which is contradictory—vies for attention. How does one navigate a medium to which comic books, graphic novels, movies, television shows, and other supplementary forms all contribute? Such a task has, in the past, proven to be near insurmountable. DC Comics is no stranger to this predicament: during the second boom of superhero comics, it sought to untangle the canonical mess made by decades of overlapping history to the groundbreaking limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, released to streamline its then collection of stories by essentially nullifying its previous canon and starting from scratch. But in its attempt to further impose order on their sprawling body of work, the monolithic comic books company also further solidified a perception of comics as a conservative and retrogressive medium. This thesis will explore Crisis on Infinite Earths as a means of revealing its status as a lens through which the traditionalist nature of comics can be understood. By examining Crisis through three crucial lenses—narrative, historical, and economic—I will argue that the text ostensibly designed to push past the canonical maze erected by its predecessors had the unintended consequence of actually rooting it further in its own history."]},{"key":"dc:description.abstractgeneral","label":"General Abstract","values":["This thesis examines DC Comics’ landmark Crisis on Infinite Earths series to better understand the comics as a both a discrete text and a piece of a larger narrative, historical, and bureaucratic canon. By examining Crisis as a narrative, historical, and economic product, I hope to shed light on how the text, while progressive in its desire to reshape DC’s canon, ultimately proved to be counterproductive."]},{"key":"dc:description.degree","label":"Dc Description Degree","values":["Master of Arts"]},{"key":"dc:format.medium","label":"Dc Format Medium","values":["ETD"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["How to Cope with Crisis: Examining the Regressive state of Comics through DC Comics' Crisis on Infinite Earths"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.committeechair":["Fowler, Virginia C."],"dc:contributor.committeemember":["Vollmer, Matthew","Lavender-Smith, Evan"],"dc:contributor.department":["English"],"dc:creator":["Keyes, Devon Lamonte"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2019-06-06T08:00:34Z"],"dc:date.available":["2019-06-06T08:00:34Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2019-06-05"],"dc:description.abstract":["The sudden and popular rise of comic book during the last decade has seen many new readers, filmgoers, and television watchers attempt to navigate the world of comics amid a staggering influx of content produced by both Marvel and DC Comics. This process of navigation is, of course, not without precedence: a similar phenomenon occurred during the 1980s in which new readers turned to the genre as superhero comics began to saturate the cultural consciousness after a long period of absence. And, just as was the case during that time, such a navigation can prove difficult as a veritable network of information—much of which is contradictory—vies for attention. How does one navigate a medium to which comic books, graphic novels, movies, television shows, and other supplementary forms all contribute? Such a task has, in the past, proven to be near insurmountable. DC Comics is no stranger to this predicament: during the second boom of superhero comics, it sought to untangle the canonical mess made by decades of overlapping history to the groundbreaking limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, released to streamline its then collection of stories by essentially nullifying its previous canon and starting from scratch. But in its attempt to further impose order on their sprawling body of work, the monolithic comic books company also further solidified a perception of comics as a conservative and retrogressive medium. This thesis will explore Crisis on Infinite Earths as a means of revealing its status as a lens through which the traditionalist nature of comics can be understood. By examining Crisis through three crucial lenses—narrative, historical, and economic—I will argue that the text ostensibly designed to push past the canonical maze erected by its predecessors had the unintended consequence of actually rooting it further in its own history."],"dc:description.abstractgeneral":["This thesis examines DC Comics’ landmark Crisis on Infinite Earths series to better understand the comics as a both a discrete text and a piece of a larger narrative, historical, and bureaucratic canon. By examining Crisis as a narrative, historical, and economic product, I hope to shed light on how the text, while progressive in its desire to reshape DC’s canon, ultimately proved to be counterproductive."],"dc:description.degree":["Master of Arts"],"dc:format.medium":["ETD"],"dc:identifier.other":["vt_gsexam:21309"],"dc:identifier.uri":["http://hdl.handle.net/10919/89887"],"dc:publisher":["Virginia Tech"],"dc:rights":["In Copyright"],"dc:rights.uri":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dc:subject":["Comics Studies","Narratology","Continuity"],"dc:title":["How to Cope with Crisis: Examining the Regressive state of Comics through DC Comics' Crisis on Infinite Earths"],"dc:type":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["English"],"thesis:degree_level":["masters"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Arts"],"thesis:institution_name":["Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:20:29Z"}