Ending the world roughly every other Tuesday.
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00:00Now, world-ending or universe-threatening events happen so frequently in the DC universe,
00:05you could probably set your bloody watch by them. With such a wealth of catastrophes to
00:09look through, though, a question naturally emerges. That being, which of these crisis
00:14his-his-he's actually feels like the most threatening? Well, let's take a look at
00:18them as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are the 10 Biggest Catastrophes
00:23in DC Comics.
00:2510. Deceased
00:27One of the more simplistic world-threatening events of the DC universe, Deceased is very
00:32much the storyline you'd expect it would be from the title, what with the world threat
00:35coming in the form of zombies. At first, it all seems totally manageable. Right up until,
00:41that is, Batman succumbs to the monster virus, and then everything suddenly seems totally
00:45terrifying. Through a mixture of masterful writing, gruesomely great art, and an aggressive
00:50zombie virus, the threat of the undead outbreak seems so much more potent in this than it
00:55ever has before, helped in no small part by the fact that it heavily features Superman
01:00and Batman's children, who you naturally worry about immensely when they have to face
01:04against super-powered zombies. Even with all of this in mind, however, Deceased is not
01:09the biggest threat that the universe has faced by a significant margin. As for now, the undead
01:14horde seems safely confined to Earth, and Earth alone.
01:179. Identity Crisis
01:19Now, what's the one thing worse than superheroes dying tragic deaths? Well, that is superheroes
01:25becoming less than super, as is the case in Identity Crisis, where we learn that our favourite
01:30moral bastions have been secretly hypnotising specific supervillains in order to try and
01:35control them, totally stamping out their free will in order to make them less of a problem.
01:40In terms of catastrophes, this one is very different from the majority of the other events,
01:45but it's still incredibly potent. While the other threats merely killed or maimed
01:50superheroes, this one damaged the idea of what it means to be a hero, as while all the
01:55costume wonders who did these experiments were doing them for what they felt were moral
01:59reasons, it's made very clear that their decisions were out of line and played with
02:03the freedoms of the villains involved. It's no world-ending calamity, but it is a serious
02:09blow to the sanctity of the always moral figures of the Justice League, and DC superheroes
02:14at large.
02:158. The Trinity War
02:17It is a crying shame that the Trinity War event is as overlooked as it is, because in
02:22terms of badass fights and engaging plot and exciting plot twists, it really comes through
02:27time and time again. The majority of the series covers the Justice League, the Justice League
02:32of America, and the anti-hero filled Justice League Dark, fighting against the secret society
02:37of supervillains, which you'd naturally assume is what the world trinity in the event
02:41title refers to, but the whole thing actually revolves around the emergence of the inhabitants
02:46of Earth-3, who are the twisted versions of the Justice League themselves. The arrival
02:51of these villains results in all sorts of life-threatening scenarios, as they are by
02:55all means as smart and as powerful as their Earth-1 equivalents. While this doesn't
03:00equal the same universe-ending threat as many other events do, it did introduce a series
03:05of genuinely dangerous entities into the main DC world, who would continue to wreak considerable
03:10havoc in their collective time in comics.
03:1457. 52
03:15While the new 52 is well-known, somewhat inescapably because it rebooted the entire DC line of
03:20comics, the actual 52 event is incredibly overlooked. Aside from having one of the weirdest
03:25names for a comic, 52 is unique in that it covers the year that Batman, Superman and
03:30Wonder Woman all disappeared after Infinite Crisis, and how the world managed to deal
03:35with their loss. It's an unusual scenario, but one that works really well, as when the
03:39inevitable cosmic threat does appear, this time in the form of a multiverse-ending Mr.
03:44Mind, we're aware we'll be facing it without a good portion of the people who generally
03:48are crucial in saving the day. This takes what could otherwise feel like a pretty conventional
03:53world-ending event, and makes it feel as though it had genuine potential to go wrong, as the
03:58fate of the known universe rests in the hands of Rip Hunter, Booster Gold, Supernova and
04:03Skeet.
04:046. Zero Hour – Crisis in Time
04:07For anyone who gets a kick out of Hal Jordan under the villainous Parallax alias, Zero
04:12Hour is a literal godsend, as the main threats within the events are him and another ex-hero
04:18in the form of Hawk, who now goes by the villain moniker of Extent. Both characters' plans
04:23involve messing with the DC timeline, in a series of events purposely contrived to fix
04:27existing problems that DC had with their universe at the time, such as characters not ageing
04:32despite the timeline progressing, or some characters having their backstories retconned
04:36to fit more suitably into the overall franchise. It all sounds quite tame, but in order to
04:41pull it all off, more or less every hero or superhero group in existence had to be seriously
04:46threatened, with us seeing countless heroes maimed or killed before the series-wide reboot
04:52came in and ended the event, suitably created by another Big Bang.
04:565. Dark Knights Metal
04:59Proving that we are still very much in the age of major catastrophic events, Dark Knights
05:03Metal was apparently planned by writer Scott Snyder since he began writing for the Batman
05:07series back in 2011, meaning that he had some considerable time to come up with this truly
05:11insane event. And insane it is, as the series repeatedly reaches points where it feels possible
05:18that some, or even all of your favourite heroes might actually die. With the plot revolving
05:22around corrupted Dark Universe versions of Batman who have already killed off their respective
05:27Justice League, the genuine threat posed against the world seems all the more potent, and all
05:31the more realistic when we see our heroes having to flee these powerful monsters for
05:35much of the series. It also means that we get to see an old, frail Bruce Wayne who has
05:39been tortured for countless years finally begin to successfully fight back against these
05:44forces. It fills you with genuine joy, as it couldn't begin in a more unlikely place.
05:49Given that it's heavily unlikely that DC will ever genuinely kill off Batman or Superman
05:53for an extended period, Dark Knights does a fantastic job of taking characters who have
05:58plot armour and making you feel genuine concern for them.
06:024. Blackest Knight
06:03There's something about the Blackest Knight in its entirety that just feels immense. Featuring
06:09epic colossal space wars, storylines spanning the entire galaxy, and dead characters reincarnated
06:14as Black Lanterns just to mess with our heroes, there is very little of Blackest Knight that
06:19doesn't possess the kind of gravity felt during the finale of your favourite TV show.
06:23As while Blackest Knight wasn't DC's finale, it still had all of the weight and poignance
06:28of one. With the collective hero forces facing the literal embodiment of death itself, a
06:33particularly interesting dynamic is also set up, as the heroes work out exactly how to
06:37deal with an enemy that can never properly die, all the while trying to avoid being murdered
06:42by his steadily growing Black Lantern forces. The event poses a huge threat to literally
06:47every person in the known DC universe, and that's exactly why it's so good, as you
06:51see characters from every corner and moral alignment join forces to desperately fight
06:56for their survival.
06:573. Final Crisis
06:59Although decidedly not the final crisis that the DC universe would face, Final Crisis is
07:04the end of the main DC crisis events, being predated by Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero
07:09Hour Time of Crisis, and Infinite Crisis. With the event marking the beginning of Darkside
07:15gaining the Anti-Life Equation, which, as the name suggests, is a very bad thing, it
07:19sees our heroes race against the villain as he slowly tries to take over both their world
07:23and the universe. While the event has somewhat less catastrophic moments, like discovering
07:28that Barry Allen was still alive, having managed to literally outrun death, it still involved
07:33unimaginable levels of destruction, and saw what technically was the brief end of the
07:37DC universe entirely, before it was then fixed by the convenient plot device that is the
07:42Miracle Machine. Had this not worked, however, we would have been left with a universe where
07:45Batman, Martian Manhunter, and New God Orion were all dead, and those alive enslaved to
07:51serve a life of suffering under Darkside.
07:542. Flashpoint
07:56As far as elaborate timeline manoeuvring goes, there are few events that can match that of
08:00Flashpoint. With the premise essentially being that the Flash is toying around in the past
08:04as endangered the main DC universe, the series covers the threat of both the new universe
08:09that Barry Allen has unknowingly created, and also the threat of his home universe being
08:13permanently destroyed due to his actions. Given that the new universe Barry makes has
08:18an extra 35,000 people die because of Superman's ship crashing in a slightly different place,
08:23it seems safe to say that this marks a pretty considerable catastrophe, even without the
08:28added knowledge that, yet again, the world almost ended.
08:31Even the solution to this crisis ends in a cataclysmic way, as in order to save the millions
08:36that died in the alternate universe, the Flash has to leave it in the middle of what appears
08:40to be a world-ending event. While the return of that universe's Thomas Wayne in the Batman
08:44series may suggest that ultimately it did not end for that world, for now it appears
08:48as though everyone who existed in that timeline was destroyed at the end of Flashpoint, which
08:53gives the event a pretty hefty death toll.
08:561. Crisis on Infinite Earths
08:59With perhaps the best and most dramatic of any DC event in history, Crisis on Infinite
09:04Earths is what it says on the tin, covering a catastrophe that hits the entire multiverse
09:08and ends up ending entire universes before it's done. With heroes from both Earth-1
09:13and Earth-2 coming together to try and stop the collapse of existence as they know it,
09:17the stakes have never seemed as high. As we're not just witnessing the potential ending of
09:22the main DC universe, but also every single alternative one imaginable, which is a disaster
09:27on an almost inconceivable scale. The event was big enough that to this day it is still
09:32referred to as the Great Disaster, which is a pretty hefty statement given that the superheroes
09:36seem to combat a world-ending threat every other afternoon.
09:40And there we go my friends, those were the 10 biggest catastrophes in DC Comics. I hope
09:43that you enjoyed that and please let me know what you thought about it down in the comments
09:47section below. As always I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter at RetroJWithAZero
09:51or you can swing by Live and Let's Dice where I do all of my streaming outside of work as
09:55well as my Warhammer back reports so if you're into that sort of stuff, I'd love to see
09:58you over there.
09:59But before I go, I just want to say one thing. I hope that you're treating yourself well
10:02with love and respect my friends because you deserve all of the best things in life and
10:06do not let anything or anyone else tell you otherwise, alright? You are a massive ledge
10:10and I want you to go out there and absolutely smash it today.
10:14As always I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that and I'll speak to you soon.
10:19Bye.