Crisis on Infinite Earths is a landmark 12-issue American comic book limited series published by DC Comics from 1985 to 1986. Written by Marv Wolfman and pencilled by George Pérez, it was conceived as a way to celebrate DC's 50th anniversary while streamlining its notoriously convoluted multiverse continuity. The story features virtually every character in DC's history uniting against the Anti-Monitor, a cosmic entity determined to destroy all parallel universes.
The series is famous for its epic scale and its lasting impact on superhero comics. It featured the deaths of major characters, including Supergirl and the Flash (Barry Allen), and culminated in the merging of all surviving parallel Earths into a single, unified timeline. This effectively reset decades of DC Comics continuity, providing a clean slate for new readers.
Crisis on Infinite Earths is widely regarded as the first major comic book 'event' crossover and set the template for countless publisher-wide crossovers that followed. Its influence extends far beyond comics, inspiring animated and live-action adaptations, and its narrative framework of multiversal collapse has become a recurring trope in superhero media.
