5 comments on “Tape #17: Crisis on Infinite Earths #4”

1. Brian Ciufo says:

   May 26, 2026 at 5:53 pm

   From the opening dialogue I prefer the Doug in my left ear over the Doug on my right ear.

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   1. Doug Prime says:

      May 27, 2026 at 8:47 am

      That all depends on which way your headphones are on or which direction you are facing the speakers!

      However We shall assume that’s Doug Prime so thank you!

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      1. Doug Alpha says:

         May 27, 2026 at 8:51 am

         Hold on here we can’t assume anything, what if Brian is in the southern hemisphere ? Doesn’t that flip the stereo or something ? I think we need more votes than left and right ear!

         Anyway Brian thanks for listening to the show. We (Dougs) often wonder if folk skip ahead past the nonsense to get to the news and guest but obviously not everyone can manage to find the fast forward button in time! Hurrah for us!

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2. Bucky749 says:

   May 30, 2026 at 12:27 am

   Note: I would definitely watch tv show on the original atomic knights.
   Also I did the stereo Doug bit I only listen with head phone at work so I had to wait later to listen.
   Please tell the Doug’s not do that agin unless there going to do cover of the song calendar girl with Dave on synthesizer .
   I know what phone book is Doug my brother use to collect them .

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3. Frank says:

   June 7, 2026 at 6:08 am

   So I was driving across town to meet up with my Rolled Spine bros and record a Swamp Thing podcast. I’d proof-listened to all three hours of the latest DC Secret Files at normal speed, which had broken up my pass through The Monitor Tapes and my first time listening to (most? all?) of the audiobook to The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (as played off a thumb drive with chapters out of order by the lame factory radio in my ride. I thought it was meta, like reading the loose torn pages from the show after they were recovered.) Setting out, I had mostly just the social media section for Justice Society Presents – The Sandman Slept Here (where I never leave comments) and the Parallel Earth spotlight to this episode. There were intermittent blinding sheets of rain and freeway closures that sent me on lengthy detours lasting a total of about 90 minutes, where it would normally be half that. I usually listen to Sandman at 2x and Monitor Tapes at about 1.5x, so you’d imagine that didn’t last long. So I switched to Laura Palmer, but I hadn’t taken the time to weed out previously listened chapters, and everything was repeating. Traffic flowed just smooth enough that I could never safely navigate a pod-feeder, and I finally switched thumb drives out for music that I’m also feeling played out on (not that it took long with the likes of Barry White and We Five in the mix.) For the return trip, there wasn’t anything of interest in my podcast feeds, so I decided to give in and shotgun “Infinite Earths: A Guide to the DC Multiverse,” after having heard my comment read on air about not planning to do that. Except I couldn’t remember the name, and when I tried to find an overarching Brick Crisis feed, it just landed on the one episode of “Presents.” But that reminded me that I’d been meaning to pick up where I left off with A.J.’s music podcast a few years ago when it was the soundtrack to my driving to every Lone Star Heroes: Comics & Toys location during a weekend inclusive Black Friday sale. Except that I also couldn’t remember the name of that one, and it doesn’t appear to be in the Wright On Network feed going back to 2023. So I just put the music back on (seemed to play a lot of SZA this time) and daydreamed, since the skies were now clear and traffic was manageable.

   Echoing my comments on the last episode, my feel for this show remains inchoate (I did drop that one in specifically to vex Doug.) I say that I struggle with the more conceptional episodes, but I was just as spaced out on a regular indexing episode of Crisis on Infinite Earths #4. I guess the core series that you guys are covering is just a chaos goblin of a cluster bang infused with anti-matter. Interesting that George Perez is only credited with “Layouts,” as I think we all picture the series as a whole to be fully realized Perez. On that note, why hasn’t a Fire & Water superlative ever stuck for him the way it has for JLGL-PBHN or Extraordinary Ordway? “Perfect Perez” is right there, if you guys want to take that ball and spike it into the FW lawn. Consistent repetition is key, as with any form of Pavlovian conditioning. Anyway, I can definitely see the Mike DeCarlo, now that I’m looking for it, but I really enjoyed his assimilationist inks from this time period. He defined the look of ’80s Legion of Super-Heroes, another extremely crowded science fantasy, so he fits right in here. Is this the least Perfectly Perezian (getting the ball rolling) issue of Crisis, and if so, it’s still pretty darn Perezian, innit?

   I don’t know why Martin Gray felt the need to take a jab at Earth-Six. I agree that it is a uniquely interesting Parallel Earth by virtue of it’s not being just an incorporated acquisition or an alternate flavor DC Earth (“it’s Gotham, but make it vampire!”) Alternately, Martin was perfectly within his rights, because what is Earth-Six but an Asparagus People planet for Dark Phoenix to obliterate in a fit of pique? We never see enough of it to perceive it as a whole dimension, or really even a world of its own. And yet, my bone deep fatigue with the many “Steampunk Metropolis” overextended Elseworlds makes me want to cleave “Cosmic Royalists Without Direct Analogues” to my weary breast. Speaking of which, after pages of Perfect Perez pneumatic protagonist Supergirl, the far less conventional Lady Quark really stands apart. Clearly middle aged, without make-up, close cropped butch hair– fit but physically only outlined, defined more by her form being a vessel for surprinted Kirby Krackle. Monitor, Harbinger, and Pariah have bigger roles in the narrative, but Lady Quark is the most visually striking new creation of Crisis. Dumping her into L.E.G.I.O.N. half a decade later felt like such wasted potential, though not as egregious as being a dead New Guardian. All that having been said, my first pass on the DC Wiki for Earth-6 sent me to the Ultimates Earth, so the multiverse can’t die enough for my liking.

   What else do I remember? Oh yeah– I wish “Crisis Kids” had been better defined. The term isn’t exactly primed for Google searches, and in a very Crisis-like fashion, I didn’t happen to listen to a podcast from 20 years ago to understand it’s highlighted reference in this crossover event. I only read one issue of COIE off the newsstand, but collected most of the run of its Marvel counterpart, so does that make me a Secret Ward?

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