DC Comics Announces New Crisis Event Series With ‘Dark Crisis’ Following ‘Death Of The Justice League’

Source: Dark Crisis #1, DC Comics

A Dark Crisis will be upon us this summer. DC is ready for their next big crossover that will define 2022 and that they are selling as “epic.”

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Writer Joshua Williamson and artist Daniel Sampere are teaming up for a seven-issue limited series that Sampere calls a “love letter” to the DC Comics and its characters that has been 30 years in the making.

Williamson teased the event and series known formally as Dark Crisis on Twitter saying “It’s about legacy…” and sharing art by Sampere and Alejandro Sanchez.

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In a press release, DC Comics really stresses the epicness of the saga when they declare it “an epic battle of good versus evil with epic surprises in store.” They add it’ll show “how heroes relate to each other when faced with the impossible.”

Once the elite members of the Justice League are killed off in Justice League #75’s ‘’Death of the Justice League’’ story, Dark Crisis will kick off from there and aim to thread all stories since Infinite Frontier #0 together.

The main villain is Pariah, a remnant character from Crisis on Infinite Earths last seen in an epilog of Infinite Frontier #6. Using the “Great Darkness” as a weapon, he tries to bring his Multiverse — Multiverse 2 in the now canon DC Omniverse — back, but in doing so Pariah feels the need to wipe out Earth-Prime.

The official description states, “In the original Crisis on Infinite Earths by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, the homeworld of Pariah, along with the infinite Multiverse, was obliterated. Now this mad sole survivor has found a way to bring his homeworld and the entire infinite Multiverse back from the dead: Earth-0 must die.”

It concludes, “An ancient destructive force called the Great Darkness, first appearing in Swamp Thing by Alan Moore and Stan Woch, is the weapon Pariah will wield as he paves a path to rebirth and vengeance. In DC’s next big event, Dark Crisis, the heroes left behind must come together to combat this great evil and save the lost Justice League, but what happens when not everyone agrees to join the fight?”

“It will have all the giant, fun cosmic battles and Multiversal set pieces, but it’s not about reboots, retcons, or rewriting time and space,” Williamson says. “At its core, it’s about the characters and the relationships that we’ve seen built over DC’s great history.”

He adds, “Dark Crisis spins out of Justice League 75 ‘DEATH OF THE JUSTICE LEAGUE’ and connects all the story threads across the DCU since Infinite Frontier #0 in a major way. Unifying the new legacy of the DCU as we honor the classic. You can’t miss it!”

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Daniel Sampere seconds the sentiment of the “epic” tagline and avows his DC fandom in the pursuit of Dark Crisis.

“To me, Dark Crisis is a big celebration for all DC fans,” says Daniel Sampere. “It’s a huge event full of epic heart, an event that embraces the past while looking to the future. Joshua and I are the biggest DC fans, and this is our love letter to these characters and this universe.”

The namesake limited series will have two preludes: Dark Crisis #0 FCBD Special Edition and Justice League: Road to Dark Crisis #1.

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The FCBD Special will be available for free on May 7th, i.e., Free Comic Book Day. Road to Dark Crisis #1 is out on May 31st and won’t be a freebie.

At 32 pages and presenting a preview of Dark Crisis, FCBD Special Edition is written by Williamson and a slew of unannounced writers with a cover and art by Daniel Sampere, Jim Cheung, and more unidentified participants.

In a description, DC offers the following, “Witness the rise and fall of the Justice League! The event years in the making is here with Dark Crisis. The Justice League is comics’ greatest super-team—made up of DC Comics’ legendary Super Heroes, they have saved the world countless times. No crisis was too much for them to handle…until now!”

It concludes, “The Justice League has been defeated by the Great Darkness and its army of DC’s most dangerous villains—now a new generation of heroes must rise to protect not only the Multiverse…but also the legacy of the DC Universe! A prelude to DC’s biggest story of 2022!”

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Justice League: Road to Dark Crisis #1 deals with the aftermath of the League falling in battle when new heroes rise to the occasion and villains try to take advantage. Writers include Williamson, Jeremy Adams, Brandon Thomas, Chuck Brown, Stephanie Phillips, and Phillip Kennedy Johnson.

The team of artists is as expansive as the writers and made up of Dan Jurgens, Fico Ossio, Emanuela Lupacchino, Leila Del Duca, and more.

The official description for that story states, “The Justice League has tragically fallen in battle, and now we see the aftermath. How does the world react to the Justice League being gone? Which heroes rise up…and which villains try to take advantage? And what dark forces are lying in wait to attack?”

Dark Crisis is giving us a new Justice League but it’s possible the old League will be restored at the end. Knowing DC Comics these days and the resistance to sweeping unwarranted change in established characters, it wouldn’t be a shock.

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