Did DC FanDome Tease a New Crisis on Infinite Earths?
One of the more unusual elements of last weekend's DC FanDome appearance was a tease from DC publisher Jim Lee that seemed to suggest something is coming up using the "Crisis" branding. A mosaic he has been creating was overlaid over the cover to Crisis on Infinite Earths #1, with Lee declining to clarify what connection the two might actually have. It isn't clear that there is anything to get excited about -- it's entirely possible this was just Lee's contribution to FanDome. After all, last year he provided official art for the event, which was split into three parts and sent out in press kits for the launch. Eventually, all three parts (or an assembled version of the full image) was available to buy as a poster from the FanDome website.
In fact, it seems unlikely that Lee is teasing anything if you take the image at face value. It features TV and film versions of the heroes -- a tweet he made later revealed that even the very comic book-accurate Superman were intended to represent Superman & Lois -- but also retains the credit to Marv Wolfman and George Perez from the original comic book cover. It also includes characters from DC's Legends of Tomorrow and Superman & Lois, who already lived through the Arrowverse adaptation of the Crisis once. Nevertheless, Lee left things intentionally vague when talking about the "puzzle" at FanDome.
"We wanted to create something kind of fun for the fans to engage with. It's simply a puzzle," Lee explained during the event. "I've drawn 12 images, each celebrating a specific DC moment...we're revealing the final four now during FanDome, so if you take all 16 and rearrange them, and kind of squint, hopefully you'll kind of see what we've been building up to."
When host Tiffany Smith asked him if it meant anything, or if fans should expect something to spring out of it, Lee replied with an answer that was bleeped, his lips covered by animated graphics, leading Smith to remind him that there is an audience of millions watching, and Lee to say they can "fix it in post." Whether he really was hinting at anything, or just performing a bit for the FanDome audience, is not clear, and likely won't be until and unless DC launches a new Crisis-related project. There has, of course, been rumors of such a project for years, with Dan DiDio's "5G" initiative rumored to have been leading up to one.
5G was cancelled officially, but a number of projects created around or for it have gone on to be published with minor modifications, including the Generations two-part event and Grant Morrison's Superman and the Authority. A number of DC heroes are currently "replaced" by younger versions, and those are inspired by stories originally plotted to tie into the event.