Crisis On Infinite Earths #7 Fallout: Back Issue #147

I'm a giant fan of Back Issue magazine and how it looks back at the Silver and Bronze Age of comics. The Bronze Age was my formative era for comics so reading in depth articles on characters, runs, and creators is like comfort food. I consider myself an amateur comic historian so this book only adds to my knowledge.

This month is Back Issue's 20th anniversary and they celebrated with a George Perez Tribute issue. This was a great look back at Perez's career from his time at Marvel through his Wonder Woman reboot and everywhere in between.

For me, I had a particular interest and hope. Surely Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 was going to be discussed somewhere in the book. I didn't agree back then that Supergirl needed to die. But I can't deny that COIE #7 is an incredible and historic issue. It showcased Supergirl as the hero she was. And it cemented her place in the annals of comics. 

Part of the magazine was a look at 20 of Perez's most memorable issues. I really liked this section because mixed in with the historic books (like Crisis or JLA #200) were random issues of Marvel Two-In-One and the Flash, picked because the author recognized Perez's brilliance in some way. 

This piece, written by Dan Johnson, was a nice look at the double sized issue. But there were some things in here that stuck out to me as a Supergirl fan.

In the past I covered what seemed to be the callous approach DC took toward killing off Kara. Remember the hand written note asking for permission to kill her? It was Dick Giordano who was the most vocal it seems.

But I like here how Marv Wolfman approached it, knowing it was something important. Just as he did in the Supergirl documentary on the Flash DVD, Wolfman talks up the importance of the Crisis #4 scene.

I have a lot of conflicted feelings with Marv Wolfman and the decision to kill Kara. But it was nice to see he at least felt the weight of it.

And then we get this great comment from Jerry Ordway! I haven't read much from Ordway about the issue so it was great to hear his perspective.

He talks about how everyone talked about being crushed by Supergirl's death even though she never seemed too popular. It was akin to what they saw when Superman died at the hands of Doomsday.

Of course, the bulk of the article, given the focus of the issue, is on Perez's great art. But for me and this site, I always like to hear from the creators and what they remember about that issue and Supergirl's death.