In just dwelling on the story, I really enjoyed it... it recaptured the heroes I knew and loved (except Batman was less human than he was supposed to be at that time) and to see the Earth-D's Superman's Fortress really hit home the fact that even though these other Earth's heroes could have had radically different backstories, they were still very similar.
It's too bad the mainstream DCU couldn't be more diverse.
Well, if you examine the new replacement characters introduced immediately before and during Infinite Crisis/52, it appears that DC is trying to incorporate more diversity. But many diehard fans seem to either resent the new "impostors" or decry the "execution" of this trend -- as in killing off Blue Beetle, the Question, Firestorm, etc. Whether any of these casualties ultimately return from the dead and resume their old roles is moot; this otherwise laudable diversity program seems poorly implimented and forced.
As for "Legends of the DC Universe: Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Untold Story" (Rao, what a LONG title!), some fans dispute whether it should be incorporated as Crisis canon -- Wolfman wrote this almost 14 years after the original series, and there's continuity conflicts such as the "darker" post-1986 Batman.
Here's annotations:
http://www.io.com/~woodward/chroma/cr4_5.htmlThe Justice Alliance of America were still relative amateurs -- notice how awed they were when "our' heroes arrived. But some were notable -- I liked the black Superman/Supergirl husband and wife team (did they come from Vathlo island?), the Japanese-American Flash, and the short-lived Green Lantern's wry humor made some classic lines:
"I'm the new Green Lantern!
"My first mission is to save the universe from destruction.
"What will the Guardians expect for an ENCORE?"
And in a sense, Captain José Hernandez DID save A universe... just not his own. He died while saving Earth-D's Supergirl, who would shortly sacrifice herself to buy time for the others to evacuate her doomed world. And those surviving heroes (especially Supergirl and Superman) soon proved essential for ultimately defeating the Anti-Monitor.
The conclusion left me torn. Supergirl has an inspirational speech (with an ominous tinge for those who already read Crisis #7), and her embracing Superman in the final scene is a heart-touching "farewell". See:
http://img105.imageshack.us/my.php?image=legendsofthedcucrisisoninfinit1.jpghttp://img105.imageshack.us/my.php?image=legendsofthedcucrisisoninfinit.jpgBut at the same time, I felt a similar frustration when reading Kara's "pep talk" to Deadman in "May Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot?" -- why did Supergirl retroactively deliver her best lines AFTER she was officially "dead and forgotten"? Had DC writers treated Kara during her lifetime with half the respect lauded upon her since her passing, who knows what might have transpired?