Alas, Poor Scrappy: In an interview included with the trade paperback, Geoff Johns reveals that he selected Pantha and Wildebeest of the Teen Titans as Superboy-Prime's first kills because he felt they were characters nobody would miss too much, being heavily associated with a very badly regarded "'90s Extreme" phase of the book. They were nevertheless surprisingly deeply mourned by fans, thanks to a combination of the deaths being so gruesome (Pantha decapitated, Wildebeest ripped in half), Wildebeest actually being a young child who Hulks Out into an adult form to fight, and having been given much better-received portrayals in the cartoon series.
Alternative Character Interpretation: Why did Wonder Woman snap Max Lord's neck? Did she do it because she believed it was necessary, that it was the action required at the moment to save Superman, who was seconds away from being mind-controlled into murdering his loved ones? Or did she do it because she was upset about Lord killing Ted Kord, whose death Wonder Woman was blaming herself for because she did not protect Blue Beetle when he came to her for help.
Broken Aesop: For all its attacks on the Nostalgia Filter and people who believe that everything was better in the pre-Crisis days, Infinite Crisis itself seems to be cheering them on. Most of the changes made by the event explicitly reverted post-Crisis changes or killed off characters who debuted post-Crisis, meaning that the writers evidently agreed with the villains that the DCU was better off that way. There's also a heavy implication in one scene that many of the characters to debut post-Crisis (including Kyle Rayner, Helena Bertinelli, Jason Rusch, and Tim Drake) weren't actually from the original Earth-1, suggesting that post-Crisis characters are, in fact, not supposed to be there. Infinite Crisis also led directly into 52, which brought back much of the pre-Crisis multiverse...you know, the thing Alexander Luthor was trying to do.
Continuity Lockout: God help you entering this series, because there are a lot of different lead-up plot-lines to this story, each of which has some sort of impact on the story going in. There's the one-shot comic Countdown to Infinite Crisis, followed by four specially-written lead-in miniseries – Day of Vengeance, Villains United, Rann-Thanagar War and The OMAC Project – the latter of which has another essential crossover storyline, Superman: Sacrifice, set right in the middle. Plus the JLA story arc "Crisis of Conscience", which ends right where Infinite Crisis starts. And that's just the stuff that was made specifically as setup to the event: there's even more prior reading that's relevant for context, such as DC's previous comic event Identity Crisis and Superboy's character arc in Teen Titans.
Designated Hero: The heroes in the book seem downright psychotic. Where to begin? Superboy jovially freeing the murderous Black Adam to help them despite the justified doubts of a comrade? Power Girl's non-reaction to a man's head being turned into hamburger meat in front of her? Given the premise, these could've been perfect examples of how dark the heroes of New Earth were becoming if they were ever called for these actions. Despite being one of the supposed true heroes, Kal-L doesn't exactly come off smelling like roses, either. When calling out Diana for how the Justice League are acting completely unheroic, one of the key points he lists is how their League "lobotomizes their adversaries"...ignoring that Dr. Light had raped Elongated Man's wife, and that the lobotomization in question was an accident anyway (they were attempting to "clean him up"). It certainly wasn't the choice a hero makes, but Supes' complete lack of understanding given the situation doesn't speak well of him.
Draco in Leather Pants: Superboy Prime's dislike of the DC Universe's Darker and Edgier vibe would eventually be echoed by the fanbase when the DC Extended Universe opened up with its heroes getting their hands dirty in a morally grey world. It got to the point where writers from the post-Rebirth era decided that they agreed with Superboy Prime's stance and brought him back so he could be redeemed.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: As Kal-L lay dying, he said "they're still out there". While it could mean anything, he could be referring to the multiverse, which would later return in a form at the conclusion of 52. Almost a decade later, the "infinite" multiverse was later restored, first "unofficially" at the end of Convergence, then for real after the end of Dark Nights: Death Metal.
Memetic Mutation: Retcon Punch!note A scene in Infinite Crisis in which Superboy literally punches through the wall of reality. This was used as a way to fix all the Continuity Snarls, but ended up being used mockingly by fans to explain any future continuity error.
Alexander Luthor has crossed it from before the story started and just kept on going. Superboy-Prime crosses it towards the middle by murdering lesser known heroes (starting with him backhanding Pantha's head into paste), Superboy and at the end by killing Golden Age Superman.
Alex's concrete crossing was probably in the lead-in series Villains United, when he kills Pariah.
Everyone assumes Wonder Woman is going to try and kill someone, even In-Universe.
While not in Infinite Crisis itself, but chances are when the discussion on the storyline, everyone will mention Superboy-Prime literallypunching the wall of reality, due to how ludicrous it is even for comic standards.
Squick: Prime carving his own chest. Wouldn't be so bad, if he didn't look like he had rabies or something...
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Psycho Pirate, one of the most iconic characters from the original Crisis and one of the few who remember it, is in the story, yet is never more than a background character.
As soon as New Earth is formed, plenty of well-known characters are shown to have died. In particular, Killer Moth's mutated form Charaxes is uncerimoniously slughtered by Superboy Prime.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: Everyone in the story, from Batman to Superman to random people on the street, acts like Wonder Woman killing Max Lord is a sign that Wonder Woman lost her humanity and become too distant from those she was supposed to protect and her mission of peace. But the actual killing looks less like someone callously ending a life without consideration and more like someone backed into a corner and desperate to save her friend without enough time to come up with other options. No one even bothers to get Wonder Woman's side of the story, which makes everyone else come off as pious and Wonder Woman look like the victim. It doesn't help that the moment of the killing was broadcast across the entire world without any context given.
Another layer to this is that while Superman and Batman's own mistakes (covering up the Justice League's mindwipes and creating Brother Eye, respectively) were both pretty much ignored after Infinite Crisisnote In Superman's case, his covering up the League's mindwiping is never even brought up in the story despite it being discussed in the stories leading up to Infinite Crisis, Diana had to deal with the ramifications of killing Max long after this story was over. Even if one believes that killing Max was as bad as mass surveillance and covering up human rights violations, Diana had her reputation ruined over what was a case of justifiable homicide at worst, while her colleagues' own transgressions were ignored.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Relating to the above, Batman shows his hypocrisy when he pulls a gun on Earth-3 Luthor in a fit of rage. The only thing saving Luthor's life was that a bullet wasn't in the chamber. Unlike Wonder Woman, his reasons for using lethal force were entirely out of bloodlust rather than necessity.
Awesome Art: All of the alternate universe champions have great designs.
Harsher in Hindsight: Atomic Wonder Woman blames herself for the state of her world being a nuclear wasteland when it wasn't her fault. The concept of Wonder Woman: Dead Earth involves Diana in a similar post-apocalyptic world — and unlike her Atomic counterpart, she is to blame.
"WHERE IS MY DEATHSTROKE!?" Deathstroke is one of the most requested champions, followed by the likes of Lex Luthor (who has been confirmed) and Nightwing. Turbine apparently thrives on the tears of fans as they release more obscure characters like Katana or Krypto instead.
Photoshopping Starro's parasite on other champions' faces.
Too Good to Last: It's decent, and one of the better non-juggernaut MOBA games so far. It got released in Steam...and shortly after, it shut down on August 2015.
