I know it's a huge and extremely important event, but the reviews aren't all that good. I really love DC and I want to read about important events in its continuity, so should I read COIE? Is it really that bad?

I'll be honest with you, I tried reading it and couldn't finish it. I found it a bit boring and slow to be honest but that is my opinion.

I read and enjoyed it. In awe of Wolfram and Perez for all their attention to so many characters. I think you should try it.

I say try it.

The story involved a lot of characters, but it was honestly pretty straight forward. The main antagonist had a simple and clear goal, and it celebrated the diversity of the multiverse. It was told in a different era, so it flows differently than today's stories. Perez and Wolfman are good artists/writers so there are some good character moments and developments.

Yes please read it. The creators of event books today could probably learn some lessons from that story.

AT first I was like...WHAT?! ARE YOU INSANE, OF COURSE YOU SHOULD READ IT.

But I am biased to a degree in this, because the cover to CRISIS number 6 was one of my first comics I ever bought as a kid. And back then my only real exposure to DC was UnderRoos and Super Friends, But here you had these intense face of the Anti Monitor glaring at you, and more super heroes then I ever knew existed inside.

So to me this was a amazing event for me, the discovery of the DCU, The fates of Barry Allen and Supergirl and others was just jaw dropping to me back then, as I have never seen heroes die in comics before.

All that being said, would a story like this hold any weight with a younger reader who has seen all this stuff happen multiple times over? Honestly probably not.

But I was lucky enough to say I was around to read some classic material the first time it came out and was able to see history being made.

I will say it is worth picking up so you have a frame of reference, just as you would recommend certain movies as must see's

For these reasons:

1) This is the holy grail of "EPIC EVENTS" this and Secret Wars have been the measuring stick for years, and all have failed to reach this level

2) George Perez in his prime! he drew every character in the DCU in this story, some were just background guys, others more so, but his double page spreads of characters gathering were amazing, there was no wasted space on his pages. Yo would spend hours just trying to identify all the characters he crammed into his panels

3) The Death of Barry Allen was huge at the time. And it was a cornerstone of DCU for quite sometime, Barry was dead and was not coming back was just understood and here is where you see it happen.

4) My love for the Justice Society of America was born. Earth 2,Earth 1, and all other Earths were a mind blowing concept to me back then. Why were there 2 Supermen, 2 Green Lanterns, 2 Atoms, 2 Hawmen. Why did the look different and older? Batman had a daughter? The Multiverse of DC provided a entirely different area to explore new characters

5) It actually served a purpose and gave birth to the concept of a reboot. Pretty much hitting the reset button in comics was born with the end of crisis.

Again I am biased as it truly was a epic event that changed everything. The characters and my love for comics. So I say with a bit of nostalgia and fond memories to give it a go. But fully realizing times have changed and it may not resonate with others like it did with me

If you don`t fully understand the meanings of the terms "pre-crisis" and "post-crisis" and you want to, then reading the original Crisis is an important step toward enlightenment. At least that`s how it was for me. Due to my reading of this classic series my understanding and appreciation of DC`s rich history gained its strongest foothold.

Now we are in the "NEW" 52 universe, is pre and post crisis all that important really? Unless you are trying to perhaps understand why someone like Superman got re-booted.

It's one of the best events ever.My second favorite DC event.

If you really love DC you owe it to yourself to read it.

I love the concept of a multiverse in comics so when I heard about crisis on infinite earths I went and read the first 2 issues. They were interesting but the story was a little to slow the first issue took alot of setting up but I could see why. I stopped reading after the first two.

This is the first comic I've ever read as a child that I actually finished.Heroes and villains that I've never seen before fought against each other and then worked together. The Multiverse existed and changed with the Monitor and the Anti-Monitor warring against each other. I remember how I researched a large number of those characters, including finding out who Psimon was. My head spun around and to this day, I still admire the effort they put into it, especially back then. Now, as I look back, I can see that it is old history but it was great history. It was the first of the Crisis events, which would later expand into DC's trademark, creating universal threats.

An epic tale of heroism across infinite worlds, plus fantastic art... of course you should, it's a timeless (ok, maybe a little dated) DC classic.