Cox, known for Star Trek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and his novelizations of movies such as Daredevil and Underworld, has stepped up to produce a prose version of that epic story. Superman, Batman, and Wonderwoman are featured prominently in the novel. But so are an array of minor superheroes, some of whom were very obscure to me.

The concept is chilling in the world of superheroes. The icons of good like Superman and Batman are doing bad things. Wonder Woman even breaks someone’s neck on global television. This was unthinkable in the comic book world, especially in the 1980s, when you could have superheroes doing evil in an alternative world or in a dream (nightmare), but not in the everyday comic book world. Superheroes were supposed to be sacrosanct. They were heroes with a capital H.

Infinite Crisis shows all that, but also brings these superheroes to a point of conscience and faith. They must stop. They must find a way to redeem themselves and the world.

Cox’s fast-paced plot is breathtaking at times. There is one crisis after another, but he paints them with precision. And the ending is satisfying, but open to some extent, like many comic books. The only problem I had with the novel was an unfamiliarity with some of the characters. I wished I had a visual guide to all of the supersheroes. Not a dyed-in-the-wool fan, I didn’t know what some of them looked like. Thankfully, I was able to ask friends and do research for drawings.

Though Infinite Crisis at first destroys every conception you had of superheroes, by the end, your faith in them is restored. Friends who have read the original comic book series tell me that Greg Cox has been able to fill in gaps in the story and flesh out the plot. Bravo, Greg Cox.