The Most Imporant Book in the DCU?

What DC Comic had the most impact to the DCU in the past 20 years? I was thinking about this question the other day as I was looking over a fan voted list of the most influential comic runs. I’ll admit that I am a DC fanboy and that is why my mind automatically drifted to the DCU, but I think this question is equally valid (and maybe harder to answer) for the Marvel Universe. To answer this question I set out two simple rules the first was that it couldn’t be a storyline, it had to be a single issue. This issue though could be part of a bigger storyline. For example, you can’t say Batman: Murderer, but you can say Batman 600 is the most important issue. Second, as a more of a justification of my time constraint, I had to find a way to avoid Crisis on Infinite Earths, as it would be hard to argue the importance of that series to the DCU as a whole, especially the issue were the multiverse is destroyed. In essence, the issue needed an event that had some serious ramifications for the characters involved, and influenced the DCU in either a positive or negative light.

It was also easy to eliminate some of the bigger events from the 90’s such as Superman(vol. 2) 75 from contention. While a book like Superman 75, and the other major speculator events, seemed to be important at the time, they haven’t been important to the DCU in the longterm. How often do other heroes mention that Superman once died, or Batman was crippled? These events are largely forgotten.

The book that I feel had the most impact did not involve a single character, but a whole fictional city. While not creatively the best book that DC has published, its hard to argue the impact that Superman 80, part of the Reign of Supermen storyline had. Written and drawn by Dan Jurgens, this book was the turning point to the Reign of Supermen storyline as it revealed the true intentions of the Cyborg Superman, Hank Henshaw, were not to uphold truth and justice, but instead were the opposite. Over the course of the issue, with the aid of Mongol, the Cyborg destroyed Coast City.

Sure this wasn’t likely the first DC City to be annihilated by villains, and it sure wasn’t the last (remember the millions of people that died in DC One Million when Montevideo was nuked? It’s okay, DC doesn’t remember it too). But it was a city that mattered to one person, Hal Jordan. Coast City was his home, and in the course of these 22 newsprint pages, his world was turned upside down. While it took several months, and the intervention of a DC Editor or three, the destruction of Coast City set the DCU on a series of events that have continued for over 15 years.

The first major event to roll out of this issue, was the Green Lantern storyline Emerald Twilight. In this three issue arc, Jordan attempts to bring back Coast City with the power of his ring, and as a result of his failure to do so, goes to war with the Guardians and the Green Lantern Corps. As a results of these actions, Hal would go become the (ultimately) misguided hero, Parallax. Immediately following the events of Green Lantern 50, we are introduced to Kyle Rayner, ‘the boy who would be the last Green Lantern’ for the next 10 years plus.

Think about that, Hal Jordan wasn’t a Green Lantern for over ten years. We all knew he’d come back, but as the years went on, it seemed more and more like Emerald Twilight was not a flash in the pan event, like the Death of Superman, but more akin to an event like the Death of Barry Allen (albeit less heroic).

With Parallax, we saw the Hal Jordan continue to try and resurrect Coast City with the events of Zero Hour, save the world in Final Night, and adopt the role of the Spectre in Day of Judgement. That is no less then three DCU wide crossover events that are in response to the events that happened in Superman 80. The fall of Hal Jordan also played a role in the death and return of Green Arrow. Even after Hal returned to the land of the living and the good in Green Lantern: Rebirth, Coast City remained a essential element of the current Green Lantern series. Coast City even acted as the emotional climax for the recent Sinestro Corp War. This climax also lead to Coast City being renamed ‘The City Without Fear’. With this catchy title to the city, it appears that now, the saga of Coast City is finally over and with it the influence that the events that Superman 80 had on the DCU. Is the most important DC Comic of the past 20 years? I’m sure I may have missed a book or two that should also be considered, but to me, its hard to argue a book that was (in)directly responsible for three company wide events, and two character reinventions.