Second verse, same as
the first.

Or...Second 'verse, same as the first.

The biggest loser from the CRISIS was Roy Thomas. All-Star Squadron and Infinity, Inc. never recovered

***

It confused me. I was 8, had just discovered comics, was following a few Marvel titles. An issue of All-Star Squadron was my first taste of DC. I understood the first issue I read, then the second one had that big team portrait that changed some of its characters on the next page because of Crisis. Confused the hell out of me and I didn't touch another DC comic until JB brought me over to Superman with him.  

••

CRISIS was totally, utterly, without a doubt, without question, COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY.

There was, in fact, nothing to "fix". Just a bunch of whiny anal fanboys who believed THEY were the only ones who knew what was going on, and that everybody ELSE would be "confused". (In many a convention visit, I never me a single soul who was!)

If there was deemed a "problem", the "fix" would have been to simply stop picking and poking at it. Stop referring to Earth 2, as, on FANTASTIC FOUR, I made no references to Reed and Ben having fought in WW2.

Crisis itself was also a poorly written series of emergency fixes and surprise back-up plans the villain had in his hip pocket, y'know, just in case that previous one didn't go so well...
A large number of DC titles "crossed over" with the series, showing the Monitor's gun moll/lover/no, wait, daughter-type person recruiting a very specific set of heroes and heroines for a mission that only they can perform. Said mission ends almost immediately in failure in issue #2 and the teams and the special contributions that only they can make are never mentioned again.
The entirety of existence was eliminated twice with two separate issues ending in a blank white page.
Supergirl's death was trumpeted to the heavens, but not the writer apparently because she doesn't even appear in the thing in a meaningful way until the issue where she dies and barely makes a showing there.
The Flash, also strutting his final hour upon the stage, is portrayed as a cringing coward for a number of issues, held in the power of the Psycho-Pirate. Well, those of us who had read even a little of the Trial of the Flash storyline knew DC had run out of ideas for Barry. Why not have him snivel and whimper and crawl on the floor for his final storyline? Yeah, that's drama for you...
On Wolfman's list of "Things DC Editors Decided Must Be Done During Crisis" was Wonder Woman's removal from the timeline and Wally West's powers being cut down to mere supersonic levels. He and Perez did this in series of increasingly tiny panels near the end of issue #12, wherein the Anti-Monitor (There's a good name...) turns his head to the right and breathes Monitor-Breath at Diana, turning her back into clay and spreading her formless self back over the shore of Paradise Island. Then he turns his head to the left and breathes Monitor-Breath at Wally, mysteriously cutting his powers in half... Oh, what a deadly and unpredictable weapon is the terrible Monitor-Breath...

Crisis, forgive my saying so, stank on ice.

In JB's first FF issue, SueRichards' hairdresser enthuses that "this cut is gonna make you look ten years younger!", and Sue replies, without rancour, "Thanks, I'm sure my husband will like being married to a child."

That was all I needed: Okay, I thought, fine. The characters are younger; Sue could not have been the girl Reed thought about while on European missions in WW2.

No fuss, no drama.