The View at 26 – Doctoral Update

October 1, 2020

This afternoon was my deadline to hand in my 8 month doctoral report, and while I still have the interview to go, I feel like I can breathe a small sigh of relief. While it stressed me out to write, I feel really good about where my research currently is. A few months in, I got really shaky about the whole process. I wondered if this was a study worth doing, if the subject matter was interesting enough to other people, if I was taking it in the right direction.

But needing to do a full progress report, laying out where I currently am with everything, it really helped to cement ideas I was unsure about and find a little bit more of the focus I think I was missing.

I’ll admit, I was pretty unsure about my case studies for a while, especially the final selection. It changed from Dark Nights Metal, to Flashpoint to Final Crisis in the space of a week! But I’m ultimately happy with the choice to look at Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis. These four are all part of a very specific era in DC Comics, and its far enough removed that a lot of their development has been documented. They are also some of the best examples of time based events with the only possible exception maybe being DC One Million, but even that is debateable.

It is my birthday in less than 2 weeks, and to be honest, I’m pleased with the progress I’ve made in my 26^th year. Probably helped by a global pandemic keeping me at home, so I kind of have to study. But the point is, I’m in a better position now than I thought I would be. Granted, I now have to go through the Final Crisis omnibus to go through probably more times than any sane person should.

As they say, Darkseid is….