Crisis

Hi Scott

I realise this is slightly off topic for a wrestling blog, but all the DC revamp stuff got me reading the original Crisis again and maybe you and your readers can help me with a problem I've always had....

It's a little difficult to explain so forgive me if this makes no sense. I read post-Crisis stuff before I ever went back and read Crisis, and had always assumed that everyone and everything got reset and rebooted. But reading it, all the characters that were at the battle with the Anti-Monitor when the new, post-Crisis world gets created remember the original multiverse. Earth-2 Clark Kent briefly shows up at the Daily Planet, and Earth-1 Clark passes him off as his uncle, we see Earth-1 Batman burying Earth-2 Robin etc. - All on the new, sole, Earth that we are to assume is the Post-Crisis Earth.
Jay Garrick's 'place' in the new universe is different, his past has changed - but his memories have not. He's not a new, rebooted, Jay Garrick - he's the old Jay Garrick living out a new role with an altered history that he doesn't remember.
If this is the case for all the characters that we are told remember the changes caused by Anti-Monitor (which is pretty much everyone of note), then aren't their post-Crisis selves just their pre-Crisis selves on a new, altered world?
Where does that leave, for example, John Byrne's rebooted Superman? The Superman introduced in Man of Steel seems like a new character, completely separate from all the pre-Crisis versions - but while that may be the new history/origin of Superman in the merged world, the finale of Crisis indicates that the Superman that we read about after the Crisis is just the Earth-1 Superman, insulated from all the changes by the battle, with memories of the multiverse, his original origin, Earth-2 Superman and all the rest, just playing out his new role in the 'Superman' spot on this new Post-Crisis world. There's never a point where the original earth-1 Superman goes away and is replaced by the John Byrne Superman. As far as the story tells us, it's still the same Superman as it ever was. And same goes for all the other major characters too.

It seems a bizarre oversight for a series the entire point of which was to reset everything, and no-one else seems to bring up this discrepancy, which is what makes me think i've missed something... but i don't know what.

Have I missed something crucial?
Other than, obviously, it's just a comic book (since Infinite Crisised and Flashpointed to oblivion anyway), so don't worry about it :)

The original Crisis was, unfortunately, a continuity nightmare that created way more problems than it solved.  I started seriously buying comics just as the Crisis was starting, when I was 11 years old, and I had no trouble keeping track of Earth 1 and Earth 3 and all the other stuff that they were trying to simplify for me.  And then, as you noted, the “reboot” ended up not being one.  Superman got rebooted, a year after the series, while Flash’s history was left intact.  Wonder Woman got rebooted a while after the series, but Batman wasn’t changed…except for Jason Todd, who was suddenly a thieving scumbag.  Captain Marvel got rebooted multiple times as they were trying to find something to catch on.  Even the stuff you mentioned were internal consistency problems that I noticed too when I was reading, and the DC editors basically waved it off with the equivalent of saying “It was a wizard”.  That’s why we ended up with Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, and Flashpoint, because they’ve been playing catchup with the continuity ever since.  Although as much of a mess as it made, it remains probably my second favorite comic book series ever, after Man of Steel. 

There’s a really good FAQ at CBR covering a lot of the stuff surrounding it:  http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=73550