Crisis on Infinite Earths

by Marv Wolfman

  "How you knew I would be here is unimportant," he said. "You're insignificant and controllable." He turned to me then, looking strangely concerned. "But some of the others. Are they here, too?" His eyes flashed red.

  I tried not to answer him, but I found myself talking. "I don't know. I don't know how I got here."

  Why was I telling him anything?

  His concern vanished immediately. "Then your presence is simply an accident." He waved his hand and I fell back.

  I thought about trying again to attack, but realized that would be A: stupid and B: really stupid. He didn't care about me and he had already turned back to whatever he was doing.

  But he continued talking. "I sought the merging of your multiverse," he said, "to feed me the energies I need. But with the destruction of my machines, you and the others have made that more difficult." I sighed loud enough for him to hear. "You want me to bring out the violins? I can play a mean chorus of 'Woe is me.'" It's amazing what you can say when you know you're already dead.

  He ignored me. My humor gets that a lot.

  "You see that?" he said, pointing to the black hole. "Within that singularity is the moment of creation. Worlds and universes will be born in there."

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  He stared at the black hole like a child does a flame, fascinated by the endless possibilities it offered.

  "On the planet Oa," he continued, "the pre-Guardian Krona will attempt to seek the origin of the universe. He will open a portal into that hole, and a hand, the hand of God himself, will emerge."

  He turned to me. His chalk-bone face carved into a grotesque grin.

  "That was history, the way it was. But now it will be my hand he sees." With the possible exception of Goldfinger, I've seen too many movies where the villain tells the hero his plans, giving him ample time to escape. Swear to God I didn't think that happened in real life. Maybe ol' pasty-face needed an audience.

  He continued, oblivious to cinematic cliches. "In history, God brought forth not only your multiverse but my antimatter universe." He waved his hand and I was suddenly pulled to him. "But now," he forced me to stare into the hole, "my hand will create only a single antimatter universe. Your lives, your worlds and all your myriad universes, will never see creation."

  He turned me to him, wanting me to feel his victory even as he celebrated it. "Had you let me merge your universes, you would have at least lived your lives till then. Now, because of you, none of you, your dreams, your worlds, even those lives, will ever have existed." He tossed me aside then ignored me while he wait for Krona to begin his damned experiment.

  I knew I couldn't fight him alone. The Monitor's heroes had to know what was happening.

  It had worked before, so I sped up my internal vibrations again and slipped into the speed force. According to plan I would return to the future and somehow find a way to get the others back here. What's the worst that could happen?

  The Anti-Monitor saw him disappear and a twisted smile crossed his lips. Yes, fool, find the others and tell them my plans. Then bring them here to me. Only their presence can assure the final destruction of the multiverse. The Spectre

  Even in the shadowlands of the afterworld, the Spectre sensed the universe shudder and then disappear. Someone was destroying reality, and very soon existence, even his own, would be ended. The Spectre, white-skinned and green-cloaked, was a vengeance spirit. For millennia he believed his power had no limits. He could walk as a giant and tower over worlds, or he could take on the guise of man and walk beside them unnoticed.

  He felt another part of the universe disappear. "Where are you?" he shouted. "Who are you? " He knew better than to expect an answer. He strode over Earth's shadowland, looking at the new arrivals. A hundred million souls were passing through to their final voyage. How many more are coming? he wondered.

  He recognized some of the heroes he fought alongside when he still walked the Earth. He remembered they were powerful, some nearly as strong as he. If they could die, how could he survive? The Earth disappeared but human souls still crowded into their shadowland.

  Where were they coming from?

  He searched other parts of the afterworld and saw the souls of a million different worlds flooding into their respective shadowlands. But their worlds had vanished, too. Where had they gone?

  Impossibly, all existence had disappeared.

  He then sensed life, a solitary heartbeat where there had been countless lives before. It was a ripple speeding temporally through space. Where had it come from? Where was it going?

  The Spectre commanded, "Come to me."

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  Was this the enemy? The Spectre wondered. All he could see was the color of blood.

  For the first time, the Spectre felt fear.

  The immortal words of Dorothy Gale came to mind as I looked around me, not actually expecting to find myself in Kansas, but definitely somewhere on Earth. Instead, I was running— alas, not singing and dancing—into the world of the dead. In toto, too.

  The Spectre was waiting for me, six hundred feet tall with a look that said, "You killed my sister, you little bitch, and now you're going to die." Eighty

  In Cool Hand Luke, one of my favorite movies, Strother Martin said,

  "What we've got here is failure to communicate." I'm not sure failure would have been the right word to describe me trying to explain to the Monitor's heroes what was going on— inability might have come closer. But I had neither failure nor the inability to have a one-on-one with the Spectre. He was dead. I was deadish. Close enough. I would explain things to him and then, in a Patrick Swayze-Whoopi Goldberg game of telephone, he could translate that to the others all the while keeping me out of it. After Supergirl's death, I didn't want to burden them with my— am I dead or just mostly dead—problems. There were much bigger concerns to worry about now.

  "There are two moments in time that must be guarded," explained the Spectre. "We need to divide our forces between them." Wonder Woman interrupted. "If the Anti-Monitor's at the dawn of time, we should focus all our power there."

  "No, Wonder Woman, you're wrong," exclaimed Superman-1.1 was as surprised as everyone else by his uncharacteristic bluntness.

  "Kara destroyed the Anti-Monitor's ability to quickly merge the universes. We know his shadow-demons disappeared along with his antimatter wave. He's desperate and willing to do anything. We can't afford failure."

  He turned to Harbinger and Superman's voice softened. "You said the multiverse was created on Oa when Krona opened the portal to the dawn of time."

  Harbinger nodded. "When he saw the hand of God." 268

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  Superman-1 turned back to the others. "That's the other nexus point in this crisis. One force needs to go after the Anti-Monitor while the other stops Krona."

  While Superman-1 and the Spectre explained the plan, I watched Superman-2 standing alone to the side. I recognized his look. It was the same as the one I'd seen on myself when I realized I might never see Iris again.

  Captain Marvel coughed, bringing attention to himself. He gave a sheepish smile then addressed the others. "The Anti-Monitor's still our main target, right? So only the strongest heroes should go after him." He looked at the Spectre. "That means you, doesn't it?"

  "No," said the Spectre. "I am needed on Oa. I will meet your warriors there."

  "But we need..." Marvel reached to grab him, but the Spectre disappeared.

  "Guess he doesn't like anyone arguing with him, huh?"

  "Okay, this was your idea, Supes," Firestorm said. "So what do we do now?"

  "We divide our forces and we go."

  "That simple, huh?"

  Superman-2 smiled. "Wouldn't that be nice for a change?" Eighty-one

  When I reappeared at the dawn of time, I was a ghost again, standing on that spit of land floating above the black hole and its event horizon. About three hundred yards away I saw the Anti-Monitor talking to my
other self. That Flash then disappeared and I realized he was traveling back to the future where I'd just been. He was also the reason I was a ghost again. Physics wouldn't allow both my physical selves to be in the place at the same time. If he was corporeal, then I couldn't be.

  I knew in ten second, he would be in the land of the dead. In less than ten minutes, we would be in the Monitor's limboverse, convincing the others to join me here, this time seconds after my other self disappeared into the future. It wouldn't be a good idea for them to see me. The paradoxes of time was the stuff of headaches and nightmares. On cue, the others appeared behind me. The two Supermans, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Lady Quark, and Captain Atom, the most powerful of them, would lead the attack from the front. Hourman, Uncle Sam, J'onn J'onzz, Power Girl, Broot, Element Lad, and the rest of them moved into flank and rear positions to his prevent escape.

  "I've been waiting for you," the Anti-Monitor said. "I was certain the Flash would not disappoint me."

  He was waiting for them? I suddenly realized what I had done.

  "Attack!" Superman-1 hurtled at the Anti-Monitor. The others followed closely behind.

  I shouted at them. "Go back. Get out of here." 270

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  Of course they couldn't hear me.

  Superman-1 bore down on the Anti-Monitor, jackhammering his fists into him. "What did you do to the Flash? Where is he?" With each rapid-fire punch I saw Superman weaken. Then, with an excruciating groan, he collapsed, moaning in pain.

  One by one the others fell, too. Touching the Anti-Monitor instantly drained them of their powers.

  The Anti-Monitor stared at my friends, all but unconscious. "Your unceasing attacks weakened me," he said. "I did not have the power to again breach the walls of creation. But now, because you unwittingly journeyed here with the ludicrous idea that you could to stop me, your dying energies will feed mine. Do you understand what you have done? Your power will make it possible for me to destroy the multiverse forever." Without raising a fist to strike back, the Anti-Monitor defeated the most powerful heroes in the universe.

  And they had me to thank for that.

  I had led my friends into a trap.

  The Spectre

  Once they arrived on the planet Oa, the Spectre divided his warriors into two factions: one would provide protection while the other assisted him in stopping Krona.

  The lead team consisted of the villains headed by Lex Luthor, Superman1 's archenemy. At any other moment in time Luthor would have led them against the heroes, but universal genocide, he begrudging admitted, made for very willing if not strange bed-fellows.

  Besides, Luthor reasoned, once the universe was safe, he would have a powerful army at his disposal. All the better to negotiate settlements with.

  "The Oans will attempt to stop us," the Spectre explained. "You will prevent that, but you must not harm them."

  Luthor nodded in agreement. "No problem. We'll treat them with kid gloves." Like hell we will.

  The Spectre knew the Oans would be waiting. He had already tried to reason with them, but, with their typical condescending attitudes, they rejected his warnings.

  "We can protect ourselves," they told him. "And we do not allow outsiders on our world. Please leave now."

  The Spectre frowned and tried again. "You have to understand the threat the universe faces."

  Garas of the Oan High Council smiled contemptuously. "Your presence is unnecessary. There is no force in the universe we cannot deal with." The Spectre shook his head in disbelief. "You're prideful to the point of self-destruction."

  "Go now, ghost, and do not return," Garas said, dismissing him. "But should you try, be aware we possess great power." 272

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  History warned the Spectre the Oans would refuse his help. They would ineffectually beg Krona to stop his experiments and he would, nonetheless, proceed defiantly. But, the Spectre realized, the Oans' shame would shatter their arrogance. Their terrible mistake would eventually lead them to create the Green Lantern Corps.

  The Spectre also knew Luthor and his team would ignore his warnings, too, and try to kill the Oans. Let them try. The Oans were all but immortal and no force of villains from Earth could do anything more than hold them at bay.

  But that was all the Spectre needed them to do.

  Krona stared at the swirling forces forming in front of them. "Look at this," he exclaimed to the other Oans. They continued to plead with him to stop his unauthorized experiment, and he continued to ignore them. "This is the dawn of time. This is the moment of creation." Toran tried to reason with him again. "Krona, please. You know when Afrahemm reached into that unknown, the Shibborith galaxy, with more than one million worlds, vanished. Now you want to open the door wider?" Krona ignored him and pushed him back. "You always were the timid one, Toran. Knowledge should never be forbidden." The mists parted and a hand began to form and reach up through the churning energies. "It's not possible. A hand? But whose?" Was this, Krona wondered, the hand of God himself?

  Even as he backed away in fear, Toran stared at the growing hand. "There are stars clustered in its palm. Was this how the universe was born?" The other Oans tried to disrupt the image. "Shut it down now, Krona. Before..."

  But it was already too late.

  Eighty-two

  Iwatched as the Anti-Monitor stood before the black hole and pushed his hand, now burning with fire, through it.

  It was his hand, not God's, that Krona saw on the planet Oa and that Pariah had watched destroy his world.

  In another moment, he would release the antimatter star cluster. It would insinuate itself throughout all existence. It would abort the birth of the multiverse.

  In that single terrible instant, the Anti-Monitor would destroy all creation.

  "Don't do this." I saw Pariah run to the Anti-Monitor. He screamed and wailed as he hammered his fist into the villain's armor.

  "This is all my fault," he shouted. "My experiment destroyed the universe once. I won't let you do it again."

  The Anti-Monitor glowered at him. "Are you such a fool that you believe a meager scientific investigation could unleash such cataclysmic forces?"

  "What do you mean?" Pariah was shaking with alarm.

  "You merely had the misfortune to open the portal in time to watch me unravel the fabric of creation. I created the multiverse to give birth to my antimatter universe. Had my brother not forced us both into that long sleep, I would have then destroyed all the weakened universes." Pariah was shaken. "Then I didn't kill my people? The universes didn't die because of me?"

  Lady Quark stared at Pariah. "You didn't murder my family?"

  "But why can't I die?" Pariah shouted. "Why am I brought from universe to universe to watch its destruction?"

  The Anti-Monitor laughed as he pushed his hand deeper into the black hole.

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  I saw his fingers begin to open and release the star cluster. He stopped suddenly. He forced his hand, trying to push it deeper into the churning maw, but instead he was being pushed back. "What is this?" he shouted, confused.

  I already knew the answer.

  A second hand, white skinned and sinewy, had grabbed the first. The Spectre had reached Oa.

  "Now. Do it now," the Spectre screamed as he strained to push the AntiMonitor's hand back through the mists. The Spectre's second team brought together Dr. Fate, Zatana, Sargon, and more than a dozen other mages and sorcerers. Their powers would join his, increasing his own already formidable abilities. The sorcerers, hands clasped together, formed a circle around him. They began to recite their mystic chants.

  The Anti-Monitor fought back. "Krona, open the damnable portal," he shouted. "Do it now, you fool."

  The Spectre and the Anti-Monitor struggled back and forth. I was watching a galactic arm wrestling match and the fate of all existence was the prize.

  The Anti-Monitor knew all he needed was to open his fingers and free his antimat
ter star cluster. Whether he did it high above the black hole or just inside it didn't matter. Once released the cluster would instantly destroy all life.

  The Spectre felt his arm pushed back up through the hole. "I am not strong enough. I need more power," he screamed. "I need more strength." But the sorcerers had no more to give.

  That was when I realized how much of a fool I really was. I wasn't alive and I wasn't matter.

  I was pure energy.

  Eighty-three

  Iran past the Anti-Monitor and through the black hole to Oa. On the other side the Spectre strained to push the Anti-Monitor's hand back through the swirling mists. I could see he was beginning to weaken. The sorcerers encircled him. I recognized only a few of them, but if any of us survived I'd worry about learning their names later. I knew I was ethereal. That had been sadly proven to me time and again, but at this moment, not existing as a living human being was a good thing. The sorcerers were locked in a circle, hands clasped together. An unbroken circuit.

  I breathed in deeply and then ran through them, one after the other, continuing the loop. If they felt anything as I passed between their atoms, it could only have been a momentary shudder of power.

  I was an energy transmitter, and each time I completed the circle I gave a fraction of my energy to them. I ran faster, picking up speed with each revolution.

  My legs quickly weakened and my insides burned, but I couldn't stop now. Too many others had already sacrificed their lives for me to give up and say, "Well, I tried. Sorry."

  I ran. I had to keep supplying them with energy so they could pass it on to the Spectre.

  I thought of Iris. Not because my mind was wandering, but because she gave me my strength. She was my goal, my inspiration to not surrender to the multiplying pain.

  The Spectre's back muscles bunched and tightened. With increasing strength, he thrust his hand into the black hole with even more force. Despite my mistakes, despite nearly leading the others to their deaths and the universes to their destruction, we were succeeding. 276

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  I ran, faster and faster.

  How could I have been such an idiot? The Anti-Monitor had set me up perfectly. He led me to bring the heroes to him and, like a fool, I did exactly what he wanted.