Crisis on Infinite Earths

by Marv Wolfman

  I wanted so much to let him know that he shouldn't cry for me. Whatever was going to happen I knew I would be all right.

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  "He's here." Pariah called to them. "Hurry before it is too late." Wally folded the tattered remains of my costume and lay them carefully on a rock. As if it were a cushion, he put my ring atop it then turned solemnly to the others.

  "The Anti-Monitor's mine," he said. He was already inside the fortress before the others could take a step. Kid Flash Earth-1

  Wally, are you all right?" he heard Flash ask him. As his eyes focused he realized he was lying on his back on the police lab floor. He felt cold and wet. There was broken glass everywhere.

  "Barry? Was that lightning? All I remember is falling. What happened?"

  He started to get up. "Careful," Flash said as he swept away the jars and vials that shattered across the floor. "The lightning bolt hitting those chemicals is exactly what turned me into the Flash." Wally West was the president of the Blue Valley Flash fan club. Actually, he was its only member. On his summer vacation trip to Central City his Aunt Iris had brought him to meet her boyfriend, police forensics scientist Barry Allen and Barry promised to introduce him to the Flash. This was going to be his best vacation ever.

  Little did he know.

  He remembered Barry was pleasant enough. Most adults barely tolerated fifteen-year-old boys, but Barry seemed to genuinely care for him as he gave the nickel tour of Central City police headquarters and told him about the different criminals who once occupied every holding cell. Barry even took a Polaroid picture of him behind bars, rattling them as if he was demanding his freedom. I'm innocent, I tell you. It wasn't me who robbed that bank. Their final stop was Barry's lab.

  "You know the Flash sometimes works here," Barry said. "He has a private office. I bet he's in it right now."

  Wally couldn't believe his luck. The Flash was actually here? Just beyond that door? Of course he didn't realize he'd just spent the entire Crisis on Infinite Earths

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  morning walking alongside the Flash. He'd learn that Flash fact much later on.

  Wally remembered how nervous he was when he turned that doorknob and went inside. He felt a rush of air and then he saw the Flash standing in the corner, looking over some notes. The Flash waved him inside. Why didn't I look back to thank Barry? He wondered. Of course, since he was now costumed and standing in front of me, that would have blown everything.

  Iris's boyfriend, as nice as he was, didn't matter to him then. Wally was staring at his idol. The Flash, the fastest man alive, was just a handshake in front of him.

  "Hi, Wally," Flash said.

  Wally was too nervous to talk. Flash gestured for him to sit down and then proceeded to ask him a few questions. Do you have any hobbies? What's your favorite subject in school? What do you want to be when you grow up? With each tremulous answer, Wally's nervousness began to vanish.

  "So, how did you become so fast?" Wally finally found the courage to ask. He wrote down the Flash's every word as if he was a reporter like his Aunt Iris and he was writing a story for his fan club of one. Flash laughed. "It was pretty much a miracle. There was a bolt of lightning, and then..."

  The sound was like a cannon going off. Then there was silence and blackness.

  "Wally, are you all right?"

  The lightning struck him. Just as it hit the Flash. Standing in the entrance way to the Anti-Monitor's fortress, waiting for the other heroes to join him, Kid Flash glanced back toward Barry's torn costume, neatly folded on the rock, his ring glittering atop it. There was no body but there was also no doubt. Barry was dead. The best man he ever knew was gone.

  Wally tried not to think about his own father, Rudy West. It was better to think about the positive, to remember the man who built dreams instead of the one who tore them apart.

  Barry had quickly become more than just his mentor. Over the years, his very real friendship and patient counseling transformed him into Wally's surrogate father.

  When Wally got angry and sullen, which happened all too often as he matured into his late teens and began to understand the abuse that chipped 294

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  away at him daily, it was Barry's easy-going manner that always brought him out of his dark funk.

  "What we do is really amazing," Barry would tell him. "One second you're at home in Blue Valley and the next you could be sitting in some cafe in Casablanca."

  Barry would look him in the eye and smile encouragingly. "Troubles are transient."

  Wally shook his head. "Are you saying I should run away from them?" He remembered Barry's laugh. They were walking by the Thames in London and could have passed for any father and son. "Hardly. You have to solve your problems. Isn't that what we do when we're fighting the Trickster or Captain Boomerang?"

  "I don't understand," Wally remembered saying.

  "As bad as things seem when those crazies are tossing one bizarre weapon at us after another, we still fight them, don't we? And we beat them. What's going on at home isn't adamantine, Wally. If there's something wrong, it can be changed."

  "I don't know if I can."

  "You're Wally West," Barry said to him. "I've seen you do the impossible. And you're smarter and stronger than you realize you are."

  "Yeah, right," Wally laughed.

  Barry looked at him warmly. "I know you still think of yourself as the kid I met back in my lab, but you're not him anymore. That kid is gone." He remembered Barry stopped walking. Somewhere behind them Big Ben chimed three PM. "When I was your age I couldn't do a third of the things I've seen you accomplish. One of these days you're going to be the best of all of us."

  "Never better than you."

  "I am pretty good, aren't I?" He laughed. "But you know, maybe it only proves I'm an idiot, but I never give up. And I'm pretty sure you won't, either."

  Kid Flash gave the others a weak smile as they made their way to the entrance. "What took you so long?"

  Superman-1 nodded somberly and took the lead. "We can't all be Kid Flash. C'mon, let's do this."

  "That kid is gone."

  As they pushed toward the castle's center, Wally realized he could no longer see Barry's torn and tattered uniform.

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  The world doesn't need a Kid Flash, he suddenly understood. But it'll always need a Flash.

  "Rest well, Barry," he said softly to himself. "You will be remembered."

  Eighty-eight

  In the middle of a courtyard in the exact center of the fortress, that they found the Anti-Monitor waiting for them.

  "Welcome to my universe. Now prepare to..." The Anti-Monitor never got to finish.

  The two Supermans, Lady Quark, Captain Marvel, Captain Atom, and the others launched a simultaneous attack.

  At the same time, the Spectre led the mages and sorcerers toward the antimatter universe's sole black sun. Snuff out the source of the AntiMonitor's power and his strength would quickly fail. Alexander Luthor and Pariah, combining their dimension-spanning powers, led a third contingent of heroes to return the Earth to its newly reformed universe.

  I recognized Batman's hand in this three-pronged attack. He might not have had the powers to physically fight the Anti-Monitor, but he was one of the best strategists I'd ever known.

  Because we're often seen more as icons than as people, super heroes are usually lumped together as if we were one, cut from the same skin-tight latex cloth. Despite what others believe, as people, human and otherwise, we're as varied and different as everyone else.

  But our powers, however subtly different they might be, do fit into more definable categories.

  There is, most obviously, the strong guys. They specialize in the potentially dangerous close-range attacks. The Supermans, Captain Marvel and about a dozen others fit that loose description. They attacked physically, pummeling the Anti-Monitor with their fists, Crisis on Infinite
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  or as necessary, their whole body. Batman's plan was for them to strike hard, then quickly retreat to avoid the Anti-Monitor's counterattack. Seconds later they would launch a new strike, this time from a different angle, repeating their hit and run tactics.

  As usual, they fought with relentless ferocity. They were also dangerously shortening the already narrow gap between each assault. There were also the long-range blasters. Captain Atom, Firestorm, The Ray, Starfire, Lady Quark and most of the others fit into that category. As did the Supermans, when they used their heat vision instead of their fists. In some cases, the categories of powers overlapped. The blasters' powers, although similar, were not the same. Some were nuclear in origin, others solar, still others had a more naturally explosive touch.

  Firing at the Anti-Monitor from a distance was perhaps somewhat safer than a close-range fist fight, but their attacks had to be perfectly timed to strike exactly between each of the strong guy blows. A mistimed power blast could hit one of their allies instead.

  The mages and sorcerers were the most difficult to explain. I was a scientist and believed wholly in the consistent and logical laws of physics. The sorcerers' powers, however, came from some place beyond my understanding.

  Perhaps, if I had wanted to, I could have ascertained whether, instead of supernaturally creating some spell, they were actually drawing their socalled mystic energies from another dimension or place, tapping a source of power still unknown to me.

  I could accept changing matter into energy and that would allow me to scientifically explain away their seemingly unexplainable abilities. Everything in my ordered world would then remain neat and tidy. But, because I believed in faith, I allowed myself the notion that science might not explain everything. For someone who cherished the magic of my precious comic books and movies, where art and emotion often transcended logic, it was probably better that way.

  Some things need no definition.

  For once our timing couldn't have gone better. The mages surrounded the anti-matter sun with a globe of supernatural energy. As long as they could hold it in place, the sun's antimatter power could not penetrate their combined shields.

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  Meanwhile, the Anti-Monitor reeled from the combined assault of the strong guys and the power blasters. They attacked from all sides, seemingly at once, pushing him off balance. As soon as he reached to grab one of them, five others moved in for their attack.

  Each blast may have been little more than a gnat sting to him, but they kept coming, building with intensity. He railed against the power blasters, but they moved too quickly to be struck.

  He stumbled back, his body caving under the relentless attack. He frantically tried to draw more power from his sun, but it was now far beyond his reach.

  With a terrible scream, the Anti-Monitor burst into light then fell. I almost couldn't believe it, but it was over.

  Eighty-nine

  Ding dong, the witch is dead." Firestorm was singing as he danced around the Anti-Monitor's body. "Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch! Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is

  dead."

  Wonder Woman kneeled beside the Anti-Monitor. "Are we sure?" Superman-2 scanned him with his X-Ray vision. He then turned to Diana with a closed-lipped smile. "No heart beat."

  "Partayy! Partayy! Partayy!" Firestorm shouted as he continued his dance.

  Superman-1 shook his head. "We've suffered too many casualties. Celebrating is the last thing on my mind now." I saw Firestorm's face turn white as he stopped dancing. "I'm sorry, Superman. I wasn't thinking."

  Superman looked around. "Anyone know how Alex is doing?" We made our way off Qward and in its shadow saw Alex. His matter/ antimatter body was now immense, dwarfing the Earth which was very slowly moving through him.

  With Pariah's help, he was using his own body to create the portal back to our universe.

  "Hurry. Go through me now." His voice faltered as he struggled with each word. "I can't keep this open much longer. Go before you're trapped here forever."

  "You heard him," Superman-1 said to the others. "Go." The heroes followed the Earth into the portal. From a distance, they were a stream of gaudy colors disappearing inside it. I couldn't have been more proud of all of them.

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  "Faster," Alex shouted again. "It's closing." I saw the Supermans rushing back and forth, helping the slower heroes to the portal then flying back to find others.

  As always, they amazed me. I didn't know if I could ever be as selfless.

  A handful of heroes straggled behind the others. Wonder Woman looked back. "Are we sure we have everyone?"

  Superman-2's telescopic vision swept the area. "Far as I see. Guess that means it's time."

  "You humans are still here?"

  I knew that voice.

  Damn.

  Ninety

  The Anti-Monitor was standing behind us.

  His armor was gone and his chalk-white skin was mostly burned off him. The muscle beneath was blistered and still bubbling with fire. In places you could see jagged chunks of bone cutting through torn tissue.

  With every step the flames ate at him, but he still lumbered toward us.

  "I am not done."

  He no longer cared about some ultimate victory. All he wanted now was to kill us.

  Only the Supermans were here with me. I was, as usual, useless, but I knew they didn't have a fraction of the power to fight him on their own. Superman-1 lunged for him. "Attack!" he screamed.

  "No!" Superman-2 grabbed him. "Go to Earth. I can do this on my own"

  "You're insane. You can't." Superman-1 struggled to pull free, but his older doppelganger, despite having only half his power, held on firmly.

  "You can't fight him alone."

  "My Lois is gone. She was my life," he said. "And in this newborn universe, my Krypton never existed. Do you realize what that means, KalEl? If I hadn't gone back in time with you, I wouldn't exist either."

  "But...."

  "You have your life. I won't let you sacrifice it." Superman-1 resisted, but Superman-2 smiled at him. "Please kiss your Lois for me. And for your own sake, let her know how much she means to you."

  I don't know where he found his strength, but he took Superman-1 and threw him through Alex's portal.

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  I saw Superman-1 regain flight control and begin to soar back, but the portal closed before he could reach it.

  Superman-2 and I were now trapped in this universe together. The Anti-Monitor slowly made his way closer to us. His still-flaming body was now reduced to a fiery ball of energy.

  "You stayed behind, Kryptonian? Then you are the greatest fool I have ever known."

  Superman grinned in agreement. "Somebody had to take out the garbage. Guess I was elected."

  He flew at the Anti-Monitor, striking him hard then retreated. He was using Batman's hit and run tactic.

  The Anti-Monitor reeled with each blow, but he continued onward. What remained of his left hand reached out and a fiery blast of power crushed into Superman. He fell back and I saw he was bleeding all over. The Anti-Monitor screamed at him. "My strength regenerates. I will destroy you."

  Superman could barely move but I watched in astonishment as he slowly pulled himself up. "Destroy me? Hell, you've already destroyed too many precious lives," he said. "In this universe you had all the power you needed, but you killed because you wanted more. Because life has no meaning to you."

  His knees buckled for a moment but he forced himself to stand tall. Then, almost faster than I could follow, he launched himself at the AntiMonitor.

  "Well, guess what?" he shouted. "I've had enough." His hands tightly balled into fists, he rocketed at the Anti-Monitor. His eyes were narrow and determined. This was his final attack and he knew it had to work.

  The trouble was, I knew it couldn't. As strong as Superman was, he was not nearly s
trong enough.

  I knew something else, too.

  I had exactly one second to help him.

  Ninety-one

  Ihad to run faster than I had ever run before.

  In less than a tenth of a second I was in the speed force, moving too quickly to see the swirling colors I knew were all around. Too fast to be lulled into comfort, to want to forget my mission and stay here for the rest of eternity.

  God, I'd been running so fast and for so long I wished I could find my peace. Instead, I put on another burst of speed.

  Another tenth of a second. Another. Four tenths of a second had passed. I was falling behind schedule.

  In another tenth of a second, I was in the Spectre's afterworld. This was the land of the dead, and, as it existed out of time and space, it was not affected when the multiverse merged into one. I saw Green Arrow, Nighthawk, Lord Volt, and his daughter, Princess Fern. I also saw Kole, The Huntress, the Monitor, and the members of the Crime Syndicate. There were hundreds of them, heroes and villains from an infinity of destroyed universes.

  They all died in the Crisis and they were making their way through the mists of their world's shadowlands toward the light that promised them their final rest.

  They couldn't come back with me, I knew that. Because of my power only I'd been spared.

  But their powers. Boy, I could use their powers now. I ran to the front of the line. The light—or whatever it was—glowed just ahead of me. By putting on another burst of speed and running into it, I knew I could end it now. But I also knew there was no chance of that happening. I couldn't be that lucky.

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  Near the front of the line I saw an elderly woman talking to a much younger one. She was asking her endless questions. She didn't see me but I found myself smiling at her.

  I looked up, as if up is where God somehow resided. "Hope you don't mind, but that one over there, you're going to have to wait for her a few seconds more."

  I ran to the front, blocking their way into the light. "I need you," I said. I looked at the others in line. "This literally won't take a second, but I need all of you."