Crisis on Infinite Earths

by Marv Wolfman

  No answer. "C'mon, don't be shy. Can't we have another conversation? Anything new going on? See any good movies?"

  Nothing. I felt ignored.

  "Take me to the damn satellite," I shouted. Who I was shouting to is anyone's guess, but I thought yelling would make me feel good. Surprise!

  Surprise! It actually did.

  I felt even better an instant later.

  That was when the worm-hole opened.

  Batgirl Earth—1

  Kara, is it wrong to admit I'm afraid?"

  Batgirl perched on the gargoyle of a high tower just north by two blocks of Gotham City Hall. In her hand was a pair of binoculars which she was using to scan the city.

  The people on the streets below had, understandably, panicked. They were running in all directions, pushing their way past others in a vain attempt to get out of Gotham. "Where are they going?" Batgirl asked. "There's no place to hide."

  The universe was in crisis. Running off to the suburbs wasn't going to save them.

  Kara floated above her. She'd just arrived from Metropolis. "I'm pretty scared, too, Barbara," she said. "Nobody has any idea what's going on. Not even Clark."

  Batgirl called Kara because she needed someone to talk to, and Supergirl was the first who came to mind. Barbara's father was Gotham police Commissioner James Gordon. A better man you'd never find, but he was focused and dedicated to his work and rarely found the time to comfort his family.

  "I think the end's really coming this time," Barbara moaned. Supergirl gave a grim laugh. "Well, those guys with the placards on the corner had to be right eventually. But don't give up on us yet." Barbara knew Kara wouldn't surrender even as she spent her final breath.

  "Is there anything we can do? You're the one with powers, and you look..."

  "Helpless?"

  "Yeah. Sort of. I mean, if you're helpless, then what can I do?" 108

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  "We'll figure it out. I trust the Justice League." Barbara wasn't certain. "I can't give up the idea that there's something out there that can stop whatever is happening, but I don't know if we'll find it in time."

  Supergirl understood. "Being afraid's okay. You know, I spoke to Clark. First time I think I ever saw him nervous. Same with the Titans and even Green Lantern. GL says he thinks Flash may already be dead."

  "Oh, God." Batgirl's face drained white. "Not him. I...."

  "Yeah, I really liked him, too."

  They stared at the city. Sixth Avenue stretched far into the distance below them. Soon the streets would be empty. The people would have either fled Gotham or would be hunkered together at home, loved ones facing Armageddon together.

  Supergirl broke the unbearable silence. "I've heard that some of our enemies are gone, too. Never liked them, but I never wanted them dead." Barbara laughed. "That's only because you're better than them."

  "Maybe," Supergirl said. "You know, I'm really worried. But I'm not letting that stop me. You might not believe it right now, but I know you think the same way."

  Barbara stared at the emptying streets. "Right now I'm not sure I was ever really cut out to play hero. It just sort of happened to me." Supergirl scanned the city with her telescopic vision. "You know what I'm seeing now? Firemen, policemen. Soldiers. Even some civilians. They're helping each other when they could be running away, too. Nobody sets out to be a hero, Barbara. Sometimes, yeah, it just happens." Supergirl's vision was fixed somewhere in the distance. "My God." She turned to Batgirl. "There's a light plane over Danbury. The antimatter wall... I can't stay."

  A streak of red and blue suddenly cometed across the sky. Barbara watched until she disappeared. She put down her binoculars and leaned back into the tower. Supergirl doesn't rest. She keeps trying. She keeps pushing. She's a real hero.

  "My God. What have I become?"

  From somewhere below she heard the squeal of wheels followed by a sickening crunch of metal. Even before she heard the cry for help she was already on her way.

  Thirty

  When my vision cleared, I was back in the Monitor's telecommunications chambers. He stared at his view screens, studying the images transmitted from an ungodly number of

  •vorlds. They rushed past him at speeds impossible for any ordinary person

  :o follow.

  How many Earths was he watching at once? How was he getting signals from what seemed to be more than a thousand different eras? On one screen I saw Wonder Girl from the Teen Titans on an apartment building roof tightly gripping her golden lasso which hung taut to the ground. People were beginning to shimmy down it to the ground. "Take it easy," she cautioned its frightened residents. "Slide down. I promise I won't let you fall." Below them, Gar Logan, the shape-changer Changeling, turned himself into an octopus and was catching the people as they slid past. I saw Wonder Girl's arms straining and her knees beginning to buckle, out she held firm.

  So many images. So many battles.

  On another screen Firestorm, Killer Frost, and the Shining Knight fought shadow demons over medieval England. They were outnumbered, but they weren't giving up.

  Wonder Woman was on Paradise Island desperately trying to raise an army of Amazon warriors.

  Along the coast of ancient Newfoundland I watched a tall, proud Viking Warrior lead his men into battle against the shadows. Somehow they drove

  :hem away through sheer will alone. When the fight was over, he placed his dead on makeshift wooden barges and set them adrift in flame, a warriors'

  funeral.

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  On the planet Rann, a battalion of soldiers joined Adam Strange and his wife, Alanna. They were defending their world from still another shadow attack.

  As unbelievable as it may have been, more than a thousand such scenes, from across the width and breadth of the multiverse, were seemingly playing out at once.

  It is simple and perhaps convenient to think of war taking place as a single, linear progression—soldiers start at point A and fight their way to point B. It was the way war had always been fought. But this was taking place in all times and on all fronts, orchestrated in ways unimaginable to me. The enemy thought and planned not in three dimensions but in a million and more. Every attack in every place in every time focused on a single unaltered objective: ultimate destruction. I feared we could stop a hundred or a thousand or even ten thousand shadows but we couldn't stop them all. The enemy appeared to have an endless supply of warriors.

  Where was he getting them all from?

  I felt humbled and weak. The enemy was omnipresent and seemingly unstoppable. But I kept thinking civilization wasn't born to die this way. And, perhaps there was something else.

  I needed to believe there was a reason that on my death I had not simply ceased to be.

  No matter what it took, I was going to find out why I was still here.

  "They're fighting valiantly," the Monitor suddenly said. "But I'm afraid it won't matter." Was he talking to me?

  On another screen the boy Kamandi was climbing a great golden tower. It was one of the Monitor's machines, and as out of place in that barren wasteland as a whale beached in the Sahara.

  His fingers clawed at the protrusions, the intricate computer circuitry that covered every inch of the device like insane three-dimensional tattoos. He used them as pitons to pull himself higher.

  Kamandi paused halfway up and gulped in fresh air. I had a feeling he'd never been this high off the ground before. The look on his face mirrored the ecstatic abandon in his heart as he stared at the horizon so far away. I'm sure he was thinking, "So this is what my world looks like." I doubt he saw it as I did, empty and frightening in all its stark implications. He Crisis on Infinite Earths

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  probably didn't wonder how it got that way, either. We take so much for granted, even destruction and decay.

  I watched him continue his climb, wondering aloud when the tower first appeared. "I've ridden over this area a dozen times," he said to a
passing hawk. "But this was never here before." The hawk circled the tower in mocking silence.

  He wasn't giving up. "Hey. You know what this thing does?" The hawk circled him three more times then flew off, still refusing to answer. Kamandi didn't seem bothered. "Yeah, I don't know either. Maybe it's the old world's science." He laughed as the hawk disappeared behind a hill. "Okay. Don't talk to me, then. Bye."

  Why was I riveted to this screen? I didn't know him or his world. Why didn't I turn slightly to the right and watch Cyborg and Starfire fight the shadows in the middle of New York, or look instead at that scene in the future where the Legion of Super-Heroes of the Thirtieth century desperately tried to stop a mastodon stampede?

  Maybe it had to do with the machine. Where were the heroes the Monitor sent to protect it? Where were the shadow demons who he said were intent on destroying it?

  Kamandi continued up the tower. At worst from the top he'd see even more of his world. At best, well, I don't think he actually knew what the best would be. But this climb, no matter what was waiting for him, was probably a welcome diversion.

  His world was savage but even the threat of constant danger could, Through repetition, become mundane. Kamandi generally knew what to expect and from where the trouble would come. This tower, however, was anything but the norm.

  "Who put this thing here?" he asked. "I'm pretty sure it's not from this world. Maybe not even from the past."

  Very astute, Kamandi.

  He could make out its top not ten feet above him. The hawk was slowly circling back. "Hi, again. Hey, tell me if there's anything good up there? I mean, if there's not, why bother going all the way? Oh yeah, you see any food?"

  The bird ignored him and flew off again. Kamandi pulled himself to the tower's peak. "Fine. Get lost. Don't come back. Actually, I haven't been finding a lot of food anywhere around here lately. Stupid bird probably got to it first. Maybe it's time to move on."

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  I started to turn to another screen when I heard him shout. A shadow demon lunged from around the machine and Kamandi, startled, pulled back, letting go of his purchase.

  He fell as the shadow demon streaked past.

  More shadows emerged from behind the machine. The enemy was in motion and standing worlds and time periods away, I let out a curse because there was nothing I could do to help.

  Thirty-one

  I pushed closer to the view screen as the boy fell, but then, suddenly, a hand reached into the view screen's frame and grabbed his wrist. It was Superman-2.

  "Hang on, lad. I've got you."

  Kamandi stared at him. "Superman?"

  Superman-2 was startled. "How do you know me...? Of course. You've met my Earth-1 counterpart."

  "—Your... what? I don't understand."

  Superman-2 laughed. "It's too confusing to explain. Maybe later. Let me put you down then rejoin the others."

  "What others?"

  Dawnstar winged into view alongside Superman. A moment later I saw Solovar enter the scene. Kamandi gaped at him as he scrambled back. "A gorilla? You're one of Czar Simian's killers."

  'Czar Simian?' Exactly what kind of world did he live in? Solovar shook his head. "No, boy. I'm not even from this time period. My name's Solovar."

  Kamandi reached a hand to Solovar's face. "You are different from the others."

  "Damn right I am, boy." Solovar twisted his face into a grin. It frightened Kamandi even more than Solovar's normal scowl.

  Superman-2 rushed the shadows and blasted them with both his X-Ray and heat visions. One of the shadows erupted in flame as the others abruptly turned and fled.

  "They're getting away," shouted Superman. Dawnstar was already chasing them. "No Problem. I can track them wherever they go."

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  Superman-2 rushed in front of her, blocking her flight. "No, don't. Let them go."

  "Are you crazy? We can stop them."

  Solovar interrupted. "We're here to protect the machine. They want us to leave it unguarded."

  Superman-2 leaned back and yawned. "The big attack hasn't come yet. Close your eyes, Dawnstar. Sleep if you can. When they come we'll need our strength."

  Dawnstar shook her head. "I wish I could be so calm."

  "I'm older than you, by a lot," Superman-2 laughed. "These old bones aren't what they used to be."

  She smiled as she sat next to him. Solovar squatted at their side and closed his eyes as he lay on his back, his hind feet curled upward, scratching his chest. "You know, Superman, I'm older than you and Dawnstar put together and you don't hear me complaining." He sighed. "Humans are so pitifully weak."

  Kamandi sat across from them, eyeing them carefully. "Will someone tell me what's going on?" he insisted.

  But they were already asleep.

  Thirty-two

  The Monitor's eyes brightened as he turned from the view screens.

  "He's coming. Maybe there is hope."

  He?

  The figure in green with the frightened eyes, the one I saw the first time I was in the speed force, suddenly appeared in front of us, looking dazed and confused. His eyes darted across the room, trying to acclimate himself to his new location.

  "Where am I?" He noticed the view screens circling the room. "This is a space ship, isn't it? Which Earths are those?" The Monitor rose to greet him. "Welcome, Pariah. I've been waiting for you."

  Pariah?

  "You know me? Who are you?"

  "You're on my satellite in a limbo dimension between universes. It was built prior to the day you were cursed."

  "How do you know—?"

  "Who you are? What happened to you? I've been monitoring you. Which is how I also know you're usually sent from world to world just before they're destroyed. I don't envy you watching all those worlds die."

  "One more time then." Pariah's fragile patience was fraying. "Who are you?"

  "My name... I actually was never given one, but Lyla calls me the Monitor. I think it has to do with my obsession for observing others. And I'm responsible for your continued survival."

  Pariah lunged and grabbed the Monitor. "You cursed me to watch all those people die?"

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  The Monitor shook off Pariah's grip. "That isn't what I said."

  "I should kill you...."

  "And you'd find that as frustrating as killing yourself has proven to be. I know how hard you've tried." The Monitor turned back to his view screens and gestured toward them. "Sit. Please," he said.

  "You know the multiverse is dying. You've seen first hand the horrors. But do you know how this came to be? Are you even aware of the enemy?" Pariah sat silent and angry, refusing to answer.

  "I'm not the one who cursed you. In your eyes, my sin, if I have one, was only in keeping you alive long enough to help counter his evil." I watched as Pariah stared at the Monitor's machines and at my friends who had been sent to guard them. For a moment he was startled as he recognized them, but then he realized he had only met their replicates, on Earths that had long ago ceased to exist.

  He turned away, certain these heroes would also die as soon as their universes were destroyed.

  "If you didn't do this, who did?"

  "He, too, has no name. Pariah, do you know how many universes remain?"

  "What does it matter? They're not going to survive."

  "Every life matters. That is why you still suffer every time you watch them die. Yes, I know that, too."

  "And that's why I know nothing you do will change anything." The Monitor turned back to the view screens. All but a very few turned black. "Only five universes remain." I saw the five Earths. The skies above them had all turned red.

  "And when they're gone, will my torture end, too? If so, I wish he'd hurry it up then."

  "I sincerely hope you don't believe that." Pariah smiled, but kept staring at the view screens.

  "You know the nexus of each attack is the p
lanet Earth. The red skies and the wall of antimatter starts there, then spread out from it and across that universe, erasing everything in it from existence." The Monitor gestured toward the screens and the multiple Earths were replaced with a single image.

  "The enemy has selected the next universes to die. Red skies have already blanketed those Earths. Antimatter will soon begin its death sweep." Pariah shrugged his shoulders. "Then there will be three. Then two. Then one. I've tried, God knows, but I can't stop it. Extinction is inevitable." Crisis on Infinite Earths

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  "No, it isn't. The Monitor turned and for the first time I saw fear in his eyes. "Listen to me quickly and don't interrupt. My time is almost over." His face had suddenly become gaunt and his eyes hollow and sad.

  "My machines...." He stopped. "No, I'm getting ahead of myself. The multiverse was originally one, but it was split asunder at the dawn of time. And the fabric of each universe in what had become a multiverse, was weaker than the whole it was meant to be."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Because the universes were weakened, his antimatter could destroy them. I've tried my best to stop him, but evil is unfettered and merciless. He is faster than I could ever be. He strikes without pattern. And, with each universe he destroys, I became weaker and less able to resist." Pariah urged him on. "What about your machines?"

  "There is no more time," the Monitor sighed. "Please, understand my fate was determined long ago. This is the only hope the multiverse has. Until all is made clear, please do not harm her."

  "Her? What are you talking about?"

  I heard a voice, low and distant. I had heard it before on the other satellite.

  The enemy!

  "All is not ready, but we must proceed. Do it now!"

  "I am here," a second voice answered. I recognized it, too. It was the voice of the angel of death.

  Thirty-three

  The woman standing in front of me was no longer Lyla. She was the Harbinger, and her hands glowed with the same golden fire I saw from the speed force. She was finally ready to kill.

  "Monitor," she said flatly.