Crisis on Infinite Earths

by Marv Wolfman

  Harbinger hit a button on the keyboard to her side and suddenly the names of the people and places I was watching scrolled across the bottom of the screens. At least I'd now know what and who I was looking at. I could only make out fragmented moments, but I was certain I saw Noah's ark riding the floodwater currents as well as the Biblical Abraham listening to instructions from afar. Was he actually speaking with God? I saw Moses lead his people through the desert and Jesus speak to his as he walked a village street.

  A hundred different scenes flashed every nanosecond. It was difficult even for me to follow them all.

  The Earths, both of them, had changed. Their universes were slowly merging, and where they intersected it was not only a geological overlapping but a temporal one, too.

  Earths 1 and 2, because their vibrational frequencies were the closest, had the most connectives. But I saw that sections of other worlds in both their universes, also overlapped. Time was now as fluid and interchangeable as space.

  This is what I saw:

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  I was looking at a fragment of 15th century Venice's Grand Canal. Balanced on a Venetian gondola, Batman and Robin fought the Turkish Army through what had once been the Batcave beneath Bruce Wayne's ancestral home. The Turks, soon to invade Cypress, were assisted by the army of Kanjar Ro, a power mad dictator from the planet Dhor. To the south of Lima, Peru, Pope Urban II's Crusaders marched lancein-hand through Gardenus, a 37th century city that was originally on the planet Thanagar. Hawkman and Hawkwoman of the Thanagarian police, led a winged force to stop the Crusaders' advance.

  On the screen directly above me I saw Superman-1 in Mexico City leading an army of villains including Sinestro, Solomon Grundy, Eclipso, Black Adam, and Chemo between the twin Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon. Nearly two dozen dinosaurs, disoriented by their journey, angrily swarmed the Street of the Dead.

  Supergirl, the Martian Manhunter, Blue Beetle, Dr. Fate, and the Black Canary found themselves in Kulus, a city originally on the planet Tamaran that was now on the outskirts of Earth-2's Keystone City, circa 1861. Above Kulus, a fleet of Khundia warships crowded its unpolluted sky along with a hot air balloon from Earth-l's Civil War and a solar-powered cargo cruiser from 37th century Daxam.

  The Khund, certain their sudden arrival on this planet was an act of war, opened fire on the Kulus capital, forcing Supergirl and the others into action. Before I could see what happened, the view screen shifted to another scene.

  On Rann, third planet from the star sun Alpha Centauri, Adam Strange, his wife Alanna and Jay Garrick, Flash-2, my mentor and inspiration, raced alongside seven armored knights, not from the past as one would expect, but from Earth's future. The knights, astride eight foot mutated Dalmatians, followed them into Ranagar, Rann's capital city. The limits of the view screens didn't let me see what they were running toward. I saw a section of a 17th century Earth-2 aborigine village suddenly appear on the planet Tamaran where the vanished city of Kulus used to be. The aborigines huddled in fear staring into the sky as the freedom fighters known as the Omega Men used their alien powers to save a Korean War fighter jet before it could crash.

  Events such as these were happening throughout both universes. Fragments of time and space intermingled and created jumbles of previously accepted realities.

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  Not all the screens showed moments of violence. Some nearly broke my heart:

  Robotman saw Larry Traynor and Rita Farr, his teammates from the Doom Patrol, picnicking along with their Chief, Niles Caulder. He joined them, laughing as they talked about their next mission and the Maui vacation they planned to take later that year.

  Although he could not say anything to his friends, Robotman had not seen them for nearly seven years. The others had died during the mission just after the one they were planning. They had sacrificed their lives then so a handful of strangers could live. Hiding his tears, Robotman raised a glass to toast his friends, savoring the little time together they would have. I looked to find Iris somewhere on one of those screens, though I knew she would not be shown to me.

  I saw children reunited with long-dead parents, and figures from the past huddled with awestruck historians. How many questions would be answered now? How many broken hearts mended?

  Alexander Luthor Earth—3

  Alex worked alone, typing at the keyboard in the cramped laboratory the Monitor raised him in.

  He entered the data knowing he'd been lying to Harbinger. He cursed himself, but the Monitor's orders were specific: Lyla would do anything to stop Alex if she learned his plan. At any rate, plan-B— he laughed as he said that aloud—would only be used if all else failed. He felt a breeze behind him even though that was impossible herein the sealed environment of the satellite. He looked around but nobody was there. Guilt. That's what it is. This is what I get for doing something I shouldn't be doing.

  Several dozen faces scrolled up the computer screen. He only required a few of them but he needed to choose carefully.

  Alex made his choices—so much for what Harbinger thought he was working on—then he returned to the virtual model he'd been constructing. His containment suit, preventing the positive matter side of him from touching his antimatter half was functioning perfectly. As expected, the Monitor had done his job right.

  The Monitor needed Alex because in all of history only his body had ever safely contained that impossible mix of those opposing forces. If the Monitor's machines failed, he would focus his combined power to open a tunnel between the final three universes. He would then draw them into him the way the Monitor had with Earth-1 and Earth-2. Alex knew he would die, but the five remaining universes would, at least temporarily, be safe. Harbinger, Pariah, and their ghostly visitor—although

  :he Monitor assured him he was there, Alex had yet to see him—would then have time to stop the Anti-Monitor and save the multiverse. 168

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  There were so many possibilities for failure, but if five universes could be saved, then his life, however short it may have been, would be worth sacrificing.

  Besides, although he looked to be twenty-five now, he had been born only two weeks ago.

  Alex laughed. He hadn't had time to become all that attached to life yet.

  Harbinger, watching the rows of view screens, looked around and wondered why Alex hadn't yet returned. It shouldn't be that difficult to check the Monitor's digital notes and select the heroes needed to save the final three Earths.

  She tapped her keyboard and located him. He was in the old laboratory, the one in which the Monitor raised him. Why was he there and not on the bridge?

  Harbinger closed her eyes and concentrated. A second form rose from her, not corporeal as the original; she had learned her lesson. This time her replicate would remain intangible. If she couldn't be touched, she couldn't be taken over.

  Her doppelganger lowered itself through the satellite floor and made its way invisibly to the old lab. She entered the room, breezing past Alex. He turned to her. Did he sense her presence? But his eyes swept past where she stood then returned to his work.

  "Plan-B." He giggled as he said it. The doppelganger looked over Alex's shoulder and saw what he was working on.

  Worse, she understood what he was planning. Her other self had to know.

  She turned and floated upward. She passed through the ceiling and returned to her original body.

  Forty-five

  On the view screens I saw that the Earths were now one-third merged. Once their solid masses completely joined, their combined existences would shatter both worlds.

  I knew that same scenario would be duplicated with every world that had an other-dimensional double. The chain reaction of two universes merging would cause the immediate destruction of both.

  Harbinger shuddered—I thought I saw her body shimmer—then, looking even grimmer than before, she turned away from the view screens. What had happened?


  She paced the room then angrily slammed her fist into a wall. "Damn you, Alex," she said before taking her seat again. She hit the keyboard, with a vengeance this time. What happened?

  "You don't know what you're doing. This isn't your decision to make." I had no idea what she was entering on the keyboarding. She clicked on a toggle and the view screen images changed from panoramic snapshots to close ups of the Monitor's warriors. They stared at us; the transmission obviously went both ways.

  "Do you understand what's going on now?" Harbinger asked. She didn't wait for an answer. "So what have you decided?" The voices came from all the screens at once. There was no dissension, not even, as expected, from the villains. The answer—and I think it startled even some of them—was an overwhelming yes.

  They not only understood the crisis, they were all anxious to help stop it.

  This was, I realized, a moment of history perhaps greater than any I'd witnessed to this point. Heroes and villains, from the past, present and 170

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  future, many of them enemies, vowed to join together as the most powerful force the universe had ever known.

  Alexander Luthor re-entered the room. She glared at him. "Do you have the list?" her voice was cold and snappish.

  He nodded. "Give it to me," she said.

  I began to wonder if she'd been possessed again.

  A dozen or so heroes and villains—from now on I think I should call them all heroes; anyone putting their lives on the line to save the universe deserved that—suddenly appeared in the room.

  Why did she bring only a handful on board? What was she planning for the others?

  Harbinger turned back to the view screens as the heroes waited to hear what they were supposed to do next.

  "The antimatter cloud is moving toward the final three universes," she began. "The crux points of the attacks are, as they were before, the now finite Earths. Before we can save your worlds, we need to save theirs." Starfire interrupted. "Wait. I don't like this. I'm not a scientist, but I think this is wrong. Our worlds are still in danger. What I saw on Earth was horrible. We should help our own planets first." Starfire stood over six foot one and had wide green eyes and flawless golden skin. To say she was gorgeous would be a terrible understatement. Starfire, her real name was Koriand'r, somehow exuded both a raw sexuality and a sweet innocence at the same time. There was absolutely no pretense to her and because she actually seemed to care about you, you unbelievably forgot what she looked like and quickly wanted to become her friend. Iris, who had interviewed with disdain nearly all of the world's most highly paid super-models, took to her instantly.

  And even more amazingly, you wanted to be her protector. Not that she needed protection.

  Starfire was a member of an alien race of warriors. I'd seen her in action and wasn't sure that even Wonder Woman could take her in a fair fight. Pretty and powerful, a deadly combination.

  Nightwing, the leader of the Titans, was on one of the view screens and I noticed her face brighten when she spotted him. Wally told me she'd been in love with him from the day she first fell to Earth. But the idiot—Wally called him that, not me—rarely responded in kind.

  "I'm not leaving Earth to go elsewhere," she said. Her eyes never left Nightwing. "We're needed here."

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  Before he moved out on his own and changed both his uniform and hero name, Nightwing had been Robin, the Batman's first kid partner. With Batman as his surrogate father it was amazing he had any emotions left at all.

  Then I thought about how long it took for Iris and me to get together. If Starfire and Nightwing were meant to be it would eventually happen. Harbinger glared at her. "Why are you arguing with me? I know what I'm..." she stopped in mid-sentence, rethinking. I saw her eyes imperceptibly dart to Alex, then turn back to Starfire. Her face softened as she continued.

  "We need the energies of all five universes. Without it we won't have the power to resist."

  Starfire was about to reply when she stumbled back, out of control. Her hand grabbed the wall for support. A second later, Harbinger was on the floor. Alexander Luthor was struggling back to his feet. I hadn't felt the vibrations pulsing through the Monitor's satellite or the sudden jolt that had sent everyone sprawling.

  But I certainly saw Pariah react.

  "The evil has found us," he shouted. "Is another universe about to be destroyed?" His eyes unfocused as if he was looking at sights and horrors that were not in front of him. What happened to him? What was he seeing? It took less than a second for his trance to fade, but it seemed to me, who was watching every nanosecond of whatever had possessed him, to take nearly forever.

  "We must leave this place now."

  I saw the walls begin to wobble and break apart. The vibrations must have been terrible. Harbinger was thrown again, unable to stop herself from sliding across the room.

  The steel walls peeled away in front of me, exposing the limbo whiteness beyond. A dark blue flame surrounded us. I held my breath, expecting the vacuum to kill me, but I realized almost instantly how foolish that was. Pariah looked afraid. "The Anti-Monitor. He's found us. He's attacking."

  Alexander grabbed Harbinger. "We've got to go now." Harbinger pulled free and lunged for the keyboard, which had fallen to the floor.

  "Not yet," she said. "I can't. Not now." Pariah fell and Alex reached to take his hand. The vibrations jostled them again, pushing them apart. Pariah stretched. Their fingers finally meeting, they grabbed onto each other like the jaws of a trap. 172

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  Alex pulled Pariah closer then grabbed his wrist. All Alex had to do now was brace himself and pull.

  The satellite was hit again with another powerful blast. Walls disintegrated. The floor began to evaporate.

  Alex wedged his feet under one of the fallen computer terminals and pulled hard. Pariah's weight resisted him, but Alex would not give up. As soon as he could, he grabbed Pariah's wrist with both hands and pulled again.

  Suddenly, all the weight anchoring him disappeared. Alex fell back, tumbling to the floor. He looked around, trying to figure out what had happened.

  The answer, unfortunately, was too simple.

  Pariah had disappeared.

  Another universe was about to die.

  Forty-six

  As the satellite crumbled around us, Alexander Luthor struggled across the room. Another blast shook the satellite, destroying decks five through eight. Alex forced himself into the computer chair bolted to the work station, now lying angled on its side.

  "I have no choice," he said as he entered data faster than any eye but mine could follow.

  Harbinger saw what Alex was doing. "Alex, no. Don V She flew across the room as the satellite shook again. Debris dropped from the ceiling. I was sure she was being controlled. I ran—the debris fell through me—

  and when I reached her, intending to push her away from Alex, I was unable to stop and instead sped through her as if she wasn't there.

  "Alex, I already have the Monitor's death on my conscience," she screamed as she pulled him from the computers. "I killed the man I loved. I'm not going to let you die, too."

  Alex wrestled with her, trying to break free of her tight grip. "Lyla, for God's sake. Leave me alone. I'm the only chance we have. I just have one last computation."

  Harbinger slapped his hand off hers. "And it will be entered, Alex. But not by you."

  She yanked him easily from the chair and skittered him across the room like a small stone over a lake. "I'm sorry." She was in tears as she entered the final numbers. "Your destiny lies elsewhere." I heard a deep hum rumble through the satellite and saw Harbinger begin to sparkle as if every atom in her body had ignited. All of this happened in seconds.

  She turned to the heroes and smiled at them. "Go to the final three Earths. You will know what you have to do."

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  Without a flash of light
or even a sound, they all disappeared. She raised her hand, transparent and glowing and no longer solid. "Alex, if I survive, if any of us do, I'll explain it all to you." She lowered her hand and then Luthor was gone, too.

  I heard a crash behind me and saw the satellite walls and floors were almost completely dissolved. Cold blue flames danced across the decaying metal that remained, consuming it as if it was some Thanksgiving feast. I turned to see Harbinger disappearing into a cone of swirling red energy, not dissolving as the walls had, but becoming, in a sense, part of it. She was changing form from matter to energy.

  Harbinger disappeared but I could hear her voice somewhere in the back of my head.

  She wasn't just talking, she was talking directly to me.

  "Your love is alive, Barry Allen. She awaits you at the end of time." Iris?

  I ran for the whirling red glow even as it vanished. "Harbinger?" I shouted her name over and over again, refusing to accept its silence.

  "Iris is alive? How do I find her? How do I get to her? Harbinger? Please. Answer me!"

  But the red light was gone.

  I found myself alone in that stark white limbo staring at the Monitor's satellite, the blue flame consuming its final remains. Chompchompchompchompchomp. Pacman wins by default. De fault of all us heroes who couldn't stop him.

  The Monitor's satellite was now gone.

  And for the first time, I actually panicked.

  Forty-seven

  I tried but I couldn't get back to the speed force and I certainly didn't intend to stay here in this vast, empty nothingness. I floated through the white for—I don't know how long. I wasn't sure how time was measured here, or even if it was. And if there was no time here, did that mean I would live forever?

  I waved a pretend cigar in front of me like Groucho. "If you can call this living!" Badoom! Rimshot. I bowed to the applause of, well, nobody. God, as a kid I loved the Marx Brothers. I loved all their movies. I thought of my parents. Would I be joining them soon? It had been so long since I saw them both and I missed them terribly. I thought about the lightning and the chemical bath that had turned me into the Flash. I thought about Wally and how the lightning had, literally and impossibly, struck twice.