Crisis on Infinite Earths

by Marv Wolfman

  I would have bet the farm, the cows, and even Inga, the farmer's daughter, that the answer was no. But based on what I saw I would have lost it all. Sony, Bossie. Even sorrier, Inga. What I saw defied logic.

  I believed in God. Not as a being who took on the shape of man and walked, whenever he wished, among us. I thought of him as something spiritual, amorphous, maybe a hope or a dream, but not flesh and blood. God had to be made of sturdier stuff than that.

  In the blackness I saw a circle of even darker black. It appeared to be calm and unmoving although it was anything but.

  Scientists believed most galaxies contained a central black hole although no photographs had ever been taken of one. I imagined that was what I saw here, a black hole siphoning through it, like water down a drain, everything that fell within its event horizon.

  Everything, including time itself.

  An event horizon is that space beyond which the black hole's gravity had no effect but which, within it, one would be inexorably drawn to the hole's fatal singularity.

  Because time passed more slowly at the horizon than beyond it, I saw all time as one, the past, present and, I assumed, the future. They were, in no particular order, corkscrewing past me, like a falling film strip, each frame a different moment of time, disappearing forever into that dark singularity below.

  Improbably, the first thing I saw at the dawn of time, was a hand. A human-like hand with four fingers and a thumb.

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  It stretched up through the black hole, pushing past its event horizon. It reached into the blackness of pre-existence space.

  The hand was open and in its palm was a cluster of swirling stars, a living nebulae in miniature that began to grow and then suddenly explode. As I stared at this impossibility I had only one question: Was this the actual hand of God giving birth to all existence?

  Fifty-five

  Under the event horizon's curving arc I found myself walking on the temporal image of a planet far in advance of my own. I saw cities that seemed to grow out of the planet itself, and the blue-skinned people, tall and reed-thin, were human-like but not human. Compared with them our people were only now crawling out of the sea and forming independent thought.

  The images blurred past me. I watched them for a generation and learned their minds were capable of manipulating reality, bending it to their will. They continually reshaped their planet, which they called Oa, until they were satisfied they were living in paradise.

  Instants of time disappeared below me and I tried as best I could, to see everything. But not even my eyes were fast enough.

  Who knows how many months or years or centuries I lost? I watched one of the Oans, a scientist called Krona. He was taller and broader than his blue-skinned brothers, and unlike them, who were satisfied with their perfect existence, there was anger seething just beneath his dark eyes.

  "Krona, we have to insist this stop," one of the other Oan scientists said.

  "The council—"

  I watched an argument between scientists. The others were uncomfortable and I think unaccustomed to disagreements, but Krona refused to listen.

  "The council's full of fools, and you know it," Krona shouted at them.

  "What you're asking me to do is stop thinking. And only because you're frightened of legends."

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  "This is more than legend, Krona, and you know that. Afrahemm himself barely opened that door..."

  "And what? Have our lives changed because he dared search for the origin of the universe?"

  One of the other Oans, Krona called him Toran, shook his head sadly and timidly interrupted. "We survived, but when Afrahemm reached into that unknown, the Shibborith galaxy, with more than one million worlds, disappeared. Now you want to open the door wider?" Krona pushed past him and the others and pointed to the swirling fullydimensional hologram beginning to form in front of them. "Knowledge should never be forbidden. Questions must always be answered. We grew up together, Toran. We studied together. We were good friends. But I will not let anyone, not even you, thwart the quest for the truth." Toran reached out to his friend, but Krona swatted his hand aside. "Just look. Look and learn."

  The swirling hologram took shape, becoming the same Hand of God image I had seen unleash a universe.

  Krona walked around the hand, studying it, not believing what he was seeing. "It's not possible, is it? A hand? But whose?" The other Oans tried to turn away, but they, too, found themselves staring at that impossible cosmic hand.

  "There are stars clustered in its palm," exclaimed Toran. "Is this how the universe was born?"

  The star cluster grew. I knew what was going to happen, but even as I shouted for them to run, I knew they couldn't hear me. One of the other Oans lunged for Krona's hologram. He tried to disrupt the image. "Shut it down now, Krona. Before—" But it was too late.

  The star cluster exploded again.

  Fifty-six

  Ifell back and shut my eyes, waiting for the explosion to tear through me. But, of course, it didn't. I forgot I was still under the black hole's event horizon watching events that had already happened in my past, but had not yet occurred in reality.

  The images I saw were so old I innately knew that primal explosion had as yet reached what would be our galaxy or spat out that ball of fire that would, in time, crust itself over into the planet Earth. That would happen a million years from now.

  I heard a familiar voice. Because of the black hole's mass and gravity, nothing could escape the event horizon, but I knew sound and even light could enter it.

  The voice was Harbinger's. I didn't know where she was but I could hear her and the others. While I was watching the actual events, still lingering in trapped moments of time, she was explaining to them what had happened when Krona's door opened.

  "It wasn't the end of the universe as the Oan legends foretold, but the beginning of something new. The universe shuddered at that moment and another was instantly birthed.

  "There were two universes now: one positive matter and the other antimatter. But both were equal in fabric and strength. But then," Harbinger continued, "The positive matter universe shuddered again and began duplicating itself over and over."

  Her voice faded and I saw the universe become two then three, replicating until I couldn't count how many universes were forming. I knew what was going to happen next: Violently disgorged, the new universes spun at different rates. Unable to co-exist, they slipped into their own time streams, separated from each other by mere moments. 206

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  But, I also knew, these new universes, portioned from the original, were also weaker than the whole. The anti-matter universe was half as strong as before, but the positive matter universe was, fractioned into an infinity of replicates, infinitely weaker.

  I had just witnessed the birth of the multiverse.

  Fifty-seven

  Time was passing, but the images flowing past me were still of Oa. I was watching a trial. Krona was the defendant and his friend, Toran his judge. At the same time, I was listening as Harbinger continued to relate Krona's story.

  "There was now a multiverse with infinitely replicated planets," she explained. "But throughout all the positive matter universes there was only one Oa. Its sister planet did exist, but only in Krona's new anti-matter universe. It was called Qward and it was a world as inherently evil as Oa was enlightened."

  I knew that when he was Green Lantern, Hal visited Qward dozens of times. I wondered if he ever knew how closely related it was to Oa. Witness after witness described to the court how Krona had deliberately violated Oa's most basic laws. During all the damning testimony, I watched as Krona sat in smug silence.

  Zatorak worked as his assistant: "We all tried to stop him, but he refused to listen to any of us."

  Sornin-Ka was once his professor: "I brought him to my library and read to him from the sacred texts of Afrahemm. He laughed in my face."
<
br />   "He said he knew better than we did," said Syliph, one of his council associates. "He thought we were all fools. I'm afraid nothing we showed him or said could convince him otherwise."

  The final witness left the court and Toran offered him a chance for rebuttal. "Do you have anything to say in your defense, Krona?" He was quiet at first, but then he rose to his feet, his eyes fixed on the witnesses and jury. "This is all a lie, and you know it," he finally said. "But you've already made your decisions. So go ahead. Kill me and be done with it. But I won't listen to your hypocrisy any longer." 208

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  Harbinger continued. "Toran sadly shook his head. He had hoped Krona would admit his error and allow the court to show leniency, but given no alternative, he simply read the jury's verdict. 'Your forbidden experiments created a universe which has already unleashed a terrible, dark evil. For that, Krona, you need to be punished.'"

  I watched Toran and could see how sad and conflicted he was. Krona was his closest friend, and the Oans' decision, the first of its kind, was difficult for them all, but more so for him.

  He sighed and continued, "Because your crimes could not have been anticipated, there are no laws in our books for dealing with them. We argued for so long, but...." He paused, finding the words difficult. "Death was never a choice, Krona, but I fear we might be condemning you to much worse."

  "Say it, old friend. Get it over with," Krona sneered at Toran. "Nothing you do to me will ultimately matter."

  Toran nodded. "All right. This is the decision. Your atoms will be reduced to disembodied energy. They will, for eternity, drift endlessly through space. I'm sorry, Krona. But your continued rebellion left us no choice." I saw Krona give a last smile as if this was the sentence he hoped to hear.

  A moment later his atoms were scattered to the stars. New time-lost images flowed past. I watched the Oans fashion a giant storage battery. In a quiet, solemn ceremony, with none of the grandeur one would expect for an event of such magnitude, I saw each of them transfer to it a portion of their own nearly immeasurable power. I turned away from the images, but I still heard Harbinger tell the others what happened next. "The Oans' guilt overwhelmed them. They pledged to become universal Guardians, and dedicated themselves to stopping the evil Krona unleashed.

  "They created a core of soldiers, each outfitted with a ring through which the stored power could be focused. They called their soldiers Green Lanterns.

  "But, unbeknownst to them, as they assembled the Green Lantern Corps to protect their universe, the anti-matter universe gave birth to its own warriors, the Thunderers of Qward.

  "They were armored, powerful and heartless. And if the Lanterns were created to protect their people, the Thunderers' mission was to destroy." Fifty-eight

  The moment the Guardian's battery was activated and its power streamed its way through the multiverse, I saw images of two other events set into simultaneous motion.

  On a fragment of time I saw a moon of Oa. On it I witnessed the birth of the Monitor. Next to that image was another. On the planet Qward, the Anti-Monitor was also born.

  They were, I understood, genetic doppelgangers, brothers born apart. But I also knew where one was willing to destroy all life for power, the other would willingly sacrifice all of his own to stop him. They were created fully grown, and I saw the moment they each sensed the other. Simultaneously, they unleashed their power across the dimensions. Their battle began.

  The Anti-Monitor was stronger than his brother but not powerful enough to kill him. I watched in horror as he destroyed all but one of the worlds in his own universe and converted their anti-matter energy into his shadow warriors.

  On his first day of life, he murdered a billion worlds to destroy his brother.

  The images changed. I was no longer watching the past. Instead, I saw momentary glimpses from the present.

  Shadow demons circled the Earth as the white wall of antimatter swept over the planet. Then I saw me, waving goodbye to someone I couldn't see, as I rushed ahead toward the wall, and to my death. But where was Iris? Why wasn't I being shown Iris?

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  I tried to run closer to the horizon's arc, but I couldn't reach it. I was dead and a ghost and the black hole's gravity wasn't pulling at me, but it wasn't letting me escape, either.

  Then it hit me. You 're bright, Barry. Bright as a black cloud. I'd been tossed to the dawn of creation because my body was acting as an antimatter filter. When the three universes passed through me, and I was still vibrating at beyond light speed, I was literally thrown through time. As I slowed my vibrations, I was drawn away from the black hole and returned to my own time. I was now on the other side of the event horizon. I was returning to my own century.

  Fifty-nine

  Iwas back in the Monitor's limboverse, as I had become fond of calling it, on an asteroid hovering above the five saved Earths. I saw Lyla. Her energy form had returned to human matter. Alex Luthor and Pariah stood next to her. With them were six of the Monitor's heroes, one each of the surviving Earths plus another, Lady Quark, the only survivor of Earth-6. Superman-1, my friend and fellow Justice Leaguer, represented Earth-1. Nobody, including the villains, could have argued with that choice. Next to him was Uncle Sam from Earth-X. He was sharp, funny and smart, and it was obvious he was no longer under the Psycho Pirate's control.

  The same was true for Captain Marvel from Earth-S and Blue Beetle from Earth-4.

  Finally, from Earth-2, was its Superman.

  It was amazing for me to see the two Supermans standing side-by-side. Mine was younger by several decades, and he constantly shifted back and forth, anxious for action while Lyla finished telling them about the birth of the multiverse.

  But Superman-2 listened quietly as his mind sorted through all the myriad facts. This Superman, possibly because he was older, wanted to hear the details.

  "What does any of this have to do with us?" Lady Quark interrupted.

  "Look at the Earths," Pariah said. "We succeeded in bringing them here to protect them from the Anti-Monitor's shadows, but they're not safe yet. They're still merging."

  He was right. And when all five planets fully merged, there would no longer be any temporal vibrations keeping them apart. Appearing in the 212

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  same place at the same time, would instantly destroy all the planets and all the universes.

  "Why is that happening?" Superman asked.

  Pariah shook his head. "I don't how he's doing it. But time is running out, even faster than before. If we want to save your universes, we can no longer wait."

  "First I have a question," Superman-2 said. If these Monitors were born millions of years ago, shouldn't we have heard of them long before now?" Uncle Sam agreed. "You'd think so. Bullies like to flex their muscles even when unnecessary."

  "They fought each other for more than a million years," Harbinger explained. "The Monitor knew he didn't have the power to destroy his brother, but he launched a final attack, ready to sacrifice his own life to put them both in stasis."

  "Stasis?" Superman-2 asked.

  "In their attack they immobilized each other. Neither of them could move," Lyla said. "They remained that way for nine billion years until the Anti-Monitor suddenly found himself free. Too weak to start the fight again, he fled back to his universe."

  "What freed him?" Superman-2 asked.

  Pariah lowered his hood as he turned to the others. His eyes were dark and filled with pain. "I did. And that is one of the three sins for which I must atone."

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  Before anyone could stop her, Lady Quark grabbed Pariah by the throat and pushed him to the rocky ground. "My husband and daughter are dead because of you?"

  Her hand began to glow. Quark's power let her harness nuclear energy and she was ready to unleash it all into Pariah. He said he couldn't be killed, and for all I knew he might be right, but I also knew a nuclear explosion on this small asteroid would kill most
of the others.

  As I reached for her, Superman-1 took her arm and gently pulled her away. "The Anti-Monitor's our enemy, not Pariah. I think you should calm down and listen to him." His voice was non-threatening, but also firm. She turned, ready to release her blast into Superman, but her anger quickly faded. "All right, I'll hear him out. Now take your hands off me." Superman let go of her. She backed away from the others, but continued glaring at Pariah.

  "Lady Quark, I wish your power could kill me," Pariah said as he touched the burn marks on his neck. In seconds they scabbed over, then disappeared altogether. "But they can't, nor could all the power of these assembled heroes."

  "Is that a threat?" Lady Quark barked.

  He shook his head. "Sadly, no. I've longed for death millennia before you were born. But it's always been denied me." His gaunt face sagged as if too many terrible memories finally took their toll. "You're staring at me like I'm insane, and I wish to God I was. At least then my life would one day be over. But I'm not and it never will be." He knew they were confused so he paused and started again. "Let me explain by taking you back to my world," he said. "I've been told it was 214

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  beautiful... green, lush, with clear green skies and crystal pure oceans. Perhaps one of the most beautiful in the universe. But I didn't care about beauty then.

  "I was a scientist and I created miracles. I controlled the weather. I eliminated disease. There was no hunger anywhere. I made our world glorious, and because of that they worshipped me, but never enough in my mind."

  He gave a bitter laugh. "You see, I was arrogant then, too." He didn't want to go on, but Lyla took his hand. "The Monitor told me.... I can tell them for you."

  He shook his head, "No. this is something I have to do." He breathed in deeply then continued. "With all my world's problems solved, I proceeded to explore the planets. I discovered the multiverse, and though I didn't know he existed, like Krona, I sought its darkest secrets.

  "Lyla told you how the Oans tried to stop Krona, well, my world's science council tried to stop me, too. But of course, like Krona, I wouldn't listen. 'You can't put limits on me. The truth must always be known.' I was so sure of myself I wasn't about to listen to their paranoid concerns.