Crisis on Infinite Earths

by Marv Wolfman

  She knew Kal wouldn't want to know how much hate was feeding her strength, but she could live with that as long as he lived. She stared at her raised fist ready to hammer down on the AntiMonitor. When she recovered from Luthor's trap she was certain Kal was going to somehow send her back into obscurity because of her stupid mistake. But all he said was, "Always do your best. The rest is learning." She was still staring at her fist, clenched so tight the tips of her fingers turned white.

  It took them less than an hour to find and arrest Luthor. Afterwards, she remembered asking Superman why they didn't kill him.

  "He's evil," she said, trying to make her case. "You know his crimes. You know how many people he's hurt. He deserves the death penalty. Why don't you put him out of our misery?"

  Kal hadn't answered her. He didn't think he needed to. She turned to the Anti-Monitor, lying motionless at her side. His heartbeat was quiet but steady.

  "I could kill you and I don't think I'd regret it, even for a moment. You've destroyed so damned much."

  She watched his chest slowly rise and fall. She looked back to her fist. Just do it. Everyone will say you 're a hero. She glanced at Superman. His heart was beating faster, stronger. She saw his eyes slowly open.

  "Kara..."

  Supergirl laughed. She started to jump to him, but his eyes widened, terrified. "Watch out."

  She fell flat to the ground as a beam of energy sizzled over her head. She saw the Anti-Monitor rise up behind her. "You are a fool, girl. A dead fool."

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  He attacked with another deadly blast.

  Supergirl flew over his head and landed behind him. She whirled, kicking him, but he barely felt it.

  "You truly thought you could hurt me?"

  He staggered back. Through his torn armor she saw black blood smeared across shredded bone-white skin. He's weak. I did hurt him. His raised hand glowed and a yellow beam blasted from the center of his palm. It hammered into her chest and threw her across the chamber onto the transformer's core.

  She groaned and didn't want to move again. She felt heavy and tired. Just let me lay here. Only a few more seconds. Then I'll go back. I swear, let me just rest and then I'II fight him again. She tried to shift her arms to push herself up, but her shoulder exploded with pain. It's broken. Everything is broken. Everything hurts so much.

  "Supergirl." She heard Dr. Light's voice call to her. Go away. Leave me alone. "You're on his transformer," Light shouted. "It's how he's destroying our universes."

  She forced her eyes open. She saw Dr. Light across the room. "Destroy it. Superman was right. You've got to destroy it now." For God's sake stop bothering me. I don't care about this. She looked back. Where was he? With great effort she tilted her head on its side.

  The Anti-Monitor stood over Superman. His hand burned with power as it reached for Kal's face.

  "It is time for you, your worlds, and your universes to die." Kara screamed again as she pushed to her feet. Ignore the pain. Ignore everything. She heard a snap as her shoulder gave way. Well, if it wasn't broken before...

  She turned to Dr. Light. "When I move, save Superman. You understand?"

  Light shook her head. "The transformer. You've got to—" Supergirl cut her short. "Just do as I say. I'll handle the rest." Supergirl closed her eyes and brought back the memories of her parents and the life she had loved on Argo City.

  She was flying through the chamber toward the Anti-Monitor, but her thoughts were on her ninth birthday party and the games she had played with her friends.

  Her ninth was her best birthday.

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  The Anti-Monitor grabbed Superman's face. In just a second he would focus all his energy through her fingers and Superman would die. Kara tackled him and they fell away from Kal. Now, Light. Do what I told you. Don't screw it up. Do it!

  They rolled across the chamber. She couldn't move her arms—even if she could she had no strength left in them—but she held onto him as his fists continued to hammer her.

  He grabbed her other shoulder and crushed it between his fingers, but she still wouldn't let go. Her pain tried to overwhelm her, but she was remembering her parents holding her close to them then kissing her as Argo City died.

  Everything till now has been a dream, Kara. Your life is just beginning. Her mother kissed her again then said goodbye.

  His massive fist rammed into her side and she felt her rib cage crush. Do your best, Kara. Just do your best.

  She remembered Earth. It was so beautiful from space. She'd been told all her life that Kal-El was there and she knew she would soon be flying at his side.

  "What are you doing, girl? Why are you fighting me? You are already dead."

  She felt heat crushing its way through her body. His hands were burning her, but she knew it no longer mattered.

  With whatever strength still miraculously within her, she pushed the Anti-Monitor onto the roof of his transformer. She grabbed his wrists and twisted his palms down into the cold liquid metal.

  Do your best. Do your best.

  He pulled back, finally understanding what she was doing. The bands of energy circling the transformer's core bubbled from the heat he'd been trying to focus into Supergirl.

  "Get off me." He frantically tried to blast her away, but she held firm. Your best, Kara. Do your best.

  His own body wracked with pain, he pushed as hard as he could to free himself from her vise-like grip. But she would not let go. "Why?" he demanded of her. "You're dying. Why do you care?" She didn't answer him. She didn't think she needed to. He tried to power down, but it was already too late. The core beneath him was heating up. In seconds, it would explode. She had to die and she had to die now.

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  "Supergirl!" She heard Dr. Light shouting to her. "Don't do it! Let me help you."

  Supergirl turned to her. "Save Superman. Get him out of here." The Anti-Monitor glared at Supergirl. "You turn in the midst of battle? That is a fatal mistake."

  She felt an explosion and then terrible, burning heat. The Anti-Monitor unleashed the last of his power into what was left of her, and this time, she knew, there would be no convenient last minute escape. It's okay. I'm ready.

  As Kara's body began the quiet process of shutting down, she remembered that first day on Earth. Her ship had crashed but of course she knew she wouldn't be hurt. On Earth, her parents told her, she would be invulnerable.

  In just a minute she was going to meet her cousin. She remembered her excitement as she opened the ship's hatch and flew out to greet him, already dressed in the Supergirl uniform she and her mother had taken the time to make.

  Her life on Earth, she knew, was going to be exciting. Superman cradled her. "Kara" he said. "Hold on." He's alive. Thank Krypton.

  "Everything will be okay. Just stay with me." She forced a weak smile. "I can't. But I wanted you to be safe. You mean so much to me, Kal."

  "No. No. I won't let you die. We can do this, Kara. You know when we work together we can do anything."

  "His machine? Did I...?"

  "You destroyed it. It exploded just as he...."

  "Thank heaven."

  "Kara...?"

  She was no longer looking at him.

  Sixty-nine

  Ifound Superman holding Supergirl in his arms. She was smiling as her fingers gently stroked his face.

  "Krypton's right here. I can see it. It's like Daddy said. It's green and beautiful."

  Even as he held her, Superman could feel her life fading. I saw him try to turn away but he couldn't. Tears streamed down his face as he brought her closer to him. God knows I knew what was going through his mind. To let go was not a consideration. To let go was to admit defeat. It was painful to watch, so why did I keep staring? In Superman's arms, Kara seemed so damn fragile.

  This wasn't the way she or any of us were supposed to... Stop? Give up? Die?

&
nbsp; I wish to God I knew why I was suddenly feeling so lost. All I knew was that this was so far from being right I was in pain. Pariah and Lady Quark entered the chamber and stood beside Dr. Light. Pariah was looking for something, but I gathered he couldn't find it. "The Anti-Monitor?" Dr. Light shook her head. "Still alive. Gone." Supergirl felt Superman's tears. "Why are you crying? We bought time. The worlds have a chance now."

  "Please, don't."

  "You told me to be brave. You told me to always do my best. I'm sorry if I let you down."

  Superman's face was a tortured mosaic, twisted in all directions—Oh, dear God, this is the moment I had seen in the speed force—He was in such terrible agony, trying to comfort her and trying to hold onto his own pains not to frighten her.

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  This was the most powerful man our world had ever known, and it broke my heart to watch him now.

  He knew she couldn't see him, but he forced himself to smile. "Let me down? Oh, my God. You could never do that, Kara. You're my heart and soul."

  Supergirl's eyes blinked and I think for just a moment she saw him leaning over her.

  "I love you, Kal. For what you are and for how good you are. I..." And she was gone.

  His voice was hoarse and graveled, and he had run out of tears long before his screams stopped echoing through this horrid castle. He sat for a long time holding her, not letting anyone else near. I think he was protecting her in case there was any hope she could, against all reason, somehow be alive. I knew that if they let him, he would have sat holding her in silence for the rest of his life. Waiting. And praying. Slowly, the others found him.

  We'd all seen death before. Too many times, unfortunately. Some in the line of duty. Others naturally at the end of a long and happy life. But how many other heroes, friends of ours, even some enemies, also perished in this multiversal crisis? Green Arrow. Tula. Kole. Dove. Even Robin-2 died alongside the Huntress. I heard of at least two dozen others and I was sure that was just the beginning.

  And there were the villains, criminals we fought time and again who somehow managed to find their souls when it most mattered. Luthor-1, Clayface-2, The Ten-Eyed Man, even the Mirror Master. Loony that he was, I actually thought I'd miss him the most.

  But there are some people who somehow touch your soul in ways others never can.

  There were TV broadcasts across the five Earths reporting Supergirl's death. Earth-1 already knew who she was and, even as the people feared for their own lives, candlelight vigils popped up in nearly every city in every country.

  Batgirl was on the TV and she began to cry in the middle of her eulogy. I had seen this scene, too, in the speed force. She tried to keep her composure, but ultimately she failed. "Kara was a hero without equal," She began. "She was often my confidant and always my friend."

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  Marv Wolfman

  On the other Earths they played video footage of Supergirl's past achievements. These planets had never heard of her before her death, but because of how she died, millions filled churches, mosques and synagogues to say a final prayer.

  "She was a hero who cared more about others than she ever did for herself."

  Superman said to me long ago that she was an innocent, and people everywhere could see that in her face. Her eyes sparkled with life and her smile was brighter than any lighthouse beacon.

  "It's easy to dismiss the thing that made her special, that made her a hero, because, like her cousin, she, too, had powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men."

  Superman brought her body to his Fortress of Solitude where he said a special Kryptonian prayer. He had to learn the words and then recite them carefully to keep their subtle meaning intact. I wished I could have been there to hear him.

  "A hero isn't measured by her power, but by the courage she shows in living, and the warmth she holds in her heart. Once done, he said he would take her body to space. Then beyond the rim of Pluto where he would set it free to drift through eternity.

  "Let her courage give us courage. Let her love give us love, and let her boundless hope give us hope.

  Left unspoken was the knowledge that unless we found and stopped the Anti-Monitor, that endless space and infinite voyage would be very short. Her death reawakened our cause. Though the others couldn't hear me, I joined them as we renewed our vow.

  "Kara is a hero and she will never be forgotten." Supergirl's death would not be in vain.

  Seventy

  We went to the JLA satellite in stationary orbit around Earth1. Pariah was saying something about the Earths no longer merging. Or was it that because Kara destroyed the AntiMonitor's machines they weren't merging as fast as they'd been? I wasn't really listening.

  I left them and traveled to Earth-1. Cities were in chaos. The Southern hemisphere had disappeared and the wall of anti-matter was moving north. I ran past Iris's and my old house in Central City's Danville district, still a beautiful middle-class neighborhood filled with 1950s tract homes and a few refurbished townhouses. I didn't intend to stop but I did. I wasn't planning on going inside, but I did that, too.

  The house wasn't large, not by Midwest standards at any rate, a little bit under two thousand square feet, but more than enough for Iris and me. The light green paint—I think Iris said it was called fern—was weathered and peeling and I slapped myself for never getting around to re-painting it. At Flash speed, how long would it have taken? Four seconds? Five max? The lights were out. No surprise there. There hadn't been electricity for two days.

  Newspapers were still on the coffee table, open to wherever I had left them. I noticed that if all the stores hadn't closed after Argentina and Uruguay disappeared, there would have been a fifty percent sale going on at the Broome Street Mall.

  I poked my head through the refrigerator but whatever was in it had long since spoiled. Not that I needed to eat and not that I could have opened the door even if I wanted to.

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  I sat on the couch—not actually sat; without being solid I would have fallen through—but I approximated that action. I needed to do something I'd done every day since I was a toddler. This was comfort sitting. Across from me, to the right of the TV, was our fireplace. On its mantle was the old clock Iris and I bought at that Antique Mall we loved to browse through on weekends. Clustered around that were the family pictures: me as a baby, and at two, at three, all the way up to our wedding. Mixed in with those were the pictures of Iris.

  She was even a beautiful baby. How did I ever get so lucky? There were more photos of us on the wall leading up to the second floor, most taken on our vacations. We always found someone to snap them for us so we could be in them together, looking only at each other while some great world monument remained out of focus in the background. There were more photos in our bedroom, on Iris' dresser and our night stands.

  We really had a wonderful life.

  I approximated laying down on our bed. I laughed when I realized I was lying on my side; even alone I took my usual place. I wondered if Mexico still existed. From the speed it was advancing, the white wall should have been there about now. Bye, Cabo. In another hour or two at most it would begin its sweep up through Texas and southern California. Within a day my world would be gone. I stared at the ceiling tiles thinking about Kara. She really shouldn't have died like that. It just wasn't right. If she could die, I wondered, with all her powers and with all she brought to life, how could we... It came suddenly.

  I fought the pull. The force grabbed me without warning but I knew what was going to happen. Hadn't it already tossed me like some damn ping pong ball, bouncing me back and forth through space and time? But this time I wasn't disappearing.

  My body was starting to disintegrate.

  I was already dead, killed some time in the future in a blast of the AntiMonitor's cannon. Only the Monitor or the speed force or something else I couldn't imagine had been keeping me from my final rest. But now
I knew time had caught up with me.

  Lady Quark Earth—6

  She realized Superman-1 had said nothing since they came to this space station. He sat quietly in his chair as the others made new plans to find and fight the Anti-Monitor. But Superman, who seemed the strongest of them all, was not paying attention. Lady Quark understood. Liana and Karak were dead, too, just like his Kara. The Anti-Monitor had killed them, along with so many others. But all those others, even those from her world, were sadly just numbers and statistics.

  Karak was the man she loved more than any other. Liana, her flesh and blood, was conceived inside her and nurtured for nine wonderful months. Quark knew intellectually it may have been wrong, but emotionally Karak and Liana meant more to her than all the others combined. It was those two deaths she wanted to avenge, not the abstract deaths of billions.

  "How do we find him again," Quark heard Captain Marvel ask. "I mean, he could be anywhere, right?"

  Wonder Woman disagreed. "He's weak. Supergirl hurt him badly. He needs to get back his strength before he can attack again." She turned to Pariah. "You've known him longer than any of us. Where do you think he's gone?"

  "He's not in the antimatter universe," said Pariah, "And your instruments would've located him if he was in any of yours. I'm sorry, but I don't know."

  "It can't be over," said Firestorm. "Could it?"

  "No, we're not giving up," Superman said at last. The others turned to him, looking for hope. "We're going about this wrong. The Anti-Monitor's irrelevant. We don't need to find him, not yet." 248

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  "Are you insane?" Quark could not believe him. "You don't care what he did to all of us?"

  Superman rose, holding back his sudden anger. "You were here when death came so close I wanted it to take me with it. I care, and do not for a second think otherwise. But the Anti-Monitor isn't our priority."

  "Then who is?" asked Wonder Woman.

  "Not who. Our planets, our Earths, our universes. When Kara destroyed his machines, she only slowed down the merging process. She couldn't reverse it."

  He turned back to Lady Quark. "We need to save our universes first. Then we can worry about him."