Crisis on Infinite Earths

by Marv Wolfman

  Wonder Woman agreed. "We should take a vote how to proceed. All in favor of Superman's plan...."

  Quark couldn't believe him. The Anti-Monitor killed Supergirl. Why didn't he want his loved one to rest in peace?

  He was so much like Karak, she thought. Liana was that way, too. But they were wrong. Blood for blood. Death for death. That was what the Great Book called for. Anything less would not bring satisfaction.

  "Passed," Wonder Woman exclaimed. "So if everyone's ready, let's do it."

  Quark watched them scurry about, rushing to put their new plan into operation. The Anti-Monitor had vanished and she didn't know if she would ever find him again.

  But Pariah, the one who freed her family's killer, was here, an arm's reach away. And even if Superman couldn't accept the truth, Quark knew he was ultimately responsible for Karak and Liana's deaths. She sat back in her chair and smiled. Let them do whatever they think they have to. But she knew as soon as she could she was going to get her satisfaction.

  She would kill Pariah.

  Seventy-one

  Ifound myself in the Anti-Monitor's castle. In that same dark, stone room I remembered all too well.

  I tried to move my hand but energy chains held them in place. They also bound my arms, my chest and my feet.

  I was the Anti-Monitor's prisoner.

  But more importantly, I was no longer a ghost. I felt those energy chains pull at my skin. I was real again. I was alive.

  Time had caught up with me and I was at the beginning events of my death.

  A voice was talking, saying words I heard before. "My God, here I am, the master of emotion. Want someone to be happy. Bam! He's grinning ear to ear. Want him to laugh himself to death? Almost too easy. Need him so paranoid that he kills himself?"

  It was the Psycho Pirate. He was on his knees, babbling as he had the first time I was here.

  Then I remembered.

  When I was a ghost and saw my imprisoned body I was unconscious, or at least pretending to be. I closed my eyes and let go of all resistance. My body sagged, held in place only by the energy restraints. I remembered this specific moment. The Pirate was going to look up at me. My dead self was about to enter the room.

  "I can create any emotion in anyone, Flash, but look at me. I'm petrified."

  In thirty seconds the Anti-Monitor would enter the room. My eyes had to stay closed but I was somehow relieved knowing my other selves were with me, keeping me company.

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  "Conspiring with my enemy?"

  The Pirate suddenly froze as the Anti-Monitor approached him. "Nonono. I-I was just talking. Sizing him up. Seeing what makes him afraid...." In nine seconds the Anti-Monitor would torture him again. I recalled my dead self trying to turn away but he couldn't. And now, even with my eyes closed, with the Pirate screaming for mercy, I all too clearly remembered his terrible pain and horror.

  I would next try to attack the Anti-Monitor, but, of course I failed. Six seconds: I was plunging toward space. Nine seconds: I barely saved myself. Ten seconds: I saw the Anti-Monitor leave the Psycho Pirate whimpering and begging for life.

  I knew Hayden was turning to me now, trembling with fear even as he futilely tried to reclaim some of his lost dignity.

  "I'll take all the heroes, your Justice League friends, and turn them against each other in jealous rage." His threats were meaningless and sadly he knew it, too.

  Was this the moment my second dead self suddenly appeared? Damn it, but I couldn't remember exactly.

  "Whatever he wants," he cried, "I'll do it. I'll do it happily. I'll... I'll do it any way he wants."

  He stared at me but I still didn't move. If I had opened my eyes and confronted him with what he thought was his private humiliation, it would have driven him totally insane.

  I hated him for everything he had done to me, but I couldn't do that, not even to him.

  At last he left as I remembered he had, leaving me alone, he thought. But I knew my other selves, my dead selves, were here. Seventy-two

  Imade a groaning sound to alert them then opened my eyes. I couldn't see them but that didn't matter. In two seconds they would increase their internal vibrations even as I did. We smiled at the same moment.

  "Don't forget," I told myself then. "Don't forget." All three of us increased our internal vibrations. Our bodies were burning up, consuming us, and the heat was overwhelming, but we didn't dare stop.

  We knew that one of us, even two, could never break the Anti-Monitor's restraints. But all of us were somehow combining our power.

  "What are you doing?"

  The Psycho Pirate was back? When did he return? My dead selves had never stayed long enough to know he returned.

  "Stop it. Please don't do that. You're going to ruin everything." I heard Pariah shouting at me but I wasn't listening. My internal vibrations were reaching critical mass.

  I concentrated. Colors flashed past me and I heard voices. The speed force was speaking to me. The voices said I had done everything they wanted and now it was time for me to rest.

  I wanted to surrender to the force, to be taken away and given an eternity of peace, but, damn me, I knew this was not the time. While I was solid, while I was alive—a condition I knew would last only minutes more at most—I had to take the chance to help my friends save the multiverse.

  I felt the energy chains slip off me. I was free.

  Seventy-three

  Before he could move, I cannoned into the Psycho Pirate and smashed him to the ground. He tried to squirm free but I shoved my knee to his throat and pinned him firmly in place. "You've got a new master now, Hayden."

  "No, no, you don't understand." He was crying. "He'll kill us, only not right away. I... I don't want to hurt again."

  Maybe this wasn't the way I wanted to be remembered. With all my frustrations getting the best of me, but I wasn't about to apologize for them, either.

  I'd been intangible for so long, forced to watch all the unfolding miseries, and unable to do anything about them. But now I could feel his costume scrunched between my fingers and knew I was no longer just a horrified observer.

  "You think I forgot everything you did to me? All those emotions you made me suffer? They nearly tore me apart. Oh, fear was bad. So was lust and anger."

  I leaned in and gave him my best Batman unhinged impersonation. I wasn't going to kill him, but he didn't know that. Loony is as loony does.

  "You enjoyed torturing me, didn't you, Hayden? Now it's my turn." He stopped struggling, and I felt his eyes reach into mine, attempting to exert control. "No!" I shouted. "Don't even think it." I rammed my elbow into his chest. His gurgled up spit but I felt his control slip away.

  "Try that again, Hayden, and I'll rip out your heart so fast you'll live just long enough to see it stop beating."

  I didn't think paraphrasing Bart Simpson would make him crack. Crisis on Infinite Earths

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  "All right. Just don't hurt me. I'll do anything. Oh, God, I'm dead, aren't I? He's really going to kill me." I let him stand up. Whimpering, he backed into a corner as if he felt safer there somehow.

  Intimidation Batman-style may have worked, but looking at him lost in tears, his arms folded over his chest, holding himself tightly as he could, because otherwise he was afraid his heart might explode, I knew that could never be my style.

  But as much as I hated myself for threatening him, I needed his answers fast.

  "Hayden, you can relax now," I said. "Answer my questions. Who's in this castle besides us?"

  "Us? No-no. The Anti-Monitor's here. But you know that. There's the Thunderers. He's brought thousands of them from Qward. But he's turning them all into shadows."

  "How is he doing that?"

  The Pirate tried to turn away but I forced him to look at me again. He didn't want to answer, which meant I needed to make him talk.

  "Hayden..." I just said his name and hoped his own fears would get him started.
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br />   "The same way he's creating those antimatter walls. The ones killing all those planets."

  "They aren't natural?" I thought he'd been harnessing already existing energy, not creating it.

  I remembered the speed force and the heaven that would be awaiting me. I could run away now and change my future. Decision time, Barry.

  "Show me," I said.

  His head bobbed up and down. "All right, all right. I'll bring you there. Then you'll take me away from here, won't you?"

  "Yeah," I said, meaning it. "Then I'll make sure you're safe."

  "Then it's a promise, right? Heroes always live up to their promises. So I know you're going to protect me because you promised me you would." Damn. Why couldn't I be more like Batman?

  Seventy-four

  we had one side-trip to make before I made him take me to my final death.

  The Pirate brought me to his former master. He was staring at the five Earths, all frozen in their places, and didn't hear us enter.

  "I require more shadows," he said. Was I wrong? Was he talking to us? He wasn't alone. Behind him stood several armored warriors who looked like a cross between Darth Vader's storm troopers and Errol Flynn's immortal Robin Hood, complete with leather shoulder quivers. But these weren't filled with wooden arrows. They contained energy lightning bolts. These were the Thunderers of Qward.

  He turned to one of the Generals waiting silently for his command.

  "Take one thousand. Prepare them for conversion." He turned back to the Earths. "Let the planets survive. Once my shadows destroy all their life, the heroes will still have lost." I turned to the Pirate. He was sweating, so afraid of what I wanted him to do he was almost willing to ran to the Anti-Monitor and beg again for his life.

  "Hayden." He looked past me, not hearing me. I shouted. "Hayden!"

  "What?"

  "It's time," I said, calmly as I could. "Go to him if you want, but you know what he'll do. I'm the only one offering you hope." He kept looking at the Anti-Monitor. If I waited any longer he might very well run to his death.

  I grabbed him and carried him to the closest Thunderer. "You know what to do," I said. "Don't think about it. Just do it." Crisis on Infinite Earths

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  To stop the Anti-Monitor I would need an army at my command. Fortunately, the Anti-Monitor brought one to me.

  I paused in front of the first Thunderer. The Pirate stared into his eyes, whispering to him. "You hate the master. You're so angry at him you want to kill him. Feel hate, Thunderer. Hate and anger." The Thunderer repeated the Pirate's words. "I hate the Master. Death to the master. Death to the master."

  We moved to the second Thunderer and did the same then moved onto the next. Each Thunderer took just under a second.

  Hate. Anger. Destroy.

  Such simple emotions. Easy to remember.

  A thousand Thunderers attacked the Anti-Monitor with ten thousand thunderbolts. As they removed each deadly spear from their quiver, a new one formed, whole and ready, its energy reconstituted in its place. Hate. Anger. Destroy.

  He fell back, caught off guard by the sudden attack. A hundred Thunderers scrambled over him and used their Thunderbolts as knives. They stabbed at him, each attack more satisfying than the one before. Hate. Anger. Destroy.

  They weren't powerful enough to kill him but I didn't expect they would.

  I needed him distracted.

  The Pirate and I left. Behind us, the battle was just beginning. Seventy-five

  Irushed ahead despite knowing that was waiting for me. There was going to be a dark room with a deep pit. Inside it an energy globe was going to be spinning wildly on its axis, a power generator producing an increasing stream of antimatter energy. I was going to destroy it and as it exploded it would kill me. Everyone talks about regrets. I had only one. I thought it would be my failure to see Iris one last time, to let her know how much I loved her. But now, with death closing in, I realized she already knew that. Every day we had been together, even when we fought, forced us to remember why we were together. We were as close as any couple I'd ever known. If she didn't know I loved her as much as I knew she loved me, seeing her one last time wouldn't help.

  No, my regret was not knowing if she was alive. If she was I prayed she would continue to live her life and not surrender herself to my death. But if she was dead, I knew somehow we would be reunited. If it was within my power, or any other power I could corrupt, I'd make sure of that.

  We reached the dark room. Inside, I saw the pit and that bright, horrible sphere of burning hell.

  "What are we doing here?" Hayden asked.

  Hayden had willingly joined the Anti-Monitor even after being told how many universes had been destroyed. He sold his soul knowing his own Earth would soon join them.

  He shouldn't have engendered any sympathy. I should have left him to die. But, fool that I was, I promised him safety.

  Crisis on Infinite Earths

  257

  In the speed force I had seen Wally holding my Flash ring. Behind him, pulling at my uniform, was the Psycho Pirate.

  "The heroes are going to be coming here at any time. Stay here and tell them Barry said to take you some place safe."

  He wasn't listening. He babbled and cried again. He fell to the ground and repeatedly hit it with his fists. "The master lied to me. He promised me a world to rule. But he's destroying all of them. He knew there'd be nothing left for me."

  I kneeled beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. For a moment he looked at me as if he remembered why he was here.

  "Tell them Barry said to save me," he repeated. "Was that right? Are you Barry?"

  "You got it, Hayden. Good luck."

  I knew then it was time.

  Seventy-six

  This was the way things worked: Every time the Anti-Monitor destroyed a positive matter universe, its energies were sucked into his antimatter universe.

  The transmitter globe processed then returned that energy to the positive matter universe as a white wall of antimatter. The wall would then destroy another world.

  The Anti-Monitor had, in essence, created near perpetual motion: his transmitter created death and death then fed the transmitter. It also created the shadow demons whose single objective was to kill. His plan was direct and effective and I almost admired its simplicity. In a single burst, I ran at full speed. With each revolution I kept building up speed. My plan was as simple as his. I would create a vacuum around the globe. When the pressures inside exceeded the pressure outside, it would explode.

  I increased my speed and found myself moving through time. I saw lightning shatter the chemicals in my laboratory.

  Barry Allen became the Flash.

  I saw Wally look at me in surprise.

  Batman battled the Joker. They both could see me.

  My flesh evaporated.

  My bones turned brittle.

  They shattered.

  My uniform crumpled to the ground. My ring clattered beside it. And just as I died I realized I'd been wrong.

  I didn't have any regrets.

  Crisis on Infinite Earths

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  The Anti-Monitor felt his machine die.

  He raged and he swore revenge.

  He would begin once again at the beginning.

  Seventy-seven

  now i am speed

  now i am matter

  now i am energy part of all

  now pastpresentfuture is one

  now i am taking form

  now i am darkness

  now i am chaos

  now i am firmament

  now i am earth

  now i am light

  now i am birth

  now infantchildadult is one

  now i am speed

  now i am light

  now i see youth

  now he is speed

  now i am death

  now i am life

  now i am energy

  now i am matter

  Seventy-ei
ght

  Iexpected to find myself in the speed force, joined at last with those other dead speedsters— whoever the hell they were, would I ever find out? —in whatever they had prepared for me. High-speed poker games? Fast times at Ridgemont High? I definitely wasn't the shuffleboard type. But this wasn't the speed force with its shifting lava lamp-like colors and that uncomfortably calming sense of belonging. This was a place of uninterrupted nothingness.

  This wasn't eternity.

  The black hole was below me, its singularity, as before, was drinking in time, energy and everything between. But this time I was above the event horizon, standing on a wide spit of land floating far enough away to be free of its insatiable gravitational draw.

  I didn't know why, but I was alive. Not ghost unable to touch anything alive, but solid, breathing, prick-me-and-do-I-not-bleed alive. So why wasn't I happy? I had packed my bags, shut off the electricity, forwarded my mail and gassed up the car. I was more than ready to go. What did I do to piss off God?

  I remembered everything I'd seen. I'd been reduced to energy and fell through time. I think I was part of all time which was taking place simultaneously around me.

  I saw Wally. Actually, I more than saw him. Those chemicals washing over him weren't a coincidence and never were. Though science says you're wrong if you believe lightning can't strike twice, in this case it hadn't. I had become the bolt of lightning that turned Wally West into Kid Flash.

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  I created my own successor and it felt good. Even though I was stupid enough to get myself killed, the speedster legacy would continue unbroken.

  But questions still remained: Why wasn't I dead? Why was I here? On this side of the event horizon space was empty. There were no burning suns or planets. The Big Bang had not yet encouraged its starstuff to begin its universal pilgrimage.

  I was back at the dawn of time, literally before 'In the beginning,' staring into the void. That was when I realized I was not alone. Standing suddenly in front of me was the Anti-Monitor. Seventy-nine

  Iwanted to attack, but without looking at me he held up a hand, palm out, and I suddenly froze in position. Madame Tussaud would be so proud of me. But he wasn't paying attention to me. Instead, he stared through the event horizon to the black hole below.