From: albert@bcm.tmc.edu (Rick Jones)
Newsgroups: alt.comics.superman,rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: The Crisis on Infinite Earths (LONG)
Date: 14 Dec 1992 02:17:03 GMT
Organization: Baylor College of Medicine
Distribution: world
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Originator: albert@chain.ssctr.bcm.tmc.edu

	Well, I've been sick the past few days, so I've had time to put on
my Archive Lad hat whilst hawking up a lung..  After all the beef about
Crisis, here's a blow-by-blow.

	A little history:  
	The Infinite Earths: DC comics started in the 1940's with the
members of the Justice Society.  Most of these characters' comics were
eventually cancelled, with the exception of Superman, Batman, and Wonder
Woman (and perhaps Aquaman and Green Arrow, I fergit).  Gardner Fox came
up with the idea of re-doing the "Golden Age" heroes with a more modern
(science fictiony) slant.  He started with a re-do of the Flash, creating
the Barry Allen version.  This caught on well, and soon we had new version
of Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Atom, and others.  Now, Flash II's
inspiration was reading an old Flash (Jay Garrick) comic book, so we knew
that the G-A Flash was "only" a comic book character.  Eventually, Fox
came up with the parallel Earth idea.  Some characters were identical
(modulo their original appearance and some other minor bits),
like Superman, Batman and Robin, and Wonder Woman.  Most of the rest
weren't.  The Flashes met in the now-famous "Flash of Two Worlds" comic. 
The Earths were named "Earth-1" (for the modern versions) and "Earth-2"
(for the Golden Age versons).  It was such a hit that they having the JSA
and JLA team up regularly, and eventually other Earths were created, such
as "Earth-3" [where the heroes' and villains' roles were reverse, so
"Ultraman" was the villain and Lex Luthor was the hero], and new Earth's
were added to the DC continum when DC comics bought out other comic book
companies' characters [like Earth-S for the (Shazam) Marvel Family]. 
Earth-2 became an experimental Earth, where the wriers could get away
with stories that the main continuity wouldn't allow.  Over there,
Superman married Lois Lane, Batman married Catwoman (and their daughter
became the Huntress.  Their Batman also died, after a stint as Police
Comissioner of Gotham.
	The Monitor:Starting in New Teen Titans Annual #2 (first
appearance of Vigilante and Cheshire, btw), a fellow known as the
Monitor is shown in his hidden satelite.  He acts as an intermediary for
master criminals who need super-thugs.  He later goes on to appear in just
about every DC Comic (including Sgt. Rock).  He had a beautiful assistant,
Lyla, who varried from (depending of the appearance) a blond bimbo to a
capable assistant.

	The name: "Crisis on Infinite Earths" was done as an homage to the
classic JLA/JSA team ups.  Once a year, the JLA and JSA would team up to
fight some common foe that threatened both their world (and more).  These
teamups (not crossovers, since the JSA didn't have their own title at the
time) were called "Crisis on Earth-"(1/2/S/X/Prime). 

	The Series:The original concept of the Crisis was that Marv
Wolfman and George Perez would do for DC's 50th Anniversary, a 12 issue
mini-series that chronicleed the history of the DC Universe.  Since it
would involved at least 4 Earths (the Charlton comics characters had yet
to make their debut in DC comics), the powers that be thought the initial
idea was good, but they decided to use the 50th Anniversary as a time to
"simplify" their multiverse by bringing it down into a single universe,
with all the heroes.  They also decided to use this as an excuse to kill
off, not only "redundant" characters (like the Superman of Earth-2), but
some of their "stars" like Supergirl, and the Flash.  A vague plan was
drawn up.  Issues 1-10 would be the Crisis itself, and 11-12 would detail
the history of the new universe.  However, Crisis ran long, and the
history issues were later done in the (beautiful) History of the DC
Universe mini-series. 

	Crisis #1: In the begining, there was a single universe.  Sometime
later, it divided into the multiverse, all vibrating on a different
vibrational frequency.
	July 1985, Earth-3 is being destroyed by a wave of anti-matter,
destroying everything in it's path.  Pariah, the cosmic whipping boy,
arrives to watch it die, and dissappears before it's gone forever.  Lex
Luthor sends his (and Lois Lane's child) to the deserted satelite HQ of
the JLA [this was done in an obvious homage to the sending up Superman to
Earth].  The Monitor "energizes" the power of Lyla, now known as
Harbinger.  She splits into multiple copies of herself, and goes off to
fetch heros and villains from Earth-1, Earth-2 and Earth-4 (home of the
Charlton Comics heroes, like Blue Beetle).  One of her incarnations is
zapped by a Shadow Demon, placing her under it's power.  After bringing
all of them to the Monitor's Satelite, a bunch of Shadow Demons attack
them, but the Monitor banishes all of them, revealing himself fully for
the first time. 

	#2: Strange things are afoot in the timestream, from Anthro's
prehistoric village, to the 30th Century of the LSH.  The Monitor
explains that the positive matter universe are threatened by the
Anti-Monitor (though he's never named as such until #6), his opposite
number from the anti-matter universe.  The Monitor dispatches the heroes
and villains to various points in history on Earth-1 and 2 to set up
cosmic "tuning forks" which will keep the Anti-Monitor out.  They are all
sent out, and encounter various period characters, like Kamandi - the Last
Boy on Earth, Sgt. Rock and Easy Company, and many of DC's western heroes. 

	#3: Alex Luthor (after the Monitor brought him to his satelite from
the abandoned JLA satelite) is growing up at a fantastic rate.  We also
get more hints about the Anti-Monitor's plans for Harbinger.  The
Anti-Matter wave starts sweeping across Earth-1, and shadow demons attack
the tuning forks.  Earth is being destroyed, and the Monitor isn't sure if
his plan will work in time. 

	#4: Pariah saves Lady Quark from the destruction of her planet
(Earth-6, a heretofore unseen planet.) Meanwhile, the various heroes of
Earth do their best to save as many lives as possible as the Anti-Matter
waves slowly sweeps across the planet.  Also, the Monitor's teams are
doing their best to protect the forks, without much luck.  Pariah appears
on the Monitor's satelite, and Monitor speaks with him for a few panels
before Harbinger (now totally under the control of the Anti-Monitor) kills
him. Pariah (as usual) weeps while Earth 1 and 2
		fade
			to 
				black
	
	#5: The Anti-Monitor is confused, the Wall ate Earth's 1-2, but he
hasn't gotten their energy.  He had captured Red Tornado and the Flash for
various reasons earlier, and is now going to put those plans into motion. 
A prerecorded message of the Monitor to Pariah and Harbinger (now free of
the Anti-M's control) tells them that he used his dying energies to pull
Earth 1-2 into a pocket universe.  The Earths are in a temporal flux. 
There are cavemen in the Batcave and dinosaurs in the USSR.  The Anti-M
gives Flash to the Psycho Pirate (originally from one of the Monitor's
teams) to torture, and transforms Red Tornado into an (evil/insane) Air
Elemental.  The heroes do their best to fight the disasters caused by the
instability and the berserk Red Tornado.  Alex Luthor, now a young adult,
uses the Monitor's satelite to gather some groups of heroes to help save
Earth-X (home of the Freedom Fighters), Earth-S (home of the Marvel
Family) and Earth-4.  Only with the power of five universes, can they even
hope to stop the Anti-Monitor. 

	#6: The Earth 1-2 heroes arrive on 4, S, and X, to find the
Anti-Matter walls there, and the heroes there have gone mad (thanks to the
Psycho Pirate, whose power's been boosted by the Anti-Monitor).  Lots of
fights result, natch.  Harbinger burns out her power and the Monitor's
satelite bringing the 3 Earth's into the pocket universe.  Also, super
villains have been mysteriously vanishing (which keeps happening for the next
couple of issues).
	
	#7: Lyla, Alex, and Pariah gather representatives from all the
remaining Earths to explain what's happening, and plan strategy.  A strike
team of heroes is gathered to attack the Anti-Monitor in his lair in the
antimatter universe.  Superman, who reaches the Anti-M's deux ex machina
first, starts to destroy it, when the he gets badly injured by Anti-M.  The
Anti-Monitor starts killing Superman, when Supergirl (not that Matrix
foo-foo, the real Kara Zor-El) intervenes.  Supergirl, at the cost of her
life, saves Superman and destroys the machine that was going to destroy
the Earths.  The Anti-M, badly injured, escapes.  The heroes, saddened by
their loss, escape as the fortress falls apart around them.  The time
distortion has ceased on the 5 Earths, and they are still linked,
but no longer are in any immediate danger.

        #8: Anti-M makes a new body for himself.  Other subplots are
hashed on, like Red Tornado's new form, the problems the Oans are having,
and Darkseid's role in all of this.  The Flash, after weeks of
psychological torture by the Psycho Pirate, escapes his jell-o prison, and
promptly beats the snot out of PP.  He then makes PP show him the
antimatter cannon that the A-M is building.  The Flash uses his
super-speed to destroy the cannon saving 5 Earths, at the cost of his own
life.  A-M has had enough of this @#$% and destroys his own universe to
absorb its power, so he can destroy those annoying heroes.

        #9: The heroes continue to address the problems of the 5 worlds.
Alex Luthor (plus Harbinger and Pariah) address the UN on Earth-1.  While
the heroes were busy on 1 & 2, the villains from all 5 worlds, took over
S,X, and 4.  Flash I (Jay Garrick) recruits Kid Flash (Wally West) who was
retired because his powers were killing him.  Using Barry's cosmic
treadmill, the Flashes break the barriers, allowing the heroes to save
their compatriots on the imprisoned worlds.  Lots of fighting. Meanwhile,
a strange energy surges is travelling back through time. 

        #10: The mega-battle continues, until the Spectre shows up and
tells them that the Anti-M ain't dead.  He's gone back to the dawn of time
to prevent Creation itself.  The heroes and villains put aside their
differences.  The heroes are sent back to the DoT, while the villains
travel to ancient Oa, to prevent Krona from opening his doorway to the
DoT, which originally fractured the universe into the multiverse.  The
villains are easily trashed by the Oans and their own overconfidence.  The
heroes, thanks to the Spectre and the other mystic DC heroes, keep the A-M
from winning his cosmic arm-wrestling match with the Spectre.  The Spectre
wins
                and
                        everything
                                        turns
                                                white

        #11: Clark Kent of Earth-2 wakes up and goes to work, thinking
"what an awful dream." Unfortunately, he goes to the Daily Planet (not the
Daily Star), and runs into Perry White and Lois Lane of Earth-1.  Clark
Kent of Earth-1 shows up and covers for his "wierd uncle Clark."
Apparently nobody remembers the Crisis but the heroes.  With the help of
Jay Garrick and Wally West, they discover that Earth-2 is gone into the
neverwas.  Since Kal-L's wife (Lois Lane-2) is gone, this naturally upsets
him.  They discover that the new Earth is now an amalgam of the 5 Earths
(but is primarily Earth-1, since that's where most of DC's stable lived). 
The heroes converge on Titans Tower to discuss this.  The folks who went
back to the Dawn of Time still exist, out of time, but they "never were."
(like Robin, Huntress, and Superman, all of Earth-2) The villains don't
remember it.  The Supermen are still discussing their respective losses when
the Earth is brought into the Anti-Matter Universe. 

        #12: The Earth is attacked by billions of Shadow Demons (they
blocked out the sky).  Various heroes fight the demons, and some (like
Dove, Kole, the Immortal Man, Green Arrow and Robin and Huntress of
Earth-2, ) die.  A strike force is beamed to the Monitor's realm to fight
him, while all the mystics combine their energy to zap the shadow demons. 
In the battle, Wonder Woman of Earth-1 is destoyed, and her history 
edited.  (They knew at this point that Wonder Woman was going to get a
major re-write, and Superman was supposed to get a similar zap, but
they held off on it.)
Alex Luthor opens a gateway to send the Earth back to the Positive matter
universe, and all of the heroes except for him, Superman of Earth-2 and
the Superboy of Earth-Prime.  After the Anti-Monitor is destroyed forever,
the three of them, plus Lois Lane-2 (who Alex had absorbed before the trip
to the DoT) go off to "a beautiful world."
        It ends with Psycho Pirate gibbering about all the worlds, and how
he's the only one who remembers them all.

	Aftershocks:
	In All-Star Squadron, an evil time-travelling robot named
"Mekanique" uses her powers over time to hold back the "wave" of time for
a short time, so she can complete some of her plans.  This is generally
given as the reason why we see some characters (like Captain Atom, Captain
Marvel, and Lex Luthor) in their pre-retcon forms for a short "time"
in between Crisis #10 and their post-crisis origins.  Presumably, this
"wave" also edited the memories of the characters so that they remembered
their new histories.  (So that Superman was suprised to see
Matrix/Supergirl, since he'd never seen a Supergirl before.)
	Grant Morrison did a wonderful take on Crisis in his stint on
Animal Man in the 20's.  It's very helpful to those of us who miss 
certain pre-Crisis characters (like Kara).
	Even later, in Legion of Super-Heroes, the Time Trapper (the
incarnation of Entropy) played fast and loose with the timestream, and
managed to get himself destroyed.  This caused no end of trouble, and a
LSH villainess, Glorith, took his place in the timestream, changing some
bits of LSH history, allegedly to fit it in with the new continuity.  (So
Mon-El, is now "Valor", there is a ridiculous character named "Kid
Quantum" in the LSH for no @#$%ing reason, s Daxamite named Laurel Gand
took Supergirl's place in the Legion, plus other a zillion other pointless
retcons that cause Elmo to become Frothing-At-The-Mouth Lad.)
-- 
Rick Jones				Systems Support Center
albert@bcm.tmc.edu			Baylor College of Medicine
Voice: 713-798-7352			standard disclaimers apply
One jump ahead of the slowpokes, One skip ahead of my doom. - Aladdin
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