Crisis on Infinite Earths #9

December 1985

"War Zone"

Marv Wolfman (writer and editor), George Pérez (pencils), Jerry Ordway (inks), Anthony Tollin (colors), John Costanza (letters), Len Wein and Robert Greenberger (editors), Jenette Kahn (editor-in-chief)

A small group of rogue Oans bestow a power ring on Guy Gardner. Suddenly a wave of anti-matter energy strikes, killing everyone except Guy Gardener and one Oan. The surviving Oan urges Gardner to avenge the deaths of the others. On Brainiac's satellite, Brainiac and the Earth-1 Lex Luthor address an assemblage of the supervillains from all five earths. The Earth-2 Lex Luthor interrupts, claiming that his intellect is superior to his Earth-1 counterpart and that he isn't needed. Brainiac disintergrates him, calmly stating, "But you are correct. We do not need two Luthors!" Back in New York City on Earth-1, a small part of the city, deemed the "Warp Zone", still links to other times and the different earths. Donna Troy and Firehawk decide to explore the "Warp Zone" to find Donna's missing husband, Terry.

Meanwhile the supervillains, organized and led by Lex Luthor and Brainiac, effortlessly conquer Earth-4, Earth-S, and Earth-X while the majority of the Multiverse's heroes are gathered on Earth-1. There Alexander Luthor, the Harbinger, and Pariah address the UN, trying to assure the assembly that the remaining Earths are safe from the Anti-Monitor. However, Pariah suddenly disappears, shouting that his vanishing means that the danger has returned. Then a holograph of Brainiac appears, demanding that Earths-1 and 2 surrender or else they'll destroy...well, everything. The Harbinger enlists Wally West, who takes up his old mantle of Kid Flash and helps the heroes of Earth-1 and 2 break the barriers between the Earths in order to fight the supervillain regime. On all the Earths the tide starts to turn in favor of the superheroes because they are much better organized, but there are casualties: Aquagirl (Tula) is fatally poisoned by Chemo on Earth-4 while on Earth-X Dr. Phosphorus critically wounds the Earth-1 Hawkman. Still, Lex Luthor is worried that the heroes are holding their own despite being outnumbered - and becomes considerably more distressed when Psimon comes out of hiding and apparently destroys Brainiac.

What's Important?

Aquagirl and the Earth-2 Lex Luthor die and...well, that's it,r eally.

Comments

This is probably the least new-reader-friendly part in a very un-new-reader-friendly series. Part of it is because Marv Wolfman still has a bad habit of shoehorning his pet projects into an already overstuffed story (this time he advances a couple of sub-plots from his run on Teen Titans, even though the Titans barely figure into "Crisis" at all) and part of it is that this entire installment revolves around just about every superhero and supervillain in the DC canon brawling across the Multiverse. You get scenes like Poison Ivy and the Joker holding Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters hostage or Superman punching Starro the Conqueror, which I suppose is fan pandering, but it's the good kind of fan pandering.

Footnotes

Page 1-2 - Guy Gardner has a fairly complicated origin, but suffice it to say that he was supposed to be the second Green Lantern instead of Hal Jordan (and would have been if not for a time-traveling Booster Gold's meddling) and served as Hal's backup. It isn't made clear here why the rogue Oans would pick Gardner as their champion, but in his recent appearances Gardner developed what we'd call "anger management issues." In Green Lantern #125, he ends up trying to raise an army of intergalactic criminals to attack the Anti-Monitor. Anyway, it turns out that the anti-matter wave that struck Oa isn't a direct attack, but a side-effect of the Anti-Monitor traveling to the dawn of the universe.

Page 5 - This is all foreshadowing for a Teen Titans storyline where Starfire's family, the rulers of the planet Tamaran, request that she return. It turns out that her parents have arranged for her to marry for political reasons, which is why Starfire's brother is worried when she brings along her boyfriend Nightwing.

Page 9, Panel 7 - "Terry" is Donna Troy/Wonder Girl's husband, married as of New Teen Titans #50. He's not a well-remembered character and usually ends up mocked as one of comics' most blatant and unappealing examples of a "Mary Sue"/Obvious Reader Identification Figure (I don't think it's a coincidence that he doesn't even have a Wikipedia article!). Anyway, he makes it out of "Crisis" alright, but later he divorced Donna Troy and was unceremoniously killed off in a car crash (along with his children by Donna).