What
led to this...
Revitalized
by Vandal Savage. Reborn in Dark Genesis. William Zard had
a dream...
The Wizard first gathered power, subjugating Felix Faust to his whim
and trapping the sorceror within the Luck Stones of Bel; God of
Thieves. Next he gathered friends; his old and aging allies from
the Injustice Society of America, and their progeny. Then he
gathered enemies...
Zard had died in Dark Genesis you see, a hero that went to Hell, but
found his way out with the help of others, like Orpheus, walking back
to the world of the living. There he learned of things that might
have been, and once were; other worlds and dimensions shattered by
Crisis! He did not look back...
The Wizard created a new team of Outsiders to gather the things that he
would need; implements to recreate his version of Nirvana, another
Earth that lived only in memory. He recreated too, the Secret
Society of Super-villains to achieve his dream, tricking a cabal of the
world's direst villains, gathering tokens like an adamantine arrow head
and a cosmic rod to booster his might. Too, he gathered souls;
the White Martians!
Zard gathered his flock and fold and fled the world, using his power to
recreate Earth 2 in his image; a happier, simpler time, where good and
evil were black and white and no one ever died. His Injustice
Society ruled Earth 2, displacing the Crime Syndicate of Amerika,
living his dream for months, battling the White Martians guised as the
Justice Society of America...
But there was unrest and boredom, and slowly his dream started to
fade...
Then came Krona!
A
dark force taunted Hal Jordan
drawing him and
Parallax back. Subservient to Krona, Parallax set out to destroy the
universe
so his master could watch a new universe be born. The Watchtower
disappeared, teleported
into Limbo with its occupants onboard, removing them from the playing
field. Flash
and Jade find evidence that Parallax is involved. The other heroes
responded to
blowback disasters sweeping across the planet as Krona and Parallax
tore at the
edges of reality bringing about a Big Crunch.
A
tale that began here at JLU: 2001 with Will Short's first magnificent
run on JLA, and has touched on almost every title since, will finally
conclude...
Earth 2
22,300 miles and
counting…
Camille smashed her fist through the emergency glass. Biting her
lip, she ignored the sharp, intense pain as the jagged shards of glass
pierced her hand and forearm. She slammed her hand down on the
Panic Button. She heard the deep basso rumble of gears and
machinery, felt the vibrations as she leaned against the wall gasping
for breath. Slowly, but finally, she heard the whine of stressed
metal as the huge blast doors ground along their tracks rolling closed.
Heaving a sigh as the great doors slammed shut, she leaned forward,
hands on her knees in a brief respite, breathing deeply. She
knew, thick as the doors were and despite whatever alien metal they
might be made of, they would not hold out long. If one of the
creatures could not get through, then two would try, then three and so
on until the portal was breached. She had to be away from there
before that happened.
Ignoring the pain that seared through her right leg with every step,
Camille ran down the long sweeping corridor. She wished that she
could fly, but she could barely concentrate to run, let alone control
the Star Sapphire. Her leg was in agony from the burn she took
when the monsters initially came through the hull. Her right arm
was all but useless, covered in blood, and cradled against her chest
from when the monstrosities shattered her feeble pink shield
construct. One of them drove its spiked tail into the nerve
cluster in her shoulder, stabbing her deeply and causing her to lose
most of the feeling in her arm. She couldn’t tell if it was
broken or simply paralyzed. She sobbed, choking back tears as she
tried to pick up her pace thinking back to just how close she had been
to dying.
And she still could. She harbored no fantasies at that. If
the creatures got to her, they would rip her to shreds for the part
that she had played in their ‘captivity’ these past few
months. She imagined the slow and painful death that awaited her
at their hands and Camille did not like pain.
Bad as her death would be though, she knew that William’s would
be far, far worse. She had to find him. Maybe he had a plan
to contain the monstrosities again, or at least a plan to escape.
“God…” she sobbed.
Where had it all gone wrong?
Earth 2
Metropolis
Some days
ago…
“Is this wise?”
Todd Rice stared at the woman as she dangled, twisting and writhing in
her bonds. She was tied at ankles, above and below her knees, her
hands behind her back and lashed to her waist, her elbows cinched tight
with another rope straining between that and her throat. She was
hanging upside down, suspended from her ankles high above Simon Street,
tied off to one of the five points of the huge red star that topped the
roof of the Daily Star Newspaper building. She was trying to
scream, but a huge red ball was jammed between her lips and buckled by
leather straps behind her head.
“Maybe not,” Grundy grunted in response, “but
it’s necessary.”
Solomon Grundy sat in the shadows of the huge star, ignoring the woman,
and most everything else as his thumb slid along the mouse pad of the
laptop situated on his lap. Todd knew that there were webcams set
up about the building’s rooftop covering, hopefully, every
angle. Grundy was monitoring them, flipping through the feeds
with amazing grace and speed that one would not expect from his
lumbering form and huge, chalk white hands.
“Why so nervous, Toddy-boy?” Owlgirl did not even
look up from her spot at the roof’s edge as she filed away at a
fingernail with an emery board. She seemed as cold and ruthless
as always, as she had when she had bound the woman (if not even more
sadistic), casually kicking her legs over the forty story fall to the
street below.
“I don’t know,” Todd said truthfully. As
Obsidian, and part of the original Infinity Inc. back on Earth One he
had been part of more than a few missions and encounters that had made
him skittish. He had always known that he was not cut out to be a
true hero, like his father and sister, but he had always tried despite
the consequences. Usually those consequences ended up biting him
in the ass. “Just seems this is a bit extreme. This
woman never did anyone any harm. I think we’re just gonna
piss off Big Blue.”
Todd looked at the woman again as she twisted in the breeze. Her
eyes were red from crying, her mascara running in a wild masque about
her eyes. She stared longingly at him, imploring him to help her
and he had to look away. It had taken them weeks to set this up,
to find a woman that looked enough like Lois Lane to draw in the
Superman to investigate. Obviously they could not use the real
deal, as they did not know where she was, let alone the fact that she
was just a shade weaker than Ultraman.
“I agree with Todd,” Rocker grumbled from the shadows
beneath the star. Todd turned to see Garfield Logan step
forward. He too glanced at the woman. Gar was the only
other hero from the real Earth on the team, but he was hardly the
shape-shifting changeling that he had once been. He had died, and
his spirit and soul had been transplanted into the body of a stone
golem at the whim of the Emperor, Zard, to act in a false group of
heroes on Earth One, to further the creation of this Utopia that Earth
Two had allegedly become. Just one of the many crimes that the
Wizard had to answer for.
“This isn’t what heroes do,” Logan said, his voice
cracked and grinding. “We’ve been running hit and run
on the JSA for weeks now-“
“And they simply slough it off, Logan,” Grundy said, his
fingers tapping out a quick flurry on the keyboard. “No
matter what we do, they just shrug and keep coming back for more.
How many have we defeated, actually killed only to have them pop up
again a few days later hale and hearty. No, it’s time to
try a different tact. Time to raise the stakes.”
Obsidian glanced at the small lead case that sat next to Grundy in the
shade under the star. Solomon Grundy had paid exorbitant fees to
the greedy scientists of STAR Labs to create the radioactive mineral
contained within, and they did not even know if it would work.
And they would not know until they actually opened the case and tried
it out. For all Todd knew, here on Earth Two it might even
enhance the Man of Steel like it did his vile counterpart.
“I’ve got movement, people,” Grundy said, suddenly
sitting up straight. Todd Rice watched as the leader of Infinity
Inc. plied the keyboard of his laptop, cumbersome fingers flying over
the buttons. “Impact on CS Drive, and flickers on the
traffic cams. Get ready.”
Instantly everyone did. Owlgirl stood and skipped lightly to the
base of the huge star, giving the terrified woman a shove in passing to
get her swinging and screaming. Logan stepping back into the
shadows as well, ready to step forward when he was needed. Todd
simply faded away, his body becoming a thin and wispy shadow.
“Gardner,” Grundy said into a Bluetooth Jack plugged into
his ear as he took a final look at his laptop and then closed it.
“We have incoming.” He stood, nodding as he scooped
up the leaden bag and moved towards the edge of the building, scanning
the southern skies. “I see him,” he whispered.
“Get ready.”
Todd licked his lips, staring nervously towards the south. He
knew what they were about to face, and knew that Grundy’s plan
was sound, and should work, but still he had a hard time suppressing
the shivers as he waited. They had lost so many good friends over
the past few weeks, banking success on other plans that had fallen
apart. He remembered an old adage that his father had told him
once: as soon as the battle is joined, the plan is lost.
He saw him then, a violet flicker on the far horizon…
Closer, a spark of blue sizzling near the edge of the Dillon Housing
Projects and Low Town…
A streak of red along Adams Lane…
And then he was there, suddenly. A purple haze coalescing into a
God clad in scarlet and azure, cape billowing in the winds whipped up
by his arrival, steely blue eyes scanning the rooftop before resting on-
“Lois?”
The Man of Tomorrow seemed momentarily stunned to see the woman
dangling there before him, or rather more likely her face. Todd
Rice knew that the Man of Steel that he knew, the Last Son of Krypton
whom he had met would see through the ruse instantly, with a glance of
Microscopic Vision to check DNA or fingerprints or retina. But
this was not the Earth One version of the world’s first and
greatest hero. It was doubtful actually that he was some
forgotten doppelganger of a lost dimension shattered in some crisis as
Grundy proclaimed. More likely this, like all of the Justice
Society of America, was some phantom construct created by Emperor Zard,
the Wizard to further whatever mad schemes he was plotting.
Whatever, the result was the same. Super-Man hesitated at the
sight of the woman dangling from the star, bearing the face of the
woman that he loved, and in another world married. Todd shifted,
his shadow drifting along the edge of the building.
“Super-Man,” Grundy said as he stepped into view. He
was dressed immaculately as always, his black Armani suit crisp and
pressed, his Italian loafers sparkling as he walked within arm’s
length of the man from another world. His smile was cold, cruelty
personified as he eyed the strange visitor.
“Grundy,” the Man of Steel sneered. “What is
this? What mad plot have you hatched now?” The
Super-Man folded his arms across his massive chest, standing tall and
confident if not a bit arrogant. His eyes darted about, and Todd
knew that he easily spotted the Owl Girl as well as Rocker as they
stepped to the fore. “Most of your Infinity Inc., I
see. Surrender now. It’ll go easier on you.”
“Oh, we do,” Grundy said sounding anything but
sincere. “We all surrender. Yessir, we know when
we’re beaten.” The Super-Man merely raised an eyebrow
as Grundy strode forward, Owl Girl and Rocker flanking him, though
slightly behind. Todd was in position, dreading what was to
come…
And suddenly a giant green fist wrapped about the Kryptonian, locking
his arms down and clenching with enough force to make even the Man of
Steel wince. And suddenly Rocker was at his side, a massive stone
fist slamming against the alien’s face, snapping his head to the
side…
Where he could see the small owl-head shaped disk cleave through the
line that held ‘Lois Lane’ dangling high above the street.
“No…” the Super-Man whispered, watching in shock as
the woman he loved dropped out of sight beyond the building’s
edge. It was then that Todd moved forward, expanding and
enveloping the Man of Steel in a swirling mass of the Shadow Force.
Todd could feel the Kryptonian struggling. He could feel the
emotion and horror rising within the being from another world as his
greatest fears overwhelmed him. “Lois!” the Super-Man
screamed, his body flexing against the green energies of the Dark Star
Heart trying to hold him at bay. Todd knew that Gardner hovered
nearby, his will focused solely on the fist that he had created.
Johnny was a good kid, worthy to be a Green Lantern, and not a Power
Ring.
But this was Super-Man!
With a scream of rage the Man of Steel shrugged and Gardner’s
construct fell away. Then, spinning wildly the Man of Tomorrow
dispersed the Obsidian shadow, little realizing that the damage had
been done. Ignoring Owl Disks and rocky fists, the Super-Man
stepped to the ledge of the Daily Star Building, muscles tensed, ready
to leap…
And Grundy slammed the chunk of Gold Kryptonite into the alien’s
back!
Super-Man screamed as he toppled forwards, off of the building and
started to fall…
It worked, Todd thought, gathering the shadow again and slowly taking
form. The Kryptonite had worked as the mad scientists of STAR
Labs had proclaimed, the strange radiations stealing the alien’s
powers. The Man of Steel was now just a man of flesh and blood
and falling to his doom. They had won…
“Yaaaahhh!” Todd screamed as twin beams of red shot
skyward, drilling through the animated corpse of the Gray Man.
Grundy snorted, dropping the rock and ignoring the two holes bored and
burned through his body as he started swatting at the fires ignited,
licking at the expensive material of his imported, tailor made suit.
Owl Girl moaned and collapsed to the rooftop, the stone golem form of
Rocker teetering just a heartbeat behind, falling like some ancient
monolith no longer revered. Todd stared at Grundy, wondering just
what had gone wrong, but the chalk defender of the gray was staring at
the sky beyond the roof’s edge. Todd turned and screamed
again as a thing of his nightmares writhed up and into view.
It was white, dull and pale and naked as it floated there. It had
huge, slanted eyes and a sloping head. Muscles rippled across its
body from the tips of its long claws to the end of its wriggling,
serrated tail- which was wrapped about the throat of Johnny Gardner,
Power Ring. It seethed, heaving as it landed on the roof’s
edge, its eyes fiery and ablaze as it swept past Grundy to focus on
Obsidian. When it spoke it was like shards of glass raining from
the sky, cutting…
Where…
is… Zard?
ROLL CALL: EARTH 1
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| MARTIAN
MANHUNTER |
SUPERMAN |
THE
BATMAN |
THE
FLASH |
ARSENAL |
JADE |
ORACLE |
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| STEEL |
BIG
BARDA |
MR.
MIRACLE |
ZAURIEL |
AZTEK |
MANITOU
RAVEN |
BRAINIAC
5
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ROLL CALL:
EARTH 2
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| PROTEX |
STAR
SAPPHIRE III
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SOLOMON
GRUNDY
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POWER
RING V
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ROCKER |
SPECTRE |
CSA |
Beyond Space and
Time…
Lights flickered and flashed casting shadows over the the heavy set,
blue-skinned man’s face. He stood stock still floating in
the void. Before him, a dazzling display of pyrotechnics swirled,
a maelstrom, a universe dying as its edges were ate away in Chaos and
destruction. Over his immortal existence, he had seen things that
few others could claim knowledge of, yet he never failed to marvel at
the glory of Creation and Chaos, forever clashing. He saw stars
wither and die, or explode in a final gasp of brilliance. He saw
galaxies crumble and spark to being.
He had seen the Beginning, and…
…He would see the End.
And he would know…
And that was what drove him,
the need to know, the thirst for knowledge, that ultimate knowledge
that would sate his lust and end his endless quest. And it was
within reach, so close that he could taste it, almost touch it.
“Don’t fail me now, Jordan,” the blue-skinned man
admonished over his shoulder, not deigning to glance back at the human.
The Earthling wore a stylized armor based on the uniform of the Corp;
emerald and obsidian and draped in a gaudy cloak as though he were more
than he seemed. For in truth he was.
Hal Jordan was far more than a mere member of the ill-fated Green
Lantern Corp. He had always been considered above the others, his
fellows. The greatest of the Corp amidst fanfare and heraldry,
well deserved. He had beaten the renegade. He had saved his
sector, his galaxy, the very universe time and again. But in the
end, after all, he was only human.
His fragile, mortal world had collapsed when his beloved home had been
destroyed by the machinations of the Cyborg Superman and War
World. And with his home, so too shattered his mind.
Jordan’s grief and rage knew no bounds, and in the end, to
achieve vengeance and restitution he had merged with another
entity. He had a plan, but needed power so he cast aside those
things that had made him great in order to achieve his goals. He
went forth against his fellows without a shred of mercy…
Having slain dozens, hundreds, possibly more of his fellow members and
absorbed their essence, Jordan had gained the power that he
needed. His clenched fists wore the multiple rings of his fallen
comrades. The power of the Central Power Battery coursed through
him, accessible to him alone. He was the Corps. He was THE Green
Lantern. And, he had set out to resurrect what he had lost.
But the adage rang true, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts
absolutely. His attempt at rebirth put him at odds with his friends,
colleagues, and fellow humans. He failed in his attempt. And,
then, disaster reared, and the Green Lantern’s light shown for
one glorious moment, and Jordan sacrificed all to save his home world
and galaxy from a final, dire threat. And the green flame was
snuffed out…
Until now…
“You want a new beginning. As do I. I drew you back
so that we can both get what we want.”
Ancient orange burnished armor creaked as the blue-skinned man gestured
and a blaze of green energy flourished, burning away the ether to swirl
and shrivel, showing the crumbling universe, crumbling and fading
away. Stars flared and surged, then dwindled, eventually blinking
out as the scene shifted collapsing in on itself, folding and twisting
until a fragile blue orb hung in the black, velveteen backdrop of the
void. The ancient stared at the glistening planet, appearing
almost pristine when viewed from afar, spinning and spirally through
the dark inky depths of space. He heard his companion gasp as he
manipulated the view, the green flame burning away the cloud cover as
the scene focused on a plot of land on one of the larger land masses
where a city blossomed, coming again to life.
He glanced back at the other, the Greatest of the Corp on his knees and
sobbing like a babe, wide opaque eyes staring as his shattered home
slowly restructured and grew, life returning. Tears were
streaming down his face, his greatest dream come true at last.
But there was more yet to do.
“See,” he encouraged. Gritting his teeth, the blue
man reached and grabbed Jordan by the jaw and brow forcing his
head…forcing him to look upon the panorama before them.
“You’ve done so much already. Don’t give up on
it now.
“Look,” he said pointing. “Your Coast City is
already starting to reappear. If you finish, it can be there
complete. Reborn. With you as her protector and
savior,” he crooned the last. “Your lost home,”
he purred next to the fallen one. “All of your lost
friends. Your old life… just out there. Beyond your
reach.” He held the former Green Lantern by the
shoulder. “But only if you get up and get on with it.”
The large blue man loomed over Hal Jordan, former Green Lantern of
Sector 2814. His face was twisted in a sneer of contempt, looking
down at the fallen hero, the greatest that the Corp had ever produced.
“Don’t fail me, Jordan,” he said. He shook the
Parallax host, drawing the human to his feet. “You’ve
come so far since I introduced you to your better half.”
Pulling the human up, Krona looked into Hal Jordan’s eyes.
“Wake up in there, Parallax! Your host has work to do.”
Earth 1
The United Nations
Manhattan
Wally West stood in the small room set aside for the JLA Transporter
apparatus and machinery, five floors below ground level, down a heavily
guarded corridor, passed numerous security checkpoints, in the main
Assembly building on the United Nations Plaza. It was small in
comparison to some of the other, grander rooms in the building, being
only twenty feet square and totally unadorned of any trappings save a
single computer chair at the main control bank and a detailed poster on
the wall that elaborated on various potentially hazardous situations.
His hands flicked over the control panel with lightning speed, his
fingers fluttering over the various buttons and dials, his eyes
flitting over the small monitor screens inset into the bank. He
grimaced as he ran through the sequence again, and again received the
same response from the onboard computer:
Destination: Negative. No Receiving
Station at Coordinates.
Meaning that the transporter platform on the Watchtower that he was
trying to access was either offline, or did not exist. Wally
frowned, looking up at the two security guards that had accompanied him
and his companion to the transporter room, and then at his fellow
Leaguer.
Jade still looked a bit shaky after her experience, something to do
with the Corp and the green flame. Whatever it had been it had
knocked her for a loop, but she was recovering. Wally wished that
he had paid closer attention to Kyle when he had rambled on about the
nuances of the Corp.
“Ah can’t do it, Cap’n,” Wally said, forcing a
smile as he stood up from the teleporter controls. “The
transporters are out. The Watchtower isn’t
reachable,” the Flash said, “or it isn’t there
anymore. We could do a site-to-site transport without a station on the
other end, but since it’s on the moon…and the Watchtower
may not be there, I’m guessing that we’d emerge in a hard
vacuum.”
Jade raised her hand, closing her eyes. Slowly, she turned
letting energy of the Starheart flood around her. Scanning the
spectra of radiation about her, a troubled look crossed her face.
“We’ve got a bigger problem.”
“Bigger than the Watchtower being gone. Superman being
missing. And Batman going incommunicado on us?” Wally
West asked.
“I think I’m picking up Parallax energy,” Jennie-Lynn
Haden answered.
The jokes and the smart assedness that marked the former Titan when he
was nervous died on his lips.
“Hal’s back again?” Wally asked.
Jade nodded. “I think so.”
“Where?” Wally asked.
“Coast City.” She responded.
The Flash activated his signal device.
“Oracle, we’ve got a bigger problem,” he said.
Necropolis
Limbo
On the borderlands
between Heaven and Hell
The JLA Watchtower stood canted forward at an odd angle. The base
of the tower was fused with a rock outcropping, the jagged foothills of
a mountain range that seemed to rear up towards infinity and stretched
on for eternity.
A quarter mile from the Tower, the three missing JLAers stood. Side by
side along the cliff’s edge, they looked down a dusty ill-used
road that curved back and forth down the hillside to a twisted city
spread below them.
The gold and white clad, corrupted angel, Zauriel pointed toward a
small group of people shambling down the road toward the city.
Martian and Kryptonian eyes followed his gesture.
It looked to be a family group. Like everything else in this odd
place, they were gray and twisted. Their faces were blank slates
with no features apparent.
“The Between continue to live out their lives after death.
They don’t realize that they are lost between Heaven and
Hell. They don’t fight. They don’t reach. They
just are. Faceless…lost,” Zauriel intoned.
Inwardly, Zauriel shivered, wondering if this was where a fallen angel
bereft of the Presence
belonged.
“Damn Tala and her corruption *,” he thought.
“And damn this mortal form. Were I myself, I could have
already opened a rift to take us back where we belong.”
*Tala raped and corrupted Zauriel
in JLU’s JLA #45
As the three heroes watched, a new suburb appeared on the city’s
fringe.
“As fast as the city is growing, there must be horrible
occurrences going on in the outside world,” J’onn
J’onzz said as he tried to scan the city with his mental
powers. He shuddered as he felt a sensation like a heavy grit
sandpaper rubbing across the tertiary frontal lobe of his brain.
“We need to get moving,” Superman added, his steely blue
eyes focused on the sprawling city, his telescopic vision scanning the
streets. “I can only imagine what must be happening back
home.”
Earth 1
Gotham City
The Bat Cave
The shadowy reaches of the cave fell away into deep darkness providing
counterpoint to the brightly lit platforms with their concrete
stanchions dug into the old bedrock beneath Wayne Manor. Grand
columns of stone stretched up into the darkness etched from the water
eroded bedrock. Great empty spaces whispered far off in the dim,
winding corridors of stalagmites and stalactites stretching below the
grounds and fading with the distance. There was a chill in the
air, and somewhere in the distance leathern wings fluttered madly as
the calm was disturbed…
Manitou Raven regarded Mr. Miracle as he floated before him. Discs on
Mr. Miracle’s boots allowed him to hover before a giant penny,
souvenir of one of Batman’s battles, variously the story revolved
around a showdown with Two-Face or with a virtual unknown called the
Penny Plunderer.
Behind them, the Batman stood at a console facing the
Bat-computer’s massive screen. His eyes were intent on the
monitor as he typed, his fingers a flurry of motion across the
keyboard. As he ticked off aspects of the latest Crisis facing
the Earth, they would appear on the screen in three-dimensional glory.
“That’s a lot of Armageddon going on all at once,”
Mr. Miracle whistled quietly.
“It’s all foretold,” Manitou Raven said gruffly.
“It’s the reason why I was drawn here.” Manitou
looked closely at Mr. Miracle. “You are Ockaweibis,
aren’t you? Chippewa Messenger God and Teacher.”
Mr. Miracle smiled a half smile as he regarded the American Indian in
his Shamanic dress.
“Not in this life,” the New God responded.
“I can see the energies about you,” Manitou said.
“I can see the energies about you as well,” Mr. Miracle
responded cryptically. “Though I can’t tell who you
represent.”
The Manitou didn’t smile as he responded. “I’m
not sure either. I am what I am. They come to me on their
own schedules and in their own times.”
“Beware of them,” Mr. Miracle warned. “Their
use of you may not be as altruistic as you’ve been lead to
believe.
Batman’s voice echoed gravely in the acoustic environment of the
cave, “If we’re through playing Crypto Mythology:
Who’s Who, can we get back to the world ending out there? ”
“Of course, Batman,” Manitou said. He knelt grabbing
a pinch of dirt from the floor. Rubbing it about in the palm of
his hand, he said something low and guttural under his breath, then,
blew on his hand causing the dust to cloud into the air before him.
Blue and green light played in the floating dust motes. The Earth
appeared floating in space. A moment later, another Earth
appeared partially overlapping the first Earth. Then another
appeared… and another… and another… until there
seemed to be a string of pearls made of the planet Earth.
Reaching into the thin dust cloud, Manitou began brushing some of the
Earths aside. He stopped to consider one… then,
another. Until, finally, he stood before two model Earths. They
floated in his magical dust cloud, almost touching.
“These are the only two being affected by what is going on.
If it were truly the End, then all would be affected instead of just
these two,” Manitou said.
“Magic from our Earth has done something to this second
Earth. There seems to be an open portal between our Earth and
this other. I can feel someone standing in the gap between them.
I… “
A clicking sound was heard. And Manitou collapsed…
“Well that was helpful,” Batman said as he reached out,
placing two fingers along the side of Manitou’s neck.
Satisfied that he still had a pulse, Batman checked his guest’s
breathing.
He turned back to his computer screen, reporting the information that
Manitou had just given to Oracle and Steel.
Over his shoulder, he addressed Mr. Miracle, “Get Manitou on the
exam table. I’ll have Alfred down in a moment to check on
him.”
Mr. Miracle lifted Manitou onto the indicated table.
The Barrier
Between Worlds…
Krona and Parallax stood side by side in a bubble of green
energy. Their tearing at the corners of reality had caused the
entire universe to shrink and shudder. But now, they had found a
hole into an otherwhen/otherwhere…
In a portal in the nothingness between universes, the Spectre stood
straining. His feet braced against one side of a
jagged tear between universes as his outstretched arms held the other.
Krona leered past the oblivious Spectre’s shoulder. The
straining Spirit of Vengeance fought to hold the gap between the two
universes open. He felt the disasters beginning to build in each
dimension, yet he sensed that if he let go of this portal the blink
effect could destroy both.
“This will do,” Krona said. “That
universe’s death will give me all that I want.”
He looked down his nose at the Spectre. Gesturing with his chin, he
said, “Parallax dispose of the ghost.”
Hal Jordan’s body raised its hands as the Parallax entity forced
its puppet to its master’s bidding. The concentrated power of the
Green Lantern Corps struck the Spectre in the back, blasting him with
the combined stolen energies of the Guardians of the Universe.
The Spectre screamed…
As the Spectre fell through the portal into the Earth-2 universe,
Parallax followed him blasting him, not giving him time to think.
The portal began to collapse into a pinpoint, dragging space toward its
event horizon as the tear tried to heal itself.
Krona gestured and energy flashed from his hands and eyes, ripping the
portal open anew. What had been a round, perfect, surgical hole
was now a gapping, shredded curtain effect between the universes.
A universes-wide quake shook reality as the Big Crunch accelerated in
both the Earth-1 and Earth-2 universes. Mystic and cosmic adepts
in both universes sensed a disturbance in the ether.
Earth-1
Mar Vista,
California
Marguerita Covas, the mystic known as Tarot, fumbled her cards as she
sat at a table in her reading room. She convulsed briefly before
falling out of her chair and into unconsciousness. The Tarot deck
fluttered to the ground around her. All the cards landed face down
except for two, the Death card and the World card.
Jose Delgado, arriving a few minutes early for their date, found
Marguerita out cold on the floor. He dialed 911 for an
ambulance. As he cradled her in his arms, waiting for the
paramedics, he noticed the cards on the floor. He didn’t
know much about Tarot cards, but he knew Death plus the World was all
bad… and not the kind of bad that he could pull on his
Gangbuster togs and deal with.
Earth-1
Space Sector 1014
Unnamed planet
Halfway around the universe from Earth’s sector, a giant humanoid
with a metal head looked up from his work redesigning a continent for a
willing group of colorblind octopoid aliens. Swirling his green, red,
and yellow toga to a more comfortable position, Mr. Nebula adjusted his
ocular orbits to allow him to see across galactic distances.
He stared for a moment before shaking his head. “Those
Earthlings are playing with things beyond their ken again. Their world
is so uncouth and,” he sighed deeply, “unfashionable. I
should have the Scarlet Skier check in on them again sometime
soon,” he said in a muffled, half lisp around the large safety
pin looking construct that he held between his teeth… before
turning back to his current project, fashioning of a mountain range in
pinkish-mauve and seafoam under a deep purple atmospheric backdrop.
As he waved his hand causing a splash of color to run along a
ridgeline, a crowd of onlooking octopoid drew in loud breaths and
“ooohed” loud with appreciation.
Hell
Neron reclined on a throne made of skulls. He swirled his ever-present
broken wine goblet full of lost souls. “At this rate, these
mortals will destroy the universe before I have the chance to truly
bring Hell on Earth to them,” he grumbled as he watched a
swirling mist shrouded crystal ball. It’s milky depths showed him
Parallax battling the Spectre in some unnamed borderland between worlds.
Earth-1
Legion Headquarters
Megapolis
3009 AD
Brainiac 5 lifted his eyes from a scanner hood built into his
desktop. “The energy readings are off the scale. It
looks like a Crisis level event, but the energy is only affecting two
universes.” He pursed his lips as he leaned back to the
scanner. “Fascinating.”
“Is there anything we can do about it, Brainy?” the
young teen Danielle Fouccart asked from where she perched nearby. Arms
crossed, she sat on one of Brainiac 5’s work tables.
“I doubt it. It’s all happening a thousand years
ago. Either the heroes of that era can deal with it or
we’ll cease to exist.” He paused for a few beats,
“Just like always. Though we might want to warn Cosmic Boy
that we could be experiencing some reality fluctuations even if they
succeed.”
“I’ll take care of it,” she responded, adjusting the
communicator built into her Legion flight ring.
“And Computo,” Brainiac 5 said as he settled his brow back
to the scanner.
“Yes, Brainy?”
“Don’t call me Brainy. And don’t sit on my work
benches, please,” the genius Coluan said.
Computo smiled back at him. “Sure, Brainy, whatever you
say.”
Her ring beeped. “Cos, this is Computo down in Brainy’s
lab…”
The Barrier
Between Worlds
Beyond where the Spectre and Parallax battled, on the fringes of limbo,
along the ragged edge of the border between Earth-2 and Earth-1, a
globe of energy floated. Warning signs in multiple languages
surrounded the globe.
Within the globe, five shadowy figures stood.
A large U graced the chest of a tall, heavily muscled, Superman-like
figure in red and blue. A wide blue shoulder placard extended to
points at his shoulders with a red cape depending down his back to his
knees.
A green and black garbed figure stood with his hands pressed against
the side of the globe, starring hungrily at Parallax, wanting that
power for himself.
A beautiful woman in a jet-black leotard stood to one side. A
shock of white marked the fore of her dark hair, following the
part. A golden lasso hung at her side. A yellow circle
marked with a smallish, red S hung between her ample bosoms. A
short yellow cape hung to just below her buttocks.
A man dressed in red with golden trim, jagged lightning bolts
emblazoning his chest slumped wide-eyed and shaking against the globe's
wall.
At his side stood a pale-skinned man, tall and bald, his hand on the
speedster's temple. He stared at the corruption, the clashing
energies where two universes threatened to collide.
“Something is happening,” the Martian Mankiller said, his
eyes vacant as he stared beyond the energy walls of the globular prison
that had been his home for months. “I sense…
kindred.”
His mind flashed back to the Maddening, when the Greens rallied from
their bondage and gathered the Reds and the Tharks and the lumpish
Heconoids to their cause and overthrew their pale oppressors. So
few had survived that bloody cataclysm, and it had been so long since
he had heard their siren call…
“Do you ‘sense’ a way out of this fucking globe,
pussy?”
S’m S’mth looked to Ultraman and cowered, knowing the
other’s strength. “No,“ he whimpered, returning
his attention to alleviating the speedster’s dementia.
Their latest fruitless plan for escape was for Johnny Quick to tap into
the Speed Force
of Earth-1 and somehow use it to shatter their globular prison.
S’mth had yet to inform Ultra-Man that the Speed Force had
apparently vanished.
“I don’t think he’s really trying,” the
Superwoman said, spinning her golden lasso in lariat fashion.
Lois Lane sneered at S’m, flashing the White Martian an evil grin.
“He damn well better be,” Ultra-Man said as he slammed his
fist against the impenetrable wall of their interdimensional
prison. “I want out of this damn cage! I want my
hands around Owl-man’s neck.”
S’m S’mth stared at Ultra-Man for a moment. Nervously, he
licked his forked tongue along his lips. He decided that now was
probably not the best time to tell his fellow maniacs about the Earth-1
Speed Force.
With a mental shrug, he returned to the task of psychically stroking
Johnny Quick’s twisted and drug warped mind.
Earth-1
Metropolis
Steelworks
Steel and Aztek stood on a lab platform over the large experimental
warehouse floor of the main building at Steelworks. A bank of monitor
screens covered one end of the platform.
“The answer has to be in these readings,” Steel said,
running his eyes down multiple screens covered with numbers and
equations.
Aztek stood by feeling useless. “Normally, I’d be
able to scan that and use the helmet’s fourth dimensional mirror
to power through the data, but something is causing the power to
fluctuate.”
A comm screen turned itself on. Batman’s face appeared on
the screen. Aztek couldn’t hear what was said.
Batman finished passing along what he had learned from Manitou Raven
and Mr. Miracle and the screen blanked.
John Henry Irons sat for a moment and, then, slowly turned to face his
newest teammate. His eyes bored into him. “Tell me
about that fourth dimensional helmet again.”
Earth 2
Metropolis
The Daily Star
Building
Some days
ago…
Protex swept the rooftop with his Martian Force Vision raking a path of
destruction in the wake of the gaudily clad girl that flipped and
twisted just ahead of his gaze, and death. She reminded him of
the Bat, and he wanted her dearly.
The Humans- metas by their appearance- had been stoic in response to
his question. Rather than answer and receive a quick and merciful
death they had scattered and then attacked; the girl throwing little
metallic disks at him while the shadowy male had tried to envelope him
in a chilling obfuscation. Obviously the greatest threat, Protex
had felled him with a psychic shock that should have killed, were he
not so weak.
The White Martian had spent months in bondage, trapped in the form of
the Kryptonian and manipulated by Zard into living out some senseless
fantasy. Shifting his natural attributes to accommodate the
Wizard’s whim for so long had atrophied even his autonomous
functions. His mind had become weak, as when the Bat had had the
green J’onzz hypnotize he and his followers into baseline Humans,
little better than animals for so long.
Protex wanted Zard, and the Bat. He wanted vengeance, and he, and
all of his ilk, would get it. But first he would sate his lust on
these fools.
With the Shadow man down momentarily, and the threat of the Green
Lantern wriggling in the grip of his tail, Protex was free to
concentrate on the others. The white-skinned monstrosity was
obviously the leader of the group, as he stayed skulking in the
background, watching intently as the scene played out. The girl
had come to rest at the base of the gigantic star that topped the
building, half concealed and gathering her energy. That left the
stone golem. Where –
THOOM!
Protex spat blood as he tumbled with the impact of the blow. His
senses were dulled yet from Zard’s manipulations to let the golem
get close enough to touch him. Magic was bane. Protex fell
to the rooftop, hearing the squeals of pain from the Guardian’s
lackey as he was dragged along despite the protective emerald collar
that he had erected to encircle his throat. If not for that,
Protex would have snapped the Lantern’s neck at the outset.
A blast of Martian Vision halted the rock monster’s advance,
staggering the hulking form long enough that Protex could float back to
his feet and adjust his own density against assault.
“Come…” he hissed, and the creature charged forward.
The creature hit hard. Protex would give him that much credit;
though whether due to actual strength or the magic laced within his
make-up he did not know or care. He had dealt with Utrini ages before, when his cast
and clan had ruled the Earth. He could deal with this pretender
of that long dead race of rock dwellers.
His hand morphed and shifted, thickening and sharpening all at
once. Protex folded the molecules in his limb, over and over like
a well-forged blade, strengthening and hardening even as he thrust
forward. His bladed fist sliced into the stone form, digging deep
and penetrating the far side with his thrust.
The monster stopped dead, its mouth agape and flapping. Protex
sensed the explosion of anguish and pain sweeping outward as he
expanded his arm within the fissure, pressing on the fractured
rock. Chips and flakes spewed outward as his arm grew, cracking
the stone as the creature moaned in fear and agony. Protex
concentrated and glared, his Martian Force Vision blasting into the
scar and shattering the rock asunder. The golem exploded in a
showery display of dust and gravel.
The annoying shower of metal disks returned battering his impervious
backside, and Protex turned his attention to the girl. She was
still half-shielded, throwing her distractions to the wind with a grim
look of determination creasing her features.
“This ain’t goin’ well, Sol,” she said, her
voice filled with anxiety. “Hope you got a plan.”
“Always,” the white-skinned hulk answered, still not moving
to engage. Protex stared at the creature with vision that was far
beyond the mortal spectrum and saw a twisted monster of elemental
base. Who were these Humans?
Protex felt the Lantern exert his will and expand the collar.
Caught distracted, the boy’s head slipped free of the tail and he
quickly floated out of immediate range, rubbing his throat and erecting
a shield.
“You got a plan, Grundy,” the youth rasped, “now
would be a good time to share it.”
Protex watched as the white mockery stepped forward at last. He
was smiling, raising his hands. “We surrender,” he
said and Protex blinked suspecting trickery, a trap. The creature
looked up at him.
“You want Zard, Martian?” he said with a smirk.
“I can give him to you.”
To be Continued...
NEXT ISSUE: Light thickens as the darkness threatens
the mirror universes of Earth 1 and Earth 2. Krona is willing to
sacrifice countless lives to get the answer he seeks; the secret of
Creation itself, and has enlisted the aid of the greatest Green Lantern
of all time, Hal Jordan to achieve his ends. But will the JLA be
able to stop him as the threat of the White Martians returns?
It’ll take more than a Zippo to solve this one, Batman! Be
here for...
Blackest
Night: Part 4! The Dark Before the Dawn…
Hello All,
Riding the carousel it seems I have
come full circle again, back where I started. My first Fanfic
Title, lo those many years ago was right here at JLU: 2001, and writing
JLA no less. Back then I took over after a great, all be it short
run by site founder Will Short (no pun intended). I had big shoes
to fill back then and was brand spanking new to Fanfic, but managed to
hack out 38 issues on the title, plus an annual with a couple
breaks. Now I’m back, and again looking to fill big
shoes…
I was a little disheartened (both as
a reader and an editor) when Dino Pollard decided to leave his DC
Titles. He was doing great and writing some fantastic stories,
but I understood his reasoning. I’ve always said that when
it stops being fun and becomes work, it’s time to stop.
Still, it left JLA without a writer, and somehow I knew that it would
end up being me, and truthfully, I was just not in a JLA mood.
Luckily, I have Mark Anderson on my
side…
As I am not Mick Jagger and Time has
turned its back on me lately, I asked Mark if he might like to co-write
JLA and he either said ‘ehn, what the hell’ or ‘hell
yeah’ or something in between (just kidding). For those of
you who have read his magnificent run on Aqua-Man, you know he is a
great writer and THE man when it comes to DC history and
continuity. I was happy as hell that he agreed, and we batted
around ideas and fleshed out plots, and worked up outlines, and
finally…
Here we are, once again reaching for
the brass ring. The carousel goes round and round. Expect a
wild ride…
Curt Fernlund
9-11-09
I love the Justice League and always
have. From the cave at Happy Harbor, to the satellite orbiting
22,300 miles over the Earth, from the Earth-2 brownstone where
I’d spend my summers, to the island of Kooey-Kooey-Kooey, to a
Watchtower on the Moon…yeah…I loved ‘em all.
I was sucked into their four-color
world on a roadtrip to Oregon with my grandmother when I was 8 years
old. She bought me one of their books to keep me occupied along the
highway. I bet I read that story 20 or 30 times on that trip. Justice
League of America #118, May 1975. And I was hooked.
My step dad tried to get me hooked on
Marvel, but it didn’t really take. I was a DC. I liked Marvel
fine. I read Marvel. I remember a conversation with my step father, had
in all seriousness, about how Thor managed to stop when he threw his
hammer to fly.
But I bled Superman and Batman ink.
Years later, the nerdnet is born and
I got caught up in online comicophilia. I participated in a fanfic
challenge or two on…hmmm…I must be getting old…I
can’t remember the name of the site. Russell Burbage was on it. I
remember him and some of the stories. I wrote in a challenge or two for
Fanzing and submitted a story here or a story there. I wrote a
JLA-centric fanfic based on the team that replaced the “Big
Guns” lineup during The Obsidian Age. I was proud of The
Replacements that appeared at DC Heroes. And a bit later, as I got
around to issue #6 and was starting to feel a little gassed, DCH
folded. Coincident with that, I wrote a Twice Told Tale about the
origin of Superman…
…and a few days after it
posted, I got an email from this guy.
This guy whose love of comics matched
or exceeded my own.
This guy who invited me to come write
for him. Told me to look around the site and see if anything sparked
for me.
“Here, Puff.
Here’s a toybox. Root around in there and see what you want to
play with.”
“Aquaman?
Sure, I’ll look at a pitch for Aquaman.”
17 issues later…and 3…4
years later…something like that…Yeah…Curt knew how
to bait the trap.
And now…I feel baited again.
What can I say? He hits me where I
live.
Mark (Puff Doggy Daddy) Anderson
So, wishing to get the JLA Mailbag
going again, I made an Editorial Decision (God help us all), and sent
the first issue of Mark and I's JLA out for Review to just a
handful of those writers here in HEROES that I respect.. I will
be posting the Replies that I received here with a grain of salt...
'Awesome work, Curt. You and Puff have
managed to take a very loose and
poorly-planned idea and make it your own in a seamless and coherent
fashion.'
Dino Pollard
(Previous writer on JLA)
10/10/09
Thanks Dino, but don't sell
yourself short. Your run on JLA was awesome and inspiring, and
has given an infinite number of jump off points for me and Mark to tie
up many loose ends...
Curt F
EIC
JLU: 2001
'As for JLA, it was great. It started
off with pulse pounding action and
kept up throughout. One thing I would suggest though is to fill-in more
backstory. For example, I was lost during that part with Infinity Inc
and tricking Superman with the fake Lois. As far as I knew, Infinity
Inc were supposed to be good guys, and they weren't listed in the Roll
Call as Villains, yet they abducted and killed the fake Lois and
Superman but they also said that the JSA they're fighting aren't real,
they were created by Zard... so, I'm kind of lost on either they're
good or bad...'
Kim Johnson
Assistant Editor
JLU: 2001
Thank you, Kim. We are addressing the Backstory somewhere as a
couple people mentioned that. The entire story actually started
with my first issue; #7 of JLA, and touched in other issues and Titles
like Black Canary and Outsiders, and your own Omniverse, and though not
all planned, it will be culminating soon, right here in JLA! Keep
reading...
Curt F
EIC
JLU: 2001
More letters and reviews next issue...
Story
© Mark Anderson and Curt Fernlund 2009
