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I’m back with the 6th issue to the event known as Infinite Crisis. Right now, it’s Wednesday, I just got off work and I’m not ready to sleep yet. I sort of remember when I got this issue. It was a Friday in March or April 2006, and I decided I was going to walk and get this issue. One problem: there was rain in the forecast. So, I decided to head out in the morning before all of the rain came. Before I left, I prayed to God the He would hold back all the rain till when I got back (Yeah, I prayed for that. So what? I always prayed before I did a walk like that.). Well, it worked, I got the issue and got back before all sorts of rain AND hail fell down. It was nuts. Everyone in Nicks Hall was watching that stuff fall. The creative team for the issue is pretty much the same, with Jerry Ordway, George Perez, and Ivan Reis doing pencils along with the main artist, Phil Jimenez. The covers are well done, with one being awesome and one being okay. Guess which one. Well, here we go…
Issue Six
The issue starts out in the orbit around Earth. Batman and his posse of heroes are out in space looking for the satellite known as Brother Eye. Hal (Green Lantern) and Ollie (Green Arrow) get into a conversation about baseball and John Stewarts’s ring act strange around our new Blue Beetle Jaime (not Jamie. Batman encourages Jamie to use the scarab to uncloak the satellite and tells Booster Gold that he does not know how to talk to kids. Hmm…well, when you have about five Robins I guess that makes you an expert on kids, I guess. Anyway, Jaime negates its cloaking device, and suddenly Brother Eye appears right in front of them. As Brother Eye lets out a monologue about being used to map the multiverse for Alex Luthor, swarms of OMACs begin to attack the Beetle ship.
On Earth-Two, Kal-L (aka Supes-2 or Superman of Earth-2) is still mourning over Lois-2 when Superman consoles him. Kal-L knows he made a horrible mistake, but Wonder Woman appears and says they all need to learn from the mistakes they’ve made. Ka-L then fills them in on what Alex is trying to do and tell them that the need to stop him. As they get ready to leave Earth-2, they run into a little, tiny, problem: which Earth is their Earth?
Issue Six
The issue starts out in the orbit around Earth. Batman and his posse of heroes are out in space looking for the satellite known as Brother Eye. Hal (Green Lantern) and Ollie (Green Arrow) get into a conversation about baseball and John Stewarts’s ring act strange around our new Blue Beetle Jaime (not Jamie. Batman encourages Jamie to use the scarab to uncloak the satellite and tells Booster Gold that he does not know how to talk to kids. Hmm…well, when you have about five Robins I guess that makes you an expert on kids, I guess. Anyway, Jaime negates its cloaking device, and suddenly Brother Eye appears right in front of them. As Brother Eye lets out a monologue about being used to map the multiverse for Alex Luthor, swarms of OMACs begin to attack the Beetle ship.
On Earth-Two, Kal-L (aka Supes-2 or Superman of Earth-2) is still mourning over Lois-2 when Superman consoles him. Kal-L knows he made a horrible mistake, but Wonder Woman appears and says they all need to learn from the mistakes they’ve made. Ka-L then fills them in on what Alex is trying to do and tell them that the need to stop him. As they get ready to leave Earth-2, they run into a little, tiny, problem: which Earth is their Earth?
The Multiverse!!!
Across the multiverse, heroes struggle against the chaos (Earth-0 looks happy about it for some reason…Oh yeah, Bizarro World.) Alex grabs two of the Earths from his “Petri dish”, takes them into that big white hole in the Polaris Galaxy and smashes them together, making a new Earth. The heroes there look at the act and are shocked. From his tower, he watches his new world from the magic ball. When his combination is not as to be suspected (an Aztec Superman and Batman…Looks cool), he destroys the new Earth, killing everyone on it. Dang. Alex won’t stop until he creates the perfect Earth.
We then abruptly move to something really irrelevant. On Earth-1, all of the mystical heroes come together at Stonehenge to summon the Spectre so he will help stop all of the madness. Zatanna commands him to appear, and all of the sudden Crispus Allen appears. He then transforms into the Spectre. The Spectre, looking somewhat peeved, then focuses on the villain Star Sapphire, and screams that vengeance must be had as he turns her to stone and makes her explode. Well, looks like he won’t be any help!
We then move to something that is relevant.Yay! Nightwing and Superboy stake out at Alex's tower and see what they need to do. Soon, Wonder Girl joins them. This “Trinity” of a sort then charges in and knock out Psycho Pirate as Alex turns to attack and OMACs attack.
In Earth’s orbit, the Green Lanterns shield the ship and ram it into the satellite. After crashing into the satellite, Batman sends his posse to follow his orders while he gets to meet Brother Eye personally. Inside, Black Lightning and Mr. Terrific head off together kick some machine butt. BL gets trapped, while Mr. Terrific continues on, with his ability of being invisible to technology serving him well when he goes into the satellite’s propulsion system.
As the assault on Alex’s tower continues, Alex decides to combine Earth-2 and Earth-3. The Supermen and Wonder Woman squirm in pain as they are merged with their counterparts from Earth-3 (looks painful too. Ow). In the Polaris Galaxy, Donna Troy sees this moment as the as the moment that her team must act. Kyle Rayner (who somehow lost his face, lol) directs the group of heroes to attack Alex's hands. Firestorm helps the heroes succeed in blowing off one of Alex’s fingers and this stops the process. On the tower, Alex is in pain. The ensuing explosion in the Polaris Galaxy makes most of the heroes vanish, and this interruption frees the Super Folk and Wonder Woman from being merged.
Nightwing does his best “Karate Kick!” and knocks Alex down off the tower. He stands up to find Power Girl, Martian Manhunter, Nighshade, Ray, Breach, and some other woman free and coming for him. Superboy completes the task by freeing Dwayne… Black Adam from his bonds. Psycho Pirate tries to use his powers on Adam, who responds by…by putting his hand through the villain’s, which kills him. The heroes seem to be winning when, like a speeding bullet, PRIME joins the battle.
Black Adam “throws the lightning” on PRIME, who just laughs and literally punches Adam back to Earth-S (okay, he transports to Earth-S, but my way sounds better). It’s here we find out that the Flashes had PRIME locked up in the Speed Force, but he escaped and made a suit thatfeeds him yellow sunlight. PRIME then demands that Alex, who looks somewhat scared of the whiny boy, find Earth-Prime and make it the perfect Earth. PRIME is interrupted when Martian Manhunter attacks him and decides to pull his best Phil Morris impression. Nightwing tells SUperboy to use his Tactile telekinesis to tear the Tower apart, but Superboy is having trouble with that. The other heroes also attack Emo-boy Prime, but he lashes out and pushes them away, sending them except J'onn back to their Earths.
In the satellite, Batman reaches Brother Eye’s core and tries to disable his creation. The satellite shows him images of the battle raging in the Arctic, as well as images of Nightwing, telling him “…will you blame yourself for what happens next?”
We then abruptly move to something really irrelevant. On Earth-1, all of the mystical heroes come together at Stonehenge to summon the Spectre so he will help stop all of the madness. Zatanna commands him to appear, and all of the sudden Crispus Allen appears. He then transforms into the Spectre. The Spectre, looking somewhat peeved, then focuses on the villain Star Sapphire, and screams that vengeance must be had as he turns her to stone and makes her explode. Well, looks like he won’t be any help!
Remind me why this scene here is again?
We then move to something that is relevant.Yay! Nightwing and Superboy stake out at Alex's tower and see what they need to do. Soon, Wonder Girl joins them. This “Trinity” of a sort then charges in and knock out Psycho Pirate as Alex turns to attack and OMACs attack.
In Earth’s orbit, the Green Lanterns shield the ship and ram it into the satellite. After crashing into the satellite, Batman sends his posse to follow his orders while he gets to meet Brother Eye personally. Inside, Black Lightning and Mr. Terrific head off together kick some machine butt. BL gets trapped, while Mr. Terrific continues on, with his ability of being invisible to technology serving him well when he goes into the satellite’s propulsion system.
As the assault on Alex’s tower continues, Alex decides to combine Earth-2 and Earth-3. The Supermen and Wonder Woman squirm in pain as they are merged with their counterparts from Earth-3 (looks painful too. Ow). In the Polaris Galaxy, Donna Troy sees this moment as the as the moment that her team must act. Kyle Rayner (who somehow lost his face, lol) directs the group of heroes to attack Alex's hands. Firestorm helps the heroes succeed in blowing off one of Alex’s fingers and this stops the process. On the tower, Alex is in pain. The ensuing explosion in the Polaris Galaxy makes most of the heroes vanish, and this interruption frees the Super Folk and Wonder Woman from being merged.
Nightwing does his best “Karate Kick!” and knocks Alex down off the tower. He stands up to find Power Girl, Martian Manhunter, Nighshade, Ray, Breach, and some other woman free and coming for him. Superboy completes the task by freeing Dwayne… Black Adam from his bonds. Psycho Pirate tries to use his powers on Adam, who responds by…by putting his hand through the villain’s, which kills him. The heroes seem to be winning when, like a speeding bullet, PRIME joins the battle.
If you liked this, read 52 where he does more of the “putting hands through people” as well as the “ripping motion.”
Black Adam “throws the lightning” on PRIME, who just laughs and literally punches Adam back to Earth-S (okay, he transports to Earth-S, but my way sounds better). It’s here we find out that the Flashes had PRIME locked up in the Speed Force, but he escaped and made a suit thatfeeds him yellow sunlight. PRIME then demands that Alex, who looks somewhat scared of the whiny boy, find Earth-Prime and make it the perfect Earth. PRIME is interrupted when Martian Manhunter attacks him and decides to pull his best Phil Morris impression. Nightwing tells SUperboy to use his Tactile telekinesis to tear the Tower apart, but Superboy is having trouble with that. The other heroes also attack Emo-boy Prime, but he lashes out and pushes them away, sending them except J'onn back to their Earths.
In the satellite, Batman reaches Brother Eye’s core and tries to disable his creation. The satellite shows him images of the battle raging in the Arctic, as well as images of Nightwing, telling him “…will you blame yourself for what happens next?”
As Alex tries to find Earth-Prime, Superboy-Prime distracts Nightwing and Superboy. He then charges toward Dick, telling him that he wasn't even trying (he was crying though) when he fought the TItans. Suddenly, Superboy grabs Prime and says “Neither was I.” Round Two is on!!
On the satellite, Batman explains to the wanna-be HAL 9000 that he isn’t trying to destroy him, just distracting him while Mr. Terrific activates the propulsion system. This will throw Brother Eye out of orbit, weaken the OMACs, and send the Satellite crashing to Earth. As the OMACs power down, it’s revealed to have people in them. John Stewart uses his ring to save the people. On the USS Beetle, Jaime suddenly disappears in front of everyone (find out what happened to him in his series.). Brother Eye tries to trap Batman there, but Green Lantern flies in for the untimely save. Batman then tells Hal to take them to Alex's tower.
On Earth, the OMACs there also power down. PRIME beats on Wonder Girl as Alex finally locates Earth-Prime and tries to grab the reader by the neck.
Me? Hey.....HEY! I don't float on that boat!
As PRIME knocks Wonder Girl away, Superboy comes back with some hits of his own, as well as some “You may be a whining shell of a boy…but I AM A MAN!!!” talk. Prime yells that he'll be the one, true Superboy when all is said and done, but Connor grabs him and charges towards the tower. When they crash, the tower explodes, sending everyone flying. With the tower destroyed, the multiverse collapses in to one singular universe called New Earth.
At least he went out with a bang...
Hmm...what do those images of Wonder Woman turning into a tree, a newpaper, Zod, and Superboy have in common?
... ... .
Well, that's the end of the issue. Is it good? It's good, but with a couple of complaints. First, the scene involving the Spectre: why is it here? I mean, I guess we had to see if the Spectre would be used in the coming battle against Alex and the Society, but alas, he isn't (which wouldn't be much of a match now when I think about it). I guess another complaint would be the violence. What Black Adam did was NASTY. I mean...just EW! I don't wanna see brains over here and there! Another complaint I guess would be that we didn't spend much time in space (the Polaris Galaxy, that is). It would have been nice to see what happened to those vanished heroes. We do find out in OYL and 52 though, so I guess it's not much of a problem.
Even after all of that, it's still a good read. We get rid of that dang satellite, and we get rid of that Tower, as well as the Multiverse (well...sort of...). Anyway, the biggest thing to happen in this issue is the death of Superboy (aka Kon-El and Conner Kent). If I had to say a few things about the Boy of Steel, it would be that he was a cool dude. When he was first introduced, he was not anything like Clark Kent as Superboy (Hey, it was the 90's). He was cocky, arrogant, and he didn't like to be called Superboy. Still, the character was a hero (a cool one) and stuck around throughout the 90's and grew to be liked by most, especially me. He and Steel were the only replacements I liked from the whole Death/Return of Superman storyline (though the Eradicator looked somewhat cool). Well, all I can say for the character is this:
He...might be back, but not in these clothes fortunately (the jacket's cool though).
Well, there's one more issue to go, so I'll leave you with this:
NEXT TIME: HEROES FIGHT VILLAINS!!! (sounds familiar)
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