Finale
⋅ Writers: Geoff Johns ⋅ Pencilers: Phil Jimenez / George
Continued from Infinite Crisis #6
We start with a one page summary of Conner’s death and old Superman lamenting how he was fooled to pick the wrong side, this include’s Pee Gee asking about Lois though we don’t get to see her full reactions (though to be fair there is a crisis going on). We don’t have much time though as all the villains are attacking Metropolis, in an amazing two page splash. We then get a few pages of various fights, with a little housecleaning of various villains (I think there’s a lot going on). Before Alexander and Superboy-prime show up and we get Doomsday!
Then in another two page spread we see the two Supermen fighting Doomsday, in a weird thing the city is never called Metropolis, it’s called my city, and I wonder if it’s a cheat so not to have to say what Superman-2’s city (which was unnamed but New York-ish). Anyway with the two Supermen we get the other heroes with them , including Power Girl, who proceed to put down villains left and right. Superman-2 get’s to have his moment with Alexander, whilst Superby-Prime has a go at Cassie before Flash (Bart Allen right now, Flashes are a complicated thing).
Superboy-Prime decides that all this fighting is pointless and decides the best thing to do is hit Oa, now back to the center of the universe, at lightspeed causing an explosion big enough to restart the universe. All of the flying heroes take to the air, and we get a few more heroes taken down, and even now a subplot with Captain Atom apparently zapping elsewhere (the Charlton Universe apparently).
We get a quick aside, between the chase of Superboy-Prime, of Batman and Alexander being trapped under a building, with Alexander even going for we’re not that different you and I. Batman responded by pointing a gun at Alexander and going to pull the trigger, before Wonder Woman turns up and tell him that it’s time for them to be better than all this, including throwing down (and breaking) her own sword. And Diana never wielded a sword every again…
The chase in space end up with some more housecleaning, of the Lantern Core this time, and it ends up with only Superman-2 being able to keep up with Superboy-Prime. Which makes sense as the OG Superman could travel at lightspeed or even quicker! He take Superman-1 along, but decides to keep Pee Gee behind, It’s a little vague but I like to assume that it’s because he can’t afford to lose his last link to his universe, and not just because she’s just a “girl”.
Basically the two Supermen fly Superboy-Prime through a Red star, Rao as it happens (Krypton’s own star), landing on Mogo the planet sized Green Lantern who is scattered with Kryptonite. Here the two Supermen fight Superboy-Prime, who like all of them is loosing his powers under the light of a Red Star. In the fight our Superman rips off Superboy-Primes S symbol, saying that you have to earn the S shield, and after a knock down fight Superman-1 manages to beat down Superboy-Prime before collapsing exhausted. Poor Superman-2 took a heavy beating at the start giving Superman-1 a chance to get repaired for the final fight.
Then the Lantern’s turn up to take Superboy-Prime to space jail and we get a lovely moment of Power Girl saying goodbye to Superman-2, finishing with a shot of a young Superman and Lois together again among the stars. It also a very meta moment with Superman saying that he realises what Lois was trying to say, that it’s never going to end. What with him getting to go to superhero heaven with Lois, and the fact that Superman the character is going to carry on for the foreseeable future (never say never etc, etc).
That’s it more or less and everything from this point is the epilogue, we get a page of various titbits of heroes, before we cut to Alexander in GOtham, don’t worry it’s the last time we have to wonder just how he keeps getting away from all those combat. In the end it’s Joker, who’s been out of most of the event, who takes Alexander down with a acid squirt flower. Seem it’s because, as Luthor explains, Joker is pissed that Alexander didn’t invite him to take place in all the chaos.
We end properly with the Trinity (Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman) taking a year out to wonder the world to find themselves and let the other heroes have there moment, the comic’s cut to One Year Later (we can’t have a year without our Batman comics) and the missing year is covers in the 52 event, which I will get to sometime in 2023-ish!
I can’t judge this event objectively, it was my first Crisis and it, along with 52, got me into the DC Universe. So this might be nostalgia talking but I think I prefer this to THE Crisis! It’s completely told all the way through and ever issue has a purpose with all the plot coming together to the big fight at the end. That compared to the OG Crisis where it finishes two issues to the end and we get this weird pause before the thing stops.
If one thing surprised me this time around the multiverse really doesn’t play as big a part of the climax of the story, I guess that’s for Final Crisis, I think we have a multiverse again but it’s a little on the vague side. It’s more about sweeping away all the darkness that has lseeped in the DC Universe thanks to the 90s, though we’ll see how that lasts going forward…