Crisis on Infinite Earths in a Nutshell

This is part of my Crisis Files.

So what was the deal with the First Crisis, the big saga that was depicted in Crisis on Infinite Earths #1-12? Well, that can get very complicated. But for this "In a Nutshell" essay, we're going to focus on the basics. Like all of my "In a Nutshell" pieces, this is focusing on what is considering continuity today. If you want the full messy details, look elsewhere in the Crisis Guide.

KRONA AND THE FORBIDDEN EXPERIMENT

Some time after the death of the "Old Gods" (the first sentient race in the universe), and long before the rise humanity on Earth, there was the alien race of Maltusians, blue-skinned near-immortals. The Maltusians eventually made their home on Oa, a world they believed to be located in the center of the universe.

One of the Maltusians, a scientist named Krona, attempted to peer back into the past so he could witness the very beginning of time and space itself. Krona's monitor screens displayed the image of a giant hand in a void, a hand grasping a swirling field of stars.

But then the equipment blew up, releasing cosmic forces. Entropy released caused the destruction of several star systems. What's more, the energies unleashed somehow caused space and time to rupture at the moment of the Big Bang. What should have been a single universe was now split into countless variations, a multiverse of possibilities co-existing, each on a different vibrational frequency.

There was also the anti-matter universe, which apparently already existed. Some accounts say that Krona's experiment cemented a connection between the anti-matter universe and the main DCU. In any event, the anti-matter reality was a twisted mirror version the mainstream DC Comics positive matter universe. Oa's counterpart in the anti-matter universe was the planet Qward.

The Maltusians decided they had to make up for Krona's crime and renamed themselves the Guardians of the Universe (though other factions broke off, calling themselves the Controllers and the Zamarons). The Guardians eventually created the inter-galactic police force known as the Green Lantern Corps.

When Krona's machines blew up, two new beings emerged. One emerged on the moon of the planet Oa. The other, a dark twin, emerged in the anti-matter universe on the moon of Qward. In millennia to come, these two beings would be known as the Monitor and Anti-Monitor. Both wielded incredible cosmic forces.

Just as Oa housed the Guardians of the Universe, dedicated to order and peace, the Anti-Monitor now populated Qward with its own people, the Weaponers who engineered great machines and tools of war and the Thunderers who used those weapons to wage destruction upon anything they came across. The Qwardians literally worshiped violence and death, each wishing to die in battle. The deadliest of the Thunderers were transformed into the Anti-Monitor's elite guard, "shadow-demons" of great power.

Despite not existing in the same universe, the Monitor and Anti-Monitor became aware of each other and began to war, each determined to destroy his twin. Eventually, their conflict forced them both into a comatose state.

But this was not the last time they would fight ...

BARRY ALLEN AND ALTERNATE EARTHS

Many ages passed. From the ashes of the Old Gods arose the New Gods, celestial beings who inhabited the planets of Apokolips and New Genesis. And on Earth, humanity evolved into the dominant life form.

After discovering a way to safely travel into the positive matter mainstream DCU, the Qwardians became hated blood-enemies of the Guardians of the Universe and the Green Lantern Corps.

In the 20th century, Earth began to have super-heroes walking amongst them. The modern age of heroes began with the appearance of Superman, followed soon by Batman and Wonder Woman.

Another prominent hero was crime scene scientist Barry Allen. As a boy, Barry had grown up enjoying stories about Jay Garrick, a hero called the Flash who fought alongside the Justice Society of America in the 1940s. When a freak accident gave Barry similar abilities, he became the new Flash and soon helped found the Justice League of America, serving as the team's first chairman.

Barry's powers were actually superior to Garrick's, as he had complete control over his body's molecular vibration. He later accidentally discovered that this allowed him the ability to travel between parallel Earths, making him the first human being to do so.

Some time later, a nearly-identical accident happened to Wally West, nephew of Barry's soon-to-be-wife Iris West. As a scientist, Barry found the coincidence of Wally's accident to be impossible and wondered if an outside force had somehow caused the boy to be granted similar powers. Wally now became the young hero Kid Flash.

During an adventure of his own, Superman discovered a parallel Earth where super-powers did not exist and where he, the Justice League and other heroes were merely fictional characters existing in comic books. He called this world "Earth-Prime."

Years passed. On another one of the many parallel Earths, a scientist attempted to peer into the origins of reality just as Krona had done. Like Krona, the experiment went awry and uncontrollable forces were unleashed. In this case, the experiment unleashed a wave of anti-matter. The universe was wiped out, with this sole scientist (who would be called Pariah) left as the only living witness.

The experiment caused the Anti-Monitor to wake from his slumber. When matter and anti-matter meet, the result is not just destruction but a great release of energy. The Anti-Monitor realized he could absorb this energy and become more powerful. He now sought to release further anti-matter waves, destroying one parallel universe after another, until he'd gained enough energy as to effectively be God.

At the same time that his dark twin woke, the Monitor emerged from his own slumber. Realizing the entire multiverse was in danger, he got to work ...

THE CRISIS

Lyla the HarbingerThe first thing the Monitor did was recruit a young, orphaned girl named Lyla. As the years passed, the Monitor raised Lyla while she helped him gather information on the heroes of various realities. As she became a young woman, the Monitor made her his Harbinger, giving her armor and power.

As the Anti-Monitor neared the mainsteam DCU, the skies of Earth turned red. Many years later, it would be revealed that the skies turning red was a result of energies spilling over from the Bleed, the membrane that exists in-between realities.

The barriers between time and space were weakening, causing temporal anomalies. Cavemen found themselves in the Batcave. In the 30th century, the Legion of Super-Heroes were suddenly getting a glimpse of alternate reality counterparts.

As if these anomalies weren't bad enough, the Anti-Monitor released an army of shadow demons across reality. To try and stabilize the chaos, the Monitor had various "vibrational towers" set up in different time periods, giving up his own life force to power them.

Alexander Luthor, Jr.To further aid the heroes, the Monitor had taken in and educated young Alexander Luthor of Earth-3. Alexander was the son of his universe's Alex Luthor and Lois Lane, who had both lived on an Earth where heroes were villains and vice versa.

Alexander had been sent away just as his home universe was being eaten away by anti-matter and so he somehow became a being of both positive and anti-energies. To contain these energies, he was given a golden containment suit. He was aging rapidly and the Monitor used his technology to educate the boy with years of information in a short amount of time. After a few days, the boy was stabilized as his body reached teenage maturity. Following the Monitor's death, Alexander joined Lyla in gathering Earth's heroes to save all space and time.

Roger Hayden AKA Psycho-Pirate IIDuring the affair, the Anti-Monitor enlisted the aid of Roger Hayden, the second super-villain to call himself the Psycho-Pirate, who fed off the emotions of others and could manipulate their behavior thanks to a magical Medusa Mask. The Anti-Monitor used his technology to increase the villain's powers, which also increased his hunger and made the already mentally unstable villain even more chaotic. In later years, it would be revealed that the Anti-Monitor was also aided by a woman called Dark Angel who gathered information for him just as Lyla did for the Monitor.

Since Barry Allen was able to travel between realities, the Anti-Monitor captured him quickly rather than allowing him to be a wild card. For days, the Flash was a prisoner being tortured by the Psycho-Pirate.

At one point during the Crisis, Superman was thrown through a space-warp and once again wound up on Earth-Prime. To his surprise, while this world didn't have any super-heroes, it did have its own version of Clark Kent. This Clark was only a teenager and had grown up reading comic books detailing the adventures of Superman, Batman and all the rest. After growing up with other kids making fun of him for his famous name, he was shocked to learn that he did, in fact, possess the same superhuman abilities as his comic book namesake.

Moments after this discovery, Superman arrived from the space warp and the young Clark Kent of Earth-Prime was shocked to learn that the characters he read about actually existed in other realities. Learning that the entire multiverse was at stake, he agreed to join in the effort to stop the Anti-Monitor, though he had no experience in using his powers nor had he ever been in a fight before. To avoid confusion, this young Clark Kent called himself Superboy-Prime.

Back on Qward, the Anti-Monitor built a new body to house his life-energies, having been seriously damaged during a fight with some of Earth's heroes. He was resting, planning his next move. But before he could make it, all Hell broke loose on Qward. His entire army was at the mercy of a red blur. Barry Allen had finally escaped.

After beating the tar out of the Psycho-Pirate in revenge for being tortured for days, Barry then caused the emotion-manipulating flunkie to force all the Thunderers to turn on the Anti-Monitor. While the great villain was fighting off his own troops, Barry investigated found the anti-matter canon that was being used to attack other realities and which was trained on his own home universe as its next target. Entering tha canon, he realized that by running at the speed of light, he could cause an energy surge that would destroy the great weapon. Of course, doing so would likely result in his death, but he decided it was either him or his entire universe.

As he raced towards his final fate, Barry's body became energized by the Speed Force, the extra-dimensional energy field that empowers all super-speedsters. Time and space warped around him, showing him images of the past and the future. In some accounts, it was said that these time-space warps allowed Barry to transmit a portion of his power into the past, causing his young nephew Wally West to suffer his identical accident and become Kid Flash. Thus, via a time loop, he had ensured that his legacy would continue beyond his death.

As the anti-matter canon was destroyed, Barry's physical body erupted into energy, leaving only his costume and his signet ring behind. It was later said that his essence had merged with the Speed Force, which existed beyond the speed of light. Barry's sacrifice caused such a terrible blow to the Anti-Monitor's operations that it gave the heroes a fighting chance.

More battles ensued following the Flash's death, including a "villains war" that involved Brainiac and Lex Luthor uniting all the super-villains into a massive army before they realized this wasn't the best time to try and take over.

With the destruction of his anti-matter cannon, the Anti-Monitor became desperate and traveled to the dawn of time, intending to control the moment of the Big Bang and manipulate all of reality to his whim. He declared that it would be his hand that Krona saw on the viewscreens.

Earth's heroes followed the Anti-Monitor to stop him in a last-ditch effort. The collection of champions gathered, from various parts of the world, some even from other realities and time periods, was the largest collection of super-heroes that had ever happened. But their efforts didn't seem to be enough until the intervention of The Spectre, spirit of vengeance. The Spectre confronted the Anti-Monitor and then everything went boom.

The heroes found themselves all back home in the present-day. The time anomalies were gone and so apparently were the other universes. History had been altered so that instead of a multiverse being created, there had only been the main positive matter DCU and the anti-matter universe of Qward. The only survivors of the other realities were: the immortal scientist called Pariah; Alexander Luthor of Earth-3; Lady Quark from Earth-6.

The now erased reality of Earth-2 had a handful of survivors. The Earth-2 Green Arrow, Earth-2 Robin and Earth-2 Huntress had all survived the elimination of their universe. Along with them, there was also Kal-L (an older version of Superman), his wife Lois and his cousin Power Girl.

The Anti-Monitor, still alive, attempted one final revenge against Earth, hurling his shadow demon army upon the planet as he drew it into the anti-matter universe. The shadow demon attack took many lives, including those of the Earth-2 Robin, Earth-2 Green Arrow and Earth-2 Huntress. A collection of Earth's heroes fought the weakened Anti-Monitor directly, their efforts aided by the evil New God known as Darkseid.

With the Anti-Monitor now at the point of death and Earth shifting back into the positive matter universe, Earth's heroes made their way back home. The Anti-Monitor attempted one last attack, and Kal-L and Superboy-Prime remained behind to fight him off, knowing that the portal back into the positive matter universe was already closing. Finally, Earth-2 Superman delivered the killing blow, ending the villain.

Earth-2 Superman, along with his wife Lois, Alexander Luthor of Earth-3 and Superboy-Prime, were now seemingly trapped in the anti-matter universe. They saw no point in trying to get to the positive matter Earth, believing that they had no place there alongside their counterparts.

Using his powers, Alexander used his own body to create a portal into a "paradise dimension" he had discovered, a place removed from reality. The four of them left then, satisfied that their sacrifices had not been in vain and that an entire universe had survived because of them. After decades of fighting the good fight, Kal-L of Earth-2 would now be allowed to retire in peace with his wife and two young men whom he could look on as sons. And although his cousin Power Girl was still on Earth in the positive matter universe, Kal-L felt that since she apparently had no counterpart there (there was no Supergirl at the time), the young hero would find her own path.

It was said in the DC Who's Who guidebooks that if the four of them ever returned to reality, it would mean the end of the universe. These words would prove to be prophetic.

The Crisis was over. Many heroes and villains had died during the conflict, but Barry Allen's death was the most significant. Following his demise, Wally West became the new, third Flash. Lady Quark, Pariah and Lyla the Harbinger each went off to find their own destinies.

EPILOGUE

The memories of those who'd been directly involved in the Crisis were adjusted slightly so that they did not remember the full details of the people they'd met from parallel realities. Because the battle with the Anti-Monitor had been so large-scale and incomparable to anything else they had faced, the heroes simply referred to the whole affair as "The Crisis."

Power Girl, who was stuck in the sole remaining positive matter universe, no longer had any memory of where she'd come from originally. She didn't remember Kal-L or Lois Lane of Earth-2 nor her life with them before the Crisis. She believed she was Superman's cousin, but a DNA test proved that she could not be from the planet Krypton (because the people of her version of Krypton had evolved somewhat differently than those of the mainstream DCU's Krypton).

Power Girl did her best to continue acting as a hero but felt haunted by her uncertain past. She would not discover the truth until the events of the Infinite Crisis years later.

The one person who did remember the full details of the Crisis was the Psycho-Pirate, whose mind was shattered by the knowledge and emotions he had observed from various parallel worlds.

The Crisis was over, but there were still some things that needed to be cleaned up. The universe had suffered such a traumatic experience that the magical energies were affected as well. Evil mystical forces recieved an excess of power and tried to take advantage of the situation. Seeing that this was coming, the English sorcerer John Constantine gathered together the Swamp Thing and several other powerful mages to make sure that Earth didn't fall victim to evil so soon after the Anti-Monitor's defeat.

The magic-users succeeded, but their efforts resulted in the deaths of the Golden Age sorcerer Sargon and John Zatarra (father of the famous Zatanna). This story was featured in SWAMP THING: A Murder of Crows by Alan Moore.

Months after the Crisis, the Psycho-Pirate attempted to recreate people from the dead parallel Earths. He also became convinced that his own life and universe were fictional, that people existed outside reality who manipulated the universe as they saw fit for no purpose other than entertainment.

Buddy Baker, the hero known as Animal Man, was alerted to the Psycho-Pirate's actions by a group of nameless yellow-skinned aliens, the very same aliens that had given him his powers many years before. The mysterious yellow-skinned aliens explained that there were still minor universal anomalies left over from the Crisis, anomalies which the Psycho-Pirate had learned to manipulate and draw power from. If he were allowed to continue, the Pirate could cause such havoc that another Crisis could occur.

Animal Man fought the villain and defeated him. The aliens hoped that this also meant the anomalies were now gone, but they quickly found evidence leading them to believe otherwise. The Crisis still had after-effects and only time would tell if they would cause any trouble.

After his experience with the Psycho-Pirate, Animal Man had what he would later called a "religious experience." He found himself transported to Limbo, a place outside of reality that was inhabited by people who claimed that the universe had somehow "forgotten" them and the stories of their lives (in fact, these were comic book characters DC Comics had not used for years).

After leaving Limbo, Animal Man met a being who existed outside of the universe. This being claimed he was Grant Morrison, writer of the comic book Animal Man. He explained that the Psycho-Pirate was right, that Buddy and his friends lived in a fictional universe, but that this made them superior to their creators.

When Buddy returned from reality, he was told he had been in a coma for days and he barely remembered his experiences as a dream. None the less, he felt them to be true and would think back on them for years to come.

Animal Man's whole religious experience and his encounter with Limbo and the Psycho-Pirate has been collected in the three trades of Grant Morrison's run. They are entitled ANIMAL MAN 1, ANIMAL MAN 2: Origin of the Species, and ANIMAL MAN 3: Deus Ex Machina.

That about wraps it up for the events leading up to and immediately following Crisis on Infinite Earths, nowadays often-called the First Crisis. Cheers!