Pre-Crisis Memories

This is part of my Crisis Files and, in particular, references the story Crisis on Infinite Earths (nowadays also known as the "First Crisis").

 

By the end of the Crisis, the multiverse had been destroyed and then rebooted as a single universe with a new unified timeline. Memories of how things had been before the Crisis were altered since, naturally, history itself had been altered all across the board.

But some people did seem to remember what reality had been like Pre-Crisis. Harbinger and Pariah remembered, of course. So did the Psycho-Pirate, who even during the special Joker: Last Laugh - Secret Files was babbling about the formerly existing Earths S and X. But they weren't the only ones. Others wout in the DC Universe would occasionally refer to the Pre-Crisis state of affairs. Who were these folks?

SHAZAM

The mini-series Shazam! The New Beginning, written by Roy Thomas, was the first attempt to give Captain Marvel a post-Crisis origin and bring him into the mainstream DC Universe, At one point, in issue #3 the wizard Shazam was considering his plans for Billy Batson, the boy he had chosen to become Captain Marvel. The wizard pondered how on the Pre-Crisis reality known as Earth-S there had been many people with Captain Marvel's abilities, such as Mary Marvel, CM Jr., Hoppy the Marvel Bunny and the three Lt. Marvels (Tall Marvel, Fat Marvel and Hillbilly Marvel). He then decided against recreatign these heroes, remarking that such a path led only to "madness."

A few years later, this mini-series was dropped from continuity and a new series began called The Power of Shazam. Sure enough, Billy was soon joined by Mary Marvel and CM Jr. (though, thankfully, the Lt. Marvels have never shown up).

THE SPECTRE

In the Spectre's new series by Doug Moench, the vengeful spirit found his powers greatly reduced. He was informed by the bodiless Voice that commanded him that this was due to his failure to prevent the destruction of the multiverse. A rather strange decision, considering that a major theme of the Crisis was that the multiverse wasn't supposed to exist in the first place and was always supposed to have been a single, unified reality. In any event, there it seemed clear that the Spectre knew the full scope of what had happened during the Crisis.

Later on, in Secret Origins vol. 2. #50, the Spectre mentioned to the Black Canary that she would meet people she had met before but had forgotten due to "time and tide." Another reference that time/space had been rebooted.

HAL JORDAN

When he was possessed by the entity called Parallax, Hal Jordan was obsessed with re-creating reality to his own design. During the crossover Zero Hour, specifically issue #0, Parallax mentioned that he intended to have one Earth for the Leaguers and the modern heroes and a second Earth where the JSA members could live and stay eternally young.

This idea could have been coincidence or it might have been due to a subconscious memory of Earth-2. Perhaps the Parallax entity, as a being connected to one of the fundamental forces of the universe (emotion), was itself completely aware of the full nature of the Crisis and simply allowed this knowledge to influence some of Hal's ideas.

Years later, when Hal Jordan was temporarily used as the Spectre's host, he was completely aware of the multiverse and the full nature of the Crisis. We know this because of a conversation he had with Linda Danvers in  Supergirl #78, in which it was clear that he was completely aware of Pre-Crisis Supergirl's death, as well as the nature of Earth-1 before the Crisis.

Since his return to mortal life, it's assumed that Hal lost this knowledge of the Crisis along with his supernatural abilities. Just as he is no longer able to look into the souls of mortal men and sense their fears, it seems unlikely he is still fully aware of the true nature of the Crisis.

BATMAN

During Mark Waid's crossover The Kingdom, he wrote a tie-in issue entitled Planet Krypton. The issue showed Batman investigating reports of "ghosts" in the Planet Krypton restaurant that former Leaguer Booster Gold now owned. Fans recognized the ghosts as echoes of Pre-Crisis and Elseworlds characters. Batman looked around and saw various display items that were supposed to be replica of true super-hero memorabilia but that he knew for a fact didn't exist. For instance, there was a display case of differently colored samples of Kryptonite, when at that time there was only one true Kryptonite and that was Green K. Batman picked up a blue version from the display case and muttered it was "bizarre" (a reference to Bizarro's weakness).

Batman also noticed that these impossible items, much like the ghosts, instilled a sense of nostalgia. He couldn’t explain it, since you shouldn’t be feeling nostalgic about something that never existed. At that point, he took notice of one ghost in particular. Readers recognized her as the Pre-Crisis character Batwoman. Batman stared hard at her and then his face slowly softened. His eyes widened as he whispered, "... Kathy?"

A few years later, the crossover The Kingdom was considered to be wiped from continuity itself. Multi-colored Kryptonite later began re-appearing in the DC Universe. And Batwoman AKA Kate Kane has been re-introduced as a true character, albeit in a different costume. Still, that moment during Planet Krypton was a big shocker for some fans when it seemed the Batman had some inkling of Pre-Crisis memories in him.

AQUAMAN AND OCEAN MASTER

Just before Zero Hour, Aquaman had recently learned that Orm Marius AKA Ocean Master was his half-brother. The next time they met, in Aquaman vol. 3 #20, Aquaman tried to explain this to Orm, telling him they were both part of a sick prophecy that two brothers were always supposed to fight over Atlantis. Ocean Master didn’t believe him, but then Aquaman (who was mystically empowered at the time) grabbed the villain's mystical staff. The feedback of energies caused Orm to perceive the knowledge Arthur had gained about their shared heritage.

Right after that, Aquaman went to the city of Thierna Na Oge. He said it felt familiar and Tempest explained that Aquaman had “sort of” been there before, but not really. They explained that Aquaman had visited the place in an alternate timeline (AQUAMAN vol. 3 #21). In fact, it had been a visit he’d paid in the Aquaman mini-series by Neal Pozner which had happened around the time of the Crisis but was rendered out of continuity soon afterwards.

BRAINIAC

Post-Crisis, Brainiac had been a very different villain from the one we'd known. But he started getting more familiar in Action Comics #649 when he created a skull-like space ship, which looked very much like the headship his Pre-Crisis counterpart had flown (although without funky tendrils and with a different color scheme). Brainiac told Superman that the design for this spaceship had come to him "in a dream."

Originally, it could have been assumed that Brainiac was speaking of some subconscious knowledge of his Pre-Crisis incarnation. However, in recent stories it has been revealed that this villain who created that headship and fought Superman for years was not the true Brainiac but, in fact, an avatar or "probe" following his programming. The true Brainiac, it was revealed, has apparently always travelled in a similar looking headship.

Therefore, we can dismiss this reference of getting the design "in a dream" to simply being the probe recalling something about how the true Brainiac traveled.

DARKSEID

Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis, the Parasite has largely been a Superman villain. Interestingly, his Post-Crisis incarnation did not make his debut in a Superman comic but instead appeared in Fury of Firestorm #58. When this new incarnation of the villain got his powers, Darkseid of the New Gods was witness to the event. The evil Darkseid then mentioned remembering the Pre-Crisis version of the character.

ANIMAL MAN

When Grant Morrison took on Animal Man, the hero once again met the same yellow-skinned aliens who had given him his powers. The aliens explained that time and space had been restructured during the Crisis but also mentioned there were anomalies which proved that this process had not been perfect. In the same story, called "Crisis II", Psycho-Pirate was able to create copies of several Pre-Crisis characters such as Ultraman and Power Ring.

In later issues, Animal Man met his Pre-Crisis self and later Grant Morrison himself, but then when the next writer took over he had it that Animal Man had dreamed the entire adventure while in a coma. This whole storyline is divided between the three Animal Man TPBS: Animal Man Book 1, Animal Man Book 2: Origin of the Species and Animal Man Book 3: Deus Ex Machina. Most of the stuff dealing with the Crisis is dealt with in the last trade. Animal Man hasn't spoken much of these adventures, except to say it was akin to a religious experience.

THE LINEAR MEN

The Linear Men were a group of folks who tried to keep history to one, stable, cohesive timeline (possibly a fool's errand in the DC Universe). During Zero Hour, a version of Rip Hunter commented to his fellow Linear Man called Waverider that the events of Zero Hour were much like the events of the Crisis (understandably, since it was seen as a sort of sequel). In Zero Hour #5, Waverider then looked up the Linear Men files concerning the "Crisis" and learned about what had happened. He was horrified by the idea that entire universes had been destroyed.

CERTAIN SCIENTISTS

In an issue of The Flash, Wally's buddy Chunk got a tesseract stuck in his body. When scientists studied Chunk later, they found that within the space warp that now resided inside him were what appeared to be the remaining energies of a destroyed multiverse. They couldn't explain this strange phenomena.

During the Superman-centric crossover Our Worlds at War, Superman's friend and technical advisor Professor Emil Hamilton discovered that a multiverse of parallel worlds had once existed, but he couldn't how it had died and been replaced by the current reality.

Hope you enjoyed this look at Pre-Crisis memories. Until next time, cheers!