Infinite Crisis Intro

This is part of my Crisis files and refers to the crossover Infinite Crisis (also known as the "Second Crisis").

AFTER THE CRISIS

Following the events of the First Crisis, the DC Universe had become a darker place in many ways. Since the Infinite Crisis was very focused on the Big Three of the DCU (Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman), this intro focuses on what happened to them following the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Barbara Gordon AKA Batgirl was crippled by the Joker. Weeks later, the villain then murdered Jason Todd, the second teenager to be named Robin. Following this, Batman began to seriously question his methods in how he performed his war on crime and was a much harsher taskmaster to Tim Drake, the third Robin. To make up for failing to save Barbara, he arranged for her to be trained in how to fight despite her disability and helped fund her new career as Oracle, the ultimate hacker and information broker.

Months after Tim joined the war on crime, Batman encountered Azrael, a young man who had been hypnotically trained since birth to act as an assassin for a religious cult. Believing that Azrael was a good person at heart, the Batman took him in as a new apprentice. Months later, the Dark Knight was defeated in battle against the villain Bane, who broke his back. Since Tim was too young, and since Dick Grayson had grown beyond the shadow of the bat, Azrael was chosen to become the new Batman.

When Bruce later had his back restored by a mutant who had the power to heal, he was ready to retire and pursue a normal life. But he learned that Azrael had become a much more brutal and bloodthirsty Batman and had even left a criminal to die. Unwilling to let his legacy be tarnished by a mentally unstable man, Bruce retrained himself and forcibly took back the mantle of the bat.

After his failure to protect Jason and Barbara, and disgusted with himself for his poor choice in trusting Azrael, Bruce Wayne returned to his role of Batman as a harsher, more obsessive crusader, unwilling to forgive himself for any further error in judgment, insisting he had no friends nor family, only colleagues and agents.

Weeks before Batman recieved his back injury, Superman battled the creature Doomsday and was brought to a state of seeming death. While he was gone, attempts were made to clone him but Kryptonian DNA was too complicated. Instead, human DNA was manipulated to resemble Kryptonian genetics, resulting in a super-powered teenager whom the media dubbed "Superboy."

Though immature, Superboy's heart was in the right place. The true danger was an old enemy of Superman's who returned to Earth. Hank Henshaw was a man who had been driven insane by a mutation that made him an energy being able to inhabit technology. Blaming Superman for his condition and hearing of the hero's apparent death, Henshaw took on the guise of a cyborg version of Superman and claimed to be the true Man of Tomorrow resurrected. Henshaw gained everyone's trust and then revealed his true nature by laying waste to Coast City, California, home of the Green Lantern named Hal Jordan. Superman later returned and defeated Henshaw, but was shocked at the fact that millions of people had been killed by a man using his name and wearing his shield. He also felt failure that he had not returned in time to save Coast City, especially when Hal Jordan seemingly went insane from grief afterward and turned against the rest of the Green Lantern Corps.

After absorbing the energies of all the Green Lantern rings in the universe, Hal renamed himself Parallax and attempted to remake reality into something he believed would be better (as shown in the crossover "Zero Hour"). The heroes were forced to fight their former comrade, aided by Kyle Rayner, now believed to be the last of the Green Lantern Corps.

Not long after Zero Hour, Lex Luthor destroyed half of Metropolis and was revealed to be a criminal to the public, only to be exonerated later when he blamed it all on an evil clone. This failure once again to bring Luthor to justice after all his schemes and destruction was very hard on the Man of Steel.

Like Superman and Batman, Wonder Woman was also forced into a short leave of absence. Years after the Crisis, Queen Hyppolyta had the Amazon warrior Artemis replace her daughter Diana as Wonder Woman. Diana was forced to re-evaluate her identity, only to later learn that her mother had been aware of a prophecy that "Wonder Woman" would die and had used Artemis as a sacrificial lamb. Diana was shaken by this callous deceit by her mother, even if it had been guided by a need to protect her daughter. When weeks later, the evil Darkseid led an attack that killed a large number of her fellow Amazons, Wonder Woman began to become more a warrior and less a teacher.

A battle with the demon lord Neron left Wonder Woman mortally wounded. Despite the efforts of modern medicine and the JLA, Diana later died in the hospital. In recognition of her heroic life, the gods of Olympus revived her spirit, making her the Goddess of Truth for a time.

Later, Diana returned to life, with the new perspective of one who has lived with gods and is once again a mortal being. As a result, she began focusing on large scale operations such as the Wonder Woman Foundation. While she was still willing to help people whenever the opportunity arose, some began to wonder if she'd become somewhat detached from common humanity.

Superman continually found reasons to doubt his effectiveness. First, he was temporarily turned into an energy being with altered powers, forcing him to re-learn how to operate as a super-hero. Weeks after he reverted to normal, his mind was warped by a villain named Dominus, causing the Man of Steel to attempt to become king of the world, patrolling the planet with various Superman robots in order to "keep the peace." Though freed later, Superman believed he had a lot to make up for and wasn't sure he could live up to his own reputation anymore. These doubts increased when Luthor was later elected to the office of President of the United States.

Months afterward, in the crossover story "Our Worlds at War", the creature called Imperiex attacked Earth, destroying much of Topeka, Kansas and killing many across the world. Though Imperiex was defeated, Hyppolyta was killed during the war. Diana's attitude hardened further after this. Superman partially blamed himself for the loss of Wonder Woman's mother, as well as the loss of his father-in-law, General Sam Lane.

After the war, Lois found proof that Luthor had known about Imperiex's impending attack beforehand and had allowed it to happen to further his own agenda. The Daily Planet published the story, but Luthor covered his tracks and once again Superman felt that his powers and efforts amounted to nothing.

During all this, Batman continued his war on crime. Gotham City suffered an Ebola outbreak and later a massive earthquake that led to it being cut-off from the rest of the U.S. for a year. Some time later, Bruce Wayne was framed for murder and the Batman decided he had no more use for a civilian identity when he could be spending every waking moment fighting his war, as told in the storylines "Bruce Wayne: Murderer" and "Bruce Wayne: Fugitive."

As he later realized the importance of proving his innocence, Batman began to think he had become too cold and distant. After clearing his name, he attempted to re-connect with his friends on a more personal level and became more open with new allies, such as Mr. Terrific II of the Justice Society of America. But then came the storyline "Hush", in which a conspiracy of villains caused Bruce to again believe he could never let down his guard and that betrayal could come even from those closest to him.

IDENTITY CRISIS AND LUTHOR'S DOWNFALL

Arthur Light, the villain called Dr. Light, had begun as a dangerous criminal but after a few adventures became a somewhat dim-witted and predictable villain. Even after he later went mad for a short time, he seemed to lack the true intelligence or imagination to become a major threat in his own right.

In the story "Identity Crisis", Dr. Light regained long-forgotten memories and realized that the reason he had seemed to diminish in intellect after his first few adventures was because years ago certain members of the Justice League had used magic to alter his brain. After Light had viciously assaulted Sue Dibny, wife of Elongated Man, these team members had decided Light was too dangerous and that his bragging of the crime could inspire others to seek out family members of super-heroes to attack.

What's worse, it was revealed that the Batman had discovered what had been done to Dr. Light and that the Leaguers involved had protected their secret by having the sorceress Zatanna take away the Dark Knight's memory of this. Batman had, in fact, remembered the truth of this later on and felt betrayed by his would-be allies, which was part of the reason for his increased paranoia and his need to create weapons in case any heroes ever went rogue.

Although the JLA as a whole had approved of amnesia-inducement on a few occasions when their secret identities had been compromised, they were shocked that colleagues had actually altered the very personalities and intelligence level of some villains, seeing this as, essentially, a forced lobotomy.

After months of serving as President of the U.S. and yet still having many of his schemes thwarted by heroes such as Superman, Lex Luthor finally decided to make a move against his hated enemy. When a Kryptonite meteor was heading towards Earth, Luthor told the American public that he had irrefutable evidence that Superman himself was responsible and then declared the hero an enemy of the state, even recruiting convicted super-criminals to aid in the Man of Steel's capture.

Aided by the Batman, Superman was able to defeat Luthor's forces. Luthor then confronted Superman directly. To fight Superman head-on, he used a drug of synthetic Kryptonite mixed with Venom (a super-strength formula), along with a technological warsuit made from technology he received from the evil Darkseid. While Superman and Luthor fought, the villain openly admitted that he made a deal with Darkseid, an illegal action since Darkseid represents a hostile foreign power. Luthor also admitted that he had no true evidence against the Man of Steel.

Meanwhile, Batman used his own resources to have Wayne Enterprises buy-out much of LexCorp, including the HQ building in Metropolis. In the end, Luthor was forced to run, now without the resources of LexCorp and hunted as a fugitive for comiting treason and falsifying evidence.

The young hero Superboy had begun growing into a true hero, thanks in part to Superman taking more of an interest in his development. To help him gain a stronger sense of identity, Superman gave the teen hero a Kryptonian name "Kon-El" and later helped him establish a civilian life as Connor Kent, Clark Kent's fictional cousin.

But weeks after Luthor vanished, the villain forced Connor to question his identity in a whole new way when he e-mailed him proof that it had been his own DNA which had been used in the teen's creation. Connor now wondered whether he was fated to follow Superman's steps or Luthor's.

Despite all of this darkness, there were signs of hope and light. Soon after Luthor went into hiding, Superman discovered that his cousin Kara Zor-El had survived the destruction of Krypton and she became the new Supergirl. What's more, Kyle Rayner journeyed into space and discovered the truth behind why Hal had gone insane. "Parallax" was an avatar of fear itself which had possessed Hal Jordan's mind and body, corrupting him and driving him to move against the GL Corps and reality itself.

With help from Kyle and other former Green Lanterns, Hal Jordan was able to come back from the dead, his spirit now free from Parallax's influence. Even Batman, who initially believed this was all some trick of Jordan's to help gain more power, later admitted to being convinced  that the lost hero was not fully to blame for his actions and was glad to see him back in action. Following Hal's resurrection, the Guardians of the Universe created a new Green Lantern Corps, twice as large as the one before.

Weeks passed. And the story of the Second Crisis truly began in a comic book called Countdown to Infinite Crisis.

Continue to Infinite Crisis In A Nutshell.