Dark Crisis On Infinite Earths #5

[superfangirl1]

Hal breaks Pariah control of Batman, by showing him a green lantern construct portrait of the Batfamily.









Meanwhile the heroes on earth 0, lead by nigtwing. Call out a sos to as many heroes as possible to the Halls of justice. Coming up with a plan, to get Deathstroke to come after them. So to take him out. As it has been figured out that Deathstroke is part of Pariah power souce.

But it is too late as Earth 0 is becoming unstable. So Pariah teleports himself and his Army to Earth 0 to get more energy for his plans.

Comments

[blues32]

Is their transformation permanent or something? Kind of like Batman's new look.

[shakalooloo]

No. This massive 'everything changes forever' crossover will do little in the end but change the minutiae of how exactly the multiverse functions.

[morallyambiguousscience]

Well at least something finally happened.

[tcampbell1000]

I have officially hit the saturation point for anything to do with the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. I am now solidly repulsed by it all. Harbingers, Monitors, Anti-Monitors, Pariahs? Count me out. As interesting and original as Pariah was in 1985, I'm rooting for this guy here to go disappear into a singularity in issue #7 of this series. Or even #6, hope springs eternal.

We've had at least four events now where the whole plot boils down to "misguided ex-hero thinks the old comics were better, ends up changing the universe in some important-sounding but not actually important way" (Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, Doomsday Clock and this, plus it's Superboy-Prime's entire deal). The prior three events at least did us the courtesy of seeming to go original places for a while before the narrative collapsed into a series of key moments with no connective tissue.

This one's just key moments all the way through. Like Back to the Future Part II, it's a sequel that has no real point except how well-liked the original was and how great its characters are.

BttF II at least understood that fun was the priority. A little fun sneaks around the edges here (I do like the bit where Batman understands that a REALLY angry Clark is a quiet Clark).

But for the most part it's a whole lot of TELLING. Characters are constantly summarizing the plot, with all the conviction of extras reading from cue cards at gunpoint: "My machine needs your power for the infinite Earths to return!" "This place is only a prison so far as our imagination will let it [be]." :Pariah's powers given to him by the Monitor pull him to a world on the verge of destruction." If I told you that last line was an actual line of Superman dialogue in a published book you hadn't yet seen yourself, I don't think you'd believe me.

In Zero Hour and Infinite Crisis, the heroes are cast as representatives of the "real world," telling the nostalgia-addled villains that times change, things move on, and their old world is never coming back. In Doomsday Clock, Dr. Manhattan seems to be the one on the "real world's" side. His actions evoke late-2010s anxiety and nihilism until finally he is "inspired" by a future that looks like an infinite series of Superman reboots stamping on our faces, forever. Yay comics.

With Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths That Haven't Even Been Re-Created Yet So How Can They Be In Crisis, Seriously, What the Hell Does This Title Mean, we have reached a new level of unreality. This time neither side represents the real world: Pariah is all about re-creating the DC multiverse as it existed in 1983, whereas our heroes are simply about protecting the DC multiverse as it was in 2021.

I like to keep up. I like to know what's going on in superhero comics even when they're not my favorites. But I think I might hit "snooze" for the rest of this one. Wake me if anyone at DC or Marvel does anything half as imaginative as Everything Everywhere All at Once. Now that's a multiverse that knows how to verse.

[beyondthefringe]

I have to agree that this event has been a great big nothingburger, and by that I mean I simply haven't been able to connect to it emotionally or creatively.

I can't even accurately sum up the narrative throughline beyond "Pariah's trying to bring back the old multiverse, he corrupted the Great Darkness and turned the biggest bads of all time into shitty puppets, the JLA was dead and now it's not and... um... something Deathstroke?" and it's just not compelling.

Sure, the original COIE was a great big mess of action figures being thrown at each other, but it had EMOTION.

And yeah, it sucks that pretty much all the survivors of the original COIE have had heel turns rather than being allowed to rest in peace.

[scorntx]

Golden Age Lois Lane hasn't turned heel.
Yet.

Though, and hopefully this stays sarcastic hyperbole, going by DC's track record, we'll probably have her turn up in Dark Zero Hour sooner or later.

[beyondthefringe]

Only because she died during Infinite Crisis and hasn't come back yet.

[scorntx]

Pariah died before Infinite Crisis, and that's clearly not stopped him.

And if death can't stop Pariah, it sure won't stop a sufficiently determined Lois Lane.

[bruinsfan]

Weren't she and the Golden Age Superman returned as zombies during Blackest Night? That wouldn't really be her (them) doing a heel turn, but I remember it still being distasteful.

[jlbarnett]

part of the reason why they have to summarize the plot is that the way the story is told in these sorts of books without that the plot doesn't come together naturally. They're working with metaphysics that only exist in the story

and as for those infinite series of Superman reboots? We're still telling Hercules stories over 2000 years after they were invented. I'd like the idea something we make these days will still be going

[shakalooloo]

It's just a retread of Infinite Crisis. A character from Crisis on Infinite Earths comes back to undo the 'failure' of the Crisis, conscripts every villain (save six) to serve him under Deathstroke's leadership, harvests energy from specific beings, sends the Big Three to 'what if' versions of their lives to keep them out of the way before the finale...

Pariah will probably end up geting his face pushed in by Black Adam as well before the story's done.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I can more or less sum all that up with the one word that comes to mind whenever they roll a new one of these out:

"...again?"

[beyondthefringe]

There's something immensely, pathetically, sad about seeing Doomsday, Eclipso, Nekron, Neron, Darkseid, Ares and the Spectre all reduced to silent, chained puppets in thrall to this season's villain... Pariah (the mopiest, sorriest, whiniest, least useful guy to ever accidentally destroy the multiverse).

I mean come on, any one of those can and has, been behind major world-threatening and/or reality-altering events. And here they're just... meh.

[scorntx]

It's the Big Villainous Blob writ large.

Only this time it's an actual deliberate choice on the writer's part, rather than just a by-product of poor decision making.

[bradygirl_12]

I like Bruce's understanding of Clark's quietness actually masking anger. Watch out when Superman's angry! 🦸

[blueprintstyles]

Pariah's scheme is pretty close to something the Key did during Grant Morrison's run on JLA.

[cainofdreaming]

Also what Hal did as Parallax.

[zachbeacon]

I mean, "heroes are trapped in a fantasy world" isn't exactly new thanks to the popularity of stories like For the Man Who Has Everything.

There are at least two instances of that going on in this event (YJ is coincidentally getting the same treatment from a 5D imp) and I just read that Robins mini a while ago.

But I really really that JLA/Key story. Grant doesn't get enough credit for how funny they can be.

[brushwoodthicket]

At the end of Justice League 75 when both the JLA and multiversal Incarnate teams were defeated, I really thought and hoped Dark Crisis would be Detective Chimp and Black Adam vs the primordial darkness. That would have been awesome.

[zenfrodo]

Just now catching up.

*eyes title*

So...the next year month hour time this happens, it'll be "Infinite Crisis on Dark Earths"? "Earth's Crisis in the Infinite Dark"?