I have a feeling that this final page was supposed to be one of those pants-shitting OMFG moments, but my only reaction was
Why Superman look so old?
Please understand that I’m a DC Universe neophyte; I only recently got interested in the new Green Lantern series and in Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers project, but I have to admit that I got sucked in by the Infinite Crisis hype; I just love an epic, property-wide crossover any day. I read a basic summary of last year’s Identity Crisis and I read the Countdown to Infinite Crisis, so I understand the basic setup for why Supes, Batman, and Wonder Woman are having this big falling-out. It’s just that last panel - the big reveal - that leaves me scratching my head.
I’m vaguely aware of something that DC did in the eigthies called Crisis on Infinite Earths in which they reset a lot of their continuity in order to iron out the inconsistencies. Is this
The old pre-Crisis Superman or something? Who’s the superboy next to him? Who’s the older woman and the guy in gold?
At the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Earth-2 Superman (who was older than the Earth-1), the Earth Prime Superboy and the Earth-2 Lois Lane all went off somewhere disconnected from time and space.
The man in gold could be Alexander Luthor, the Son of Earth-3s Lex Luthor.
I avoided your first spoiler box because I’m picking up IC #1 after work today, but to answer your Crisis on Infinite Earths-related question:
The older woman (short white hair, correct?) is Lady Quark, a heroine from one of the Earths that was destroyed in the original Crisis. The guy in gold is most likely Alexander Luthor, the last survivor of the destroyed Earth 3, where his father was a hero who fought the Crime Syndicate (evil versions of the Justice League). The elder Luthor sent Alex to safety in a rocket when he was a baby, shortly before the original Crisis doomed their world. Alex grew up quickly under the tutelage of the Monitor, a central figure in the original Crisis.
Personally, I think the original Crisis is a mess, and reads horribly by today’s standards. If you get the trade paperback, you’ll see some pretty (though cluttered) art by George Perez, but the story is overly-complicated and the dialogue is the trite stuff that modern comics writers have moved away from in the last 15-20 years. All you need to know is that there was once a multiverse, but most of the Earths were destroyed in the Crisis, and the remaining few were combined into one. This is why DC continuity has been (in my opinion) a lot better since 1986. I’ll be annoyed if this is all undone.
He’s definitely Alexander - who created the portal Superman, Lois and Superboy went throughand then apparently went with them - until now, I was under the impression Alex BECAME the portal, but that’s clearly not the case. (At least not any more.)
The whole group isof course, Superman-2, Superboy-Prime, Lois-2, and Alexander.
To be fair, Lou, the original multiverse was an attempt to arrange 50-some years of material that wasn’t always contuinity minded, not to mention the acquired properties (the Marvel family, Blue Beetle, etc.). If the multiverse returns it starts fresh with people with an eye of contuinity.
Guess it wasn’t Supes-2 who blew up the Watchtower…
A note: Superman of Earth 2 is the original Superman. And Lois is his wife. Clark Kent, Editor of the Daily Star. The one that fought against the Nazis. That Superman.
Alexander Luthor is the son of Lex and Lois Luthor of Earth-3, where Alexis Luthor was the only hero in the world.
Earth-Prime was a world that could have been ours. It’s the world where Superman’s a comic book hero. In fact, it was thought to be ours, until heroes popped up.
Superboy is Clark Kent of that earth.
They went somewhere… safe… at the end of Crisis, about 1984.
Superman was seen pounding at the wall at the end of Kingdom, the Hypertime miniseries, about 2001.
A blood-dimed tide is loosed upon the world, and the gods walk again. The spirit of America is slain… but he can not be killed.
It did start out as our world. A world where certain indivuals, Julius Schwartz for one, could tune in on other Earths and write stories about them. In one story, Cary Bates ends up going to Earth 1 and gaining powers.
Eventually they introduced the first Earth Prime superhero, he basically had the same origin as Superman, with similar powers, but not as powerful He landed in Australia and lived in the outback before moving to Earth 1. He stayed there for a while before going back to Australia on Earth Prime.
Earth Prime was also involved in a story where Per Degaton stole the missles during the Cuban missle crisis and the U.S. and Soviet Unions blasted each other. As with most Per Degaton stories, at the end, time was brought back to normal.
Then a child was (IIRC) was teleported from a planet that was dying. This child was found by a couple. The wife had promised her father or grandfather that she would name her first son after him. His name was Clark, this was before she knew she would marry a man named Kent.
So the kid grew up being teased over the name. He had no powers or anything to show he was different. One night, he went to a costume party dressed as Superboy. He saw a shooting star and said something like “you can almost grab it,” and reached up. Then he started flying.
This is because Gerry Conway was kind of an idiot.
He apparently hated Earth-Prime and insisted that we are on “Earth-Real”, the difference being that Flash never came to our world and Cary Bates and Elliot S! Maggin from our earth never vistited Earth-1. This is called “A lack of imagination”, IMO.
So he A) Invented a (poorly executed but interesting) theory that as soon as a world gets one super-being, a bunch of others will follow and B) set out to make Earth-Prime as different from our world as possible by introducing Ultra (the only hero who’s costume compares in badness to Vartox (although Vartox still wins) who shows up on Earth Prime and then came to live on Earth-One.
Which, if you think about it, leaves Earth-Prime screwed if the “one super-type leads to dozens more” theory is correct. Flash showed up on Earth-Prime and (probably, under that theory) caused Ultra to come into being. So even if Ultra’s not around, Earth-Prime’s gonna get a bunch of super-types and since bad-guys outnumber good guys by like 10 to 1 (Riddler, Joker, Mad Hatter, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, etc vs Batman or all the Rogue’s Gallery vs Flash) Earth-Prime will be swamped by Superman-class badguys with no Superman around to stop them.
This is par for the course for a Gerry Conway team book (he writes decent solo hero stories though)
For another take on the Earth-Prime Superman, totally divorced from any existing continuity, find a copy of the “Secret Identity” miniseries. Clark Kent, of Kansas, is a teenager who has never really forgiven his parents for naming him after a comic book character. He piles all the “Superman” crap folks buy him into his closet, because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings but he really hates it.
One day, while out in the woods alone on a camping trip…
That, and “Red Son” are the two best Superman stories I have read in decades.