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superman86to99 · 1 month ago

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Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #2 (September 1994)

Zero Hour continues! The action ramps up as a central character dies, the Team Titans go bad, and everyone else is like "No, it's spelled Teen Titans. What? That's a different comic? Okay, I don't know who they are. Bummer, though."

As seen at the end of last issue, Superman and the heroes he gathered in New York have run into a little problem: a whole-ass future city just materialized over NY and is about to cause the equivalent of several 9/11s. It doesn't help that they have to put up with The Ray, who's kind of a turd in this comic -- I'm just glad Superboy isn't the most insufferable teenage character for once (though he does make an effort later on, when he hits on Anima and says the words "Babe alert!").

The heroes solve the crashing cities conundrum by creating a Boom Tube portal and shooting lasers at it until it's big enough to suck up an entire city. Hooray for science!

But the celebration doesn't last long, because this is when they find out that their friends at the Justice Society are now older or dead, having been artificially aged (or de-artificially de-aged?) by the villainous Extant. The only JSAer who was spared from the geriatric effect was Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern, but he decides to quit superheroing anyway and gives his ring to Kyle Rayner, the Current Age Green Lantern. Jay Garrick, the original Flash, calls it quits too and dramatically tears the lightning bolt logo from his chest (but doesn't give it to Impulse, even though he's right there).

The rest of the heroes decide to split up to handle the "time's eating itself" issue from both ends: Superman, Metron, and one group go to the 30th century to try to stop the entropy wave there, and Waverider and another group go do the same thing in the distant past. In both cases, their efforts are hindered by members of the Team Titans, who were introduced a few years ago as a large group of superpowered resistance fighters from the futuristic year 2001. However, their already convoluted origin gets even more confusing when Extant reveals he secretly formed the team and placed them in the present as sleeper agents, waiting for this moment. (Side note: Is this the only DC crossover where ALL the villains are heroes turned bad?)

While delivering all that exposition, the ever-efficient Extant also tries to kill Donna "Suddenly A Darkstar" Troy with a chronal blast. Kyle Rayner gets in the way and saves her (classic Kyle), in the process dropping and completely forgetting that GL ring Alan Scott entrusted him with a few pages ago (also classic Kyle).

Kyle survives this scene, but not everyone else does. Since Waverider is made out of chronal energy, Extant manages to "absorb" all of him and gain his powers, killing him in the process. And that's why Extant had Waverider's golden skin and firey hair last issue, you see: from his perspective, he'd already killed him and stolen his powers/look, and then he traveled in time and used those powers to punk the JSA. That's exactly the sort of twist I like to see in a time travel story.

Meanwhile, Superman and the other heroes currently visiting the 30th century have defeated or captured the mind-controlled Titan Teamsters. According to the narration, Extant's masterful years-long gambit bought him less than two hours of distraction.

With those little rascals out of the way, Metron figures out a way to close the hole that's eating reality: throwing his Mobius chair at it and having Captain Atom blow it up with his quantum energy. This works, because comics. Oh, and then Guy Gardner grows a gun out of his arm, to his shock (and also the shock of Guy Gardner: Warrior writer Beau Smith, since Guy was only supposed to be able to morph ancient weapons). COMICS!!!

Unfortunately, there's only one Mobius chair and two entropy waves. Not only is the one in the distant past still going strong, but the issue ends with a mystery character single-handedly restarting the 30th century wave and saying something about how this universe will soon stop existing. Also, he has glowing green energy and seems very interested in that GL ring Kyle misplaced... until he isn't.

Huh. Who could that possibly be?

NEXT ISSUE: THE END OF EVERYTHING! (Except this series, which still has one more issue left after that.)

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Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We start with the cover, and it’s another head-scratcher. It does feature the blank (and increasing) whiteness that represents entropy but otherwise isn’t a real attention grabber. Yes, it features Superboy, Nightwing and Supergirl, but other than that, it’s not a lot of marquee names for the time—even Donna Troy, an otherwise recognizable character, is a Darkstar, virtually an unknown look at this time.

Inside we’re greeted immediately by the aftermath of the one-sided battle with Extant taking out the legendary JSA completely on his own. The two page splash that follows is pretty dynamic, though the scene ends abruptly. One little art thing I’d like to point out is how well the shape is defined on Extant’s cape straps, just with a few lines, adding verisimilitude to the otherwise cosmic goings on.

On the next page we’re introduced by name to Legionnaire Emerald Dragon, who I’d seen in the backgrounds of previous issues and wondered who he was. It’s a terrific design, so I felt something like disappointment to learn that this character isn’t really a new concept—it’s just an alternate costume and codename for Jo Nah, far better known as Ultra Boy, the character with all of Superman’s powers, just one at a time.

As the defeated JSA return to the present, there’s some very striking imagery, reminiscent of the elderly wizened mourners at the funeral in the video for Crash Test Dummes’ “Superman’s Song”.

Starman in particular looks poignant, with the relative silliness of his golden age costume contrasting with the weight of age. The image of Jay tearing the lightning bolt off his tunic is a powerful image (confirming something I’d always wondered about—whether the lightning bolt is flat or pointed at the bottom, which to my eye looks pointed—what do you think?), as is the image of both Jay and Alan walking away with dramatic lightning behind them. The placement of the next generation, with Green Lantern Kyle Rayner and Impulse looking on is a great detail as well.

A few pages later, Power Girl’s mystical pregnancy goes into labour, and while we mentioned her looking matronly in the last issue, this one really takes the cake, as famous hottie Karen Starr looks for all the world like Mary Worth here.

The sequence of Hank Hall absorbing Waverider’s chronal energy is well-drawn and seems painful. On the next page we have what I would seem our panel of the week, which is an all-time great drawing of Superman, presiding over the Team Titans members he’s managed to mop up. With Jerry Ordway handling inks, all the faces have a realism rarely seen in comics, but this panel is a real standout among standouts—this is exactly what I imagine Superman really looks like. A page or so later, there’s a similarly stunning portrait of Wonder Woman with Geo-Force. Then on page 21, there’s a pleasing, silver-age-y image of Batman and Robin punching in tandem, which gives Batman '66 vibes.

Lastly, Guy Gardner’s expression as he ponders the possibilities presented by a history that’s in flux is a nice piece of drawing.

[Max: Ironic that Superman's death deeply impacted Waverider ("You are nothing less than a miracle"), and Waverider's death doesn't even merit a "No!" from Superman.]

SPEEDING BULLETS:

As discussed in the comments section on the Tumblr version of this site last issue, I remain a little confused as to how Extant, whether his powers are nuclear (as they seemed to be in the Armageddon 2001 storyline) or now time-based (as we’d imagine from him apparently being a duplicate of Waverider) is able to mess with Dr. Fate, whose powers are magical. [Max: There's also a mystical element thrown in there, since Hawk and Dove were agents of the Lords of Chaos and Order and now he has both their powers.]

While the flowery prose informs us that the heroes’ “silence screams respect”, it does seem weird to me that Alan Scott and Jay Garrick just peace out in the middle of a legitimate crisis. Fine, retire from superheroics officially, but in that precise moment, their super-abilities still could have come in handy. [Max: Agreed about Alan, who isn't even old and just sorta quits the crossover, but it's teased that Jay ran off to do something that will have a huge impact in the next issues...]

There’s a strange quirk in this book that I notice more and more as it goes on—characters shouting that they need to get organized. In almost every issue, someone wants to jump into action, and then a different character admonishes them, saying they shouldn’t or they need to make a plan. But they very rarely do make a plan, so these exchanges come off a little hollow.

Team Titans are presented here as such nothingburgers that they don’t even get any character names shared; all we get is just a blanket “Team Titans”. But I’m sure they’ll fare well once this storyline is over. [Max: Oh yeah, all except two are unceremoniously vanished from existence between panels in this issue. For anyone wondering, I read the final issue of the Team Titans series and nope, it doesn't explain squat about what the hell is happening to them. In fact, like half the issue is about the Titans West, who had barely appeared in that series before.]

What comic was Dr. Mist in at this time? The hero with the same name as a deodorant brand had a few little appearances in this series, and I knew next to nothing about him. I remembered him vaguely appearing in Justice League International in the late '80s, but a quick trip to the DC wiki tells me these appearances are to set up one of the many short-lived and largely forgotten post-Zero-Hour titles, namely Primal Force.

While this entire series seems to cement a certain character as a villain, there are a lot of voices in this issue and those to come who espouse similar points of view. Guy Gardner wanting to take advantage to “fix” things sounds a lot like someone else. [Max: No, see, that's totally different because Guy... whoops, we ran out of space! Until next time!]

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