Omega Crisis, Part 6 (HoM / Oblique / Herren)

Previously, in OMEGA CRISIS…

It was supposed to be the wedding of the decade when Barbara Gordon and Dick Grayson had finally decided to get married! The heroes of the world were invited, and as a special gift to the happy couple, in one night, every wanted criminal, every supervillain across the world, was taken down! With this new era of peace established, the wedding goes forward, but they don’t know what’s coming next…


The villainous Key, long forgotten after his defeat at the hands of the Flash and the Justice League, was awoken from a near decades-long coma by the mysterious Libra and a purple-robed master. At the behest of his saviours, the Key used his powers, expanded a thousand-fold by the experiences that sent him into the coma, to open every door in existence-- including the doors to the cells inside every prison across the universe, be it Arkham Island and Iron Heights, Takron Galtos and the Sciencells of Oa, and even the Source Wall!


From a moment of infinite peace to a time of infinite crisis, the universe underwent a catastrophic change, and the heroes who vowed to keep it safe have just realised that they have their work cut out for them-- the Source Wall kept back an unrelenting entropic wave of destruction that already displaced trillions of lives across the universe in a matter of hours, and is headed to Earth with every passing second!


Some of the world’s greatest heroes have already fallen, and many more stand on the precipice of certain doom, while old faces from the earliest days of this age of heroes return from the shadows in this time of need, but when there doesn’t seem to be any hope of survival, how will the heroes of the universe survive in the midst of …


“Look at that monstrosity,” Ted Grant, the Justice Society’s Wildcat, mused, rubbing his stubbled chin as he watched the world’s greatest scientific minds make their final adjustments to the Justice League’s temporal trap. “Who’d’a thought that kinda thing would save the universe?”


The device was an immense mobius strip, lined with what appeared to be large columns of glass that looked almost like lightbulbs. In the centre of the loop was a tall, transparent column. The technology looked unearthly, but then again Ted, who never finished high school, didn’t understand any technology, no matter how much the kids at the All-Star Academy tried to teach him. Half the time he acted the fool, but, honestly, how was he supposed to understand an MP3 player when they became redundant two minutes after hitting the market?

Anyway, what good was an over-the-hill pugilist with a handful of lives left to him in a game of gods and monsters? The other surviving members of the JSA had been put to use where their time and energies would be best served; Alan Scott, the Golden Age’s Green Lantern-- held together by emerald energy and a bottomless pit of willpower-- was responsible for lifting large components in tandem with others with the kind of powers Ted classified as ‘useful for heavy lifting’.

Rick and Jess Tyler-- Hourman and Jesse Quick-- had spent time with the Justice League’s science division after one of the former’s ‘flash forwards’ had shown him nothing but darkness.

Back in the day there’d be a ticking clock on that kind of vision, but his flash forwards had a habit of stretching further into the future when it came to cosmic-level crises, and so while there was a ticking clock, Ted didn’t particularly worry.

“Hey, kid. Kid!” barked Ted, waving at one of the few heroes he recognised amongst the crowd.

“Jeez, ‘kid’? Since when do I get called ‘kid’?” asked Roy Harper, better known in the superhero set as Red Arrow.

He’d been at the wedding when all this nonsense had started going down. He’d seen Vandal Savage explode from the inside out when the spectral figure that caused all this trouble went on a rampage. He’d seen Booster Gold vanish and witnessed the aftermath of the destruction of Rip Hunter’s Time Sphere.

Harper tried his best to maintain a brave face but he feared that, deep down, this was the big one. This was the one he wouldn’t see the other side of. And he knew that while his daughter was safe back in Star City for now, he wanted nothing more than to be with her during this time. But then what kind of hero would he be?

Not noticing the turmoil his friend was going through, Wildcat slung an arm around the marksman’s shoulders. “Y’get to my age, everyone below thirty is ‘kid’, kid.”

Red Arrow rolled his eyes. “I’m not below thirty, Ted.”

“Sorry, son,” winked Grant. “Anyway, what’s with that guy--?” He pointed up above the Justice League’s device where a man floated, his body a crackling blend of white and black energy. His costume had a Ying and Yang motif: half of his body was stark white and the other half was pitch black, the symbol that formed in the centre swirling slowly on his chest.

“Ted! I swear to god, you need to learn to listen, there was a briefing and everything,” Harper replied.

“Son, do ya know how old I am? Yer lucky I’m still standing here in as good a shape as I am. ‘Sides, what use am I? This ain’t exactly a problem a few rounds in the squared circle can solve, even if I can still go the distance,” he punctuated that point with a quick flurry of shadow boxing.

“Okay, listen up, because I ain’t repeating myself-- Jesus, you’re getting me to talk like you-- right, that guy up there? That’s Equinox. He’s here because he knows what’s causing all this trouble to the timeline. He said his evil brother, Libra, who we’ve had run-ins with before, caused all the prisons, all the doors, everything, to open. That caused protections across the universe to fail as well. That’s the fight we can’t win. That’s what… what the Green Lantern Corps and their lot are fighting, off in space. But what we’re doing here, we’re building this temporal trap for Libra’s master. The thing that’s killing--”

Roy turned, because there had been a strange sound in the air. Ted was nowhere to be seen. There were cries, a commotion, and a girder of promethium toppled toward a crowd of younger heroes-- only for it to be caught by Cassie Sandsmark, better known as one of the co-bearers of the mantle of Wonder Woman, as she leaped up in the air.

“What just happened?” asked Roy, his eyes flitting around. Where was Ted?

“Green Lantern just vanished!” said Anita Fite, aka Empress. She’d been running with the other members of the team that had once been known as Young Justice since her teens, and even now, in her early twenties, she was still an outsider to the majority of the heroes working on the device.

“And Wildcat too…” mused Red Arrow.

“That can’t be good,” Cassie replied, passing the girder to another member of the League who placed it in the correct position on the temporal trap. “We should put out a call, do a check on the rest of the team.”

“We’re still here--!” said Jesse Quick, rushing over, accompanied by Hourman.

“Yeah, but we’re legacies, Alan and Ted--” started Rick.

Bart Allen, aka Mercury, zipped onto the scene, his voice a rush of sound, “IjustgotbackfromKeystoneJayisnowhere-- sorry, Jay is nowhere to be found, and I can’t find Joan, either. They’re both gone!”

Jesse grimaced. “My mom…”

“She’ll be okay. They’ll all be okay,” Hourman looked up at Equinox, whose blank face watched dispassionately as the temporal trap underwent its final checks. “We just need to end this. We need to stop Libra and his boss, and then it’ll… it’ll be okay.”

“I hope you’re right,” whispered Jesse. “If he’s taken my mom… I’ll kill him.”


Batman didn’t particularly care about watching the solution to a problem being built. The temporal trap was under construction in Metropolis and a veritable army of superheroes was there to make sure it went without a hitch.

Equinox may have been a random factor in the proceedings, but the science backed him up, and there was something about him that made them trust him. But just because one problem was being solved didn’t meant that everything would be okay.

There were dozens of additional issues currently up in the air, and if they didn’t work hard then the world would end a dozen times over before the temporal trap could be sprung.

Crunching the numbers, getting to the root of the problem, and finding answers that didn’t make anybody happy, that’s where Tim Wayne was, right now, working side-by-side with the Question.

He remembered Renee Montoya from a decade ago, back when she was spiralling after the loss of her partner, after she was outed as gay by Two-Face in some bizarre romantic gesture and framed for murder. She vanished from Gotham City, and later resurfaced in such a way as to get the community’s attention-- she was the Question. Side-by-side with one of the most trusted men Bruce Wayne knew.

That gave her all the cachet she needed.

“You’re right… there is a pattern… how come we never noticed it before?” Tim asked.

She shrugged. “Because it didn’t happen before now. I hate time travel. It’s funky as all hell, and stinks just as bad.”

After hooking up with the science team under the sea, the Questions had arrived on the Watchtower with one hell of an intel haul. They’d mapped numerous events that shared the same hallmarks, all throughout recorded time, all spooky enough to warrant the Dark Knight’s attention. Printouts of urban legends, missing person reports, a map that covered with pins in a spiral that connected to mysterious events… it was a conspiracy theorist’s dream, but to Batman it was a nightmare.

He nodded in understanding at her words. “I’m following. Before a point in time, events ran as intended. Then, in the future, agents travelled back and engineered these… flashpoints.”

“Yup. Lightning storms indoors and out. Missing persons in the aftermath. As we move up into more modern times, when surveillance became more prevalent, you stop getting them in urban areas, but in war zones… they kept happening.”

“And people keep vanishing. Who’d you say was amongst the ‘vanished’?”

Renee’s posture changed. “Jonah Hex, back in 1875.”

Tim scratched his chin. Why did she suddenly look uncomfortable? He wished Stephanie was here. “What do you think it all means?”

“I don’t have enough to form a hypothesis,” The Question replied.

“A question without an answer. Never a good look for us,” came the voice of Vic Sage, the first Question.

He’d been working the case in his own way-- which meant a lot of wandering around and bouts of singing at the top of his lungs. Ever since his brush with cancer, he’d become a little bit more unhinged, a little bit freer, and while Tim remembered the cantankerous journalist when he was a boy, this new version of the man was an interesting sight to behold.

“Any insight you’d like to provide?” asked Batman.

“None, but I did find more questions.”

“Please. No.” Tim replied.

There was a slight shift under Vic’s featureless mask. A smile? He glanced behind him, back into the corridor. “Eh, not like that. I found this young gentleman wandering the halls looking harried. C’mere, kiddo.”

Beckoned in was the overly anxious son of Ted and Kimiyo Kord-Hoshi, Akihiko Kord-Hoshi, aka Lightning Bug. Small for his age, but sharper than most, he looked even smaller than usual standing before the Dark Knight.

“Akihiko, what’s wrong?” Batman asked.

“Ah, well… uh… Professor Todd told me to come find you, but I got a bit lost, and I, umm… I didn’t want to tell anyone else… because he said he’d find out if I did.”

Batman’s brow furrowed. Jason Todd, aka the Red Hood, was supposed to be monitoring the All-Star Academy students who were working on the Watchtower. Earlier, he’d mentioned to Dick that they’ hadn’t heard from him for a while, but, what with everything going on, they just dismissed it and went on to the next crisis.

“What did Professor Todd tell you?”

“He, uh, he told me to tell you that he had everything under control, but that, well, the All-Stars might have snuck off the Watchtower to go rescue Captain Comet.”

“…Captain Comet?” repeated Tim.

By this time, others who weren’t needed on Earth to help out with the temporal trap had arrived in the ad hoc planning room that Batman had set up with the Questions. Amongst their number was Blue Beetle, who immediately made a beeline to his son.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Ak-Ak, what’s happened?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” said Batman.

“The All-Stars have gone looking for Captain Comet, he sent a distress signal out to his son, and Alan, he, ah, he wanted to go looking for him. They told me to stay behind, but Professor Todd found me covering for them, and went after them. I… I didn’t get them in trouble, did I?”

Batman shook his head and patted the young man on the shoulder. “Of course not. Professor Todd is a trained expert, he knows what he’s doing. Ted, why don’t you take your son to the mess and get him a warm drink. Don’t worry, Lightning Bug. Everything will be fine.”

“Yeah, of course, of course,” said Blue Beetle, leading his son out of the room.

Renee took a step toward Tim, concerned. “What are we--?”

Batman held up his hand to cut her off. “Cyborg, are you on the line?”

“Always, B. What’s up?”

“I need a full itinerary of comings and goings from the Watchtower! We’ve got kids from the academy MIA, and Red Hood went after them. I need to know where they are and how long ago they left!” He clenched his fist. “Godammit, Jason. What have you gotten yourself into…?”


“I so do not have this under control--!” bellowed Red Hood, springing off one bulkhead to another while firing his guns akimbo at the monolithic Thunderer that had careened toward him.

He soared over the Thunderer’s head as his opponent rammed into the hull, but the hulking villain wasn’t fazed, “Stay still and fight me like a man!”

“That’s sexist. Some of the best fighters I know are women,” replied the Red Hood, rolling to a stop behind the Thunderer. “In fact, the Crimson Avenger taught me this:” He shot him in the back of the knees, the concussive rounds causing the Thunderer to double over onto his front. “And Wonder Woman taught me this--!”

He ran up to his downed opponent and kicked him hard between the legs repeatedly, each blow punctuated by a howling scream from the Thunderer.

He holstered one gun, aimed the other at the back of the Thunderer’s head, and squeezed the trigger. The force of the impact caused the villain’s head to slam into the floor, and he was knocked out instantly.

Jason was amazed. He’d mangled his leg a couple of years back, before the current All-Star class had joined the academy, back when the entire school had been snatched up and thrown into Lady Styx’s Colosseum, but he felt fantastic. It helped he’d jammed a shot of Martian steroids into his knee before landing here, and he knew the buzz wouldn’t last forever-- and that the aftereffects would be horrible-- but he thought he could actually pull this off.

Contented that the monstrous Thunderer was down, he turned a corner and found himself behind a squadron of Qwardians, who’d cornered the All-Stars up against the wall. They were still together but looked exhausted-- Jason needed to think fast if he hoped to keep them out of even more trouble!

“Superpowered… enhanced… the master will be best pleased,” purred one of the Thunderers.

“Hey, bug-eyes!” shouted Jason.

The Thunderers turned, their bolts raised-- and then there was an enormous scream of metal, a blur of speed, and the Qwardians were slammed into the bulkhead and squashed under the nose of a strange ship that had crashed into the body of the Cometeer II!

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Jason, taking a step back. “Everyone all right back there?”

“We’re okay, Professor!” replied Spectrum.

The nose of the ship spun and a portal opened to reveal the pilot. She wasn’t any older than the All-Stars, dressed in a cobbled-together outfit that included large goggles and a hand-knitted scarf. “Hey, sorry for the surprise entrance, but when we detected humans onboard this seemed like the best idea--!” She turned back toward the interior of her ship, and shouted, “I’m getting to that!”

Jason thought he recognised the girl but couldn’t place her. He wasn’t the most up to date on the cosmic set, that was always Big Barda and Scott Free’s responsibility, but this girl couldn’t have been older than sixteen and here she was flying a rocket ship? Maybe Adam Strange’s kid?

“Who are you?” asked Spectrum, ignoring the Thunderers splattered across the front of the ship like bugs on a windshield, and marvelling at the spacecraft that had come to their rescue.

The pilot beamed. “Me? Ugh, finally, people who don’t know me! I’m Alice. Alice Stuart. My grandpappy was the president about ten years ago?”

“Jeb Stuart? Is he… back there with you?” Jason asked, trying to peek inside the ship behind her.

Alice shook her head. “Nah, that’s the ghost of one of my more racially problematic ancestors. This is my space-tank, and I’m your ride out of here-- if you want it?”


There were spiders in Mon-El’s mouth that Kara Zor-El couldn’t see. Horrible, thin-legged arachnids, curious, alien patterns marking their abdomens as they flitted in and out of the Daxamite’s pale lips. Had the spiders always been there? Did Mon-El even know what they were doing inside his mouth?

“Did you say something?” Kara asked, turning back to face him. She absentmindedly played with the bracelet around her wrist, a gift from Lena Luthor. Usually, it was tucked under the hem of her costume so as to keep it out of the way, but since landing in this pocket of physical space within the Phantom Zone she’d slipped it out and was running her fingers around it, the gold metal causing her skin to glow on contact.

Deep within the infinite void of the Phantom Zone, the pair stood atop a jagged, crystalline island that floated in nothingness. It was a physical place within the immaterial, where they could catch their breaths and operate without the constrictions caused by existing within the zone.

Mon had told her that there were islands of physical space like this across the Phantom Zone. Small pockets where the material world intersected with the immaterial. The most infamous of these islands was that of Fort Rozz, the Kryptonian prison that vanished when the institution’s Phantom Zone projector exploded, taking the entire building with it.

Some of the prisoners survived. None of the staff working inside its walls did. Kara had been there once, before Kal had left Earth, and she didn’t like to think about it. Terrible things had happened inside its haunted walls, and thinking about them came drew out more memories than she cared to handle at the moment.

“I said nothing,” he replied.

“If there’s some way we can break through this barrier… or someone can break in from the other side, then maybe… maybe we can get out of here,” Superwoman thought aloud.

She’d sacrificed herself to shove the horrific Black Zero entity back into the Phantom Zone after it had nearly manifested in the Fortress of Solitude. Kara had spun, immaterial, into the depths of the spectral realm, and had no idea how she would be able to escape-- or where to begin-- until Mon-El had appeared. With the Daxamite at her side she was confident she could figure it out. That, or her friends outside the Phantom Zone might be able to pull her out!

Mon-El reached out to her and something moved under his skin like thick worms. They wended around his arteries and veins, bulging up against his flesh like they were trying to find their way out.

With Mon-El by her side, Kara was confident that she could escape from the Phantom Zone.

But this… this wasn’t Mon-El.


Outside in the farthest corner of an ever-shrinking universe, lighting ravaged every ship in sight. Huge bolts of light smashed against their hulls, rocking the refugee fleet that Captain Comet had assembled in the hopes of finding safe harbour. After the first round of boarders had arrived on the bridge of the Cometeer III, they knew that this wasn’t some random cosmic event-- they’d flown straight into a trap!

“Wh-what are they, sir?” asked one of the bridge crew, wiping her brow as the security team dragged the bodies of their attackers toward the walls of the chamber.

“Bug-eyed, pink-skinned… throwing thunderbolts like that’s something to be proud of… they’re Qwardians. Thunderers, to be exact. But they haven’t been heard from for… over a decade. And now they’re attacking us?”

Another one of the crewmen spoke up, “There are numerous incursion alarms across the ship, sir!”

“We’re being boarded. Did the alert go out across the entire fleet?” Comet asked.

“Yes, we managed to broadcast on all frequencies, but--”

Outside, the blinding light of repeated thunder strikes against their ships began to fade, washed out by another colour that seemed to push through the thick grey clouds that had manifested in space.

“What in heaven’s name is that?” he asked.

Against all odds, the terrible lightning storm began to part-- and the reason why was soon obvious-- as emerald light began to shine-- !

“It’s the Green Lantern Corps, sir! They’ve made it!” said one of the crewmen.

Between the roiling black storm clouds flew Green Lanterns, intercepting the strikes before they could hit the ships, and pushing back the phenomenon that surrounded the fleet.

Comet thanked god that their rescue was at hand. “All channels open, let’s get them on the same page as everyone else!”

<This is Corps Leader Sinestro; we apologise for our tardiness, but we were held up-- the subluminal passages we use for travel have collapsed-- do your sensors extend past the storm?>

“No, we’re flying blind in here as well,” Comet replied, knowing full well that without the subluminal tunnels that the Green Lanterns created throughout the universe that travel for them had become infinitely harder.

<Then you don’t know… well. As you earthlings are prone to say, you need to batten down the hatches-- the entropy wave is near, and if we don’t act fast, your entire convoy will be caught in its destructive wake!>


Cyborg didn’t have good news for Batman as the Dark Knight trudged through the belly of their space station to the storage area. <We can’t get through to Captain Comet-- we were tracking his convoy, directing interstellar peacekeeping forces to intercept them-- but we lost them an hour or so ago. What with everything else going on, and their distance from our solar system, we couldn’t do anything-- but I’ve been trying to get the Corps involved.>

“Damn. And no word from Jason and the All-Stars?” replied Tim, typing in his passcode in the vault door and waiting for it to hiss open.

<Nothing. We were talking like it wasn’t the end of the world, and then he went off to check on them. Something’s weird, B. It was a few hours ago, but it feels like minutes. My internal clock is causing all kinds of headaches.>

The heavy-duty doors opened, and the Caped Crusader pushed on. “Equinox said as much during his briefing. Time is running in all kinds of directions. Hours becoming days, days becoming weeks, weeks becoming months… there’s no kind of science to explain it. Especially now that Rip Hunter is dead.”

A young man clad in red and white turned at Batman’s words, and then sheepishly waved. “…Hey, bro.”

“I’ll get back to you, C. Thank you.” Tim terminated the call and shook his head. “Kon, you utter pain in the ass. What are you doing down here?”

Kon-El, aka Flamebird, the current host for a metaphysical entity from Krypton’s ancient pantheon of gods, laughed and shrugged awkwardly. “Well, here’s the thing… I’m trying to save Kara, and the only Phantom Zone projector I could think of was the dismantled one kept in Justice League storage.” He held up a handle, and then a lens. “Just trying to put the bits back together. Kind of my thing.”

Wordlessly, Tim embraced Kon, and the two friends enjoyed a moment of peace in the maelstrom of chaos that was currently unfolding throughout the universe. Breaking the hug, the Dark Knight held up a finger in his best friend’s face. “Cassie is worried sick about you. When will you learn to give people a heads up?”

Kon slapped himself on the forehead. “Oh, crap, yeah. Slipped my mind. I’ve barely stopped since Lena put the plan together. Ugh, stupid, stupid clone brain.”

Tim rolled his eyes, “That’s enough. What are you working on? Saving Kara? How can I help?”

“You were here when she shoved that thing back into the void, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, I was there with Blue Lantern. She saved our lives.”

“She saved the whole damn world, Tim. The Black Zero… that’s a thing from before even the Flamebird. It’s the universal darkness banished when the Flamebird and Nightwing came into being and made life. It’s the darkness made sentient. Made insane. It climbs into people’s heads and twists them inside out. If she hadn’t managed to push it back into the Phantom Zone when it was still in its larval form… we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Slow down, man. You went a bit zealot-y, there you need to reel it in.”

Kon had tried to explain to Tim what his world meant since he ascended to his role as Flamebird. He’d been dying before the ascension. The ascension. What a powerful word. Three syllables and one hell of a gut punch. Years back, Kon’s clone body was degenerating, and he was losing his powers, one by one. It took a baptism by fire-- literally, he met up with Nightwing one night and the pair got into a rough fight with Firefly-- for him to slough off the defective flesh of his clone body and be born anew as Flamebird.

“Sorry, sorry, but this is one of those… I don’t know how to explain it… it’s a biological imperative for me to keep the universe safe from Black Zero. If it’s awake, that means it’s growing. Just because it didn’t manifest in the physical plane doesn’t mean it won’t stop growing in the Phantom Zone. Look, I got what I need, I need to get back down to Earth. We’ve got this.”

“‘We’? Who’s with you?”

“Lena, John, and Krypto. We’ve got all we need.”

“John? Krypto? You’re talking about Metallo and your pet dog, Kon.”

“John’s reformed, thanks to Kara. And Krypto’s Krypto, don’t you start.”

“If Black Zero is as bad as you say…”

“No. I’ll end this. Don’t worry. Tell Cass I’m sorry, and that I’ll see her when this is over.”

Tim shook his head. “Go to her, man. Tell her yourself.”

“No time. But there will be. When this is over.”


“Can you put that thing in park?” Jason asked Alice, admiring her space-tank.

“Uh, sure, but why? Don’t you want to get out of here?” she asked.

“Okay, listen. I’m a teacher. These kids are my students. You heard of the All-Star Academy, back on Earth?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, vaguely, I mean… I live in space. I don’t have cable or anything.”

“Okay, well, I need you to keep these kids safe while I go to the bridge. This is a rescue mission, twice over, and I don’t want to risk the kids--”

“Professor Todd, with all due respect--” started Meteor.

Red Hood spun around and levelled a finger at the young psychic. “Don’t.”

It was his best Batman impression, and it worked perfectly, freezing young Alan Blake in his tracks.

“As I was saying, I have a job to do, and you being here does half of it for me, so thanks. Kids, get in the kind lady’s space-tank, y’hear?”

One after the other, the kids all trudged past Alice and Jason, until only Meteor and Spectrum were left on the Cometeer III.

“What are you waiting for?” Jason asked, pointing toward the airlock leading into the ship.

“His dad,” said Spectrum, gesturing a thumb toward Meteor.

“I’ll go get him. You need to get onboard that ship.”

“I’m not a space cabbie,” Alice piped up.

Jason held up his hands. “You’re doing me a big favour, and I’ll pay you back.”

“Sounds like I’m being treated like a space cabbie…” Alice whispered.

“Jessica, Alan, listen to me… you’re the heavy hitters here. Energy projection. Psychic detection. Cat’s a gymnast, and Minuteman, Stars and Stripes can throw one hell of a punch, but you two can do some real damage from a distance. I need you on that ship, keeping the others safe, do you understand me? Besides, I’ll be right back.”

“Are you sure, sir?” asked Spectrum.

“Most definitely. BRB and all that, y’know?”

Spectrum rolled her eyes and boarded the ship, and the Red Hood was back on his way.

“Is he always that rude?” asked Alice.

“My dad always said that’s how they breed them in Gotham,” Jessica replied.


The Atom emerged from the inner workings of the temporal trap and pulled off his mask. Amongst the legions of superheroes assembled in Centennial Park where they’d built the device there were few he didn’t know, and, as the chairperson of the Justice League off-and-on since its inception, he trusted all those gathered here with his life.

“Green across the board. Guys?” He said, wiping the sweat from his brow and heading toward the rest of the science team.

“I don’t understand half’a what we’ve done here, but it looks sound from a technical standpoint,” said Doc Robotman. He buzzed and whirred, the brain of ‘Average Joe’ Cliff Steele imprinted with the intelligence of Niles Caulder before his demise. He knew his stuff now and put all that know-how to good work.

As ever, Will Magnus’ lab assistant Amalgam checked his work. Ever since the Responsometer crashed three years ago, Magnus had been unable to cope with the cataclysmic highs and horrifying lows conjured by his bipolar disorder, but he was still one of the best brains they had. Amalgam was a calming influence on him, riding out the highs and lows, and able to keep him focused on any task at hand.

“I-it’s all good, R-Raymond. We’ve c-cannibalised nearly all the t-technology available to us, b-but if it operates how it s-should in theory, we’ll be fine,” said Will.

Sarah Erdel, granddaughter of one of the greatest scientists never known to the world outside of hushed circles of extranormal academia, gave a thumbs-up, as did Harrison Wells’ daughter, Jessica. The device was ready. Now all they had to do was turn it on…

“It is time,” intoned Equinox, descending from where he had observed the final assembly.

The various teams of heroes gathered around him, ready to listen to his words. Some had come and gone when needed, but the focal point of their gathering was here, in the home of one of their greatest members. The escaped villains had been routed and now they needed to end the threat before the ongoing destruction could spread further. But still… how much of the world would be left to save?

“My brother betrays the balance of order and chaos, and seeks to bring about an anarchic time, where the rules of the universe no longer apply. I cannot abide that. My inaction, my rule of non-intervention, meant that he unleashed the entropic energies locked behind the Source Wall in the name of his master, who even now, plucks from your number as the timelines careen toward their endpoint. With the temporal trap, we can stop the erosion of time, and contain his master, before he collides with himself and causes the ultimate zero hour to arrive. With him contained, the Source Wall and all the open doors across the universe will seal, and order will return to this universe--”

“--Then what are waiting for?” asked Red Arrow. If they could save the world, the universe, hell, all of reality, then what were they doing standing around talking about it? And why was this guy their conductor, leading a choir of superheroes off a hymn sheet no one else really understood? He pushed those questions down. He wanted to be with Lian. He wanted to tell his little girl-- she’d always be his little girl-- that everything would be all right.

“The energy source. The spark that will power the temporal trap and draw Libra’s master through the door of the cage-- which we can then slam shut. That’s what is needed now,” Equinox said.

“That’s… there’s no energy source present,” said the Atom.

“The energy source is external. We need someone with a connection to the Speed Force. The track is a contained loop, and will caused a feedback in the vibrational plane, drawing Libra’s master into the trap.”

“Where’s Wally?” asked Red Arrow, looking around nervously. Barry Allen was in the future, enjoying his retirement with Iris and the kids, so Wally was the man for the job… especially if Jay Garrick had vanished thanks to the temporal anomalies this crisis had caused.

“He got called in to help with something else, with the magic lot,” said Mercury, stepping forward. “I guess I’m your speedster.”

“You sure about this?” asked Cassie.

Bart smiled and embraced his old friend, telling her, “What would my grandad do? Wally? What would Max do?”

He zipped over to Empress, squeezed her tight, and then sighed. “Where do you--”

There was a crackle, and he vanished-- just as Green Lantern and Wildcat had--! Leaving nothing but a spray of black energy globules hanging in the air, before they too faded from sight.

“No!” screamed Wonder Woman, rushing over to where he had been.

“What does--?” Roy started to say.

Horrified, the Atom held up a scanner and analysed the site where Mercury had vanished. “Tachyon particles are hanging in the air, but no trace of the Speed Force, and… and…”

Empress held Wonder Woman, who was shaking with anger. “He was born and raised in the future… he came back to become Impulse, then Kid Flash… if people from the past are vanishing, maybe people from the future too?”

The Atom grimaced. “First, we saw Vandal Savage go, then Booster Gold… god, yes of course...!”

“Someone call Wally!” said Red Arrow. “We need to power this thing now, before more people vanish!”


“The greatest performance I will ever put on… breaking into Heaven,” said Mister Miracle.

Zauriel had been taken. By whom, they did not know, but the angel was missing and her lover, Doctor Fate, would do anything within her immense power to bring her back. At hand, Doctor Fate had Zauriel’s flaming sword-- sent from Heaven to Earth as some sign or warning. Even if it was desperate message that things were not well in the celestial realm, Doctor Fate was still coming for Zauriel.

The sword might not be enough to open a door to Heaven, but it was a key. Doctor Fate just needed to build the right lock and fit it in the right door. To that end she needed the ingenuity and creativity of some of the greatest magical and scientific minds in the universe.

For her great task, Doctor Fate had assembled in the Tower of Fate a cadre of heroes that had probably never been in such close vicinity to each other before. They were all heroes, and they had all saved the world at one time or another, but never together.

Running the show was Doctor Fate-- Traci Thirteen to her friends. Talking up a storm was Mister Miracle, aka Scott Free, the co-principal of the All-Star Academy in San Francisco. His wife was currently running drills with the remaining students, keeping them occupied in the face of the latest apocalypse.

Standing ready to assist Mister Miracle invent a literal god-machine was the engineering genius Steel, aka Natasha Irons. Also eager to help was the husband and wife team of Starwoman and Captain Marvel-- Courtney Whitmore-Batson and her husband Billy.

A little less eager but still ready to add their magical might were John Constantine and Zatanna. Zatanna had recruited her cousin, Zachary Zatara, and his boyfriend Red Devil (Eddie, if you were being polite).

Finally, Rose Psychic stood in the background. While she was known in some circles as the wife of Richard Occult, Rose was one of the most powerful psychics on Earth that, most of the time, flew under the mystical radar. Not today.

“What do you need from us?” asked Doctor Fate, determined to start as soon as was otherworldly possible.

Mister Miracle was removing the front panel on his Boom Tube generator, exposing the device’s elaborate guts. The baroque machinery was difficult to look at-- assembled with an extradimensional geometry that defied human perception-- and even more difficult to understand. The open panel emitted a strange light that was somehow thick, like a transparent plasma, and filled with bubbles of infinite blackness. They released childlike pops and, at the least, seemed harmless to Mister Miracle, as he rummaged inside the generator.

“We’re going to need to travel, uh, further is one word for it, than many of you here have ever travelled before. Boom Tubes are powered by the X-Element, it’s a god-metal, an energy source without equal in this universe but... it’s not enough.”

Steel crouched at a calculated but cautious distance from the device, “So what do you need?”

“We’re going to something crazy,” Mister Miracle flashed them a grin, “I’m going to give the X-Element a boost from the Flash, Wally, if you’ll be so kind. We’re going to need to very, very fast to get through the barriers that separate space, time, and heaven. But first...” Scott Free grunted as he tugged on a thick cable, “I’m going to hook my power source, here, to Zauriel’s flaming sword.”

“It’s the key,” Doctor Fate said-- Zauriel had given her the tool she needed to find her and bring her home. “It finds us the right door.”

“It’s like our tuner,” Mister Miracle nodded, “Steel, we’re going to need a really good lightning rod.”

“On it,” Steel said.

“Billy, I’ll need you to be the conductor. You can transform from a human into a demigod, so you can conduct energy between this reality and the celestial realm.” Mister Miracle said, “And our, uh, magicians. You’ll need to weave your most powerful spells. The kind of spell that breaks down barriers. That tears down walls. The good stuff. I’m sure John has a couple up his sleeve, at bare minimum.”

Constantine held up his hands. “I don’t think I like the accusation…”

Zatanna gave him a look.

“…But, yes, I have a couple of ideas,” he finished.

“Enchant this,” he held up the X-Element. Bubbles of light and nothingness oozed out of the top and drifted into the air and everyone but Doctor Fate looked away. “Don’t worry, the more you look at it, the easier it gets,” Mister Miracle shrugged ruefully, “Enchant this like your lives’-- and Zauriel’s-- depend on it. When you’re done, the Flash will super-charge the X-Element, I’ll reinsert it into the Boom Tube, and it will fold us into the shapes we need to be to survive knocking on Heaven’s door.”

“What do you mean?” asked Starwoman.

The Flash was jogging on the spot, warming up his legs. “I think I get it. Back when Zauriel was a member of the Justice League at the same time as me, she once said that where she came from-- Heaven, or whatever you want to call it-- it’s a higher order of reality. Everything about it is more. What did she say exactly? Uh, it was weird, so I remembered it: ‘The light of Heaven would slash open your corneas. The music of Heaven would puncture your eardrums and drive you insane. The air of heaven would burst your lungs and boil your blood.’ Y’know, the usual.”

“My poet,” Doctor Fate whispered fondly.

“The man in red has the right idea, kids,” Mister Miracle confirmed, “The thing about Boom Tubes is that they condense a being into whatever shape is required for them to exist in any given plane of existence. New Gods are celestial giants, but upon Earth we’re just… slightly tall. The same rules apply if we go to Heaven. We get… adjusted. Nothing drastic. In theory, the X-Element will take care of everything.”

“Wait, ‘in theory’?” said Starwoman.

Captain Marvel gave his wife a reassuring smile and stepped forward. “I get the feeling that what’s being asked of us is for us to take a leap of faith.”

Courtney’s brow furrowed. “Yeah? And what does that wisdom of yours say?”

Batson chuckled. “When has Mister Miracle led us astray before? Do you folks want to get started?”


Miss Martian and Spoiler, with Shilo Norman in tow, materialised on the Watchtower.

“Cyborg, can you hear me?” asked Spoiler, talking loudly.

<I’m plugged into every square centimetre of the Watchtower, Spoiler. You don’t need to shout. What’s up?>

“I need to speak to Batman! Where is he?”

<Follow the lights on the walls, he’s made himself a nest in one of the hangers,> answered Cyborg.

“Thanks, Vic!” shouted Steph, smiling.

<Please stop shouting. Also, you’re welcome.>

Strips of light were illuminated on the bulkheads, and the trio followed them all the way to where the Questions were working with Batman and Blue Beetle, collating information and trying to get a read on the scope of what they were fighting against.

Spoiler leapt into Batman’s arms and kissed him roughly, and he held her tight all the while. When they parted, she rested her head against his cheek, and said, “This world is crazy, and you’re the only thing that makes sense to me. That makes anything right.”

“What happened?” he asked.

“…Uh, I don’t know exactly why I’m here,” said Shilo, stepping into a corner.

“…Me neither,” replied Blue Beetle.

“Everything’s connected but at the same time, not. The weird temporal stuff and the doors opening. Whoever’s behind the first… we think someone’s trying to take advantage of it, and they’re the ones who opened all the doors, right? So, there’s like two parties involved, and they’re both causing trouble, but one more than the other right now? Like, one of them--”

“Steph-- please, slow down,” said Batman.

Miss Martian placed a hand on Spoiler’s shoulder and took up the reins of the explanation. “Batman-- I took a psychometric reading of the Key’s cell. The Key was awoken from his coma by two unimaginable forces. I cannot say who they were, but if I were in their presence I would know them immediately. Somehow, the Key had the knowledge of Heaven, and how to open all the doors across the universe.”

The Question held up his hand. “Back in the early days of the Justice League, the Key tried to unlock the gates of Heaven-- in fact, he succeeded-- the only reason he didn’t become God 2.0 was because the Flash ran him through and straight back out again, and it short-circuited his brain.”

“I remember that case file, that was loopy,” replied the Question.

Blue Beetle looked slightly confused, “Umm, why are you both called the Question?”

Batman grimaced. “Focus, people! Miss Martian, Steph, can you go down to Metropolis, and check out the crowds? If the persons behind this are wanting to cause as much trouble as possible, they might be near the temporal trap that we’re building.”

“Of course,” said Miss Martian.

“Just be careful, Steph,” whispered Tim.

“When am I ever not?” she replied.

“…Most days. I love you.”

“You too,” she said, heading out the room and back to the teleporters.

“What about me?” asked Shilo.

<I can use as many spare hands up in the command centre, if you’re willing, warden,> came Cyborg’s voice.

Blue Beetle nodded. “I’ll go with him. Let me know if you figure out a pattern to all this, will ya?”


“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” said Red Hood, rushing toward the bridge of the ship. He turned a corner, and found himself facing a squad of security officers, who raised their weapons as soon as he came into sight. “Ah, fu--”

“Stand down!” barked Captain Comet. “He’s from Earth! He’s one of my son’s professors--!” started Comet, before realising what Jason’s presence meant. “--Oh. Oh, no. Alan isn’t here, is he?”

“I really don’t want to have to lie to a psychic space warrior,” Hood replied. He pressed a button on the side of his helmet and it deflated and he removed it. “But he’s safe.”

Comet shook his head violently and crossed the bridge of the ship, so he was in Jason’s face. “We’ve been raided by Thunderers! That’s an incursion from another dimension, man! And you brought my son on board?”

Jason held up his hands. “Whoa, whoa, let’s take it down a few notches, man. I’m not here to assign blame--”

“The universe is falling apart! The Green Lantern Corps are outside, pulling us out of the storm, but the entropic wave is on their heels--!”

“And we’ll get back to Earth soon enough. We can shore up the defence of the universe there!” said Jason.

Comet grimaced, then turned to one of his officers. “Do we have anyone left in engineering? Get me a crew count! I want to know who’s left!”

One of the crewmen responded, “Chief S’Nat is trying to get the engines back online, but they’re unresponsive. He thinks the storm is generating some kind of distortion field!”

Blake began to pace the bridge. “Who’s doing this? Who sent these bastards?”

He hoisted up one of the Thunderers and pushed his psychic powers into the mind of the unconscious Qwardian. Images began to fill his mind-- a savage desert-- an immense machine-- a trap designed to-- to what?-- and then the man behind it all-- the cause of all their misery-- the cause of every horror that had been unleashed on the universe-- there he was-- coming into focus-- a face hidden beneath a hood-- a face-- that--

The connection snapped closed. “I-- I know who’s done this. I know the name of the threat that--”

“Just tell us--!” said Red Hood.

“It’s K--”

Captain Comet was interrupted by a wounded Thunderer-- who’d been feigning unconsciousness-- jerking forward with a thunderbolt and jamming it down against the psychic hero’s leg-- there was a crack of lightning and Comet was gone--!

“No! No!” shouted Jason, he shot the Thunderer in the chest, and then turned to the crew. “He’s been taken. After all that, he was taken. God!”

<Red Hood, is that you?>

Todd’s eyes widened. “Rayner?!”

Kyle Rayner’s voice piped in through the comms systems of the ship, loud and clear. <Whoa, whoa, that’s Green Lantern to you, Jase m’man. What are you doing so far from Earth?>

“Long story! Uh, we just lost Captain Comet! The Thunderers have been picking off passengers on the ship, do you know where they’re being taken?”

<Thunderers kidnapping people? Only one place makes sense to me, but without looking into it further, it’s just a guess-- Qward, right? The anti-matter universe?>

“Anti-matter… maybe… maybe…” Jason muttered, “And, uh, our engines aren’t working, can you get us--”

The view screen showed the storm cloud finally dissipate, but there was no welcoming blackness of space ahead-- the entropic wave was right on their heels, threatening to engulf everything!

“Oh. My. God,” whispered Jason.

<We’re evacuating this area of space as fast as we can! The speed of the wave has picked up the further out from the Source Wall it goes!>

“Stop talking to me and get a move on! Get us clear!” said Jason.

He grabbed the quiver of thunderbolts from the back of the Qwardian who’d attacked Captain Comet, and then looked around the room. “They’ll get you clear. They always do. Just hold on!”

He darted down the corridor and headed straight for the space-tank a few decks below, hoping he made it in time.


“Holy crap that’s terrifying,” whispered Kyle Rayner, watching the entropic wave crash through space, erasing everything it touched. Debris from the fleet vanished on contact, as if it had never existed in the first place.

Lanterns were shoving ships away from the wave as fast as they could, but the ships caught in the thunderstorm that had been stuck in place, so it was taking the all of the Lanterns’ concentration to get the moving again.

“Yeah, focus, brother,” said Hank Henshaw, multi-tasking as best as he could, zipping through the scuppered fleet and attaching rocket engines to the most effective places on their hulls.

“Where are we even sending them?” asked Katma.

“I’m rerouting all flight paths to Earth,” said John. He was noticeably sweating, which wasn’t normal for the powerful Green Lantern.

His companions realised why at the same time. “You’re holding all that data in your head?” Kyle exclaimed.

“Subluminal tunnels collapsed hours ago, and with the-- with the entropic wave devouring everything in its path-- we-- we don’t have an updated universal map-- so I’m piloting them-- through the green-- just-- just--”

The strain must have been incredible, and he hadn’t said anything prior to this moment. But the focus was so immense that he didn’t notice that the entropic wave break off in parts and flowing faster straight toward him-- as if it were demonstrating sentience.

The Green Lanterns were too focused with getting the survivors clear, apart from Kyle, who tried shouting for John’s attention!

When he didn’t respond, Rayner did the only thing he could think of, and, channelling all of his desperation and will, sent a construct straight for the destructive energy-- and for a split second, the barrier held!

“How--?” started Kyle, unsure of how he’d been able to push back the wave when all their other efforts had failed. The entropic wave was pure destruction, an annihilation effect unlike anything they’d seen before-- it erased everything it touched, even emerald constructs! But if he’d managed to--

The construct was finally devoured, but John had come to his senses and flew clear. Now they were being chased by the wave even as the final ships were being warped clear.

“How did you do that?” asked Katma, flying beside her old friend.

He shook his head. “I-- I don’t know! I just had to, y’know? So I did!”

John joined them and put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “S-saved my life again, kid. Good work. The last vessel to get clear is the flagship, and the sooner I get these flight computers out my head, the better!”

“I’ve been trying to warn Earth, but our signals aren’t reaching that far-- they’re about to have one hell of a surprise in the solar system,” said Hank.

“Hopefully they get the picture fast, or we’re all screwed,” said Kyle.


“So, mates, are we ready to defy all natural law?”

John Constantine clapped his hands together with a lopsided grin, an unlit cigarette dangling from the other corner of his mouth-- Zatanna had helped him kick the habit, but there are a few moments in a man’s life when he just needs the loving kiss of nicotine.

No one replied. “Come on, have a laugh. It’s not like it’s the end of the world,” he said dryly.

“Back to work, my love,” Zatanna said as she waved her wand through the air, “ecreiP eht liev!”

Constantine squinted, “What do you think, are they ready?”

Rose Psychic’s eyes were distant, “Yes, John. As ready as they can ever be.”

Constantine drew back his sleeves, revealing fresh bandages around his wrists, “Why didn’t you just say so?”

The inner sanctum of the Tower of Fate glowed with subtle flickers of lightning. In the centre of the room, Constantine and his fellow magicians had drawn a large circle in fresh human blood. At five equidistant points around the circle stood John Constantine, Zatanna, Zachary, Red Devil, and Rose Psychic.

Starwoman and Steel stood guard over the magicians. Steel’s work on the god-machine was done and she had no intention of stepping through the vortex into whatever dimension lay on the other side.

Starwoman, although her heart was twisted into knots as she stared at her husband on the other side pf the circle, had been convinced to stay behind and guard the door.

The inner rim of the circle was wreathed in flickering lightning, and a thin crust of blackened blood sizzled and smoked under a constant barrage of tiny tendrils of electricity.

The room stank of burning rubber.

Inside the circle were Doctor Fate, Mister Miracle, Captain Marvel, and the Flash, exhausted after charging the X-Element. Standing in the middle of the group Mister Miracle held a shimmering sphere of pure energy in both hands as he orchestrated the greatest jailbreak in all of existence.

“On three!” Mister Miracle said as yellow lightning played up and down his arms. The edges of his body seemed to shimmer in and out of existence as he lowed the X-Element into the generator.

“Three--!”

Captain Marvel had both hands clasped around the flaming sword of Zauriel. Outside the circle, unearthly snatches of magical chanting sounded twisted and wrong. “nekaeW eht rierrab...!”

“Two--!” Mister Miracle said as he slammed the panel shut on the generator and the device started to PING.

The Tower of Fate started to vibrate like a tuning fork. The chanting rose to a feverish crescendo. “nepO eht setag fo nevaeH!”

PING.

Doctor Fate’s command echoed through the Tower of Fate. “NOW!”

PING.

Captain Marvel took a deep breath raised the flaming sword of heaven above his head. His white cloak billowed out behind him. “SHAZAM!”

There was an almighty boom as a sizzling vortex opened in the floor below them. The entire circle became a blazing column of white light. The tube beneath them exerted a terrible gravity, a rush of ethereal wind that ruffled at their hair and clothes. Simultaneously, a searing bolt of lightning emerged out of the ceiling. It connected with the sword in a blinding flash.

The edge of the vortex burst into golden flames-- it was now not just a tunnel through space, but between realities! Painted in shimmering black light, like a photographic negative, the heroes inside the circle twisted and elongated as they were pulled into a cosmic whirlpool. With a scream, the Boom Tube closed behind them.

“Bloody hell,” John swept one hand through his sweaty hair.

He needed a drag and a drink, preferably the whole bottle.

Rose Psychic put one hand to her forehead, her forehead knotted with pain. “I can still sense the...portal. This,” she gestured at the circle, “Area of space and time is weakened, now. The barriers are lowered.”

“Didn’t we have to deal with that problem yesterday?” asked Red Devil.

Zachary grinned and squeezed his boyfriend’s hand. “Yeah, but this time, we weren’t the ones responsible… were we?”

Rose shook her head. “No, we were not. This is focused. There is intent behind our actions. The reckoning we experienced before today was chaotic and of evil intent. We all felt it. But with all the heavenly protections down…”

Not paying any heed to Rose, Zachary leaned his head against Eddie’s. “That was intense. You good?”

Red Devil nodded. “Never better, love.”

“…This could be bad,” finished Rose.

“Now we wait until my husband, until all of them, are back safe and sound,” Starwoman said, planting her Cosmic Rod on the floor in front of her.

Steel hefted her hammer with a grim nod. “Easier said, but it’ll get done. I’m not going anywhere.”

Constantine dropped his unlit cigarette onto the floor and stomped on it. “Sure thing, mates. Now we see if someone notices the back door to heaven is open... or if anyone particularly unfriendly tries to come through from the other side.”


Lena Luthor tinkered with the exposed machinery in Metallo’s chest, careful not to trigger the Kryptonite engine within that could kill a Superman or Woman if it struck accurately.

Flamebird had delivered the dismantled Phantom Zone projector to their current location. He was currently floating above their heads, meditating, while Krypto spent his time chasing his tail. They’re relocated to where they knew the membrane between Earth and the Phantom Zone was thinnest-- the collapsed wasteland that had once held the Fortress of Solitude, just hours prior. This was where Superwoman had fought to the end, this was where she’d pushed the Black Zero back into the void-- and this would be where they rescued her!

“You sure this doesn’t hurt?” Lena asked.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve disengaged the nerve receptors in my chest cavity. Couldn’t feel anything if I wanted to,” replied John.

“All I know is that the science is sound, that attaching this thing to you, and rerouting your heart into the power source, should open a controlled rift to the Zone.”

That said, the science was sound, but wholly untested.

“Why the sudden doubts? Kara always said you had the brassiest balls. Don’t let no attack of nerves get you down now. You got this.”

“Ugh, don’t even,” Lena replied.

“He’s right, in his own way,” said Kon-El, floating down. “The power of belief will get you further than you know.”

Lena threw up her hands. “Says the mortal incarnation of a Kryptonian deity. I got this, guys! I got this!” Krypto shot down, and began to rush around Lena’s feet, excitedly. “You too, Woof-Woof. I got this.”

“That feels weird,” said John, looking down at the large lens attached to his chest.

“I thought you couldn’t feel anything in there?” Lena said.

John shrugged. “I… lied? I am a former villain, you know.”

“Jeez. Okay, weird in what way?”

“I can feel all the new connections in there. How the energy should feed into the processors of the projector. I can feel the ‘on’ switch.”

“That tracks, though. Okay, Kon, you ready?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Woof-Woof?”

Krypto barked excitedly in response.

“Powering up my exo-lightsuit, stand clear,” said Lena, as segments of green and purple hard-light began to form across her body, the subdermal implants in her body connecting each section into a suit of impregnable armour.

When she was ready, she said, “To sum up the ridiculous plan; John’ll activate the Phantom Zone projector and open a portal into a limbo dimension to which there’s no real escape without help from the outside. Flamebird will reach in with his weird shamanic powers and pull Kara out. We on the same page?” Nods all round. “Okay, John: Think ‘on’. Think ‘activation’.”

“--Hghghkk--!” Corben convulsed as a thick spotlight shot out from the projector lodged in his chest and a portal in space and time formed in mid-air, showing a black and white realm of shapes and movement.

“You’re up, Kon--!” shouted Lena, the wind whipping up due to the exotic forces being generated by the Phantom Zone tear.

Flamebird reached a hand out into the Phantom Zone tear and shivered as he felt his digits begin to lose substance. “Cold. Damn. I always forget how cold it is in there…”


“Do you hear that?” asked Superwoman, turning as something caused their island in the void to shudder.

Mon-El quickly lowered his hand and swallowed. “Some kind of tremor…”

“It’s Lena. I know it is--” said Kara.

“My way out--!” said Mon, whose expression change when he realised his slip of the tongue he’d made in all his excitement.

Kara noted the turn of phrase and simply nodded. “Oh.”

The spiders were visible now. Climbing out of his mouth and crawling around his body. Ink-black tears dribbling out of his eyes like an oil spill. “Oh? Oh, yes, Kara Zor-El. You made a mistake. I may wear the face of your dying ally, but I am not him.”

“You’re the Black Zero,” Superwoman stated, simply.

“You feign courage, but all will fall.” Cracks began to form in the foundation of Mon-El’s being. Horrible fissures where more arachnids began to stream out, his body a ruined jigsaw.

“Will they?” Kara said, gripping her wrist and rolling her fist.

“All-- will-- fall.”

“Doubtful,” Superwoman cocked her fist back.

“You have no power here. All but I am powerless in the Phantom Zone! There is no sunlight! No solar energy for you to absorb! You are as human as those you vowed to protect--!”

“I mean, I would be, if it wasn’t for this yellow sun generator on my wrist.”

“Wh--?"

Superwoman threw a glowing punch that sent the Black Zero entity flying out of Mon-El, leaving the Daxamite to fall on his front while the vast, unrelentingly evil creature coalesced in the void, it’s impossible, multi-faceted shape making tears well in Kara’s eyes.

“It… it… took control of me… when the Key… opened the doors…” whispered Mon.

“The Key? He’s behind this?” said Kara.

“Y-yes… Kara-- look out!”

Mon shoved her back as a vast tentacle crashed through the island where it was still possible to hurt their physical bodies! The blow tore the island in two, and Mon was thrown back into the void and became immaterial, but he was quick to slip on the goggles that allowed him to see other entities trapped in the Zone. Superwoman clung to the rock, still physical, like a life raft.

<YOUR FRIENDS ARE COMING, AND I WILL WEAR YOUR BODY TO WELCOME THEM.>

“You’re not too smart for an ancient god, are you?” Kara breathed in deep, and when another tentacle lashed down toward her, she exhaled, freezing the meaty appendage into a block of ice, then shattering it with a hard tap. “You didn’t notice me playing with this, or if you did, you didn’t think twice about it. Stupid.”

<I WILL WEAR YOUR BODY AS I STRETCH MYSELF ACROSS THE WORLD, THEN THE UNIVERSE-->

Kara shook a disappointed finger. “--And all this time, all that rumbling, you didn’t think to look behind you.”

A screeching, flaming bird of prey soared across the Phantom Zone, and burned straight through the Black Zero’s throbbing mass of twisting darkness and inverted angles. It flapped its wings, extended a claw, and plucked Mon-El from the void once more, and dropped him back on the island. Superwoman looked up in wonderment and was even more impressed when Kon-El stepped out of the inferno.

“Your carriage awaits, Superwoman,” he said, with a bow.

She was speechless. “I didn’t-- you manifested the Flamebird in full again-- not since--”

Kon grinned. “Yup, not since Xa-Du--”

“--I c-can’t come with you,” said Mon, his body convulsing. “But you n-need to leave f-fast.”

<CHILDREN OF THE SUN! YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR INTERVENTION HERE!>

Kon shook his head, looking up at the Black Zero. “I don’t think so.” He turned back to Kara. “I can do two things.” He clicked his fingers and tore a hole through the membrane of the Phantom Zone. “Send you home.” He shoved the air in front of Kara, and she shot backwards as if she’d been struck, flying back into the snow where the Fortress of Solitude had once stood.

Still in the Phantom Zone, Kon turned to Mon-El, “And you, I can send to your future.” He sealed the first rift he’d created and opened another. “The 31st Century, isn’t it?”

“W-what?” whispered Mon.

Another shove, and the Daxamite vanished, leaving Flamebird alone with the Black Zero. “It was always meant to end like this.”

<I WILL REND YOU FROM EXISTENCE. SPILL YOU OPEN. TREAD UPON THE DYING EMBERS OF YOUR GODHOOD.>

“Something’s missing though… something vital…” said Kon.

<YOU ARE ALONE.>

“…No, he’s not,” came a voice from the void behind the Black Zero--


“SHAZAM!”

There was a searing flare of light-- brighter than the sun, brighter than lightning, it was hard and hot and sharp. For a moment, they were blind. For a moment, they all wondered… had they made it? Or...

‘The light of Heaven would slash open your corneas.’

The silence stretched out for agonising second after second and then the light started to shimmer and solidify. Like a car seen approaching on a hot highway, reality started to flow into shape with unerring speed. “I present to you the greatest show not on earth-- the Gates of Heaven!” Mister Miracle crowed.

Reality, of a sort, solidified. They were standing on a meadow dotted with white flowers, like an Impressionist painting composed of daubs and streaks of colour and emotion. It was waving field of wheat. It was undulating clouds.

It was just the floor for Doctor Fate, Captain Marvel, Mister Miracle, and the Flash.

The gates of heaven were open, and the Shining City lay before them, silver, gold, and platinum. The streets were paved with gold and pearls. In the centre of the city the Radiant Spire rose towards the sky and pierced the clouds-- it was taller than the white mist-- it was the clouds. It was a towering column of beautiful clouds, like an inverted hurricane, veined with lightning. It was the sky. It was the sun. It was light. The immensity of HEAVEN left them all breathless and stunned.

When they could tear their eyes away from the celestial vision, everyone was shocked to see Mister Miracle towering over the others. The gigantic New God had been reformed closer to his true size as a denizen of the Fourth World. “Huh,” Mister Miracle raised one hand and spread his fingers, “…This is crazy! I love it!”

The flaming sword of Zauriel, still held by Captain Marvel, starting to hum. The sword had absorbed the mighty bolt of celestial lightning and Captain Marvel had maintained his current form. Despite his prodigious strength, the blade was fighting him-- threatening to shake free and leap towards the Shining City. “Doctor Fate? What should I do with--?”

Doctor Fate said raised one hand. “Let me.”

The vestments of Fate billowed behind her as she summoned the sword. It flew out of Captain Marvel’s hands and hovered in the air in front of Traci Thirteen. The silent flames licked at the air, each one pulled towards the Radiant Spire as if caught in a stiff wind. The searing point quivering like a compass needle. “That’s where we need to go,” Traci said.

The Flash pointed towards the Shining City, “We’ve got locals, Doctor Fate.”

Pouring out of the open gates were angels. They sparkled like the crest of a wave on the open ocean. Winged forms resolved out of the unnatural light and revealed the four hosts of heaven, armed with the fearsome guise of bulls, eagles, and lions. Doctor Fate frowned. There should be music and panoply to human eyes-- the roar of trumpets, streaming banners-- but the horde was silent. Deadly silent and rushing towards them like an avalanche...

Doctor Fate narrowed her eyes and a golden ankh flashed into existence in front of her, “Something is wrong with Heaven, my friends. Prepare yourselves!”

Mister Miracle looked down at them, “They’re getting closer, guys, and I can... feel, ugh It makes me a little sick. I don’t think the New Gods and heaven get along very well.”

“Get ready!” The Flash said, “I think we’ve got a fight on our hands!”

Captain Marvel gulped, “I really don’t want to punch an angel, guys!”

Angels sprang into the air like a murder of crows as the host swept towards from all directions. Doctor Fate rose into the air to meet them, “I’m coming, my love. I’ll topple the Celestial Throne if I have to, if that’s what it takes to get you back-- and the heavenly host in all its might WILL NOT STOP ME!”


<The Flash was on-mission with the magic contingent and I can’t get in touch with him,> said Cyborg, answering Red Arrow’s hails from the Watchtower.

“Where is he?” asked Red Arrow.

<Argh, damn. His marker is off the grid… but we’ve been having glitches since this whole thing started…>

“Jesus Christ. All right, Vic. If you hear anything, let me know.”

<What’s the situation on the ground?>

“We’ve lost the JSA and other old-timers. Folks from the future have gone too. I want to know how long it’ll take for their kids to vanish too. We got a lot of legacies here, it ain’t gonna be pretty when that happens. I’ll keep you updated.”

<Same. Stay safe, Speedy.>

“You too, Tin Man.”

“It has to be me, then,” said Jesse Quick.

Hourman interjected immediately. “We don’t know--”

“Honey, it’ll be fine. It has to be fine. We’re superheroes. This is our job. We’re living on borrowed time, anyway. If our parents go, we can’t be far off, and then Johnny goes too. Our kid. Our stupid, brilliant, super-kid. There’s no one else. It has to be me.”

“But we don’t know--”

Jesse put her hands on either side of his face and drew his head close to her own. She talked quietly, directly to him. “Rick. I love you. But I have to do this. You know I do. You’d be pulling the same self-sacrifice card as me if the situation called for a Miraclo-dosed superhero to step up. But it’s not you, this time. It’s me. I’ll run for my life and yours and John’s and be back in time for dinner.”

“Time is short,” said Equinox, interrupting the moment.

“Literally,” pointed out Doc Robotman.

“Not helpful,” pointed out Power Woman, touching down beside Jesse and Rick. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Maybe… I could use your momentum? To go even faster?” Jesse said.

“The speed connection needs to be from the extradimensional realm,” Equinox added.

“Okay, so you’re so full of answers, tell us-- who’s your brother’s boss?” barked Red Arrow.

“I… I do not know,” replied Equinox.

Jesse shrugged. “Okay, so I run faster than I’ve been able to go before. Okay. That’s… something.”

Wonder Woman tried to ignore the crowd’s conversations, focusing on the voice of Batman on the other line. “Well? Have you heard anything?”

<I bumped into him on the Watchtower. He’s working on bringing back Kara. He’s got a whole crazy scheme. He sends his love and told me to tell you not to worry,> replied Tim.

“Gods, that stupid man…” she whispered.

<I know, he’s the worst at communicating, but most of us are in this business. I’m with the Questions. There’s some weird stuff going on and we’re trying to map it all, but you need to stay strong, Cassie. You’re Wonder Woman. You can do this.>

Cassie smiled. “All right, Boy Pep Talk. All right. If you speak to him again, tell him I love him. But he knows that. And you, you silly man, stay alive, you hear me?”

<We’ll find Bart. We will.>

“You bet your ass. I’d go to hell and back for you guys.”

<Again,> added Tim.

“Again and again and again, until you get the picture.”

<Okay, I have to go, but remember: you’re the champion of the planet. Nothing’s going to get past you.>


“Okay, things just got bad, but I think I’m about to make things even worse,” said Red Hood, clambering about the space-tank, holding a quiver of golden thunderbolts.

“Where’s my dad?” asked Meteor, his large eyes bulging larger than they’d ever.

“They got him. Just as we were about to find out who engineered this whole crisis, he was taken. But we have a map, right here,” he held up the quiver, and then turned to Alice. “You need to get us off this ship ASAP. The Green Lantern Corps are outside, and they’re sending every ship in the fleet to Earth.”

Cat shook his head. “Shouldn’t we, ya know, head back to Earth and take our lickings?”

“Kyle, man up, for once in your life,” said Minuteman.

“Sexistttttt,” purred Cat, grinning and pointing two fingers like guns at the younger man.

“You know what I mean,” Minuteman replied.

“Sure thing, Tick-Tock, but why don’t you--”

Angrily, Jason stepped between the two teens. “You’re teammates, so goddamn start acting like it! I’m about to do something ultra-stupid, and if I have to worry about you sniping at each other, I’m going to mess this whole thing up, y’hear me? So, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re the graduating class. You’re the best the All-Star Academy has to offer, and I trust you with my life-- it helps that I trained you, of course-- but we can use these thunderbolts to follow after Alan’s dad, and get to the centre of this whole thing. If you aren’t up for it, that’s fine.”

“Wait, are you volunteering my ship for this thing?” asked Alice.

Jason realised he’d overstepped. “Yyyyes?”

“Oh, that’s fine, I just wanted to be sure.” She turned and shot a look at an empty patch of the interior. “And don’t you start!”

“Our pilot is crazy. Okay, that’s fine, I was crazy once too,” said Jason.

“She’s not crazy, she’s haunted,” said Spectrum.

“Well, I’m that too,” he replied.

“No, literally haunted. By a Confederate ghost,” said Stars.

“It’s been interesting,” continued Stripe.

“I’m not… okay. Okay. Fine. Confederate ghosts. I used to see a giant wolf with a face like the Joker’s. We all go a little crazy sometimes. Anyway-- we use these--”

The thunderbolts were snatched from his hands by an invisible force, and for the first I’ve since he boarded, Jason could faintly see the outline of a jovial, bearded man dressed in Confederate grey. “… as ah wuz sayin, the time fer talkin is ovah! Ah know what to do with these monstrosities!”

“Holy crap,” whispered Jason.

“Yup, meet General Jebediah Stuart, my great-great-something-something-grandfather,” said Alice.

“Yew children ah mighty brave to be runnin head first into this kinda trouble, ah have ta say,” continued the ghost.

“Well, Prof Todd doesn’t seem to be giving us much choice,” said Cat.

“My dad has been kidnapped! We have to help him!” said Meteor.

Cat held up his hands. “I’m just saying! I do declare...”

“What does he mean he knows what to do with the thunderbolts?” asked Spectrum.

Jeb walked through the rear hull of the ship, phasing the thunderbolts along with him. Everyone turned to Alice, utterly baffled.

“Oh, this ship is fuelled by an experimental engine called the spirit drive. My whole origin story is rather convoluted, but sufficed to say, if we want to go somewhere, we need to stoke the fires.”

“Wasn’t that project discontinued?” Meteor asked.

“You heard about it?” said Alice, beaming.

“Yeah, the first and only prototype was… stolen…” continued Meteor, before realising what that meant.

The hull of the ship began to light up as LED strips activated. Alice punched the air, and then headed to the cockpit, throwing herself into the pilot’s chair. “You’ll need to strap yourselves in!”

“She stole this ship!” said Meteor.

“Yeah, well, stealing something is often the path to greatness,” replied Jason. “Everyone buckle up!”

With the majority of the team eager and excited, and Cat begrudging, they found chairs and attached the safety harnesses awaiting them. Alice put her hand over a lever, and then in the seat next to her, a cackling Jebediah Stuart apparated, excited. “Ah love this part!”

“What part?” asked Jason.

“Launch,” replied Alice. She pushed down on the lever, and the entire ship shuddered, then vanished from where it had rammed the Cometeer III, heading for parts unknown…


“--3X2(9YZ)4A--”

And so, Jesse Quick began to run.

It was strange how each speedster’s relationships with the Speed Force differed from runner to runner.

Jonathan Tyler, the son of Jesse and Rick, manifested bursts of super speed, but couldn’t maintain it for long. He also could lift a bus over his head, but again, the powers would ebb and flow without any indication as to why.

Jesse could tap into the Speed Force, but only by uttering her mantra, the same mantra her father used. If you believed the stories Johnny used to tell his daughter as she sat up eagerly in bed waiting for him to spin a yarn, it was a mathematical formula found among the inscriptions inside a Pharaoh’s tomb.

What about Christopher Maxell? Known once as Ahwehota-- ‘He Who Runs Beyond The Wind’? Then later, as Windrunner? Even later than that, Whip Whirlwind? Or Quicksilver? Or finally, and most famously, as Max Mercury? He was enchanted by a dying shaman back in the 1800s, then hopped and skipped forward in time again and again, with a control over his body when tapping into the Speed Force that he said was due to ‘Zen,’ but must have been something more.

And then there was Barry and Wally. They could just run and run and run. Their mastery of the Speed Force was second to none. What was their trick? Their mantra? They were struck by lightning, giving them access to their speed, and they’d barely stopped running since. In fact, their speed had taken them beyond the physical universe…

…Where would Jesse’s run take her?

The heroes gathered watched her run, ready for anything. Equinox’s body language suggested nervousness for the first time, which confused those who considered him to be some kind of figure of immense power. If he was an agent of balance, why did he look so anxious? Maybe it was because the price they were about to pay, if they failed, was so high.

Wracked with nerves himself, Hourman stood next to Power Woman, who had a steely hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be okay, Rick.”

“…But what if it’s not?” he asked her.

“Then I’ll pull her out before it gets to that,” she said.

Jesse Quick ran and she ran, each lap of the Möbius strip temporal trap feeding Speed Force energy into the contraption.

The science team had overseen the construction of the device, checked every nook and cranny before activation, but they didn’t understand the true nature of what they had been party to and they didn’t know what the end result of their efforts would be. The Atom watched, nervously checking his readings as he monitored the JSA’s last speedster do what others couldn’t, well aware that for whatever reason, she was their last hope at saving the universe--!

In the skies above Metropolis, vast shapes began to appear, and fear began to run through the gathered crowds. Men, women and children had assembled to see what the Justice League was working on, and they watched in stunned awe as the shapes became clear--

“Is that-- is that her? Is the trap doing that?” asked Hourman.

Power Woman squinted, focusing her Super-Vision. “No. Ships are warping into the solar system-- and near Earth orbit. I recognise some of their construction, but not all…”

Cyborg’s voice filled their ears, live and direct from the Watchtower. In the background they could hear the headquarters shake, as it was buffeted by the arrival of so many spaceships! <Everyone who can operate in space-- you’re needed--! I’m getting a datastream direct from the GLC, they’re saying they’ve directed all survivors to Earth! We’re about to get mega busy and I don’t know how we can corral these guys--!>

Kara Zor-L shook her head, but Rick clamped a hand around her shoulder. “You… you need to go, PW. You can… can do more up there.”

“I said I’d stay,” Power Woman replied.

“You know you can’t. You’re best-equipped to handle whatever’s going on up there.”

“Okay, but if you… if you need me, just shout, and I’ll be down as fast as I can fly.”

<I’m teleporting life-support packets to all active Justice League beam-in sites, so remember to collect your oxygen tanks and whatever else you need. Don’t forget your limits! We need conductors in the skies, making sure our guests don’t-- WHOA-- > There was a horrible scraping noise, and--


Against his will, Cyborg was violently disconnected from where he’d been plugged into the Watchtower’s computer banks, and send flying across the command centre along with the majority of the staff. “We’ve been hit!” He managed to say, as the entire space station rocked back to an even keel.

“No duh!” Blue Beetle replied, pulling himself up.

Cyborg ignored his old friend’s sarcasm, and one of his duplicates began working through the reports coming in. “Dozens-- no, hundreds-- of ships are warping in to the solar system! I’ve got impact reports on the moonbase coming through-- they’re filling space as far as Mars-- no-- beyond--!”

“Flyers are coming in from Earth, but at the distance they’re at, we’re going to need to support them from here,” reported Shilo Norman, from his station.

“Teleportation will be risky-- we don’t have any flight plans-- they’re coming in hot--!” Beetle reported. His expression shifted into one of pure shock and awe. “My God, there are Zeta radiation signatures out there-- Rann just-- “ A gravitational wave hit the station, but the inertial dampeners took the brunt. “Rann just arrived! Thanagar! Whole worlds are somehow warping into position!”

“Worlds? I’m sending as many automatons out to support them as I can,” said Cyborg, his body splitting off yet again so that duplicates of himself peeled away and headed for the doors. He was quickly reduced to a thin, gangly mockery of his tank-like self, his human façade now stripped away completely. The amount of nanites he needed to support so many duplicates was staggering!

Blue Beetle typed something into his console, then looked around. “Let’s prepare the Watchtower for landing, get her tucked away in the moonbase’s dock, and then come up with a plan of action, agreed?”

“Good plan-- then--”

The entire structure was rocked again as another ship sheered across the Watchtower’s side, sending plates of reinforced promethium hull spinning into open space, where other ships were crashing into each other and rebounding into the void! Cyborg shook his head. “I’m steering her in manually! No time for automated docking! Ted, tell the ground teams we’re going offline for ten!”

“Holy crap-- no-- no-- a Daxamite ark is headed straight for us-- no engine control-- impact in ten-- nine--”

“Not enough time--!” Cyborg shouted.

“Oh, fuck me,” whispered Ted, closing his eyes as--

An emerald construct wrapped around the ark and sent it off into another direction, the green energies causing it to glide effortlessly between the other ships that were having trouble steering in such confined space. When Ted opened his eyes, their view screen was filled with an image of the Watchtower’s saviour--

Ted was flabbergasted. “Is that a planet? A Green Lantern planet?”

Cyborg nodded his help. “Mogo just arrived. And it looks like he’s brought his kinds along with him!”

Dozens of planets and planetoids of all different shapes and sizes, all with a familiar signature strip of land across their continents that resembled the Green Lantern Corps emblem, were interacting with the other ships and planets as they arrived, steering them clear of one another, and trying to prevent any more damage being done to the refugees.

“Okay, I’m taking us into dock manually. Send out a transmission-- thank Mogo for his hard work!”


“--3X2(9YZ)4A--”

“--3X2(9YZ)4A--”

“--3X2(9YZ)4A--”

Jesse focused on the mantra, the speed formula that allowed her to move faster than the blink of an eye. She’d been getting faster as she got older, but she was never as fast as Wally, let alone Bart. But now, when she needed to be, she felt her speed amp up, as sparks of streaking lightning were thrown away from her body and collided with the temporal trap.

She remembered the fact of her husband, of her son, and used them as a tether. She remembered the stories Wally used to tell, about how you could go so fast that you ran away from your sense of self, but as long as you had an anchor-- or in her case, two-- you could come home from anything.

Outside the confines of the strip, a teleportation beam struck nearby, and Spoiler and Miss Martian arrived in Metropolis. They immediately made a beeline for Wonder Woman.

“What’s going on?” Steph asked Cassie, who was surprised to see her old Martian friend back in action.

“M’Gann? Are you-- “

“Now isn’t the time. I’m okay. But there’s something--” She jammed her hands against her eyes, a spike of pain striking between the eyes. “--What… Oh… Moons of Mars… I’m not okay. I’m not… there’s something… something here…”

“Look!” shouted the Atom, pointing a finger toward the central column of the temporal trap.

Inside, a shape began to form. It was that of a man, and he threw himself against the transparent sides of the prison, his body vibrating violently, as if he was in twenty places at once in close proximity. Even though he was a human blur, his fists had weight, and the entire construct shook on impact.

“It’s him,” Equinox declared.

“Who-- who is that?” Miss Martian asked, pointing at the white-and-black clad figure.

“Equinox. He appeared on the Watchtower, helped us unpick this whole problem,” said Wonder Woman.

Spoiler rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Why does he look so weird?”

Jesse Quick screamed, and huge chunks of her body seemed to vanish, like streaks of wet paint running down a canvas. It looked like she was losing substance, but the majority of those watching were more concerned with their prisoner, caught in the vibrational pull of the temporal trap!

“Jesse!” Hourman screamed. “No! She’s-- she’s--”

She was howling in agony, but she couldn’t stop running, not when their prisoner was so close to being contained-- but even then, the momentum of the run, the closed circuit of the strip, it was making her go faster, tapping into depths of speed she’d never felt before-- and even though she tried to remember Rick-- remember Jonathan-- even though-- she--

--Jesse Quick vanished.

Undeterred by the Speed Force storm surrounding the temporal trap, or the fact that the cause of all their problems these past few days was nearly in their grasp, Wonder Woman had leaped toward where Jesse had been running, hoping to pull her free at the last moment, but she was sent flying backwards by a rogue bolt of energy. She landed hard, and carved a small trench in the grass and dirt.

“It’s him, he did this,” Miss Martian said.

“And we’ve nearly got him--” shouted Doc Robotman.

“No! Not him! I can’t sense him--” M’Gann shouted, pointing at the temporal trap, “--Him!” She levelled an accusatory finger at Equinox. “He’s projecting some kind of psychic fugue state, a trust-field, his words are like honey, but his intentions are impure! He’s not on our side!”

Equinox heard that. And he didn’t seem to care. Instead, he pulled a familiar looking rod from thin air-- the same scales and spear his so-called brother had wielded-- and slammed it down onto the ground near the temporal trap-- and a forcefield flew up, sealing the device and its designer inside.

“Such insight from such an insignificant gnat,” Equinox said. He pulled at the side of his white mask and pulled his entire outer layer off in one horribly swift movement, revealing the costume of Libra--!

“What even--?” The Atom said, his mind suddenly clearing-- why had they given over so much trust to this man! They’d been over every part of the device, they didn’t know what it was supposed to do other than what he’d told them, and yet they kept building!

A bolt of red and yellow lightning flew up into the sky from the central column of the temporal trap and the vibrating figure suddenly snapped to a halt, leaving him a mortal man in a cage being watched by dozens of superhumans.

Libra laughed as he checked the machine the Justice League had helped to build. “He’s contained. Master, he’s contained--!”

Hourman pressed a button on his wrist and his body was energised by a hit of Miraclo. He slammed his fists against the surface of the forcefield, and pounded away, the force of his impact sending ripples through the energy protecting the temporal trap.

“Wh… what… what… where am I?” asked the man locked in the central column.

“Quiet!” Libra bellowed, levelling his spear in the cowering prisoner’s direction. “I killed my own brother to tip the scales, I wore his face to bring the superhuman population under my control! And now you are trapped, locked out of the balance you sought to forever alter! My master was one with the universe and sees all! He sees what part you were to play! And now he comes--! I summon him here--!”

The Justice League tried to break through the forcefield, but their combined might was still insufficient to destabilize the energy field. Those who tried to become immaterial and phase through it were sent flying back, those who tried to enchant it, or subvert, or change it, found their powers pushed back into their bodies!

“Bring-- my-- wife-- back--!” Hourman screamed, and the tachyon necklace he wore began to pop and fizz, and with an almighty effort, he slipped through the field and found himself at the feet of Libra.

“You-- what are you doing in here?” asked the bemused villain.

Hourman didn’t give him a chance to reconsider the question. He flew upwards with a Ted Grant special, the kind of punch that sent one’s bottom jaw flying into the top, shattering teeth and breaking bone...

Libra moved.

Seized Rick’s wrists.

And squeezed.

Hourman cried out, bones breaking, but he wasn’t out. He drove his knee up in one motion, caught Libra in the stomach, and managed to get some distance between him and the villain.

“It’s too late. Too late for this universe. For this reality. You’re but a drop in the ocean of the multiverse, and all my master wants is this one dimension. And you’re just a man.”

Rick shook his head. “Where… is… my… wife…?”

Outside the forcefield, the heroes tried as hard as they could to get into the fight, but whatever had allowed Hourman in was something only he could tap. They were caught on the outside, watching a superpowered monster outmatch their friend.

“Frak! Let me out of here!” shouted the prisoner, locked inside his cage and slamming his feeble fists against the central column’s transparent surface.

“There will be no release for you, Jaxon Rugarth.”

The man fell to his knees, clutching his head. Those outside the forcefield watched, horrified, as a black shape began to coalesce above the device. The voice that emerged from the tear had some kind of weight to it, a psychic pressure that sent waves out into the crowd of superheroes.

Miss Martian nearly fell, before being caught by Spoiler. “What is it? Who is that guy?” Steph asked.

“I can feel… feel his voice… behind my eyes… in my brain… he’s been… to the beginning and wants… wants to see the end… revulsion… he exudes revulsion… he hates us… hates all of us…”

“You had everything. Your infinite temporal power sent you careening back and forth from the beginning of time to the end, again and again, and yet you were never satiated. And now, the temporal union calls… and the balance demands you be the groom? From the beginning of time, to the end, I deny that. I have been the universe. I have been the guardian. I have been the immensity. I have been the everything and the all and I deny you!”

The near formless shape began to become clear, but the voice was disgusting, the venom emerging from the rip in space quantifiably awful, and those in attendance who had been fighting the good fight for longer than others began to recognise him from the stories others might tell.

Slight and stooped of stature. A bulbous head covered in veins and tufts of black hair below the temples that thinned the further down the back of his skull they went, along with a greasy mop along the top, like an ill-kempt mohawk. His eyes were red, and completely mad, and he wore dark robes stained with the passage of infinite time and torture. What skin you could see under the robes were covered in old, yellowing bandages, and above his fetid mouth, where his rotten, nubbed teeth were barred, they could see an inauspicious moustache.

“That’s… that’s a Guardian of the Universe,” said the Atom.

Red Arrow nocked his bow, not that it would do him any good with the forcefield still up-- and the identity of their new arrival obvious to him. “Not just any. You know the stories as much as I do, Ray.”

“I-- am-- Krona--! Greatest of the Guardians of the Universe! And with the temporal power I have taken from this afterbirth of a pathetic experiment, I shall become the master of time-- and all of reality!”

The air seemed to burn in his presence. There was a horrible blur, like a heat mirage, around him, but they could feel the weight of his words, they could smell the stink of his breath, and they knew that this they knew that this man-- this monster-- could destroy them all with the click of his fingers.

Krona-- an immortal scientist who broke reality. His experiment had cracked the foundation of the universe and caused the mutation that developed the multiverse. He was one of the Malthusian race-- the aliens who would later become the Guardians of the Universe-- and he had been cursed to exist in every moment at once, watching the galaxy grow old without him for his crimes!

He’d escaped once, drawn his immensity together into a physical form only to then be imprisoned in the Central Power Battery by the Green Lantern Corps’ Torchbearer, but the vast power source had been extinguished once, shattered time and time again, so no wonder he was here, standing before them-- why hadn’t he surfaced sooner!

“You… you’ll… have to get… get through me… first,” said Hourman, raising his hands. Miraclo helped dull the pain, and he could barely make a fist let alone throw a punch, but his wife was gone, taken from him by the pair of monsters standing before him, and he’d be damned if he was going to let them take a step further in their plan while he was still standing there--!

“Puny. Human. Speck. So be--”

He raised his hand, but the same red and yellow lightning that had surged out of the central cylinder minutes before suddenly shot back down from the sky, shattering the forcefield and rushing through Hourman, causing him to vanish from sight.

Suddenly, Libra and Krona were exposed to the legions of superheroes gathered. While they seemingly had enough power between them to crack Earth in half, they simply vanished, causing a shockwave that cracked the temporal trap and sending the gathered heroes flying.

As Wonder Woman helped him to his feet, the Atom looked around and saw Hourman tottering a few metres away-- supported by a familiar sight dressed in scarlet and gold--!


Sparks flew from John Corben’s mouth as the Phantom Zone projector cut out and shattered, and he fell backwards, still as a statue, into the snow. Krypto mewled sadly, pawing at the body of the now deactivated cyborg, confused as to what had happened.

Kara Zor-El crashed into the snow, returned to reality, and Lena Luthor sprinted towards the love of her life, kissing her like their lives depended on it. “You’re back! It worked!” she said, hugging her tightly.

“Yes, but Kon-- he-- he sacrificed himself--?”

“He was just-- he was standing there a second ago-- he reached into the portal-- when you came out he vanished--” Lena was talking faster than her mouth could follow, words spilling out of her like someone had turned the tap in her brain that controlled the flow of her thoughts too many times.

“I need to go back for him,” Kara said, dazed, trying to figure out how that could happen.

“We were able to reroute Metallo’s Kryptonite engine to power a Phantom Zone projector we located, but-- oh, crap, John--!” Lena rushed over to Corben, and began to check on him. She drew a hard light cable from her wrist gauntlet and found a port in the back of his head, then began to run a diagnostic. “This was the only Phantom Zone projector left in the solar system-- maybe New Krypton has one? We could try them?”

“Not enough time… there won’t be enough time…” Kara hadn’t prayed in a long time. When was the last? When her rocket blasted out of Krypton’s catastrophic orbit? How about when Kal left Earth… a prayer for his safety? Whenever it was, she found herself dropping to her knees, her hands clamped together, Kryptonese flowing from her mouth as she prayed to the only entity she truly believed in. She prayed to Kon, hoping that the divine Flamebird that resided inside him would hear her call--

Reality split in front of her, and out stepped Kon-El, covered in black ichor, but wearing the kind of smug grin that used to drive Kara mad. He took a step forward, and the ichor evaporated back into the Phantom Zone. He looked back into the rip in space, and another figure emerged.

Kara’s eyes opened wide.

“Hey, kid. Guess who’s back?”

Kara’s cousin-- Superman’s half-brother-- better known as Kru-El, lifted her up as she threw her arms around him. Four years ago, he’d been lost in the Phantom Zone after the civil war on New Krypton led to the utter defeat of General Faora Zod’s faction. No matter how hard they tried, New Krypton’s Science Guild couldn’t locate him in the void, and they assumed him gone forever.

“How is this possible?” she asked. Then another question sprung to mind, “And what are you wearing?!”

The costume was black where Kon’s was white, and yellow where his was red. Instead of the bird-like sigil of the Flamebird rested the raptor-like crest of the Nightwing, another figure of Kryptonian myth. When she recognised that, things began to come together in her head.

“You’re… you’re the Nightwing?” she said.

“I guess. I’m not entirely sure,” said Kru. “All I know is, I was floating in the Phantom Zone, and I felt Kon’s arrival. Well. Not his. The Flamebird’s. And it was like something spoke to me, that I didn’t know was always in me…”

Kon nodded. “It’s hard to explain… it’s mythic.”

Kara shook her head. “There’s no time. We know who caused the phenomenon that started this mess.”

“We do?” said Lena.

She nodded. “Yes. The Key. Something empowered him to such a degree that he did the unthinkable. He’s the one who got us into this mess. But I don’t think he managed it all by himself. Someone woke him up. And we need to help out however best we can.”

“I don’t know if there’s enough time,” said Kru, looking to the sky as it began to fill with shapes of all sizes.

“What on Earth--?” started Lena, her armour extending over her eyes and creating a telescope for her to view the events unfolding.

“Those are space ships. Dozens-- no-- hundreds of space ships!” said Kara.

“We need to get up there-- look--!” Kon indicated where one ship smashed into another upon arrival from warp, and the group launched themselves into the sky-- and into space--!


With the fleet of survivors that Captain Comet had gathered together now in the solar system, Green Lanterns began to warp in as well, bringing along with them as many refugees as possible. Communication had been limited coming in, so they weren’t expecting the chaos of crowded space that met them, but they dealt with it as best they could, even as the darkness of space around this tiny area of the universe began to fade in favour of the blindingly white entropy wave that crashed with great speed toward Earth-- the new centre of the universe--!

Followed soon after by Hank, John, and Katma, Kyle crashed into the old junker satellite the Green Lanterns had used near Pluto since the early days of the Corps reformation, hoping that the proximity away from Earth would be enough to give them something to work with. Nearby they saw whole new worlds that hadn’t been present in the solar system the last time they were here-- desperate alien signals crowded the electromagnetic spectrum, radio distortion on a cosmic scale!

Meanwhile, aiming toward the wave with a scope construct, John shook his head. “We’ve got less than an hour until the entropy wave hits! The Oort Cloud is gone-- billions of comets gone-- and the Kuiper Belt is next--”

“That means… whoever else was in warp is lost… they’d have been caught by it before they knew it--!” Hank said. “So many lives lost…”

“Where’s Sinestro?” Katma asked. “Corps Leader, are you reading?”

There was a distorted response, but their appointed leader’s coarse tones were audible. He was somewhere nearby, but not close enough to get through to them clearly.

“Damn. Okay, we need to hold this wave back,” said John.

“And how do you propose we do that?” Hank asked.

“Kyle did it before, so we need to do it again. With willpower and determination,” replied John.

“Jeez, put me on the spot, why don’t cha?” Kyle replied.

“We’re surrounded. The wave is going to engulf Earth in less than an hour. We need… we need…”

“A miracle?” Blue Lantern Guy Gardner, wielding the otherdimensional energy of the Starsoul, streaked into sight, landing with a bump on the rocky outcropping near Pluto. “You’re welcome.”

“Thank God!” Kyle said, embracing his old friend. “With the Starsoul boosting our ring’s capabilities…”

Guy held up his hand. “We need to get the Corps in position first. A safety net. A barricade--”

“--A tide break,” offered Hank.

“Yes, we’re doing free word association, great news,” said Guy, patting Henshaw on the back.

John nodded, understanding. “You’re thinking we position Lanterns an equal distance around the solar system, and use our rings as a tide break?”

Guy punched the air. “Linking each ring’s functions together, no gaps. The skies’ll be green, but there’ll be skies, and we’ll survive to come up with a way to... to… bring it all back?”

“Boost our ring-to-ring comms, Warrior. Let’s make our voices heard,” said Hank.

“You’re the boss, Spaceman. Get ready--” Guy wrapped his hand around Hank’s, his fingers sparking against the Power Ring the latter wielded.

“Ooooh, what a rush,” whispered Hank, his eyes crackling blue. “All Lanterns still active in 2814– we have a plan-- sending assignments through to your rings now-- “

<This is Corps Leader Sinestro-- do as Honour Lantern Henshaw instructs! He has the Blue Lantern with him! Our powers will be multiplied a thousand-old! We can hold the line!>

“Thanks, chief,” whispered Hank.

Green Lanterns mobilised as fast as they could, sharing their miniature batteries to charge up, taking up equal distance from each other in an attempt to shore up the solar system’s defenses. The dozens of new planets settling into position in the solar system were causing gravity to go crazy, but Guy flew from world to world, equalising what he could to ensure that atmospheres didn’t burn off or slip into the void. He was normalising everything as best he could, but he knew his greatest task was ahead of him.

“Even if we secure a region of space, planetary orbits are going to be ruined,” said Kyle, taking position. “We’ll need to monitor every world that’s landed here, make sure they don’t collide with each other-- or the refugee ships!”

John was nearby, his voice amplified by the power surge landed by the Blue Lantern’s powers. “We’ve factored that into the calculations, we’re using 80% of the Lanterns present to create the tide break. 20% will tag in and out when needed, and work crowd control in the interim--”

“Okay, everybody. Listen up.” Guy’s voice piped into all their heads, via their rings. “Impact in sixty seconds. Everyone’s in position. Think green and I’ll think blue and away we go. If anyone can do this it’d be us. Know it’s us. This is why we’re here. This is why we exist. And you know what this calls for?”

“Oh, the big softy,” said Kyle, anticipating what came next.

Guy smiled. “I heard that, kid-- In brightest day--”

“-- In blackest night--” replied Kyle, as did the rest of the surviving Lanterns…

“-- No evil shall escape our sight--” whispered the survivors on Rann, on Thanagar, on New Krypton…

“-- Let those who worship evil’s might--” shouted the defiant souls in the Khundian fleet, those on board the Cometeer III, the men, women and children who’d been whisked away from certain death by the Lanterns who’d vowed to protect them.

“-- Beware our power--” said Tora Olafsdotter-Gardner, better known as the Justice Leaguer Ice, wife to Guy Gardner, the Blue Lantern, as she held her child close, doing whatever she could to keep her safe in the face of universal Armageddon.

It was a prayer uttered in ten thousand languages across the most crowded area of space that had ever existed, and it was said with such fervour and belief, that if the Green Lantern Corps were a god it would have manifested there and then, and with the ultimate end coming, the entropic wave that had devoured the very reality they all existed within, it was the ultimate challenge too-- would it work-- ?

“-- GREEN LANTERN’S LIGHT!"

The entropic wave smashed into the vast shield erected by the Green Lantern Corps-- and it held! Their prayers had been answered! With their backs against the cosmic wall, the universe’s protectors managed to keep the last surviving members of this reality safe, their willpower pooling together in such a way that the Blue Lantern’s power bolstered it to unimaginable levels.

“We’re-- we’re doing it--” said Kyle. His nose was bleeding. He gripped his wrist tightly, channeling all the will in his body through his imagination and directly into the ring from there.

Cracks began to form. Everywhere.

“No no no--” Kyle reinforced the shield generated by the Lantern nearest him with as much willpower as he could spare, knowing that if he spread himself too thin that cracks would form in his construct, but he couldn’t let it fall--

Held in reserve, Hank saw what Kyle was doing and cursed. Dozens-- hundreds-- thousands of threads of light were being projected by Kyle as his mind raced to fill the gaps in the wall, before the entropic wave could break through--

Hank rushed forward as the entire section near Kyle broke, and shoved Rayner out the way. Henshaw released all the power in his ring and sealed the breach before it could erase more space, but found himself-- outside-- the barricade-- surrounded by a small bubble of energy-- patching together the construct from the outside in.

“Hank, no!” Shouted Kyle, redoubling his efforts.

Hank grimaced. His face was red as the stress of the exertion took its toll. He was completely separate from the rest of the barrier, marooned outside in the toxic sea of destruction they’d all worked so hard to build. If his concentration dropped for a moment, he’d be devoured-- dead-- and that would be it.

The Lanterns held in reserve surged forward, joined their comrades, and soon every single surviving Green Lantern was thinking about the barrier, thinking about how it had no choice but to exist, how it had to stay strong.

Hank’s construct began to fill with words. Kyle and the others nearby could see the fringes of the construct begin to be eaten away. One man’s will wasn’t enough to hold it back forever. They couldn’t hear him as he screamed, they couldn’t send their thoughts to him.

“What… what’s it saying?” Kyle asked, squinting.

Tell Adrianna I love her, were the embossed words on the construct. Adrianna Tereshkova, aka the Void, was his wife. Back on Earth, she was using her own powers to keep people safe, and as the entropy wave dissolved Henshaw’s construct and he vanished from sight, she felt something in her chest die.

“HANK!” screamed Kyle, as his old friend died in silence.


“Barry?! Barry, is that you?” asked the Atom, cautiously approaching the familiar figure.

Barry Allen, aka the Flash, looked up at one of his oldest and best friends in the superhero business and nodded slowly. He gently lifted his arm away from where he had been holding Iris, and then checked on his three children, who’d huddled around him upon their explosive arrival in the present day.

“How is this-- how is this possible?” Ray asked, running his hands through his sweat-matted hair.

Barry shook his head. “The future was decaying. A complete vibrational breakdown from both ends of the timeline-- I’m assuming why there’s so many of you gathered here?”

Hourman rushed past the Atom and gripped the Flash by the shoulders. “Where’s Jesse? Do you know? Is she-- is she all right?”

Allen’s brow furrowed. “I ran as fast as I could with my family in my slipstream… borrowing the kid’s speed to get us here… but we were lost… the timestream is like a whirlwind and trying to run down it without a Cosmic Treadmill… it was like we were caught in a tornado.” He looked at his hands and clenched them into fists when he noticed how badly they were shaking. “But then there was a rupture in the Speed Force… a bolt of lightning… the kind of lightning we become when Speed Force comes calling… and I was able to follow it to its origin point-- here.”

Hourman shook his head. “Speak English, man! Where’s my wife?”

“Out there, somewhere-- transformed into pure energy. I don’t know where-- I ran as fast as I could without looking back-- but she’s out there. You’ll-- we’ll-- get her back.”

Something caught the Scarlet Speedster’s eye, past the temporal trap and the man held inside, past the skyline of the city, and up into the skies, where vast ships filled the void of space. And behind them, where space had once been black, it was now a vibrant green-- the kind of emerald that the Flash recognised from his days being both brave and bold-- and he didn’t like how it made him feel. “That… where’s Hal? Where’s Hal Jordan? What’s going on up there?”


“It’s not enough,” whispered Guy Gardner.

He could see the infinitesimal cracks that were forming now, and he saw where the tide break had already faltered, resulting in the sacrifice and death of one of his best friends. He reached out with his hand, the one that had been removed violently during his battle to keep the Phantom Zone at bay and regenerated in the less than a day that had passed since, and concentrated. He could see how to reinforce the shield. He could see the amount of energy output required to do so.


“Hello, my lady loves,” Guy said, appearing in front of Tora and his daughter.

“Daddy!” Young Sigrid, the best thing he had ever done in this life, ran up to her father and jumped into his arms. He pulled her close, savouring the moment. He’d never missed a moment of her life, from her calamitous birth to her terrifying first steps.

She had her mother’s pale, Norwegian skin and elfin features, but a shock of frizzy red hair that her parents couldn’t begin to tame, even if they had wanted to. At five, she was wise beyond her years, and when her dad held onto her for a beat longer than she expected, she immediately looked at him with a furrowed brow.

“Daddy, what’s wrong?”

Guy laughed. “Nothing’s wrong, I’m just happy to see you.” He wiped away the tears that had begun to well in his eyes, and placed her back on the ground. Taking a knee, he placed a finger under her chin to make sure she was looking him in the eye. “Sigrid. Remember that I love you. Forever and always. Okay? Everything I do, and everything I’ve ever done, it’s always been for you and your mom.”

“O-okay,” Sigrid replied.

“Brilliant. Now, go put the kettle on, and then you can help make mom a cup of tea, all right?”

Sigrid did as she was told, and rushed out of the room. Tora could always see through her husband. “You’re going to do something stupid, aren’t you?”

“I really am. It’s the only way,” he said.

Tora found herself tearing up. “But the skies are green. The plan worked? The entropy wave held back?”

“Not for long. So I have to… give it my all. Every last bit,” said Guy.

“You’re mad.”

Guy shrugged. “Well, yeah, that’s why you fell for me, wasn’t it?”

“You can’t sacrifice yourself-- there has to be some other way-- somebody else-- “

“Hank’s dead. He died for this. I can’t let his sacrifice be in vain. So I have to do something stupid too. I’m sorry, Tora. I’d give everything not to, but I’ve already over-committed myself, you know?”

“But what about us?” She took his hand and held it tightly. “What about our family?”

“You know I couldn’t convince you not to sacrifice yourself if the situation called for it. We’re all martyrs in the end. As long as the cause is just, it’s the only option. I’ll save their universe, you keep mine safe, okay? Live. And always remember, I love you. Forever and a day.”

He leaned forward and kissed her gently, then faded into nothingness as she said, “I love you too.”

She wept as she fell to her knees, clutching her pregnant belly. They’d found out the baby’s gender a few weeks ago; another girl. Sigrid wandered back in from the kitchen, wrapped her arms around her mother, and told her it would be all right. Because dad had said so.


The emerald shield was thin. The entropic wave pushed back, and the Green Lantern Corps had lost ground to the force behind exerted upon them. Pluto had been dissolved, slipping through the barrier into the void like Hank Henshaw mere moments before.

“Too much-- too much--!” John cried, wishing he was holding his wife’s hand.

“I’ll take it from here,” said Guy, appearing next to him. He closed his eyes, spread his arms wide, and let go. Released everything. The Starsoul, the cosmic counterpoint to the chaotic energy magicks of the Starheart-- spilled out of him, and wove itself into the cracks of the Green Lantern’s tide break.

Emerald was reinforced by cerulean. The entropic wave stalled out, and the barrier keeping what remained of Earth’s solar system intact groaned-- but held. The Green Lanterns found that minimal exertion was required on their behalf now, just a conscious effort to keep the barrier safe.

The universe outside was white.

This pocket was all that was left of Reality-1, home of the greatest heroes the universe had ever seen.

And all it had taken was the ultimate sacrifice of a man who loved his family more than anything, and wouldn’t see any more souls lose their loved ones to this cosmic crisis.

BE SURE TO READ HEX: MISSING TIME IN MAY AND TEN YEARS LATER PRELUDE #2 IN JUNE, BEFORE WE RETURN WITH OMEGA CRISIS, PART 7 IN JULY!