Justice League Legacies #3

Roll Call

Superman: Jonathan Kent, reporter for the Daily Star, son of the retired Clark and Lois Kent, and as Jon-El, inheritor of the legacy of the Man of Steel!

Wonder Woman: Supermodel Lyta Trevor, warrior-princess of a god-ravaged Paradise Island, doomed to never know love--- or lose the mantle of Wonder Woman!

Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner, family man, heir to the missing Hal Jordan’s power ring, and the last Green Lantern in the universe!

Flash: Carrie Allen, the Fastest Woman Alive and STAR Labs research scientist!

Green Arrow: Connor Hawke, enlightened CEO of Queen Enterprises and modern-day Longbow Hunter of the Urban Jungles!

Firestorm: Bored heiress Lorraine Reilly and her godfather Dr. Martin Stein come together to form the Nuclear Woman!

Raven: Rachel Roth, the last daughter of Temple Azarath and spawn of the interdimensional tyrant Trigon the Terrible

Resurrection Man: Mitch Shelley, chief strategist and leader of the JLA!


On the JLA Watchtower on the Moon, the former Titan known as Raven sat cross-legged, hovering a few feet off the floor, in a deep trance. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, and her mouth moved in words profane and unintelligible. Above her, and spanning the length of the hanger-bay like an upside-down lake, was her soul-self, expanded to an impossible shape, encompassing a portal to Kornugia through which Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Firestorm and the Resurrection Man had passed only moments before. Left behind, Flash monitored Raven intently, poised and anxious for action. Green Arrow standing a few feet away, his still-sightless eyes gazing up at the roiling black dimensional rift above them.

The Flash leaned against a bulkhead, arms crossed and one foot tapping at superspeed. She stared suspiciously at the scientist Horace Halley, discoverer of the Hellstone, who sat on the floor, his arms hugging his upraised knees. He was obviously terrified, and not at all communicative.

Carrie went over to Green Arrow, who stood calmly.

“I don’t like this, Carrie,” he said to the Flash, not looking away from the rift.

“I know what you mean.” Carrie nodded, looking up now, too. “This waiting around is just killing me. We should be in the thick of this.”

“No,” Connor smiled gently. “I mean this whole situation. I don’t know how our teammates are supposed to find… whatever it is that’s so important waiting in Kornugia. And what can be so powerful that it’s the key to a cosmic crisis? Is it safe even in our hands?”

Carrie looked back at Halley. “Whatever it is, it’s got the doc spooked. And Raven doesn’t seem too thrilled either--- and she’s seen some stuff.”

“Hmm.” Connor grunted. “I just hope, whatever it is, we don’t regret bringing it back…”





Kyle Rayner entered the shambles that was his hilltop home in Aspen, Colorado, floating over smashed furniture, broken toys and shreds of a dozen canvases.

What was going on here? Moments ago he had been on the JLA Watchtower on the Moon, and with Superman, Wonder Woman, Firestorm and Resurrection Man had flown through Raven’s soul-self into the hellish dimension of Kornugia to find some kind of mystic artifact… How had he ended up back at home? And just what the hell had happened here?

He had designed the home himself, an architectural marvel of glass and natural elements, powered by solar and wind energy, and even by the mountain rill that ran integrated through the first floor. It had become the center of the small artists’ community that was growing up around Aspen, and Kyle had never been so happy as when he was here with his family and his paintings.

Now someone or something had done this: ceiling-high glass windows had been blown out, portions of walls were knocked down, and Alex’s arboretum had been set on fire, parts of it still smoldering, the acrid smell of smoke lingering in the air.

“Alex…!” he called out, his voice rising in alarm. “Frank!”

The green beam of his ring swept the house, and he strained to hear a sound--- any sound!--- that would mean his wife and son were still alive in this wreckage. He could think of nothing else. Nothing in the universe mattered more to him right now than to hold his wife and son and know they were okay.

In the kitchen, his blood ran cold. A man stood there in front of the refrigerator, with brown hair and white sideburns, wearing gleaming emerald armor, a green cape and a green domino mask. On his hand was an Oan power ring. Kyle had never met this man, but he had seen pictures, and knew exactly who he was. But that wasn’t what made Kyle’s blood run cold: in front of the smirking man, and held by him with a hand around his thin throat, was Kyle’s five year-old son Frank. The boy stared up at his father, eyes wide in fear.

“Jordan,” somehow Kyle’s dry throat formed the words, slowly and deliberately. “I don’t care how or why you are here, but if you don’t let go of my son I am going to show you just exactly what a power ring can really do.”

Hal Jordan’s mocking laugh rang in Kyle’s ears, and he showed no sign of releasing Frank.

“Boy, I wrote the book on ringslinging.” Came the derisive response. “Show some respect to your predecessor.”

“Respect?” Kyle licked his lips, clenching and unclenching his ring-fist. He had no idea how long he could keep himself from going after the former Green Lantern--- just seeing his son in Jordan’s clutches made him want to lash out. “You gave up any hope of that when you went rogue and started calling yourself Parallax. To this day no one knows what happened on Oa, or to the Corps. Respect? You’re a villain, Jordan. A killer. It took your friends in the Justice League to take you down, and doing it nearly destroyed them.”

“Fools,” Jordan spat, a dark look crossing his face. “Shortsighted fools. I offered them an empire--- worlds to rule, all of them under our law and order. Justice in its purest form…! I would have made them Lords of Justice, not its servants!” In his grasp, Frank whimpered, scared.

“Damnit, what do you want here, Jordan?” Kyle rasped, his eyes on his son.

“Want?” Hal considered the question. “I want it all, Rayner, and yet such a little thing, a trifle, really,” he held up the hand that wasn’t choking Frank, and multiple power rings glittered on every finger. “I want your ring.”

Kyle stared, stunned.

“These belonged to real Lanterns, Rayner,” his lip twisted scornfully. “Tomar-Re, Katma Tui, Kilowog, Salakk, Stel, Chaselon, Arisia, Eddore, Hannu and Larvox--- some went easier than others. Some, there wasn’t much left but the finger I pulled the ring off of. In the end, they all fell to Parallax. But make this easy on yourself and the boy. Give me your ring, and I’ll let the two of you live; you pose no threat to me.”

For a wild frantic moment, Kyle considered it: Hal Jordan was a legend, an original founder of the JLA--- and Parallax was the deadliest foe the League had ever faced--- and there was little chance that Kyle could defeat him on his own. But the reality of the situation came crashing down on him. After the traumatic events of the Crisis, Jordan had fallen far--- he was a liar and a killer, and there was no way he’d let Kyle and his son just walk away. If he gave up his ring, he gave up their only chance--- however slim--- of making it out of this alive.

“You haven’t asked me yet about your wife.”

The words rang like little clarion bells in Kyle’s head. Ice ran through his veins.

“Alex…?”

“She proved to be…” Jordan mulled the word, then smiled. “Troublesome.”

“Jordan, where is she?” Kyle’s heartbeat pounded in his head. Uncontrollably, his ring spat pulses of green, as if straining for release.

Without a word, Jordan merely reached behind himself, and patted the door of the refrigerator. For the first time, Kyle noticed the thin trail of blood that ran down the side of it and onto the floor.

The world spun crazily around him as realization rushed in. Jordan’s laughter was heard dimly over the rush of blood to his head. Tears ran down Frank’s face. Someone was screaming--- it might have been Kyle himself, but the hero could not tell and did not care: he flung up his hand and blasted at Parallax, green beam meeting green beam, bathing all the cosmos in an emerald conflagration.





Lyta Trevor had never felt happier or more content in her life. She stood on the balcony of her mother’s palace on Paradise Island, watching the sun set into the wine-dark sea. She was clad, not in armor, but in a simple white gown, her elaborately coiled golden hair bound by a thin circlet of silver. Forgotten was the desolation and menace of Kornugia and the impending horror that she and her teammates faced--- nothing could compare to the undiluted happiness that seemed to suffuse every atom of her being. This was the most real moment of her life, and she wanted to soak in it, and never let it slip away… This was her wedding night.

The fighting was over. The constant struggle and pressure and loneliness were no longer hers to bear--- she had laid down the mantle of Wonder Woman. No longer did the bracelets adorn her arms, no longer did the power of the gods burn like an imperative through her body… She had found true love, and so it was not hard to give up all that had defined her. The curse of the gods became a blessing for her. Now she could redefine herself. Now she could live for herself, and not her duty…

She turned from the panorama, and the wedding feast still in progress in the city below, and went back into the palace, her bare feet cool against the clean marble floor. Her husband awaited her in the bridal suite, and she longed to return to his arms, longed to lose herself in the safety of someone else for once. He had been the one from the first time she saw him. Strong, confident, sensitive and true. He saw through her veneer of invulnerability, and never failed to give her what she needed.

Down the long, torch-lit hallway she padded, towards the double doors. She hugged her belly, unable to contain a smile. They had conceived a child this night. This night, her world was brand new.

She pushed through the doors, his name upon her lips: “Connor…”

The name died, stillborn, at the sight that greeted her. He lay in their marriage bed, but he was not alone. Cavorting with him, naked beneath the pristine sheets, was a familiar blonde-haired, blue-eyed figure. A friend. A sister.

“Carrie…?”

Connor Hawke and Carrie Allen looked over at her, and laughed at the stricken expression on her face.

“C’mon, Lyta, what did you expect? I’m Oliver Queen’s son, did you think this wouldn’t happen?” He patted the bed at his side. “But there’s still some room for you, here. If you don’t mind watching for a while.”

Carrie Allen laughed, and clung to Connor, smirking over at Lyta.

Cold, piercing pain like a thousand knives stabbed at her heart. Lyta backed out of the bridal suite, shaking her head, unable to believe her eyes, yet equally unable to deny the truth before her. This could not be happening. Not after everything she had given up… Not after all she had given to him… The blessing had turned into a curse again.

Mocking laughter echoed in her head, and it filled the halls of the palace. She didn’t even notice the screams, the sounds of violence that came closer and closer, until a bloodied Amazon warrior staggered up the broad marble stairs, and collapsed in front of Lyta.

“Princess! Help us! Doom’s Doorway has burst and Themyscira is besieged! Your noble mother and father have fallen in battle and the city is in flames!”

The warrior crawled forward, clutching at the hem of Lyta’s gown, leaving a bloody smear. Lyta could only look back through the open door of the bridal suite at the contemptuous faces of Connor and Carrie, then back at the dying warrior.

“I can’t… I’m not…”

“You must!” hissed the dying woman, pressing a sword into her princess’s hand.

Lyta stared at it, testing the edge with her thumb. She flinched, a thin, red line materializing over her hitherto unblemished flesh. The sounds of battle came from down the stairs. Her people needed their Wonder Woman. But she wasn’t Wonder Woman any more. She had given it up. For him. The betrayer.

And now the cost was more than she could bear. She couldn’t save her people, but perhaps she could avenge them. Clutching the bloodied sword, she strode back towards the bridal suite, a darkness blossoming within her breast…





They came at her from all sides. Multiplex, he--- they!--- were called, a foe of Firestorm in the time before Lorraine was part of the Matrix. (Wait, what? Before? What “before?” Firestorm had always been her and the professor, right?) Clad all in form-fitting black with pulsing green veins of expanding energy across the surface of the suit, the duploids rushed in, pounding with fists and feet.

“Get away from me!” The Nuclear Woman yelled, blasting at them, with just enough force to blow them back and not kill. The duploids were scattered across the city street, but she had no respite. Killer Frost appeared from out of nowhere, riding on the crest of a wave of ice, raining down upon Firestorm razor-sharp shards of ice. One of them slashed the heroine’s face, drawing blood, before she could transform the ice particles into a fine mist of water. Killer Frost smirked and came around for another pass, buildings, cars, and even fleeing bystanders icing over in her wake.

{Professor, what in the hell is going on, here?} she sent desperately to the constant presence in their shared consciousness, Martin Stein, the savant of the Matrix. {One minute we’re in Kornugia, floating in space, and the next we’re back on Earth in the middle of the psycho circus!}

A cackling war-cry caused her to turn, just in time to see a furred creature of glittering claws and a gaping maw barrel into her, bearing her down to the ground, the thing atop her. “Kill! Kill! Kill!” screeched the Hyena, raking Firestorm with furious blows, shredding parts of her costume and opening up huge gashes in her flesh. The Nuclear Woman screamed and lashed out instinctively. The Hyena was blown backward, aflame. The creature howled and rolled on the cracked sidewalk, burning alive. Picking herself off the ground, Firestorm stared, appalled, at her foe and the damage she had done, and emitted from her two outstretched arms a jet of water to douse the pathetic creature.

Killer Frost hit her from behind, encasing her in three feet of ice. By the time she had expended enough heat to flashmelt the ice, Multiplex’s duploids were upon her again, pummeling and kicking. She flung herself into the sky, the goons falling away.

{Professor…?} she had begun to panic: the place in her consciousness where Martin Stein resided when they were Firestorm was silent… empty. {Professor, can you hear me? I need your help… I don’t know what’s going on here. They all want to kill us… Me… Where are you?!?}

Her climb upward and away from danger was abruptly interrupted. Floating down to meet her was a man clad in a black containment suit, pulsing with waves of barely contained power.

“Tokamak!” she gasped, her archenemy--- a living nuclear reactor--- bursting with power and spoiling for a fight. He extended his arms and after only a moment of build-up, sent a torrent of radiation at her.

“Die, Firestorm! Die!”

Lorraine transmuted the radiation into a harmless gas, allowing it to wash over her, but Tokamak kept coming. He barreled into her, seizing her in a bear-hug, and his momentum brought them spiraling back down towards earth. The faceplate of the villain was pressed close to Firestorm’s face, and she snarled at him: “Get away from me, you maniac.”

As they plummeted earthward, he pinning her arms, he spat back at her: “Surrender the Matrix to me, and this can all be over! I already have most of it--- Dr. Stein was most forthcoming with the proper persuasion…”

They slammed into the ground, the concussive force blowing out windows a mile in all directions. The force of their crash-landing created a crater in the ground at the intersection of two streets. Both of them were dazed and stunned by the impact, but Firestorm was first to her feet, rogue electrons spinning from her clenched fists.

“Where is Martin Stein, Tokamak?” she demanded. “If you’ve hurt him, so help me I will take you apart!”

“Hurt him?” her old foe crawled to his feet, a low whine of accelerated energy sounding from him. “My dear, what do you think this is? Look around you: we mean business.” From the edges of the crater swarmed dozens of Multiplex duploids, a burnt but determined Hyena, a furious-looking Killer Frost, Black Bison, Plastique, Typhoon and Zuggernaut. “Stein is dead, little girl! Dead! And in just a few seconds you will join him!”

There was a roaring in Lorraine’s ears. Dead? How could that be? How could she even be Firestorm without him? But the stabbing emptiness inside her, the void in her consciousness spoke more eloquently than anything else. Her enemies came at her from all directions, cackling, snarling and yelling, but she hardly registered them. Her heart was broken. Her soul was scraped raw.

Martin Stein was dead. But as long as she was Firestorm, she could make them pay.

Killer Frost crossed her first. The twisted, bitter face of Louise Lincoln went from livid with hatred to rigid, stunned agony as Firestorm transformed the ice crystals of her body into salt. Then that face shattered into a million pieces as Firestorm blasted through her to incinerate the Hyena. Next came Multiplex, each duploid picked off in rapid succession by the savagely focused heroine. Black Bison was blasted into the air, dead before he hit the ground. Plastique found herself trapped in a containment bubble, and immolated by her own triggered explosives. They wanted a fight, she would give them a holocaust.





Behind the polarized faceplate of the S.T.A.R. Labs-designed biosuit, the Resurrection Man watched in horror as his friends floated, unresponsive, in the void that was Kornugia. Their bodies drifted in the dark, vast infinite space, slowly rolling and tumbling away from each other.

“Superman,” Mitch Shelley called, his voice thin through the crackle of his suit’s speakers. “Snap out if it! Firestorm…!”

The JLAers were in the clutches of something insidious. Upon entering Kornugia, Mitch had triggered his wrist Resurrector, died and had been reborn with a type of quantum consciousness, which not only gave him immunity to whatever was holding his teammates in its sway, but also allowed him a sort of cosmic awareness that made him uniquely attuned to the hell dimension. He could see into their psyches, see the fears and insecurities that were tearing them apart, trapping them in prisons of their own making. And the harder they struggled, the surer the binding.

But that wasn’t all he saw--- for Kornugia wasn’t empty. He saw it all too clearly with his expanded consciousness: Kornugia hid not an artifact, but an entity of staggering power, and this place was its prison!

Prior to their arrival, Kornugia had been utterly devoid of photons, the quantum of light. Now there was the glowing green signature of an Oan power ring, the hyper-irradiated cells of a Half-Kryptonian’s body, the radiant aura of divine blessing, and the sputtering flames of the thermo-nuclear furnace of matter’s very building blocks. The JLAers scintillated like a beacon in the night, luring the Prisoner of Kornugia directly to them…

Damn it, we’ve been tricked! Resurrection Man cursed inwardly. We’re bait! And whatever it is that’s trapped here, is coming for us!





Like a shark cutting through the waters of the deepest, darkest oceans, Lady Styx swam through layers of cosmic unreality, her insatiable need building within her to the point of madness. So close… Kornugia could at last be breeched… And the succulent morsel waiting inside--- so longed denied her--- would be hers at last!

The hunger for what waited in Kornugia drove her on faster, made her wild with anticipation. An unfamiliar ache was building inside her; she was swollen with need, with desire, with pent-up power…!

So close now. She could not be denied. And the cosmos would tremble at her coming.





The Resurrection Man did not panic. He simply would not do it--- though he was coming as close to it as he ever would. His comrades floated helplessly, drifting further apart from each other in the void, and across the vast stretches of emptiness, something was getting closer.

Firing the thrusters on his suit, he maneuvered towards Firestorm, the JLAer closest to him. The flame atop the heroine’s head sputtered hotly, and though her eyelids were closed, Mitch could see her eyes working behind them. He gripped her by the shoulders, well aware of the torments she was facing: Kornugia was exacting a heavy toll on the Leaguers.

“Don’t give in to it, Lorraine!” Mitch grimaced, shaking her. “It only has the power you give it. Fight---.”

Firestorm opened her eyes abruptly and Resurrection Man released her with a start.

“Lorraine, thank god---.”

“Not Lorraine, Mitch, it’s me, Martin Stein,” came the female voice of the heroine, though with an exhausted and weak tone. “Lorraine’s still lost…” Firestorm’s body still hung akimbo, suspended in space like a fly in a spider-web.

“Of course!” Resurrection Man nodded in realization. “The dual nature of the Matrix allows one psyche to supersede the other. So while Lorraine faces her worst nightmare in her own mind, you were able to take physical control.”

“The poor child…” lamented Firestorm, the words of an old man coming from the voice and body of a young woman. “What she’s being made to do… All that power… how could anyone hope to contain it all…? Still so much to learn about the Matrix… So much I haven’t told her…”

“But it isn’t real, right?” asked Mitch to focus the rambling old man, glancing over at Green Lantern, who had drifted close by; his body was trembling violently.

“It is to them.” Firestorm said sadly. “The strength of these torments will trigger brain death if left unchecked.”

Mitch thought fast, flexing his new power. By manipulating the quantum fields of this dimension, he thought he could intrude upon their nightmares and bring them to their senses--- but he didn’t have a lot of time. Whatever dwelt in this hellish place was almost upon them; he could feel the approach of the Prisoner of Kornugia, could almost see it as it ate up the distance between them.

“Professor, something is coming for us. Something very bad. And it will be here in a few moments. Unless I am able to rouse Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, we’re all dead---.”

“I can hold off this thing, whatever it is,” Firestorm declared, a new found resolve steadying her voice, her body snapping-to. “Save our friends, Mitch. Save Lorraine.”

Mitch Shelley wasted no time. Behind his faceplate, his eyes rolled back in his head, and his consciousness simultaneously infiltrated those of his comrades.





Professor Martin Stein had never felt so alone. The bodies of his teammates floated nearby, all but lifeless husks, and in his mind, he could no longer commune with Lorraine, only watch helplessly as she proceeded to destroy everything around her--- including her own soul. The oppressive empty weight of Kornugia bore down upon him, threatening to stifle him. This place was Hell in a very real sense… and it was here that he would make his final stand.

He had been gravely wounded in the fight with Prometheus the day before, and knew that he would never recover. But it was not a lingering death in bed for Martin Stein; no, he had been one half of the Firestorm Matrix for too long, had done things few of them could even imagine--- or suspect; he would make his end count for something. He was fading fast, and it was all he could do to hold the Matrix together. But he had no choice: he wasn’t fighting for his own life, he was fighting for Lorraine’s, and Jon’s and Lyta’s and Kyle’s and Mitch’s.

There was still so much he wanted to tell Lorraine. Not just about the Matrix, but about Firestorm’s role in the universe--- no, in the Multiverse! But they had simply run out of time. He could only hope she did as he had told her, and sought out Ronald…

The Prisoner of Kornugia--- whatever it was--- was almost upon them now. Devoid of light, he could not see it, but the very space around him seemed to thrum with its coming. He flew out to meet it, taking the fight away from the helpless bodies of his teammates. Sparks of charged particles orbited his clenched fists--- Martin Stein was as ready as he would ever be for his final battle.

A sound like the wail of a starving infant dopplered through the void and echoed in his ears. Then he was under attack. Invisible claws rent at Firestorm and a staggeringly powerful force grappled with him. Panic seized Martin Stein--- how could he fight what he could not see? A diagonal slash appeared across his cheek, and perfect little droplets of blood drifted away into space. He blasted away indiscriminately, lighting up the darkness with nuclear fury.

Then, amazingly, he began to see his foe: at first it was just a trace outline, a monstrous form that seemed to be hungrily devouring the light of his blasts, of Firestorm’s very body. Appalled but fascinated, he watched as the entity took shape, feeding greedily on the photons now in the air, the quanta of light that he and the others had brought into Kornugia. Martin Stein, through his intimate understanding of the Matrix, knew intuitively what this was: the Luciphage, “light-eater.”

Powerless in the lightless void of Kornugia, the JLA had just delivered to it all the power it would need to escape…





Jon-El scrambled frantically to crawl from his father’s grave, somehow unable to fly under the constant attack of his friends and family. His mother’s face was screwed into a snarl of pain and fury as she hurled dirt down on him. His little sister, sweet little Zara Kal-El, her hair in pigtails, screamed invective and vitriol. Grandma Martha, Uncles Pete and Jimmy, Aunts Lana and Lucy, even his mentor Professor Hamilton rained rocks and curse on his head. But it was Bruce Wayne who stomped merciless on his broken and bleeding fingers, kicking him back down into the grave.

“Stay down, boy. That’s where you belong, in the ground. You let them kill your father. You don’t deserve to live.”

Jon could not think straight. How could this be happening? He wanted to cover his head, shield himself from the mud and spit and words.

“Jon, it’s not real.”

The voice cut through it all, through the jeers and despair and guilt.

Jon-El lifted his head. Mitch Shelley was there, extending a hand to him, imploringly.

“Go away, Mitch,” Jon moaned, the sound of his mother’s sobs breaking his heart. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m not him. I never will be…”

“No, you’re not him, but you are Superman.” Mitch’s voice was urgent, strained. “And your father’s not dead, he’s alive and well in Kandor, with your real mother and real sister. All this is an illusion!”

“How can that be---?”

“Think, Jon! We were on the Watchtower, we entered Kornugia, then what do you remember? How did you get from there to Smallville?”

“I don’t know… Why should I believe you? This feels so real…”

“Damn it, man, you’re cowering in a grave! Does that even sound like you?” A thought struck Mitch. “Even if this is all real, all true--- it doesn’t matter one bit. Something is coming for us, and I need you. I need Superman. If your father was here, what would he do right now?”

There was a moment of prolonged silence, a moment that seemed to stretch on for an eternity to the Resurrection Man. In the mind of Wonder Woman, he was showing Lyta that Connor Hawke was not really there, had never betrayed her; in Kyle Rayner’s mind he put himself between the destructive power of two raging Green Lanterns… Getting through to them was so hard: Kornugia had subtly, insidiously wrapped itself through their sub consciousness, subsumed their identities and created horrible realities that just might have been. Mitch Shelley never realized how easy it was to give in to one’s darkest fears…

Then from out of the grave rose Jonathan Kent, Jon-El, Superman, in his uniform, his cape snapping proudly. He was shaken but unbroken.

His eyes hard, his jaw set, he said: “My father would never stop. And neither will I. Let’s go.”





Like a drowning thing, the Luciphage clawed and clutched at Firestorm, howling all the while in a madness of desperation. Blast after blast barely kept it at bay--- from tearing the heroine to shreds!--- but the thing seemed to feed on every hit. It devoured the light and energy poured into it, becoming more and more corporeal, swelling in size until it was gleaming and bloated, vaguely humanoid-shaped but huge and almost too bright to look at.

Drained by her furious assault, Firestorm looked on in horror. In a moment, it would finish her, then start on the other Leaguers.

“I LIVE… I LIVE AGAIN!” came it’s eerie, high-pitched voice.

“Not for long, bright-eyes!”

A bright green sword blade sliced through the entity, causing its crow of victory to change to a scream of pain. Kyle Rayner flew by the weakened Firestorm, and gave her a wink.

{Professor, I’m back--- oh my god, you’re hurt...!}

With Lorraine awakened, Martin Stein relinquished the physical control of Firestorm to her, just in time; he could not even summon the strength to communicate with her, to tell her what she needed to know, that their attacks would only further strengthen the monster.

So Firestorm threw herself back into the fight after Green Lantern. And behind her came Superman and Wonder Woman determined to bring this creature down.

But the Resurrection Man’s voice rang out: “No, don’t you see: it feeds on our light and energy! We’re giving it exactly what it needs! We have to retreat! Back to the portal!”

Superman reacted first, pushing back the howling Luciphage with a blast of icy breath and grabbing the furious Wonder Woman before she could hurl herself back into the fray. Together, they fell back.

Green Lantern covered their retreat with a shield construct--- but it did not hold nearly long enough. With the Luciphage screaming after them, the Leaguers struggled to reach the portal back to their dimension…





“IT COMES!” Dr. Horace Halley bolted upright, yelling so suddenly he startled both Flash and Green Arrow. “BEWARE THE STARBREAKER!”

There was something like glee in the scientist’s voice.

Carrie Allen looked back to Raven and the swirling mass of her soul-self above them: the roiling, tumultuous blackness seethed as if alive, and Raven herself began to tremble.

“Get ready,” Carrie said to Green Arrow, who had already fitted a shaft to his bow.

Superman flew out of the portal back into the Watchtower, side-by side with Wonder Woman. They hit the floor hard, dazed, even as Firestorm came through next, bruised and battered from her ordeal. Green Lantern and Resurrection Man came through last, together, and Kyle blasted with his ring back through the portal at an unseen foe.

“Close it down! Raven, close the portal, NOW!” Yelled Mitch.

Green Arrow aimed his bow at the swirling darkness of Raven’s soul-self--- and whatever was about to come though.

Before she could comply with the Resurrection Man’s command, her soul-self became suffused with light--- a light so bright that all but the blind Green Arrow were forced to turn away.

Raven screamed.

Dr. Halley cried in ecstasy: “IT IS HERE!”

And bursting from the portal came the Luciphage, slavering and loosed upon the Watchtower, in a universe of light to devour…


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