Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #0 (September 1994)
Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #0 (September 1994)
At last, our eternal September comes to a close with the climax of the Zero Hour event, and it’s… a whole bunch of nothing. You know, because Hal “Not Green Lantern” Jordan destroyed the universe last issue and all. But then, out of the nothingness, a new universe starts emerging as Hal explains how the destruction of Coast City and his former bosses’ refusal to let him recreate it led him to decide that the universe is all wrong and should be restarted from scratch. So that’s what’s he’s doing. Talk about being the change you want to see in the world/universe.
Of course, not all of the heroes present appreciate the fact that Hal just murdered billions of people to create his “better world” – or “worlds,” since he floats the idea of giving the Justice Society their own where they can stay forever young. Hal also promises the alternate reality characters present, like Batgirl and Alpha Centurion, that they can have their own worlds restored instead of having to fade away at the end of the crossover like it usually happens.
What Hal doesn’t know is that Waverider managed to pull a select group of heroes out of the timestream right before the old universe was erased, including Superman, Kyle “Yes Green Lantern” Rayner, Damage (who doesn’t know why he’s there, since he’s just a kid who makes stuff explode), and Green Arrow (who doesn’t want to be there, since he hates “this cosmic stuff”). The heroes try to stop Hal and end up having to fight not just his lackey Extant but also Alpha Centurion and Batgirl, who only wants to live.
(Glad to see Centurion is sticking by his “100” theme even in this time of great stress.)
Unsurprisingly, the side with the guy powerful enough to destroy an entire universe is winning the fight. Hal’s practically a god! But not the God, which means that there’s still one DCU character capable of kicking his ass: The Spectre, who also survived the destruction of the universe because he’s The Spectre. While the royally pissed-off Speccy keeps Hal occupied, Waverider instructs the heroes to absorb the energy of the nascent universe and then channel it into Damage. Hal figures out what Waverider is planning to do and tries to kill Damage, but Batgirl switches sides again to save the kid, at the cost of her own life…
…which is particularly tragic because it looked like Hal was gonna miss.
Green Arrow, who had bonded with Batgirl even when they were on different sides, shoots an arrow straight into Hal’s chest as Kyle holds him down, so I guess that’s why Waverider brought those two along. The Spectre says “only one task remains” and pumps even more energy into Damage, who generates the mother of all explosions – as in, the actual Big Bang. And that’s why Waverider brought him along.
Without Hal manipulating events, the universe is recreated as it had been before, more or less. The heroes (plus Extant, but he bails pretty soon) watch from outside the timestream as history unfolds until the nanosecond right before Hal destroyed the universe, at which point Waverider slips all of them back into their present… with some slight differences, like Guy Gardner suddenly sporting some funky body paint instead of his Warrior armor.
Everyone who died from holes in reality and such is alive again, but we’re told that others are still dead, like Wally West (spoilers: no he isn’t), Hal and Kyle (spoilers: no they aren’t), or the JSA’s Dr. Mid-Nite and the Atom (spoilers: okay, yes they are… improbably, to this day). The alternate reality characters, like Alpha Centurion, have faded away as customary. On the other hand, amid all that death, Power Girl finally gave birth to a little boy, who I’m sure will grow up to be hugely relevant to the DC Universe and not end up being forgotten within two years!
The crossover ends with Green Arrow shaking his fist at the heavens about what happened to his best friend, the Linear Men exploring the mysteries of this new/old universe, and an intriguing shot of a female Time Trapper… which apparently never paid off. (All I can find is that a female Trapper was teased in the new continuity but never actually appeared, and now The Time Trapper is Doomsday?!)
This re-read hasn’t diminished my impression that this series kicks ass. My one big complaint is that they kinda fumbled Extant, a tragic figure reduced to a pretty one-dimensional villain. He’s a hero who was driven mad by watching his own future self killing his beloved partner, Dove. It would have been cool if this last issue had revealed that his motivation was bringing Dove back to life and untangling that whole time loop mess, even if it meant killing billions (as opposed to “he wanted a world to rule”). Then again, this is a pretty packed series, so it’s possible Dan Jurgens wanted to do something like that and simply didn’t have space. Or time.
But we always have time for more commentary from Don Sparrow, so keep on reading!
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
We open with the cover, and it’s important to remember this issue in context. While blank covers are commonplace nowadays (a great way to get original art from a creator at a convention) they were completely unheard of at the time of publication, so this was a very nervy, risky thing to drop on a newsstand, and really stood out.
Inside the book, we start from the blank slate we already saw in the last few pages of the crossover issues. As the story gets started in earnest, the splash is a tad confusing, as Parallax appears gigantic in that first splash, but then is normal sized only a few panels later. The image of Hal’s face lit by the creation he’s trying to build, while he scolds Batgirl, completely in control freak mode, is a good one, showing his placid expression.
The only thing scarier than a villain with this level of power is a villain with this level of power who can’t wipe an empty smile off his face—there’s a lot of that in this issue.
Speaking of facial expressions, Guy Gardner runs the gamut here, remaining so consistent since the last issue, showing both anger and shock in remarkably believable ways. When Guy Gardner is the voice or reason, you know something has gone terribly wrong.
Once the battle begins, the image of Parallax attacking Ray, Captain Atom, Superman AND Donna Troy with his back turned is pretty boss.
The emergence of the screaming Spectre on page 13 is a stunner, and I love the fun this art team has with his cape. There’s something fitting about Waverider literally thanking God, since Spectre was established to be the Judeo-Christian God’s angel of wrath at this time. It’s pretty nuts that Parallax lasts as long as he does against Spectre, even seemingly damaging him on page 16. But unlike Spectre, the power Hal absorbed from the Central Power Battery when he went nuts is finite, so he’s burning fuel this whole fight.
There are a couple instances in this story where the level of damage from an attack seems unclear to the reader. The first is when Batgirl sacrifices her life to save Damage (as Max pointed out, it looked like Damage had cleared left of his blast). As her stomach is blasted, we see—and hear—her Batgirl uniform being torn away, but still see her belly-button, making me think this wound isn’t that dangerous, but it’s apparently lethal. Ditto a page later when Hal takes Ollie’s arrow to the chest—all we are shown is the very tip puncturing Parallax’s armour, but we aren’t shown how deeply the arrow went in, so it doesn’t seem like that’s what would have killed him, at least the first time I read it.
The history of the new Earth as the heroes try to come to grips with what just happened is super interesting—I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dinosaur drawn more realistically than the apatosaurus on page 23.
Lastly, I absolutely adore that pull-out timeline poster, something I would look back on again and again. I loved the conceit of time not being fixed by dates, but by terms like “ten years ago”, etc. Jurgens and Ordway are excellent enough artists to make all these corny mid-90s designs look cool, even truly awful characters like Manhunter and Fate.
Reviewing this series has been a fun reappraisal. I’ll admit, I love the art so much that I was willing to overlook some of the criticisms (the mistreatment of the JSA, Hal as mass murderer) that are actually fairly valid. But overall, I appreciated it as an effort to clean up Crisis-related continuity, and provide a jumping on point for new readers.
SPEEDING BULLETS:
I was pretty unfamiliar with Green Arrow at this point in my reading, so his jaded, world-weary sarcasm in this issue greatly informed my understanding of the character. It would be years later when I’d read the original (relatively brief) famous run by Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams of Green Lantern/Green Arrow that I’d understand Hawkman’s reference to Oliver’s “optimistic liberal philosophy”. “Maybe it died with the rest of the universe” is an all-time cool line. [Max: I’m also a fan of Hal’s “weren’t you the one who always told me to get involved?”]
Less cool: eternal square Superman chiding Captain Atom for being counter-productive for pointing out that they failed in protecting all of reality. It’s in character, it’s a tad on the dorky side.
Alpha-Centurion having zero misgivings about siding with Parallax pretty much explains my lack of affection for this character. It would be one thing if he’d said “I’m torn, but it seems we have no choice…” but nope, he’s all in—“I stand with him 100 percent”.
Triumph being ineffectual and indecisive on page 11 pretty much sums up this guy’s sad arc. [Max: I wonder if Triumph was there because he was meant to join Batgirl and Alpha Centurion’s side, but then someone at the JLA office said “No, this guy’s sticking around! He’s for real! We’ll be doing Triumph stories for decades!”]
Once again, Green Arrow gets a laugh-line with his muttered “Jeez, they’ve forgotten that we’re even here!” as 60 foot tall Spectre and Parallax throw down.
I know I’m commenting too much here, but “Emerald Hypocrite” is an appropriately Biblical sounding epithet from Spectre, that has always stuck in my mind.
I always find it interesting when writers come back to ideas they’ve used before. I can think of a handful of different times when Ron Marz used the idea of destroying something, or defeating something not by removing its power, but by overloading it with power (perhaps Max, who is doing exhaustive research on the GL comics of this era can cosign on that one). [Max: Co-signed! See here for evidence.] Two different occasions, Chuck Dixon had “password” as the ironic computer password needed to advance the story. And here we see a scene playing out with Waverider filtering energy blasts into Damage in a way that recalls the same writer, Dan Jurgens, having the Eradicator absorbing and channeling the energy being shot at him by Cyborg Superman, saving the real Kal-El in the process in Superman #82. [Max: Co-signed on this one too. This moment always reminded me of that Eradicator scene.]
Had Parallax’s blast hit Damage, would it have been that different? Wouldn’t he have just exploded and started the Big Bang anyway?
I do like that the Spectre, as narrative emissary of God’s will, was involved in that last stage of restarting time—makes me feel like his involvement somehow makes this reset official, feeling like it was intended to happen, and not just the handful of heroes left doing exactly what Hal had wanted, and making their own reality.
I thought of this issue, and the moment Waverider expresses that Extant will ultimately defeat himself as I read JSA #15 in the year 2000, and had to chuckle. Have a nice flight, Hank.
Love the non-answer from Waverider when Superman asks very clearly “Is Hal dead, or not?” Which part is he saying yes to?
Read the room, Power Girl. Also, in JLE #50, Power Girl made out with Hal once—no sorrowful reaction at his heel turn and apparent death? (Yes, I know most of Gerard Jones’ ideas were bad, but this was still present day continuity.) [Max: Hal did give her crap for becoming pregnant soon after declining to have sex with him as one of his last official JLE acts, so I can understand PG here.]
Yeah, I have no idea what to make of that female Time Trapper, either. Just based on the wavy hair, and lack of other female time travel characters, I figured it was Liri Lee, but it was apparently Lori Morning in a possible future? [Max: Was that ever made clear? The DC wiki is kinda vague about it. I also THINK I remember an interview with Jurgens saying he intended that woman to be Batgirl, but can’t find it right now, and obviously that went nowhere.]
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