DARK CRISIS: YOUNG JUSTICE #3
Superboy, Robin, and Impulse are confronted by Lex Luthor, Captain Boomerang, and Deathstroke at the entrance to the Happy Harbor HQ of Young Justice, with the villains having captured Wonder Girl and threatening to harm her if the heroes don’t attack. Impulse points out that these three specific villains have almost been chosen for their connections to them, which makes him suspicious that they are being delayed and diverted from investigating what’s really going on with this world they’re in.
Robin and Superboy disagree and attack, forcing Impulse to do the same but when he has Deathstroke at his mercy, he rejects the opportunity to kill him. Wonder Girl cannot understand why he didn’t kill the villain which makes Impulse question her motives and, when Superboy defends her, Impulse and Superboy argue, forcing Robin to step in.
As the three heroes bicker, Robin notices the villains have simply disappeared and when he still refuses to take Impulse’s concerns seriously, the speedster runs off, leaving Robin to confront Superboy about why he’s so happy to stay in this world. Superboy reveals that having been imprisoned on a far off world with everyone believing he was dead was tough, and that this world feels like a second chance. Finally, Robin leaves him.
Impulse notices the world he’s running through has trouble keeping up with him and seems half-formed at times. Wonder Girl appears and offers him the chance to live out his dreams and be the next Flash, but he rejects that offer, knowing it would have a heavy price.
Wonder Girl also offers Robin a world where he can grow up to be Batman, and Superboy a world where he can be Superman, where everyone gets what they want. Ultimately, both heroes turn her down.
With a click of Wonder Girl’s fingers, all three heroes wake up on the Watchtower with Wonder Girl telling them that they had their chance to accept this world willingly but now the person she works for will make them accept it by force. She opens the doors to reveal the JLA and the Teen Titans, all of whom are ready to fight Young Justice.
THE FLASH #785
On Earth-0, Mr Terrific reluctantly stands aside to let Linda Park use her powers to head through the multiversal portal to find her kids and her husband.
Irey and Jai have been found by a youngster who seems to know about the Night-Flash that’s chasing them, telling them his origin and how he’s keeping everyone in the city a prisoner. The kids plan to stop him to show the other speedsters that they can be heroes, too.
On the apocalypse world, Max and Jesse agree to help their Barry Allen by delaying the Mad Max style barbarians that are chasing him, allowing him to take the last piece of magic, in the form of a pearl, to the place where everything began.
In Barry’s dream world, Wallace struggles against the apparent perfection of this world, especially when his dead father is shown to be alive. Meanwhile Wally is begin attacked by Barry who sees him as the Reverse Flash, until Linda arrives and punches Barry off her husband. Linda’s arrival jolts Barry out of his dream state and he realises that, like him, each of the Justice League are in a world of their own. He decides that Wally and Linda should return home while he finds the League.
Irey and Jai take on Night-Flash as the youngster who’d helped them looks on, until the kid tries to kill Night-Flash. They’re all interrupted by the arrival of Jay Garrick who attacks Night-Flash, but the twins quickly convince him that Night-Flash isn’t the threat, but the kid – a de-aged crime boss called Knives Maroney – is. Maroney escapes as he too has superspeed, and Jay takes the twins back home.
On the apocalypse world, Max and Jesse’s delay tactics work and Barry is able to break the pearl which brings down a tower and raises instead a beacon of hope.
Wallace, confronted by his once-dead, now-alive father, realises the world he’s in is wrong just as Barry, Wally, and Linda arrive and the four head back into the speed force. Barry takes off in another direction to look for the League, while the others return home.
Once reunited on Earth-0, Wally declares that he and the other speedsters are going to help save the world.
DARK CRISIS: WORLDS WITHOUT A JUSTICE LEAGUE – SUPERMAN
Out There
Pariah has imprisoned the Justice League in their own dream-world states; for Superman this means watching his son Jon grow up and learn how to come to terms with his powers and the limitations he has to deal with.
Superman has become isolationist in terms of the wider galaxy – after years of trying to help every planet out there, he has settled for protecting Earth and allowing Darkseid and his army (which includes an Orion who is now subservient to his father) to plunder other planets as long as he stays away from Earth. Jon, however, cannot live like this and, as he grows older, he becomes more determined to take the fight to Darkseid.
Allowing Jon to grow into his own person, Superman and Lois watch him leave Earth.
Aquaman Has Everything
For Aquaman, his world is one where his parents are happy together and are renewing their vows, where he and Mera’s daughter, Princess Andy, is in a loving relationship with Kid Quick from Earth-11, and even one where he has made peace with his mortal enemy Black Manta, who in turn has made peace with his own son Jackson aka Aqualad.
However, even amidst this happiness, Aquaman is aware that this is not how things are, and he pledges vengeance against whomever has imprisoned him here.
DARK CRISIS: WORLDS WITHOUT A JUSTICE LEAGUE – WONDER WOMAN
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman arrives at the inauguration of Etta Candy as President of the United States and grants her the gift of a visit to Themyscira as a celebratory present. In recognition of all Etta is done, she is made an honorary Amazon, and the whole island celebrates.
The next morning, Wonder Woman finds her mother in a meeting with other Amazons and asks to see the sculpture her mother tells her they have been discussing. When her mother refuses, Wonder Woman becomes suspicious and instead of a statue discovers what she thinks is a missile. Wonder Woman falls into the silo which in turn is actually the Well of Souls.
At the bottom of the Well, she finds an imprisoned Dr Psycho who reveals to her how men had tried to defeat the Amazons and in doing so nearly destroyed the world. In order to restore the Earth, Wonder Woman had offered Psycho up to Gaia as a sacrifice, and the Amazons had made her forget her part in it. With the truth revealed, Themyscira begins to collapse. Hippolyta and the remaining Amazons board the rocket – not a missile – in its silo, but Wonder Woman refuses to flee, instead saving Dr Psycho and watching her people leave the Earth.
Psycho claims that Wonder Woman chose to remain behind because while among the Amazons, she was just another warrior, when among men, she is a goddess. Wonder Woman disagrees and tells him she simply wants him to be better.
The Martian Squidhunter
The Martian Manhunter inhabits a world where humans have adapted and spliced DNA with squid and octopuses to better allow them to survive. Despite that, there are still crimes being committed and J’onzz is called to a homicide where the killer has left a message in blood asking what paradise looks like on Earth.
Manhunter returns to his home and his wife who wonders about the dark corner of his mind that he shields from her, and thinks his paradise would actually be with his Martian wife and family. He tells her that he has mourned that life, moved on, and loves her.
Hi detective partner calls him, claiming they have caught the killer who demands to speak to the Manhunter. When he arrives, he finds a young man has been taken hostage by the actual Martian Manhunter who tells him he is the dark corner of his mind and that he has a way out.
The detective Manhunter pays no mind, however, and shoots him in the head, saying that a world that gets better even in tiny increments is the world in which he wants to be.
DARK CRISIS: WORLDS WITHOUT A JUSTICE LEAGUE – GREEN ARROW
Green Arrow
Green Arrow’s story beings with a bard recounting a love story, one where Arrow is all-but Robin Hood, protecting villagers from the sheriff Malcolm Merlyn, aided by his merry band of Harper, Mia, and Conner. As he drives Merlyn off into the nearby forest, Arrow follows him but is confused when the trees give way to a huge city.
He is attacked by Black Canary but as they fight, they begin to question why they each feel so familiar to the other. Declaring a truce, Canary takes him to her bar, the Canary Club, as the bard arrives, and shows another character has entered the story.
While Arrow and Canary are getting to know each other, this other character arrives and destroys the bar, revealing himself to be a version of Green Arrow that never left the island and has since gone mad. Arrow and Canary tackle him, teaming up and defeating him, allowing them to finally get together and kiss as the bard, yet another version of Green Arrow, looks on with a smile.
Till Death Do Us Part!
At the end of the Justice League’s battle with Pariah’s Dark Army, two worlds are created, one from Black Canary, the other from Green Arrow.
In one, Green Arrow is a successful crime fighter who suffers nightmares each night of not being able to find the literal woman of his dreams who, he has found, doesn’t exist in his world. So he builds a shiftship, a rocket shaped like an arrow that will pierce the Bleed and allow him access to another universe.
In that universe, Black Canary is a member of a police organisation headed by Commissioner Barbara Gordon. Canary also suffers from dreams of Doomsday arriving, and Gordon wants to imprison her before it arrives, pre-emptively solving the issue.
As Arrow arrives in her world, both universes fall apart and Pariah reveals that this has happened multiple times. He is unable to understand why until Canary tells him that she and Arrow have to have a single world together before they can forget what Pariah has done to them, and so he creates that unique world, calling it a “cage made of true love.“
DARK CRISIS: WORLDS WITHOUT A JUSTICE LEAGUE – GREEN LANTERN
Green Lantern
In space, the Green Lanterns of the Watchtower battle against the undead army of the Bright Revenant until they are almost overrun, with Kyle Rayner taking a serious blow. As a last ditch effort, he calls through his power ring for John Stewart’s aid.
At this point, John Stewart has semi-retired to a farm where he lives with his mother and the ring-constructed version of his younger sister, within whom he has hidden the Central Power Battery of Oa. It’s through his sister that Kyle’s plea for help arrives and John reluctantly leaves his family to aid his friends. As he flies up toward the battle, he becomes The Guardian.
Confronting the enemy troops and reassuring his own Lanterns, John heads towards the Bright Revenant itself and destroys it which, in turn, destroys its army.
With the world safe once more, John returns to Earth and his family.
Hawkgirl
After years of searching, Hawkgirl finds the ancient Temple of Life in a tropical jungle and navigates through the various booby traps while musing on her existence. As a perpetually reincarnated being, Hawkgirl has become tired and jaded with life which is why she has been searching for this temple and what it holds: the Vase of Mortality.
Drinking the liquid within, she loses all connection with her previous lives and realises that she is now mortal – that were she to die, that would be the end of her life. With the knowledge that she only has one life, she commits to living it as fully as she can.
With the last of the temple’s traps overcome, she leaves . . . unaware that Pariah has watched her.
DARK CRISIS: WORLDS WITHOUT A JUSTICE LEAGUE – BATMAN
In Batman’s world, everything has been ravaged by a psychic virus referred to as the sneertouch that turns everyone infect insane. The only exception is Gotham, a massive, man-made enclave designed by the always-masked Mr Wax so that his people can be safe. And they are, during the day, but after sunset, the city is patrolled by The Night, punishing evildoers.
After Wax reviews security footage of The Night taking out Oswald Cobblepot and his gang, his is kidnapped by The Night himself, and taken to his cave. The Night had accused Cobblepot of being the one who murdered his parents, but his final words sowed doubt in The Night’s certainty and so he searched Gotham for patterns and coincidences, leading him to Wax. Tearing his mask off Wax, and revealing his own face shows that they are identical.
Together they track down a signal that seems connected, leading them to the ruins of Arkham Asylum and Alfred Pennyworth who tells them of their origin. In Arkham, Jonathan Crane had performed experiments on prisoners until his final one, the Joker, whose psyche overloaded Crane’s machines, releasing the psychic virus. Bruce Wayne used those machines and the information Crane had gathered from the inmates and separated his two selves, the darkness and the light, into separate beings.
Alfred explains, however, that eventually one or both of Wax or Wayne work out what’s going on and, with regret, he re-sets them both, allowing them to be taken back to Gotham to continue their crusades in their own way.
Time’s Up
In Zatanna’s world, she is constantly racing against time, the one thing that will always win in the end, as she searches for someone. She jumps from place to place until she ends up in London to find John Constantine waiting for her, but when challenged, she realises that it’s herself she’s talking to.
Her older self tries to tell her that she is not in control and that this world is not real, but her long-dead father arrives and distracts her, saying they have all the time in the world. This, too, is interrupted with the arrival of the Justice League from their various alternate worlds.
As Zatanna claims she didn’t have enough time to make things right, The Night tells he that there would never be enough time, and she realises he’s right.
With that, she determines it’s time to fight back.
Crisis on Earth-Prime 