- Writer: Joshua Williamson
- Pencillers: Paul Pelletier, Jesus Merino, Tom Derenick, and Xermanico
- Inkers: Norm Rapmund, Raul Fernandex, Tom Derenick, and Xermanico
- Colorist: Romulo Fajardo Jr
- Letterer: Tom Napolitano
- Cover Artist: Mitch Gerards
- Variant Cover Artists: Bryan Hitch and Alex Sinclair
- Editors: Diego Lopez and Jamie S Rich
Main Cover: Shown above is the hand of Roy Harper with a Black Lantern ring above it.
Variant Cover: Shown on the right is the Flash in the foreground with Psycho-Pirate (in his original costume) behind him.
Page 1: The Daily Planet’s website or feed with a number of headlines:
- JSA Headquarters: Jade’s headshot is featured; the building exploded in issue #1, while we saw it being investigated in the previous issue.
- Dark UFO: This is Roy Harper as a Black Lantern heading off into the skies as seen in the previous issue.
- Explosion: Captain Atom exploded at the end of the previous issue when confronted by Cameron Chase.
- Chase believed dead: She was apparently caught up in the explosion caused by Captain Atom.
- Multiverse: I’m surprised at the Planet hosting something that tells people they should be “afraid of the Multiverse” as the Planet’s always seemed a more liberal and progressive paper, not something that panders to fearmongering.
Pages 2 and 3 – Panel 1: The text boxes that run across both pages are a conversation between Obsidian (Todd) and his boyfriend Damon Matthews who is hoping to go on a double date with Obsidian and the heroes recently out father, Green Lantern (GL) Alan Scott. It’s GL Scott that we see attacking Chronos while they look for Obsidian’s missing sister, Jade.
Pages 2 and 3 – Panel 2: Now it’s Obsidian taking on the Thinker.
Pages 2 and 3 – Panel 3: Back to GL Scott holding Johnny Sorrows prisoner.
Pages 2 and 3 – Panel 4: GL Scott taking down Solomon Grundy.
Pages 2 and 3 – Panel 5: Obsidian interrogating Icicle.
Pages 2 and 3 – Panel 6: Obsidian capturing Gentleman Ghost.
Pages 2 and 3 – Panel 7: Until we come to the much more genteel figure of the Shade.
Page 4 – Panel 1: The Shade is a Golden Age villain who, during the STARMAN run in the 90s was reinvented as something of a gentleman thief and almost anti-hero rather than a straight up villain. GL Scott’s remark that he thought the Shade would have “some insight into missing heroes” doesn’t really make sense – if he thought the Shade knew something, why not go to him first?
Page 4 – Panel 2: Shade points them towards the JSA’s legacy villains – Icicle, the Thinker and Johnny Sorrow shown on the previous pages fall into that category so it’s not like they haven’t already gone down that road.
Page 4 – Panels 3 to 5: Obsidian realises the Shade means it might be an enemy of his and his sister’s.
Page 5 – Panel 1: Roy Harper as the Black Lantern we saw him transform into in the previous issue.
Page 5 – Panel 2: GL Hal Jordan and Green Arrow discover Roy to be a heroin addict in the seminal GREEN LANTERN #85.
Page 5 – Panel 3: As a member of the Teen Titans. Left to right are Robin; Wonder Girl; Roy as Speedy; and Kid Flash.
Page 5 – Panel 5: This may be Roy dying during the DARK NIGHTS: DEATH METAL event.
Page 5 – Panel 6: Lian, Roy’s daughter, whom we saw as alive in the previous issue.
Page 6 – Panel 1: Roy comes to his senses in space.
Page 7 – Panels 1 – 3: He realises the risk of using the Black Ring and so decides to just wait for someone to pick him up.
Page 7 – Panels 4 – 6: And a moment later he gets his wish.
Page 8 – Panel 2: Magog of Earth-22 who, as we saw in the previous issue, does not take kindly to visitors from the Multiverse, including . . .
Page 8 – Panel 3: . . . Superman of Earth-23.
Page 9 – Panel 1: On the right is Thomas Wayne, the Batman of the Flashpoint timeline. He has accompanied Superman to reclaim the crashed spaceship that Magog stands upon. Magog makes a recurring point in this series – that travel between worlds causes problems.
Page 9 – Panels 2 – 4: Thomas and Magog don’t get on at all. Magog picks up on the fact that Thomas shouldn’t really exist as he’s not from a different Earth, but from a now defunct timeline.
Page 10 – Panel 1: Justice Incarnate arrive to save the day. Bottom left is Aquawoman; top left is Captain Carrot; centre is Machinehead; top right is Mary Marvel.
Page 10 – Panel 2: Magog’s backup will have to wait to be revealed.
Page 10 – Panel 3: Superman steps in and calms the situation.
Page 11 – Panel 3: “Abomination” – Magog really hates the Multiversal anomalies like Thomas Wayne.
Page 11 – Panel 4: The team were found finding pieces of the ship in the previous issue.
Page 12 – Panels 1 and 2: With a prompt from Thomas Wayne, Superman discovers that the ship reacts with him, linking it to Earth-23.
Page 12 – Panels 3 and 4: They come to the conclusion that not everyone in the Multiverse is happy with the new status quo. Superman tasks Machinehead with finding Barry Allen.
Page 13: Barry is shown with art harking back to the Silver Age, indicating this isn’t the current world. On panel 2 we see Jay Garrick, the original Flash, who convinces Barry that he has to run as fast as he can to save the Multiverse.
Pages 14 and 15 – Panel 1: It’s revealed that Flash is trapped in a circular treadmill on Earth-Omega. On the left is Psycho-Pirate who captured Flash back in issue #1.
Pages 14 and 15 – Panel 3: The Psycho-Pirate is referring to THE FLASH #123, the first instance of a character moving from one Earth to another and what would become the establishment of the pre-CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS Multiverse.
Page 16: Psycho-Pirate uses his powers to force the Flash to run as fast as he can, convincing him that he’s saving someone, at the same time telling him to save the multiverse.
Page 17 – Panel 1: Bludhaven, Gotham’s next door neighbour.
Page 17 – Panel 2: Command D appeared in Bludhaven after INFINITE CRISIS (I think – let me know if that’s incorrect) and held Captain Atom in stasis in the Monarch armour; it later featured in COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS as the place where the mortococcus virus originated. Pre-Crisis, of course, it was the home of Kamandi, the last boy on Earth.
Page 17 – Panels 5 and 6: Obsidian uses his shadow powers to get him and GL Scott into the bunker.
Page 18 – Panel 2: A quick flashback to the days of Infinity Inc. Left to right are Obsidian; Brainwave; Jade; Northwind; Silver Scarab; Star-Spangled Kid; Nuklon; and Fury.
Page 19 – Panel 2: Obsidian harks back to the text conversation shown on pages 2 and 3 of this issue where he and Damon talk about setting GL Scott up with a friend of Damon’s.
Page 19 – Panel 5: Director Bones of the DEO. In his pre-Crisis days, he used to be Mr Bones, a member of Helix that fought Infinity Inc. It was Bones that Obsidian thought of back on Page 4.
Pages 20 and 21 – Panel 1: The DEO have a spaceship that is the same model as that found by Superman and Thomas Wayne on Earth-22; while it’s not clear when viewed on pages 8 to 12 of this issue, it’s better seen on Page 10 Panel 1 in the previous issue.
Pages 20 and 21 – Panel 4: The arks vibrate which clearly harks back to travelling between worlds in the Multiverse using vibrational frequencies.
Page 22 – Panel 1: This is X-Tract who’s working with Bones to capture various targets.
Page 22 – Panel 2: X-Tract’s comment shows they’re behind the missing heroes.
Page 23: Obsidian and GL Scott break free from X-Tract’s goons.
Page 24 – Panel 1: Cameron Chase on the left with Bones beyond her and X-Tract now behind him. You might remember Chase last appearing at the end of the previous issue when she was apparently blown up by the other-worldly Captain Atom. Not only has she survived, but it appears Chase has bought into Bones’s plan to save their world.
Page 24 – Panel 4: Another shot of the DEO’s ark . . .
Page 25 – Panel 1: . . . which merges nicely with another DEO ark out in space.
Page 25 – Panel 2: Agent Hammond of the DEO who picked up Roy Harper back on Page 7.
Page 25 – Panel 3: Hammond mentions Leviathan, a secret spy organisation headed up by Mark Shaw that attempted to take down the other spy networks in the DCU during the EVENT LEVIATHAN series.
Page 25 – Panel 4: The DEO’s mission is “to protect Earth-0’s interests from a different kind of invader.“
Page 26 – Panel 1: Roy is attacked by the DEO guards.
Page 26 – Panels 2 and 3: When Hammond mentions the old Green Lantern villain Sonar and himself being an expert on power rings, Roy realises that this is another old GL villain, Hector Hammond. He’s usually seen with a atrophied body and a massively swollen head, hence Roy’s comment about him looking different.
Page 26 – Panel 4: Reality being reset happened at the end of DARK NIGHTS: METAL as we’ve covered before in these annotations.
Page 27 – Panel 1: The Bleed – as Hammond says, it’s the space between the universes that make up the multiverse.
Page 27 – Panel 3: Hammond is unsure if Roy’s black power ring is from our multiverse – there are multiple multiverses now.
Page 27 – Panel 5: The DEO has made a deal to offer up Roy and the black power ring, but before Hammond can reveal more details . . .
Page 28 – Panel 1: . . . the ark is struck by something.
Page 28 – Panel 3: The other ship Bones lost is the one that crashed on Earth-22 and was investigated by Justice Incarnate earlier this issue.
Page 29 – Panel 1: With the distraction caused by the crash, Roy is able to recover and take out first the guards . . .
Page 29 – Panel 3: . . . and then Hammond, using a ring construct in the form of GL Hal Jordan, Hammond’s old enemy.
Page 29 – Panel 4: But as shown before, using the ring triggers his transformation into an undead Black Lantern.
Page 29 – Panel 6: And shown breaking through the door is . . .
Page 30: . . . the missing heroes. Top left is Atom Smasher; in front of him is Jade; to the right of her is Wildcat; to the right of her is Damage; and in front of them all is Power Girl.
Crisis on Earth-Prime 