- Writers: Joshua Williamson and Dennis Culver
- Artists: Brandon Peterson, Andrei Bressan, and Tom Derenick
- Colorist: Hi-Fi
- Letterer: Tom Napolitano
- Cover Artists: Gary Frank and Brad Anderson
- Editors: Chris Rosa and Mike Cotton
Cover: From the bottom left and the clockwise around the cover are Flashpoint Batman Thomas Wayne; Aquawoman of Earth-11; Thunderer of Earth-7; Flash (Avery Ho) of Earth-0; Mary Marvel of Earth-5; Captain Carrot of Earth-26; and Superman of Earth-23. The fist in the foreground belongs to Dr Multiverse of Earth-8.
Page 1 – Panel 1: We start on Earth-8 at Retaliators’ Tower. Note the purple spark on the right hand side of the panel.
Page 1 – Panel 2: The Retaliators, one of the super-hero teams on this Earth. Helpfully they introduce each other in their dialogue so left to right are Red Dragon; Deadeye; Big Baby (previously known as Behemoth); Wundajin; Silver Eagle; and American Crusader. Earth-8 is a pastiche of the Marvel Universe and as such these characters are analogs of following (in the same order they appear in this panel) Black Widow; Hawkeye; Hulk; Thor; Falcon; and Captain America. Earth-8 has also been shown to house the Extremists though they play no part in this story.
Page 1 – Panel 3: american Crusader worries about Machinehead not checking in from his “multiverse mission.” This would be the mission Machinehead undertook in INFINITE FRONTIER.
Page 1 – Panel 4: An off panel speaker mentions that Machinehead has been found. Note the purple light at the bottom of the panel.
Page 2: And the bearer of the purple light is Dr Multiverse, holding Machinehead’s helmet.
Page 3 – Panel 2: Dr Multiverse appears able to see across the entire multiverse. Machinehead was killed by Darkseid in INFINITE FRONTIER #6.
Page 3 – Panel 3: And that there is probably the shortest origin story ever!
Page 3 – Panel 4: Silver Eagle’s comment shows the Retaliators and the good Doctor have some history.
Page 3 – Panel 5: The flash of light is the crack in the multiverse that was released after Barry Allen escaped from Earth-Omega, again in INFINITE FRONTIER #6.
Pages 4 and 5 – Panel 1: This is Tartarus, an analog of Thanos from the Marvel Universe (who was himself created as a homage to Darkseid.) The “Eternity Conquest” is a riff on the Infinity Gauntlet series of stories.
Pages 4 and 5 – Panel 3: “Retaliators rampage” is a riff on the “Avengers assemble” cry.
Page 6 – Panel 1: This is Avery Ho, the Flash, battling Replicant.
Page 6 – Panel 3: The Humanifold he mentions allows him to duplicate the powers of others – in this case, the old Firestorm villain, Multiplex.
Page 7 – Panel 1: Watching from above are Flashpoint Batman, and Superman of Earth-23. For the rest of this issue, I’ll just refer to them as Batman and Superman.
Page 7 – Panels 2 to 4: Despite Batman’s misgivings about Avery’s abilities, Superman is convinced that she is the Flash they need.
Page 8 – Panel 1: And here they are, asking for Avery’s help.
Page 8 – Panel 2: I have to hope that Batman is being sarcastic here and is just impatient to be going, otherwise that’s some terrible dialogue
Page 8 – Panels 3 and 4: Avery takes zero convincing and is in the Boom Tube before Superman finishes speaking.
Page 9 – Panel 1: Avery appears in the House of Heroes. Left to right re Captain Carrot; Thunderer; Aquawoman; Mary Marvel; and Dino-Cop.
Page 9 – Panel 4: Aquawoman makes the name of Justice League Incarnate official; prior to this issue, the team was known as Justice Incarnate.
Page 9 – Panel 5: Mary Marvel sums up what happened to Barry Allen at the end of INFINITE FRONTIER #6 (or at least as much as they’re aware of – we known different, right?)
Pages 10 and 11 – Panel 1: Dino-Cop gives another summary of INFINITE FRONTIER #6. Across the double page spread (excluding Dino-Cop) from left to right are Darkseid; Grail; Barry Allen; Kalibak; Desaad; Granny Goodness; and Steppenwolf who looks a lot different from how he appeared at the end of INFINITE FRONTIER #6.
Pages 10 and 11 – Panel 2: Avery mentions Jay and Wally – that’s Jay Garrick, the original Flash, and Wally West, Barry’s nephew and the first to take up Barry’s mantle after his death in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS.
Pages 10 and 11 – Panels 4 and 5: Superman offers some comfort and encouragement.
Page 12 – Panel 1: The Quantum Treadmill is a call back to the Cosmic Treadmill that the Silver Age Flash would use to travel from one Earth to another. The golden head in the centre of the panel is Harbinger, the AI that powers the House of Heroes, headquarters of Justice League Incarnate.
Page 12 – Panel 3: Is Aquawoman’s mention of trouble getting “too deep” an ocean pun?
Page 12 – Panel 5: Avery’s vibrations allow Harbinger to home in on Barry and transport Batman, Superman, Captain Carrot, and Avery to . . .
Page 13 – Panel 1: . . . the New York of Earth-8 which has clearly seen better days.
Page 13 – Panel 4: The fallen statue is that of Machinehead, one time member of Justice League Incarnate and, as mentioned above, now dead.
Page 14 – Panel 1: Silver Eagle cradles the corpse of American Crusader, and he blames the other heroes and their “damn Multiverse” for his death.
Page 14 – Panel 4: Batman was a doctor before he became Batman.
Page 15 – Panel 1: The “guy in a golden mask” is Psycho-Pirate who offered Machinehead and the heroes of other worlds a deal on behalf of Darkseid; this was seen in flashback in INFINITE FRONTIER #5.
Page 15 – Panel 2: Superman’s surprised that Silver Eagle knew about the deal.
Page 15 – Panel 3: In INFINITE FRONTIER, we only saw Machinehead from Earth-8 being offered Darkseid’s deal but here we find the rest of the worlds heroes (or at least the Retaliators) voted to accept the deal as well.
Page 15 – Panel 4: Wundajin crashes into the ground behind the heroes.
Page 16 – Panel 1: Tartarus literally tears Big Baby in half; at his feet lay Red Dragon on the left and Deadeye on the right.
Page 17 – Panel 1: As revealed by Darkseid in INFINITE FRONTIER #6, “what lies beyond our Multiverse” is the Great Darkness, which is now apparently calling to Tartarus.
Page 17 – Panel 3: It appears there is more to Dr Multiverse than meets the eye.
Page 17 – Panel 6: That BOOM and the white on black text heralds the arrival of . . .
Page 18 – Panel 1: . . . Darkseid and his grandfather box.
Page 18 – Panel 2: While Justice League Incarnate battle Tartarus’s hoards, in the background they appear to be joined by a mis-coloured Red Dragon, Deadeye, and Wundajin, showing that not all the Retaliators have died after all.
Page 18 – Panel 3: Tartarus reveals there is history between the two villains, and speaks of a treaty now broken.
Page 19 – Panel 1: Darkseid was revealed to be the complete, ultimate version of himself in INFINITE FRONTIER and so disregards any treaty signed by a lesser version of himself.
Page 19 – Panel 2: Dr Multiverse’s multivision (mentioned on Page 3) allows her to see that Darkseid is a singular being now, with no other versions of himself, the same as herself.
Page 19 – Panel 5: Tartarus offers a new truce, and the offer to work together.
Page 20 – Panel 1: And Darkseid turns him down in typical fashion.
Page 20 – Panel 3: The symbols above his head are those of the emotional spectrum (at least on Earth-0) and left to right are on the top row: blue for hope, purple for love; yellow for fear; violet for empathy; on the bottom row are orange for avarice; green for will; and red for anger. Tartarus mentions “eight rings” despite there being seven symbols.
Page 20 – Panel 4: And the two big guys fight.
Page 21 – Panel 2: Before Dr Multiverse can decide which bad guy to attack, Darkseid’s grandfather box prepares to kill her.
Page 21 – Panel 3: But never fear, Superman is here!
Page 21 – Panel 6: Dr Multiverse’s multivision kicks in and she sees . . .
Page 22 – Panel 1: . . . multiple versions Superman. There are seven distinct Supermen to the left of the panel; top to bottom and left to right are the Supermen of Earth-30 (RED SON); Earth-6 (JUST IMAGINE); Earth-38 (GENERATIONS); Earth-22 (KINGDOM COME); Earth-0; an unknown Superman with long blue trousers; and the Superman of DARK NIGHTS METAL.
Page 22 – Panel 4: Batman refocuses the team’s agenda.
Page 22 – Panel 5: Tartarus speaks the phrase used by Thanos in the Marvel films Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame further cementing his place as an analog of the villain.
Page 23 – Panels 1 and 2: Prompted by Captain Carrot’s throwaway line, Dr Multiverse suggests sending the crack away from Earth-8 to prevent either Tartarus or Darkseid getting hold of it.
Page 23 – Panel 7: Darkseid has clearly had enough; if Thanos were the whisper of Darkseid, Tartarus is the echo.
Page 24: As Dr Multiverse and Avery destabilise the crack in the Multiverse, Darkseid breaks the neck of Tartarus. The final “snap” is likely another reference to Thanos and the finger snap he used to wipe out half the life in the universe during the Infinity Gauntlet event.
Page 25 – Panel 2: The crack vanishes, being sent off to another Earth. Darkseid’s cry of “You have denied me my prize one again, Justice League Incarnate” sounds a little stilted and also makes me wonder when Darkseid found out the team had changed their name?
Page 25 – Panel 3: Darkseid opens a Boom Tube and heads off to find the crack
Page 25 – Panel 4: Dr Multiverse is able to keep the Boom Tube open, though the team have concerns.
Page 25 – Panel 5: Silver Eagle wants them off his world but still manages to respect Superman.
Pages 26 and 27: There’s not much to say about these two pages as both Avery and Dr Multiverse pretty much spell it out for each other. The one’s nervous, the other is willing to help her do what needs to be done, and they head off after the rest of the team.
Page 28 – Panel 1: Back at the House of Heroes we have Dino-Cop, Aquawoman, Mary Marvel, and Thunderer.
Page 28 – Panel 2: Aquawoman appears more proactive here that she was in the entire INFINITE FRONTIER series.
Page 28 – Panel 3: Before they can do anything, another Boom Tub opens, bringing . . .
Page 29 – Panel 1: . . . Orion, the son of Darkseid, and his warrior hound, Sturmer.
Page 29 – Panel 3: Orion, arrogant as ever, takes command of the team.
Page 30 – Panel 1: Outside the House of Heroes is Kalibak, front and centre, and Grail off to the right. Behind them are hordes of parademons.
Page 30 – Panel 2: And Grail is not happy.
Crisis on Earth-Prime 