Welcome back to Comic Book Classics Revisited!  It’s time to take a look at Crisis on Infinite Earths #5.  Up to this point, things have not gone so hot for the good guys.  A wave of anti-matter is cruising through the DC Multiverse and has already wiped out untold thousands of Earths.  The Monitor, a near omnipotent being, has placed “tuning forks” throughout time and space (in particular on Earths 1 and 2) in hopes of saving what Earths he can to make them stronger.  Unfortunately, his enemy has taken control of his assistant, Harbinger, and she made good on her evil master’s commands and killed the Monitor.  Now, nothing was able to stop the anti-matter wave from wiping out Earths 1 and 2.  Or have they been wiped out?  Let’s find out!

Somewhere in time and space, Pariah grieves over the dead body of the Monitor.  Lyla, who is the alter ego of Harbinger, has snapped out of the villainous control to realize her worst nightmares have come true.  A video begins playing from the Monitor.  He reveals to her and Pariah that he was aware of her possession, but, by killing him, she fulfilled his final request.  You see, when she killed the Monitor, he unleashed all of his power to create enough energy to power the vibrational tuning forks he placed on Earths 1 and 2 and created a “netherverse” for those universes to exist.  That’s the good news.  The bad is multi-faceted.  First, all time exists as one, so there’s all sorts of weirdness going on mixing time up.  Second, since the forks were not properly attuned, the vibrations separating them are slowing down and they will soon crash into one another – ultimately destroying both.  But! There’s someone who can carry out the proper plans to prevent Earths 1 and 2 from wiping each other out.  That man is now the fully grown Alexander Luthor.  Since he was made of both matter AND anti-matter, the Monitor showed him how he can carry out the final plan of saving the universes – at his enemy’s displeasure.  (Here, he says there are three earths remaining, though most of the talk has been about Earths 1 and 2.  I checked some resources and discovered that DC had decided to include Earth 4 – the Charleston Universe that had been in limbo up to this point as far as whether it would be part of the new DCU or allowed to be used by Alan Moore in Watchmen – so now Earth 4 was tossed into the mix along with 1 and 2.)

On Earth 1, Lana Lang reports that all time has merged together.  Despite concerns of the viewing public, it does seem that the 20th Century is prevailing with only flashes of the past and future occurring.  She begs the question if time is ever corrected would anyone remember what they saw or if they will be able to retain the knowledge of what they saw…  (This is a bit of foretelling because of what was supposed to happen at the end of the story, but we’ll get to that soon enough.)

On board the Monitor’s ship, villains and heroes from all across time have collected by Harbinger and Pariah.  They tell everyone that heroes and villains must work together in order to save everything.  Alexander Luthor tells the crowd that the Monitor has died and he only knows some of what was supposed to happen to defeat the unknown enemy.  Alexander explains that it isn’t just the Earths that are in trouble, but every planet.  We get a live look in on the planet Rann where Adam Strange is fighting against monsters from their prehistoric past.  The heroes and villains who doubt what is being said and what they are seeing are sent back to their Earths to see for themselves in order to decide if they can, or will, help.

On Oa, the Green Lantern Corps arrive to find out why the Guardians aren’t responding and why their power rings are not functional.  They find the Guardians in a stasis beam.  Another explosion goes off like what occurred previously that disabled the Guardians.  On Earth 1, the heroes and villains do certainly see that time is completely screwed.  Lois Lane meets the older Superman of Earth 2, Wayne Manor is being mixed with Anthro’s time and people.  Heroes all over the world are reaching out to help fight off dinosaurs and other time-displaced creatures.  In the shadowy villain’s ship, the Flash watches as Red Tornado is being changed into the one thing he was meant to be – a force of nature.

On Earth 2, more confusion reigns as time is being merged there as well.  Supergirl points out that the Legion headquarters of the 30th Century is appearing in the city, but the Legion is not part of Earth 2’s future, only Earth 1.  Additionally, people are seeing relatives who have died, but, in actuality, it is their Earth 1 counterpart, not the actual relative of the Earth 2 resident.  Brainiac 5 is correct in his deduction that time isn’t the only thing getting mixed, but the Earths are merging, and if they aren’t merged properly, they will both be destroyed!

On Earth 1, the heroes soon find themselves under a new attack – from a massive tornado of winds, rain, snow, and lightning.  The Justice Society, mixed with some Earth 1 heroes, try to stop the storm, but are unable.  Sadly, Wildcat, of the Justice Society, is struck by lightning and is taken out of the fight (we will soon discover permanently).  Ultimately, it takes the combined might of sorcerers Zatanna, Thunderbolt, Sargon, and Dr. Fate to stop the tornado.  When the being crashes to the ground, the heroes are stunned to find it is Red Tornado.  Soon, the heroes discover that Wildcat’s legs are shattered and he’s likely to never walk again, but we’re introduced to someone new who helped him, Yolanda Montez (just keep that name in your back pocket for now).  Realizing they are totally up to their eyeballs in a crazy shitstorm of epic proportions, all the heroes agree to help fix the problems and merge the two universes together.

Before the heroes can help save Earths 1 and 2, Alex tells the heroes that there are three other universes outside where they are stationed in the netherverse that the enemy can still access.  They must help save those worlds before the enemy can grow stronger and the new combined universe will be composed of a total of five Earths mixed together.  Before Alex can send the heroes to the first of those worlds, Pariah senses disaster.  The enemy is reaching out and attacking the Monitor’s ship causing it to disintegrate on a whim.  The Flash demands to see his captor face to face.  He probably should not have asked for that because from the shadows emerges the dreaded, and grotesque, Anti-Monitor!

Meanwhile, on Earth X, a planet where World War II has raged for decades, the Freedom Fighters, lead by good ol’ Uncle Sam, sees the anti-matter wall eating away at everything.  They rush to it to do whatever they can to stop its progression…

This is what I’d like to call a “dealing with the problem” issue.  This sort of thing pops up from time to time in events.  This time of issue can be handled well or not so well.  In the case of this particular issue, it’s a matter of the heroes seeing for themselves the effects of the Monitor’s last act.  In the old days, the heroes might have been too eager to throw in to help because they were trusting and, well, dumb.  Also, there could be other times in which heroes would fight one another believing the unknown heroes were the cause of the problem before seeing they were all fighting for the same cause.  So, the formula in the earlier days of comics were simple:  Either make the heroes fight each other until they find the common ground, or just make them all agree right up front that they have to save the planet.  If they go with the second option and were tricked, how could they not stop the bigger evil since good is aces?

By the mid-80s, maybe the heroes were just getting a little more realistic by wanting to make sure what they are being told is what is actually happening before rushing headlong into a trap.  I present a second idea though.  Nowadays, Marvel or DC will produce events that are only six, seven, or eight issues in length.  Add to that fewer pages per issue, and you don’t have time for this business we see in this issue.  Instead, either publisher would release a side mini-series to show the more in-depth actions of the heroes, additional fights, or see how the event itself is affecting the people stuck in the middle.

Some might look at this as a sidetrack to the main story, and I can see where that assertion would be taken.  The heroes are not fighting against the Anti-Monitor’s plans or traveling to another Earth to save what they can before destruction.  However, I will say that it’s a great intro to the second act.  The heroes are now pretty much all gathered and they are not forgetting the people they usually protect.  In the end, they have to realize that fighting dinosaurs isn’t going to save everyone.  It will save a few right now, but the bigger problem is the merging universes.  This part is still told in an upbeat and fast pace.  So it’s still exciting and we get to finally see the Anti-Monitor is his horrible glory.  What we don’t get is the heroes acting on their own without the people in direct danger having any idea what’s going on or a whole bunch of talk and interrogation like we would in series of today (again, thanks to those tie-in issues and side series that help elaborate on stuff).

Well, that’s it for today.  There are only five Earths remaining.  Two are nicely tucked away in a netherverse, but three are still at the mercy of the Anti-Monitor.  It’s time for the heroes to get out there and fight the real monster at the center of this plot to destroy everything!  Come back on Friday and we’ll get into Crisis on Infinite Earths #6!