Dark Crisis Aftermath: Speculation on the Reborn Infinite Multiverse and Dawn of DC


  

Short Recap and Introduction

If you haven't followed my previous posts covering the Infinite Frontier Saga, here they are linked below:
In summary, I've been theorizing and breaking down Joshua Williamson's big plan and overarching story for the DC Universe/Multiverse/Omniverse since the end of Death Metal, managing to correctly predict a decent amount of stuff and accidentally doing so on others. These include:
  • A limited series following up the 0 issue of IF
  • the return of Darkseid's Godhead at his most powerful (teased since Multiversity)
  • the Justice League Incarnate finally getting time to shine (heroes of Multiversity)
  • the return of The Empty Hand (the big bad of Multiversity)
  • ***a connection to The Great Darkness (specifically to Darkseid and something I thought was unlikely)
The saga includes (but is not necessarily limited to):
  • Infinite Frontier #0, Secret Files #1, #1-6
  • Justice League Incarnate #1-5
  • Justice League #75 (Death of the Justice League)
  • Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths (the whole event and tie-ins)
In the lead up to the Crisis, Williamson has IMO done a pretty great job weaving different threads from all over DC history and lore together cohesively as I've covered, from the Birth of the Multiverse as seen in Marv Wolfman and George Perez's COIE and Grant Morrison's Final Crisis and Multiversity, to every Crisis event including the recent "Metal Wars" Saga lead by Scott Snyder and James Tynion. All leading to a Crisis of his own which aimed to give a spotlight to the generational legacy to the DC Universe.

This post will act as a final breakdown of the ending of DCOIE and conclusion to these series of posts. This post is divided into three parts.

Now, onto the show.



I. The Great Darkness Sleeps...


With Pariah and Deathstroke defeated, the Great Darkness was freed back to slumber and the Dark Army scattered as the light of heroes overcame it once more.

Which brings us to the first question: "What was up with the Great Darkness"?

Now, u/Ricky_Ticky_Tangy and I had an interesting discussion in a thread under my Pre-DCOIE post last Easter about Justice League Incarnate's portrayal of the Great Darkness. 

 As the series and my analysis of it described, it was a force of nature that was inherently the source of all nothingness, darkness and evil in creation, the opposite of the benevolent Creator that is the Source/Presence. However, while its relationship with creation and the Presence was established in its original appearance in Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, where it did not consciously will evil but was itself corrupted and manipulated by cultists. He and others saw a disconnect with the many threats of previous Crises and beings like The Empty Hand, Darkseid, the Anti-Life Entity and Mandrakk being its avatars.

My answer then was simply that despite not having conscious will to do so, it is the nature of the "Great Evil Beast" to continue being the source of opposition to the forces and light as its role in the story of creation, the story of superheroes and supervillains which runs on conflict. We similarly don't cast shadows on purpose, it's just a natural result of our existence. In fact, JLI even stated that the GEB was sleeping as these avatars and Crises arose from it. Considering its nature and pre-existence, it makes more sense and fits more than say, Perpetua claiming something similar.

This is mostly covered in JLI and my last post and that thread, but a question remains...

Why does it seem to be actively and consciously manipulating a Crisis now?


As Williamson has hinted, the Deadly Green tie-in, along with the main issues directly preceding and succeeding it, has addressed this and confirmed that Pariah truly was insane and it was his machinery and schizophrenic delusions that again turned the Darkness into a weapon when he made contact with it. This is exactly what Darkseid and the others in the Dark Army were hinted to be racing at. It seems, without knowing it, and believing he is serving it, Pariah did it first and enslaved them with their connections to it. 


But now Pariah is dead, which it seems is exactly what he was hoping for in the first place.With the multiple generations of heroes together, the power of the light of creation given to Dr. Light, the Speed Force, Black Adam truly redeeming himself of his darkness by sharing his magic/divine given powers and Nightwing holding back the darkness with hope and kicking Deathstroke's ass literally and metaphysically, the light won.

Some loose ends remain however.


  • Dr. Light is free exploring the Multiverse with her new power.
  • The Quintessence were resurrected while Jim Corrigan, seemingly resurrected and separated from the Spectre for some time now, is its host once more. I do wonder if Jim's history Pre-Flashpoint, finally going to Heaven and having successors like Post-Parallax Hal Jordan and Crispus Allen. 
  • The Justice League Incarnate are back for good.
  • Oliver Queen is missing. JW has teased his new GA series with a pretty promising image just recently.
  • A new YJ inspired council of Light (itself inspired by iterations of the Secret Society) are here
  • A new Suicide Squad with an evil version of the Composite Green SuperBatlantern
  • Darkseid has returned to Apokolips. Possibly taking his throne back from Orion.
  • The Empty Hand is unaccounted for.
The last two are huge as the most powerful of the Great Darkness' avatars, as illustrated in JLI and put excellently by u/NomadicJaguar64t :

the Empty Hand is the Great Darkness' right hand, Darkseid is the left, thus implying they are equal in power but serve different purposes. The Empty Hand "takes" while Darkseid "destroys"

But of course the big one, is that the Infinite Multiverse is back.




II. The Infinite Multiverse Reborn


Now you may be asking 
  1. How is this is different from the Omniverse? 
  2. Will the Omniverse will still be used from here on? 

What the Totality team at the end of Death Metal called the Omniverse is a Multiverse of Multiverses. Each of these "separate" Multiverses may not be infinite. The local comics Multiverse has had only 52 ever since Infinite Crisis (2006). Multiversity was the first to reveal more Multiverses outside of it, which this saga brought back, revealed as the original and expanded back into infinity.

Other Multiverses in the Omniverse also include: 
  1. A live-action Multiverse as seen in the Arrowverse Crises which also connects to films and TV properties across DC history.
  2. An animated Multiverse as seen in various episodes, movies and tie-in comics featuring the DCAU, the DCAMU, the Tomorrowverse, Young Justice, Teen Titans and TT Go! They've also had some of their own Crises like JL Infinity.
  3. A game multiverse with Injustice, DCUO, Arkhamverse and Gotham Knights.

We actually see the infinite multiverse clashing with the main and other multiverses before stabilizing, so basically they just simplified and consolidated these separated groups of worlds into one organized but limitless group of universes. 

It does look like everything is part of one Multiverse now again. Now that DC Studios is unifying Film and TV for a new reboot, while also making use of games and animation, I can see that being part of this new Multiverse too. Side note, a number of users have suspected this would be the case but I unfortunately can't be sure who exactly they were, so I'll just tag/credit some more people I often discuss and theorize with on this stuff that I have not yet: u/fieldsynuts94, u/Omn1, u/declan5543, u/TheDarkPinkLantern, hope that covers everyone.

Indeed, Dark Crisis: Big Bang by Mark Waid with art by Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund, which acts both as a terrific standalone Multiverse tribute story and as an excellent epilogue to this Crisis, we see a new Multiverse of all kinds of worlds.


Barry Allen and Ace West ran through the Multiverse to find the Anti-Monitor, not seen since Death Metal, and fought him (Barry even brings back the Infinite Mass Punch first seen with Wally in Morrison's JLA) alongside heroes from these worlds, from Earths 11 and 12 to 789 and more!

Wait!

789? That's right, Superman '78 and Batman '89, at least the comic tie-ins to the films that recently released, take place on the same Earth. Plenty of worlds new and old, with indirect or direct ties to other mediums here.

At the end of the issue we're even given a brief catalogue:


Interesting thing to note is that the text is written by Barry himself with some help from Earth 33 comics for citation and labelling. It clarifies that this is a living document to be added to. Really hope to see an expansion of this closer to Multiversity's Guidebook in the future.

Just a quick overview, we have all 52 worlds from before, even those left purposefully blank or destroyed now filled, plus multiple Pre-Crisis based realities, and Elseworlds new and old. Funny enough, the comic itself shows DCeased as Earth 49 but this associates this designation with Injustice and labels the former as Earth-55.



III. Darkest before the Dawn


So now, the darkness has passed and Dawn of DC is here. Another funny thing to take note of was that this was originally "Dawn of the DCU", but they might've changed that because of the DCU coming up. The DCEU and Arrowverse are both coming to an end as well with that. Whatever the case, the future looks towards something new in that area.

Back to comics, there's a lot of great stuff to look forward to. I may or may not have already made a Superman and Batman post respectively on this. Clark and Bruce have been getting some promising new runs just before or during DCOIE which will take leads in this new Dawn initiative. Back to Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths, while reception isn't too high, and I have some of my disappointments as well, I really enjoyed and appreciated what Williamson was going for. Older Jon has some of his best character moments in this event, and it's great to see that Dick and the Titans generation have a big role in this story and what's to come. It certainly helps that I was a fan of all the build up too. Either way the result is something that IMO is great overall. 

And there's a lot to look forward to:
  • Mark Waid and Geoff Johns have already returned doing their things, which actually do tie into Williamson's work as well, and they will continue further from here. The former's World's Finest series with Dan Mora has quickly become one of the best ongoings right now, and he's doing the next event Lazarus Planet coming out of Batman vs Robin, which also leads right into his Shazam book, which potentially brings back more classic Captain Marvel elements. 
  • The latter introduced the Divine Continuum in Flashpoint Beyond and is working on the New Golden Age books with the JSA and Stargirl.
  • Phillip Kennedy Johnson is leading a new era for Superman with his continuation of his phenomenal Action Comics run, while Joshua Williamson joins in with Superman going back to its roots as a book focused on Clark in the Metropolis. Dan Jurgens is doing back-ups on AC while Tom Taylor's going to do a 6 issue mini concluding his work on Jon with Val-Zod and Ultraman featured.
  • Chip Zdarsky and Ram V just started their Batman and Detective Comics runs and have hit their stride, bringing back and expanding on old concepts while introducing new ones.
Before I get into too much unnecessary detail though, I think this is a good place to finish. Another conclusion for a series of posts like this. I'd like to once again thank all the users I've mentioned above as well as anyone I've missed and mentioned prior. Special thanks as well to u/SuperDidioPrime for nominating my last post. 

Never thought I'd end up here just a few years ago, but then came Doomsday Clock, 3 Jokers and more. I am getting busier and busier these days though. It'll be hard for me to keep regularly making these posts on contemporary comics when I can barely keep up. But I'll definitely still make posts for my blog and share them on Reddit and Twitter where I'll be as always.

In the meantime here's links to two other posts I just did to make up for not being able to make any since April:

Thanks for reading.



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