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As the events of the Infinite Crisis rage on, the Man of
Steel is locked in a desperate battle - with himself - and
the very fate of our reality is at stake! Superboy of Earth-Prime,
the Golden-Age Superman of Earth-Two and Alexander Luthor
of Earth-Three have hatched a desperate plan to break out
of the limbo dimension that has been their home since the
Crisis on Infinite Earths. But as Superman clashes with Superman,
the shockwaves ripple through the fabric of reality and begin
to alter history. This no-holds-barred brawl will change the
Man of Steel forever...
Well, I wouldn't exactly call it an Infinite Crisis,
would you? I mean, the Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline
of the mid-1980s involved a large number of parallel worlds,
but this volume deals with just two: Earth-One (the world
of "our" Superman) and Earth-Two (the former home of the "original"
Golden-Age Superman, Kal-L). Perhaps this book should have
been called Crisis on a Couple of Earths?
So,
how is Earth-Two brought back into being, given that every
single alternate world coalesced into one at the end of Crisis
on Infinite Earths? Er, well, I'm not really sure. How
is Superboy-Prime able to influence the nature of reality
as he punches his way out of limbo? This book doesn't really
go into specifics, beyond the fact that Alexander Luthor believes
it to be "miraculous". How are the two Earths brought back
into a state of singularity? To find that out, you'll need
to read the companion volume simply entitled Infinite
Crisis. If I were in charge of DC Comics or
Titan Books, I would have considered extracting the Superman-related
pages and presented them as part of this compilation. As it
is, we don't even get one of those "our story so far" recaps
at the beginning of the next volume, Up, Up and Away!
However,
we do get an explanation as to why Superman didn't bring World
War II to a speedy resolution all those decades ago. This
is something that the 1940 strip What if Superman Ended
the War? (recently reprinted in Superman:
The Greatest Stories Ever Told) failed to clarify.
We learn this as the two Men of Steel experience each other's
version of history and begin to reshape those histories as
they see fit. This is where the graphic novel truly comes
into its own. If you think the modern-day Superman has been
too namby-pamby and has done too much agonising soul-searching
of late, then you'll identify with the Earth-Two Kal-L's hard-line,
black-or-white approach to the corruption he perceives on
Earth-One. It soon becomes clear, though, that Kal-L is too
far right of centre for comfort. (I wonder, could his history-altering
influence have been behind the Man of Steel's overly aggressive
and cocky stance, which I commented upon in my review of The
Wrath of Gog?) Ultimately, both Supermen come
to realise that their respective worlds are doomed whatever
happens.
We
are also offered an explanation for why so many DC heroes
have experienced forms of death and rebirth since the early
1990s. Apparently it's all to do with the fact that the singular
Earth never fully settled following the Crisis on Infinite
Earths.
Illustrated
by a seemingly infinite number of artists, this is a great
book. But be warned: you will need to read the separate volume
Infinite Crisis in order to fully grasp what is going
on.
Richard
McGinlay
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