INFINITE CRISIS: Annotations *SPOILERS*

[Morgan Wick]

Peter Svensson's super-informative - maybe too informative - annotations for Infinite Crisis have not been seen since issue #2. Partly because of that, I've decided to give you the annotations I've been working on since the series started.

These are heavily inspired by Johnathan Woodward's Crisis on Infinite Earths annotations, and use many of the same conventions. I use Woodward's Issue.Page.Panel numbering system. For example, this now-infamous image is taken from 5.20.8. Whenever I refer to events in the original Crisis, I will use "CoIE" followed by the Issue.Page.Panel. People from alternate Earths are given first by their name, followed by the coding Woodward gave Earths in his annotations. For example, Kal-L is referred to as Superman-E2. The major exceptions are Superboy-Prime and Lois Lane-Kent, the latter of which would normally be called Lois Lane-E2. Many "legacy" heroes are referred to by their "real" name, not their sequence. This is most noticable with Green Lanterns; I will often refer to "Green Lantern John Stewart". (I actually won't, at least not all that often, but it's just an example.) For non-GL cases, this is because some names (Firestorm, for example) have extremely convoluted histories. I try to explain how I'm breaking down panels if it's unclear for some reason.

I must give a heaping helping of thanks to the annotations provided by Newsarama and, through issue #2, Peter Svensson. Some early annotations are a bit awkward, because I wrote this as I went along in reading IC and changed things piecemeal as new things were revealed. Feel free to correct any errors and fill in the many "don't know"'s, as well as make suggestions and add miscellaneous info I missed. If you have ANYTHING to contribute that I don't have, simply post a reply. I am NOT doing annotations for 52.

All annotations are version 1.0. Previous versions exist, but I give them all numberings of 0.x, and I don't know what those numbers are. I didn't keep track of those numbers.

UPDATE: Big changes occur in the hardcover, and I've upgraded the annos to Version 2.0 and consider them nominally complete, pending future contributions.

The #1 annos are very heavy on explaining all the stuff that has happened since CoIE. I explain the plots of all the lead-in series save VILLAINS UNITED, because the Six don't show up at all in the series proper, so the plot of that series is nearly immaterial.

[Morgan Wick]

Issue #1
Writer: Geoff Johns
Penciller: Phil Jimenez
Inker: Andy Lanning
Colorists: Jeremy Cox and Guy Major
Letterer: Nick J. Napolitano
Asst. Editor: Jeanine Schaefer
Editor: Eddie Berganza
Special Thanks To: Greg Rucka
And eternal gratitude to MARV WOLFMAN and GEORGE PEREZ for building the foundation that all super-hero epics have come from

Plot Summary: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman investigate the disappearance of J’onn J’onzz and the destruction of the Justice League Watchtower. While Donna Troy is recruiting people to investigate New Cronus, OMACs are everywhere, while Rann and Thanagar continue to fight each other. The Rock of Eternity is destroyed, Captain Marvel is badly injured, and the Spectre is loose. Uncle Sam leads a new group of Freedom Fighters into an installation, but they walk into an ambush of the Society. Meanwhile, Mongul attacks the three assembled heroes on the Watchtower, and they ultimately defeat him, but they are at odds after the events that have wracked their lives. Watching all this, Alexander Luthor, Superman of Earth-2, Lois Lane-Kent, and Superboy of Earth-Prime – who left all reality at the end of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS (in CoIE 12.38.14) – decide to make a trip to Earth… to ensure it may still survive.

1.LeeCover: OMACs, Cheetah, Deathstroke, probably Captain Comet, Spectre, probably Black Adam, one of the Hawks, Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman.

1.PerezCover: (cracks knuckles) First Row: Hawkman, Kyle Rayner, Superboy, Superman, Supergirl, Adam Strange, Hawkgirl. Second Row: bunch of OMACs, Wonder Girl II, Donna Troy, Wonder Woman, Spectre, Batman, Nightwing, Robin, Starfire (look close). In Batman’s cape: Psycho-Pirate II, Dr. Light, Deathstroke, Dr. Polaris, Black Adam, Bizarro, Cheetah, Zoom, Sinestro. Even more detailed covers are to come from Perez.

Before I begin, I must warn you, it's been a while since #1, so you may be confused at first!

[Morgan Wick]

1.1.1: Crisis on Infinite Earths started with the Big Bang. Not this version…

1.1.2: “They’ve forgotten, haven’t they?” Given who the narrator is later revealed to be, re-reading this with an eye to CoIE makes you want to say “You think? It only took you 20 years to figure out, real-time.”

1.1.3: Continued from ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #645. Superman had just been in a fight with another villain when he received the distress call from the Watchtower.

1.2-3.1: JLA #119 ended with the destruction of the Watchtower by someone who had a red cape and registered on the computers as Superman. The Manhunter was inside and seemed to take the full face of the explosion. His identity is revealed in #3.

1.2-3.4: Batman, it was revealed in the lead-up to this series, built a spy satellite to watch over his fellow heroes after figuring out the Justice League once mindwiped him. The latter revelation came in IDENTITY CRISIS, the big event of the previous year.

1.2-3.6: I don’t know why Wonder Woman is wearing a blue cape. But you have to admit, it is neat the way the Big Three are all wearing contrasting capes.

1.2-3.10: Yes, that is Mongul watching our heroes. (Well, the real Mongul died, and this is actually his son, but we’ll leave that for another time…)

1.4.1: This originally occurred in WONDER WOMAN #219, the final part of the Sacrifice storyline, in which Superman, under the control of Max Lord (the guy being killed), attacked Batman, believing him to be his enemies putting Lois Lane in danger. “Sacrifice” was part of the storyline of OMAC PROJECT, one of the four miniseries leading up to this event, which Max Lord was originally in charge of. After Lord’s death, the spy satellite, which Lord had (seemingly) controlled, became autonomous and began preparations for an all-out assault of the OMACs, humans infected with nanomachines that turned them into robots. After that plan was defeated, he broadcasted Lord’s death to the world, completely contextless, and this panel is from that broadcast.

1.4.2: This Superboy was introduced in the “Death of Superman” event, as one of the pretenders to Superman’s throne. He became popular enough to stay around a while. His status quo at this time had been shaken up with the revelation that Lex Luthor had contributed his DNA to him in order to create a sleeper agent to destroy Superman. That revelation occurred in “The Insiders,” a brief cross-over between TEEN TITANS and THE OUTSIDERS early in the lead-up to this event.

1.4.3: This scene is from TEEN TITANS #30. That’s Wonder Girl II in the foreground. The pterodactyl is Beast Boy (How often does he turn into a pterodactyl anyway?), and the blue cape could be Raven’s. (Yes, Changeling’s back to “Beast Boy” now. Blame the Teen Titans cartoon…) The sky, you’ll notice, is vaguely red throughout this book.

1.4.5: Three OMACs and Robin III.

1.4.6: “Luthor didn’t clone me to help people.” Yet until very recently, that’s precisely what you’ve been doing.

1.5.3: A reference to SUPERMAN #224.

1.5.4: No clue whatsoever what this is referring to.

1.5.5: This is pretty much everything that’s been going on for about six months (or at least, everything from recent stories in about four titles). Top, first row: Don’t know, some Green Lantern’s fist, Aquaman, OMAC, Aquaman fighting OMACs, Aquagirl III. Second row: Don’t know, Green Lantern-Hal Jordan, Heatwave, Connor Kent, Flash III fighting Weather Wizard, Flash III. Bottom: Some explosion, Kid Flash II, Captain Boomerang II, Captain Cold. As for the silhouettes: Based on the shapes at the end, I think the one on the left is Alexander Luthor, followed by Lois. Superboy-Prime and Superman-E2 look so alike, though… I suspect Superboy-Prime is the third one. That one can’t be Superman-E2, certainly, because he’s the narrator and he wouldn’t be reacting to his own comment. As for the comment on Superboy, it turns out to be an interesting prophecy.

1.6-9: In his own series, Nightwing was changing costumes and working undercover for Deathstroke; this is therefore a somewhat confusing scene. Of course, Nightwing's own title was about the only thing that even recognized those events...

1.6.1: “Vic” refers to Vic Stone, aka Cyborg, who’s not there. “Kory,” of course, is Starfire, who is.

1.6.2: This Supergirl had been introduced very recently, in the second story arc of Jeph Loeb’s SUPERMAN/BATMAN. There were, at the time, a lot of doubts about her true origins, which appeared to be pretty much the same as the pre-Crisis Supergirl. Her ongoing title was swirling about these developments. (By SUPERGIRL #5, it was effectively established that her origins just needed fleshing out a little.)

1.6.3: “You just came back to us, Donna.” Donna Troy had died in “Graduation Day,” which replaced the Titans (consisting of former Teen Titans) and Young Justice (consisting of Superboy, Robin III, Impulse/Kid Flash II, and Wonder Girl II, essentially a third generation of heroes) with the Teen Titans (mostly the latter group, with former Titans picked to coincide with the then-ongoing Teen Titans cartoon, though Starfire was with the Outsiders by the time of “The Insiders”) and the Outsiders (Nightwing, Arsenal, and mostly a continuation of the tradition of the original series). She’d come back, deluded by the Titans of Myth, in the recent mini-series DC SPECIAL: THE RETURN OF DONNA TROY, which basically revealed yet another origin for Donna, which basically said all the origins she’d ever had were true, and she was a bizarre refugee of the Multiverse, as well as the entity who’d tormented her over the years, Dark Angel, who was originally the Anti-Monitor’s Harbinger. She’d been given Harbinger’s HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE (Harbinger herself had died in the aforementioned Supergirl story) and learned of the chaos we are now seeing. Which brings us to this meeting…

1.6.5-8: I’m not sure why Dick isn’t joining them. Donna “needs to get who [she] can,” according to 1.6.4, and why would Nightwing just let Starfire take off without him? He doesn’t up and say “Bludhaven needs me more.” (And it’s going to need him a lot more. See issue #4.)

1.6.9: That’s a “Travel Sphere” of the Titans of Myth (thanks to Peter Svensson). It’s going to take Donna’s group up to New Cronus, until recently the home of the Titans of Myth, where they’re going to investigate… something… inside. (Newsarama gave me the idea to add this annotation.)

1.7.3-5: This was pretty much the conceit of OMAC PROJECT: a bunch of ordinary humans are turned into nano-powered killing machines. How the heroes defeat them without harming the humans inside was a central conflict of the later part of the OMAC series. (In OMAC PROJECT #6, Batman set off a huge electromagnetic pulse on them, and the satellite was hijacked to send a turn-off command, but “Brother Eye” won’t let that happen again.)

1.7.6: Doesn't that gas mask look like that of Sandman I, at least at first? I have never heard of the “Ratcatcher”, but apparently he was an old Batman villain. He controlled rats. That’s about it. He probably hasn’t actually looked behind him, since 1.4.4 has established that the OMACs, and even their names, are public knowledge. Those OMACs have wonderful-looking arms…

1.7.7: Ratcatcher dies.

1.7.9-10: Protocol “Truth and Justice” is Brother Eye’s plan to eliminate the Amazons, as revealed next issue. I love what Newsarama had to say about this. "OMAC 24534 - you are ordered to Gotham City immediately!" "Uh, Brother I, OMAC 24534 is busy...with his elimination program right now....can OMAC 24534 have five more minutes?”

1.8-9: Nice poster, eh? I don’t know why it says the Project is “complete,” though. Elsewhere, however, various missions are called “projects.”

1.10-11: Another nice poster. This is a look at the RANN/THANAGAR WAR, another lead-in miniseries. Left to right, front row: Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Prince Gavyn Starman (thanks to Peter Svensson), Adam Strange, Kilowog, Kyle Rayner. Everything else is mostly warriors of Rann, but the red guy without a helmet is Captain Comet. Thanagar is invading in all the ships, though look closely and you’ll see some Hawkmen. That strange light, though, was created by neither side (though Thanagar thinks it was created by Rann). We’ll find out who did create it, and why, later. Polaris (which is really a star, not a galaxy – the North Star, to be precise) was the home of Thanagar, but “Sh'r Valkyr” moved Rann into it. That destroyed Thanagar (with a little help from Superboy-Prime, as is learned later), but Kyle and ‘Wog managed to restore it. They’re fighting on Rann now, though. (Adding that was inspired by Newsarama.)

1.12.3: L.E.G.I.O.N. works by being paid by planets to serve as the police, unlike the "we-protect-everyone-for-free" GLC, so they probably don’t like the GLC too much… (Thanks to Peter Svensson and Paul Newell.)

1.12.7: Guy is on Oa, but it's not obvious that he's the one in 1.12.6.

1.12.8: Why would the tear in reality over Rann be the center of the universe? We find out in issue #4.

1.12.9: Yes, that is a female Guardian behind the male. I don’t want to get into all the crap the GLC and Guardians have gone through since about 1992-3… suffice it to say that Superman-E2’s statement on “billions of years” is not quite accurate. We, of course, will also find out about the ends to which the universe is being screwed up in #4.

[Morgan Wick]

1.13.1: This coincides with the very end of another lead-in miniseries, DAY OF VENGEANCE, where the Spectre, seduced by Eclipso in the body of Jean Loring (Atom’s wife, who killed Elongated Man’s wife Sue Dibny in IDENTITY CRISIS, the big event of the previous year), declared war on all magic and sought to destroy it. A hastily-assembled team calling itself the Shadowpact got rid of Eclipso, but the Spectre at this moment is killing Shazam in there, which is why the Rock of Eternity is over Gotham.

1.13.2: Hmm. That’s Scarface there with the machine gun, but the dispatcher doesn’t mention him…and come to think of it, where’s the Ventriloquist?

1.13.5: Renee Montoya is the gal, Crispus Allen the guy, both players in the GOTHAM CENTRAL book, where Montoya was revealed to be lesbian. Yes, there is a Jim Corrigan in the Gotham PD. He was originally introduced in the pages of GOTHAM CENTRAL. With a name like that, you know something’s going to happen… (but not to him, to someone else in this scene.)

1.13.7: Riddler had actually been retconned so he wasn’t this lame. Shame…

1.14-15.1: Also in DAY OF VENGEANCE #6, Bill Willingham treated us to a nice teaser of Billy Batson falling off a building, unable to remember his magic word. We learn here that he comes out okay…

1.14-15.5: …kinda. The Wizard, of course, is Shazam. Since Cap wasn’t in the Rock of Eternity, I don’t know why he knows what’s happened. Some sort of mystic link?

1.14-15.6: I don’t really know who the little gremlins are. General consensus holds them to be the Seven Deadly Sins, or the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man – names conflict – who were released in – you guessed it – DAY OF VENGEANCE #6, but this doesn’t really look like the way they appeared there. Some speculated that the Bat-signal on Spectre’s chest is smart foreshadowing. Some people read way too much into things.

1.16.2: The new Freedom Fighters. From left to right, Human Bomb, Phantom Lady II, Uncle Sam, Black Condor II, the Ray II, Damage. Mostly the names of Quality characters, which seems fitting. Yes, this is the same Human Bomb from World War II.

1.16.5: Human Bomb is scaring me with how much he knows. He even seems to know the circumstances of Wonder Woman’s act. But just in case you were losing track of some things that hadn’t come up in a while…

1.17.4: Damage and Human Bomb have very similar powers.

1.17.7: Black Condor II dies.

1.18-19: Left to right, Dr. Light, Dr. Polaris, Deathstroke, Black Adam, Psycho-Pirate II, Sinestro, Bizarro, Cheetah, Zoom. As with the original Crisis, Psycho-Pirate will be a key figure. This Zoom is actually from this time period. (Zoom is the one with the reverse-Flash costume. I say that because I’ve seen two annotations that have Zoom before Cheetah.) This is from the new Society, the subject of VILLAINS UNITED, the final lead-in miniseries, led by Lex Luthor – but not the real Luthor. We’ll soon find out who he really is.

1.20.1-3: Wonder Woman’s attitude here, in 1.26, and in 1.28-29, is inconsistent with issues of her own comic published contemporaneously. In those issues, she was quick to give herself up to The Hague for killing Max Lord.

1.20.7: Despero was the one who briefly mind-controlled the League into fighting each other in “Crisis of Conscience,” the storyline in JLA that ended in #119. The main plot involved Despero restoring the memories of the original Secret Society of Super-Villains. Sounds like he also has Mongul on speed dial. Newsarama imagined the conversation went something like this: “Hey, Mon? It’s Desper – I’m here on earth, and you’ll never believe who’s having a bad day…what? You want to try? Okay, go ahead. No, Green Lantern’s doing okay. No…Flash is okay, too…oh for God’s sake, it’s the JLA – just get down here, and you can probably kick some ass. Okay? Later.”

1.21.4-5: “You’ll all be str-r-r-ronger heroes. Ifyousurvive.” Which, of course, they won’t. Zoom certainly is a follower of Nietzsche…

1.21.7: One overly-sexed-up, inappropriately-attired super-woman taking out another. How many minds were messed up by this?

1.21.11: Phantom Lady II dies.

1.23.7: Doctor Polaris dies.

1.24.4: Note that from here on, Bizarro doesn’t have his “Bizarro #1” tag.

1.24.7: Human Bomb dies.

1.24.10: You gotta love Bizarro. This is why they brought him back. He killed a guy, he has blood on his hands, and what’s his reaction? “No more pretty lights.”

1.25.2-5: A clear homage to Alan Moore’s classic “For the Man Who Has Everything.” When stuff like this keeps happening, you wonder why any Mongul would even bother…

1.26.1: A lot of people said Wonder Woman’s position would be “willing to kill” after Lord’s death. Other people, more rationally, said, “Don’t automatically assume she’s going to go bloodthirsty because she killed one man.” The rational group bows.

1.26.2: Then again, Greg Rucka had a slightly different take: “Superman catching the blade prevents anyone from knowing Diana's intention; Superman catches the blade because he believes he knows the intent--not because he does know the intent.” Props to [URL=http://www.comicbloc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12324&page=1]. Well, considering the blade stopped inches from Mongul’s face…

1.26.3-4: Finally, we learn what she WAS going to do. Originally, Wonder Woman only says "What did you think I was going to do?" In the hardcover, she continues "Kill him? I was going to pin him to the floor." With a sword?

1.27.3: Yes, this is a very strange and confusing panel. See 1.27.8. Also see 1.30.7 for a panel possibly more confusing.

1.27.5-7: Notice how Damage is the only one for whom a fate is not really hinted at here. We only learn in 2.7.5 that he is left in “critical condition,” but he doesn’t look beat up here.

1.27.8: Ray is a potential power source for the Society’s plans to mindwipe the heroes (=bring back the multiverse). In VILLAINS UNITED, they tried to do the same with Firestorm.

1.27.10: No clue what’s going on here. Uncle Sam's fate is never revealed in this series.

1.28-29: In the hardcover, shots of "Uncle Sam getting the crap beaten out of him by the Society, then shot by Deathstroke" (Paul Newell) are interspersed throughout this spread.

1.28-29.2-3: One of the conceits of the Perez revamp was that Wonder Woman came to Earth as Princess Diana of Themyscira, spreading a message of peace, only called “Wonder Woman” by the press. Throughout most of her appearances in the DCU in the intervening 20 years, most of its heroes, unless they were neophytes like Rayner, called her Diana, not Wonder Woman. This move is therefore quite significant.

1.28-29.5: Lord murdered Ted Kord, aka Blue Beetle II, in COUNTDOWN TO INFINITE CRISIS, the big promotional book for the lead-in series.

1.28-29.8: Batman is going to be fun in this series because he’s so paranoid.

1.28-29.9: According to "constant", this is "printed a panel below" in the HC, whatever that means in this context.

1.28-29.9-12: This pretty much sums up the state of the relationship between the Trinity.

1.28-29.13-15: Having been mind-controlled by Max Lord, Superman’s a little insecure here. Then again, even though Superman and Wonder Woman are about the same level of power, Wonder Woman wasn’t raised by an old couple in Kansas.

1.30.3-4: Harsh words. The Death of Superman was as far back as ’92. Then again, Superman really hadn’t done much since then, other than getting his powers robbed by major continuity events, turning into two bizarre energy beings, turning into a megalomaniac dictator... etc. You get the idea. (Although you do have to wonder if the DCU maybe takes him for granted, even after his death? He had turned up in several DC multititle "events" in sizeable roles during that 13-year span.)

1.30.7: This is a very quick cross-cut back to the Freedom Fighters, and it seems out of place (though less so in the hardcover). Dan DiDio later explained it as “represent[ing] the moment where the spirit of our heroes lied broken.” I don’t think Uncle Sam is dead, however, in part due to later ambiguity. On the other hand, he was only recently resurrected after being destroyed not long after World War II.

1.31.1: That has to be Superboy that’s second-from-left. Alexander Luthor doesn’t seem very complimentary towards the United States (which foreshadows the revelations about him to come), given how he puts “great” in quotes and refers to it as “their” country (which actually seems to foreshadow Superman-E2’s skepticism on this Earth in general next issue, and the revelations about him to come), and I love how vague he is about whether or not Sam’s actually dead. Most of the shots on the screen appear to be from earlier in the issue. First row: 1.20.7, unclear, 1.10-11.1, 1.14-15.6. Second row: 1.8-9.1, 1.30.7, 1.5.2, 1.30.2.

1.31.4: “We can even save her.” “She” might not seem to be Lois Lane-Kent, but as revealed next issue, she does need saving. #5 reveals that Alex Luthor is lying through his teeth.

1.31.6-9: A nice little “echo” of the end of the Multiverse from CoIE 10.26.4-5. (But see Jonathan Woodward’s annotation for CoIE 12.38.14. The “other place” was supposed to be inescapable. Conversely, we learn later that two people in this group have been escaping for a while.)

1.32: One thing is consistent with CoIE, though – we are off with a bang! Left to right: Alexander Luthor, Superboy-Prime, Superman-E2, Lois Lane-Kent.

[Morgan Wick]

Issue #2: “The Survivors”
Writer: Geoff Johns
Penciller: Phil Jimenez
Inkers: Andy Lanning with Norm Rapund, Marlo Alquiza & Lary Stucker
Colorists: Jeremy Cox & Guy Major
Letterer: Nick J. Napolitano
Asst. Editor: Jeanine Schaefer
Editor: Eddie Berganza
Special thanks to Greg Rucka

Plot Summary: Power Girl is attacked by the Society, but is rescued by Earth-2 Superman, who takes her to a cave in the Arctic. There, she meets Superboy-Prime and Alexander Luthor, as Superman-E2 tells the story of the Multiverse, as well as the story of the single universe following from CoIE. He then reveals that Lois Lane-Kent is dying. Booster Gold re-arrives in the twenty-first century, and learns he’s too late to save the Watchtower, but he has to stay, so he goes to Earth to pick up the Blue Beetle Scarab. Lois Lane-Kent touches Power Girl, and at that instant all her memories of the multiverse finally return. Batman scans the black box but is interrupted by Brother Eye, who warns Batman that the trick he used to disable the OMACs will not work again. The remaining OMACs converge on Paradise Island and attack. Superman-E2 reveals that Lois was affected by the trip to this Earth, and that the world, somehow, is corrupted: everyone is joyless, and “heroes” mindwipe and kill. He then tells Power Girl that “This corrupted and darkened Earth must be forgotten as ours was… …so that the right Earth can return.”

2.LeeCover: Left to right, Lois Lane-Kent, Superman-E2, Power Girl, Alexander Luthor, Superboy-Prime. Note that Power Girl’s… assets… are quite pronounced on both covers.

2.PerezCover: Power Girl, apparently in a shot from the opposite direction as the Lee Cover (although her pose is slightly different). As to the images in front of her, most of them appear to be from CoIE, and a significant number appear, with little alteration, in 2.14-19. Check the key from the Geoff Johns board. My notes: Atom apparently comes from CoIE #8. The shot of Oa is a view of 1.12.6. The shot of Harbinger and the Monitor is probably a view from early in CoIE 1. The section referred to as “Flash of Two Worlds” is the actual cover to FLASH #123. “A Death in the Family” is Batman holding Jason Todd’s lifeless form. The JLA/JSA Crossover is from JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #21, according to Paul Newell. The shot of Human Bomb, with Damage behind him, is a modified version of 1.17.4. Superman's birthing matrix from MAN OF STEEL appears to be in some doubt. Max Lord killing Blue Beetle II is right out of COUNTDOWN TO INFINITE CRISIS. “Death of Superman” directly shows Superman being killed by Doomsday. The Luthor shown is Battlesuit Luthor (more on him later). There is speculation that “The Hand” is a reference to JLA/AVENGERS, not directly to CoIE; it’s a shot of 2.14.4. The shot of “Earth 1 Superman and Lois Lane entering Earth 3 Alexander Luthor's limbo with the Earth Prime Superboy” appears to be a view of CoIE 12.38.7-11, but the actual panel never appears in that sequence. Conner Kent looks a lot like his “father”, doesn’t he? Brother Eye, of course, is what’s referred to as the “Modern Day OMAC Satellite,” and the “Modern Age OMAC Cyborg” appears to just be the eye logo. Basically the entire DC Universe from 1960 to today on one cover. (Whew!)

[Morgan Wick]

2.1.1: The red skies from last issue are gone. On every other present-day panel without Superman-E2 in this issue, the red skies are still there, so this is apparently an error. San Diego sunk into the sea and became “Sub Diego” in AQUAMAN, but only the part “from the zoo to the ocean” (a poster on Newsarama) is actually gone. (See 3.1.1.)

2.1.5: Every Grant Morrison fan in the room just fainted.

2.1.7: Maxine and Cliff, Buddy’s kids. They haven’t been seen since the Vertigo ANIMAL MAN ended. Here, they don’t appear to have aged a bit since Morrison left. Color error: Maxine’s overalls were pink in 2.1.3.

2.1.8: When original host of Monday Night Football, Howard Cosell, called someone a “little monkey,” he wasn’t host of Monday Night Football anymore, even though he did pretty much precisely this.

2.2-3.5: See 1.6.1.

2.2-3.7: See 1.12.8. Sideways: Cyborg, Animal Man. Floating, left to right only: Firestorm (more on him later), Bumblebee, Donna Troy, Starfire. Look closely: the guy with the blue cape is Red Tornado II, not Supergirl. If you look closely below Starfire and Red Tornado, to the right of Starfire, you can see Shift (thanks to Peter Svensson; see 2.2-3.9 annotation for my original source). The guy below Bumblebee is her husband Mal Duncan, according to Newsarama.

2.2-3.8: Air Wave II. He also had this problem in JSA #77, where Donna recruited him. In that issue, it was believed that Donna alone was causing his problems, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

2.2-3.9: Shift (according to Newsarama), Alan Scott (see below), Air Wave II, Jade.

2.2-3.10: Alan Scott joined along with Air Wave.

2.2-3.11: This actually isn’t the classic Raymond/Stein Firestorm. Ronnie Raymond died in IDENTITY CRISIS. This is Jason Rusch. Mick, apparently, is his roommate, merged Raymond/Stein style with Rusch.

2.2-3.13-14: The new Supergirl was being played as a novice to Earth ways, though not so much in her own title.

2.2-3.14: Okay, this stretches the bounds of the credible a bit.

2.4.1-3: This refers to Power Girl, and apparently this Earth, but some details seem off. The headline in panel 1 originally appeared in JSA: CLASSIFIED #4, according to Peter Svensson.

2.4.2: Continued from JSA: CLASSIFIED #4. In the story in JSA: CLASSIFIED #1-4, Psycho-Pirate II bombarded Power Girl with false origins, then revealed her true origin: she was a refugee from Earth-2, but why she survived the folding of the Multiverse was unclear. You’ll often see lazy writers write down abbreviations for characters in dialogue, but I’ve never seen it spelled out like that.

2.4.5: See 1.27.8; also 3.28-29.9.

2.4.6: Left to right, not counting Power Girl, Clayface III (number from Newsarama), Giganta, Girder, Mr. Atom. (Last two per Newsarama, though Peter Svensson claims Girder is Shrapnel – he’s uncertain about it, though – and I thought he was Blockbuster at first. (shrug))

2.5.5: Notice the sky was red in 2.4.3, 2.4.5, 2.5.3, and 2.5.4, all before this panel, but it’s blue in 2.5.6, 2.5.8, and 2.6, after this panel. Wasn’t Superman-E2 explained as getting his powers not from a yellow sun, but from innate powers of Kryptonians?

2.5.6-7: Superman-E2 may not have been as powerful as Superman-E1, but he’s still pretty powerful!

2.5.7: Mr. Atom dies. (So says Newsarama.)

2.5.8: Psycho-Pirate II still remembers the Multiverse, remember. However, he didn’t witness Superman-E2’s passage to his “heaven,” so since we can’t see his expression, we can’t tell what his reaction really is. We find out later that he is probably very aware of his original fate.

2.6: Superman-E2 and Power Girl are reunited.

2.7.1: Doctor Polaris is confirmed dead.

2.7.3: Don’t worry, this isn’t the Earth-2 version of Lois. “Our” Lois married Clark to coincide with the wedding on LOIS AND CLARK, remember.

2.7.5: What a convenient bit of exposition from Perry. (Wait until you hear Superman-E2 and Brother Eye later this issue.) Again ambiguous: Sam is “missing.”

2.7.6: I guess the Society isn’t as “secret” as we would like to believe, if Perry’s just tossing them out there…

2.8.1: Ever notice how many Daily Planet headlines have to do with Superman? But you already knew that. The three covers next to each other that Clark is facing have to do with the Death of Superman; the others for which any words can be seen are related to, from left to right, the four fake Supermen prior to his return, the Superman Red/Blue period, CoIE, and a side event during Superman’s return that would have far-reaching consequences for another franchise… (With help from Peter Svensson.)

2.8.2-3: Clark is referring to the line in 1.30.3-4.

2.8.6: “It’s time for the action!” Not quite “Up, up, and away,” is it? (This panel and 1.32 are “homages” to Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez.)

2.8.7: And the red skies are back again, even though they seemed to be gone in 2.7.1. In 2.26-7, you also have a top-down shot with no apparent red skies, but the redness is definitely there.

2.9: The Luthor here is who I call “Society Luthor,” the business suit-clad man who runs the Society. He is a doppelganger of the true Luthor, and is revealed in #3 to actually be Alexander Luthor.

2.9.7: The silhouette behind Society Luthor has been speculated to be his co-conspirator, who will be made clear at the end of #3, but it's unclear here, probably for good reason. The mindwipe machine is the reason for bringing in the Ray and Power Girl. It turns out, though, that mindwiping isn’t what it’s really for.

2.9.8: Black Adam, like the Marvels, obtained his powers from the Wizard Shazam, a key plot point in #4.

2.10.1: What this is about, I don’t know, but it appears to be continued from the previous page. If it refers to Black Adam, however, that's mind-blowing. Adam's ties are far from "tenuous".

2.10.2-3: This is the true Luthor, who I call “Battlesuit Luthor.” In SUPERMAN #224, his plane was shot down by an OMAC, and he had to fight off it and three others.

2.10.4-5: See 3.22.2.

2.10.6-7: Battlesuit Luthor spotting Superman-E2 and Power Girl means something, but I don’t quite know what. It may have to do with the revelations of #3.

2.11.1: I would expect Power Girl to immediately write off Superman-E2 as another one of Psycho-Pirate’s duplicates, but she just follows him and half-believes everything he says.

2.12-13.2-3: Superboy-Prime and Alexander Luthor are properly introduced to new readers.

2.12-13.5: Psycho-Pirate made this same point about Power Girl. All of the characters that left for Luthor’s “heaven” were made redundant by the single Earth, with Alexander Luthor himself the only possible exception. My bet? Note that almost all the redundant characters that were eliminated in CoIE were actually killed if they were at the Dawn of Time; they didn’t just vanish.

2.12-13.10: This sort of use of “reality” and “the universe” as a thin veil for “the creators” was also used for the revelation of Donna Troy’s true origin in THE RETURN OF DONNA TROY. It kind of gets a chuckle out of me.

[Morgan Wick]

2.14-19: This sequence was drawn by George Perez (and inked by Jerry Ordway, per Peter Svensson), who isn’t credited in the back but is on the front cover. Dan DiDio later apologized for the omission. The story of how Krona caused the creation of the Multiverse was also told in CoIE #7.

2.14.5: Identical to CoIE 1.1.3. Many of the other shots in this sequence are probably from CoIE as well, but I (sadly) don’t have a copy.

2.14.7-8: See Perez Cover.

2.15.2: Yes, the Luthor Superman-E1 is fighting there looks just like Battlesuit Luthor, which also just so happens to be the way Luthor-E1 looked at the time of CoIE. (Peter Svensson points out that almost every flashback to Luthor-E1 in modern times involves that battlesuit, even though he only started wearing it in 1980.)

2.15.3-4: This, of course, is oversimplified; the JSA was formed in the 1940s, the JLA in the 1960s, even in the multiverse. 2.15.3 is taken from the cover to ALL-STAR COMICS #3; 2.15.4 adapts that image for Earth-1.

2.15.6: “We were polite enough to let that go, even if we came first.” I love this reference to the rantings of fans of the Golden Age who don’t like the misnomer way the Earths were named. (Among other things, this has been used as a rationale for why CoIE was necessary.) Superman-E2’s chronology here, placing the naming of the earths – and especially the letting-go – before “Crisis on Earth-1” and “Crisis on Earth-2” (from which this panel is from), may be correct for publishing history but not for continuity history.

2.16.4: (I count each separate Earth here as a separate panel.) Superman-E2 skips two Earths shown here. The Marvels were from Earth-S, per Peter Svensson.

2.16.5: This panel, which is the other Earth Superman-E2 doesn’t name, shows most of the Charlton heroes, who live on Earth-4.

2.16.6: This might not be completely true; Paul Newell says it jives with CoIE, but as Woodward describes it in his annotations, the formation of the Monitor and Anti-Monitor seemingly had nothing to do with the existence of the Multiverse per se. (As I said before, I don't have a copy of CoIE.) Also, Superman-E2 omits Monitor, as well as Pariah’s role in causing CoIE. This panel is taken from somewhere in CoIE #7, per Svensson.

2.16.9: According to Peter Svensson, this is a view of CoIE 10.20.3.

2.16.10: A view of CoIE 12.37.3.

2.17.2: Again probably from CoIE (#12 this time), but I still don’t know. “Folding into Earth-One” is apparently a retcon; see annotation for 2.30.1.

2.17.3-4: Identical to CoIE 12.38.6-7, but Lois’ clothing is different. (In Jonathan Woodward’s copy, it’s green and yellow; here it’s the same purple number she wears elsewhere in this issue, and indeed Infinite Crisis in general.)

2.17.5: This corresponds to no CoIE panel; in fact its veracity is dubious.

2.17.6: Apparently in-between CoIE 12.38.11-12.

2.17.8: With help from Peter Svensson, counting this rounded rectangle as three panels: The early JLI.

2.17.9: Wally West as the Flash.

2.17.10: From left to right by rows, Donna Troy in an early version of the “starfield” costume, Wonder Woman’s new debut, the birthing matrix seen on the Perez Cover, Hawkman after Hawkworld, Booster Gold, Superman. Apparently not all the hands were “good” in the sense that the stories were…

2.18.1: “A darkness seemed to spread…” I love the way Superman-E2 treats the “grim-n-gritty” period of comics. First row, left to right: A Death in the Family, Death of Superman. Second row: Knightfall, the “Artemis-as-Wonder-Woman” period, and the granddaddy of them all… Emerald Twilight. Yes, I said it (see my annotation for 1.12.9), you can cower in fear now.

2.18.2: It had been getting better once Marvel went bankrupt, though. Identity Crisis, death of Blue Beetle, Superboy (Conner Kent) attacking his teammates in “The Insiders” (and looking just as he does on the Perez Cover), and the death of Max Lord.

2.18.5: In THE KINGDOM, Mark Waid (who set the stage for this by claiming “there’s a door”) said “He deserved heaven, not prison.” The implication was that “heaven” wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. This suggests that Superman-E2’s thinking was really about the Earth he left behind, not the place he wound up.

2.18.6-8: This is inconsistent with the actual depiction in 1.31.6-9. Yes, Superman-E2 told us his knuckles began to split, but those condensed panels made us think it was relatively easy. Either Alexander Luthor is actually referring to the initial “escape” at the end of CoIE, or Johns heard from a lo-o-o-ot of people who brought up that Who’s Who entry Woodward referred to. For that matter, #3 suggests they’ve been on this Earth the whole time. It’s all very confusing.

2.19.6: The viewing crystals, which we saw last issue, suggest that they’re actually in the heaven we saw last issue, and apparently sets up the suggestion in #3 that they’ve been on this Earth the whole time. (Or, as Paul Newell suggests, they found a way to bring the crystals with them.) On the crystals themselves, OMACs fight the Metal Men.

2.19.8-9: The sequence of dialogue here suggests that the refuge decayed because of Lois. That isn’t true either, as later information suggests.

2.20: I won’t be counting the backdrop before Booster’s arrival. Doubtful of his ability to be a hero, Booster returned to the twenty-fifth century after seeing several of his fellow JLIers fall (but not necessarily perish) in battle against the OMACs in OMAC PROJECT #5. COUNTDOWN TO INFINITE CRISIS revealed that Skeets had been used for parts by Max Lord. So, apparently, Booster only went “back to the future” to pick up a version of Skeets that still existed before scrambling back to save everyone.

2.20.7: The Scarab, rescued in COUNTDOWN TO INFINITE CRISIS, landed in El Paso, TX, as a result of the destruction of the Rock of Eternity in DAY OF VENGEANCE.

2.21.2: I don’t mark deaths if they’re only revealed, not shown or heard. Kite-Man’s dead, though, for those looking for a body count.

2.21.4-5: People were wondering why Joker wasn’t in the Society. This, though, seems too flimsy a reason.

2.21.7: I don’t think King dies because of a simple joy buzzer… (especially since this King might be immortal.)

2.22.3: Lois looks more decrepit here than she did in 1.32, but that was a longer shot, and she’s got a reason for it.

2.22.5-6: This is just plain stupid. Lois just touches her and all her memories return? Sounds like creative bankruptcy by Johns there. At least give her a little hypnotism or something… (Peter Svensson points out that the big key, apparently belonging to the Fortress of Solitude, has not been established as being part of Earth-2. All Earth-1, that thing was.)

2.24.7: What did I tell you about Batman’s paranoia?

2.25: Exposition. You just can’t beat it. This basically retells everything in OMAC PROJECT.

2.25.4: This was the acronym in OMAC PROJECT #6, but it may have been more inconsistent before then.

2.25.5: See how easily you can precede the second part with “As you know, Batman…” It’s just plain painful (and refers to OMAC PROJECT #6). There were 1,373,462 OMACs, to be precise, as revealed in OMAC PROJECT #4.

2.25.7: Properly grammatically speaking, Brother Eye is now descending to the level of a two-year-old. What he’s really doing is taking advantage of the obvious homophone. He does this in later issues as well.

2.26-7: It wouldn’t be an issue of IC without a great poster. The heroine to Wonder Woman’s left in the yellow costume with a red star is Fury II, Helena Kosmatos, according to Peter Svensson. The continuity of the name “Fury” is too complex for my tastes.

2.28.3: Amazon Carissa dies. (“One of the chief healers among the Amazons,” according to Peter Svensson, who’s read a lot more WONDER WOMAN than I have…)

2.28.5: Artemis is oil to Diana’s water. The time when she was Wonder Woman was during the “grim-n-gritty” period, remember. She is “Minister of Defense,” according to Peter Svensson. (Man, Greg Rucka’s run was this good?)

2.29.3: “What this earth does”? Puts Superman-E2’s comments about “what this world does to legends” in #1 in a bit more perspective, certainly.

2.29.7: Top down, with help from Peter Svensson: Spectre attacking Amethyst of Gemworld; Amethyst; several Green Lanterns; Blue Devil; left to right: Ragman, Detective Chimp (yes, Detective Chimp), Nightshade, Blue Devil, Nightmaster, Enchantress – the “Shadowpact” that took on the Spectre in DAY OF VENGEANCE; Batman; the OMAC Eye.

2.30.1: This confirms a lingering theory of many fans. It appeared at the end of CoIE that what happened was that an entirely new Earth was born, with “scraps” of all the others used to create it – Huntress I flat out said it wasn’t Earth-1 in CoIE #11. This interpretation is quite different.

2.30.4: All the images are from Earth-2, apparently. We begin to realize that these four "heroes" might not be here for heroic purposes.

[Morgan Wick]

Issue #3: “Divine Intervention”
Writer: Geoff Johns
Penciller: Phil Jimenez
Inkers: Andy Lanning with Norm Rapmund and Wayne Faucher
Special Guest Artist: George Perez
Colorists: Jeromy Cox & Guy Major
Letterer: Nick J. Napolitano
Asst. Editor: Jeanine Schaefer
Editor: Eddie Berganza
Special thanks to: Greg Rucka and Simon Colby

Plot Summary: As Aquaman defends the people of the underwater San Diego, Atlantis is attacked by the Spectre. The Amazons complete the “Purple Death Ray” to defeat the attacking OMACs, while Bruce, full of shame, is confronted by Superman-E2, who promises to make his life better. Power Girl considers accepting the request of Superman-E2, while the Shadowpact arrives in El Paso, Texas, as a high school student discovers the Blue Beetle Scarab. Donna and her crew arrive at Polaris. With Wonder Woman’s message of peace being undermined by the Purple Death Ray, Diana has Athena remove Paradise Island from Man’s World, leaving her behind. Batman refuses to help Superman-E2 restore Earth-2, and waits for the security videotape to finish. Battlesuit Luthor confronts Society Luthor, but is nearly killed, as Society Luthor is revealed to be Alexander Luthor. Power Girl is just about to help Superman-E2 restore Earth-2, but just as she does, she finds a number of heroes (including Martian Manhunter) taken prisoner, and is herself taken out by Alexander Luthor and Superboy-Prime, just as Batman discovers it was Superboy-Prime who destroyed the Watchtower and captured Martian Manhunter.

3.LeeCover: Batman, turning around to face Superman-E2, Robin-E2, Catwoman-E2, and Bruce Wayne-E2, holding Helena Wayne, aka Huntress-E2.

3.PerezCover: Wonder Woman, Artemis (I think), and more Amazons than I can conceivably recognize facing off against hordes of OMACs. Most of the Amazons are probably nameless. Take that, Perez.

[Morgan Wick]

3.1-3: Most of this is very confusing, but it’s continued from issues of AQUAMAN, specifically #36-7. In #37, Aquaman took on Black Manta (the one most visible here), Ocean Master, and other Society goonies.

3.1.1. See 2.1.1. In the hardcover, a "Kra-KOOOM" sound effect has been removed, and the line "They've reported over sixty category five storms..." is said by the same figure as "Where would that be?", different people in the original.

3.1.1-2. Why is Mera here? (I know, I know, it's probably incredibly clear if I've read AQUAMAN...)

3.1.5: Neptune Perkins dies. (Look closely. Down, near the bottom, the screaming… see it? Neptune Perkins was a member of the Young All-Stars shortly after CoIE.)

3.1.6: King Shark does appear alive "one year later" in Aquaman's title, although at that point it's not this Aquaman's title anymore...

3.2-3.2: Koryak, Vulko, Lori Lemaris. Koryak is Aquaman’s illegitimate son from before he became Aquaman. Yes, Lori is spending time in Atlantis.

3.2-3.3: Tempest (the former Aqualad) is in the middle there. The book is trying to get across the idea that he’s chanting. Left to right: Lori, three standing people I don’t know, don’t know, three capes, a mermaid, Dolphin, don’t know, don’t know, and two more people I can’t tell.

3.2-3.4: Dolphin is the woman in royal regalia in the background. She had married Tempest and had a child with him.

3.2-3.8: Dolphin, Lagoon Boy, don't know.

3.2-3.10: Atlantis dies.

3.2-3.10-11: So Spectre is just up for smashing the place? See, this is why I’m not sure what this is continued from, since this also is depicted in AQUAMAN #37. This series spends a lo-o-o-ot of time on subplots and thinly veiled advertisements for other series – probably trying to avoid accusations of “Red Skies-ism”.

3.4.1: Red skies over Paradise Island.

3.5.2: This was a subplot in issues of WONDER WOMAN just prior to this. Originally, the “Purple Ray” was a healing ray, so this is supremely ironic. (If you have the hardcover, you should know: in the original, this person proclaims "The Purple Death Ray has been completed.")

3.6.5-6: More atrocious dialogue from Brother Eye.

3.7.2: Flash back to Bruce witnessing the death of his parents.

3.7.4: Bruce mourning his parents.

3.7.6: Bruce with Jason Todd slumped in his arms. (Of course, Todd had just recently been resurrected, but…)

3.8.2-3: See 2.11.2-3.

3.10.6: Superboy and Wonder Girl were a bit of an item…

3.10.7: See 1.4-5.

3.10.13: See CoIE #10.

3.11.1: The Blue Beetle Scarab landed in El Paso, remember. No red skies.

3.11.3: This appears to be shortly after the destruction of the Rock of Eternity, but other appearances of the Shadowpact appear to contradict that.

3.11.5: The Shadowpact. Left to right: Ragman, Nightmaster, Blue Devil, Enchantress, Detective Chimp, Nightshade. The chimp seems to be constantly drunker than a hobo on a Saturday night.

3.13.7: Jaime Reyes obtains the Blue Beetle Scarab. We learn his last name in 4.11.7.

3.14.1: Still the Polaris “Galaxy”. See 1.10-11.

3.14.2: To my knowledge, all the people coming to Polaris, save Mal Duncan, Animal Man, and Red Tornado. Left to right: Jade, Bumblebee, Firestorm, Shift, Alan Scott, Supergirl, Air Wave II, Starfire.

3.14.3: Put Supergirl’s dialogue in the mouth of a prepubescent on a sugar buzz…

3.14.4: That would be Martin Stein looking for Ronnie Raymond, although I had thought that Stein was dead, athough he became the "fire elemental" Firestorm after splitting from Ronnie Raymond for good in the last series, and in any case why he would show up in the head of Jason Rusch is anyone’s guess…

3.14.5: I need CBR user LordEd1976 to do some explaining of this... "At the end of the last Firestorm series, Stein became the only person in the Firestorm matrix and transformed into a fire elemental. A black hole then transported him to the other side of the universe. He temporarily made it back to Earth in War of the Gods before returning to deep space." That's who's appearing here.

3.14.6: See 2.2-3.7.

3.14.8: Another "Kra-KOOOM" has been removed in the HC.

3.15: George Perez did some pages of this book; this page is strongly suspected by certain people. The scenes in #4-6 on the faux Earth-2 were drawn by him.

3.15.1: Pre-CoIE, Keystone City was the home of Jay Garrick; Central City was the home of the Earth-1 Flash, Barry Allen. Post-CoIE, they became “sister” or “twin” cities on the unified Earth.

3.15.2: These twins were miscarried before, but brought back under bizarre circumstances in FLASH #226.

3.15.5: “DC Universe News: We report and decide.”

3.15.6: Man, what’s her occupation? No really, I’m asking.

3.15.7-9: See 2.8.

3.15.10: Yes, the Flash is that fast.

3.16.6: Bruce had been getting close to Selina in the previous years, but he’d recently had a hunch that her apparent “reformation” was all another mindwipe. This was confirmed in CATWOMAN #50.

3.16.8: There was a pre-CoIE Huntress and a post-CoIE version. Huntress-E2 became Huntress when her mother died. Bruce Wayne-E2 lost a wife and this version never even married in the first place; who’s to say this Earth is darker?

3.16.10: For a while there, I thought some of the online theories ignored the fact that Bruce Wayne-E2 died years before CoIE. At least the writers have this straight. But Superman-E2's remark on said death, while poetic, is wrong. Batman-E2's death had nothing to do with Anti-Monitor.

3.16.11: Word from Newsarama: “We once had a high school teacher tell us the same thing, so it might be true. Although we hadn’t created a spy satellite that was overtaken by a nefarious player and corrupted to achieve his goals. Now that would’ve made us bitter.”

3.17.3-4: I've demarkated these as going from left to right, even though they appear to be intended to be read in reverse order, which can be confusing.

3.17.3: We find out how Brother Eye got footage of Wonder Woman killing Max Lord, among other things. But considering that the Amazons are on defense…

3.18.3: "The black figure in the air is Fury transformed into Tisiphone, the Blood Avenger." (LordEd1976.)

3.19.10: Athena protects Paradise Island.

3.20: Paradise Island/Themiscyra leaves the earthly plane.

3.21.5: Left to right: "The General" (!), IBAC? (though Paul Newell says not), Amazo, Gorilla Grodd, Black Adam, Silver Banshee.

3.21.9: Psycho-Pirate II isn’t really there. The background behind him blends in with the weird thing that's surrounding the captives.

3.22.1: Battlesuit Luthor confronts Society Luthor.

3.22.2: See 2.10.4-5.

3.22.3-4: Can’t you hear Society Luthor’s evil-scientist voice? Isn’t it reminiscent of Bruce Timm’s series?

3.22.4: And his nonsensical techno-babble? I’ve never heard of an “Anti-frequency”. An “Anti-Monitor,” however…

3.22.7-8: Shazam suggested in COUNTDOWN TO INFINITE CRISIS that a Luthor was involved with magic. Only now is it coming to fruition.

3.23.8-10: It’s not clear why Dick of E2 isn’t “better” than Dick of this Earth. Given the way Batman phrased the question, Superman-E2 may have just meant that the two were equal. Also, given the present tense of the question, Superman-E2 may have been trying to duck the fact that Robin-E2 died in CoIE, but on the other hand he didn’t duck Batman-E2’s death. A hint may also be found in 4.8.4.

3.23.8: In the original, Batman says, "Is he a better man on your Earth than he is on mine?" In the hardcover, it's "You said this earth corrupts everything. Is the Dick Grayson of my earth a corrupted version of yours?"

3.24.1: Luthor had this Kryptonite ring back in the early days after MAN OF STEEL. Then he lost it, and Superman entrusted Batman with it, in case the latter ever needed to stop the former.

3.24.2: Intriguing. So how will Superman-E2 be stopped? It comes in #5.

3.25.1: Left to right: Oliver Queen/Connor Hawke, Quakemaster/Shellshock, Captain Atom (who had a title, but under Wildstorm, at this time), Warp/Plasmus/Houngan, Chemo (who has a BIG role next issue), Jaime (see 3.13.7), Liberty Belle fighting Baron Blitzkreig.

3.25.2: We start to deduce a connection between two Luthors.

3.25.6: Did Battlesuit Luthor’s attack short out the hologram? (In the HC, Al-er, Society Luthor actually utters, "My hologram..." which is redundant and creates a weak transition to the line in the next panel.)

3.25.7: Society Luthor is revealed as Alexander Luthor.

3.26.7: This suggests Battlesuit Luthor is not dead, and he later appears in 5.7. Superboy-Prime seems to have been cooped up for a while…

3.28-29.1: According to Newsarama, this is a tuning fork from CoIE, but it is ultimately a machine to split the Earths. Note the crest that looks like Anti-Monitor’s second armor. In the ring, left to right: Breach (a carbon copy of Captain Atom introduced less than a year prior), Martian Manhunter, Black Adam, Lady Quark, Ray.

3.28-29.2,4: J’onn’s fate is revealed.

3.28-29.3,5,7: Slightly different angles from JLA #119.

3.28-29.5: I still don’t know why Martian Manhunter recognized him. Was he about to say “You’re not…”?

3.28-29.8: Shooting J’onn was not the same act as destroying the Watchtower, it turns out.

3.28-29.8-9: Not only similar to each other, but also to 1.27.8 and 2.4.5.

3.30.1: Despite Alex’s line, Superman-E2 is not going to be hooked up to the machine as well. His role is very different. Alexander Luthor was the son of a good Luthor from Earth-3 and acted as good in CoIE, but people still thought he was not only a bad guy, but manipulating Superman-E2. Guess they were pretty much right.

3.30.2: Superboy-Prime is revealed as the one who destroyed the Watchtower.

[Morgan Wick]

Issue #4: “Homecoming”
Writer: Geoff Johns
Pencillers: Phil Jimenez, George Perez and Ivan Reis
Inkers: Andy Lanning, Lary Stucker, George Perez, Marc Campos, Oclair Albert, Jimmy Palmiotti & Drew Geraci
Colorists: Jeromy Cox and Guy Major
Letterer: Nick J. Napolitano
Asst. Editor: Jeanine Schaefer
Editor: Eddie Berganza

Plot Summary: Superboy-Prime and Alexander Luthor watch as radiation envelops Bludhaven. Superboy-Prime leaves to confront Conner Kent, while Batman and Nightwing huddle after Batman’s encounter with Superman-E2. Booster Gold meets Jaime, and discovers that the scarab is fused to the back of his spine. The Superboy of this earth summons the Teen Titans, along with the Doom Patrol and the Justice Society. As the Spectre takes a new host, Superboy-Prime finds himself inadvertently killing people. Kid Flash II, Flash III, and Jay Garrick ultimately push him into the Speed Force. After Jay and Wally jump out, Kid Flash is left alone with Superboy-Prime, but is joined by Barry Allen, who himself brings Max Mercury and Johnny Quick. Jay Garrick soon realizes the Speed Force has vanished. Alexander Luthor summons the OMACs to protect his tower, and Donna’s team finds itself pulled into the hole in spacetime, as the DC Earth splits in two, and another Earth is reborn. (I originally said "a new Earth". That would have been so off-the-wall with #6.)

4.LeeCover: Conner Kent, Superboy-Prime, Krypto. Yes, the trans-Crisis period had its own Krypto. One more reason why Superman-E2’s wrong, this period wasn’t so dark.

4.PerezCover: Oh Perez, why do you do this to me? Left to right: Top foreground: Kilowog, Cyborg. Top row: Air Wave, Animal Man, Supergirl, Mal Duncan, Firestorm, Hawkgirl. Near center: Bumblebee, Jade, Donna Troy, Guy Gardner, Red Tornado. Bottom: Shift, Alan Scott, Hawkman, Starfire, Kyle Rayner. Oh, and a pair of gold arms pushing the hole open.

[Morgan Wick]

4.1.1-2: Nightwing was involved in some double-agent action in his own title at the time, apparently working for Deathstroke, but no other titles mentioned it.

4.1.2: Left to right: Image of Deathstroke, Brain, Phobia, Monsieur Mallah. The Brotherhood of Evil spend a lot more time facing the Titans post-CoIE. One thing you have to know before going too far into this issue: About a year before IC, John Byrne did a new Doom Patrol series that threw out all the past history and started over with the classic team. It was widely derided as more Byrne-itis and was canceled not long after IC, and TEEN TITANS #32 pretty much erases it from history. But it makes a huge impact in this issue. (The Brotherhood of Evil was not rebooted, confusingly enough, so a previous kill-off of Madame Rouge still stuck, explaining Phobia's presence instead of her here. This took literally forever to clarify.)

4.1.5: Warp, Gemini, Plasmus, Houndigan.

4.2: Bludhaven dies. If you're wondering about the fate of Chemo, do you think a big blob of chemicals can die? He re-forms to fight Superman in ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN.

4.3.1: Bludhaven did not exist before CoIE. It was a creation of Chuck Dixon for his NIGHTWING series.

4.3.2: In the ring, left to right: Power Girl, J’onn J’onnz, Black Adam, Lady Quark (colored as Breach here, but correctly in 4.4.3), an apparent hole, Ray. Surprising consistency with 3.28-29.1. Power Girl appears to be in a spot that was empty in that panel, but where’s Breach? (Note the silhouette of a person to the left of Power Girl. A coloring error?)

4.5: More brilliant exposition. You can tell where Brother Eye gets it from. (To be fair, it’s not as bad as, say, “Eye will destroy you.”) This page unifies all four lead-in series to Alexander Luthor and Superboy-Prime’s plans. VILLAINS UNITED’s connection we learned in issue #3.

4.5.4: This rationale for the selections for the machine, like so many other aspects of the series, was guessed online before this issue came out.

4.5.5-6: We find out how Eclipso’s diamond wound up in Jean Loring’s cell. (It’s also suggested the Psycho-Pirate more directly influenced Spectre.) We also learn the true motivation behind Spectre’s rampage.

4.5.7-8: We learn how Brother Eye achieved his current form, but not how Max Lord attained the satellite.

4.5.9-10: Finally, we learn why the center of the universe is over Rann and Thanagar (as well as the connection the war has to IC), but not the details of how Superboy-Prime sparked the war. That comes in the RANN/THANAGAR WAR INFINITE CRISIS SPECIAL, which reveals that Superboy-Prime was directly responsible for moving Thanagar into Polaris.

4.6.1: A critical word: “redivide”.

4.6.2: "Earth-Two? Of course not. Earth-Two is only a stop along the way." Only a stop along the way? What does Alexander Luthor really want? As we figure out in #5, he's out to pick out the "perfect Earth" from the entire multiverse, and eliminate the rest - but what is "the perfect Earth"? (In VILLAINS UNITED #5, Pariah saw Luthor having dreams of ruling the, or a, world. As of #6, it was unclear whether he was referring to Society Luthor or Battlesuit Luthor, but it was Society Luthor that was there, and we now know Society Luthor was Alexander Luthor… a hint, perhaps?)

4.6.3: There was a lot of speculation as to what Superman’s Big Sin would be. Online interviews said it would be “more subtle” but “the worst of all”. Does Alex’s line reveal it at last? It would seem so.

4.6.5: Not quite in the same way as the others, as we’ll see.

4.6.9: Yes, this is disgusting. Just move on…

4.7.7: Well, we never heard of these other disasters. See related crossovers.

4.8.4: This hints at what Superman-E2 meant in 3.23.10, but doesn’t quite answer it. Dick Grayson not only became Nightwing before CoIE, but Jason Todd replaced him as Robin as well, so unless Superman-E2 is only remembering his own Earth’s Robin, this doesn’t make much sense. Even then, by his own admission, this Earth is based on Earth-1; what did he expect?

4.8.7: Alexander’s need for Superman, it turns out, is different than for the others he needs alive.

4.9-20: Sequences from the fight of the Superboys are further elaborated upon in TEEN TITANS #32.

4.9.7: As far as I know, Conner Kent-Superboy lives with the same people who raised Superman. “Uncle John” can easily be extended to “Jonathan”.

4.9.8,11: Why on Earth is Superboy-Prime stuttering?

4.10: Um, Superboy-Prime… you aren’t really Superboy either. You just “represented” him in CoIE.

4.11.5: Yes, at the height of Booster Gold’s popularity his face was all over the place, but after 18-odd years real-time of DC continuity, he’s just a “Hey, it’s that guy!”

4.11.8: Um, yes you did, Jaime. Remember 3.13?

4.12.6: Well, no one remembers the Multiverse, so they don’t remember him, so no, they don’t know he’s an “imitation”. Superboy-Prime is a bit of a jerk, isn’t he? And again, you’re not the real Superboy either!

4.13.3-4: Now he just becomes stupid. Even if you were Superboy-E1, this obviously isn’t your Krypto! (For that matter, Superboy-E1 and Krypto fought on covers quite a bit back in the day.)

4.13.8: This panel originally read “Come on, you mother - -”, but was shortened to “Come on - -!” for the second print.

4.15.3: “You don’t even have a cape!” Oh, this line is brilliant. Another slam at the grim-and-gritty era (from which Superboy’s capeless appearance originated).

4.16.1: Thanx to LordEd 1976 and Paul Newell for identities! I’d be surprised if this wasn’t drawn by George “30 characters on a page isn’t enough for me” Perez. Left to right by rows: First row: Elasti-Girl, Nudge, Wonder Girl, Flamebird. Second row: Negative Man, Stargirl, S.T.R.I.P.E, Terra, Superboy. Third row: Joto, Argent. Fourth row, left: Wildcat, Risk, Beast Boy, Wildebeest. Fourth row, background and right: Bushido, Harlequin/Joker's Daughter, Red Star, Speedy II, Hourman III, Robotman. Backs to us: Grunt, Pantha. A lot of these guys are reeeealy obscure.

4.17.3: Originally, this only identified this person as "Poor vic." "The term "Vic" is coroner short-hand/abbreviation for victim”, commonly used in GOTHAM CENTRAL, according to a poster on the DC message boards. The "Vic" in question is Crispus Allen, who was shot in GOTHAM CENTRAL #38. The hardcover expands this to "Chris Allen".

4.18: So far as I know, Spectre is pleading with God not to contain him in a human host yet again. He was driven down to Earth in the DAY OF VENGEANCE INFINITE CRISIS SPECIAL. All four lead-up series had specials every four weeks, the middle weeks between IC issues. The RANN/THANAGAR WAR special is the one after this one.

4.19-25: To be fair, these guys don’t even know who he is. Why do they abuse him so?

4.19.4: Pantha dies.

4.20: No responsibility for your own actions, eh, Superboy-Prime?

4.20.2: Wildebeest dies.

4.20.4: Red Star, I am told, ultimately survives. (Although I originally thought Robotman. This is a colorless image, since it’s all blue and frozen, and unlike other Superboy-Prime attacks we don’t get a good look in a preceding panel, which complicates identification considerably. The only clue that it’s Red Star is the red glow, and I didn't think there was anyone who could be Red Star in 4.16.1 – but there are also several people in the TEEN TITANS issue who don’t appear in 4.16.1, like Sand, the former sidekick of Sandman I. A star is visible on his chest in TEEN TITANS but not here.)

4.20.5: Risk also survives, I am told. (Granted, he has to live without an arm for the rest of his life...)

4.20.7: Bushido dies. (He originally made, what, two appearances before this?)

4.20.10: What’s with the Keystone City sign all of a sudden? The most likely spot for the break is between 4.13 and 4.15.

[Morgan Wick]

4.21-25: Call this a psychedelic experience. Like Morrison’s ANIMAL MAN.

4.21.6: Kid Flash and Flash III push Superboy-Prime into the Speed Force.

4.22.1: The Speed Force was introduced in Mark Waid’s FLASH run as the source of all speedsters’ powers.

4.22.5: Where would that be? Could this be an out for a future resurrection?

4.23.1-4: It’s hard to tell whether Linda’s last gasp of love works or not.

4.23.4-6: Flash III, Linda Park, and the West twins all leave… for now.

4.23.9: Kid Flash II was introduced as Impulse, Barry Allen’s grandson from the 29th century (back when Barry lived with Iris shortly before dying in CoIE), who was raised in VR to accommodate his hypermetabolism, and so, at first, had no concept of consequences of actions. So he’s become a bit sensitive to being called stupid.

4.24.7: Barry once told Wally he’d be there at three critical points of his life. This is #3, except Wally isn’t here.

4.25.3: Max Mercury, Barry Allen, and Johnny Quick, all holding on to Superboy-Prime. I believe all have died at some point.

4.25.4: So, they’re all going to follow wherever Wally’s gone?

4.25.5: Max utters Psycho-Pirate II’s favorite line.

4.25.10: The Speed Force dies.

4.26.1: Recall, Paradise Island vanished. Only Wonder Woman was left. This issue was released before her fate was made clear (she was taken away by the Olympian goddesses). Why Alexander is calling in the OMACs so soon before re-creating (at least) Earth-2 is unknown, but it may be to keep the heroes from attacking before he’s done. (As we find out in #5, even recreating the Multiverse is only “a stop along the way.”)

4.26.4: In the first epilogue of JSA CLASSIFIED #4, Psycho-Pirate was positively giddy at potentially having Power Girl as, apparently, a bride. His role in CoIE was as Anti-Monitor’s second in command, so he may blame himself for the destruction of the Multiverse.

4.26.8: It begins!

4.27.1: Note the caption referring to “Space Sector 2814,” not “The Polaris Galaxy.” Did they suddenly realize they weren’t sure whether Polaris was a galaxy?

4.27.2: Air Wave II dies.

4.27.5-7: I do not understand this bit at all. Apparently it’s a bit clearer in FIRESTORM #21. Apparently Martin Stein is taking Mick’s place.

4.27.6: Mick Wong dies.

4.28-9.1: The hole in spacetime that will recreate (at least) Earth-2. Note the gold arms of Alexander, same as on the Perez Cover. This panel coincides with pretty much all of the RANN/THANAGAR WAR SPECIAL.

4.28-9.4: Once, there was one…

4.28-9.5: Either Alexander is splitting the universe in two, or he’s having an orgasm…

4.28-9.6-8: Note how the people who leave have direct ties to Earth-2. The skyline disappears because it’s in Keystone City, originally home of Earth-2 Jay Garrick.

4.30.1: …Now there are two. Compare 4.28-9.4. The old universe did not die, as I had thought on a first reading, it just had Earth-2 split off from it.

4.30.4: After 20 years, Earth-2 has returned to DC Comics.

[Morgan Wick]

Issue #5: “Faith”
Writer: Geoff Johns
Pencillers: Phil Jimenez, Jerry Ordway & Ivan Reis
Inkers: Andy Lanning, Jerry Ordway & Art Thibert
Colorists: Jeromy Cox, Guy Major & Ivan Reis
Letterer: Nick J. Napolitano
Asst. Editor: Jeanine Schaefer
Editor: Eddie Berganza

Plot Summary: Heroes of Earth-1 and Earth-2 wonder what happened to the heroes of the other Earth, the former believing them dead and the latter realizing the truth. Jamie Reyes becomes Blue Beetle III. It is revealed that Lois Lane-Kent was not saved by the splitting of the Earths, and she finally dies; Superman-E2’s wail is heard by Superman-E1, who flies off to Earth-2 – only to have Superman-E2 attack him. Wonder Woman is recruited by her Earth-2 counterpart, who tells her she still has work to do. She confronts Superman-E2 with Superman, and the Earth-2 version realizes that “A perfect Earth doesn’t need a Superman,” just as Alexander Luthor uses him to revive the rest of the Multiverse. Nightwing and Superboy make plans for an assault on Alexander Luthor and company, while a Flash returns, warning that Superboy-Prime is still loose.

5.LeeCover: Foreground: Booster Gold, Blue Beetle III, Batman. In the background: Wonder Woman-E2, Wonder Woman. Note similarity to the Lee Cover to #1.

5.PerezCover: An Earth, Superman-E2, Superman, another Earth. The Perez Cover is less complicated than the Lee Cover? It’s the apocalypse!

[Morgan Wick]

5.1.1. Apparently 4.30.1 was less metaphorical than we thought; Earth-2 is literally appearing in the sky over the regular DCU Earth (Earth-1 from now through 6.32.1).

5.1.2. Ragman, Mr. Terrific II.

Between 5.1 and 5.2: A two-page spread is added here in the hardcover, absent from the original, of the heroes in the church. "God works in mysterious ways", present in this spread, was originally a caption in the bottom right corner of 5.1. All citations in these annos are from the original; e.g, 5.4 in the hardcover is 5.2 below. Because I don't actually have the HC I won't try to identify the heroes here.

5.2.1. John Stewart, Hal Jordan. Hal had been resurrected about a year before, divorced from the Spectre, which of course, led the Spectre to go on his rampage in DAY OF VENGEANCE.

5.2.2: It’s not clear why Hal leaves, but it may be to answer Batman’s call later this issue.

5.2.3: Zauriel, a fallen angel from Grant Morrison’s JLA run.

5.3.1: This appears to be directly following 4.28-9.6-8. Note how there appears to be no one else.

5.3.3-4: This realization confirms that this Earth-2 is “merely a stop along the way.”

5.5.6: Batman is still paranoid, folks. Word from Newsarama: “He loved the Luke on Hoth stuff from Empire Strikes Back, but still, it is kind of odd, given the sheer number of people, both good and bad that Batman knows who can shoot stuff from their hands, or heck, even a guy who might be carrying a gun.”

5.6.1: Jaime Reyes becomes Blue Beetle III.

5.6.5: Remember, Booster is fresh from the future.

5.6.6: There’s more to this than Brother Eye, though. Newsarama explores this apparent paradox: “Booster…is altering history with knowledge from the future. Back in my day, we didn't stand for that - no way pard, the Linear Men would've come in and smacked Booster down for doing that. But all of this means, of course, that technically, this Booster is from an alternate timeline – one where Batman never found Brother Eye, and…albeit presumably, Brother Eye continued to run roughshod over the earth and its heroes for a while longer until it was somehow shut down, as the 25th century, where Booster is originally from, is pretty peaceful. Which makes you wonder, if the 25th century was peaceful and...by Booster's accounts, boring, just how bad could this Crisis be, anyway?”

5.7: The person in the chamber appears to be Superboy, as revealed in 5.7.8, given that the person in the suit is Battlesuit Luthor. It’s not clear where it is, but it’s probably some secret place arranged by Battlesuit Luthor, or Titans Tower (per ROBIN #146-7).

5.7.4: Battlesuit Luthor’s first appearance since 3.26.6.

5.7.6: Newsarama apparently caught him taking this in #3. I don’t see it.

5.8.5: Lois appears to have noticed that there’s no one else there. Note the words trailing off…

5.8.6: …and here we go again, folks!

5.9.4: Superman-E2 has a strong sense of his own archetype.

5.9.5: Originally this read “With all your powers, with everything you saw and did... you still never…” which probably refers to Alex, but the exact reference is unclear. But in the hardcover's 5.11.5, in the first of a series of hints about the potential permanent return of Earth-2, she says, "I see the truth now, Clark. A truth even Alexander didn’t see… …there’s something else out there… …out there…"

5.9.6: "It's... not... going..." This line is left as a mystery for the reader until #7.

5.9.8: Lois Lane-Kent dies.

5.10.3: A nice “echo” of the classic cover of CoIE #7. (That’s the one with Superman holding Supergirl.)

5.11.1: Liberty Belle was a member of the Justice Society and All-Star Squadron. All of the pre-CoIE Manhunters have at least some ties to Earths other than 1.

5.11.2: Between the Crises, it was explained that Keystone City was “hidden” from the outside world for years before Barry Allen rediscovered it. This was to provide an equivalent to “Flash of Two Worlds.”

5.11.7-9: Common looters have no place telling Wonder Woman where to get off, but then, maybe they do have a point… (Added because of Newsarama.)

5.12.10: After ZERO HOUR, Hippolyta, during a brief stint as Wonder Woman, went back in time and became the Wonder Woman in the JSA.

5.14: A homage to the cover of ACTION COMICS #1, as pointed out by Newsarama.

5.15.4: You knew this was coming. Admit it.

5.15.5: Psycho-Pirate II’s becoming a little unhappy with serving Alex! Superboy-Prime’s “purpose” is unknown.

5.16.1: Just like Power Girl, Wonder Woman seems to take the idea of multiple Earths just a bit too easily. Far more likely she's saying "What from Earth-what?" (Of course, then we'd get another overview of multiple Earths, which we've already got. But if that's already been given, this question is redundant. And so, come to think of it, is the explanation Wonder Woman-E2 does give...)

5.16.2-3: Key possibilities for being drawn by Perez.

5.16.3: Another flashback to CoIE 12, but still not explaining how Steve Trevor-E2 survived.

5.16.4: Again, I don’t mark deaths if they’re only revealed. In the original, Wonder Woman-E2 threatens to "no longer exist"; in the hardcover, she's only being "pulled... somewhere".

5.16.5-8, 15: Time for the elder to serve as a mentor to the younger!

5.16.9-14: All scenes from earlier in Wonder Woman’s career. 5.16.14 is the now familiar image of Wonder Woman killing Max Lord. Although 5.16.9 depicts "a portrait of the Wonder Woman as a young girl", the other images are not necessarily in chronological order from there to Lord.

5.17.7: I’m guessing this is all after-effect from the battle of the Supermen.

5.19.4: Rose-colored glasses, anyone?

5.20.3: More backup for Alex’s claim for Superman’s worst crime from 4.6.3.

5.20.5: Newsarama: “Wonder Woman and Superman don’t answer those points. Wonder Woman raises a new issue, and Superman-1 answers that. Hm – raise legitimate questions, and then, instead of answer those, reverse the flow with another question, and then, before the original questioner can respond, have someone else chime in with an answer that undercuts the first dude to ask a question. Sounds like a messageboard ‘debate.’”

5.20.6: Superman-E2 is starting to catch on…

5.20.8: Newsarama overlaid this picture with the phrase “Superman: PWNED!” and it became an Internet meme… or a Newsarama meme, anyway.

5.21.1: Left to right: Breach, Power Girl, Martian Manhunter, Black Adam, Alexander Luthor, Psycho-Pirate II, Lady Quark, Nightshade.

5.21.3: E8 was never used pre-CoIE. On the other hand, that means it wasn’t one of the Earths wrapped up to create this Earth, so the existence of these characters on this Earth is unexplained.

5.21.4: Left to right: Booster Gold, Batman, Blue Beetle III, Green Arrow, John Stewart, Hal Jordan, Black Canary II, Sasha Bordeaux (I'll explain later), Mr. Terrific II, Black Lightning.

5.21.5: We saw this same line in 4.6.1, but only now are its implications hitting home.

5.22.3: Ergo, Alex Luthor is searching for a world without Superman.

5.23.3: True in more ways than one – Superman, of course, is the root for all heroes, both in the comic sense and in the multiverse.

5.23.4: Superman splits into a multitude of Supermen. Left to right: The Nova (an alternate identity of Superman from some old Silver Age story), don't know, a preacher-like Superman from the Tangent Universe, Superman-E2, a "King Arthur" Superman, Superman-Red (from the original 60's "imaginary story"; Superman-Blue is right behind him, kind of hard to see), Superman from "Red Son" (a then-recent Elseworlds tale).

5.23.5: Many, many Earths split off from the ones existing.

5.24: As Newsarama says, “[T]here’s only so much you can say about a page with a bunch of Photoshopped pictures of the earth on it and no other text.” At long last, the Multiverse is back! Look closely for one in a cube, like the old Bizarro world.

5.25.3-4: These heroes are being sent to their home Earths.

5.26-7.1: So much for those plans. Does this really need a two-page spread, or were they stalling for space?

5.28-9: I don’t know what all the explosions are. Newsarama speculates that some of the worlds are “inherently unstable.”

5.30.2: The lack of Earths is probably just artist laziness.

5.30.6: Presumably from Battlesuit Luthor in, specifically, 5.7.6.

5.30.8: Nightwing and Superboy journey to the tower in TEEN TITANS #33 before taking on Alex in #6.

5.31.1: Dr. Light II, the one from CoIE.

5.31.3: This is a Flash, but precisely who it is is kept a little unclear for a while…

5.31.6: Exactly how he did so is never made clear in this series, and precisely how he was "held" we don't have a clue about until next issue.

5.32: …And things just got a lot more complicated!

[Morgan Wick]

Issue #6: “Touchdown”
Writer: Geoff Johns
Pencillers: Phil Jimenez, Jerry Ordway, George Perez & Ivan Reis
Inks/Finishes: Andy Lanning, Jerry Ordway, George Perez, Ivan Reis, Oclair Albert, Marc Campos, Drew Geraci, Sean Parsons, Norm Rapmund & Art Thibert
Colors: Jeromy Cox, Guy Major & Rob Reis
Letterer: Rob Leigh
Asst. Editor: Jeanine Schaefer
Editor: Eddie Berganza

Plot Summary: Three plotlines are juggled: Batman taking on Brother Eye, the Titans assaulting Alex Luthor’s tower, and Superman, Superman-E2, and Wonder Woman on Earth-2. Blue Beetle III unveils Brother Eye, and Batman’s group begins fighting it; Superman, Superman-E2, and Wonder Woman begin making plans to return to Earth-1 to safely reunite the Earths; and Alex Luthor begins crashing Earths into each other. Many assembled magic users summon the Spectre to help defend the Universe. As the Titans attack the tower, Batman splits up his forces, and Alex Luthor nearly merges Earths 2 and 3, but is stopped by Donna’s group – and promptly discovers that the people who had been strapped up to the tower have been freed; Black Adam kills Psycho-Pirate II. Just then, however, Superboy-Prime returns in Anti-Monitor inspired armor, and begs Alex Luthor to restore Earth-Prime. Batman knocks Brother Eye out of orbit, but attempts to take Batman down with him. Superboy looks to finish the fight he started, and crashes Superboy-Prime into the tower, shattering worlds and creating a “new earth”.

6.LeeCover: A very pissed-off Superboy-Prime. Along with Batarang, WW tiara, tattered Superman flag, GL battery, and WW lasso. (GL battery?)

6.PerezCover: I can’t identify most of these characters on my own (cf. 4.20.4). The figure in the center appears to be Alexander Luthor, but seems to be acting more like Superboy-Prime would. Clockwise from 12 o’clock, with help from Newsarama contributor JusticeLeagr: Superwoman-E3, Jay Garrick, Ray II, Superboy, Nightshade, Mr. Terrific II, Green Arrow, ??? (JusticeLeagr says Dove III, Paul Newell says Atom II), Wonder Woman-E2, GL-Hal Jordan, Black Adam, Superman, Sand, Power Ring, S.T.R.I.P.E, Steel III, Black Lightning, Power Girl, Question, Batman, GL-John Stewart, Jonah Hex, Nightwing, Captain Marvel, Uncle Sam, Wonder Woman, Unknown Soldier, Wildcat I, GL-Kyle Rayner, Starfire, Gold of the Metal Men, J’onn J’onnz, Flamebird, Superman-E2, Metamorpho, Lady Quark, Breach, Warlord, Psycho-Pirate II.

Annotations: (Part I)
(NOTE: I ran up against the length limit upon hitting version 1.1. I couldn't split it into two parts without moving Part II to much later, hence the format adjustment. Having an admin fix this so the format fits better with the others would be nice, of course.)

6.1.3: The heroes of Earth have become fractured and unconfident, magic is in shambles, villains everywhere have been fighting their own battle, a bunch of worlds just popped up out of nowhere, he's about to take on a satellite he can't even see, and Hal's concern is baseball season?

6.1.6: I have to admit, this makes no sense.

6.1.10: With Booster, this means something slightly different…

6.1.11: Batman has had three kid sidekicks over the years. But Jaime doesn’t even know what he’s doing here.

6.2-3.5: This is a reference to the original multiverse concept, where Earths were separated by different vibrational frequencies.

6.2-3.10-11: This suggests that when Brother Eye refers to “creator,” he’s just as likely to be referring to Alex Luthor as Batman.

6.4.4: Nice there, Superman.

6.4.7: Now for some convalescence…

6.5.3: …or not.

6.5.7: “…If they aren’t brought back together soon, the entire universe will explode in a new big bang.” Just like in CoIE, folks. (Sorry the annos aren’t as good so far.)

6.5.8: All the Earths look the same on the outside.

6.6-7.1: Earth-S, home of the Marvels.

6.6-7.2: The Tangent Universe. And if you're thinking "Did DC actually run a series of comics based on this?" the answer is: Apparently yes.

6.6-7.3: Oh look, the Legion’s here! When the post-ZERO HOUR Legion run ended in TEEN TITANS/LEGION SPECIAL, Shikari found the universe forming the new Legion reality. There is some evidence that this is from the older run from immediately post-ZERO HOUR (the reference to Kid Quantum, for example).

6.6-7.4: Note the Old West characters.

6.6-7.5: Yes, Bizarros would love the apparent end of the world. (Note: Johnathan Woodward’s notation for the post-ZERO HOUR Earth was Earth-0. Obviously, that’s now taken in this series, so I’m calling it Earth-O.)

6.6-7.6: This is from an "imaginary story" published in WORLD'S FINEST COMICS #154 and 157. The problem is, this Earth has Superman.

6.6-7.8: "The Blonde woman impaling someone with the American Flag is an alternate Wonder Woman based off the failed Cathy Lee Crosby tv show pilot. The girl holding Per Degaton over her head is an alternate Wonder Girl based the Debra Winger version from the first season of the Lynda Carter tv show." (LordEd1976) Note the World War II theme, and if you look closely, you can see versions of Flash, Robin, and other heroes in military garb.

6.6-7.11: This is at the new Center of the Universe.

6.6-7.14: Kyle Rayner turned into “Ion” in RANN/THANAGAR WAR SPECIAL.

6.6-7.20: Prince Gavyn, Starman. Not Air Wave, if that's what you're wondering. (I know, I did too...)

6.6-7.22-3. I didn’t know crashing Earths into each other was part of the process of finding the perfect Earth. From Newsarama: “You know, ‘The Crisis Where a Guy Grabs Two Earths and Smashes Them Together, in the Hopes of Making One Good One’ just doesn’t have that ring to it that marketing can grab hold of….”

6.8.4: This panel is essentially gratuitous, but note Alexander.

6.8.6-7: Psycho-Pirate describes the technicalities of the whole “experiment”. Original 6.8.6: "I can feel them. Phantom beings from the fabric of Earth-One and Earth-Two, pulled from their restful peace, reborn in pain and given essence - then destroyed. Billions at a time." Original 6.8.7: "I planted this garden, Psycho-Pirate. I have every right to tend to it." Yes, Psycho-Pirate is calling Alex a murderer, and yes, Alex doesn’t feel for them at all. Hardcover 6.8.6: "I can feel phantom beings pulled from the fabric of the Multiverse, recreated and destroyed. For some reason, Earth-Two remains vacant. Why when billions of other beings appear across the Multiverse like ghosts. Reborn... then destroyed." Hardcover 6.8.7: "The anomalies of Earth-Two are not my concern. Finding the perfect Earth is." Glad someone mentioned it to Alex...

6.9-11: This whole sequence turns out to have very little bearing on Infinite Crisis, as revealed in #7.

6.9.2: Maya, Odd Man, Black Orchid.

6.9.3: Mr. Twister? (I thought he was Scarecrow), Tasmanian Devil (not the Looney Tunes kind).

6.9.4: Nightmaster, Valda the Iron Maiden. The “Ninth Age of Magic” was first mentioned in DAY OF VENGEANCE INFINITE CRISIS SPECIAL, where Nabu’s sacrifice occurred.

6.9.5: One of the hands appears to belong to Swamp Thing, who for most of the intercrisis period was seemingly relegated to being "non-continuity" along with the rest of Vertigo, despite a fairly high level of interactivity with the rest of the DCU before about 1992.

6.9.6: Felix Faust (as with Mongul, actually his son, hence Enchantress' line), Blue Devil, Enchantress. LordEd1976: "Its ironic that [Faust's] near the Enchantress since he slit her throat to restart the fires of Hell in the Day of Judgement cross-over (you think she still harbors a grudge?)"

6.9.7: Jakeem Thunder, Star Sapphire III, Stanley's Monster. Star Sapphire’s inclusion is mysterious, as her powers aren’t really magical; she may be here solely to die, which itself seems pointless.

6.9.8: Stanley, his monster. Yes, characters from old DC kids' comics from the 60's, otherwise forgotten, arrived at Stonehenge. You can thank Kevin Smith for bringing back old favorites of the boomers.

6.9.9: Madame Xanadu, Phantom Stranger, Zatanna. Xanadu's blindfold is a result of having her eyes torn out by Spectre in DAY OF VENGEANCE.

6.10.3: Klarion the Witch-Boy, as re-imagined in Grant Morrison's then-ongoing event SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY. (Yes, another event was running at the same time as Infinite Crisis...)

6.10.5-6: The Spectre is only now taking over Crispus Allen’s body, it looks like.

6.11.3-5: Probably affected by his new host, I bet.

6.11.8-9: Do we really know he isn’t still berserk? Yes. She deserves it. (7.4.3 provides some doubt, but that’s just Allen getting used to his new role.)

6.11.11: Star Sapphire III dies.