“Yesterday’s” Comic> Zero Hour: Crisis In Time #1

“I told you that light bulb was too strong!”

Zero Hour: Crisis In Time #1

DC Comics (September, 1994)

WRITER/ARTIST: Dan Jurgens

FINISHED ART: Jerry Ordway

COLORIST: Gregory Wright

LETTERER: Gaspar

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Mike McAvennie

EDITOR: KC Carlson

Time continues to fall apart and heroes continue to disappear. However, Extant isn’t in control of these new time fissures. Some of the remaining heroes journey to Vanishing Point with the mission to recreate the one being who can stop Extant…a new Waverider! In what remains of time Extant mops the floor with the heroes. But like I said, Extant isn’t the one responsible, but it is a fallen hero. Hal Jordan, once known as Green Lantern but now calling himself Parallax! He believes he knows how the universe should be, but it means wiping out all of time to do it. And in that phase it looks like he’s succeeded!

What they got right: Of course any comic fan, whether they’ve seen this or not, knows Hal’s fall as Parallax, the stupid reason they did it, and the really stupid way they undid it, but at the time did anybody see this coming? Or was it leaked so DC had to change the villain? It’s what they did to Hawk/Monarch/Extant! While I agree with fans that this was a bad idea, it’s a surprise twist and they hid it well enough. I do like Parallax’s costume design, though.

What they got wrong: They made Hal a villain, wipe out all of time because he’s still mad about Coast City being destroyed, just to further push Kyle into the role of the solo Green Lantern in a horrible “passing the torch” idea. Of course, I’m against heroes turning evil unless it’s professional wrestling anyway. And this was to lead into a soft reboot for the DC Universe, which wouldn’t be necessary if they took better care of continuity. Also it seems like the story is continuing from a tie-in or something because I don’t know how Steel, the time-displaced Batgirl, Guy Gardner, and Supergirl all ended up together where time was falling apart.

Recommendation: It’s a good story with the big problems coming from behind-the-scenes and not the creators themselves. It’s still worth checking out.