#comic excerpts

Avengers Vol 1 #267 “Time—and Time Again!”

The ToyMaker and the Bots

in loving memory of Derrick James Wyatt.

Video announcement

voice dub

“Wait!”

Oh man.

There's a lot of moments that have stuck with me over the years, too many to count. But there's one moment in particular that's stuck with me since the day I read it. And it's not even in a proper Superman comic. Friend, lemme tell you about the Sixth Dimension. Be warned, I'm gonna explain this arc so you understand the full impact of this scene to me.

Here's the context: A few years ago, writer Scott Snyder (along with artist Jorge Jimenez) did a run on Justice League, to mostly positive reception. In general, the series was bombastic and bold, a sort of Superfriends-meets-Dragon Ball kinda thing, and it centered around the idea of the DC Multiverse being governed by two opposing forces: justice (or the innate desire to do good, and help others) and doom (the innate desire to help only yourself, and revel in evil). Each arc, the Justice League attempts to find a way to combat the forces of Doom, to various degrees of success. In my favorite arc, the League learns from Mr. Mxyzptlk that the key to saving everything may lie within the Sixth Dimension - a multiversal control room, where anything and everything is possible . Superman volunteers to travel there, and within seconds returns, transformed into a perfect version of himself:

And takes the League to what he found in the Sixth Dimension: a timeline where justice unequivocally wins. A perfect League, in a perfect multiverse.

Except... it's a lie. And that isn't Clark. The real Clark has been imprisoned in a barren universe with only a few distant stars, perfectly designed to prevent any hope of him escaping. He continues to throw himself countless times in the same trajectory, hoping to escape, but to no avail.

The Future Superman comes to taunt him, and reveals that he's the third brother of the Monitor and Anti-Monitor, the World-Forger; this entire multiverse is intended as a scam, a hastily-constructed reality intended to replace the flawed original one before anybody notices.

As this happens, the League goes on an actual adventure; they discover that in this future, Batman sacrifices himself to save everything, and the reason why "doom" has been eradicated is because every single person everywhere leaning towards that concept has been imprisoned and hidden, watched over by warden Lois Lane. Despite this horror, Bruce willingly joins the World-Forger, reasoning that this truly is the only way to save reality. Bruce banishes Clark's only source of light, leaving him to die in the night, and then battles the League to prevent them from stopping World-Forger from replacing reality. Superman is left alone in the dark, thinking only of how he has failed his family.

Except...

As Clark floats, dying, in this ruin of reality, he catches a glimpse of something in the dark. Something that looks like...

Bruce betrayed Clark, but he gave him a chance by putting the stars into orbit. Clark held on long enough for the suns to come back around. And as Superman cuts through the black, even the Forger's staunchest allies falter.

Clark understands the truth of it all.

Hawkeye Vol 4 #6 “Six Days in the Life of…”

Legion of Super-Heroes Vol 4 #100 “The Brainiac Adventures: It’s a Wonderful Legion”

DCU Holiday Bash! #2 “The Present”