Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Two

- Jim. Hold on. -

- - I have an antitoxin.

[exhales slowly, stops breathing]

Damn that bastard.

Jim...

You were a a diversion.

Ugh. Missed.

Ooh, I know what you're thinking, Batsy.

What a waste.

Uh, 'fraid not.

Evidently, there's plenty more Commissioner Gordons where that came from.

Do be a dear

and take care of this noise.

I can't hear myself think.

- -

Huh?

- -

- - Bats, I think you know Solomon Grundy.

This is Killer Crock. Have you met him?

So many Earths.

How does one even keep track?

- -

- -

Quiet, please. Aiming here.

- -

- -

- -

Oh, for crying out loud.

Don't make me come over there.

- - Shoot that tower, Joker,

and the whole planet dies.

You see, that's what everybody says.

But how am I supposed to know that's true unless I pull the trigger?

Boom.

- -

- -

- -

- -

- -

- -

Ahh!

- - I told you to stay out of this.

The hilt would have hit his head.

We're not killers.

You trained us well. We know what we're doing.

I didn't train you.

- -

- You needed help. -

When the Justice Society was assigned to search for The Flash...

I'm the one who gave them the assignment.

A wild goose chase.

The Flash is dead.

He's missing.

There were no witnesses. No body.

The last thing I needed were a bunch of dilettantes

and senior citizens getting in my way.

This isn't even your Earth.

It's the Earth whose tower is in the middle of Gotham.

That makes it my world.

And I work alone.

Who died and made you king?

Everyone on Earth-3.

Well, this is getting awkward.

I've seen my share of doctors in my day,

but I've never had one give me the silent treatment.

Perhaps this is a new technique,

a subtle attempt to draw me out.

Get me talking. Is that the idea?

Fine.

I know all about this process.

Psychoanalysis.

It all started 25 years ago in the English countryside.

I was a perfectly ordinary boy named Charles Halstead.

Well, nearly ordinary.

I was very solitary. Loved books.

Treasure Island, Blackbeard. "Avast ye, matey," that sort of thing.

- Hated other children. -

Gave me a thumping headache.

- Honestly, adults, too. - Take him inside!

- I'm not a mind reader. -

More like an emotion reader.

A hyper empath.

- I feel what you're feeling. -

- It's horrible. -

The more people,

the more emotions, more pain.

- - My mind seemed to amplify

whatever emotions came my way

- before sending them back out. -

A kind of feedback loop would emerge.

My parents harbored no more hatred for one another

- than any other married couple. -

- - Until I drew it out of them.

- - I'm sure most children

seeing their parents trying to murder one another

would have felt just the way I did.

Like it was the end of the world.

Satellite.

A small piece of debris from Krypton, Monitor.

It is so small I hardly noticed it.

There is no damage to the shield.

- Debris? - Debris, apparently containing

an adolescent Kryptonian female, presently suffocating.

- -

Satellite, I find the death of this creature...

distracting.

Ten billion Kryptonians are dead or soon will be.

You have witnessed untold galactic extinctions.

Why does this disturb you, Monitor?

I prefer my task of chronicling all phenomena

from a distance.

Please remove it.

What have you done?

- -

Bringing it aboard was the only way

to ensure it wouldn't block your view.

- - Rest assured,

she will soon expire from her radiation exposure.

It cannot die on the Satellite.

That would be intolerable.

You know what must be done.

My parents didn't quite manage to kill one another,

but they'd had enough of me.

Their solution was typically British.

Boarding school,

in Bavaria, no less.

No sense taking any chances.

- -

As you can imagine,

the effortless viciousness of 100 adolescent boys

- greatly acerbated my condition. -

Things were often strained.

My classmates took notice of me to such a degree

that they gave me a nickname,

perhaps because I wouldn't give them

the satisfaction of hearing me scream.

- -

- -

You must eat something.

This nutrient is an exact replica

of a popular dish on your home world.

What's wrong with it?

On top of the radiation poisoning

and near-death experience,

she has witnessed the annihilation of her species,

and lost everyone she has ever known.

She also has a cranial contusion

from her impact with the pod door.

Perhaps if you ate with her, it would stir a sense memory.

Or, if you prefer, we could just eject her out an airlock.

I have not absorbed energy in this manner in 100 million years.

Would you like a napkin, sir?

- -

The inexorable abuse

- did procure an unintended boon for me. -

I began learning how to...

- control my power. -