Prologue | Chapter 1

Captive Earths header

Chapter 2 — No Way Home1

This issue’s notes are the thinnest, mostly composed of blocks of dialogue. The upshot is that Brainiac 5 reveals that the Time Trapper is preparing to exploit the chaos in the timestream and across dimensions wrought by the Crisis on Infinite Earths to extend his domain from the End of Time and finally rule all of time.

And of course it’s the Time Trapper. Of course I would use a Legion villain. It’s funny, too, because I can see some elements of this story ending up in my Flash series, decades later. Which means nothing to you, Gentle Reader, but tickles my funny bone something fierce. It’s like a gift from Teen Barry to Old Man Barry, handed across the gulf of years.

Anyway, Brainy reveals that the Time Trapper is behind all of the weird time shenanigans of late. The twentieth century is the focal point, so this has to be the staging area.2 He has a plan to defeat the Trapper, but he won’t say what it is because the Trapper could be eavesdropping.

Superman, of course, trusts Brainy implicitly and helps him settle into the twentieth century so that they can plan their attack on the Time Trapper. Brainy — good friend that he is — sees that Superman is more discomposed by Lex than usual and tries to help Superman understand the true depths of Luthor’s hatred for him.

BRAINIAC 5: Even when he was happy on Lexor, some part of him could not rest, knowing that you existed. He will never rest until you are dead, Kal-El. Nothing will stop him. Not until you’re wiped from the universe.3

Brainy begins to get really frustrated by the primitive technology and relatively weak heroes of the twentieth century.4

BRAINIAC 5: This Black Lightning person: Can he generate electricity in the terawatt range? Can he manipulate electromagnetic pulses?

SUPERMAN: Jeff? No, I don’t— I don’t think so.

BRAINIAC 5: This is not going well. If I had a good telepath, a transmuter… I’m tempted to try to re-create Omega or Computo—

SUPERMAN: Oh, Rao, no. Please, Brainy, promise me you won’t. I can get you a transmuter. Firestorm’s a good man.

BRAINIAC 5: I’m worried about his inexperience.

SUPERMAN: He’s older than Jan was when we let him into the Legion.

BRAINIAC 5: True.

Brainy considers using Daxam, but there’s no time to mass-produce the anti-lead serum, and he doesn’t have time to train “a billion amateurs” in the use of their super-powers, or to hand-pick Daxamites who could be useful. Superman asks about using the Rokynians: “I trained a group of them myself.” Brainy points out that Rokyn’s out of phase with this dimension right now.5

BRAINIAC 5 (frustrated): I could do a better job with Tyroc, Color Kid, and Porcupine Pete than with most of the heroes of this era.6

Truly desperate, Brainy tracks down the Brainiac of the twentieth century.

BRAINIAC 5: Hmm. You’re in the cybernetic form that you later abandoned.7 I have to confess, this is very interesting, but I can’t stay to examine it.

Turns out Brainy has an override code for the original Brainiac! He just shuts down his “ancestor” and then cannibalizes him for the parts he needs.

So now Brainy asks Superman to gather his forces at the Fortress of Solitude, which means — I assume — we’d see a big two-page spread a la George Perez in Crisis of all the heroes. There’s a little character bit that I have to admit cracks me up, thirty years later:

ROBIN: Hey, remember the last time we were here and I saved Superman and Wonder Woman from that Mongul guy?

BATMAN: Yes. We were all terribly impressed.

Anyway, moving on… Brainy isn’t ready to reveal his entire plan yet (of course not — he’s Brainy), but he does say that it’s time to test it. He’s going to use the Monitor’s tuning forks (left over from the original Crisis and still on the surviving Earths) to separate the Earths from each other…and seal one of them off in its own universe forever!

Dun-dun-DUN!!!!

End Chapter 2

More soon!

(The only glory I will ever get for this thing that I’ve carried in my brain since childhood is people looking at it. So if you have friends you think might get a kick out of it, please point them in this direction! Teen Barry thanks you, and so do I.)

  1. I swear by all that is holy, yes, this was the title in my notes, decades before the Spider-Man movie.
  2. Why? I have no idea. I never wrote that down, so I would only be speculating. Probably something about how the twentieth century was the impact point of the original Crisis? I dunno. Roll with it.
  3. This may seem facile, but remember it.
  4. Remember, he hangs out with the likes of Element Lad, Wildfire, Mon-El, Ultra Boy, and Saturn Girl. He’s used to having enormous power at his fingertips at all times.
  5. At this point in the story, it really feels like Teen Barry was just trying to show that he knew every corner and angle of the DC Universe. Which, to be fair, he did.
  6. I love Brainy’s temporal chauvinism.
  7. Looked like this.