Zero Hour
Zero Hour is an event that features in DC Comics.
Contents |
History
Zero Hour was a holocaust-level crisis in which Parallax attempted to wipe out existence, in an effort to remake the universe to his liking- a universe where, as he said, "Everybody wins!" He accomplished this by manipulating the connection forged by Krona between the entropy at the End of Time and the creation at the Dawn of Time, causing time to be wiped out from both ends- past and future. As this happened, temporal anomalies (aftereffects of the Crisis on Infinite Earths) began to manifest: among other things, Steel met his younger self, legions of alternate Hawkmen began to appear, Superman met the Jor-El and Lara of an alternate Krypton and Batman found himself in a world where his parents lived, but he died.
Initially, the Linear Men and the heroes of Earth believed Extant was responsible for the events, until Parallax revealed himself just as the present ceased to exist. A handful of heroes survived outside time, who were able to defeat Parallax and create a new big bang using Damage. The resulting history was largely the same as the pre-Zero Hour "Earth-Sigma," with most differences being very subtle. The primary difference was the total erasure of the Legion of Super-Heroes' history, restarting their adventures anew.
Two supervillains individually attempt to destroy the timestream using entropy. Extant wishes to recreate the world in his own image, and Parallax wants to construct a better world, that wouldn't produce the evils that turned him into a villain. Both of their plans involve first destroying everything that ever was, is, or will be, and the following genocide of billions of people. The heroes of the world are organized to fight the chaos, gathered by Superman and Waverider of the Linear Men. With the barriers of time destroyed, time begins eating away at itself from both ends, and the lines separating alternate timelines become blurred, allowing them to interact with the main universe. The Flash is killed trying to stop the entropy. All versions of Hawkman converge into a single being. The Justice Society of America is decimated by Extant, Doctor Fate, Hourman and the Atom are killed, and all except for Alan Scott are aged into withering old men. The Team Titans, revealed to be pawns brainwashed by Extant, fight the heroes and are completely erased from history. Time Trapper is revealed to be Rokk Krinn. Extant kills the Waverider from his timeline, and the Matthew Ryder of the regular timeline is forced to become the new Waverider. The Legion of Super-Heroes are completely wiped out, along with the entire 30th Century. The Leymen are slaughtered by Extant. When Parallax reveals himself, most of the timestream has already been destroyed, and he is attempting to recreate the Multiverse that existed prior to the Crisis on Infinite Earths. There's a big showdown between Parallax and the remaining heroes, Parallax is weakened by the Spectre, and Green Arrow kills him. The Spectre then overloads Damage with the cosmic energies unleashed in the fight, and a new Big Bang is triggered. The timeline is rebooted with subtle differences, but guided by nature, and not by the hands of a villain.
Overview
In appearance, the Zero Hour was an incident that saw Parallax attempting to rewrite reality and history.
Participants
- Parallax :
- Monarch :
Notes
- Zero Hour was created by Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway where it made its first appearance in Zero Hour: Crisis in Time v1 #4 (September, 1994).
Appearances
- Zero Hour: Crisis in Time v1: (1994)
