Zero Hour

Example of the fading issues.

Another post today, I feel like sharing more about comics. I always been a avid comic book reader. One series in particular I wanted to talk about is the DC miniseries event "Zero Hour". It is sort of a forgotten comic miniseries. Based off the "Crisis" stories (Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, and the lackluster Final Crisis), thus hints at the name "Zero Hour: Crisis in Time". The reason why this series sticks to me is the way that mess around with the time line in the crossover issues. Especially one of the Superman issues where he runs into Batman shifting into countless other incarnations (shifting to Frank Miller's Dark Knight to Adam West's portrayal). The main plot to the series is time is being destroyed from the end to the beginning. The heroes of the DC Universe are trying to figure it out while having the DCU go out of whack.

It is a clever series and I still have not finished collecting the crossover issues. Most notably from the series is how the main issues countdown from four to zero. Having each issue cover fading more and more until the final issue is a blank cover. Then after the crossover was done issues of comics would be marked #0 retelling the origins of new heroes and old ones. It was definitely a nice way of reintroducing characters. One of the famous series to be spawned out of this was the "Starman" comic introducing Jack Knight bearing the Cosmic Rod. I have a bunch of the #0 issues. One particular issue was Lobo's. I found him very interesting and funny and I have become a fan of him ever since. I think I will do a spotlight on him soon.

Back to the main series itself. I found it dull in some points but overall caught my attention. If you are reading or planning on reading Zero Hour I do warn you to stop reading for the spoiler. When I say spoilers now I hear River Song's voice from Doctor Who. You find out the main villain was not Extant (aka Hank Hall/Hawk/Monarch) but Hal Jordan. Which was the most famous earth Green Lantern know to comic fans. Now know as Parallax now after the Emerald Twilight incident when Hal destroy the GL Corps and central power battery on Oa. It was later explained that Hal was taken over by the fear entity "Parallax" in GL: Rebirth. Anyways I would of been shocked if had not spoiling the plot for myself. Hal is trying to erase and recreate a universe in his own image. I thought it was a nice surprise for people reading back in 1994. I did like the reference in Booster Gold by making a issue #0 and the cover recreating the first issue cover of Zero Hour.

All though there was a lot of people that necessarily disliked this event (mostly due to making the new Hawkman confusing as hell). I was loving what DC was doing by making time go crazy and have alternate realities clash. Just simple premise of mixing it up and making things fresh and exciting made it a crossover worth collecting. I am still not done but I can not wait to finally finish it. I hope more people become a fan of this crossover. Overall the miniseries is worth a read through for any DC Comics fan.