Worlds Collide part 2
The Superman/Milestone crossover concludes this month. The conclusion reaches a cosmic-level climax, with multiple Earths, that hasn't been seen at DC since Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Superboy #7
The heroes in Dakota and Metropolis react as a tidal wave approaches their respective cities. The Blood Syndicate's water-based hero Aquamaria tries to merge with the oncoming wall of water to try to stop it. When Rift sees what she's doing, he transforms the water into fire, seemingly killing her. Rift freezes the water in time to pause and consider which of the two cities deserves his destruction. Superboy, Rocket, and Static attack Rift and think they knock him out, but he gets back up and zaps them with a bolt of energy, turning them into a decorative tombstone with their figures engraved on the front. Rift proceeds to confront Icon and traps him in a stasis field.
The Blood Syndicate didn't really get a good introduction last month. I didn't pick up their names, but somehow Superman already has without really being introduced.
Hardware #18
Our story starts to get more meta. With his god-like power, Rift decides he should alter his origin story as a lowly mail carrier, along with some other "continuity problems" he sees between Metropolis and Dakota.
Amidst the chaos, Hardware seeks out an imprisoned villain named Transit and recruits her for her teleporting abilities. Along with Steel and Dr. Alva, they build a machine that can open the inter-dimensional space between the two worlds, where they plan to trap Rift. But the Milestone heroes don't have the same code of ethics as the DC heroes, as inspired by Superman. Steel discovers that Hardware is secretly planning to kill Rift with the machine, and he can't allow that. The two of them fight until Hardware agrees to try it Steel's way.
Superman: The Man of Steel #36
Superman dives into the bay to investigate the giant rock that Rift threw into it to cause the tidal wave. Under water, he finds the remains of Paris Island and everybody in it dead. Back in the sky, he sees something bubbling to the surface and the Man of Steel confronts Rift about the thousands he killed. Rift believes he created every living being on both worlds so he doesn't feel any remorse for the deaths. He blasts Superman with a bolt that knocks him out of the sky.
In Dakota, till under the hanging threat of a tidal wave, Rocket breaks herself, Static, and Superboy out of the tombstone. Static is then able to free Icon from his stasis field. Playing with them, Rift decides to make Superman and Icon fight each other for his amusement. The two heroes pretend to fight, but Rift sees through their act and decides he has to up the ante.
Icon #16
Rift flashes back over the slightly similar origin stories of Superman and Icon. Like Superman, Icon was a castaway from space. But unfortunately, he landed on Earth 150 years earlier, where his superior knowledge and skills were not recognized and instead he found himself enslaved because of the color of his skin.
Rift offers Superman to un-do the destruction of Metropolis if he can beat Icon. Rift then unleashes the tidal wave on the city of Dakota and tells Icon he can reverse that too if Icon can beat Superman. Both heroes are now determined to beat their opponent, each secretly believing they can find a way to save both cities after they win. Superman and Icon are too evenly matched and Rift eventually realizes neither of them will ever yield to the other so he ends the fight. Rather than choosing one city over another, Rift concludes that both realities are necessary. He grows to cosmic size and and smashes the two Earths together.
Steel #7
Metropolis and Dakota violently collide into a single shared universe in which Rift will now decide which parts to keep and which to destroy. The heroes need to buy some time while the scientists scramble to finish the device that could save both worlds from Rift and possibly return everything back to normal. All the heroes attack Rift and although they fail to defeat him, he decides to keep them all in his new universe. He decides the villains Hazard and Alva are paltry compared to his might, and destroys them in the lab where they were developing the trap to stop Rift. Rift disappears and the surviving heroes are left to wonder if Superman and Icon managed to escape with Transit or if they've been destroyed too.
Blood Syndicate #17
Rift forgot about the Blood Syndicate back on the bridge, and apparently so did the writers and the readers. Altering reality around them, Rift decides to re-educate them by putting them in a school room where a grouchy teacher indoctrinates them about the cultural superiority of Christopher Columbus. With a defiant "@#$# Columbus!" they break out of this fake reality. Back in the real world, they're reunited with Aquamaria, who survived her apparent death. Next Rift turns them all into an X-Men parody called the "Ex-Gang", where Aquamaria becomes a water-based Dark Phoenix spoof called the Wet Hydrox. Finally, Rift turns them all into lifeless memorial statues.
This is kind of a silly throw-away issue that doesn't really advance the story in any way. None of the DC heroes appear and you still don't learn much about the team members, but it's actually a lot of fun with its subtext and inside jokes.
Static #14
Building his idea of a better world, Rift re-makes Static, Rocket, and Superboy into the League of Superteens, a parody of the Legion of Superheroes with its own mission monitor board reminiscent of the Silver Age.
Using a beacon, Hardware helps Transit find her way back out of hyperspace, where Superman, Icon, and the device have all survived. They're finally able to use the trap on Rift, and just as they hoped everything instantly goes back to normal. Superman, Superboy, and Steel are back in Metropolis and the Milestone heroes are back in Dakota where Paris Island was never destroyed. Each universe thought that the other had really been created by Rift, so both worlds believe the other one has been destroyed. In the void between worlds, Fred Bentson sleeps peacefully for the first time.
Like the inter-company crossovers that were prevalent in the 90's, no lasting or permanent changes are allowed to remain from this story. The Milestone line would only be around for a few more years after this and while there would be no repeat crossovers, the characters would eventually be combined into the DC universe where they would mostly just disappear. The varying quality of the different lines of comics stands out even more this month, while Rift is rendered surprisingly well in the DC books given the color separation technology at the time, he really pops in the painted colors of the Milestone books. I also realized that while the Superman books have had full-bleed pages for a while now, that still wasn't the case on regular DC books like Superboy and Steel.
With this double-sized finale, I ran out of time to finish the other Superman books that weren't part of Worlds Collide this month, so I'll catch up on those next week.
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