Synopsis for "Aftershock"

Creation occurs. One universe is born. In Metropolis, Kal-L, Superman of Earth-Two, wakes in an apartment at 344 Clinton Street. He has dreamed of the end of all Earths. Now he finds the decor of his apartment changed and Lois gone, and so he leaves for work. He enters the editor's office of the Daily Planet, where Perry White asks him to leave. Clark Kent enters, and rights the situation. Realizing that he must be on Earth-One, the Earth-Two Superman accompanies his counterpart to the "warp zone" between Earths in New York, so Kal-L can return home, but once there, they find the zone is gone. When they ask a cop what happened to it, he says that nothing was ever there.

They decide to visit the home of Barry Allen in Central City, to use his Cosmic Treadmill. There, they find that Central City and Keystone City (formerly of Earth-Two) now exist side-by-side. When they reach the home of Jay and Joan Garrick, she recognizes the Superman of Earth-One, but not the Superman of Earth-Two, who had been a fellow Justice Society member of her husband. Jay Garrick recognizes both, and takes them into his lab, where Wally West waits. Jay tells them that the world still knows about the other Flash, Barry Allen, and remembers his trial, but that everyone also maintains that he, the original Flash, has lived on this Earth all his life, Wally changes to his Kid Flash costume, and Jay assumes his Flash identity.

Then, with the two Supermen, they board the Cosmic Treadmill, and reach the correct speed and vibration rate to enter Earth-Two's universe. However, they behold an endless sea of blackness where a cosmos had once existed. Feeling lost, without a past or a homeworld, Superman of Earth-Two tries to leap into the void, but his counterpart holds him back, as the Flash and Kid Flash bring them back to the lab.

In the timestream, Rip Hunter's time sphere, carrying Rip, Dolphin, Captain Comet, Animal Man, Atomic Knight, and Adam Strange, emerges in space near Brainiac's craft. They board it, and find the robotic villain slumped in his command chair. Of these heroes, only Rip remembers the multiple Earths.

At Titans Tower in New York, the Teen Titans host an assembly of heroes who formerly occupied six different Earths. Captain Marvel and Uncle Sam report that they have tried to return to their home worlds, but found them nonexistent. Slowly, they come to grips with the fact that only one Earth now exists, not many.

Suddenly, Harbinger appears. She has regained her powers with the rebirth of the universe, and states that many realities have been changed. When Kal-L asks why he still exists in the new universe, while his Krypton "never even existed," she tells him that he was spared because he "stood before the rebirth." The Huntress, shaken by her experience, tells of how she found herself without a law practice, an office, an apartment, or even a recorded identity on the new Earth. Robin of Earth-Two says that the only Dick Grayson of whom he could find records was 19 years old, and lived in Manhattan, not in Gotham City. Even the grave of the Earth-Two Batman was missing from the cemetery. Harbinger explains that a new universe, not a Multiverse, was born from the battle against the Anti-Monitor. There is, and was, only one Earth, one history, even only one World War II, in which Uncle Sam led the Freedom Fighters to victory over the Axis. Krypton exploded and Kal-El came to Earth. Only one Batman came to exist from the murder of his parents. All the heroes are stunned by this revelation, and none more so than the Earth-Two Superman. Not only did his Krypton never exist, but now his wife is also gone forever. He soars off in frustration and anguish, and Kal-El follows him.

Somewhere in a spirit dimension, Deadman and the Phantom Stranger watch over the Spectre, who was rendered immobile after the battle with the Anti-Monitor.

Synopsis continued at....
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