Zero Hour #4 (1994)
by Dan Jurgens
Confusingly, this 5-issue miniseries is numbered backwards: this is the first issue and the last will be #0.
Then again, it’s not the most confusing part of this event.
We begin with someone attacking the Time Trapper at the end of time.
This is the battle mentioned in Valor #23, and that’s the extent of the Legion connection in this first issue.
It’s interesting to note that it took this long for characters in the 20th century to be involved with the End of Time and its entropy, considering that a lot of cosmic lore from the post-Crisis era revolves around entropy.
Entropy plays a similar part in Zero Hour to what anti-matter played in the original Crisis.
And exactly like anti-matter, despite being an actual scientific term, the comic book version has very little resemblance to the real thing.
Meanwhile in the present (???) time anomalies keep popping up, like the appearance of a pre-Killing Joke Batgirl.
This sort of thing had been happening in various DC books for a few months, explicitly in preparation for Zero Hour.
It’s hard to say whether the anomalies that showed up in the Legion books were due to this, or to the whole Glorith mess.
It’s been a rough year for many heroes. Superman returned from the dead and Batman had to deal with a broken spine.
Something that had been established before (I believe in the Superman books) and that will play a role is the place that the Linear Men use as base: Vanishing Point.
Its nature has been retconned a few times but I believe that originally it was supposed to exist either outside of time or at the very last moments of time (but SOMEHOW different from the End of Time).
One aspect of Zero Hour that I really liked is the idea that this crisis starts at the end of time and proceeds backwards. It certainly makes more sense than the past vanishing first.
At this moment the Linear Men are the future version of Rip Hunter (that’s him with the cybernetic implants), Waverider and Matthew Rider… who is an alternate version of Waverider.
The only one missing here is Liri Lee, who you may recall as the only female member of the team and for absolutely nothing else since she has even less of a personality than Matthew.
Since we’re dealing with this incident backwards, we’re going to see various futures from the furthest one to the most recent.
Starting with Kadabra from the 64th century, which interestingly is mentioned as being New Earth… possibly a nod to the new one created on the Legion books?
Kadabra is a super-scientist himself, so when the Linear Men show up he has a suggestion for how to deal with the arrival of the entropy wave.
Make Flash run really really fast.
I find it hilarious that both Kadabra AND Flash treat “Ultimate Speed” as if that was a scientifically determined speed.
And say goodbye to Flash for the rest of the saga, since he’s thought to have died.
You can’t go anywhere in time without meeting 20th century superheroes, because Green Lantern is also in the 58th century.
This is a direct reference to one of the most bonkers ideas of the Silver Age Green Lantern, introduced in 1961.
Because every once in a while Hal Jordan would be brought into the future, brainwashed with a new secret identity, and tricked into helping future Earth.
Let’s put a pin on that aspect of Silver Age Green Lantern. I might revisit it for how insane it is.
Anyway Green Lantern fails to stop the entropy wave, which consumes both him and Hunter… but the latter does give Waverider a clue.
This prompts Waverider to search the computer of Vanishing Point.
This is a really big deal: at the time, DC was EXTREMELY careful not to have too many people retain knowledge of the pre-Crisis reality.
I don’t know when it was established that the Linear Men knew, but before them I think that only the Psycho-Pirate was explicitly said to remember. Possibly also Harbinger, and you can interpret some of the Time Trapper dialogue to include him as well.
Time being broken causes Hawkman to become incredibly confusing.
As if he needed help with that.
The future is not the only one being damaged, because SOMEHOW Vandal Savage is destroyed because he comes from Earth’s past.
Don’t think too hard about how little sense this makes, considering that this is all supposed to take place in a single timeline.
Metron shows up to warn Superman about the time crisis, so he gives a speech that the new Green Lantern (who’s had the ring for FOUR MONTHS in publishing time) sends the message to the entire superhero community.
Dan Jurgens is pulling double duty as writer and artist, and while he does a good job at the latter this moment REALLY needed someone like George Pérez.
Waverider shows up to inform the Justice Society of the Flash’s death…
…and we end with Extant invading Vanishing Point.
Zero Hour #3 (1994)
by Dan Jurgens
Extant showing up must have felt like it came out of nowhere, considering Monarch had JUST transformed into this new form.
Another thing that I’m guessing baffled casual readers who were not reading the Legion… and considering the sales of the Legion books, not many were reading those… is the Time Trapper showing up to deal with Cosmic Boy. The latter isn’t even given his codename here!
This is following Valor #23.
We didn’t get to see the Time Trapper’s face in that issue, but we do here.
He’s revealed to be a future version of Cosmic Boy! I wonder how many people guessed this when reading the “End Of An Era” storyline; by the end if it, it seems to me it was pretty easily predictable.
This will be elaborated in the last Legion issue of this era, so I’ll discuss my thoughts on this retcon there.
I have to say that the hood does a lot of the heavy work of making the Time Trapper look work, because without it he looks ridiculous.
The heroes of the 20th century gather, after reminding us that Power Girl is currently pregnant.
The last issue will give the impression that this will become very important (it won’t).
We have a two-page spread of the current 20th century heroes.
I’m not familiar with a lot of the ones coming from the JLA and from the Titans.
Even Jurgens can’t save a lot of these aggressively 90s redesigns.
Things are so confusing that the heroes themselves don’t know who they are.
While the JSA deals with Extant (more on that soon), Waverider takes Hawkman and Hawkwoman into the timestream.
This is to witness a different Hawman fight with some kind of hawk-god.
Why do I get the impression that if I was more familiar with Hawkman this would make even LESS sense?
In the most confusing and convoluted part of the event, WHICH IS SAYING SOMETHING, Waverider fuses multiple versions of Hawkman into one being because… because.
Specifically he fuses the alien Hawkman, the alien Hawkwoman, a different and unrelated Hawkman and an hawk god into one single being.
Because THAT is apparently less confusing than the previous status quo???
This new Hawkdude shows up to help the 20th century heroes.
Saturn Girl, not even the Legion of this period would define Hawkman’s situation “stable”!!!
This is specifically the SW6 Saturn Girl, and the guy behind her is Ultra Boy with his awful new look. I will talk more about the Legion’s minor involvement in the next issues.
Waverider informs the heroes about the death of Flash and Green Lantern, with Guy Gardner (in his awful new look) wonders if this could be used to redeem Hal Jordan… while also poking holes into the whole logic of “time being eaten from both sides”.
Yeah when GUY GARDNER notices your plot makes little sense, that’s a problem.
Waverider had not even CONSIDERED that this someone was behind this!
Because, like all Linear Men, he’s just terrible at his job.
“Meanwhile”, Extant is fighting the JSA at Vanishing Point and just slaughtering them with his newly acquired time powers.
Besides the Legion and Hawkman, the JSA is easily the franchise affected the most by Zero Hour. Possibly because at the time it wasn’t a franchise, but this is a watershed moment for most of its members.
Waverider tries to help but he’s completely useless (what else is new?), and we end with the revelation that Extant is also Waverider now.
Technically it’s because he’s absorbed his temporal energies, not because he’s retconned the Monarch identity AGAIN.
Although honestly, if it turned out that Monarch had been Waverider all along it would STILL make more sense than him being Hawk.
Historical significance: -8/-10
Legion significance: -1/-10
For the Legion, the Time Trapper’s new origin is detailed elsewhere and they’re BARELY in this.
For Hawkman, this miniseries would entirely derail him for more than a decade until the writer just give up trying to make sense of it all and start from scratch.
For the JSA, this is basically the passing of the torch for all members except Flash and Green Lantern.
Silver Age-ness: -6/-10
The past is vanishing and there is only one timeline, so the people in the present are just fine because entropy has not reached them despite having devoured their past.
Sounds legit.
Does it stand the test of time? -4/-10
Let’s start with the positives, because I believe that despite its reputation this miniseries does a couple of things right.
The plot flows fine and dialogues, for the most part, sound natural enough. Jurgens is a far better writer than he is an artist, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad artist at all.
As mentioned I really like the idea of the crisis starting at the end of time and going backwards, eating all futures until it reaches the heroes.
Unfortunately the story shoots itself in the foot by having the same happening from the beginning of time, which by the same rules it established makes no sense.
Nor does the whole ticking clock angle; you might have noticed that all the establishing shots have a countdown, which is counting towards the titular Zero Hour.
That would be a neat idea anywhere else, but it makes no sense HERE: the series starts “32 hours ago” at the End Of Time, and the last scene of issue 3 takes place “12 hours 38 minutes ago” at Vanishing Point… which is either right before the End Of Time or outside of time? WHAT?
This COULD make sense if we were following one character who time travels, but we aren’t!
Waverider isn’t in ALL those scenes, and neither are Extant or the actual final bad guy of the series.
So we start “32 hours ago” ACCORDING TO WHAT REFERENCE POINT???
The miniseries is also not helped by the comparison to Crisis, which is just brutal.
Not only Zero Hour have FAR less issues and pages, leading to the story being extremely rushed at places… but it also fails to properly introduce characters.
Crisis had A TON of characters, most of which only got a couple of introductory lines, but you knew the deal behind the major players because the series had the time to properly introduce them.
Heck Crisis was my first exposure to A TON of characters, its plot was FAR more complex, and yet I never felt lost reading it! The same can’t be said about Zero Hour.