Geoff Johns's Crisis at Hand: More Evidence Something Big and Bad is Coming

While most of the coverage of Geoff Johns's comics today was focused on things like Justice League of America and Justice League of America's Vibe--and while most of the media wasn't even paying much attention to that in favor of Batwoman--a brief foreword in the newest issue of Green Lantern and a splash page in Green Lantern Corps are bringing in some threads that tie into our theory about a certain background character spotted in Vibe. In the world of the New 52, let's remember, it's been pretty well established that there have been no Crisis events yet. That didn't stop Pariah, the harbinger of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, from appearing in Vibe #1 earlier today. Then, featuring some nice guest visuals from Dan Jurgens and Phil Jiminez, today's Green Lantern #17 appears to hint at something rather major stemming from the same event that kickstarted the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Krona, a member of the Maltusian race from which the Guardians of the Universe are descended, peers back through time in the hopes of seeing the universe's origin--and is met with a catastrophic explosion in his laboratory shortly after he catches a glimpse of what appears to be the hand of creation, holding the first hints of the universe. Johns, who wrote a sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths in 2005, has used characters and concepts from the mega-crossover before...but never since the relaunch of the DC Universe, when Crisis and its sequels were determined to never have occurred. Of course, in the case of the Green Lantern titles, it's difficult to divorce the GL mythology, which was born in the same moments as the Crisis has its roots, from that story, whether DC wishes to acknowledge it or not. Krona's act not only allowed the Anti-Monitor (and, apparently, Volthoom the First Lantern) an opportunity to enter the DC Universe and wreac his special brand of havoc, but also created the circumstances for which the Guardians felt they needed to atone, leading to their creation of the various different peacekeeping organizations that culminated with the Green Lanterns.

This is the very earliest moment of the Green Lantern mythology that Johns is playing with now and, as the principal architect of that mythology over the last ten years, that's very much his domain--but the Crisis is also something that could be seen peering around a corner in a scene like this, especially with the knowledge that elsewhere, in the same week, the same writer has placed Pariah on the New 52's Earth. Over in Green Lantern Corps, meanwhile--a book that Johns isn't writing, but that ties directly into his Volthoom story, Guy Gardner is being tortured by being shown a series of possible alternate lives for himself. In at least one of them (again, in spite of the fact that he's not known to anyone in the New 52 yet), Gardner is squaring off against...you guessed it...The Anti-Monitor, the central antagonist of Crisis. Now...what's HE doing there?