DC released a preview of this week's Justice League Incarnate #4 by Joshua Williamson, Dennis Culver, Chris Burnham, Andrei Bressan, Mike Norton, Hi-Fi and Tom Napolitano and the pages show that the new history of DC's past Multiversal Crises is directly tied to a classic Alan Moore Swamp Thing storyline.
The reveal occurs as Williamson and Culver try to make all of DC's various major Crises all appear as part of a single cohesive narrative, which is difficult considering they were written decades apart by different writers. The big change, though, is that Moore's iconic Swamp Thing run, which re-defined the limits of Mature Readers comic books for DC during the 1980s, is now central to the whole story.
Crisis on Infinite Earths occurred in 1985-86 and, at the time, it was a case of DC deciding that it wanted to streamline its continuity and instead of having multiple (or infinite) different versions of Earth, there would just be a single Earth that all of its heroes would now share together. However, at the same time, Alan Moore was in the midst of his epic storyline, "American Gothic," which concluded in the Summer of 1986 in Swamp Thing #50 (with art by Stephen Bissette, Rick Veitch, John Totleben and Tom Mandrake).
Williamson ties in that story, where the Great Darkness (which had first appeared in the previous issue of Swamp Thing) came to a truce with Heaven (or the "Presence") and now suggests that that truce actually applied to the DC Multiverse, as well.
So therefore, the darker stories that existed in the DC Universe following Crisis on Infinite Earths were actually part of that bargain that was struck up in the pages of Swamp Thing.
However, the Great Darkness wasn't happy with a truce and so Final Crisis and the threats facing the DC Universe now continue to be tied into the effects of the Great Darkness...
JUSTICE LEAGUE INCARNATE #4 (OF 5)
DC Comics
1221DC099
1221DC100 – JUSTICE LEAGUE INCARNATE #4 (OF 5) CVR B JORGE FORNES CARD STOCK VAR – $5.99
(W) Joshua Williamson, Dennis Culver (A) Chris Burnham, Andrei Bressan (CA) Gary Frank
THIS ISSUE…A HERO DIES! Doctor Multiverse discovers there is a threat greater than Darkseid! Is the Justice League Incarnate's only option to work with the Lord of Apokolips? Meanwhile, on Earth-7, Orion and Aquawoman lead the rest of the team to gain control of the Oblivion Engine! But by the time this issue is over…a member of Justice League Incarnate meets their end!
In Shops: 2/1/2022
SRP: $4.99
Source: DC