History ComicBook / ZeroHour

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zero_hour_1.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:"I've seen the universe from many different directions, and I know how to fix it -- [[OmnicidalManiac even if it means destroying it!]]"]]
->''"It's over. Your time is over. '''All''' time is over. '''This is ''Zero Hour.'''''"''
-->-- '''[[Franchise/GreenLantern Parallax]]'''

The 1994 sequel to ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' and second of the many reality-warping {{Crisis Crossover}}s to hit Franchise/TheDCU. Written and illustrated by [[ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman Dan Jurgens]], with inks by Jerry Ordway. It was published as a weekly.

Just as ''Crisis'' removed TheMultiverse from the DCU, ''Zero Hour: Crisis in Time'' was intended to fix the many confusing alternate timelines that had cropped up over the previous decade. And also like ''Crisis'', ''Zero Hour'' failed, making everything involved--ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}, ComicBook/{{Hawkman}}, ComicBook/{{Legion of Super-Heroes}} -- even more confusing. ''Zero Hour'' was unique in that it started with issue #4 and worked its way back to #0; to coincide with the final issue, every ongoing DC series published a special "Issue Zero".

The plot of ''Zero Hour'' begins with the apparent death of the Legion's nemesis, the Time Trapper, at the hands of an unknown assailant at the end of time. After this event, the future history of Earth gets wiped out "in reverse", eventually including the Legion's 30th century home. Meanwhile, the past is also getting wiped out, with walls of entropy converging on the present. (How any of this is possible is an exercise left to the reader.)

At first, the villain of the piece appears to be Extant, formerly the hero known as Hawk, who had been the BigBad of an earlier CrisisCrossover, ''ComicBook/Armageddon2001''. However, it turns out that Extant was actually working on the orders of none other than the former Comicbook/GreenLantern Hal Jordan, aka Parallax, who had gone mad with grief after [[ComicBook/EmeraldTwilight the destruction of his home of Coast City]]. Parallax wanted to remake the universe in his image to prevent Coast City's destruction and other tragedies. His former comrades, deciding that a better universe by his design isn't worth the destruction of the old one, fight Parallax and defeat him, triggering a new Big Bang and restoring the timeline--with a few differences.

''Zero Hour'' resulted in a few significant changes to Franchise/TheDCU, most notably the introduction of the "post-boot" ComicBook/{{Legion of Super-Heroes}}. It also spawned a few SpinOff series, including ''Fate'', ''Manhunter'', ''Primal Force'', ''Xenobrood'' and ''Comicbook/{{Starman}}''.

In the end, ''Zero Hour'' hasn't been forgotten by DC--it remains in continuity, or at least it did until the ComicBook/{{New 52}} --but its events have been swept under the rug and mostly reversed. The problems it introduced were among the factors that led to the next CosmicRetcon of Franchise/TheDCU and the first "proper" sequel to ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'', 2005's ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis''.

No relation to [[Film/ZeroHour1957 the airline disaster movie]] on which ''Film/{{Airplane}}'' is based, the German dub title of ''Anime/FutureWar198X'', the expansion pack of ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals'', the third After Hours season of ''WebVideo/ImAMarvelAndImADC'', or the [[Series/ZeroHour2013 short-lived drama series on ABC]].
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!This story provides examples of:
* AdvancingWallOfDoom: The entropy rifts.
* AlternateUniverse[=/=]AlternateSelf: Part of the story involved characters dealing with these, including Batman and Robin meeting the original [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] Alfred, Batman seeing a world where Joe Chill didn't kill his parents, Superman meeting alternate Batmen, Superboy meeting the original Superman-as-a boy Superboy, Superman seeing a world where he died as a baby and the Kents are still young, and most notably, a Batgirl from a world where the Joker killed Sal Maroni before he could scar Harvey Dent and, in an alternate version of ''The Killing Joke'', killed Jim Gordon instead of crippling Barbara (with Dent replacing Gordon as Commissioner [[spoiler:and Joker ultimately scarring Dent himself]]). Tim Drake!Robin [[http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/marvel_dc/images/2/25/Robin_v.4_10.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20080908031809 teams up]] with Dick Grayson!Robin in ''ComicBook/{{Robin|Series}}'' #10.
* AllThereInTheManual: ''Batman'' #511 details the backstory of the alternate Batgirl seen throughout the event proper: in her world, the Joker didn't [[ComicBook/TheKillingJoke cripple Barbara]] -- instead [[CopKiller he murdered Commissioner Gordon]]. This Joker also killed Sal Maroni before he could disfigure Harvey Dent, Dent himself went on to replace Jim as Commissioner and institute a "kill vigilantes on sight" order, Barbara and Bruce are lovers, either Dick or Jason is still Robin, and [[spoiler:the Joker also disfigured Dent himself during the issue]].
* ApocalypseHow: A Class X-4. Parallax wipes out all existence in the universe with the entropy rifts. Only several heroes survive, some which were transported to Vanishing Point outside of space and time, and some ended up appearing with Parallax in the BlankWhiteVoid.
* BigBad: Parallax.
* BigDamnHeroes: The Spectre drops in at the very end to battle Parallax. Unlike the first Crisis, the Spectre is able to fend off Parallax long enough for him to be weakened, then gives Damage an extra boost to kickstart his SuperPowerMeltdown and save history.
* BirthDeathJuxtaposition: Power Girl's child is born shortly after the alternate universe Batgirl dies and is then erased from existence.
* BlankWhiteVoid: The universe itself is turned into a very large one in issue #1 after Hal Jordan as Parallax has finished erasing it with his entropy rifts, in which only a few surviving heroes get to witness him recreating the universe.
* CallBack: The time-erasing wall is similar to the anti-matter wave from ''Crisis on Infinite Earths''.
* CanonDiscontinuity: The subplot about ComicBook/PowerGirl giving birth seems to have been dropped from continuity.
* CloseEnoughTimeline: Near the end of #0, the heroes triggered a new Big Bang, which created a new timeline, albeit with subtle differences compared to the previous one.
* ContinuitySnarl: Hawkman's ties to this story are partly part of the problem with his snarl.
* CopKiller: As noted above, the alternate version of Barbara Gordon's Batgirl seen throughout is from a reality where the Joker decided to kill her father instead of crippling her.
* CosmicRetcon: A large number of them. The two big prevalent ones being the reboot of the Legion of Super Heroes and that Joe Chill was never caught, thus making the case of who killed the Waynes a Cold Case.
* CurbStompBattle: Extant vs. the ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica. The JSA didn't stand a chance.
* DeathByDepower: Extant kills several members of the JSA by removing the slowed-down aging powers they gained in the 1940s, causing them to suffer from NoImmortalInertia.
* DeathIsCheap: Pretty much everyone who wasn't Damage or Parallax died during the event--and outside of most of the Justice Society of America, came back by the end.
* TheDragon: Extant.
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: DC editorial didn't care for the JSA at the time, and used the event as an excuse to get rid of them. The original Doctor Midnight, Atom and Hourman are killed off outright, while Comicbook/DoctorFate, Jay Garrick, Comicbook/{{Wildcat}}, Comicbook/{{Starman}}, Sandman, Johnny Quick and Johnny Thunder are forcibly restored to their proper physical ages, turning them into a bunch of geezers. Most of them retire, with Starman straight up saying he's too old to keep on fighting the good fight. Kent and Inza Nelson (the two halves of Doctor Fate) survived the story, only to be immediately killed off in the new ''Fate'' series that spun out of it, with DC instead replacing him with a [[YoungerAndHipper younger]], [[DarkerAndEdgier edgier]] NinetiesAntiHero named Jared Stevens. The other problem was ComicBookTime: the JSA at the time still had the same age as superheroes who are at that point ''40 years younger''.
* EarlyBirdCameo: Issue #1 features the first cameo appearance of Jack Knight, the son of Starman, who would soon go on to star as the protagonist of James Robinson's iconic ''Starman'' run.
* EnergyAbsorption: Extant in his still-human form of Hank Hall absorbs the energies of the Waverider in his FusionDance to become the final form of Extant.
* EraSpecificPersonality: In ''Superman: The Man of Steel'' #37, Superman met multiple versions of Batman, including (and transforming into) the following artists' renditions: the 70s Neal Adams incarnation, ''[[ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns The Dark Knight Returns]]'' incarnation (including the Mutants), the original 30s Bob Kane incarnation, Kelley Jones, Dick Sprang, and Carmine Infantino.
* EtTuBrute: The Team Titans are revealed to be alternate timeline puppets of Extant in this series.
* FallenHero: Extant and Parallax. More so with Parallax given that he was still shown to be a very much aware well-intentioned Hal Jordan driven to madness out of grief and desperation to restore his home city and repair the damage done to his life.
* TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: The last few pages of the penultimate comic were blank white pages. Similarly, all tie-in issues released the same week had blank pages.
* FountainOfYouth: The Ray Palmer Atom gets regressed to an 18-year-old when he attempts to get inside Extant.
* FusionDance
** Monarch and the original Waverider combine to form Extant.
** The Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl merge with the modern-day Hawkman and the Hawk God to form the Post-Zero Hour version of Hawkman.
* FutureMeScaresMe:
** The original Waverider finds out that he would eventually become part of Extant when the villain reveals his true face before the FusionDance takes place later on.
** The original ComicBook/CosmicBoy finds out that his future self would become the Time Trapper. But he eventually comes to grips with that possible future and lets the Time Trapper help where he could during the time crisis.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Waverider was horrified when he learned about the Crisis.
* TheGodsMustBeLazy: When Metron asks The Spectre for help, he sends the New God away, thinking that the crisis is natural in nature. When Jay Garrick approaches him, he decides to help and ruefully admits that peering through time is beyond his scope.
* GreenEyedMonster: Kenny Braverman, who'd always been second best to Clark Kent.
* HeroicBSOD: ComicBook/GreenArrow breaks down in grief after the fight with Parallax.
* HeroicSacrifice: The alternate universe Batgirl, throwing herself between Parallax and Damage.
* InTheirOwnImage: Parallax wants to eliminate all pain and suffering. If that means destroying the universe to create a new one, so be it.
* InternalHomage: The Wally West Flash disappearing out of his clothes during his attempt to shut down the entropy rift in the future is one for Barry Allen doing the same when he was attempting to destroy the Anti-Monitor's anti-matter cannon in ''Crisis On Infinite Earths''.
* KillEmAll: Parallax's tampering with time sends out a wave of entropy that destroys reality across all past, present, and future timelines, killing countless people across all of history. The only people who initially survived were those who were present at the dawn of time where Parallax was destroying everything.
* LastKiss: Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl share a final kiss together before they fade into the unknown -- a ShoutOut to a similar scene with Alexander Luthor and his wife Lois Lane of Earth-3 in ''Crisis On Infinite Earths''.
* LongTitle: Though referred to as just ''Zero Hour'', the official title is ''Zero Hour: Crisis in Time!'', though the covers make it out to be ''The End of Today... Zero Hour: Crisis in Time''.
* MinimalisticCoverArt: Issue #0 has just the title of the comic book on the cover.
* MoodWhiplash: The NothingIsScarier blank pages ending tie-in issues were immediately followed by ads, diluting the intended effect.
* MyHeroZero
* TheManBehindTheMan: Parallax.
* NearVillainVictory: Parallax pretty much succeeds by the end of the story. The universe is wiped out, and the heroes can't stop him, since he's the only one with the power to fix it, even if it would be iin his image. The heroes allow him to start the process, but stop him to let it play out naturally.
* OriginalGeneration: Triumph and Alpha Centurion get introduced in this series.
* OtherMeAnnoysMe: The two Superboys of separate timelines fight it out with each other until they both realize what is going on.
* PassingTheTorch: A not-so-heroic one: The remaining Justice Society members retire after Extant's CurbStompBattle, with Superman noting that things aren't going to be the same.
** In a more specific example, Ted Knight passes on the role of Starman to his son David, which eventually leads to his other son Jack becoming Starman in his own series.
** And Alan Scott symbolically passes on the role of Green Lantern to the recently-recruited Kyle Rayner.
* PostClimaxConfrontation: ''Green Lantern'' #0 acts as an epilogue, showing Kyle taking on Parallax after the end of the main story.
* RapidAging: Extant used his powers to age most of the Justice Society members to their proper physical ages, some even to their deaths.
* RedSkiesCrossover: Tie-in issues varied heavily in relation to the event, with ''Action Comics'' having all of Metropolis fading, while ''Detective Comics'' had a lighthearted throwback with Batman and Robin meeting the Golden Age Alfred.
* {{Retcon}}: Later writers walked back the severity of Extant's aging attack on the JSA. While a few like Sandman and Johnny Thunder were too old and feeble to continue their crime-fighting careers, the ''Starman'' series revealed that those were the ones who'd taken the brunt of the attack. The other survivors like Jay Garrick and Wildcat had only been been aged a few decades, with Ted Knight speculating that they were likely [[OlderThanTheyLook physically in their late 50s or early 60s at the absolute oldest]].
* RetGone: Once the new timeline restarted, all alternate realities ceased to exist. As a result, Alpha Centurion and the alternate Batgirl fade away. Though the mainstream universe's Alpha Centurion does show up eventually.
* ScreamingBirth: Power Girl with her child, whose birth is being attended to by Wonder Woman.
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong[=/=]UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: Parallax's ultimate goal, from preventing the Coast City tragedy, restoring the Green Lantern Corps, and was about to give Extant and the JSA their own Earths, an Earth where Batgirl and Alpha Centurion have their own Gotham City and Metropolis, respectively (essentially, restoring the Pre-Crisis Multiverse), and Superman a Krypton that never exploded.
-->'''Parallax:''' In my universe, everything will be as it should... ''everybody'' wins!
* StableTimeLoop: When Damage resets the timeline, Waverider must ''prevent'' this to restore history. He does this by merging the point where Parallax tried to erase history fully to the point where Green Arrow strikes Parallax with Kyle Rayner holding Hal back. He attempts to rescue Kyle, but it happens too fast.
* StrippedToTheBone: Extant's attack on the Leymen in #1 reduces them to skeletons.
* SuperPowerMeltdown: Damage in the final battle.
* TakingUpTheMantle: The mainstream universe's Matthew Ryder becomes the new Waverider when the original Waverider from ''Armageddon 2001'' is fused with Monarch to become Extant.
* TimeCrash: With multiple timelines and alternate selves appearing while the entropy rifts devour the universe from both ends of the space-time continuum.
* TimeTravel:
** In the main series itself, Waverider and Metron send two groups to two different periods of time, one to the 30th century and the other to Earth's distant past, to try shutting down the entropy rifts. Metron's team succeeds while Waverider's team fails, with Waverider being overpowered by and merged with Extant. However, their efforts ultimately fail, as [[spoiler:Parallax]] reopens the entropy rift in the future.
** In one of the side stories related to this event, Supergirl, Steel, Guy Gardner, and Batgirl are sent traveling forward through time, witnessing the events that led up to Coast City's destruction, with Guy having a final meeting with his former love Kari Limbo before she was destroyed with the city.
* UnusualChapterNumbers: The first issue is numbered 4 and counts down to issue 0.
* WellIntentionedExtremist / WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Parallax.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Wally and Kyle's fates are revealed in their respective 0 issues.
* YouCantMakeAnOmelette: Used by Hal Jordan [[spoiler:as Parallax]] to justify the erasure of the universe in order to create a new universe where, say, Superman's Krypton never blew up and Captain Atom never lost eighteen years of his life to become the hero.
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-->This is just the beginning!
----

No relation to the airline disaster movie on which ''Film/{{Airplane}}'' is based, the German dub title of ''Anime/FutureWar198X'', the expansion pack of ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals'', the third After Hours season of ''WebVideo/ImAMarvelAndImADC'', or the [[Series/ZeroHour short-lived drama series on ABC]].

Unlike its predecessor, ''Zero Hour'' met with poor reception, largely due to its lackluster execution. Plot points were thrown in with no build-up, some important events occurred in tie-in issues rather than the main story itself, and the whole thing was mired in UsefulNotes/{{the Dark Age|of Comic Books}} of {{Nineties Anti Hero}}es. The story's saving grace was the conflict surrounding Hal Jordan's actions and the heroes' response to seeing their friend become a villain, but that occurred almost entirely in the final issue and wasn't enough to salvage it.

''Zero Hour'' resulted in a few significant changes to Franchise/TheDCU, most notably the introduction of the "post-boot" ComicBook/{{Legion of Super-Heroes}}. It also spawned a few SpinOff series, ranging from the awful ''Fate'' and ''Manhunter'', to the [[SoOkayItsAverage aggressively mediocre]] ''Primal Force'' and ''Xenobrood'', to the critically-acclaimed and long-running ''Comicbook/{{Starman}}''.

* AllThereInTheManual: ''Batman'' #511 details the backstory of the alternate Batgirl seen throughout the event proper: in her world, the Joker didn't [[ComicBook/TheKillingJoke cripple Barbara]] -- instead [[CopKiller he murdered Commissioner Gordon]]. This Joker also killed Sal Maroni before he could disfigure Harvey Dent, Den himself went on to replace Jim as Commissioner and institute a "kill vigilantes on sight" order, Barbara and Bruce are lovers, either Dick or Jason is still Robin, and [[spoiler:the Joker also disfigured Dent himself during the issue]].

* AllThereInTheManual: ''Batman'' #511 details the backstory of the alternate Batgirl seen throughout the event proper: in her world, the Joker didn't [[ComicBook/TheKillingJoke cripple Barbara]] -- instead [[CopKiller he murdered Commissioner Gordon]]. This Joker also killed Sal Maroni before he could disfigure Harvey Dent, Den himself went on to replace Jim as Commissioner and institute a "kill vigilante on sight" order, Barbara and Bruce are lovers, either Dick or Jason is still Robin, and [[spoiler:the Joker also disfigured Dent himself during the issue]].

* AllThereInTheManual: ''Batman'' #511 details the backstory of the alternate Batgirl seen throughout the event proper: in her world, the Joker didn't [[ComicBook/TheKillingJoke cripple Barbara]] -- instead [[CopKiller he murdered Commissioner Gordon]]. This Joker also killed Sal Maroni before he could disfigure Harvey Dent, Den himself went on to replace Jim as Commissioner and institute a "kill vigilante on sight" order, Barbara and Bruce are lovers, either Dick or Jason is still Robin, and [[spoiler:during the issue the Joker also disfigured Dent himself]].

* CopKiller: As noted above, one of the alternate realities shown depicts a world where the Joker decided to kill Commissioner Gordon instead of crippling Barbara.

[[caption-width-right:300:"I've seen the universe from many different directions, and I know how to fix it -- [[FinalSolution even if it means destroying it!]]"]]

* BigDamnHeroes: The Spectre drops in at the very end to battle Parallax. Unlike the first Crisis, the Spectre is able to fend off Parallax long enough for him to be weakened, then gives Damage an extra boost kickstart his SuperPowerMeltdown and save history.

-->-- '''Parallax'''

* DroppedABridgeOnHim: DC editorial didn't care for the JSA at the time, and used the event as an excuse to get rid of them. The original Doctor Midnight, Atom and Hourman are killed off outright, while Comicbook/DoctorFate, Jay Garrick, Comicbook/{{Wildcat}}, Comicbook/{{Starman}}, Sandman, Johnny Quick and Johnny Thunder are forcibly restored to their proper physical ages, turning them into a bunch of geezers. Most of them retire, with Starman straight up saying he's too old to keep on fighting the good fight. Kent and Inza Nelson (the two halves of Doctor Fate) survived the story, only to be immediately killed off in the new ''Fate'' series that spun out of it, with DC instead replacing him with a [[YoungerAndHipper younger]], [[DarkerAndEdgier edgier]] NinetiesAntiHero named Jared Stevens.

* ContinuitySnarl: Hawkman's ties to this story are the trope image and partly part of the problem with his snarl.