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The Infinity Crusade was a Crisis Crossover by Marvel Comics, written by Jim Starlin. It is a sequel to The Infinity Gauntlet and The Infinity War.

The antagonist of this miniseries is the Goddess, the good part of Warlock who was created at the same time as the Magus. She tries to use the power of Cosmic Cubes and Cultlike More than Mind Control to subvert Earth's more idealistic heroes into serving her so she can establish a Utopia by any means necessary. Defeating her required the help of Mephisto.

Tropes

  • A God Am I/Godhood Seeker: Goddess' aspirations are right there in her chosen name.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: The heroes who serve under the control of the Goddess.
  • Conflict Ball: The second issue has Maxam and Pip teleport into Avengers Mansion with Reed Richards. Ben Grimm, thinking these people have kidnapped Reed even though he's standing right there, attacks them, and a brawl starts while Reed tries to get everyone to stop.
  • Counter-Earth: Called Paradise Omega, where the conflict ultimately takes place. It's specifically created by Goddess at the beginning of the story to function as her base of operations, and it's destroyed by the end.
  • Deal with the Devil: Thanos makes one with Mephisto in order to stop the goddess in Crusade. But see the spoiler below.
  • Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Thanos scams Mephisto at the end of Infinity Crusade. "You wanted a Cosmic Cube but didn't specify it had to be functioning..." This leads to a Badass Boast from Thanos: "Even devils must be careful when making a deal with Thanos of Titan."
  • Enemy Without: Goddess being a rare example of a good-aligned version of the trope.
  • Exact Words: How Thanos holds up his deal with Mephisto without screwing over himself or the rest of the universe. See above under Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?.
  • Fate Worse than Death: Goddess' final fate, according to Magus, who coincidentally shares it. She's trapped in the universe within the Soul Gem, the only person who can see or hear her is Magus, who similarly can only be seen or heard by her, and neither can physically interact with anything, even each other.
  • The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: When the Goddess' "purifying flames" (i.e. wave of universal destruction) spread out in Crusade, it scorches even the person who is reading the comic. Fortunately, it was all an illusion implanted by Adam Warlock.
  • Knight Templar: Goddess, who is more than willing to destroy all of existence so that she can remake it without evil.
  • Let's You and Him Fight: Much of the action in Crusade was hero-on-hero. In part because, thanks to mind control, many of the world's villains have surrendered to heroes and are awaiting trial peacefully.
  • Light Is Not Good: Despite being decked out in light and wanting to eliminate all evil in existence, the Goddess? Yep. Definitely not good.
  • Magic Pants: For once, averted with the Hulk. It's finally revealed just what it takes to destroy his clothes completely - atmospheric re-entry. A new hero unfamiliar with Hulk even lampshades Hulk's clothing issues. He later uses Black Knight's sword to shave Sasquatch and make himself a loincloth to preserve his modesty.
  • Residual Evil Entity: In the third part of the trilogy, it's revealed that Warlock also created a "good" side named Goddess, who is actually just as dangerous and troublesome as Magus, as her definition of good is "eliminate free will".
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad: On paper, Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity War and Infinity Crusade are Crisis Crossovers, starring the most important heroes of Marvel Comics. Actually, they are stories of Thanos, Adam Warlock (and his good and evil sides) and the Infinity Watch; the other heroes are just either Cannon Fodder in someone else's big plan, or incompetent buffoons that get in the way and can't do any harm or take part in the bad guy's defeat.
  • Status Quo Is God: The end of the series hits hard on the Reset Button, with pretty much the only change being that it's now known who got the Reality Gem after the breakup of the Infinity Gauntlet - of all people, it's Thanos. The surrendered villains go back to their own ways and escape custody, the heroes forgive each other and go back to work, and Everybody Lives except for Goddess, but she wasn't doing anything before anyhow.
  • Stay in the Kitchen: The second issue begins with a large gathering of heroes, all trying to figure out what's going on... except She-Hulk and Firestar, who are... handing out sandwiches.
  • Utopia Justifies the Means: Goddess' goal is to ultimately create a world without malice or evil. How does she plan on doing this? Using mind control to ultimately focus people's desires for a good world into enough Cosmic Cubes that they could overcome their usual limiters on the scope of their powers to ultimately destroy and recreate the universe as Goddess sees fit.

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