Pariah's plan is coming together in Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #4

Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #4 image (Image credit: DC)

Hal Jordan and Barry Allen are old friends - just about as close as two heroes can be. They're the original pair known as the 'Brave and the Bold,' a phrase loaned to a long-running DC team-up title.

And now, in Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #4, the original Brave and the Bold pairing are back in action, as Barry Allen saves Hal Jordan from the Green Lantern Corps of his own private dream realm, who only seem to know the venerable Green Lantern by his once villainous alter ego, Parallax.

Spoilers ahead for Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #4

Barry and Hal are, of course, trapped in an illusory realm created by the power of Pariah and the Great Darkness, who have trapped the Justice League in alt-realities, where they're presumed dead by the rest of the DC Universe.

In Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #4, by writer Joshua Williamson, artists Daniel Sampere and Alejandro Sanchez, and letterer Tom Napolitano, the pair team up to visit all of Pariah's alternate Earths to convince the members of the Justice League that they're living in personally-attuned illusions and need to return to Earth-0/Prime to save the world. Unfortunately, this noble mission ultimately serves Pariah's goals.

While Barry and Hal are running around the new Earths, the energy they produce is speeding up the process of creating a new Multiverse, which is what Pariah wants. At the end of the issue, we even see the villain celebrating the birth of the new Multiverse, which is a frightening thing to behold.

Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #4 page (Image credit: DC)

Meanwhile, we also see the Great Darkness spreading on Earth-Zero in the Justice League's continued absence. After being spared from Pariah's machinations, Black Adam has attempted to step into a leadership position and stop Deathstroke – who's under the influence of the Great Darkness – from destroying whatever's left of the world. In Dark Crisis #4, Black Adam tries to enlist the Legion of Doom by appealing to their evil egos.

And it would work, were it not for the fact that Deathstroke apparently saw this coming and has arrived at the Legion's headquarters to declare war. As the two armies battle it out, Black Adam begins drawing connections between each of the encounters he's had with Pariah and the Great Darkness… and he watches as the Legion of Doom is infected with it, too, which essentially takes his last option off the table.

It seems no matter what happens, Pariah will have his revenge for the destruction of his reality in 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths forms a direct sequel to the original limited series, which destroyed the DC Multiverse and rebuilt it as a single timeline. In the years since, the Multiverse has been rebuilt and turned into what's now called an Omniverse – an all-encompassing status quo in which every DC story ever told is now canon in some way, shape, or form, in some corner of the Omniverse.

Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #4 is available now.

The original Crisis on Infinite Earths is one of the most impactful DC events of all time.

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I've been Newsarama's resident Marvel Comics expert and general comic book historian since 2011. I've also been the on-site reporter at most major comic conventions such as Comic-Con International: San Diego, New York Comic Con, and C2E2. Outside of comic journalism, I am the artist of many weird pictures, and the guitarist of many heavy riffs. (They/Them)

With contributions from

Samantha PucEditor, Newsarama