*LONG* Breaking Down Heroes in Crisis 1 – 8 SPOILERS

I hope you have some time to kill and have your thinking cap on.  This breakdown covers issues 1 – 8 of Heroes in Crisis, and part of The Flash Annual 2.  Therefore, there are spoilers.  And language.  And a thousands of words to read.  Get Ready.

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Skipping the debate over King being brilliant vs a sidekick killer, see Heroes in Crisis (HIC) for what it is:  a story about stuff that shouldn’t exist, but does – maybe.  And in summing up the totality of HIC from issue 1 thru issue 8, you find that this story can’t exist unless it does.

It’s a paradox.  Everything everyone says within its pages is paradoxical.  But there’s one constant:  the rose.  So follow the rose and where do you go?  You travel in a circle that crosses through a gray area that doesn’t make logical sense.  It can’t make sense.  Except that it has to:  we’ve seen the repercussions of these deaths.

There’s a dead Wally West in the Batcave (Batman/Flash crossover).  But if you follow the rose, that Wally West shouldn’t exist.  But he does.

So where to start?  Wally pretty much sums that up in his confession in HIC 8.  We can start anywhere.  This is a loop with no real beginning.  It’s the whole what came first, the chicken or the egg, question.  The chicken exists.  But where did it come from in the first place?

Here are the issue titles:

HIC 1:  I’m Just Warming Up

HIC 2:  Then I Became Superman

HIC 3:  Master of the Lagoon

HIC 4:  $%@# This

HIC 5:  Blood in the Way

HIC 6:  Who is Saved?

HIC 7:  Too Fast to Save the World

HIC 8:  Alive

Sanctuary was built using Kryptonian technology with the will of Batman, the compassion of Wonder Woman, and the honor of Superman.  Yet throughout the series, we see the trinity falter repeatedly.  They can’t agree, Wonder Woman holds the peace between Bats and Supes, and Batman lies to them until eventually they fracture, leaving Wonder Woman and Superman to handle the fallout while Batman retreats to the Batcave.  As Batman says in HIC 1:  their HOPE for redemption is now just another HUNT for vengeance.

Issue one suffers from the same thing that all issue ones or book ones suffer from:  it must build the foundation for the story.  HIC 1 does three things: 

1.  Insight into hero trauma – the vehicle for the story

2.  Begins the contradictions that define the story

3.  Engages the reader in the murder mystery/distraction

HIC 1 presents Blue Jay (in the mouths of crows happily munching on his tiny, dead body), who, traumatized by the Silver Sorceress and an arrow, has lost control of his ability to shrink.  He wakes up small, fighting his sheets.  He feels like he’s drowning.  Up next:  Hot Spot, first seen dead, in his confessional talking about his catch phrase, “I’m just warming up.”  Why does he have a catchphrase?  Because he wants to be remembered.  He adds that sometimes he’s scared to fight.  Finally, we see Roy Harper, Arsenal, dead beside Wally, and later confessing his drug addiction, which began with an injury and led to prescription meds, which led to more doctors for more pills, and then fake doctors for real pills, and then to needles to save his kidneys…because…heroes save things. 

These are all things any one of us regular mortals can relate to, but they all stem from extraordinary causes, as HIC eventually states through Superman in HIC 5 during his speech.  Here, Superman, upon finding Hot Spot’s body, mumbles that he [Hot Spot] used to say something, but he forgot.  Superman remembers Hot Spot and cares that he’s dead, but what Hot Spot said doesn’t matter.  But he said something.  And Superman remembers.

But, can anyone argue that Superman wouldn’t care?  Or try to remember anyone?  That’s what he does.  That’s why he’s often referred to as a god among men.  He’s Superman.  It’s expected.  What if Batman had found the bodies first?  He wouldn’t have taken the time to mourn like that.  He’d dig deep into detective mode.  Batman can’t mourn his own family.  And Wonder Woman?  She would be saddened, as she is, but business like, as she is.

Meanwhile, back a small town diner, Booster and Harley present as two broken people who have no idea what the hell happened.  Their trauma and anger are real, they each know what they saw, and they know what they didn’t do.

“We all need justice.”

“Oh yes, we so very much do.”

Harley didn’t kill them.  But she didn’t save them.  And in Booster’s confessional, a hero that no one’s heard of asks Sanctuary for help.

But Sanctuary can’t help.  “The Puddlers are all dead.”

HIC 1 throws a lot of detail at us, as does the rest of the series, so looking through the “distraction” reveals the truth, and that is more evident in HIC 2 when Harley goes to Penguin for help.  Maybe it matters who she went to specifically, but within the context of the story, what truly matters is that Harley, a patient at a treatment facility for heroes, sought help from a villain.

And here is where the gray area begins, maybe, and HIC splits into its different narratives.  The rose appears here first, in Poison Ivy’s hair, as Ivy is trying to record a confessional while Harley, who’s not supposed to be there, circles around her, taking the rose and booping Ivy’s nose.  They establish that Harley can’t be relied upon, even with the simple task of watering Ivy’s plants.  To Harley, they don’t matter, but to Ivy, her plants are her entire world.  What is important to one is nothing to the other.

Meanwhile, in the Batcave, the Trinity begins to fracture over Commander Steele’s body.  Batman insists that all Sanctuary data is immediately deleted, which Wally confirms as true in HIC 8, but Supes and WW don’t believe he didn’t put a backdoor into the system.  When asked if he has Kryptonite on him, Batman says that he doesn’t have any on his “bat belt,” and we, of course, learn that he does later when Harley has the lasso of truth on him.

In one of their most vulnerable moments, when the trinity has only itself to trust, one of them blatantly lies to the others.  Not only that, but the lie serves no purpose.  WW and Supes wouldn’t have done anything at that moment if BM had simply told the truth – yes, he had Kryptonite on his belt.  That is, after all, to be expected.  He’s Batman.  The door to doubt is thrown wide open.  Did Batman build a backdoor?  We now know that he didn’t, but, as we know in reality, you can never destroy data completely.  There’s always a way a super determined person can piece it back together, and, in this case, it’s Wally.

And then Batman pulls wind-up teeth out of Commander Steele’s throat, perhaps one of the clues Wally of HIC 8 left to steer Batman toward Harley’s guilt.

So what does it say about Batman during their later scuffle with Harley after she places her hand on the lasso of truth and tells Wonder Woman that she’s not the killer?  And how convenient is it that Harley asks about the Kryptonite and gets the truth moments after he lied about it?  These convenient recurrences stand out to me and make me question what is real.  But even as I do that, I remember dead Wally in the Batcave in the Batman/Flash crossover, in the DCU outside of HIC.  It must be real.  Right?

HIC 2 presents the trinity’s confessions.  Batman trains partners who then become his family, and many die.  He’s sorry.  Wonder Woman speaks of a nightmare she had as a child that led her to sneak past the palace guards seeking comfort from her mother.  Instead, she found her mother screaming in agony, surrounded by Amazons, with a golden arrow stuck in her side.  When they pulled the arrow out, the screams worsened, scaring young Diana back to bed, where she huddled through every ensuing nightmare on her own.  She doesn’t need Sanctuary, others do.  Superman wonders about his dual identity.  He was Clark, and then “I became Superman.”  Is Clark a flawed Superman?  Is Superman Clark trying to be better?  He believes a hero must be perfect, but talking about issues is imperfect.  They can’t say the things they need to say.  Besides, what if it got out?

(Of course, it gets out.  To Lois Lane in an email from The Puddler, containing Arsenal’s files.  Files that don’t exist, according to Batman, but do according to Wally.  And this is where we see this whole thing break Superman.  Superman can't break.  But he does.)

The trinity is above Sanctuary.  But they’re not.  Batman and Superman don’t need explanation.  Perhaps Wonder Woman doesn’t either, but she gave the most detail.  Not only could she not seek solace from her mother when she was scared, she had sneak past guards – her mother was beyond her reach when most children could tiptoe down the hall and crawl into their mother’s bed.  And when she did find her mother, she was fighting a trauma far worse than a nightmare, and Diana never would have known about it had she not snuck into the room. Diana grew up believing she needed to face every horror on her own without complaint.  But she forgets the Amazons surrounding their queen, helping her, treating her, supporting her.  Diana’s mother sought help and perhaps solace from her trusted friends.

I think that is a big clue easily buried in all the other detail.  Much is said throughout HIC about how talking doesn’t do anything.  Harley states it out right in HIC 6:  “psychological pitter-patter – from one shrink to another – is doin’ no one no good.”  A sentiment echoed repeatedly by Wally and Booster and the others either verbally or visually, and we see the survivors seek help from their trusted friends as the story progresses.  Booster goes to Barry first, then to Blue Beetle.  Barry goes to Batman.  Harley is there for Ivy, supposedly, and then what?  She plays Go Fish with an actual penguin because she doesn’t have any trusted friends until Bat Girl shows up in HIC 4.

 Meanwhile, Booster is with Skeets trying to figure what he should do, what would Batman do?  After Harley stabbed him in HIC 1, Skeets found Booster “mostly dead” and healed him with future tech.  Booster reports that he saw Harley kill everyone and that she was able to stab him because his shield wasn’t working (disabled by Wally according to HIC 8).  Booster toys with turning himself in, but thinks Batman would try to solve the mystery, and he’s right.  How many times have we seen Batman wanted as a vigilante, yet working to clear his name or solve the crime instead of “doing the right thing” and turning himself in? 

Doing the “right thing” means exposure to a hero and their time is better served saving people.  Or at least, that what comics teach us.

So, Booster goes to Barry, the Flash, for help.  The Flash, in mid-fight, doesn’t know what’s happened at Sanctuary.  Skeets realizes this, but not Booster, and before he knows it, Flash races off and is back knocking Booster out after reaching the conclusion Wally wanted him to reach.

Back to Harley fighting the trinity – after she escapes, Superman claims that Harley is as good as Batman.  Something we can read multiple meanings into and that Batman disagrees on, but Wonder Woman is there to keep the peace.  Then Superman hears Barry beating Booster and flies off without telling the other two what’s going on.  We can read into this that Superman knows he doesn’t need them.  He doesn’t need to work with a team.  He’s Superman.  Even though he doesn’t know who Superman is.

Where is the rose?  Harley stands atop a bridge over Gotham River, regretful, feeling like everything is her fault, she shouldn’t have done this or that or loved or hated.  She drops the rose into the river.  Essentially, Harley is saying she never should have lived, because what is life without all those things she never should have done or felt?  And how does Wally know about the rose?  At this point he’s both dead and alive buying himself 5-days’ worth of time.  HIC 5 shows a red-gloved hand retrieving the rose from the Gotham River, the same rose that Wally is planting in a field of flowers in HIC 7.

Wally is Schrodinger’s cat in a closed box.  (And my fascination with this concept is why I am breaking this out.  For me, it’s gone far beyond the comic.)

HIC 3 highlights 3 stories for us set inside reality as Booster knows it.  The Same concept and format is followed in HIC 6 for Harley.  HIC 3 is Lagoon Boy, Wally, and Booster, and HIC 6 is Gnaark, Wally, and Harley.  Since both Harley and Booster told Wonder Woman, while touching the lasso of truth, what they saw, and these stories reflect their reports, both of these stories are true.  And yet they can’t be.  According to Wally in HIC 8, they are simulations, so neither is true, which exposes a vulnerability to the lasso of truth – even if it’s not true or even real, if the person holding the lasso believe it’s true or real, they will speak their truth, which may be a lie.  So what does the lasso of truth actually prove?

For more than 3 months, Lagoon Boy has repeated his trauma of being shot more than 337 times.  It’s not helping.  His nightmares are worse.  He stops the simulation before the shot hits him and walks out as the alarm blares.  Ironically, he steps outside to find 3 dead:  Hot Spot, Red Devil, and Gunfire, and is then shot in the same place where he stopped his sim.  He dies laughing.

Wally’s beginning here is 2 ½ weeks in and he’s in the sim chambers…talking to Jai about the Sanctuary mask, with Linda, Jai, and Iris in their backyard while Sanctuary asks him why he needs them, with his suited-up kids facing Captain Cold, putting his kids to bed and explaining how he got his powers, which the kids say doesn’t make sense and Wally agrees (much has been made of this in the Flash comics – how lightning struck the same place twice and how Wally got his powers in exactly the same way as Barry), and then Wally running down the hall in his costume yelling, “No,” as the alarm goes off.  He emerges to find Roy, Arsenal, dead on the porch steps and drops down to him.  “Why, why did it?  The kids…I didn’t want…I didn’t want to be alone.”  And then he’s smashed in the head with Harley’s mallet. 

However, in HIC 6, during the “saving” confessional, Wally begins stating he doesn’t like to talk about it, bragging, and that it should be more—who isn’t saved matters more.  And then we see him drift through memories, being greeted by Barry as the return of HOPE while Wally asks where his family is.  Superman, Wonder Woman, Donna Troy, and Roy all hug him, welcoming him back—HOPE—happy to see him and not seeing the misery on Wally’s face.  Then he’s with the Titans, who are so excited to Go! that they don’t realize Wally stayed behind.  How he can be HOPE without Linda, Jai, and Iris.  Everyone is happy and whole, but Wally is alone.  Sanctuary tells Wally that he’s not alone.  Then against all white and blurring into or out of it, Wally is in costume yelling to wait, slow down.  The alarms blares and we return to see Wally holding Roy as he did in HIC 3, and saying the same thing, just before being shot by Booster Gold in front of Harley Quinn.

Booster claims he’s the “best hero” no one’s heard of and it’s his first day, first time.  Sanctuary welcomes him, stating they’ve prepared everything for him.  Booster’s upbeat as Sanctuary explains the masks and common areas, but once alone in his room, he falters.  In the sim chambers, he asks Sanctuary for help and Sanctuary asks how.  Booster concludes that it’s a trap, but Sanctuary claims it’s help.  Booster opts to talk to a virtual clone who is condescending and sarcastic, and ends up fist-fighting himself even as the alarm blares several times.  When he finally exits, he sees Harley killing Wally and claims it’s his first day, and after Harley asks how it’s going, he replies, “Everyone’s dead.”

HIC 3 closes with various confessional shots, some of which are mimicked in HIC 6 or are different:

Commander Steele reports that he’s indestructible (although he’s dead) and he’s been there for 3 weeks.  In HIC 6, he states that it doesn’t matter who he saved, it matters more how he prepares others to save.

Gunfire states he is the weapon and it’s been 6 days.  In HIC 6, he claims weapons don’t save, they kill.

Tattooed Man calls himself the living ink and it’s been 2 months, and in HIC 6 states that anyone living just means someone else is dying.

Gnarrk is the last cro-magnon and it’s been 12 days.  In HIC 6, he says he "not know who is saved.  Not know many things."  Then he’s one of the main characters (where Lagoon Boy was in HIC 3) and ruminates on the past as a caveman while waxing philosophy in the modern day quoting Keats, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Plato.  His is a stark juxtaposition about old vs new, before vs after, life vs death.  He concludes that old is not necessarily better than new, but that he misses old and that’s not good or bad.  It’s just gone.  He is the only character who concludes his treatment and states he’s ready to go home.  And as he does so, the alarm blares, he exits and finds Protector dead, and then dies himself.  Just gone.

Red Devil claims he is the grown up Kid Devil and it’s been over a month, but in HIC 6, he is listed as Kid Devil and states that [he has saved] more than most, less than some, and is only starting.

Protector – Just say no.  It’s been 4 weeks.  He is not present in HIC 6’s confessions because when Gnarrk runs outside, he is the first body Gnarrk sees before dying himself.

Poison Ivy calls herself Pam and it’s been 9 days.  She is not present in HIC 6’s confessions because she was with Harley in her simulator and left when the alarm blared.  In HIC 8, we see Ivy is one of the first to die, but this is where we lose her into the gray area.  We don’t see her emerge and we don’t see her again until HIC 7, when she’s being reborn in the rose that Wally plants.

Solstice calls herself the light and it’s been 11 weeks.  In HIC 6, she claims to have saved “437,” which you may note is 100 more than the number of times Lagoon Boy shot himself in the sim over 3 months.  Why?

Nemesis claims he is “just that,” it’s been a week, and, in HIC 6, [he’s saved] “no one you’ve heard of.”  Other than his dead body, we don’t see him again.

Blue Jay doesn’t appear in HIC 3’s confessionals, but in HIC 6, in regards to saving, he claims that since he comes from a different world, it might not count.

Hot Spot is not shown in HIC 3’s confessionals, but in HIC 6 says that some send him pictures.  They’re on his piano.

Arsenal is not shown in HIC 3’s confessionals since he’s the dead body Wally first encounters.  In HIC 6, he says it’s not about saving, but about doing what you can and getting off the fucking couch.

In HIC 6, Harley questions why it matters how many she’s saved?  “How many have you saved?”  As a shrink herself, she doesn’t believe this psychological pitter-patter does anything, as stated previously.  She has Ivy’s rose in her hair.  Later, she’s in Ivy’s room, bored.  Ivy says she’s not supposed to be there, and Harley replies that she won’t be bored with the trinity arrives to throw her out.  In the sim chamber with Ivy, Harley finds no joy in killing the Joker.  She and Ivy hold hands and talk in a contradictory circle.  Bad things don’t turn into good things.  They’re both crazy.  Even though nothing helps, they help each other.  Then Ivy is killing the Joker with plants and Harley rolls over laughing.  As they sit atop a mountain of dead Jokers, the alarm blares.  Ivy leaves first, stating it must be a drill and for Harley to wait since she’s not supposed to be there and to come out if she doesn’t come back.  They tell each other they love each other.  When Harley does leave, she sees Booster shoot Wally.  Says she’s not supposed to be there.  She should be some place fun.

There’s a bit of confusion when it comes to Harley being at Sanctuary.  Ivy and Harley both say she shouldn’t be there, that you can’t be there if you aren’t invited, but Harley told Ivy to go there.  So Ivy is there for Harley and Harley is there with Ivy, but because of the Joker.  What is Harley’s truth?  Was she invited?  Did she simply follow Ivy?  Does it even matter?  She has the rose.

In the aftermath of HIC 8, and the tellings of HIC 3 and HIC 6 (6 divided by 2 equals 3 and issues 3 and 6 end 2 different ways!), HIC 4 and HIC 5 shift the focus toward the central focus of something that both exists but doesn’t, and the repercussions of what is seen as, or has been staged to look like, a massacre of heroes.

Tempest opens HIC 4 drunk, unable to walk, but maybe able to swim, before Donna Troy hoists him over her shoulder and carries him.  Donna’s “confession” is a metaphor for what Heroes in Crisis is.  She dissects the legend of Troy.  Was it real or not?  Or were 2 storytellers confused and made it up?  Maybe Troy never existed at all.  

 And later, or earlier since the notation One Hour Earlier means little, when Superman tells Wonder Woman and Batman about the emails Lois has been receiving, he mirrors Donna’s story.  They can’t exist.  But they do.  He’s seen them.  (And thus, Superman has been keeping a huge secret from the rest of the trinity, and they fracture more.)

The reader must ask, at this point, does Sanctuary even exist?  Now, in keeping with the theme, we can easily dismiss everything in HIC as not real.  Until we come back to what we’ve seen outside the series.  I don’t have firsthand knowledge, but have read that the Green Arrow comics have addressed Arsenal’s death.  And we know a too-old Wally West’s body is in the Batcave.  But what if those tie-in events also tie-in to the reality bend?  Maybe they aren’t canonical to the series' continuity.  

In the Flash Annual 2, Barry allows Wonder Woman and Batman to take Wally to Sanctuary, but later states that he’s seen the future.

  It’s going to get harder before it gets better, but Wally’s going to be the greatest superhero the world’s ever known.  Then Batman appears with assurances that Wally is doing well, and Barry asks what if it was them?  When is someone going to come for them?  When will it be their last race?

One could presume that Wally’s musings of Sanctuary being fake (HIC 8) are true.  Perhaps he’s in a simulation similar to what Batman did to himself for his birthday.  Perhaps those tie-in events will be explained as being seen from Wally’s perspective inside the simulation.  Or, perhaps everything is real, and Wally staged the scene like he did to give everyone the perfect situation:  it exposes their flaws and forces them to deal with burdens they’d rather hide away – such as Wonder Woman and Superman talking to the press, finally releasing the secret of Sanctuary and pleading for citizens to understand the toll being a superhero takes on their mental health while at the same trying to maintain their trust and sympathy.  The murder mystery/distraction gives Batman and Flash something to mourn, bond over, and fight over, and forces them to realize they aren’t perfect.  After all, once they agree that they’ve seen what they need to see in HIC 4, Flash blames Booster and Batman blames Harley, and then they stare at each other, for the first time reaching different conclusions on appears to be a solid crime scene.

And during all this time, Wally is trying to fix everyone in the only way he thinks can actually fix them—not by talking, but by engaging.  He is trying to “do as much good as [he] did bad,” so because he killed Poison Ivy, he gets the rose from Gotham River, plants it, and gives it life so that Poison Ivy is reborn like a Phoenix.  He killed her.  He gave birth to her.  (HIC 7 and 8)  Maybe.

In HIC 8, Wally says that in instant, for an instant, he was everywhere and he thought fast, real fast.  How do we know if this story—all of it—does exist, but only in that one instant?  That one moment where Wally was everywhere, thinking fast, and seeing every possible timeline?  Taking in the pain of all of the heroes in crisis and figuring out the best way to save everyone?  What if this is the instant before Schrodinger opens the box?  What if HIC 9 is looking inside the box?

Meanwhile, we see more confessions and Batgirl enters the picture.  In her confessional, she slowly removes part of her uniform to reveal the bullet entry and exit scars on her stomach.  And then she’s in a hall of mirrors with Harley, not wanting to fight, but that’s all Harley knows.  Batgirl wants to rescue Harley before Batman finds her, takes her, judges her, sees her as pitiful and broken—the same way he see’s Batgirl—a product of his failure to capture the Joker, another scared girl.  A statement punctuated by the last panel in HIC 5, Harley in the confessional telling about the Joker coming to her door, telling her a joke, and then hitting her.  Hitting her good.

Batman punches people in the face.  Batgirl knows that’s the last thing Harley needs and earns her trust.  The Joker punches people in the face.  Batman and the Joker are as similar as they are different.

We briefly see Green Arrow and Black Canary with Roy’s ball cap getting an update on their coms.  “Unfortunately, we’re still having some…disagreements.”  The reply is that if they don’t get answers, then both will die.  Apparently, the truth and justice mean nothing here.  Only vengeance.  There is no room for a third option.  It’s Booster.  Or it’s Harley.  And Black Canary certainly doesn’t believe in Sanctuary since in her confessional, she stands up, saying, “Fuck this,” and walks out in the 3^rd panel.

On the other hand, Blue Beetle proves his friendship with Booster by breaking him out of the Hall of Justice jail cell even though Booster still isn’t sure if he did it or not, and can’t believe Blue will go against the trinity.  Blue believes more in “the code” of bros before superheroes.  Blue sees people first.

In Blue Beetle’s confessional in HIC 4, he says heroes do lots of hitting, hurting, and dying, and they get used to it, but they don’t.  He gets through it with his friend, Booster, because when it’s hard, Booster picks up.

Booster’s aided escape splinters the trinity even further and pushes Diana to punch Batman’s giant penny, which causes it to land on one of his Batmobiles.  Batman turns to Superman with a sarcastic, “You couldn’t have helped with that?”  While Superman has his back to them, readying himself to reveal the secret of Lois’ emails and soon-to-be-breaking story.

When Batgirl hears the news, she tells Harley it’ll change the world.  Harley says, “Fuck the world.  It needs changing.”

HIC 5 furthers the mystery/distraction while Superman delivers his speech.  Nearly every review I read focused on his speech, so while I jotted down snippets, I’m looking past that at what’s going on in the panels because we have Booster in the confessional talking about a smudge on his lens.  If he takes it off, the smudge isn’t there, he can’t see it, no one can see it.  But when he puts it on, something’s wrong.  He can’t see through it, like there’s blood in the way.  It can’t be there.  But it is.  He can’t see it, but he does.  If the smudge actually exists, is it proof of two timelines coexisting?  If it is blood, is it Wally’s from when Booster shot him?  Or Wally’s from when Harley hit him?  Or does it not exist at all?

Booster furthers into this territory by convincing Blue Beetle that going to the Flash and knocking him out, the thing he tried the first time and failed at, is the perfect thing to do because they are the smartest people and wouldn’t expect the dumbest idea.  And sure enough, it works.  They get Wally’s file, Booster sees the contradiction in the RNA and delivers the shocking reality that Wally’s body is 5 days too old.  This, despite the fact that Blue had said he doesn’t see it and that if he can’t see it, Booster can’t see it.  But Booster can see it.

So can Booster also really see the smudge?

Batgirl goes off brand with Harley in tow, lying to Batman to gain access to Skeets.  While Skeets asks if it’s going to hurt, Batgirl asks why Batman isn’t with WW and Supes?  Isn’t he trinity-essential?  He replies, “I’m Batman.  I don’t do Press.”  Skeets never gets his answer while with Batman, but things swiftly change.  Batgirl tells him that she knows Batman is thorough, but he’s good, so Skeets knew he could get away with lying, but is she good?  And more importantly…enter Harley with her mallet ready.  Skeet, “Oh shit.”

In confessionals, Commander Steele reveals his death, subsequent resurrection by the Black Lantern (Blackest Night Event), only to be killed again, and then having his leg used a club by Wonder Woman against Donnybrook, and then suddenly alive again.  He doesn’t know how or why, or if it’ll stick.  He doesn’t think it will.  He’s sure he’s going to die.  (And he does…and is found with wind-up teeth in his throat.)  And we see Solstice struggling to hold her human form.  She can’t maintain it and cries out—how can The Light exist if she is only darkness?  And then the  Protector—don’t do drugs!—admits he’s a junkie who said stuff and did the opposite stuff.

Meanwhile, throughout this issue, Superman speaks to the people, Wonder Woman supporting him with a hand on his shoulder.  Against panels of Blue Devil at a coffin, Jim Gordon between wanted posters of Booster and Harley, 

full-page panels of Commander Steele and Mr. Terrific, pages and panels of other heroes:  an unknown woman in gold facing a dragon (is that Wonder Woman?), the Atom, Swamp Thing, Zatanna, Starfire, and Aquaman.  And then we see the red-gloved hand (Wally) picking up the rose from the Gotham river shore. 

All the while, Superman is asking if needing help from Sanctuary means they are broken, polluted, unworthy of trust, sometimes vulnerable or afraid?  Does that mean that citizens are now vulnerable?  Should they always be afraid?  Heroes fight for dignity and honor, battling unimaginable torment along the barrier that divides “us” from chaos and death to stare down annihilation.  Heroes smile and laugh with confidence, and take that step up in the “full knowledge of the pain” they’ll incur, the scars they’ll collect, and the nightmares they must forever endure.  He confirms that Sanctuary exists and that should be a comfort.

And now we arrive to HIC 7 and HIC 8, winding the story down to Wally.  Sure, HIC 7 shows us Batgirl and Blue beetle watching Harley beat against Booster’s shield, but they’re both used to it, even if the intent was to talk.  Booster and Harley again confirm that they saw the other do it.  Once Blue Beetle tells Batgirl that he rebuilt Booster’s shield (which was disabled by Wally) and that’s it’s powered by his ship and consciousness, Batgirl knocks him out, therefore stealing Booster’s shield so he can’t hide behind it anymore.  Throughout her time with Harley, Batgirl has told her “no killing,” something Harley doesn’t understand.  But she finally does when the moment of truth comes. 

Booster states he failed, the past and the future, so fuck it, kill him.  He’s worthless.  Instead of stabbing Booster, she lands the blow beside his head, and rolls over beside him.  She’s not very good at “superheroing.”  Neither is Booster.

A scene in the Batcave offers proof that contradictory scenarios may coexist, and I think it’s the first time this is shown with certainty in HIC.  Batman and Flash are searching for Booster and Harley.  Batman’s using his computer and Flash is literally running around every continent and reporting back.  Batman tells Barry to use the Bat Radio, but Barry, as the Flash, says he’s faster than the Bat Radio and takes off again as Bruce thinks through his response that under a certain set of conditions that might be true.  Barry reappears before he finishes his sentence, therefore proving both scenarios to be true.  The Bat Radio may be faster sometimes, but it’s not faster all of the time.

The rose returns in HIC 7 now in Wally’s hands.  He’s in a field of flowers—at the time, I presumed he was in a sim chamber, but now, I don’t know where he is—where he plants the dead rose and uses the Speedforce to spark it to life.  As it blooms, it grows larger and opens to reveal a newborn (and fully adult) Ivy.  Wally apologizes to her.  She says he helped her.  He confesses that he hurt her and that this doesn’t make up for it.  And now she’ll see his death.  (Enter other Wally.)

In Wally’s confessionals, we see a completely different Wally.  He’s fake and sarcastic, on the first day stating, “I am I.  I’m telling you.  We can do this fast.  I’m fine.  I know what’s wrong with me, right?  And I’m here.  And that’s good.”  Then a week in, he thinks he’s making progress, talking about stuff, Linda, Iris, Jai, all of them.  All…gone!  And in week 2, he recaps everything he’s learned.

*He’s been a superhero since he was a teen, dodging bullets instead of being a normal kid

*Modeled his life after “Beloved Uncle Barry” who ran too fast to save the world and left him alone.

*Just when he got used to being alone, Barry came back, and Wally had a whole family and love and stuff, but then they got “crushed by a time crisis multi something caused by Barry” and now his family’s gone for good, but he’s “supposed to be a symbol of hope.  We’re really getting somewhere.” 

In the 3^rd week, Wally breaks down.  “Can’t wait for week four!”

When Wally is with Ivy and Other Wally appears, Wally is both dead and alive.  Batgirl, Blue Beetle, Harley, and Booster, once everyone settles down to talk, figure out that the real Wally West may still be alive since the too-old Wally West is dead, and deduce that they may have a few hours to find him.  Maybe they should go to the League?  No.  Booster thinks that maybe it takes two Nothings, like he and Harley, to become Somethings, that they’re the right people to solve it.  And in that moment, we go back to the Batcave where Batman says, “We have them,” because the alarms triggered.  All of them.

Interesting since in all of the sims, except for Wally, Harley, and Booster’s, they were exiting as the alarms blared.  And now Flash and Batman are exiting as alarms go off and we go into HIC 8 for Wally’s ultimate confession?

Wally appears in HIC 8 in a bloody confessional a little after 3 weeks.  So this would be mere days after he recorded the confession in which he broke down.  How HIC 3 and HIC 6 present his time at Sanctuary don’t seem to match his confessions in HIC 7.  And here’s where the paradox throws me.  How could Wally go 5 days into the future and find himself with the rose and Ivy to kill himself to have a body for the past?  That Wally, with the rose, could only exist after the bodies had already been found.  That Wally cannot exist.  But he does because his body is in the Batcave. 

I don’t really know that anything that happens in HIC 8 really matters once you focus on that, but I’ll break it down because we revisit everyone with their vices or traumas or lives:  Gnarrk with a wooly mammoth, Red and Blue Devil hugging, Roy with a needle, Gunfire killing dinosaurs, Lagoon Boy being shot, Blue Jay shrunk on his bed, Ivy killing the Joker, Commander Steele in a fight, Solstice normal and watching tv as blackness bubbles behind her, a fight with Dr. Light, The Tattooed Man dripping ink, Wally with his family.

Then Wally runs, fast.  Putting all the data bits together.  He claims he was weak for one instant and was everywhere, experiencing every confession, every hero, every accident, horror, tears, everyone.  All heroes in crisis.  He wasn’t alone and it broke him, so he ran outside to be alone (ha ha), but the alarm blared and everyone came out, and they wanted to help him.

Then he talks about the power of the Speedforce, about how it’s a blessing and a curse.  Something that’s like a weapon living inside him, even though we saw it give life to Ivy in HIC 7.  He lost control and it killed everyone, except for Harley and Booster because they hadn’t exited yet.  So he got fast.  Thought fast.  And he runs us through his actions—setting up sims for Harley and Booster, and disabling Booster’s shield so he could travel 5 days into the future (since the Flash War removed time travel from the Speedforce).

Think about this carefully.  He states, “And I found myself.”

We see this as a literal interpretation as Wally comes face to face with himself and the rose with Ivy in the field of flowers.  But could he mean he found himself in the same way someone finds inner peace?  Because, again, that Wally with the rose and Ivy can’t exist.

But 5-days-too-old Wally tells past Wally about the rose in Gotham River.  “It’s one more thing.”  Then Wally kills Wally and completes his plan, staging the bodies and evidence, positioning Harley and Booster, destroying the Sanctuary robots and scrawling, “The Puddlers are dead,” on the wall before crying on a bloody porch and explaining the Flash Fact! about puddlers.

The distraction gave him 5 days to “do something as good as what I’d done bad.  Five days to tell the truth,” to Lois Lane.

Heroes in Crisis is a story about a story that exists and can’t exist because it is a story that exists but can’t exist.  Not until the story’s finished in issue 9, because some heroes finally sat down and talked, and may have come up with a resolution.  Ironic since talking doesn't help anyone, right?  Wally didn't think talking would help him.  But maybe he wasn't the one who needed to do the talking for talking to save him.  We shall see.  The Flash has seen the future and it was going to get harder before it got easier.  Wally West will be the greatest superhero in the world.

Of course, then again, none of this may even exist.