'Crisis on Infinite Earths': Origin and mythology of cosmic supervillain Anti-Monitor
When the Anti-Monitor (LaMonica Garett) ended the life of the Monitor (also LaMonica Garett), he remarks how foolish it was for the Monitor to think he had a chance of stopping the Crisis, and the Anti-Matter wave.
Before he falls, the Monitor manages to say, “No, Mobius. It was foolish to allow your creation in the first place.” It’s a head-scratcher of a statement, as the cosmic mythology of the DC comics tells us that no one “allowed” the creation of the Anti-Monitor unless The CW is pulling from more recent comics, in which case the multiverse is in a lot more trouble than anyone originally thought.
In his first comics appearance in 1985’s ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ by Marv Wolfman and George Perez, the Anti-Monitor’s origin showed that no one was directly responsible for the Anti-Monitor’s origin, nor could anyone have seen it coming. Many billions of years before the events of ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths,’ a scientist named Krona wanted to discover the origins of the universe. He was part of a race of people who would one day become the founders of the Green Lantern Corps — the Guardians. The Guardians warned Krona that was a legend of destruction that would be unleashed should anyone view the origins of the universe.
Ignoring their warnings, Krona constructed a machine that looked into the past, where he saw a cosmic hand emerging from a newly birthed cosmos. Unfortunately, the legend turned out to be true, as viewing the moment of universal creation unleashed a bolt of energy that split the universe into a Multiverse, an act which also led to the creation of an Anti-Matter Universe. All the evil, darkness and cruelty of the Anti-Matter Universe manifested in one place, which birthed the Anti-Monitor, while the Monitor was born at the same time in the positive matter universe. When the brothers became aware of each others’ existences, they battled a fierce cosmic battle across universes that knocked them both out for a few billion years.
It was a scientist who became known as the Pariah who, once again, looked back towards the creation of the universe and destroyed his own world in the process. The void left by the destruction of that universe sucked the Anti-Matter Universe into its wake, a process that woke up the Anti-Monitor and the Monitor, and the ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ began. That was all that was known of the Anti-Monitor’s origin, until the new 52 ‘Darkseid War’ event revealed his name — Mobius — the original owner of the repository of knowledge that is the Mobius Chair.
His origin remained essentially untouched, however, up until very, very recently, wherein the pages of ‘Justice League’ by Scott Snyder and Francis Manapaul, a new origin for the Anti-Monitor, the Monitor, and a third brother named the World Forger was revealed. If this version of the Anti-Monitor’s origin is what The CW is going with, then the Arrowverse is in very big trouble indeed.
The series reveals that the DC Multiverse was created by a cosmic being named Perpetua, who was one of a race of many such multiversal creatures in a greater Omniverse. Perpetua wanted to create a multiverse that, instead of working towards harmony and justice, would instead be at war with itself, growing powerful with a belief in doom. She created three beings to oversee this Multiverse, and while the Multiverse went through many crises, becoming a single universe and then a Multiverse again, with a Dark Multiverse beneath it all, the three entities remained.
It is hard to top a series as big as ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’, but if The CW is introducing cosmic concepts like Perpetua to the Arrowverse, that might indeed be the next crossover for The CW to build up to. However, there’s enough time for that as the first Crisis is far from over.
‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ resumes with ‘Arrow’, airing on January 14 on The CW.
