Infinite Crisis #4
Issue #4 is the undisputed dramatic crescendo of the Infinite Crisis miniseries — the chapter where writer Geoff Johns made good on months of escalating threats by delivering consequences readers could not ignore. Superboy-Prime's rampage through an assembled army of Titans, JSA, and Doom Patrol members — culminating in the accidental decapitation of Pantha and the deaths of Baby Wildebeest and Bushido — set a new benchmark for graphic, emotionally charged hero-on-hero violence in a mainstream DC event. The issue simultaneously advances three other enormous plot threads: the obliteration of Nightwing's adopted home city of Blüdhaven via a weaponized Chemo drop, the binding of the Spectre to the newly murdered detective Crispus Allen, and the first encounter between Booster Gold and a young El Paso teen named Jaime Reyes — the latter quietly planting the seed for the third Blue Beetle's solo career. Together these moments mark the point at which the series irreversibly changed the shape of the post-Crisis DC universe.
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The seven-issue Infinite Crisis miniseries (October 2005–June 2006) was conceived by Geoff Johns as a direct sequel to the 1985 Crisis on Infinite Earths, deliberately revisiting its surviving characters — Kal-L, Lois Lane Kent, Alexander Luthor Jr., and Superboy-Prime — and the multiverse concepts that event had erased. Issue #4 was edited by Eddie Berganza with Jeanine Schaefer as assistant editor, and its page count required three pencillers (Phil Jimenez, Ivan Reis, and George Pérez) and seven inkers to complete on a monthly schedule. In a contemporaneous interview quoted on the Wordballoon podcast, Johns described this issue as the moment things 'go nuclear,' a framing consistent with the sheer density of plot delivered across its forty pages. The collected-edition comparison site Crisis on Earth-Prime later documented that an alternate panel of the Pantha decapitation sequence — showing surrounding Titans reacting as her severed head passes by — was drawn but unused, with the published version opting for the more restrained (if still shocking) image of Superboy-Prime's horrified reaction.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published January 18, 2006 (cover-dated March 2006); written by Geoff Johns with pencils by Phil Jimenez, Ivan Reis, and George Pérez; cover by Jim Lee and Sandra Hope, with a variant cover by George Pérez.
- First meeting of Booster Gold and Jaime Reyes: Booster tracks the Blue Beetle scarab to Reyes's El Paso home, discovering it has fused to the teenager's spine — making Booster the first DC hero to encounter the future third Blue Beetle.
- First appearance of Crispus Allen as the new host of the Spectre: the murdered Gotham detective is reanimated in the morgue and bound to the Spirit of Vengeance by divine decree, following the events of the Day of Vengeance tie-in series.
- Superboy-Prime kills Titans members Pantha (decapitation), Baby Wildebeest (heat-vision), and Bushido (heat-vision) during a mass battle involving the Teen Titans, Doom Patrol, and Justice Society of America in Keystone City; Air Wave and Firestorm's Mick Wong persona also die in the same issue.
- Wally West, Jay Garrick, and Bart Allen drive Superboy-Prime into the Speed Force; Barry Allen, Johnny Quick, and Max Mercury emerge from the Speed Force to assist, with Barry and Wally ultimately sacrificing themselves by pulling Superboy-Prime deeper in — leaving Bart Allen alone.
- The Brotherhood of Evil, acting on Alexander Luthor Jr.'s orders, drops the toxic giant Chemo onto Blüdhaven, Nightwing's home city, destroying it and killing over 100,000 civilians — an atrocity that left the city a radioactive ruin for years of subsequent DC storytelling.
- Alexander Luthor Jr. reveals to Power Girl the full scope of his scheme: he engineered the Rann-Thanagar War, the Spectre's rampage against magic users, the OMAC reprogramming, and the Secret Society's activities, all to power his multiverse-rebuilding machine built around the Anti-Monitor's corpse.
- The issue has been reprinted in the Infinite Crisis trade paperback (2006), the 2008 collection, The Infinite Crisis Omnibus (2012), and Absolute Infinite Crisis (2017).
Cast · 40 characters
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[inside front] The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Johnathan Stroud; [5] Ratchet Deadlocked; [7] In house -- Lois & Clark: The New Advetures of Superman Season 2 and The Adventures of Superman Season 2 DVDs; [11,13] abovetheinfluence.com (PSA); [17] Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (DVD); [19] The Batman Express; [29] Ten Thousand Fists by Disturbed (music); [33] Life on the Murder Scene by My Chamical Romance (music); [38] In house -- Sgt. Rock: The Prophecy; [inside back] US Army Reserve; [back] Kameo: Elements of Power
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).