to conquer the remaining Earths. The Anti-Monitor meanwhile creates a new body for himself and tries to use an antimatter cannon to penetrate the limbo universe and destroy the five partially merged Earths. The Flash (Barry Allen), who's been the Anti-Monitor's prisoner for most of the story, dies stopping this attempt. A furious Anti-Monitor absorbs the energy of millions of worlds and vows to travel back through time to prevent the creation of the multiverse. The Spectre unites the heroes and villains by warning them about the Anti-Monitor's plan; the heroes travel back in time to stop the Anti-Monitor, while the villains travel back in time to the ancient planet Oa to prevent Krona from creating the technology necessary for the Anti-Monitor's plan to succeed. The villains fail, and Krona continues his experiment. The Anti-Monitor waits for Alex Luthor to reopen the portal between the positive and antimatter universes, capturing the heroes, but a magically empowered Spectre creates an energy overload which shatters space and time. The five Earths merge into a single shared universe, and the superheroes return to the present; only those present at the dawn of time remember the original realities. A cosmically empowered Anti-Monitor attacks again, transporting the new Earth to the antimatter universe and summoning a horde of shadow demons. He falls in a carefully planned counterattack, culminating in a battle with Superboy of Earth-Prime, Kal-L (the Earth-Two Superman), and Alexander Luthor Jr., with help from New Gods adversary Darkseid. In this final battle the Anti-Monitor, reduced to a flaming head, crashes into a star and is killed by Kal-L. Before the star explodes, Alex sends Kal-L, Earth-Two Lois Lane, Earth-Prime Superboy and himself to a pocket "paradise" dimension. This leaves the heroes of the remaining Earth, none of whom remember the original past, to sort out the aftermath of this crisis. Only Psycho-Pirate, who is locked up in Arkham Asylum, remembers the multiverse. Reception Despite relatively limited marketing and DC being unsure if the series would be successful, Crisis on Infinite Earths was a bestseller. IGNs Hilary Goldstein summarized the series as "a crucial turning point for DC Comics" and credited it with saving the company. Goldstein called Wolfman's idea to simplify the DCU bold and unprecedented, noting the story's exceptional size and saying the story was "unbelievable", if somewhat aged. He also praised Pérez's detailed artwork, saying no other artist could have possibly