Zero Hour: Crisis in Time

Zero Hour is the next major crisis in the DC Universe to follow after Crisis on Infinite Earths. In Zero Hour, Hal Jordan, once "the greatest lantern of them all", has gone mad and after slaying the entire Green Lantern corps and destroying the central power battery on OA, attempts to quite literally remake the DCU to his liking, under the moniker Parallax. At the conclusion of Zero Hour, Hal Jordan is believed dead, not to return to DC continuity in earnest until Geoff Johns' 2004 Green Lantern Rebirth.

This book is pretty standard fare for a DC Crisis and follows what seems to be the general structural pattern of the crises in the DCU:
- In the exposition, a new or rarely seen character (in this case Harbinger) is shown to have unique knowledge of an impending threat to the DCU.
- The heroes from various super teams are the gathered together and informed of the crisis / given tasks to perform in order to thwart it.
- The heroes emerge victorious and several DCU characters have either lost their lives or have been brought back to life.
- And most importantly, the skies turn an unnatural color and are filled with lightning.

But even though this story bears structural similarities to other crises in the DCU, it poses a profound moral dilemma through Parallax. Prior to the events of Zero Hour, Hal Jordan's home city, Coast City (this blog's namesake) was destroyed by the villain Mongul. Upon discovering his home destroyed, Jordan used all of his ring's energy to bring the city back to life -- until his ring ran out of energy. Hal Jordan was reprimanded by the Guardians of the Universe and ordered back to OA for disciplinary action. Jordan returned to OA, but en route he killed every fellow Green Lantern he encountered and ultimately destroyed the central power battery of the Green Lantern Corps. Upon destroying the central power battery, Hal Jordan became Parallax, counted among the most powerful beings in the DCU.

In Zero Hour, Parallax uses his seemingly endless power to remake reality as it was before the crisis. In Crisis on Infinite Earths, the many parallel versions of earth were folded into one and Parallax believes that by undoing this and restoring the multiverse, he will restore his home: Coast City. The whole conflict in Zero Hour is based around the fact that the heroes believe no one should have the power to change reality -- but isn't that exactly what they themselves did in Crisis on Infinite Earths?