Disclaimer: All characters herein are property of DC Entertainment. From creating superheroes, to creating the first hero team, to beginning the Golden Age and starting the Silver Age, going from one adventure, DC's seen it all. Long live the king.

Prologue: DC Comics Presents…

Place: New York City subway

Year: 1986

The man was still reading the comic book.

Not that it was any of Tim's business but the bald man across the aisle had been reading from his stack of "comics" for the last half hour they had been on the subway. What was it that he was reading? …Justice League? The cover showed Superman, Batman, Wonder… what was the name of the Linda Carter character? Yes, Wonder Woman! Who else was there? Tim saw a running man dressed in red, a green man with a blue cape, someone with some kind of green ring, and a guy with an orange shirt. They were all fighting a… giant starfish?

A starfish!? Tim didn't get it; why was a grown man still reading the funnies? Maybe the suit and tie explained things; office drudgery could make anyone snap. Maybe it wasn't that surprising after all with the murder of Howard Giffit over in Queens earlier that year. Not to mention that with President Reagan's saber rattling and all but daring the Russians to throw the first punch with that tear down that wall speech, escapism—

"You're staring."

Tim sat bolt upright on hearing that. With a nervous look on his face, he slowly looked up from the cover and turned to the comic reader. The man also looked up from his Justice League book and a knowing smile came across his face. "You're staring."

Tim fidgeted in his seat. "Well, I'm sorry… I didn't mean to Mr., uh…"

"The name's Julie Schwartz." He stretched out and shook the young man's hand.

The young man nodded and let himself relax. "Hello Mr. Schwartz. My name is Tim."

"Nice to meet you Tim." Julius looked at the comic book he held in his hand. "You wondering someone like me is reading these things?"

A nervous look spread across the young man's face and he touched his hand to the back of his neck. "Well…"

Laughter. "I'm reading it because it's my job!"

"It is?! You mean that you work in comics? You're a writer or something?"

Schwartz smiled. "Editor actually, Gardner Fox wrote it. It was Brave and the Bold #28, 1960 and the first introduction of the Justice League. Oh, but those were good days. Fox and I had worked on the Justice Society, an earlier hero team, but when I had the chance to bring it back, I renamed it."

Tim replied, "I think League has more of a punch than Society."

"I do to." He sighed and slumped in his seat, leaving the comic book at his side. "The JSA was back in the forties, the 1940s… and before then…" Looking into the distance, Schwartz wistfully said, "Seems that just a few days ago, I was some kid making science fiction fan magazines. It's hard to believe I'm that old."

If the man was sad, he didn't let it consume him and a smile quickly pierced his gloom. "Ah what am I saying, I should let the story speak for itself." Tim saw him pull out another comic book from his briefcase. It was a Superman comic… starring Julius Schwartz?! The fourth wall breaker smiled. "What are you waiting for, go on and read it!"

Wondering if he had stepped into an episode of Twilight Zone, Tim cautiously opened it. He then stopped to check everything was still there; everything was still there. Still worried, though, he read slowly and carefully. It was Superman #411—had Superman really been around that long? The story was called, "The Last Earth-Prime Story" and it was written by someone named Elliot S! Maggin. (No, really, the "s" was followed by an exclamation mark.) It opened the way you'd expect a Superman comic book to start. The hero flying about and people saying "Look up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Its—" but when they were about to say "It's Superman!" a disheveled old man growled, "Go suck on a banana peel!" ….it was a man that looked like… Julius Schwartz…

Tim went on reading and this "other" Schwartz was seen to be a washed up drunk that wanders in and out of soup kitchens and gets his daily bread from pan handling. It eventually gets so bad that he tries to commit suicide by jumping from a skyscraper but is saved by Superman. The stunt gets Schwartz on the news and is spotted by Perry White, editor of the Daily Planet and his old friend. Superman and the newspaper editor go looking for the old man, all the while White telling the Last Son of Krypton about him. As a young man in the 1930s and 40s, Schwartz served as an agent for early science fiction writers, L. Sprague de Camp, Ray Bradbury, and Alfred Bester. He even sold Bradbury's first story. He and White became editors bringing stories to life and printing them when nobody else would.

Schwartz eventually decided to create his own comic book characters but every time he did, a real superhero would show up and steal his creation's thunder. Shortly after he created Ultra Man, a strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men, Superman appeared. Refusing to give up, he created a dark knight detective called Night Wizard… and then Batman debuted. He went on to create an amazing amazon dubbed Madame Miracle… only to have Wonder Woman take her place. It's like he was cursed or something.

Superman (the "real" one) eventually finds Schwartz but is too late. As the comic book writer lies dying, he tells Superman that he had a vision and asks to be taken to Earth-Prime, a world where the Last Son of Krypton is known only as so much ink on paper. Having been there before, the hero complies with the request. Superman and the dying Schwartz go straight to the offices of DC Comics, the company that makes comic books, and meet a Julius Schwartz who had realized his dreams and had made something of his life. The writers and artists at DC Comics are shocked to see that Superman is real… all except this other Schwartz who always knew it was so, deep down inside. The dying Schwartz merges with his counterpart, knowing that at least here it was not for nothing.

And yet there is more than that. Many times had Superman and the other heroes explored worlds other than that of Earth-Prime—with comic books published by DC comics that referred to heroes from other dimensions as fictitious being the only constant—but that the time of infinite Earths was ending. Worlds would indeed live, worlds would indeed die, and the universe would never be the same again. But even if all this happened, even if it did all end, even if everyone else did die, Julie Schwartz would still be there and he would still remember.

Tim put the comic down, unable to say anything but, "…whoa." He looked at Schwartz, the real one, and then he looked back at the comic book. "Whoa."

The comic book editor smiled. "It is an interesting story, isn't it? And believe me I was as surprised as you were! It was supposed to be a Superman versus Lex Luthor but Elliot S! Maggin, the writer, decided to sneak it past me. He wasn't alone, though; his co-writer Cary Bates, our chief Superman artist Curt Swan, and our boss Jenette Kahn were all part of the conspiracy. So when I was given the new issue… I nearly had a heart attack! I was especially touched by how they put my statue next to Mort."

Tim raised an eyebrow. He picked the comic book back up and saw Clark Kent placing his jacket on a bust the mild mannered reporter called Mort, and yes at the end of the issue there was placed next to that bust of Julie Schwartz. With his eyebrow still raised, Tim turned to the comic book editor. "Who's Mort?"

"He was a Superman editor for nearly thirty years, 1941 to 1970. He was also the sole editor of all the comics for the last fifteen. Y'might say that he and not Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster was Superman's real creator because all the things that people associate with big magilla happened on his watch and for the most part from plots he gave the writers."A sour look spread across the editor's face. "Well, plots he forced on the writers might be more accurate. But, toad though he was—" Schwartz rolled his eyes and shook his head. "—and YES he was a toad, he…" the editor stopped to catch his breath. "… he was still my friend."

"I actually did get my start as an agent for sci-fi writers back in the 1930s but Perry White wasn't my partner, it was Mort Weisinger. I worked alongside him with all the other DC comics and in time I even worked on all the DC heroes. All through the fifties and sixties, I worked on Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash Green Lantern, Hawkman, Justice League, all of them. I never worked on the big man, though; that was Mort's job.

"… but Mort said that if anything ever happened to him that it was me that was going to have to take over Superman… and I did. I've been working on Superman for the last fifteen years and I like to think that I saved my best work at DC for last. I just turned in my final two books for DC, Superman #423 and Action Comics #583; , and I even had them tell the 'last' Superman story. Come to think about it, it really might be the last Superman story with how the DCU is made is dying… The DC Universe is dying and it's all Flash's fault."

Tim asked, "Wait, that's what the story is talking about, isn't it? That the time of infinite Earths is ending?" He saw Schwartz nod. "Flash… he's the red guy that runs really fast, right?" Again, a nod. "How is the 'DC universe' dying and how's it his fault?"

The grand old man of DC Comics seemed to age ten years with that. "See, his real name is Barry Alan. When Gardner Fox and I first introduced him in 1956 there had been no new superheroes at DC Comics for years and we weren't sure if it would work. We tried him out in our anthology title, Showcase… and superheroes became our equivalent of printing money!

"But looking back, the sad thing is that the seeds of destruction were sown in that very first Flash story… See, we said that Flash became a hero because he had grown up reading the exploits of a comic book superhero and on the last page of his first story, that hero is… the Flash! If we had all just left well enough alone, if we had left as just an in-joke then the rest might never have happened.

"See, there had been an earlier Flash called Jay Garrick and Fox had also written his stories. After that, Fox and I decided on a 1961 story called 'The Flash of Two Worlds' where the Barry Alan Flash vibrates so fast that crosses dimensions—" Tim burst out laughing and Schwartz just rolled his eyes and smiled. "Please Tim, bear with me. As I was saying, Barry Alan crossed dimensions and found himself in a world where the Jay Garrick Flash was real. Barry was overjoyed to meet his childhood idol and they got along very well. Barry surmised that Gardner Fox, the man who wrote the early Flash stories had a psychic link to this world and from Alan's remark Garrick realized that the day he retired was the day Fox stopped writing. After saving the proverbial day, the two Flashes said good day to each other and went to their respective ways… except for Garrick who decided to come out of retirement.

"Of course, this logically means that all of DC's other golden age heroes would also live on this, 'Earth-Two'." A Cheshire Cat in a business suit smiled. "There's the Jay Garrick Flash so why not everyone else? And indeed, in one Flash story, the Barry Alan Flash did meet the JSA and to top it off, his Justice League friends went on to go and meet their Justice Society counterparts. Those stories sold like hotcakes, older fans overjoyed to see their childhood heroes and younger ones who had never even heard of a JSA thrilled by the idea of these 'new' characters. The JLA/JSA team ups were always popular and part of it was the whole idea of there being a whole other world just over the horizon…"

Tim smiled from ear to ear. "Wow! That sounds incredible!"

"I assure you it was but there's a saying, familiarity breeds contempt," Schwartz knowingly said. "At first, we'd just introduce different members of the JSA but as that passed we started introducing whole other groups of heroes from whole different Earths into the mix, like Captain Marvel from Earth-S or Uncle Sam from Earth-X, or Blue Beetle from Earth-Charlton. Purchase the rights to someone else's heroes—Fawcett, Quality, Charlton—and introduce them as being fro yet another Earth…" The editor began laughing. "Good God, if I had only known what we were getting ourselves into!"

"It gets crazier?" asked Tim.

"A LOT crazier. See, as we eased away from plot and into characterization, we decided to take advantage of the multiple dimensions concept. We set a regular series, not a one shot or a crossover but a regular series, in Earth-Two: All Star Squadron. There and elsewhere, we told tales of the JSA and we saw the Golden Age/Earth-Two Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. We saw them there and in the regular stories of their modern counterparts!"

"Wait, wait…" said the confused young man. "Are you telling me that DC has two Supermen, two Wonder Women, two Batmen?"

Schwartz nodded his aching head. "Yes and now you're starting to understand our problem. The fact that there was an alternate series of characters meant that there was the chance to do stories that we normally could never tell. We, for example, saw the Earth-Two Superman marry his Lois and the Earth-Two Batman have a daughter by his Catwoman. Her name is the Huntress and she's a superhero like her father. The same for Earth-Two Wonder Woman whose daughter by Steve Trevor created a team called Infinity Inc. made up of all the children of the Justice Society heroes. Now all this was old hat to the long term DC fans that grew up with all this but it was definitely daunting to casual fans. What I'd originally created as a nice joke had grown out of control and so they decided to get rid of everything… by blowing up the multiverse!"

Tim was shocked. "They what?! All you did for them and they're destroying everything you ever worked for…"

"Yes. The idea was that there would be a villain out to destroy everything and all the heroes would unite against him. The villain's name is the Anti-Monitor by the way. The heroes did ultimately beat him but not before the universe was changed so that there had only ever been one Earth. Curiously, the Anti-Monitor takes Flash prisoner early on and while the speedster does escape he winds up dying trying to save the day. So yes," the editor sadistically chuckled, "Flash started the infinite Earths mess and he pays for it!

"For all the good it does anyone," he sighed. "The whole story is called Crisis on Infinite Earths and the last issue is hitting newsstands right now. It's all over now; they're taking all my earths away from me… But I won't let them," he grimly said.

"How Mr. Schwartz?"

"Please, it's Julie." He cleaned his glasses and sighed. "Look, I'm not a fool. I am aware that the universe I helped to create is being destroyed and for all intents and purposes is dead. If so, then there is only one thing left for me to do." He grew thoughtful and chose his words carefully. They might well be the most important words of his life.

"I have been in this business for over forty years, more than half my life. It was a grand adventure," he said wistfully, "a grand adventure. But after all this time, I'm burned out… I'm tired and I have nothing left to give…" With that, the frown that had spread across his face turned into a smile. "…except the chance that the next forty years will be just wonderful."

A puzzled look came across Tim's face; Schwartz must have seen it because he began explaining. "See, I'm on my way to a meeting with all the other writers and editors for DC Comics to redefine our company and our superheroes. This might be one of the most important things I'll do for DC and it will be the last. Like I said, I retired with my last two issues of Superman #423 and Action Comics #583; they told what was supposed to be the last Superman story and unless I go and talk some sense to the writers and other editors it really will be the last Superman story.

"BE ORIGINAL!" Tim jumped at Schwartz' shout. "That's what they call me, B.O., Be Original Schwartz. New ideas, new stories. Don't ever be afraid to change things… but at the same time, don't distort them to the point where they become different entities. It would be a betrayal of our characters and of our fans who stuck with DC. Imagine waking up and seeing your best friend replaced with some total stranger. No, we will make a new DC Universe that combines the best of the old with the best of the new."

With that, the two men felt the train slow down. Schwartz looked and saw that the subway train had reached the reached his stop. He smiled. "Individual initiative and adaptation, remember that Tim. If they blow up one set of infinite Earths, go make another one! I gotta get going Tim. I've got to save the universe!"

As Tim saw Julie Schwartz get up and walk out of the subway doors, he could only say one thing. "Wow."

Author's Notes: In that Schwartz' last Superman issues were published some time after Crisis was finished, I freely admit to some chronological inconsistencies but I do hope that I will be allowed artistic license! Until the next update everyone! ;)