Monday, November 3, 2008

The Chronovore

In case you're not fully familiar with the DC One Million event, basically a Justice League super-team from the future (the 853rd Century, to be exact) comes back in time and invites the present-day JLA to a ceremony in the future where the "Prime Superman" will be returning from a self-imposed exile within the sun. Some stuff goes bad, which I'm sure I'll explain further in another post, and yadda yadda yadda.

Now, while all the future heroes are in the present, some of them spend time kicking it with their present-day counterparts. At one point, in DC One Million #1, the Superman from the 853rd Century tells present-day Superman that he just recently fought something called the Chronovore with a team of Supermen from throughout time.


Eagle-eyed readers would have caught that very Super-team fighting the Chronovore in All-Star Superman #6!



It's also worth noting is that a few panels previous to this one, the Superman from the 5th Dimension (uh, the gentleman with the Mxyzptlk hat) talks about the extra senses gained by the Superman Dynasty after Superman Purple married a 5th Dimension royal.

That same explanation of the new senses was explained a few panels away from the scan from DC One Million #1!


Okay, I'll make this last one short.

I went through some of the DC One Million tie-ins and found something interesting in Chronos #1,000,000 written by John Francis Moore with art by J.H. Williams. In the issue, the new Chronos steals time travel gauntlets from John Fox, the Flash of the 853rd Century. Chronos then runs off to a chronally-challenged bar in 11,021 A.D. where (holy poop!) the Chronovore is attacking Japan! Because the Chronovore's chronal attack is funking with time, the bar is the perfect place - and time - for Chronos to hide out from the time-shifting Fox.


I found some interesting things here. First, the Chronovore seen here is a massive bug and not that sick ball of blood bubbles and weirdness that Frank Quitely drew in All-Star Superman #6.

Next, the Chronovore made his first appearance, as far as I can tell, in this issue written by Moore. So was the Chronovore an idea from Grant that was given to Moore? Or did Grant re-imagine the creature for use in All-Star #6 some eight and a half years after Chronos #1,000,000?

Lastly, between the bug look and the fact that Moore's text describes the Chronovore as "eating time," it hit me that the Chronovore has a very clear connection to Mr. Mind's transformation into a reality-eating monster in 52 #51.


Grant was a writer on that very successful (in terms of both creativity and sales) series alongside the talented Geoff Johns, Mark Waid and Greg Rucka. That's all I got right now on the Chronovore.

BONUS!

A couple pages later in Chronos #1,000,000, at that time-lost bar Chronos is at, you see that Ambush Bug is there as the bartender. And the Legion of Super-Heroes' Brainiac is there eye-balling a Time Sphere that just pulled up as if it were a cherry '68 Mustang. Heh.

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