"The Forgotten Crisis"

"When Earth-One and Earth-Two come together, their destruction will release the energy I need to make a perfectly spendid new planet--"

"Look, we know there are an infinite number of existences...countless worlds like our own existing simultaneously..."

"Again it happens...the dimensions brush, momentarily lock...and for a mind-chilling instant, the people of Earth-two waver into sight..."

Sound really familiar?

No...you're aren't reading quotes from the DC Crisis on Infinite Earth limited series. This story all took place a good 15 years before in the pages of Justice League of America #83 (Sept., 1970 issue).

It's a bit of a forgotten "crisis" story these days. In fact, in the story it's actually mentioned AS a Crisis). The entire premise being that an alien called "Creator ("squared")" decided to do this, and it involved "The Black Canary" being its focus-point, so much so that if he succeeded, she would perish!

Naturally, this was a Justice SOCIETY cross-over issue, and "Dr. Fate" called upon the help of "The Spectre" to try to keep the worlds apart.

The end results: Dr. Fate destroyed the "Creator's" ship, Black Canary lives, but the force of the explosion destroys The Spectre (okay...so it actually desolves and seperates his atoms and he's released finally into the "rest' of the unknown afterlife).

Of course, you can't keep a good ghost down and The Spectre was back haunting around in The DC Universe a couple years later in the pages of Adventure Comics.

In the mid 1980's, The Spectre was given a rather under-played role (I always thought) in the prevention of another Crisis; the one most fans know, but it's interesting that this idea was used, and played upon before, and then, in a more lengthly version, so many years apart.