Warning: contains spoilers for Justice League Incarnate #4!

In an epic round-up of DC's recent history and reality-warping Crises, the powerful Doctor Multiverse has confirmed Superman's true purpose. This comes in the opening pages of Justice League Incarnate #4, which is written by Joshua Williamson and Dennis Culver, with art handled by Chris Burnham, Mike Norton, and Andrei Bressan.

Even casual DC readers have come into contact with the company's infamous Crisis events. These are large, blockbuster crossovers where a cosmic force usually threatens the entire existence of the universe or even the multiverse. In Justice League Incarnate, a Crisis of sorts has emerged when the Flash is tricked into tearing a hole in the multiverse, allowing the darkness from outside to spread in and begin setting the universe back to the beginning. A team of heroes from across the multiverse band together to prevent that from happening, and a new hero named Doctor Multiverse is essential in that task.

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She explains that during a Crisis event, the multiverse activates its immune system: superheroes. The benchmark for this unprecedented effort is the landmark Crisis on Infinite Earths event that reshaped the DC Universe forever. However, during the event Final Crisis, it was also revealed that Superman is the archetype for the ultimate hero. Combined, these two revelations make it clear he is the blueprint for how the multiverse has expressed its immune system across every reality. From an outside perspective, this also makes sense, as Superman was one of the first modern superheroes, and is often credited with popularizing the genre.

Justice League Incarnate multiverse

According to this explanation, the heroes of each reality exist as a natural way for the Light (explained here as the cosmic will to exist) to fend off incursions by the Great Darkness, which wishes to obliterate existence and luxuriate in the nothing that existed before any prior Crisis or version of reality. Another large DC crossover event seemingly confirms this. In Doomsday Clock, Doctor Manhattan enters the DC Universe and sees the arrival of Superman as a fixed point in time. As Superman's arrival on Earth shifts forward in time, so does the unraveling of the DC Universe's timeline of events, triggering its own multiverse of sorts.

It's cool to think of Superman's true purpose as being the foundation for the multiverse’s immune system, but this is also an interesting way to look at DC's villains as well. Although the vast majority of them don't rise to the level of a Crisis threat, they do challenge the heroes that are supposed to stop a Crisis. In which case, these villains could be viewed as the multiverse's way of testing its immune system and strengthening it before the time that it's needed.

The idea that Superman acts as the foundational unit of the multiverse's immune system doesn't lessen his choices as a hero of his home reality, but rather strengthens the sense that he's a bastion of light and hope - one whose essential decency echoes across realities, ensuring there's always a chance to save the day.

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