8 Superheroes Who Saw The End Of The World

Grant Morrison has written some pretty spectacular comics throughout their career, and their run on Justice League of America is no exception.

Rock of Ages also marks the first storyline where Morrison would utilise Darkseid, the second being Final Crisis, which released in 2006 and remains highly underrated. Both comics share more than just the Lord of Apokolips in common however, as both also depict him wielding his coveted Anti-Life Equation and ruling over Earth with absolute authority.

But whereas Final Crisis takes place in the present, and the heroes are able to overthrow Darkseid, courtesy of a sacrifice from Batman and some expert super-heroics from Superman, Rock of Ages takes place in the future where all hope has been lost.

In this future timeline, Darkseid's rule is absolute and suffering is pretty much all existence is. JLA #13 even reveals how Superman had killed himself, while Batman remains imprisoned and Flash does nothing but work in one of the many Firepits Darkseid constructed after his invasion.

The time displaced heroes are eventually able to unite the surviving figures in the dystopia and defeat Darkseid (with Atom delivering the killing blow), but previous issues had also been building up to a world ending event. Said event gets revealed in the fourteenth issue, which sees Orion activating a Genesis Box, a device that wipes out the universe and rebuilds it without Darkseid.