"Our Worlds at War" is a comic book storyline, published by DC Comics in mid-2001. OWAW was a crossover storyline that spanned several different books, including several books starring Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, and a number of supporting characters and books. Creators involved in the crossover included writers Jeph Loeb, Joe Casey, Mark Schultz, Joe Kelly, Phil Jimenez, and Peter David, and artists that included Mike Wieringo, Ed McGuinness, Doug Mahnke, Ron Garney, and Leonard Kirk.
The Our Worlds at War storyline involves the heroes battling Imperiex, a cosmic entity who represents entropy and threatens to destroy the universe.
Thanks to the sacrifice of Strange Visitor and General Rock, Earth's forces crack Imperiex's armor, releasing his energy. However, Brainiac-13 appears with Warworld and absorbs the energy, vowing to use it to rule everything.
In a desperate gambit, Superman dives into the heart of the Sun, thus gaining a massive power boost. Rapidly realizing that Warworld cannot be destroyed without releasing Imperiex and triggering another Big Bang, Superman and Martian Manhunter form a telepathic link with the remaining major combatants â including Darkseid, Lex Luthor, Steel and Wonder Woman â to explain their new plan. Tempest focuses energy through Steel's Entropy Aegis armor, which was created from a burned-out Imperiex probe. The Entropy Aegis is combined with Lex Luthor activating a temporal displacement weapon, which sends Warworld, Imperiex, and Brainiac back in time to the beginning of the universe. Before being destroyed, Imperiex realizes that the imperfection he had detected in the universe was himself.
Several heroes are killed or presumed dead during the conflict, including Hippolyta, Sam Lane, Aquaman, Maxima, Massacre, Jonathan and Martha Kent, and Strange Visitor. Hippolyta, Aquaman, Sam Lane, and the Kents are later revealed to have survived.
The story ran through the following issues:
The story has been collected into trade paperbacks: