Lyla Michaels is an orphan whose ship sunk during a violent storm before she was rescued by the
Monitor, a cosmic being locked in an eternal war against his anti-matter counterpart, the
Anti-Monitor. Raising Lyla as an assistant, the Monitor observes the multiverse's heroes and tests them for an impending final battle against the Anti-Monitor. During the
Crisis on Infinite Earths event, Lyla enters a womb-like chamber on the Monitor's instructions, gaining energy-based powers and the ability to clone herself. Assuming the guise of "Harbinger", she sends clones to recruit various heroes and villains to fight the Anti-Monitor's shadow demons and protect a series of vibration towers, designed to protect
Earth-One and
Earth-Two from the Anti-Monitor's antimatter waves. While Harbinger is recruiting the hero
Arion, a shadow demon merges with one of the Harbinger's duplicates, allowing the Anti-Monitor to control her. Under the Anti-Monitor's control, the Harbinger kills the Monitor. The Monitor, having foreseen the Anti-Monitor's gambit, has his life force power the vibration towers, saving Earth-One and Earth-Two. Harbinger reverts to her normal form and sacrifices her powers to save the other three remaining universes (home of the
Freedom Fighters, the
Charlton heroes, and the Marvel Family respectively) from annihilation. When the five remaining universes merge, Harbinger records the history of the post-
Crisis DC Universe into a computer satellite, which the
Manhunters use as part of a greater plan to infiltrate the superhero community. Afterwards, she is offered membership with the
Amazon tribe of
Themyscira as the Amazons' historian. In
Superman/Batman,
Kara Zor-El is resurrected, arrives on Earth, and is given shelter on Themyscira, where she befriends Harbinger. Remembering Supergirl's sacrifice during the Crisis, the Harbinger sacrifices herself in a failed bid to prevent
Darkseid from kidnapping Kara. Harbinger is reanimated as a
Black Lantern during the
Blackest Night crossover. She uses her knowledge of history to provoke her targets by bringing up emotional memories, but is destroyed with the other Black Lanterns. An
artificial intelligence of Harbinger who bears a resemblance to the original version is part of the House of Heroes, the Monitor's watchstation. == In other media ==