Sunday, May 8, 2016

Cameos, plot cul-de-sacs, and clusterf*%ks


Well, this is awkward, isn’t it? I mean, if you’re like me, you probably thought that after the way last issue ended, everything was pretty much wrapped up. The Monitor was dead and both Earth-1 and Earth-2 were consumed by the anti-matter field. The world of DC comics was over and we’ll never hear from them again. It gave me a sense of closure. I was ready to move on to some other crazy mess of a continuity snarl. Boy, did I look like a fool when I went back to my long box and found out that there are still 8 more issues to go. Sigh, let us proceed before I curl into the fetal position on the floor and start crying.

Today, we're looking at Crisis On Infinite Earth #5, once again from the creative team of Marv Wolfman and George Perez. The cover of today’s issue is simple but effective. In the background, we are treated to wall-to-wall faces. Hero. Villain. Past. Present. Future. Earth-1. Earth-2. All of them staring, sternly transfixed on the image in the foreground. Center, we have an image of two Earths, conjoined like a Venn diagram and cracking as though they are about to explode.

Welcome back to the unnamed villain’s pitch black lair, where he and Psycho-Pirate sit around shooting the breeze, recapping the most crucial events of last issue, which also serves to set up some new questions for the readers. The Monitor is dead and the two prime universes (the text does actually call them that, which will probably be a continuity headache in later decades, from what I understand), but the shadowy villain has not absorbed their energies as expected.

Secondly, he posits that whereas Psy-Pi and Red Tornado have been recruited/kidnapped to serve specific parts in his plan (although, he’s growing increasingly impatient with Psy-Pi and again threatens to replace him), he also reveals that he’s the one responsible for abducting the Flash. Although, this was a preventative measure, being the only character who can vibrate through dimensional walls. I suppose Earth-1’s Flash is significantly more skilled/empowered by the Speed Force, since we’ve seen Jay Garrick and Johnny Quick roaming around unimpeded.

The biggest bombshell he reveals is that three other universes remain. This comes out of left field and feels like this was a last minute idea cooked up after the first three issues were already sent out to the press or on newsstands. I’ll go back and re-read them, but I’m fairly sure the reader was supposed to have the impression that Earth-1 and Earth-2 were the last worlds standing between existence and multiversal oblivion. Then suddenly, now we find out, “Oh, the big bad still has three more of these suckers to take care of. It sure takes the punch out of that epic climax from the previous issue. You know that one point in an adventure/role-playing video game where the NPC’s are all urging you to go to a specific place that you absolutely know will trigger the “point of no return” endgame story sequence? It feels like the game froze itself just in the nick of time and told you, “if you want to have any hopes of beating this game, you’ll want to go back and do these sidequests I cooked up at the last minute. Go. Grind. I know it’s optional, but you’ve f#%ked up the game so badly that you need the optional items and rare drops.” Gaming analogies aside, shadowy villain tells Psy-Pi that this is when his talents are needed for the plan. Finally, the guy’s been casting such vitriol at Psy-Pi that I was starting to wonder if he was being kept around simply because the shadowy villain wanted a lackey upon whom the shadowy villain could take out his frustrations.

We cut to the late Monitor’s station. Again, I’ll need to review where it was before. I had just thought it was in outer space, or maybe existing tangentially in all worlds like a multiversal world navel. This time, I noticed a caption reading, “Somewhere in space and time.” Well, now I feel like I missed out on an opportunity for not calling the Monitor’s base the TARDIS, this whole time. Pariah mopes over the Monitor’s lifeless body. He seems less concerned with the loss of life and the precarious fate of the universe than he is about the fact that his new-found source of his personal backstory information just dried up. Then he’s joined by Lyla, who is now fully in control of herself again, flowing pink dress and all. Of course by “in fully in control of herself,” I meant relative to the fact that her father just died—at her own hand, no less. She is in a state of hysterics to the extent that Pariah feels compelled to grab her by the shoulders and do the “get ahold of yourself, woman” thing. And suddenly, I feel like watching Airplane!.

Almost sounds like hangover remorse.
Before things get too maudlin, however, the Monitor appears on the view screen, immediately assuaging Lyla’s guilt by telling her he was fully aware of what was going on and it was all part of the master plan. Of course, I’m starting to think the master plan involves a decent amount of improv. Either that or his master plan, he also has an additional binder for contingency plans. The tabs would be color coded by types of contingency, then further alphanumerically organized by plan name.

Cursed to provide exposition from beyond the grave.
Since he knew he was low on time and Harbinger was all “pew pew die,” he planned for his machinery to activate the very moment he died. Due to the nature of his existence, only his body died and his essence, in the form of energy was released, which would both power the vibrational forks (previously, I’ve referred to them as golden “towers/spires/monoliths” and/or “cyberpunk protect quests”) as well as create a netherverse which functions as a pocket dimension, protecting Earth-1 and Earth-2, which the vibrational forks have drawn in, from their foe’s reach. Unfortunately, Monitor’s condensed time table meant that he didn’t have time to calibrate things properly, so the two Earths are vibrating ever closer together. When they reach the point when they occupy the same space, they’ll destroy one another. To quote Roseanne Rosannadanna, “it’s always something.”

While Lyla mourns for her father, Alexander Luthor appears, now teenager/young adult-sized, to confirm that the Monitor loved her. Oh, and that the Monitor had already confided the master plan to him. That’s a lot of responsibility, both in terms of interpersonal relationship and universal salvation, to rest on the shoulders of a four day old teenager. Before they do anything else, they shoot the Monitor’s body out into space. Hm. I wonder if he was ever brought him back á la Search For Spock.

Perez has seen Wrath of Khan and 2001, obviously.

Over in Ominous Darkness Land, apparently our unseen villain heard the Monitor’s info dump and is not amused. As is the wont of any big boss villain, he declares that he will have Earths-1-and-2, but for now he turns his attention to the three other Earths.

Red Tornado is still off to the corner in some sort of suspension field, like that extra snack pack you put in your lunch bag just in case you get hungry in the last hour of your shift. He’s not being addressed at all. Wolfman and Perez just want to keep him in the back of your mind.

As for things we are talking about, our villain tells Psy-Pi that the entire populations of all three of these alternate Earths will be his to play with. I just want to re-emphasize that—Psy-Pi, whose biggest feat thus far in the event has been emotionally manipulating the emotions of one city’s worth of people. The unseen villain will enable him to do so to the entire human populations of three entire planets across three different realities. That really impresses on the reader just the scope and scale of his abilities. Not only is he capable of destroying entire universes, but look at how much he can amp up the abilities of a (I’m guessing) D-list villain like this clown. But not yet, though. For now he lets Psy-Pi whet his appetite on the Flash, who appears out of nowhere and seems disoriented. Psy-Pi afflicts him with a paralytic level of fear, causing him to cower on the floor, begging Psy-Pi not to hurt him at the top of his lungs.



All the while, Colorist Tony Tollin manages to do something really effective with Psycho Pirate by playing with the shadows of his surrounding. It plays with the red and black color blocking of his costume, making him appear like he's part of the environment. This is the first time he's used his powers in this space, which I don't find more coincidence. It creates an atmostphere bordering on feeling supernatural, helping to lend credence to the terror he inflicts upon the Flash.



Reptar! Reptar! Gotta find that Reptar!







Lana Lang, aka Superman’s childhood sweetheart and that terrible character from Smallville, is reporting on the current status quo. You can take me on my word, folks—it’s pretty amazing. In the netherverse, time and space are in a state of flux. Dinosaurs, spacecrafts, WWII fighter planes, cowboys, pilgrims, zeppelins, golden temples, Neanderthals, Native Americans from the Old West, and most importantly pterosaurs all seems to co-exist in the present, flashing in and out of existence. Presumably this is true of all other periods in time, with elements of the present popping in and out as well.

Perez: "Did I forget anyone?"

Pariah, Alexander Luthor, and Lyla (okay, by now I’ve pretty much come to recognize them as one mini-team unto themselves, so from here on out I’ll occasionally simply be referring to them as the “Monitorettes”), who is once more dressed as Harbinger, but is presumably not evil this time, have assembled a veritable who’s who of heroes and villains from the two Earths. It’s extremely rewarding in a fanservice-y kind of way to go through and see how many you can point out. The charm of this fun game of “spot the hero” fades away as this scene falls prey to a repeat of a scene in issue #2 that annoyed me quite a lot in which we are confronted with exposition and characters distrusting the exposition and character banter/squabbling. It’s actually worse at this time around. Partially it’s because in #2, the reader is pretty much awash in a sea of questions. This time around we pretty much know what’s going on. Nothing that is explained is new.

That can't be important, can it?
The character banter, as opposed to the distrustful naysaying, is actually kind of fun. We see a lot of different types of character moments. Some are plot relevant, such as Green Lantern’s ring still not working and Katana translating for Dr. Light (remember in grade school when your teacher would assign you a work buddy for the semester and they turned out to be kinda horrible to work with? At least Kimiyo let’s you know right out of the gate. I heart you, Dr. Light!). Others are just fun little throw aways like pointing out the vastly different background info for Hawkman and Hawkgirl between Earth-1 and Earth-2’s continuities, and an alien who just happened to be touring the Legion of Superheroes’ base. Also if anyone can let me know who the mysterious guy in the eyes-obscuring fedora and the blue wizard cloak, I’ll be much obliged. He seems really cool.


To be fair, you guys screwed up.
Like I said before, there is some dissent. Most memorable is from what appears to be what a Viking would look like if they existed in a Hyborean “swords and sorcery” kind of world. The bigger and more annoying instance is from Firebrand, who accuses Lyla of misleading the champions she sent to guard the vibrational forks. Granted, Lyla was evil at the time, but she was still following the Monitor’s instructions to the letter. If anyone deserves a finger wag, it’s quite a few of those initially assembled characters for getting sidetracked with guest appearance characters when they should have been prioritizing what they were sent there to guard.

\
Typo or femmeslash?

For some reason, Alexander feels compelled to explain that the collapse of all realities effects planets other than Earth. I don’t know if this was the writer’s attempt to spoonfeed his audience the notion that this is much bigger than just Earth or if this was a case of creative acrobatics in order to give off-world characters a cameo. I’ll give it a pass if it’s on account of the latter. The former on the other hand, Okay, I know it was the 80s and we always look at a previous era as a simpler time, but the 80s were most certainly a post-Kirby world. Readers had a sense for the grander cosmic ideas back then. For future reference, if a given audience is to take it as read that there are an unlimited number of alternate realities, maybe you should go ahead and assume that they grasp that Earth isn’t the only planet—especially when one of your three most prominent characters is an alien.

So yeah, apparently the whole situation of the two Earths vibrating closer and closer to ka-boom o’clock and time and space having completely gone haywire isn’t enough material to convince the assembled heroes to trust Lyla, Pariah, and Alexander. It’s just not conclusive enough that something is awry, so Alexander proposes sending them all back to their respective locations so they can judge for themselves. Really, you guys? Seriously? Maybe your universes do deserve to destroy each other. Reality-level Darwinism sounds rational right about now.

Alexander is less than a week old. Clearly, he has less to lose from hitting reset.

Sigh. Looks like we have a montage of plot cul-de-sacs in store for us. In this event series, it has been the equivalent of characters running around to the tune of the Benny Hill theme.

This issue is bonkers and I love Lana's subplot so much more than the main one.

A bunch of Green Lanterns (not including John Stewart) arrive on Oa to investigate why their rings aren’t working. They find the Guardians trapped in a large yellow stasis field. Before they can do too much more investigation, they are caught in the wake of a green blast of energy.

I'm getting the feeling that this is super bad, right?

Back on Earth-1, Superman-2 punches a sabretooth cat and meets Lois Lane. Both Supermen try to explain it to her, but she is confused. I’m sure if this scene had gone on longer, her thought balloons would have included the words “three way” and “daddy issues.”
Don't worry, Lois. Maybe Freud will pop up somewhere...

A brief scene with Rip Hunter’s crew is there to remind us that time is all askew. Thanks for the update, guys. We thought we knew for sure, but now a time traveler has said so. Now there can be no doubt.

There are cavemen in Wayne Manor. That is all you need to know about that scene.

I don't know what's weirder: the cavemen or the villains in Wayne Manor
while Alfred is openly addressing Batman and Robin as he normally would.

A bunch of heroes travel to Russia to help its sole hero fight a dinosaur. I assume one of these guys is a teleporter or the fight would have been long over by the time they arrived. Firestorm is more open to playing nice with Killer Frost, even calling her honey. Of course, too little too late because Psy-Pi’s meddling has worn away and she tells him he’s lucky she doesn’t freeze his blood. I am totally team Frosty.

Finally!!!!!

Back in villain central, the baddie is doing… something… to Red Tornado. He looks like he’s in a lot of pain. Flash, still suffering from Psy-Pi’s fear from before, tells them he doesn’t care what they do to him, which impresses our mystery foe. Psy-Pi tells our antagonist that he can instill fear in Red, but the unseen bad guy declines. I don’t have the full story on this version of the character, but I imagine much time was spent exploring the android man/machine dichotomy. For all those people that say Marvel’s Vision is supposed to be their equivalent of Martian Manhunter, I advise you to look into Red Tornado. Much more apt comparison. Soon, we have a better idea of what is in store for Red Tornado, who spins, creating a whirlwind, as is his way, but it seems much more intense, like he is in thrall to the cylcones he makes and not the other way around. Flash noticed rain and thunder—not typically part of RT’s power set. The villain revels, declaring that RT is more than a man, more than a machine—he’s a force of nature.
Red Tornado digivolved into Pink Tornado!
This! More of this!
Back to the montage of stuff… the citizens of Earth-2 starts seeing the people and buildings of Earth-1 like ghosts (or Earth-1 are seeing ghosts from Earth-2, it's getting hard to keep track). Something that looks like an overwhelming red whirling tornado of a storm crackling with lightning threatens all their safety, so Earth-2’s magic users pool their resources to stop it and I just want to digress ever so briefly to let you know how much I want Zatanna’s costume in this issue to make a big comeback. The stage magician with fishnets look is nice and all, but with the cape and long voluminous sleeves, she really strikes me as a sorceress.

They dispel the storm and are shocked to find its sources has crashed into the side of a building. It is in fact Red Tornado they find laying in a pile of rubble. All that buildup, and that’s all the villain ended up using for? That’s very anti-climactic. Although there is one casualty: Wildcat. He’s still breathing, but his legs were crushed when he rescued his lady friend Yolanda Montez from a collapsing building.




How many innocent creatures
had to die to make that mask?
Sidebar: Wildcat is another case of a DC character whose costume, his mask specifically, straddles the line between fantastic and ridiculous. It’s the face of a black cat, which in and of itself isn’t all that remarkable a thing, but it’s the fact that it is relatively realistic compared to other animal-themed heroes’ costumes, such as Batman, Hawkgirl (although, based on her cameo in this issue, Earth-2’s Hawkgirl has an especially birdy-looking headpiece), or Catwoman. Unless you have theriomorphic powers/physical features like Beast Boy, Man-Bat, or Wolfsbane, you should go with a “less is more” philosophy towards your outfit. Otherwise, it kind of looks like Wildcat skinned a panther for his headpiece.


Back to the story, there is a tightly packed row of panels below the sight of Wildcat’s noble sacrifice. Each panel pretty much parrots the other, as disparate selection of heroes each agrees that they will agree to work with the Monitorettes to save the world. I suppose good old Wolfman thought what the assembled heroes really needed to all be on the same page was knowing that one of their own had fallen. What a very Whedonesque way to resolve this forced conflict.

Oh, now that someone is paralyzed, you're ready. Assholes.
We next find ourselves in the late Monitor’s base, where Alexander has assembled a large fighting force. He plans to follow through on the Monitor’s plan of saving the three other remaining worlds. Only with all five of the remaining Earths assembled will they have enough power to defeat their foe. Alexander is about to send them out on their mission when Pariah detects disaster. The base rumbles, and shakes, sending them all reeling. From without, it appears as though the base is about to explode.

Doubtless, the warranty expired recently

Our villain watches, gloating on his view-screen, even though he acknowledges that this will merely delay the heroes. Psy-Pi wonders why he doesn’t kill them all outright and also asks about Apokolips, but the unseen foe seems to treat Darkseid and company like pretty small potatoes. Still under the effects of Psy-Pi’s powers, Flash goads the villain, eventually causing him to reveal his identity. At last we have a name and a face to put to the big villain of the event. He finally steps out from the shadows. Psy-Pi and Flash are both shocked at the sight of him, but to be honest? He just looks like a blue robot. Granted, he is a blue robot who has scary, red eyes that look like mini stars and what appears to be a mouth of large human teeth, but still, I wasn't all not all that impressed, at least not at first. The more I thought about it though, I feel apprehension about those humanoid characteristics and what they imply. Was he once human and has piece by piece removed his humanity until all that remains is skeleton and teeth? What drove him to do that and what does that imply about his objective.

What is noteworthy, however, is that he tells them to call him “Monitor.” Eventually, the series will call him the Anti-Monitor. Again what does this imply about his relationship to the Monitor we've known so far? Is he our Monitor's opposite number? Did he usurp the title when Monitor died? It opens up a lot of questions and leaves the audience to wonder. Either Marv Wolfman has intrigued me by establishing an inverse of the character we’ve known in the previous 4 issues or utterly failed at creative naming. Only time will tell.




Trying to sum up how I feel about this issue, the best I can do is say that it has a handful truly impressive moments, but they are blanketed in a thick layer of padding. The cameos and continuity nods would be nice if it weren’t for the fact that they come hand in hand with plot exposition the reader has had since the top of issue #2. After the build-up with Red Tornado since last issue, we thought he was going to be an explosive hand grenade in the Anti-Monitor’s arsenal turned out to be a bit of a dud. A lot of the scenes after the heroes leave the Monitor’s base felt like they were meant to pad the issue until the Anti-Monitor’s big reveal at the end. It’s like the title didn’t have any way to impress us between killing the Monitor and revealing the Anti-Monitor, but they were going to fill up 25 pages whether they had anything important to say or not.


Postscript: So, it took me until the third read-through of this comic, but I finally noticed that the Anti-Monitor's reveal was actually the second to last page of the issue. It teases the next phase of the heroes mission by showing us one of the three remaining Earths that the Anti-Monitor has his eyes on. This one is Earth-X... because DC's old multiverse was so confusing they somehow ran out of numbers and moved on to the alphabet. We meet the heroes on Earth-X, who I will go into further detail later and trust me, this is weird even by my standards. Uncle Sam levels of weird.


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