Last week's issue officially kicked off the Infinite Crisis event with admittedly less than shaky results. It was a story that didn't know how to thread the thematic core conflict it wished to tell into the action of the story, resulting in an issue in which the Big Three stood around bickering while we would occasionally cut to action elsewhere, most of which were bleedover from ongoing stories happening in other books that weren't well explained enough for me to fathom what was actually happening, but giving me enough of a glimpse to realize that there were nuggets of actually interesting stories in the margins. I don't know. Maybe now when I'm writing this in late 2016, I'm exhausted from a decade of hero vs hero events, that dedicating the launch of a cosmic level event to the internal conflict of these three just left me feeling like this event might have some framing issues.
Issue #2 turned out to be a bit better, although I honestly think the story had nowhere to go but up.
We start out at the home of Animal Man, where he is looking for his space suit before he can head out to join the Titans' "Save the Entire Universe" coalition. He explains to his wife that his powers (which I assume uses the same sort of principal as Vixen's, minus the mystical totem) have been going haywire ever since the crisis began, not unlike how dogs can tell when there is going to be an earthquake.
How literal a "moon base" can we get on a Titan salary?
The Escher stairs are being installed
next Thursday.
He teleports by super speed pinball (?) to the staging area of the mission, which looks to be a cyberpunk version of an ancient Greek cityscape nestled into an asteroid shaped like a crescent moon (or maybe a moon that has been hollowed out to look more cartoonish). This is New Cronus, which doubles as their method to getting to the center of the universe. It turns out this thing is also a ship, which sounds incredibly implausible.
It turns out that Animal Man isn't the only canary in the proverbial coal mine, as a character whose brain is basically a ham radio starts flipping out over all the SOS signals he's getting from across the universe. A bit of research showed that this kid is Hal Jordan's nephew, also named Hal Jordan. I wonder if they initially tried to pass him off as the real Hal Jordan after the last reality reboot, like with the new Wally West.
We finish this scene drawing our attention to Supergirl, who tells us that there is no word in Kryptonian for "escape." Will that fascinating xenolinguistic anecdonte amount to anything in this narrative? Don't hold your breath.
Even a giant's hands aren't big enough to
cover up the ladies.
The only reason I can think of why they would end this page with her is that the following opens with a shot of Power Girl. My knowledge of Power Girl is pretty much limited to the New 52 World's Finest series. I somehow suspect in between Infinite Crisis and the New 52, they concluded that her breasts were cartoonishly over-sized... like the artist used a then-contemporary Pamela Anderson as a point of reference. I'm going to come back to this, undoubtedly, but let me just warn you that her physical proportions are... disconcerting.
"She's a Barbie Girl in a Male Gaze World..."
I don't want to fixate on Power Girl's breasts, but the fact of the matter is the artist is making it impossible not to. Power Girl is well-known for her ample bosoms, I was surprised about just how ridiculous they are. They are so endowed that half the time, it makes her head look shrunken. Even with a giantess on the scene, it's her breasts that cause me to wonder whether or not that can actually exist in nature. She looks like pretty messed up.
What good is a cape if I can see your ass?!
Between her extreme "WWE Divas" musculature, breasts that would put Dolly Parton to shame, and a costume that both puts the girls out on display while also basically being an arrow pointing to her vaginal area she basically resembles less a superhero than the embodiment of the toxic male gaze.
There must have been a different artist for the cover because Power Girl looks a lot less like a short-haired Anna Nicole Smith doll that's been through the wash a couple times and a lot more like a viable human form. The ladies are still very much on display, mind you. The artist clearly knows how to advertise to 12-year-olds who are into boobs. In fact, they even extended an olive branch to the butt crowd with the variant cover. Seriously, how is her cape fluttering up like that when they are indoors at an extra-dimensional room full of reality tv screens?
Kal-L narrates about her post-crisis background. This version of Power Girl was discovered on Earth an amnesiac doppelganger (I think the writer meant "Jane Doe," unless there is a definition of doppelganger I'm unaware of) and that she has gone through life without a sense of direction or importance, and yet she keeps fighting. Given that, he is proud of her and quite happy to greet her when he rushes in to assist her when outnumbered and greets her as his cousin.
Stranger danger, Karen! Call an adult!
I am going to put a pin in the Kal-L and Power Girl story for now because that's really going to be the main thrust of this issue.
For now though, we have a lot of one-or-two-page-long vignettes about all the other things going on in the DC Universe. Some of these tie in to what we've seen last issue, while others-- just like last time-- feel completely random and we don't get a full explanation.
At the Daily Planet, Perry White assigns Lois to write on the recently uncovered bodies of the Freedom Fighters (Ray and Uncle Sam are still MIA). He seems particularly riled up over this story because "they were American heroes."
Like I said last time, I feel like this team was selected for the chopping block because of the built-in patriotic symbolism. Keep in mind, this was conceived of and written in the years immediately following 9/11. I guess it was still in the era when playing up American patriotism and using clunky symbolism in order to achieve a galvanized sense of national pride was still considered moving instead of distasteful.
Mind you, I'm not taking as much issue with the idea as much as the execution. The Freedom Fighters are career C-listers. In fact, if you look up C-List Fodder on TVTropes, DC Comics has its own sub-heading and the Freedom Fighters feature prominently. If not for the fact that the team is led by a guy who goes around looking like Uncle Sam, this team would have been in the clear. This team got taken from their habitual role of warming the proverbial bench just because DC editorial needed someone to die to kick off their event while also blatantly tugging at the heartstrings of post-9/11 America.
Did I mention this came out the same year as Marvel's Civil War storyline?
Lois finds her spouse around the office, staring pensively at a framed headline from that time he died, which I suspect would be a sore subject to begin with let alone last issue Batman put salt in the wound by accusing Clark of not being inspirational since then. Just to give you a frame of reference, the Death of Superman arc ended in January of 1993 and he was back before that year was out. In the intervening time, Superman has had twelve years' worth of series across multiple solo titles as well as being a mainstay of Justice League. To accuse Superman of not being inspirational in all that time is cold and unfeeling even by the standards of Batman.
Ever get the feeling that you're reading a book set in the Darkest Timeline from Community?
I feel like they wanted to put in a pep talk, but for the sake of squeezing everything into this book, Clark settles for a kiss. Then he just switches from his Kent persona to Superman in the middle of the hallway (I guess it's a secluded wing of the office) and goes off to... something(?) I think he might have been going to seek out the Secret Society, considering without his super hearing he and presumably everyone in a five floor radius has heard Perry's half of his conversation with Lois. Seriously, Perry White's superhero handle would be "ALLCAPS MAN."
Speaking of the Secret Society, there is a two page sequence that is essentially just housekeeping and letting the reader know which books to read based on which villains they like. It's a handful of characters in presumably a "secret volcano lair" coordinating plans with characters on monitors and telling you where other characters who are visible on monitors will be. For me, this kind of scene is a lot like getting a flu shot. It's quick, it's necessary, but I will find any number of things to do other than read this kind of scene.
However, we get a twist when we immediately discover who has been eavesdropping on this entire scene. Even though he is a participant in this scene: Lex Luthor. But this Lex doesn't know why he's hearing himself on his radio. Also, the reader doesn't know why he's in his super Silver Age green and purple power suit. Then again, having only a touch and go understanding of post-Crisis DC, I wonder why he is an older bald man instead of a ruggedly handsome bearded ginger or why he's not president. Or why he's an outright villain instead of a sly puppetmaster who manages to keep his hands clean. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say the retro power suited Lex is an extra dimensional hand-me-down who somehow ended up here when Kal-L punched a hole in reality.
Well that tacky color combo would make
anyone have trouble thinking straight.
What is weird to Lex is that just as he is about to launch into a villain speech, his brain basically shuts down on him. He forgets what he was about to say, he can't seem to get a clear thought, and not even he knows what he's doing in that garish battle suit. Just then, he looks up to see the telltale sign of two blue and red streaks shoot across the sky....
Meanwhile, Booster Gold is back from a jaunt through the timestream. Good to know he left. And he's back to retrieve his OTP's prized possession, the Blue Beetle Scarab, which last we saw what accidentally dropped in the Wizard Shazam's cave. I bet the Spectre killing him for... reasons... will throw a wrench into that plan and that DC is heavily convinced that this glorified cameo will pique your interest in finding out what happened to Kord's alien and/or magic bug thing.
A real world decision in the writer's room must have been to reverse the best tie-in scenes for Wonder Woman and Batman characters to make up for how awfully the came off looking last issue.
First we get this incredibly amazing scene where the Joker is torturing a member of the Royal Flush Gang. In case the name doesn't give it away, they are a playing card-themed team of villains, traditionally they tend to be thieves or hired muscle for villains with much higher schemes. It seems he's miffed about being at being left out of Luthor's Secret Society Games. And of course King of Spades has no problem with calling a spade a spade and telling him off. Joker electrocutes him to death with his joy buzzer. Well, what did you think was going to happen, King?
Then as Joker walks away, we see all the dismembered, maimed, and otherwise dead bodies of the RF gang. Sometimes, I forget just how effective a character the Joker can be. I generally view him the way I view Deadpool. He's at his best when he's used in moderation and becomes less engaging when he is at the center of drawn out arcs, or in recent cinematic past, in films he didn't need to be in. Also, "body horror" Joker really doesn't work for me either.
Alfred: He'll regret this when I write my tell-all book.
In the Batcave, Alfred is trying to treat Bruce's injuries, but it is clear that Batman is growing unhinged. Or, well, even more unhinged for a guy who runs around dressed like a bat so that he can punch people with actual superpowers into submission. Once he yells at Alfred to go away, his computer screens light up with a pink light and we see a giant Egyptian-style eye.
Bruce recognizes it as Brother Eye. And it's here that we find out that he created this thing in order to spy on meta humans and other terrestially based super-powered beings basically because he's still miffed over Zatana erasing five minutes of his memory. Imagine if she'd erased the memory of seeing his parents get gunned down right in front of him. Maybe his personality would have adjusted seismically and he could be a sane, well-adjusted person.
Not only is Brother Eye the result of Batman's paranoia, but it turns out so are the OMACs. Yeah, Brother Eye is so committed to his programmed mission statement to keep meta-humans from threatening the Earth (read: "Bruce Wayne's fragile sense of security") that it turned apparently thousands of unsuspecting humans into sleeper cyborgs who can be activated and having their free will overridden at a moment's notice in order to achieve Brother Eye's objectives.
I feel like THIS should have been more of a focal point.
Brother Eye also has a quirk of saying "Eye" instead of "I" when using the first person singular and I have a hard time deciding if that would be more irritating in print or out loud.
Finally, we cut to Themiscyra, where Wonder Woman and a cadre of female superheroines are all battling the OMACs. There's not much to say about it, but it is truly a spectacular bit of action that, once again we only get a glimpse of.
Also would have light THIS to be the main conflict.
Finally, we return to the Kal-L/Power Girl story. Keep in mind, this is the subplot they decided to feature on the cover. It's what they are using to sell this issue. Want to know what earth-shattering plot point happens? Do you think you can handle this? Okay, get ready for your jaws to drop to the floor.
Her breasts are WAY too close to her cousin's crotch. Just sayin'...
Kal-L and Alexander Luthor summarize a twenty-year-old storyline. I mean, they do eventually restore Power Boob Girl's mammaries memories, but essentially they exist in this issue to be an expositor and an audience surrogate. To be fair, it had been 20 years since Crisis on Infinite Earths and there are younger readers and casual readers who inevitably need some context. However, seven of 28 pages, a full quarter of the issue is dedicated to explaining an old plotline, including the complex multiverse cosmology. Exposition is a thankless chore, granted, but this one feels like a thankless chore that has been heavily labored in the hopes of getting a pat on the back afterwards.
Also, the exposition paints D-Cups as this special, special snowflake who managed to survive the Crisis because she has a unique purpose. He thinks she is the sole individual from Earth 2 slipped through the cracks of reality because she must have some important destiny. But clearly the writer only read a summary of the event he is failing to succinctly summarize because this conclusion is emphatically not what we learned in the original. In fact Kal-L's description of events even covers.
Basically, everyone who was at the site of the battle with the Anti-Monitor at the beginning of time survived when the Earths were all merged into one. Most of the non-Earth-1 remainders ended up being killed afterward, except Earth-2's Kal-L and his Lois Lane-Kent, and Earth-Prime's Superboy, who all went to live in a heavens pocket universe. Everyone else had no doppelgangers who survived-- that includes Wonder Bra here because Earth-1's Supergirl famously died in Crisis and up until very recently DC's publication history, the Supergirls that appeared afterward explicitly wasn't "Superman's younger cousin." In fact the new Supergirl who had surfaced a few years earlier was "Superman's older cousin who just seems younger because... plot stuff."
Hell. She isn't even the sole survivor of Earth-2. I know that Jay Garrick is around, and even in this issue, we saw Psycho-Pirate, as well as Alan Scott and at least one of his children. This explanation Kal-L is giving her does not hold up well under scrutiny.
Finally we find out what Kal-L's objective is. He thinks that the wrong Earth survived Crisis. In case you didn't read my last installment, he arrived at this conclusion because they did nothing in their supposed heaven dimension by watching nothing but vast numbers of screens showing events playing out on New Earth.
Have you tried flying around the
Earth counter-clockwise?
One plot point that I have failed to mention until now, in fact the comic doesn't reveal it until very late as well, is that upon leaving their heavenly reality, Earth-2 Lois immediately started dying. Kal-L immediately explains that this is what the existing reality does: it actively targets the elderly and kills them. Maybe one of the channels they got in that heavenly screening room was playing Final Destination.
My interpretation of events is that Lois was already old back in 1985. Living in this pocket dimension basically halted the ravages of time and leaving it basically caused the ravages of time to catch up with them. The others all have reason why they don't visibly age, but from Kal-L's perspective, it's as though this world is actively targeting Lois.
Well, of course, you think the world is fucked when you do nothing but watch reality TV all day.
Now he is determined to fix it by restoring Earth-2 to existence and erase the existing reality. Bearing in mind that Earth-2 has a more Golden Age wholesome affect to it, it's like someone saying "life was better in the good old days" except Kal-L has the power to bust through reality like the Kool-Aid guy, so he possibly could make this happen, regardless of how adversely this could effect the billions of lives of the extant reality.
Ye gods! Earth-2 Superman has become an incredibly well meaning Donald Trump and he sincerely does want to make the DC Universe great again. He's out of touch with reality. He surrounds himself with yes men (one is literally hid younger self). He plans to ruin the world in order to bring his idea of "great again" into being. He mansplains. He gets angry at the TV. And he's looking a bit too longingly at a younger female family member who is well-endowed. Ye gods, when will he start tweeting angrily at the cast of Hamilton or SNL?!
I'm scared.
Send help.
I was going for a "Superman in a Trump hat" picture, but this just feels better.
Last time, I hypothesized that Countdown to Infinite Crisis was a "Zero Issue" to Infinite Crisis. Countdown and issue #1 of Infinite Crisis that it launches with a completely different status quo from where we left off last time. In fact, I felt so lost after reading this week's issue that I did some cursory research in my totally legit database that I swear to Zeus isn't wikipedia (full disclosure, it was wikipedia) and found out that Countdown wasn't the launching point for Infinite Crisis, but instead launched four six-issue mini-series that lead into Infinite Crisis. Even worse, last week's read is also referred to as Prelude to Infinite Crisis.Uh-huh. DC Comics, someone needs to sit you down and explain what the words "Countdown" and "Prelude" mean.
Foolish me. I was emphatically wrong. So much shit apparently went down betwixt
Yeah, if it seems like this revelation is abhorrent to me, then congratulations on your basic ability to pick up context clues. The fact that the issue which was supposed to launch an event actually launched four separate series that you need to read to follow what's going on here is on the one hand evil genius, provided the entire fanbase follows all the series and nobody is cherry picking their titles. On the other hand, it's a pretty dumb move. The four mini-series are six issues long and the main event is seven. That means this entire narrative from Countdown to the conclusion took over a year to tell. And keep in mind, that events usually drag the entire existing publication line with them. Cross-over exhaust can drive away an audience just as easily as bad story-telling... which tends to be a frequent companion of company-wide events in shared universe comics, surprisingly enough.
But on the other hand, this blog's mission statement is diving into the deep end with these giant events and trying to suss things out with as little additional reading as possible. So from that perspective, this is DC giving me a gift. We thank you for this bounty we are about to receive.
We start the issue with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman arriving at the Justice League's lunar base, The Watch Tower, which has been left in ruins following attack. Like I mentioned, there has been six months' worth of stories between where we left off in Countdown, so as easy as it would be to postulate that this was an attack by Luthor's united villains (in fact one of the mini series leading up to this was called Villians United), until the story tells me otherwise, I'm just going to assume that this was the result of a structural problem, maybe even termites. "Termites on the moon" sounds like a hilariously awful B-Movie from the 50s that MST3K would have screened, now that I think of it.
Batman and Superman appraise the damage, and Batman finds the Watchtower's black box. They determine that Martian Manhunter wasn't on-site when the assault happened. They don't state whether anyone else was around, but to be fair, despite having multiple cover identities on Earth, J'onn tends to be treated like an extension of the Watchtower.
And yes, her cape game is slaying it.
Batman and Superman are not pleased that Wonder Woman is in attendance, declaring that she doesn't belong there. I think they're going all "he-man woman haters club" because she's horning in on their cape game and out-doing the both of them, but the reason they cite for their hostility is because she kind of had this oopsy daisy moral event horizons in which she snapped the neck of arch villain and career manipulator, Maxwell Lord.
You'll remember him from my last entry as the man who coordinated the complete ruination of Blue Beetle's life, then shot him square between the eyes when he refused to join up with his clearly evil organization. I really don't think I'm going to loose any sleep over this.
They treat this like this was a severe betrayal of the ethics of the justice league and throughout the issue, there will be a lot of discussion between these three. Yup. The holy trinity of DC comics are going to spend the premiere issue of this major event going having the worst group therapy session. It's threaded throughout the issue, but the summary of it is that Bats and Supes think Wonder Woman has lost her way because she took a life.
Now, I do acknowledge that the popular conception of Superman and Batman is that they both hold true to the belief that they do not kill. That being said, both characters actually have killed. Granted, at least in the post-crisis instances, these weren't done lightly. But none of these instances were grounds for the other Justice Leaguers to subject her to a good old-fashioned Amish shunning and it only serves to make Clark and Bruce look sanctimonious and preachy.
In fact, I think they care less about her killing than the fact that she did it on live television where the entire world could see. One of the most legendary members of the League committing homicide for all the world to see is probably hell on their PR. I'm assuming the Justice League is a lot like the Avengers and whenever there is a major re-working of the lineup, there is a press field day and a public reveal, so more than likely they are just on edge at the thought of having to field pesky reporter questions about ethics and excessive force. Also, since I didn't read the mini-series that occurred in, I'm going to go out on a ledge and say that, being a poor man's Lex Luthor, Lord managed to do enough to provoke Wonder Woman without ever being publicly outed as a supervillain.
Then, still in the wake of this abysmal election cycle, I can't help but note that Wonder Woman is being held to a higher standard that Batman or Superman. It reminds me of how the Grand High Oompa Loompa was laughably unqualified to run around the block, let alone for the presidency (and the revelations since the elections have only made that clearer), whereas Clinton was basically put through the wringer basically because she was less than perfect. I really feel like that's what's going on here. Batman has had some really dark chapters and Superman has been know to kill as a last resort, too. And yet it is beyond the pale when Wonder Woman does it because girls are supposed to run around with their little lassos, play nice, and set a good example. Seriously, fuck that noise.
Still less damning that Trump's "grab 'em by the pussy."
Their discussion ends up devolving into just a general airing of grievances and they all decide the effort isn't worth it. Before they can all go on their separate ways however, they are ambushed by Mongul. I only vaguely remember him from Young Justice (which is sad in light of the fact that he was voiced by Keith David), but the general gist I got was that he is an alien conquering warlord type with a history of getting repelled by the Justice League. I didn't see the need to do too much research on him because honestly, he's really only here because the heroes need something to hit.
In another era, giving them a common enemy to vanquish would be a good way to bring them together towards a common goal and help them put their differences aside, but in this book, once the fight is over, they just resume their pithy argument. It's actually pretty Whedonesque how very little Mongul factors in once he's gone. He might as well have been a whack-a-mole that they could have knocked down repeatedly over the course of their spat.
Ugh. Action? Didn't anyone tell you this is a debate issue, Mongul?
For the sake of brevity (I know, I know. I'm working on it), the key arguments against each character is as follows:
Wonder Woman has grown too hard-lined and alienating to the world.
Batman's paranoid mentality has made him even harder to work with than usual
Superman is too human and doesn't seem like the god-like optimistic beacon of hope he once was.
The arguments on all three sides are heated, albeit contrived, but they abruptly stop for no real reason. They just say "we're done here?" Thus, they peel off. Again, a forced ending to a forced argument.
The narration, mind you, is someone who has been watching this and everything else that happens as though he's watching in a room full of surveillance monitors and he's pretty disheartened that not only have the world's three greatest heroes found themselves in such a dark place at present but they've lost faith in each other.
This is the A Plot of the issue. Yup. The selling point of the for-real for-real launch of this major company-wide crossover is a passive aggressive peer review between the three biggest names in DC. All I can say is, shrug.
Of course, there is a cohesive B Plot in the story, which I will get to in due course, but there is also a few glimpses we get of the rest of the DC universe that I want to cover first. Many of these things touch of the many ongoing plot threads as well as the results of the mini series that all feed into this narrative.
My boyfriend has a lot of emotional investment in seeing Conner's arms and this issue let him down so hard...
Conner Kent seems to be in semi-retirement at the Kent Farm, watching footage of the Teen Titans fighting an army of Lord's O.M.A.C.s and is almost tempted to fly off when he has a crisis of confidence and buttons his shirt back up. My guess is that the events of the Titans/Young Justice crossover, GraduationDay immediately preceded this. I haven't read it, but if memory serves, both teams lost a few members and ended up disbanding. I think the two teams to be to be folded in together and relaunched later, but for now Superboy is feeling to shell shocked and burnt out to throw himself back into the mix. His Aunt Martha (I find it very cute that he calls her that) is supportive of him and tells him, "the world needs a Superboy. And right now you're all they've got."
Hmm... that doesn't seem like something to keep tabs on, does it?
Elsewhere Supergirl and Nightwing meet up with the Titans. Mainly this scene serves to set them up on their respective courses. Supergirl and the Titans are off to recruit as many as possible to help save the universe (and remind the audience that Donna Troy has been newly revived) and Nightwing is off to do some street-level heroing.
Do you mind, narrator? They're having a moment, here.
Again, that narrator sounds incredibly judgmental about Dick and Kory's on-again, off-again relationship. Who is this asshole just observing everyone from the shadows à la Dr. Claw and making incredibly judgmental about people's interpersonal relationships? What a dick.
Also, lest we forget that we're moving on, the Titans are off the save the freaking universe. And yet this is only a sub-plot here. It pales in comparison to the thrilling story of Supes, Bats, and WW airing out their dirty laundry, right?
As Nightwing swings across the city, we catch a glimpse of a homeless man apparently being forcibly transformed into an O.M.A.C. then join a throng of others who are swarming in the skies above. This version of O.M.A.C. certainly does seem to be derivative of the Prime Sentinels from Marvel's "Operation: Zero Tolerance" storyline...
Elsewhere, the Green Lanterns are struggling to stop the fighting of the Rann/Thanagar conflict, but it's a struggle. It seems like the Guardians aren't as effective as they ought to be, according to the characters. I personally think the Guardians' leadership is about as useful as the Time Lords, the Watcher's Council, or the attendees at any town hall meeting on Parks and Recreation. Apparently, their home planet of Oa is no longer the center of the universe and that is effecting their ability to effectively aid in the crisis. I guess it's effecting their connection to the power source of the green aspect of the emotional spectrum.
Nothing to see here, folks, we'll get you back to that riveting pissing contest in a moment.
Over in Gotham, the Riddler's latest showdown with the police gets upstaged by the Spectre, who has killed the wizard Shazam. The Wizard Shazam is one of the mightiest sources of magic in DC and the Guardian of the Rock of Eternity. He's a fundamental being in the DCU. Killing him is about on par with destroying gravity. Yeah, that's sounds like it has to be a fairly huge deal. And yet we only get a glimpse of that. Because Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman's rendition of the blame game is the real reason you shelled out the money for this issue, amirite?
Finally, we arrive upon the B Plot: the Freedom Fighters. In case you don't remember who these guys are, they are a team of heroes from a different reality who were folded into the main continuity at the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths. And they are led by Uncle Sam. Yes, the symbolic embodiment of the United States is a DC character. And he's one of the rare DC characters with ridiculous origins who doesn't have a newer, darker, edgier redesign in this era. He still pretty much looks like he hopped right off a military recruitment poster.
A whole bunch of heavy hitters... and Dr. Light. I just don't get it.
Don't get attached to these guys because they are super doomed. Apparently, Uncle Sam got a hot tip about criminal activity going on in this dark and clearly secluded, closed in place that screams "TRAP!" Surprisingly to them, it turns out to be a trap and they are besieged by Lex Luthor's Secret Society of Super Villains. And the kid gloves are off. This entire issue keeps hammering in the fact that the modern world of superheroes is darker, more violent, and unpleasant and this fight does more to illustrate that than the pages upon pages of the Big Three constantly telling each other how they've lost their way. We see some pretty graphic deaths. Human Bomb literally gets pummeled to death by Bizarro. Phantom Lady gets completely run through by Deathstroke the Terminator (I don't know if "Sorry, darlin', just business," makes it better or worse).
Giving his faceplate a smile only makes him creepier.
The only two who aren't decisively killed by the end of this issue are Uncle Sam, whom we last see getting blasted by Sinestro, but not definitively killed, and Ray, who is psionically subdued by the worst piece of trash villain from the last DC Crisis I read, Psycho-Pirate. You'll remember him as the one villain in all of the multiverse who sided with the primordial villain who threatened to wipe out every single dimension in existence. He's an opportunist, sadistic, and a pathological narcissist, so while I'm displeased at the sight of him, maybe I'll have fun watching the shit beat out of him.
*Correction: Uncle Sam is confirmed dead during the end of the triumvirate's squabble. Because that's where it will get the attention it deserves.
I didn't even notice it on my first read-through. That's how poorly placed it is. It's only because reading on Comixology in the guided panel-to-panel format that I saw it. Now that I have, however, all I can say is, really guys? That's laying the symbolism on a little too thick, isn't it? Just as communication finally breaks down completely between the trinity, it is then that it is revealed that the living embodiment of freedom is dead. Oh, you guys are are just so clever. You wove that in like a quilt. Pat yourselves on the back. Then ram your heads into a wall. What? Did you all learn subtlety from the films of John Waters?
Speaking of Crisis On Infinite Earths, perhaps you were wondering who is his who have been omnisciently narrating the proceedings. Well, it turns out he is one of four observers and the consensus in the private extra-dimensional screening room is that the DCU has turned into a shit show and the only recourse is for some audience participation. To that end, the narrator begins punching the view screen. Ah, I can recall being but a wee bairn and not quite understanding that the cartoons I watched were only projections on a screen and wondering how I could get past the glass to join them. Fortunately, I never tried smashing my way through. I'm sure my mom is happy that I never needed stitches for that reason, at least.
This character is more successful than I would have been and by breaking through the weird wall of view screens, he has burst through a dimensional barrier, bringing him and his cohorts into the main DC Universe and at last we see who our observers are, good old Kal-L, the elderly Superman of Earth-2, his wife Lois Lane, Alexander Luthor, the son of Earth-3's heroic Lex Luthor, and the Superboy of Earth-Prime. That's the Earth WE THE READERS live in, mind you. Yup. Shit's gonna get weird.
Yup. Everything is going to pot and our supposed rescuer just broke reality. That's a good sign
If you'll recall, for reasons that I cannot remember right now, these four were stranded outside reality in an effort to stop the Anti-Monitor once and for all from destroying the newly squished together New Earth at the ending of Crisis On Infinite Earths. Alexander Luthor used the remnants of his tapped out anti-matter powers to create a pocket dimension (and also managed to spare Lois-2 from being wiped out of existence) so that the four of them could have a happy ending together.
Of course, nobody said anything about them being forced to sit in a dark room and seemingly do nothing but watch life unfold in the main reality in their happy ending. And not only did they have to watch what was happening, they had to watch the 90s. Think of all the horrors they witnessed. The death of Superman. Bane breaking Batman's spine. So many bad battle armor redesigns... If you were Golden Age Superman, you'd think the 90s and 00s were the dystopian future you'd usually be called upon to save, too.
I feel like this book had a lot of material to kick off an event, but they didn't have said materials in the right proportion. The story is overwhelmingly dominated by the defining rift that has formed between Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, but instead of dynamically dramatizing it, they basically just stand around talking and thus failing one of the crucial tenants of dramatic story-telling: show, don't tell. The book keeps weaving some interesting threads into the fabric of the story, but instead of following through with what could have been exciting, we keep defaulting back to the Bickersons on the Moon. Even the B-plot of this story would have generated more interest if we had seen more of it, as it isn't presented to the reader until fairly close to the end. What I'm seeing here, illustrated both in the two main plots of the issue as well as the sub-plots we touch upon, is that this event seems to be more or less the result of a lot of smaller events that happen to be happening at the same time, as opposed to in Crisis on Infinite Earths where there was one all-consuming plot that drove the over-arching narrative and whose subplots were either a by-product or a reaction to the driving narrative. This isn't horrible, but it also isn't very promising for the trajectory of the story-telling.
Well, here we are with the final installment of DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths. This blog started out as other than Crisis. Do not underestimate what that means to me. No more twelve issue epics! No more cast of thousands clusterfucks! No more poorly paced editorially mandated chess piece storytelling! I feel like dancing. Hi diddly dee! An actors life for me!... Oh wait, I still have to sit down and write my thoughts on the final issue. Shit. Sit down everybody. This is probably going to hurt.
This started as a project of me summarizing the first few issues of the series to my boyfriend on a 6 hour road trip to visit my folks, then writing them down afterwards so I could properly gather my thoughts. Wrapping up the series at long last gives a sense of freedom. I can read something
I'm just going to get this out of the way now: this isn't working as a cover for the final issue of an epic 12-issue event. It doesn't sell that sense of climactic urgency it should have at this point. Just because the main antagonist is huge, that doesn't imply that the scope of the issue is. This is supposed to be the final issue of the series that redefined the cosmology of the DC Universe for a quarter century. It should give the sense that the fate of the whole universe rests on the edge of a knife. Instead, it's just a bunch of heroes smashing a giant monster. It feels routine, like Anti-Monitor is still referring to the Rita Repulsa Playbook.
It reminds me a lot of the first issues of Fantastic Four and Justice League of America, where the heroes are basically fighting kaiju monsters on the cover. If that were intentional, I might be able to find some reason to appreciate it, since the founding of the Justice League was really the moment that gave birth to DC's shared universe... and now we behold last final gasps of air of the cumbersome, convoluted serpent it nursed in its bosom.
If I disregard it's editorial context, the art isn't bad. Although, I do find it a little busy. I think the culprit would have to be the crosspatch of black lines that make up the cityscape in the background. Granted, most of the lines do draw the eye to the central focal point of the page, but there is just so many of them that they come into conflict with the lead to the focal point that the flying heroes are creating with their motions. They distract from one another. Removing the cityscape could have done this issue a world of good. Otherwise, it's fine.
So remember last issue when that handful of characters with whom I wasn't familiar enoughto care about found the lifeless Brainiac ship adrift in space? Well, they're back! And this time, Wolfman was good enough to give me a quick blurb about each of them, so I have at least some context for each one. Still, it's a bit of a failure to captivate. Yes, there is Adam Strange, who we saw way back in issue #4 of the series and was kind of hilarious when he appeared on Young Justice. And there's Rip Hunter, with whom I'm pretty familiar from Legends of Tomorrow (and ye gods, do I need to take a brief sidebar about how he looks here), but for the most part, this is a group of characters with whom I have only the most cursory of familiarity or less. Dolphin had a pointless cameo that led to nothing a while back. I've at least heard of Animal Man, although his description here makes him sound like Vixen plus a Y chromosome. Atomic Knight and Captain Comet? Sorry, I got nothing.
So, as for the pressing diatribe I need to have about Rip Hunter's personal appearance in this era? What other way can I summarize it other than "Flash! Ah-ah!! He's a miracle!" Granted, he looks more like something out of the old comics or the tv serials and not the glorious piece of 80's shlock that I hold so dearly. Still, I feel like this is both warranted and necessary...
Yeah, it was either this clip or the opening scene. I had to make a judgement call and this better reflected how silly and pointless this moment is in the comics. Why, you ask, do I find it silly and pointless? Well because it mainly serves to reiterate what we learned from them last issue. Namely that they found Brainiac and his vessel lifeless in space. That covers the pointless. As for silly, they over-dramatically infer that maybe, just maybe, Brainiac isn't dead after all. No shit, Sherlock! Were they deluded enough to think the reader would buy the fakeout of an off-panel death for one of their key character's chief antagonists? I am convinced this entire sequence could be re-drawn with everyone with derp-face and it would actually improve that reveal. But yeah, their assertion is that he's only sleeping. Like when your dog is only sleeping before your dad takes him to a farm upstate.
The gears start a whirling, and the ship reanimates Brainiac. Amazingly enough, they somehow manage to wrangle one of the archest of villains in the DCU into assisting them without really holding any leverage over him to do so. A couple issues back, the Spectre had to step in as a literal deux ex machina in order to get everyone to cooperate again, but this list of C-Listers somehow have the right stuff. This turn happens over the course of one page. That's roughly about a minute-long interaction. Animal Man makes a reference to Star Trek as Brainiac's vessel blasts off in search of even more assistance. I'm a bit confused, honestly. I didn't realize that they were actively seeking him out and specifically to the end of requesting aid. Imminent danger creates strange bedfellows, I understand, but as far as these characters realize, there is no immediate threat, at least as far as they are aware. There is no reason for them to form this alliance.
We cut to Perez' favorite thing to draw in Crisis multiple panels of the Earth. It is surrounded by a swirling vortex of pink evil antimatter clouds. It appears the Earth has been plucked from its orbit and brought, "Here to this burning cosmic hell. Here to this place of death." Note that it only says that the Earth was, not the entire universe. Again, another instance where we see just how oversold the Anti-Monitor was back when we first met him. There are tiers of supervillainy and Anti-Monitor's tier is so high above what the heroes of Earth can muster that he by all rights should be Lovecraftian, treating the collective resistance of one planet with all the intensity of a swarm of gnats, among many. He could summarily throw the entire dimension into his little hellscape. Instead, he keeps going out of his way to stick it to the same few flies he can't manage to swat.
We pick up here exactly where we left last time, meaning that Anti-Monitor is still projected in the sky looking like a very cheap version of the 80s equivalent of of computer generated 3-D imaging. Apparently, Anti-Monitor dislodged the Earth from its orbit because it alone had an anti-matter shield. Okay. Since when? I'll acknowledge that the hard reboot that reality has suffered means that the protective pocket dimension the Monitor used to rescue the five remaining realities is no longer in play. However, it makes no sense in the rebooted, condensed continuity for the Earth to be the only one with protections against antimatter. Nobody remembers the Crisis except for the heroes, who were still sussing out the cobbled together continuity and hadn't even given a thought to preparing for phase umpteen hundred of the Anti-Monitor's strategy. Either the whole of reality should have been still safeguarded or it all should have been vulnerable. I know multiversal designations go by Earth-1, Earth-2, etc., but they are referring to whole dimensions populated with alien races who generally tend to outclass Earth's technology. I refuse to believe Apokalips and New Genesis had weaker planetary defenses than the planet that in 1984 had only just acknowledged it had a hole in its ozone layer and would have thought dial-up internet was futuristic.
From on high, Anti-Monitor monologues about how this little blue mudball somehow keeps managing to thwart him where countless dimensions were devoured and consumed helpless and how they've only made their end worse by prolonging it. Again, this feels odd that as a quasi-deity, he feels the need to deliver a lengthy verbal smackdown to, comparatively, a bunch of ants. And now all I can think of is an especially vindictive homeowner gloating to himself as he sets up a bug bomb, only to accidentally get sick from inhaling the pesticides.
The speed force prohibits
internal monologues.
Interesting little side note: during his diatribe, Anti-Monitor mentions that Supergirl and Flash died fighting him. I like how the series has made a point of not letting us forget that Barry's sacrifice went unremarked. So, it makes the quick cut to Wally's reaction feel deserved. Finally the heroes know the final fate of their fellow companion. Of course why Wally shouts out asking how he died and where his remains are, as though expecting Anti-Monitor to interrupt his proclamation to take questions, is a bit of a head scratcher.
Once he's done speechifying, he disappears along with the evil antimatter cloud, which seems to have been the sole form of natural source lighting as the entire world turns pitch black. It's only because of their super-vision that they can see that, as happens whenever there is no light in a major metropolitan area, chaos ensues. We see a few images of mass panic, but it's probably safe to assume there is also looting.
Just to be on the safe side, say five "Our Fathers" and two
Hail Marys."
Harbingers appears before the two Supermen, and recruits them. They are ready to take Anti-Monitor out. MORE IMPORTANTLY... Next we see another one of Harbingers split selves recruiting the best DC character in Crisis, Dr. Kimiyo Hoshi, aka Dr. Light. She seems to have undergone some character development since she is far more unsure of herself since last we saw her as a featured character. This is because during Supergirl's battle against the Anti-Monitor, Kimiyo called out to her at a crucial moment and Anti-Monitor delivered the killing blow while she was distracted. Harbinger reassures her that Supergirl was already dying and Dr. Light only helped end her suffering sooner. Thus reassured, they peace out, leaving fellow Japanese superhero Sunburst all by his lonesome.
Elsewhere, the Challengers of the Unknown are still just standing around doing the whole Greek chorus thing as they behold a veritable armada of the Anti-Monitor's shadow demons. After 12 issues of this series, I'm starting to realize why certain "new to me" characters strike a chord with me right away and others feel pointless: agency and purpose. Take Dr. Light, who is amazing. Even before the Monitor imbued her with powers, she was empowered. She suffered no fools, was actively pursuant in her personal science mission, and showed a whole lot of personality in a relatively brief amount of panel time. Meanwhile, I think this is the third time we've encountered them in this series and I still have very little idea of who they are as individuals. At least with Rip Hunter's ragtag team out in space, they all have a little chance to show some personality and be active protagonists in their subplot. These guys just keep on being utilized to point shit out and declare how important it is. That requires an entire superhero team. Marvel just uses one alien who lives on the moon. Just saying...
Who needs a character arc when you can settle for staring at things intensely?
Speaking of Uatu, I just want to mention that the more i look at them, the more I can't help but notice that they bear a striking resemblance to what the Fantastic Four would look like if they hadn't had that run-in with cosmic rays. The team girl is a dead ringer for Sue. The big, stocky guy could be Ben Grimm whenever we see him in human form. Ye gods, and he's named Rocky. This can't be a coincidence can it? One of these guys is named Prof, so that takes care of Reed, and both the blond guy and the ginger guy could easily be mistaken for Johnny. One of them is even a pilot. A quick search on Wikipedia reveals that they were created by Jacky Kirby. Well, now all the puzzle pieces are falling into place.
From here, we have about two and a half pages of padding in which we see heroes around the globe combating shadow demons and doing protect and rescue missions. I have to assume the rescuers are having a higher rate of success than the shadow demon combatants. If you'll remember my recap of issue #1, it's basically shadow boxing.
Hey look! Blue Devil is back on Earth. Well, now I can sleep easy at night knowing he made it back after we left him hanging four issues ago. As an extension of the series' overarching failure to establish a cohesive POV is its tendency to introduce significant characters into the narrative who seem like they're going to be major players, only for their stories to wander off with a note from the editor telling them where to read the continuation of their narratives. I get it. Comic companies want your money. It's the way of the world. That being said, if you're going to do that, take a moment to re-introduce those characters back into the narrative so that readers like me who either aren't picking up every comic on the store shelves or are reading this literally decades later aren't left scratching their heads.
A few mystically-inclined heroes, including Deadman, seem to be gathering to protect the Spectre, who is apparently comatose and hovering over Harbinger's staging area after his big confrontation against the Anti-Monitor. I'm guessing he's still going to prove to be an important element for the conclusion of the story, since they are focusing their powers on safeguarding him. I actually like Deadman, at least the way he's written here. He has this worldly wise, kind of flippant attitude and a beta male energy that keeps him from coming across like quite such a grizzled loner as his M.O. would suggest. .
What's the use of being on guard duty if you can't warn anyone?
Harbinger in the meanwhile, has assembled a pretty large team of heroes and is discussing with them the importance of putting differences aside and working as a team to save the day. Friendship is magic, right? Jade takes a moment to explain why her father, Green Lantern Alan Scott, is over at The Tower of Fate with the other magic heroes. It really comes out of nowhere without any prompting and it comes across like she's telling us that her dog at her homework. Alexander is now fully charged with antimatter again and uses it to break through the barrier of evil antimatter clouds and teleport our cast of characters through. All the while, Deadman, who is still with the magic heroes watches as apparently one of the shadow demons (it just looks like a bunch of squiggly parallel lines) seems to rush away, potentially giving Anti-Montor an early warning of what the heroes are up to, which I'm honestly not clear on.
Far away, in space, Brainiac has taken his new-found allies to someone who can help on a planet that looks like an industrial fire. Oh, of course. This is Apokalips. Who else would be in an A-List villain's rolodex but other A-List villains. Hey Darkseid. How's tricks? You may recall back in issue 8 having a page-long visit with Darkseid where he might as well directly addressed the reader and says he's too good for this story. I'm annoyed that the scene cuts off with his reveal because I really want to see Darkseid react to getting forcibly dragged into this narrative at the 11th hour.
Back on Earth, Hawk and Dove are on a rescue mission when Dove gets impaled from behind by a shadow demons. That has to be an extra twist in the knife. Not only was he killed, but he was killed by a literally nameless, faceless henchman.
At least these guys will have a bit of payoff from spending
so much time staring intensely
Over at the Tower of Fate, all the mystic heroes are ready for their part of the final mission. They also have one hanger on monitoring the news named Johnny Thunder. I know nothing about Johnny Thunder, but I can say that he and Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen probably go to the same tailor. We get a pretty cool image of all the mystic heroes channeling their powers into Doctor Occult and OG Green Lantern. We don't know what they are doing, but it looks like it's going to be massive in scope. Sidebar: Doctor Occult's Mystic Symbol of the Seven might have been produced by the Umbrella Corporation.
Next stop, Qward. Yeah, things didn't exactly go smoothly the last time our heroes were here. Kryptonians are vulnerable here and Supergirl died here, so I'm expecting some scenes of self-doubt. They attempted to use Pariah's tragedy magnet powers to act as a compass to find Anti-Monitor, but there is just too much evil all around them for it to work.
Well, considering you're retired, and a minor,
and apparently dying...
But hey, who invited the kid? Yeah, apparently Wally West stowed away. That was Wally zipping into the group, not a shadow warrior. He sounds a bit miffed that he wasn't invited along, since they now know the Anti-Monitor killed Barry and Wally thinks he ought to be included in bringing back his remains. It's actually a good surprise, but with so much going on in this series, I feel like we needed another moment with Wally earlier to set up this surprise a little better. He is pretty snippy about not being tapped for this mission, but considering we later find out (and were earlier hinted at a few issues ago) that he is dying of cancer that gets aggravated when he uses his speed, perhaps they were right not to utilize him. Yet again.
Suddenly, they see a vision of The Flash. Remember during Barry's big sacrifice when he saw flashes of friends? This is one of them. It fades away, but Wally can still see traces of the after image and runs after it and finds his empty costume and ring as well as a now fully cray cray Psycho-Pirate hysterically begging the red suit for aid as though it were really Barry.
Guys, quit grieving. The plot is off the starboard bow!
Suddenly, Pariah's Canary in the coal mine sense starts tingling and we turn the page... and we get a final splash page of the Anti-Monitor rambling on about the wanton doom of all things again. [Sidebar: he's still gigantic, like he was during the last climactic fight, if not even moreso, so I have to question if people in the DCU have a widespread inability to use peripheral vision, detect background noise, or feel the ground shake under their feet] Oh, wait. Did I say final splash page? My mistake. We're only halfway through this sucker. Apparently, this series thinks a double sized issue is literally two issues taped together.
This might as well have been followed
with an intermission sign.
"Let's all go to the lobby..."
Before I continue, I feel like I really need to go back to another bugbear I have about Anti-Monitor. Not only has he been fairly ineffectual to the point that I've been comparing him to Rita Repulsa a lot (I resisted the urge to compare Dove's death to the Pink Power Ranger getting killed by a Putty, or at least I did until now), but we cannot deny the fact that Anti-Monitor isn't an engaging villain. A good villain doesn't think he's a villain. Magneto just wants to safeguard his species. Dr. Doom just wants to run his country and prove how much better he is at everything than that fool Richards. Lex Luthor (at least post-Crisis) wants to prove that humanity doesn't need to be protected by demi-gods. They're all rooted in their relatable human goals, albeit often flawed ones. Then there are the characters like Batman's rogues gallery, the majority of which are damaged and ultimately tragic. When they retconned away Mr Freeze's backstory so that he was never trying to save his wife, he was just psychotically fixated on some random lady, I was genuinely upset and thought it cheapened the character. That's how important an understandable villain is. But what is the Anti-Monitor? He is literally just evil incarnate. Hell, they brought an evil detector with them. He has no traits a reader can identify with, he isn't exactly a charming scenery chewer like Mr. Sinister or the Joker, he doesn't even have a feasible objective like Apocolypse or Darkseid. He's just there to be someone everyone of all walks of life can punch. They even made sure he had no body so that characters can wail on him for hours on end without the Comics Code Authority complaining about the blood. If you took a Tickle Me Elmo, switched it to Punch Me Elmo and the voicebox played proclamations of your inevitable doom, you'd have the Anti-Monitor.
Okay, now that I'm done with that rant... for now... let's get back to the story. We leave the heroes with Anti-Monitor in his Super Ultimate Digevolution and check in back on Earth. We see Aquaman and his crew fighting shadow demons underwater with a casualty in the form of Lori the Mermaid. I have to wonder how central to the line certain deaths are based on whether they happen in montage sequences or are given their own scenes. I know today, Aquaman has become a bit of a cheap shortcut to a punchline, but he is one of DC's Big Seven, rules his own kingdom, has a fantastically Arthurian-inspired backstory, and at least in this era, can hold his head high for never having stooped to using a harpoon as a hand. However, amidst all the deaths in this issue, we have a full scene devoted to the fall of an Atlantian character who bears the name of Lori the Mermaid. And this is the second time one of his supporting characters have been offed with this amount of special attention. It makes me wonder whether they were a) fan favorites, b) creative team favorites, or c) editorially mandated.
Not even mass casualties will interrupt the Olympics of Staring Contests.
The next scene is a a fantastic two page layout ithat intersplices the Mystic Heroes' efforts with a variety of heroes protecting civilians on the street. Yeah, there's a sizable body count here. Green Arrow-2 gets impaled in the very first panel of the sequence. Robin-2 and Kole of the Teen Titans try to rescue Huntress, who is trapped under the rubble of a fallen building. Kole throws up a crystal dome barrier, but nobody in this series seems to get the essential problem of fighting an incorporeal foes. Instead of protecting Huntress she effectively traps all three of them for the shadow demons to kill without hindrance. Smart move, Kole. How did you make it to #13 on Ranker's list of Teen Titans? Clayface and the Bug-Eyed Bandit are taken out too, but I think the roughest death in this scene has to go to Prince Ra-Man, who by all rights would have been better off contributing his services at the Tower of Fate, but instead looks like he gets sliced clean in half at the waist. I'm thankful this was back when the CCA still had some modicum of control over how graphic violence and gore could be.
Plan B was Mega Maid from Spaceballs.
All while this is going on, the two page layout's center is dominated by the image of all the mystic characters focusing their powers while basked in a green glow. Visually, it amounts to them all staring really hard at Dr. Occult and Alan Scott, who are staring really hard at each other. But then finally, the Mystic Heroes efforts reach fruition and a mystically enhanced chain of Green Lantern energy spreads across the globe gathering up all the shadow demons in a giant net and throwing them out into space.
Eventually, writers will realize that dickishness and heroism
aren't mutually exclusive.
With Earth out of danger, or at least less imperiled, we return to the main event in Qward. Everybody is smashing and blasting, but it doesn't seem to be effective at all. Sound familiar? Yeah, that was issue #10, minus the mystically enhanced Spectre ex machina to lend an assist. However, unlike then or their ill-fated previous trip to Qward, Harbinger actually has a plan. Yeah, it took her a year in publication to realize that a united show of force is nothing without a strategy. The linch pins of her strategy are Dr. Light and Alex Luthor. Dr. Light absorbs the power of a neighboring binary star. I suppose that Anti-Monitor is also using it as a power supply because doing so drains him. Next, Alex uses his biological affinity towards antimatter to siphon off our villain's own energy. All the while, his tired villainy ramblings continue.
Now that he's weakened, Negative Woman wraps herself around Anti-Monitor binding him into place and more than likely infecting him with her radioactive touch. Ye gods, I just realized this is a final boss battle in a video game. It's like X-Men Legends or Avengers Ultimate Alliance. The party is pitted against a gargantuan foe, before we can do any damage, first we have to cut off his power source, and now we're applying multiple debuffs in one strike, which both cuts into his agility and causes damage over time. Well thus weakened, the rest of the party lines up for a Care Bear Stare and yay for teamwork! The Final Boss' first form has been KO'd! And just in time soon. Even a seasoned hero would be taxed siphoning off an entire sun, so it's impressive that she had all that power contained as long as she did. She released all the energy, delivery the final blow to Anti-Monitor, embedding him into the crust of a nearby asteroid.
Danger's over, right?
Hell, no! But the comic sure wants to fool you.
You know when a toddler throws a tantrum when he clearly
needs a nap, but doesn't want it? Yeah. I'm so over this guy.
Well, Alexander re-opens a portal back to the positive matter universe wide enough to get the Earth through, but I suppose an opening that large expends a lot of mana because it expends all his energy and there is a ticking clock to get through the portal before it seals itself shut. The Earth gets through safely and is restored to its original orbit. The heroes then start flying toward the opening when we see life return to the Anti-Monitor's eye. The mystically ensnared collection of shadow demons is drawn to Qward. He completely drains them all of their life force in order to repower himself. Again, that feels like something out of a boss battle.
Okay, villain points for killing one of the Big Three.
You did something right, Anni.
That being said, his actions are pretty bad ass, taking out Wonder Woman-1 with a single blast, but his dialogue paints Anti-Monitor as having become truly become utterly pathetic, outright declaring that he doesn't care about consuming the last positive matter universe or even destroying the Earth. His driving ambition is petty revenge against beings who are gnats compared to him. He has lost sight of what his goal ought to be, but more dishearteningly, the writers have lost sight of why he ought to be an imposing threat. Gone are his complex designs of multiversal destruction with nary a thought other than expanding his dominions. Now all we have is petty jerk with too much power.
No seriously, what is up with everyone's
peripheral vision?
Well, Superman-1 has had all he can stands, he can stands no more! Having lost his cousin and now one of his besties, he's determined to take Anti-Monitor out. And Lady Quark is right there with him. Of course, this makes it convenient for Superman-2 to knock the two of them out in one fell swoop. He hands them off to Superboy-Prime and with orders to get them through the portal before it closes. It's a suicide mission and a noble sacrifice that Superman-2 declares he's making because he has no reason to live without Lois-2.
The Anti-Monitor vs Superman-2 showdown is the battle we've all been waiting for. It feels visceral in a way very few fights against him have been save for Supergirl's. It's an interesting parallel that the best fights in the season were fought in the name of either saving or avenging a familial bond. Supergirl saved her cousin and Old Man Kent fights to avenge his wife being erased from memory.
Seriously, guy?
Of course, this far into the final boss battle, Anti-Monitor's life bar is probably at 45% and this is further exacerbated by the fact that he totally fell for a Trojan Horse scenario. It turns out when Team Mystic ensnared his shadow warriors, they infected them with some magical malware and left them all trapped where he would surely find them.
Closer to the portal, Alex Luthor's strength is waning thin, and Superboy's window of opportunity grows short. However, Superboy realizes that like Superman-2, he has nothing to go back to back on Earth, in fact even less when you think about it, and wants to aid Superman-2 in this last stand. So he just tosses Lady Quark and Superman-1 through the closing portal like a sack of potatoes as the portal closes, trapping him, Superman-2, and Alex Luthor inside as apparently Alex had to seal the rift from their side.
Ye gods, Ganondorf isn't even this hard to kill. Stay the fuck down!
For some reason, though, Alex's eyes begin glowing and feels a surge of energy within him, and soon we soon find out why. We watch the epic battle between Superman-2 and Anti-Monitor literally through Alex's eyes. As it turns out, so does Darkseid. Somehow, without having included himself in the story up until this point, he managed to learn enough about Alex's unique physiology in order to co-opt him into a cross-dimensional spycam.
Of course, Darkseid would only do something heroic if it meant
violating someone's agency without asking for consent.
Superboy rejoins the fight just long enough to get knocked on his ass. So it looks like it's still up to Superman-2, who slams him down onto a nearby planet and crushes him with an asteroid. So, Superman-2 is our big damn hero? Wrong, Anti-Monitor gets back up, bereft of his oh so clownish body armor. Although, oddly this time he is different in appearance than when Supergirl destroyed his previous chassis. Maybe the colorist ran out of magenta. He has tapped into the very energy of Qward itself in order to keep himself juiced up. If possible, he's even more desperately pathetic, declaring that he doesn't care if he has to die in the process as long as they all die in the process. Oh, for the love of Mike, why won't this guy die? Well, Darkseid turns his human periscope into a cannon, channeling incredibly potent presumably anti-life energy at Anti-Monitor, vaporizing him.
The Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail
is laughing at you, ya jackass!
So? Is it safe to wrap things up? Is Darkseid our big damn hero? No. Like any respectable final boss, his final form is even harder to kill than the first 3. This time, he's composed purely of energy. Superman-2, however, is all out of fucks and gives the real, for serious, "no really he's dead, guys," final blow, in what visually comes across looking like an anger-induced Super Punch. He knocks Anti-Monitor into the sun, causing it to explode, and it's only a matter of time before the shockwave ripples forth and puts them out of their misery.
He's here to suck on Werther's Originals and kill Anti-Monitors.
And he's all out of Werher's Originals.
The Superpersons are consigned to their fate, but Alex has another option. So, you know how he's a walking plot device? Not only does he have a way out of their impending doom, but he has solved Superman-2's overarching dilemma since the reboot. It turns out that Lois-2 is alive, and it's all because he protected her from the ravages of continuity reboots by hiding her in a pocket dimension inside himself and never mentioning it until now.
Ewwwww!!!!! Remember when I said he was a creeper?
Was I wrong? Nope! Ewwwww!!!!!
Okay. But wait! This resolution gets weirder. Remember way back to issue #1, you know, back when you could still remember what plausible storytelling looked like? Back on the good old Evil Mirror Universe of Earth-3, Alex's father Lex Luthor was his world's greatest hero, but who was his mother? Hm. That's right-- Lois. In a weird new take on Oedipal Complexes in action, Alex saves his other-universe mommy by putting her inside himself. Apparently, he knew the universe would be reborn. And once again, he never said anything.
The long thrust of the conclusion of their story is that Alex can't get them back home, but the four of them can go into pocket universe that exists within Alex and be safe. I assume Alex going into this pocket dimension is effectively the same as someone pulling their bottom lip over their head and swallowing. For now, however, let's be comforted in the fact that they get a happy ending... at least until Infinite Crisis comes around and gives me a migraine.
Logic takes a holiday.
The rest of the issue is mostly wrap up. Somehow, they manage to retcon Wonder Woman-1's death within the same issue that she died in, which I have to admit is a really fast turn around even by the terms of comic books. No, she didn't die. Instead... okay, what the book says happened and what actually did are different matters. The story makes it sound like Wonder Woman was regressed from woman to girl, to baby, to the clay of Paradise Island. For some reason, that also caused time, relative to the Amazons, to reverse to just before Diana's birth. In reality, Wonder Woman's new origin story happens later, so that she comes to Man's World later relative to the other DCU heroes' first appearances, positioning her as a new comer.
The resolution for Wonder Woman's story is apotheosis.
Just sayin'...
Meanwhile, Wonder Woman-2 is given a place to live on Mount Olympus by the gods. Effectively, this ingrains her on New Earth to the extent that she all but reaches an apotheosis. This, in a new timeline in which nobody has ever heard of Wonder Woman at all, and it installs her in a locus very much tethered to the story of the Wonder Woman series that comes out of Crisis. I'm sure this won't open any continuity plot holes moving forward at all. Nope. None.
Cured just in time for an opening in an ongoing series.
How convenient.
Memorials were made for fallen heroes such as Earth-2's Robin and Huntress, and Kole (whose bodies were never found), as well as Atlantis' Tula and Lori the Mermaid. Meanwhile, Wally West honors Barry Allen's memory in a different way by adopting his late mentor's identity by becoming the new Flash. Oh, and he's cured. Well, that was convenient.
Lyla talks with Pariah and Lady Quark, who are now confirmed BFFs4Life, explaining what I believe amounts to "any remaining continuity gaps we haven't touched upon are simply going to fix themselves." It gives me the sense that continuity hadn't finished resetting itself when they woke up last issue, but now that the Anti-Monitor is gone, the new timeline will solidify itself. The bosom buddies ask Lyla to join them in exploring their new home, and she accepts, now that her father's work is complete, she has a life to live.
"Simba, remember who you are. You are my son and the one true..."
Oops. Wrong cloud ghost speech. Sorry.
We have a final page-long epilogue. Psycho-Pirate is back where he started, in a psychiatric institution, but this time he's in Arkham Asylum, which means he'll be out on the streets any day now. He yammers on about how he is the only one who remembers the multiverse, confirming the idea that even the heroes who remembered it earlier will forget the previous continuity by the time DC finishes publishing their new origin stories, such as John Byrne's Man of Steel (which unfortunately now shares a moniker with a pretty craptastic piece of Snyder. And by Snyder, I mean "horseshit.") Honestly, I'm not sure if this epilogue was actually needed, but for a character that was such a sociopathic egotist and the only one complicit in Anti-Monitor's designs, it's actually pretty satisfying to see that final comeuppance. Also the effect of seeing someone who was promised so much, being panned away panel by panel until he vanishes from sight is quite effective.
The End
So, this is the first time in the blog that I've actually finally reached the end of a story arc. I figure this is my time to give my summary thoughts on the endeavor as a whole. I bet I could go on for ages about all my problems with this, but I'm aiming for brevity here.
Before I go into what's wrong with it, I do believe in giving credit when it is due. This could not have been an easy task. It had a seismic amount of continuity to shift about to get DC's shared universe where editorial wanted it to be. Additionally, it had to accomplish this feat even while DC's ongoing line was still publishing stories. Keep in mind that this story was a many-headed hydra with every head coiled around each and every single corner of DC's labyrinthine continuity.
It's also worth mentioning how avant garde this must have been in its time. Crossovers had long been a thing, yes. But never on this scale. The notion of the "Bat Family Crossover" wasn't even a thing yet. Most crossovers were simply between two titles, such as when JLA and the JSA would have their annual team-ups. And even then, a crossover almost assuredly never went on for a whole year or with such grand designs beyond mix in two sets of characters, sell more issues, and maybe tell a good story. This was ambitious and that cannot be understated.
As for my issues with this, a lot of my problems with this book can be summed up with a few bullet points.
It's unfocused. The series is all over the place and good luck positively identifying a main protagonist in this story. It opts for a cast of thousands with as many pointless cameos as possible rather than zeroing in on a handful of protagonists for the reader to follow on this journey and get invested in. Quantity is confused for quality. Also, the series just fails to figure out what its big objective is. I can count no fewer than six smaller stories that make up the so-called event, one of which is honestly a huge distraction from the event and is so very summarily stopped dead in its tracks that it surpasses plot cul-de-sac and achieves plot escalator to nowhere.
The length. Crisis somehow manages to feel threadbare and flabby simultaneously. There is a lot of padding in this series. Additionally, it feels less like one big narrative than two and a half events that have been stapled together. And even taking that into consideration, they still don't have enough story for the 12-issue length. Like I said earlier, this sort of thing had never been attempted before and I think they realized halfway through that there wasn't enough story to sustain 12 issues, which is why issues 8-10 feel like a distraction by throwing in Blue Devil's Bogus Journey, just chilling with the Teen Titans, and the utterly pointless and heavily built-up escalator to nowhere that was the united villains subplot. Arguably, the three sizeable acts of this story would have been their own events, or more likely two events with a tentpole branding, such as often happened during Bendis' run on Avengers.
The villain. He's a cut and dry evil for the sake of evil baddie, which would have been just fine if he behaved as though he were on such a higher level than our heroes that he barely acknowledged their existence, but instead we end up in this weird situation where this very thinly written villain is effectively a Lovecraftian horror with a thing for dick measuring contests. He becomes that golden boy from high school who was the star athlete and student body president, was everybody's hero, and was offered a full ride, but at your 20 year reunion turns out to have completely fucked up his life beyond recognition, never left your home town, has a crappy job, and probably needs an intervention.
Having said all that, it's an important piece of history both for DC and for the world of long-running shared universes, in general. It also manages to provide a diverse, if not exactly immersive overview of what DC's cosmology was like pre-Crisis. To a point, I don't think it's aged well, but this was still in the era when the comics industry was still shaking off the mentality that they were kids' stuff, and really had yet to be recognized as an artform in its own right, and the structure of the narrative reflects that. Of course, even by the time this series concluded, that attitude was being challenged by The Dark KnightReturns and Watchmen, which together changed the landscape of what comics were and how they were perceived. It can actually be argued that the continuity overhaul that Crisis was designed to accomplish also laid the groundwork for a shared universe that better reflected a modern sensibility of storytelling that Watchmen and DKR first keyed into with its audience.
Next Week: We finish up the less frustrating, but also less ambitious final issue of Uncanny Avengers volume 3's Plant Apocalypse arc. After that I think we might be about due for another cinematic palate cleansers before getting started on a couple new ongoing reading projects that are going to be a lot more fun.
Last week's issue officially kicked off the Infinite Crisis event with admittedly less than shaky results. It was a story that didn't know how to thread the thematic core conflict it wished to tell into the action of the story, resulting in an issue in which the Big Three stood around bickering while we would occasionally cut to action elsewhere, most of which were bleedover from ongoing stories happening in other books that weren't well explained enough for me to fathom what was actually happening, but giving me enough of a glimpse to realize that there were nuggets of actually interesting stories in the margins. I don't know. Maybe now when I'm writing this in late 2016, I'm exhausted from a decade of hero vs hero events, that dedicating the launch of a cosmic level event to the internal conflict of these three just left me feeling like this event might have some framing issues.
First we get this incredibly amazing scene where the Joker is torturing a member of the Royal Flush Gang. In case the name doesn't give it away, they are a playing card-themed team of villains, traditionally they tend to be thieves or hired muscle for villains with much higher schemes. It seems he's miffed about being at being left out of Luthor's Secret Society Games. And of course King of Spades has no problem with calling a spade a spade and telling him off. Joker electrocutes him to death with his joy buzzer. Well, what did you think was going to happen, King?
Well, of course, you think the world is fucked when you do nothing but watch reality TV all day.
Now he is determined to fix it by restoring Earth-2 to existence and erase the existing reality. Bearing in mind that Earth-2 has a more Golden Age wholesome affect to it, it's like someone saying "life was better in the good old days" except Kal-L has the power to bust through reality like the Kool-Aid guy, so he possibly could make this happen, regardless of how adversely this could effect the billions of lives of the extant reality.
