- Infinite Crisis #5 - "Faith" = A perfect Earth doesn't need a Superman! Freaking brilliant! That whole E2 sequence was great, but I am confused as to how the logistics of Alex Luthor's multiverse spawning works. If the new Earths are manifesting in the same space as New Earth, then what is the point of the rift at the center of the universe with the hands? Booster and Jaime arrive in the Bat-Cave to both join and form the squadron to take down Brother Eye. Booster claims that the future records informed him of the members but claim that Bats would never have found the satellite without the help of Jaime. Could he be lying? Most likely. Although I believe that the Wonder Woman tie-ins rehab'd Diana extremely well, the sequence with the E2 Wonder Woman was pretty cool. Rucka's prose was much better than Johns' one page stitch-up conclusion to put Diana on a brave new path going forward, but it was nice I guess. I've mentioned the Firestorm stuff since it keeps popping up, but I have no desire to read those tie-ins and seeing Martin Stein back as the co-pilot is good enough for me. Three great scenes finish this issue, with Dick and Conner teaming up for an assault on the tower, Alex Luthor dropping a banger line before unleashing a thousand parallel earths, and the return of both the Flash and Superman-Prime with the Anti-Monitor-esque armor!
- Superman #226 - This Is Your Life, Part I : "My Heart" = One of the most fascinating kinds of tie-ins; a three issue mini-arc-interlude that takes place between the pages of the main title's fifth issue (specifically between page 17 and 20). And it's written by Joe Kelly alongside an A-Tier artist-mix? Count me in! Loved the scrap book and the idea that the brawl between two Supermen is in itself breaking continuity and connecting them on another dimensional plane to where they will experience each other's origins. I genuinely believed this was just a recounting of the E2 Superman's origin until we got to the Renato Guedes drawn sequence where it hits you that NE Supes is going to play by his own rules.
- Action Comics #836 - This Is Your Life, Part II : "My Soul" = Well gah damn! The road to hell is paved with good intentions! Fascinating way to characterize E2 Supes, a man stuck in the Manichean mindset, two sides, two colors, one solution! The redux of the Post-Crisis Superman history was pretty hilarious and kind of terrifying towards the end; two men of steel embarking on twin crusades to fix their opposite's worlds, all to save the life of one woman, their soul be damned!
- Adventures of Superman #649 - This Is Your Life, Part III : "My Folly" = And just like that, a brilliant arc culminates in an even more brilliant segway into the line that made #5: "A perfect world doesn't need a Superman." Joe Kelly gives us doomsday in two dimensions as both Supermen are faced with impossible enemies shattering their impossible dreams. On one hand we have a modern age Superman coming to the realization that the Golden Age could never last forever. On the other we descend into absolute chaos as a Golden Age Superman enacts his own authority upon a reactive reality. Obviously the E2 Supes-led Authority is so much fun to watch delve into an even crazier crisis than what is occurring in the actual Infinite Crisis, but the fall of E2 at the hands of the Anti-Monitor as Superman reflects on Bruce's words from the first issue is extremely powerful and poignant.
- Teen Titans #33 - "The Brave & The Bold" = Fantastic! Wolfman and Johns, both Crisis writers, both Titans writers, unite their respective darling boys for a quiet moment among the chaos! Very powerful writing for both protagonists, and so immensely human interactions from the first sons of the world's finest. Cassie also gets a spotlight in this where we get an escape route to prevent her from losing her powers. Her arc finally comes full circle from the beginning of Teen Titans to the Land of the Dead arc in WW to now: Ares and Cassie are to be tethered via blood relation so he can exist in this reality as the rest of the Olympian Pantheon departs. Very cool.
- Infinite Crisis Secret Files - "Heaven" = Some very intriguing character development for The Survivors very late in the game, but Wolfman presents it in such a believable way that it ends up working pretty well. E2 Superman is so blinded by his love for Lois that it clouds his judgement and feeds the negative aspects of his outdated moral compass. Superboy-Prime is psychologically manipulated by Alex Luthor via the crystal looking glass walls of the Heaven dimension. Super-powered teen-angst paired with the destruction of your entire world is already a cross to bear, but stuck in a timeless prison as you are tormented by past trauma is beyond worse. Alex Luthor might have it the worst of all: grown to a man in less than a tenth of that time, he is at war with himself. He has no past, a survivor of a dead universe only to be raised between moments by a primordial celestial watcher. He has no future, trapped within a paradise purgatory of his own making. Even worse, he is a Luthor of Earth-3, an anomaly of virtue in a world of vice: but just like the New Earth Luthor occasionally phases between good and evil, this Luthor begins to tread the line as well. There are a couple of continuity mess ups that bugged me: one in particular was Superboy viewing the death of Max Lord even though that didn't happen until after he and Alex started their machinations. We also learn that Alex was the one who zapped the files from Brother Eye in the Countdown special, though if he gave the satellite sentience and pushed it to fall into the hands of Lord from the get-go, then why would he have to delete them? Could he not access them? Or did he not give control of the satellite and Lord just stole it from Bruce on his own? One of the few mysteries in Infinite Crisis that remains unclear.
- Batman Annual #25 - "Daedalus & Icarus: The Return Of Jason Todd" = A fun epilogue, but Winick goes a little overboard with the justifications and the intrigue regarding his paradigm shift, and jeez that moment in Hush with the Clayface switcharoo. Was it editorial, or did everyone unanimously agree to have their cake and eat it too? We'll never know. The Ra's and Talia stuff was interesting, but the Lazarus factor might have cluttered it too much. Yes, I love the movie adaptation where it's the only reason for his resurrection, but when you start the issue with Superboy-Prime's cosmic reality-altering punches, I'm already inclined to accept that without the need for the intertwining with Ra's soul energy or whatever.
- Infinite Crisis #6 - "Touchdown" = Full circle dammit! RIP Conner Kent, you went out like Superman, putting the lives of the universe above your own. There's a lot to love in this chapter, the split narrative as Batman leads his squadron against the eye in the sky while the children of the trinity assault Alex Luthor's tower. I'm laughing pretty hard at the fact that I've mentioned the irrelevance of Firestorm's presence throughout this event only for him to save both Supermen and Wonder Woman from Alex by blowing his freaking finger off. The feedback from division of the Earths appears to consume a large portion of the space league, threads left to be picked up by 52. Spectre returns to kill off Star Sapphire (setting up plot points for Carol in the GL title?). The nuTrinity frees the prisoners from the tower allowing us to get an awesome moment where Black Adam kills Psycho Pirate. Loved seeing Alex Luthor reach out to the reader to access Earth-Prime, and the splash seeing various alter-earths in Perez glory was great. The fact that it's a new Blue Beetle that brings about the fall of OMAC and the legacy of Max Lord is so earned, and I just can't help but recall that moment in the Countdown special where Ted says: "I am the second man to call himself the Blue Beetle. I tell myself there will be a third. And I hope whoever he or she may be, they do it better than I have." FULL CIRCLE, DAMMIT! IT'S OVERTIME!
- OMAC Project Special - "The Lazarus Protocol" = What a great reveal! The person who imbued Sasha with the anti-OMAC power was Brother Eye himself! In the Countdown mini the characters had postulated that it was Max who did it as a failsafe against Brother eye going rogue, but that didn't explain why she could resist his powers back in #3. Now we have a final answer: Eye had planned to use Sasha as his own failsafe if system failure was imminent. Really enjoyed the espionage vibe we get in this, something that I wholeheartedly hope is continued in Rucka's Checkmate series. Waller being promoted to Black King is very interesting, and having Fire, Jessica Midnight, and possibly Mister Bones of the DEO as the supporting cast has me hooked! Sasha's freedom in that last page makes me so happy; she is one of the best things to have come out of this era of DC.
- Villains United Special - "A Hero Dies But Once" = War drums beat as an army of evil-doers assemble, aiming annihilation at the city of tomorrow! Gail Simone's sharp prose and Dale Eaglesham's stunning art give us cracked mirror POV's: Oracle on one side coordinating damage control as heroes are scattered to contain the various breakouts, while on the other side the Society puts the finishing touches on their grand design. J'onn gets a great moment and splash page, while the Secret Six themselves are reduced to an ancillary role, providing Green Arrow with a head start before the final act. As battle lines are drawn, a black sun rises to unveil only Doomsday for the heroes!
- Infinite Crisis #7 - "For Tomorrow" = An epic for the ages! We are officially done with "Post-Crisis" DC, now we enter the event era of the Hypercrisis! We get some really great moments in this issue: Bart is revealed as the Flash that emerged at the end of #5, J'onn's line of "Take to the skies", the Thin Green Line, and the battle upon Mogo were all so much fun. My favorite however was Batman's dance on the brink of the abyss, the staring contest with oblivion as he wields the weapon that killed his parents to enact final vengeance over justice. He hasn't really had his therapy session like Supes or Wondy yet so it's all up for grabs: will the Bat finally break? But like the first truth of Batman (something Morrison eventually touches upon in Return of Bruce Wayne), he was never alone. The bell is rung, and Diana comes to pull him back from the forever pit. Brilliant. Very sad to see E2 Supes go, but the Survivors (besides Prime) were never really meant to survive past this event. Prime himself, as Alex stated last issue, has been changed by the New Earth, he's become a part of its narrative. I loved the extra lines they added in the trade collection during E2 Supes last moments, and that depiction of him and Lois embedded in the stars is beautiful. As for the status quo cleanup: space gang is still missing, Crispus is our new Spectre, some kid finds the Tangent universe GL staff washed up on shore, the Speed Force is gone along with Wally and his family, while the Trinity depart to find themselves on their own spiritual and introspective journeys. I'm assuming Diana's Invisible Jet is from the E2 WW which is great, and a depowered Clark sets us up for Busiek and Johns Up, Up, & Away! Our overarching villains get what they deserve in the end; Prime is locked up on Oa, while Alex fails to predict a wild card as his doppelganger gets the last laugh.
And that's a wrap for Infinite Crisis and Countdown everybody! This was a huge journey that took more than a year to complete (including planning and research for the optimized reading order), but I'm so happy to have made it in one piece! I can't say I'm sad it's over since there is so much good material to read following it, but to catch up on the highlights of 2000's era DC was way too much fun. To read over a dozen series intertwined to recreate a sense of suspense and excitement within a design built by the architects at that time is something I recommend to any comics fan. This truly reminded me of when I first got into comics during the Rebirth era, and every title I picked up felt like it mattered in some way and was contributing towards the grand narrative. Although Rebirth didn't turn out the way it was supposed to, the building blocks behind Infinite Crisis and Countdown sure did, and I'm so glad I was able to do this! I'd like to thank the DC Wiki and Half-Price Books for enabling me to find literally every single tie-in I needed, and some great trades they put out alongside the main one. Finally, thank you to Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, Judd Winick, and every single artist and writer who worked to create this wonderful event!
No comments:
Post a Comment