Posts
I did like his re-introduction, particularly Psycho Pirate's reaction ("... he's here") but I really hope they didn't bring this symbol of what was right with DC out of his well-deserved and well-written retirement to sully his good name.
What I do hope for is the following:
- A lightening of some corners of the DC Universe. Not all of them, though. I kind of like my Hawkman a little dark. But superman should be about inspiration and Wonder Woman should be about hope.
- A return to a Superman who is both fun to read and who reads like all the other heroes should, and do, respect him.
- A Batman (Bruce Wayne, as there are rumors that Batman may die in the Crisis. Of course those rumors exist for all the big characters) who is capable of trusting others. Even if he starts small, with just some of his more regular supporting cast.
- A return to coolness for the Joker. Obviously given the scene where he takes out the Royal Flush Gang, they have some plans for him, and I think that the Society might end up regretting their snubbing of him. He's been kicked around a lot lately, and I think it is time he kicked back, and had a return to old form. Back when he wasn't about taking out Batman, but was about being insane, and taking out Batman was a fringe benefit.
- The legacy of the Golden Age characters left strong.
Now, I really do believe that Geoff Johns loves these characters, and will try to do right by them. I think that Dan DiDio loves them too. I just hope that love plays out in a positive way.
Also, I think this issue was much more... accessible. I think they did a good job of explaining the back story in this one. I read somewhere that the first issue was intentionally a little overwhelming, and that this one was the real starting point of the story. I certainly felt that way.
Another highlight of this week was Teen Titans. I did not really enjoy Gail Simone's fill-in issues, which is surprising to me - she is one of my favorite writers in comics today and I have always really liked Hawk, Dove and Kestrel- but this issue was really good. A confrontation between Jason Todd (the Robin who was killed but recently returned) and Tim Drake (the current Robin). I like that Todd dropped his "Red Hood" identity and wore a stylized Robin costume for the battle. I liked that it was both an emotional and physical confrontation, and I thought the interaction between the two was well-written, and showed their differences and similarities really well.
I haven't read "House of M" yet (I will be soon, now that it is over) but picked up the first issue of the New Excalibur. The jury is still out, but it was an enjoyable read, and I was glad to see Dazzler back, particularly her brief appearance in her classic "disco queen" costume.
Over all, I found it to be a good week for comics, and am at once both optimistic and pessimistic about where Inifinite Crisis is heading. It looks like however it ends, I will be enjoying the ride, and in the world of comics, that is really all I can ask for.
4 comments:
So I read Crisis #2, and as you'd suggested, it is definitely an easier (ie. less confusing) go than the first issue. It was very cool to see the quick synopsis of what happened on Crisis on Infinite Earths for those of us who a) either didn't read the whole series or b) did, but have since forgotten the specifics.
I'm still not huge on their harkening back to that older stuff in order to get through another universe-altering event, but given that's the way they opted to go, it was at least nice to get the low-down on where they're coming from.
And yeah, I'm not sure where they're going with the Earth-2 Superman's intent to make the existing Earth the 'one it was supposed to be'. I'd like to think he'll just start settling things in the more traditional Supes upstanding/admirable way and just pound into everyone's collective head that This Is What Superheroes Are Supposed To Do - Get Your Shit Together. After all, there's apparently no "other earth" that can somehow be replaced for the existing one, so I don't see how anyone or anything can be ousted, so think he may approach it from a superhero attitude/lifestyle angle.
And unfortunately, this all just suggests that the heroes have been kinda going that way of their own accord, which completely overlooks what they've had to deal with of late: Dr. Light got mind-wiped due to his knowledge and the threat he became. Maxwell Lord was going to use one hero to kill another, putting Wonder Woman in a bit of a bind as to how to solve the problem. It's not just that heroes have been making questionable choices for the hell of it: they've been reacting to situations the likes of Kal-L never encountered, so I think (if I can be excused for commenting on the philosophies of a fictional character) that he's being a bit short-sighted in his opinions cast on the current status of heroes.
And in other comic news, read Ferro City.
'nuff said.
Incidentally, I'm kind of liking the darker DC as well. Not that death and blood and heaviness is always wanted, but I think I prefer to see a little more of that - a bit of the sometime underbelly of the superhero lifestyle - rather than too much of the bright, fluffy four colour stuff. Nothing wrong with a bit of that, too, but I think a balance has to be struck. Too much of either isn't a great thing.
And I'm in a kinda odd situation with the Spider-Man "The Other" series. On the one hand, I think it's utterly ridiculous that (as far as I understand it) they're making Spider-Man one of, like, a series of... er... Spider-Men (a la Buffy The Vampire Slayer: one of an ongoing series with the powers in question). Yet on the other (no pun intended) hand, I'm a big enough fan that I want to know what the hell's going on, so I've bought the four issues thus far. I found it a bit frustrating with the tendency in the first three to pull a Dan Brown and have all the characters know what's happening to Peter but yet heavy-handedly talk around it anyway purely in order to maintain the question for the audience.
At least in the fourth issue they readily admit it's some radition thing that's affecting him badly but it can't be identified exactly, but even that's a bit of a cheat out of the set-up we were offered thus far where people were gasping at discovering/reading The News About Peter but not telling the audience what the deal was.
Turns out the deal is they don't know what the deal is.
Weak.
And in the mean time, I've picked up The House of M - The Day After. Haven't read it yet, but apparently what the series had boiled down to... (**spoiler warning**)
... is that there are only 198 mutants left in the world now. The rest were killed off on some huge cull, I guess by the Sentinels, or somesuch.
Sounds kinda interesting, so I wanted to see what things are like these days in the aftermath...
(**end spoiler warning**)
Still got a whack to read even from this week.
Potentially more yammering later.
Well, I think that Kal-L doesn't only blame the heroes - he things the whole world has gone wrong, leading them down the path that they are on. But certainly he has a point in some cases. Look at the story where Batman got his back broken - he was sick and run ragged. But he is too much of proud control freak to ask for a hand, so he gets his back broken, leading to AzBat who kills people, etc.
And Earth-2's Batman wouldn't have plans for taking down the rest of the JSA - he'd just know that no one could truly turn a hero evil. (Of course, he was also posessed by the Spirit King and killed the first Mr. Terrific)
I do think that Kal-L's judgement is harsh - part of what DC has been doing is presenting it's heroes with situations where you have to make a hard call, and neither is necessarily the right one. I think Kal's point is that it never should have gotten that far. That there is some essential corruption in the way this world was formed that caused it to be this way.
Speaking of Batman, by the way, I can do without reading any more of the Frank Miller/Jim Lee Batman & Robin series. Read the first two issues, and it's perhaps the worst (or perhaps more accurately, the least appealing) take on Batman I've ever seen. Don't like his attitude nor actions - very un-Batman feeling to me - nor the changes to the traditional story.
Nicely drawn, of course, even though I could see a bit of Miller creeping into Lee's artwork at points. I'd take Lee's artwork over Miller's gruff/edgy stuff any day.
Also just finishing Wildsiderz #1.
Huge Danger Girl fan (converted by no less than you, mind you), but I think the Campbell/Hartnell combo missed the target on this one. Or perhaps I'm just not included in the demographic they were shooting for, though they said they merely wanted to make their stuff more readable for a younger group as well as older readers. This stuff is pretty much purely for a younger crowd. Unfortunate, as I was looking forward to this next project of theirs, but even just reading most of #1, I can tell it's not going to be something I'll be picking up again. Haven't read the Danger Girl mini series #1 yet, either. Hopefully that'll be good.
Post a Comment