Words of Questionable Wisdom:
Crisis Consoling: Nexus Style!
With seemingly hundreds of Infinite Crisis related tie-ins and spin-offs hitting store shelves each week, it becomes a little easy to get lost in the mix. Unless you have a bank account big enough to support buying every single DC book as it comes out or own your own shop it’s nearly impossible to completely keep up. Which is unfortunate because IC is written in such an spasmodic chaotic nature that it would be hard to follow even without the tie-ins.
To help us poor readers out DC has set up a weekly Crisis Counseling! section on their site.
The thing is well… these things are written so brief that we readers don’t quite get the information that we REALLY need to know. So as a service to you comic readers we here at comics nexus are glad to provide Crisis Consoling: Nexus Style.
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S * P * O * I * L * E * R A * L * E * R * T
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Last week in”¦
WONDER WOMAN #226
- Wonder Woman takes a moment to reflect over her relationship with Superman while angsting over Max Lord’s death some more. Man I don’t think throughout his career Spider-Man has agonized over the deaths of Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy as much as Diana has over Max Lord’s demise in the past 6 months.
POWERPUFF GIRLS #70
- FINAL ISSUE! Following a brutal battle with a small army of OMACs in the streets of Townsville Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup are recruited by Booster Gold to help out in the assault on Brother Eye!
This week the danger mounts in”¦
ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #649
- In the final part of Joe Kelly’s “This is your life” Superman we see what would have happened if our Superman and Earth 2 Superman switched places. Earth 1 Superman uses his old-school Silver Age power upgrade become a one-man Justice League putting out fires and to rescue kittens all by himself without help from any other heroes instead choosing to lead by setting a good example. Earth 2 Superman meanwhile wants to save Earth-1 from itself by guiding through action acting sort of like Hyperion from the original Squadron Supreme. He and Batman start hanging out with guys like Guy Gardner and Manchester Black. Ruling with an iron hand he starts sending pretty much any supervillain to the Phantom Zone or worse yet Guantanamo Bay.
- Call me crazy but I think there might be some kind of political message in this.
AQUAMAN: SWORD OF ATLANTIS #40:
- It’s One Year Later! Kurt Busiek and Butch Guice introduce us to Arthur Curry but no not the Arthur Curry we know. No this one’s an amnesiac who wakes up under water and goes on sword & sorcery adventures! Because I guess if the bearded pirate version and the water T-1000 hand version didn’t really last they think the third time’s the charm.
- This was actually pretty decent”¦ if you can get past the idea of yet another Aquaman revamp.
BATMAN ANNUAL #25
- Ok kids do you really want to know why Jason Todd is back? Really”¦ Really? It’s because Superboy Prime PUNCHED STUFF! While Superboy Prime was PUNCHING the barrier separating him Alexander Luthor, and Superman of Earth 2 from the DCU he wound up BEATING DC HISTORY WITH HIS FISTS! Oh DC history tried to put up a good fight but it wound up on the floor battered and bruised, SHATTERED BY THE FISTS OF SUPERBOY PRIME! And so because of the PUNCHING Jason Todd, the original Doom Patrol, Golden Eagle and Donna Troy all came back.
- That whole thing in Teen Titans a couple of months ago about the gateway between life and death being breached? Forget about that. That had nothing to do with it. It was because of SUPERBOY PRIME’s PUNCHING! Really”¦
- Upon being resurrected Jason Todd finds himself buried alive and has to break out of the coffin and dig his way to the surface with his bare hands. It’s a good thing he’s read Karven’s Last Hunt.
Ras Al Ghul and Talia show up later in the story and Jason takes a dip in a Lazarus pitt in a scene that has nothing to do with the resurrection because really we don’t need such a logical plot tool when we got SUPERBOY PUNCHING STUFF! - Oh and get this you know that scene from Hush where it looks like Jason Todd is Hush but it’s really Clayface pretending to be Jason Todd? Well now it turns out that initially it really was Jason Todd pretending to be Clayface pretending to be Jason Todd pretending to be Hush! Todd formed a deal with Hush beforehand and traded places with Clayface in mid battle. It’s sooo much clearer now.
- You know what just eats me up is that I have such a hard time convincing people to try stuff like Kyle Bake’s Plasticman, or even a book like Sentinel or Araña because a lot of guys I talk to only buy “serious” like this one. I can’t wrap my head around the fact there are comic fans that will write off a kid with a giant robot or a girl with arachnid armor as “hokey” but are willing to accept RESSURECTION THROUGH COSMIC PUNCHING as a legitimate story element.
DETECTIVE COMICS #817
- It’s One Year Later”¦ and James Robinson (Starman) is writing Batman. Thank god, thank god, thank god, thank god, thank god.
- Some mysterious vigilante has killed commie throwback villain KGBeast, a character who in retrospect was already pretty dated when he was introduced back in 1988. Commissioner Gordon has come out of retirement, and the Dynamic Duo make their return to solve the case.
- You know it’s a real pity that they never introduced a rival for KGBeast named CIAnimal.
- We don’t see Bruce Wayne or Tim Drake out of costume in this issue, but since Batman is actually acting like Batman this leads me to suspect it’s not the Batman we know.
INFINITE CRISIS #5
- This issue opens up with a superhero mass church service. Oh and there‘s a reference to Cave Carson. If you know who that is you are either a Silver Age junky or far older than I am.
- The heroes who disappeared last issue now find themselves stranded on Earth 2. Earth 2 Superman and Earth 2 Lois also arrive on Earth 2, yet in a plot twist that a six-year-old could see coming the return of Earth 2 does not magically cure Lois’s condition of being old and dieing.
- Booster Gold takes Blue
Justiriserer”¦ Beetle to the Batcave. Using his time travel technology, Booster went forward in time exactly three weeks so he can pick up a copy of The Omac Project: Infinite Crisis Special. Using his future knowledge of advance solicitations Booster convinces Batman to make an all-out assault on Brother Eye with a team consisting of Mr. Terrific, Black Lightning, Black Canary, two Green Lanterns (Stewart & Jordan), Green Arrow, Metamorpho (or is that Shift?), Blue Justiriser and the Powerpuff Girls.
Wonder Woman is still agonizing over the Max Lord thing so the Wonder Woman of Earth 2 makes a surprise comeback to give her a pep talk. - Superman of Earth 2 apparently think it’s because of Earth 1’s corrupting nature that people grow old and die apparently. He and our Superman fight until he comes to his senses and realizes that Alexander Lutho’s been playing him like a gameboy.
- Alexander Luthor zaps Superman of Earth 2 with the big gold tower that does cosmic stuff causing the skies to be filled with Alternate Earths. Nightwing arrives at Titans Tower and calls the remaining heroes of earth together to make a final stand against the threat of”¦ uh Earths.
- Flash returns from the Speedforce just in time to warn Dr. Light (the cute Asian girl) that”¦ wait for it, wait for it”¦ SUPERBOY PRIME PUNCHED OUT THE SPEED FORCE! To give it credit the Speedforce put up a good fight, but Superboy Prime just kicked it in the crotch broke it’s ankles and punched out it’s teeth. WILL THERE BE NO END TO SUPERBOY PRIMES’S REIGN OF PUNCHING?!
- You know that cliffhanger ending would have been a lot more shocking had DC Direct’s toyline not given it away.
Loony Toons #136
- After the sudden appearance of Earth 2 obfuscates his view of Rann Marvin the Martin must strike an uneasy alliance with Foghorn Leghorn to investigate.
Outsiders #34
- It’s One Year Later”¦ and the Outsiders don’t officially exist, neither does this book.
- Remember that period in Marvel history in which the whole world thought the X-Men was dead because there was some kind of magic spell on them that wouldn’t allow them to be photographed?”¦ me neither.
- Apparently the plot of this one revolves around the team having to deal with a civil war and a Dictator in Africa.
- No”¦ I don’t know why Kid Boomerang’s on the team.
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