DC News & Views

However, there will always be two things that I loved about that arc. The first was the opening few pages which depicted the Justice-ers having nightmares that seemed oddly reminiscent of Peter David’s other works (special props to Hook Hand Robin). The second was Todd Nauck’s art.

In some ways, his art fit exactly what my expectations for the book were. It was, if you’ll permit a bit of hyperbole, a perfect fit to my fantasy “Young Justice” book. It was fluid and filled with energy. I mean, look at that cover.

Look how cool Red Tornado looks!

Anyway, it worked great for the real Young Justice as well, but, sadly, that book did not much interest me at the time.

Since them I have learned that Nauck is a comics animal. He is constantly busy, but there does not seem to be a deadline that he cannot nail. And, most impressively, his work rarely suffers. After his style was a bit suppressed in a recent issue of Titans, I was relieved that his work in #33 was a return to form (see the reviews for more on that). He aped the house style (for lack of a better way to put it) well, but I prefer when Nauck gets to draw his own way.

So yeah”¦I like his work. Oh, and while this is a DC column, I urge you to pick up Wildguard. Very fun stuff that is far better than the sales pitch of “it’s a superhero American Idol” would ever make you think.

Old

New

Huh”¦comparing them like this”¦I feel better about the new costume. Not great, but better.

On the content of the article, the more I read about this series the more “eh” I feel about it. I have much love for Kyle Rayner the character and enjoyed just about all the stories Ron Marz wrote for him. Thus, this book should be highly anticipated for me. And, at first, it was. But then we started to get information and see images from it. Things changed.

Problem #1: The art. Every interview with Marz, he takes time to mention how much he like Greg Tocchini’s work in general and how impressed he is with Tocchini’s work on this title in particular. For the life of me, in the few preview images I’ve seen, I just do not get it. Given that there are inkers and colorists involved, I can’t single out Tocchini’s penciling, but I will say that the art is scratchy, muddy, and flat to my eyes.

Problem #2: Kyle in space. As a holiday, sure, I’ll deal. As the focus of the series, bad news. Why? First, as Marz mentions, Kyle is very human. This makes him, in my opinion, an excellent Earth bound ring slinger (or whatever he’ll be as Ion). However, taking into space robs him of a lot of his common fella appeal. Tossing in a few comments about the vast, dark, cold, or impressiveness of space will not be as effective as seeing Kyle balance hero life and real life.

Plus, I don’t really like space operas. Sorry, personal bias showing there.

I’m still on board for the first issue, but, unfortunately, much of my initial enthusiasm has been tamped down.

I’ve never did much to hide my dislike of Hypertime which was, essentially, an attempt to repackage multiple earths in a different package. It was not so much the idea that every story was in fact “real”. That was whatever to me. What is was was the idea that we, comic book fans, needed to be reassured that they were “real”. Whether or not it is true, I didn’t like what that said about us and our need for validation. Could we really not read stories that have since been deemed not in-continuity and still enjoy them? Does Curt Swan’s Superman become more vital with Hypertime? I don’t think so, but I couldn’t help but feel the creation of Hypertime was motivated by the idea that the average pre-Crisis fan (which I am admittedly not) somehow needed Hypertime to validate those stories again.

This, however, is different. My reasons for disliking the return of the multiple earth concept is five fold.

1.) It’s a step backward. Some twenty or so years ago, DC eliminated all but one earth in a massive crossover called “Crisis of Infinite Earths”. In some ways, that story remains the gold standard of massive company crossovers. While it did not achieve 100 percent of what it originally intended to do (Wolfman envisioned a far more widespread reboot initially) there is not doubt that it changed the face of DC. Infinite Crisis should do the same. It should not achieve, however, by partying like it’s the mid-eighties all over again. Move forward, not backward.

2.) It means the bad guys win. I know this sounds like a silly reason and I sort of am suggesting it in jest, but only sort of. The fact is if multiple earths return for good, it is all due to Alex. Even if he does not achieve his ultimate goal of a “perfect” earth, he still has achieved some measure of victory. Do we really want Infinite Crisis to end on a downer, even if multiple earths gets you all nostalgic?

3.) It will cut down on the possibility of varied hero (and villain) interaction. If the earths return, they will need to be populated. And that means spreading the super types out. Might not sound like a bad idea for your lesser spotlighted characters, but unless DC makes at least one book for each earth, it won’t really net them increased screentime (and will probably mean less, in fact) because DC will always focus on Earth-1 first and foremost.

What is does mean is less interesting interactions. Think of the Justice League Animated Series. What was one of the coolest things about that show? The chance to see The Question, Wonder Woman, and Aztek teaming up (or something equally random/cool). In a multiple earth DCU, those three heroes live on three different earths (Well, Aztek doesn’t live anywhere anymore, but you catch my meaning). They would never run into one another. I prefer one earth where the Freedom Fighters, the JSA, and the JLA can all exist and where there is always a chance that Batman and Breach might team up.

Ahh, but wait, you say. What up crossovers? And that brings us to number 4

4.) It’ll open the door to too many damn crossovers. It may not happen today or tomorrow or even five years from now. But chances are, it will. At some point, the crossovers will pile up until they aren’t special anymore. Plus, inevitably, their quality will dip. Even they are even particularly quality to start with. I don’t expect that people will same day be confused by the multiple earths. I do expect that they will one day grow tired and bored of them.

5.) You don’t need it anyway. With Elseworlds, alternate dimensions (see the Earth-2 OGN that Morrison and Quitely did), and time travel, all the alternate world crossovers you could ever want are open to you. And if you just want Golden Age Flash to team up with Modern Flash, congratulations, that can happen all the time in DC’s present system because they all live on the one earth.

It was not the easiest one I’ve ever had to do, that was for sure. First, I had to keep avoiding the “Scarlet Witch Trap” in which heroes with ill-defined magic powers (in this case, illusion casting) lose touch with reality and become an accidental villain. Then, I figured what was cooler than ninjas. Well, robot ninjas for one. Sadly, as you can tell from the image at right, someone had already beaten me to the Robot Ninja idea. Damn them.

Mirage, however, has popped up now and then, most recognizably in the pages of JLA/Titans where she was chilling with her daughter. Which was confusing because a.) why bring your child to a battle and b.) she used to have a son. And that’s where we come in.

Mirage does indeed have a daughter and a son. She just happened to bring only one of them with her. The son is, of course, the product of Mirage’s rape by the aforementioned Deathwing. The daughter, however, is a product of her loving relationship with Neil Finch, her husband. See, after leaving her superhero life behind, Mirage was determined to live “normal.” She moved to Indiana and began to work for an accounting firm. There she met Neil and the two fell and love and were soon married. He loved her son as his own and two years after that, a daughter followed. Mr. and Mrs. Finch were the portrait of nuclear family bliss.

Mirage, of course, still feared her ex one day finding her and ruining her life and the lives of those she loved so she erected certain magic barriers around the family. It was nothing that would stand up to a close examination, but it as enough to conceal her and her family from any sort of cursory investigations. And all was right and well.

Then, Mirage decided to involve herself in the Technis Imperative (better know to us as JLA/Titans). By sticking her head out, she drew Deathwing’s attention. He, ever obsessed, followed her back to Indiana. As I said, her illusions were all well and good for casual looks and widespread sweeps, but with Deathwing now having a greatly narrowed scope to hunt, her barriers broke down easily. He proceeded to taunt and stalk her, leaving “gifts” with threatening notes on her front steps or at work. Pushed to the edge, she confronted him. Rather than convince him to back off, however, it emboldened him. Convinced that her new husband and daughter were the only two things standing between him and renewing their love affair, Deathwing snatched them (as well as their mutual son).

With the life she has struggled so hard to create and the lives she loves so much hanging in the balance, Mirage is forced to re-embrace her superhero side. She must find and take on the man she once loved. The man she now hates and fears. The man who can end her new life in an instant.

Of course, she will prove victorious, but with the cost of her “normal” existence being sacrificed. From there, I see the book morphing into a sort of “The Unit” for the superhero set as Mirage joins up with the now very covert Outsiders and tries to balance her home life with her job. Sure, plenty of heroes have hoed that row before but most were men. Plus, this is less of a “my wife is a superhero, so I worry about her dying, but not her morals” and more of a “my wife is a spy so I worry about her dying, but also whether or not the job is changing her and what she believes for the worst.” I won’t say that the family aspect will be the main focus, but I do think it would share equal time with the “busting bad (?) guys” part.

For those of you who don’t know what the hell I am talking about, it is like this. I used to be all about the Secret Files books. I loved ‘em. I loved the pin-ups and the character files and the “lost” pages. But then I realized something. Six bucks was a lot of money to pay for these things. I still persisted a little longer, but the quality of the books started to go down as well so I did the right thing and kicked the habit. And now I’m having a relapse.

Why? Because I think this one will actually be worth the time and the money and that, in the new, wildly interconnected DCU, I might be more confused than not if I don’t pick it up.

One factor certainly was the fact that it was taking on the subject of American politics. I love politics and any time a comic has an interesting way of tackling politics it tends to pique my interest. Plus, the politics in question were American sexual politics, which, in addition to sounding cool, is a fertile landscape (no pun intended) to build a story from.

While the first issue did not prove the above hypothesis, it went a long way towards that goal.

First, the very good news (I think) for all parties. This is not a straight satire. In fact, it’s not very satirical at all. If I’m honest, while I have no problem with abstinence as a life choice, I do have serious qualms about the “movement.” However, I still thought that straight satire was the worst direction this book could go in. Instead, Seagle invests humanity in Adam, the titular virgin. He’s smart, funny, and both a pawn and a participant in the “spiritual” endeavor that currently defines his life. He seems to be a true believer, but does it without being judgmental. He loves his girlfriend (who is in Africa at the start of the story) and cannot wait to marry her, but is too focused on the sexual aspect of that to realize what she really means when she says, “It’s really hard”¦I don’t know how much longer I can—”. In other words, he’s three-dimensional”¦human.

Sadly, this gift of characterization does not extend to all parties. Adam’s mother and uncle (I think its his uncle) are pretty paper thin televangelist types and Adam’s cousins are deviants who’s idea of giving Adam a bachelor party include kidnapping and nonconsensual sex.

Most of the issue dwells on setting up Adam’s world and while it does it quickly, you might find yourself wondering where the hook of the story is. It’s all very interesting, but is it going somewhere.

As it turns out, yes, yes it is. And its somewhere that I’ll admit I did not see coming. In literally two pages the story is flipped on its head and several themes are introduced. Spirituality, politics, love, promises, responsibilities, and the nature of soulmates are all fair game.

That is, of course, in part to Morrison’s script. Much like Nextwave last week, this book delights in being a comic (although it does so in a different way). Every caption is excellent; dramatic and overblown but never lapsing into self-parody.

Then, thankfully, I read the book for myself.

It’s not perfect, but it’s not all that disastrous either. Yes, the past four issues have essentially amounted to a Morrison homage to “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and yes that means we have not really “gone” anywhere in this story. Be that as it may, I still enjoyed the story.

Last issue of this book, I made mention of being sort of disappointed in Freddie Williams debut, that he failed to meet or exceed the hopes I had had after glancing at some of the issue’s preview pages. This time out, however, he met those hopes, especially in the first few pages where he depicts Shilo Norman “waking up” at a family barbecue in different eras of his life. It’s the subtlety with which he age Shilo that impressed me most. He was no slouch the rest of the book either though.

The book is not without faults however. The late addition of Shilo’s older brothe’s tragic demise while resulting in a great last page feels tacked on. This is especially the case since I just read Kid Eternity. The mini was also by Morrison and one of the main characte’s brother suffers a similarly ill-fated death and the character is similarly restricted by the experience until he can face up to and overcome his (somewhat irrational) guilt. The similarity made the revelation feel stale to me.

The highlight of this story for me? The return of the blue and yellow Nightwing costume! When I first started reading comics, Nightwing was done with the disco suit but had not yet adopted his blue and black outfit. I like the blue and black, but I love the blue and yellow. So it was cool to have it back, even temporarily.

Beyond that, the story was a perfectly fine done in one about two heroes trying to do the right thing but are being consumed by their own issues, guilt, fears, and insecurities. In the end, of course, they overcome them and arrive at their destiny. We’ve seen this sort of tale before, certainly, and the familiarity of it is only enhanced by the use of the dueling narrative device that Loeb has all but rendered parody through overuse in Superman/Batman. However, like its predecessors in this sub genre of sorts, it hits the right notes appropriately and you’ll end up liking it in spite of yourself.