K-Squared Ramblings

After Final Crisis

OK, DC’s next big event is called Final Crisis. Does anyone believe they’ll simply stop with the events? They might actually stop putting the word “crisis” in the title, I suppose, but what will they call the next event after?

• Final Crisis II
• Post-Final Crisis
• Final Crisis X-2
• Final Crisis Leopard
• Final Crisis Vista
• Son of Final Crisis
• Finaler Crisis
• Final Crisis Again
• Final Crisis: The Final Chapter

(List put together at the Ghirardelli ice cream shop late Saturday evening after three long days of Comic-Con.)

Infinite Crisis as Metafiction

I read Infinite Crisis #2 today, and everything—including DC’s turn toward the dark over the past few years—is starting to make sense. Infinite Crisis isn’t just following up on plotlines from Crisis on Infinite Earths, it’s actually making a statement about the past 20 years of comics.

Potential spoilers ahead! Read the rest of this entry »

Crisis Lead-ins: The Verdict

Well, all four miniseries leading into Infinite Crisis are out. I’ve also read The Return of Donna Troy and the JSA Classified arc settling Power Girl’s origin.

Verdict:

• Villains United: Fun adventure book with bad guys. Last-issue revelation was interesting. Cheshire is genuinely insane—I can believe this is the woman who nuked a small country just to prove she wasn’t bluffing.
• Day of Vengeance: 3-issue story stretched out to 6. Some nice character moments, but overall have to wonder what the point was.
• OMAC Project: Suspension of disbelief hung by neck until dead. And the worst part? The most important thing to happen in the series didn’t actually happen in the series.
• Rann/Thanagar War: Total mish-mash. Even knowing who most of the alien races were didn’t help me keep up with what side anyone was on. Someone remarked that this was like a 12-issue epic condensed (badly) into 6 issues, and that sounds about right.
• Donna Troy: I wanted to like this book. I really did. Donna Troy, George Perez/Phil Jimenez art, a direct sequel to a classic Titans story, and they all-but ignored John Byrne’s Dark Angel retcon-fest. But all the characterizations seemed off from the first page on. Even the art didn’t grab me. (The coloring didn’t help.) And while it’s interesting to take the idea that all her origins are true, the ending—particularly how Donna dealt with the Titans of Myth—really disturbed me. (While we’re at it, Donna doesn’t need her own moon for a headquarters.)
• Power Girl: Believe it or not, I didn’t read it for the cheesecake. Like Day of Vengeance there were some great character moments (PG and Jimmy Olsen sitting on top of the Daily Planet building while Jimmy ate lunch and tried not to stare, for instance). But I had a hard time believing this was the same Power Girl I’d read in Justice League Europe during the 1990s. (Yes, JLE was populated by caricatures of the leads—anyone who read that book and Flash should know that—but it became more serious near the end of the run.) And again, I thought that the story could have been told in half the space—even keeping the character moments. And even though I’d guessed PG’s true origin early on—or perhaps because of it—the finale felt like a let-down instead of a “Hell, yeah!” Maybe if they’d let her say “So that’s who I am!” instead of slinking back to her apartment as confused as ever, only to run into a “To be continued…” sign, it might have felt less like an Infinite Crisis setup piece and more like an origin story.

Verdict: One hit, two sorta OK, three turkeys.

On a related note, Warren Ellis’ arc on JLA Classified, which started strongly, is rapidly going downhill. The plot’s holding up, but the dialogue has gone from “Clever!” to “Okaaaay…” to “You have got to be kidding me.” J’onn’s rant last month about how we insist on calling his home planet “Mars” was one of those moments. (You know, I don’t normally refer to Japan as “Nihon,” or the capital of Russia as “Moskva,” but that doesn’t mean I’m calling them by the wrong name.) And I think Wally used the words “speed force” more times in 5 pages than he has in the last 5 years of his own book.

Ta’veren of the DCU

I was idly wondering about the way super-heroes and villains are named—not the code names, but the actual names like Clark Kent, Matt Murdock, etc. Was Hunter Zolomon destined to become Zoom? Was Roy G. Bivolo doomed to become the Rainbow Raider the moment his parents named him? And why do so many people with the initials L.L. gravitate toward Superman?

“Obviously, he’s a ta’veren!” Katie said. I laughed for a second, but then remembered an interview I’d read about Infinite Crisis. It actually fits.

Ta’veren is a term from Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time that refers to a person who forms a focal point for history (or, from another perspective, destiny). Threads of probability bend around them, and the unlikely becomes likely. Babylon 5 referred to the concept as a nexus. “You turn one way, and the whole world has a tendency to go the same way.” Read the rest of this entry »

Reading List: Crisis, Then and Now

Well, I picked up Infinite Crisis #1 yesterday. Aside from the fact that I think I’d be lost if I hadn’t been reading the various mini-series that led up to it (and the big reveal depends on knowledge of the original Crisis), I started thinking: I’m reading more comics right now than I have at any time in the last few years, but very few of them are DC Universe. And I’m not entirely sure I’m going to stick with the ones I am reading, post-Crisis.

Back in 1985, when Crisis on Infinite Earths was first published, I was reading these ongoing DC books on a regular basis:

• The New Teen Titans
• Tales of the Teen Titans

That was it. I was also reading Groo the Wanderer and Transformers.

In 2005, with Infinite Crisis arriving, I am reading these ongoing DC books on a regular basis:

• Teen Titans
• The Flash

The more things change… Read the rest of this entry »

Tamaraneans: Cosmic Kick-Puppies of the DCU

The Teen Titans’ Starfire is an alien princess from the world of Tamaran. A virtual paradise, populated by a proud, but beautiful and sensual warrior race. (Think of co-ed Amazons without the attitude.) When Starfire—or, rather, Koriand’r—was a child, the world was invaded. The war went badly, and the king ultimately agreed to sell his daughter into slavery in exchange for Tamaran’s freedom. (Years later she escaped her captors and ended up on Earth.)

Tamaran’s story unfolded during the 1980s in The New Teen Titans and The Omega Men (which featured Kory’s brother). Koriand’r returned home to help stop a civil war, but then her sister wrested the throne from their father. Komand’r (a.k.a. Blackfire) surprised everyone by becoming a much better—and fairer—ruler than anyone expected. Eventually Kory returned home to stay.

As The New Titans wound its way to a close in 1996, the story returned to Tamaran, now embroiled in a new war—one which ultimately destroyed the planet. The survivors settled on an uninhabited world to rebuild, dubbing it New Tamaran. (New Teen Titans #126-230, 1996)

Then things got nasty.

Just a few months after the final issue of The New Titans, DC published a prologue to the year’s big crossover, The Final Night. The sun-eater, before setting its sights on Earth, destroyed New Tamaran utterly, with no time for an evacuation. Starfire, exiled just hours before by her suddenly-evil-again sister, was believed the only survivor.
Read the rest of this entry »

Looking at Some New Comics

Let’s see… what have I picked up recently?

Otherworld (Vertigo). I picked this up on the strength of Phil Jimenez and part of the concept. A group of people from present-day Earth get dragged into an extra-dimensional war—which, of course, has been done before. After issue #2, I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on, beyond the basics. We’re still figuring out who gets transformed how, and as for what’s actually going on in the other world, I think we’re going to have to find out along with the leads. (Heck, I’m still trying to figure out which character is narrating the whole thing.) I’m hoping things will become clearer with #3.

The Atheist (Image/Desperado). A skeptic paranormal investigator (nicknamed the Atheist by his colleagues) comes up against the one case he can’t debunk: the dead are returning and taking possession of the living. In some ways this reminds me a bit of Simon Spectre and Frank Ironwine, the two Apparat books inspired by Doc Savage and the detective pulps. Definitely continuing with this one.

Beyond Avalon (Image/Desperado). King Arthur’s daughter takes up a sword and leaves the island of Avalon to see what’s out there. #1 was just interesting enough to get me to buy #2. But I haven’t actually read #2 yet.

Mnemovore (Vertigo). The concept of this one intrigued me enough I had a dream about it a few nights ago. (Appropriately, I can’t remember much of it.) The main character, injured in a snowboarding accident, has amnesia…but something is causing everyone around her to lose memories as well. Something alive, that Kaley encounters at the end of the first issue. Another one I’m definitely following.

Countdown to Infinite Crisis (DC). I have to admit I had very low expectations for the latest big event book. But the 80-page giant was actually quite good. Three of the four spinoff minis are out now, and they’ve been hit or miss. On one hand, I like the idea that each series focuses on a different corner of the DC universe—Day of Vengeance for the magical characters, Rann/Thanagar War for the sci-fi, The OMAC Project for the superhero/thriller types and Villains United for…well, you can probably guess. On the other hand, at 6 issues apiece plus the 4-issue Return of Donna Troy, that’s already 29 books, plus however many issues Infinite Crisis itself will be. This is all for the 20^th anniversary of Crisis on Infinite Earths, which was only 12 issues! And, frankly, the “Which one will lead to Infinite Crisis? Buy them all and find out!” gimmick offends me.

Anyway, I liked the first issue of The OMAC Project, Day of Vengeance #1 left me just curious enough to pick up #2, and Villains United didn’t intrigue me much at all.

Rising Stars: Voices of the Dead. Now that JMS and Top Cow have resolved their dispute and finished Rising Stars, the publisher can start releasing Fiona Avery’s spinoff minis again. First out of the gate is this one, focusing on Lionel Zerb, who talks to the dead. Unfortunately I can’t help but wonder what happened to Rising Stars: Untouchable, the mini about telekinetic assassin Laurel Darkhaven announced two years ago. My impression was that it was done, or at least completely written, with publishing held up by the dispute. I’ll have to reread VotD without that question in my head. (Strangely, I can’t find anything about either series at Top Cow’s website)