Unintentional comic review corner
Jan. 2nd, 2006 11:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kingandyJust read Infinite Crisis #3.
Crikey.
I should probably go on the record saying that I think DC did a shockingly poor job of promoting the various Countdown to Infinite Crisis miniseries. The first I actually heard of them was the little notes on the cover saying "OMAC Project Tie-In!" or what-have-you. There was no in-house advertising beforehand that I saw, nor were there footnotes inside saying "See Villains United #3!" or "As seen in the Day Of Vengeance miniseries - now on sale!" I did wonder at the time whether they were forthcoming publications or simply crossovers with some other monthly. (It happens every now and then. Some comic does an "EVENT" - a storyline it considers important enough to give a title - and when it spills over into other comics they slap a note on the cover to boost sales. But even then there are the aforementioned footnotes, and most often a number on the cover denoting precisely where in the sequence this issue falls.) I didn't realise the miniseries were actually coming out until the last issue of the OMAC Project made it into the "This Week In DC" newsbox on what used to be the letters page.
It's probably because I haven't been going in to the comic shop to pick up my order. But, I mean, you'd think they'd at least mention it.
Anyway, I've since picked them all up in graphic novel format (in Borders, of all places) and I rather enjoyed them, though bizarrely Villains United and Day Of Vengeance didn't massively advance the plots of their own storylines - rather than being a core sequence of events that impacted on other titles, Villains in particular was a story that was caused by the core meta-plot (that itself occurs in the pages of every other comic bearing the tie-in logo. It would perhaps have been more accurate to call this series "The Secret Six: A Villains United Tie-In." Ironically, the book's about the only six villains who aren't united (though, you know, they are, just against the main body of uniting villains). I suspect the writers decided that writing six issues about a society of unbeatable supervillains forming up, from said supervillains' points of view, wouldn't make for very dynamic reading. It was a decent enough read, with a tangled web of deceit and treachery and an interesting take on the previously ridiculous Catman. Did I say interesting? I meant Interesting.
It's not all good, though; I was a little put out by their characterisation of Knockout. The girl was unrepentantly evil, operated under an entirely different morality, and here she's getting squeamish about screams. Maybe she was softened up during her tenure with the Suicide Squad, but I can't help thinking the author just grabbed a random obscure female character. Really, almost anyone could have fitted right in there. Still, nice to see the House of Secrets again.
Day of Vengance was fun for me because it dug up some old characters who haven't been seen for a spell, such as Detective Chimp, as well as a throw-away adversary from an obscure issue of Birds of Prey. Like Villains this was more of a side-story to the main plot, though several key events - such as the detonation of the Rock of Eternity - are only fully explained within these pages.
The OMAC Project was much more of a "TIE IN WITH THIS" book, being a sort of exposition and explanation for the process of Brother Eye's development from spy satellite to genocidal death machine, though even this series is more about the parent organisation's reaction to their rogue leader and his pet project than the plot itself. And one of Batman's old girlfriends. I still don't believe some of Maxwell Lord's characterisation - "Why do you think I kept the League ineffectual all those years?" - but the character summary blurb in the front of the book almost makes sense of some of it. Given that he had, in fact, been working with the Arcana for some time in a quest for power, and that his brain was altered by Dreamslayer and later the Kil%gre, and that the precise method of his resurrection following death by brain tumour was unknown to all, it's possible that he could have been working on this plan - having fallen to the dark side - for some time. But I still don't accept that he was working towards it from day one. It's just unnecessary and stupid.
Of course, none of these series were intended to resolve anything, and none of them really do. They're a beginning and a middle - well, maybe just a middle really, but the graphic novel editions include issues of other comics that help make sense of the whole thing - and you're left with a set of antagonists set up for the main event. Which is of course Infinite Crisis.
Except they aren't.
The main villain for IC is somebody who genuinely believes they're working towards a greater good, who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty because if their plan works nobody (or everybody) will have died, and who's a dangling unresolved plot thread from twenty years ago and was probably initially intended as a mollification to anyone who was upset at them wiping out forty years of continuity.
DAMN YOU GEOFF JOHNS. DAMN YOU TO HELL. I did not see that one coming. As ever.
Personally I'm praying that they're not going to kill off The Ray, who was one of the first American comics I ever collected and thus is somewhat special to me. (Also is fun to draw.) I'm not sure of his chances, though, since they seem to be using the opportunity to kill off a host of minor characters.
Still, fingers crossed.
Crikey.
I should probably go on the record saying that I think DC did a shockingly poor job of promoting the various Countdown to Infinite Crisis miniseries. The first I actually heard of them was the little notes on the cover saying "OMAC Project Tie-In!" or what-have-you. There was no in-house advertising beforehand that I saw, nor were there footnotes inside saying "See Villains United #3!" or "As seen in the Day Of Vengeance miniseries - now on sale!" I did wonder at the time whether they were forthcoming publications or simply crossovers with some other monthly. (It happens every now and then. Some comic does an "EVENT" - a storyline it considers important enough to give a title - and when it spills over into other comics they slap a note on the cover to boost sales. But even then there are the aforementioned footnotes, and most often a number on the cover denoting precisely where in the sequence this issue falls.) I didn't realise the miniseries were actually coming out until the last issue of the OMAC Project made it into the "This Week In DC" newsbox on what used to be the letters page.
It's probably because I haven't been going in to the comic shop to pick up my order. But, I mean, you'd think they'd at least mention it.
Anyway, I've since picked them all up in graphic novel format (in Borders, of all places) and I rather enjoyed them, though bizarrely Villains United and Day Of Vengeance didn't massively advance the plots of their own storylines - rather than being a core sequence of events that impacted on other titles, Villains in particular was a story that was caused by the core meta-plot (that itself occurs in the pages of every other comic bearing the tie-in logo. It would perhaps have been more accurate to call this series "The Secret Six: A Villains United Tie-In." Ironically, the book's about the only six villains who aren't united (though, you know, they are, just against the main body of uniting villains). I suspect the writers decided that writing six issues about a society of unbeatable supervillains forming up, from said supervillains' points of view, wouldn't make for very dynamic reading. It was a decent enough read, with a tangled web of deceit and treachery and an interesting take on the previously ridiculous Catman. Did I say interesting? I meant Interesting.
It's not all good, though; I was a little put out by their characterisation of Knockout. The girl was unrepentantly evil, operated under an entirely different morality, and here she's getting squeamish about screams. Maybe she was softened up during her tenure with the Suicide Squad, but I can't help thinking the author just grabbed a random obscure female character. Really, almost anyone could have fitted right in there. Still, nice to see the House of Secrets again.
Day of Vengance was fun for me because it dug up some old characters who haven't been seen for a spell, such as Detective Chimp, as well as a throw-away adversary from an obscure issue of Birds of Prey. Like Villains this was more of a side-story to the main plot, though several key events - such as the detonation of the Rock of Eternity - are only fully explained within these pages.
The OMAC Project was much more of a "TIE IN WITH THIS" book, being a sort of exposition and explanation for the process of Brother Eye's development from spy satellite to genocidal death machine, though even this series is more about the parent organisation's reaction to their rogue leader and his pet project than the plot itself. And one of Batman's old girlfriends. I still don't believe some of Maxwell Lord's characterisation - "Why do you think I kept the League ineffectual all those years?" - but the character summary blurb in the front of the book almost makes sense of some of it. Given that he had, in fact, been working with the Arcana for some time in a quest for power, and that his brain was altered by Dreamslayer and later the Kil%gre, and that the precise method of his resurrection following death by brain tumour was unknown to all, it's possible that he could have been working on this plan - having fallen to the dark side - for some time. But I still don't accept that he was working towards it from day one. It's just unnecessary and stupid.
Of course, none of these series were intended to resolve anything, and none of them really do. They're a beginning and a middle - well, maybe just a middle really, but the graphic novel editions include issues of other comics that help make sense of the whole thing - and you're left with a set of antagonists set up for the main event. Which is of course Infinite Crisis.
Except they aren't.
The main villain for IC is somebody who genuinely believes they're working towards a greater good, who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty because if their plan works nobody (or everybody) will have died, and who's a dangling unresolved plot thread from twenty years ago and was probably initially intended as a mollification to anyone who was upset at them wiping out forty years of continuity.
DAMN YOU GEOFF JOHNS. DAMN YOU TO HELL. I did not see that one coming. As ever.
Personally I'm praying that they're not going to kill off The Ray, who was one of the first American comics I ever collected and thus is somewhat special to me. (Also is fun to draw.) I'm not sure of his chances, though, since they seem to be using the opportunity to kill off a host of minor characters.
Still, fingers crossed.
