Post by rberman on Oct 4, 2019 16:41:10 GMT -5
Heroes in Crisis (2018-19, 9 issues)
Ever since Crisis on Infinite Earths, “Crisis” at DC has been code for a sprawling series with tons of characters guaranteed to goose sales. This 2018 Tom King series garnered praise and criticism for what have become the usual Tom King reasons: Lots of characterization, not a lot of action, taking liberties with long-established characters. However much you liked the balance that King achieved of these elements in his previous work, this one is unlikely to sway you from that. I fall on the sympathetic side, on the whole.
Some general spoiler-free thoughts:
• King often incorporates elements of his experiences working with soldiers in Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein, and this one is no exception. The central premise is that various PTSD-inflicted heroes and semi-heroes and semi-villains come to a rural retreat set up by Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. They work out their hangups through video testimonials and virtual reality re-enactments of encounters with those who have helped and hurt them before, their families, or even themselves.
• The best part of the series is the testimonials, which give King a chance to show each hero as a different person. Artist Clay Mann shines on the expression and body language in these scenes, as when Arsenal (the former Speedy, Green Arrow’s sidekick) recounts the origins of his narcotics addiction, a familiar tale among soldiers.
• King wrings plenty of pathos and laughs out of those scenes, zipping through many characters with just a single panel each. The Red Tornado panel below is a joke keying off the similarities between Red Tornado and The Vision. Tom King previously wrote a Vision series in which the Vision’s attempt to create a family went catastrophically wrong, making this panel drenched in irony. Really, if the whole series were limited to just these scenes, maybe doled out monthly in a “Direct Currents” column running in all DC comics, it might have been declared an unmitigated success.
• King has previously taken second string characters like Omega Men and Mister Miracle and Vision and built really interesting stories around them. This time around, the main characters are Booster Gold and Harley Quinn, about whom I have no fond feelings and moderate negative feelings, respectively. Harley is this generation’s Deadpool, a zany cartoon of loony dialogue and absurdly unstoppable omni-competency.
Her constant homicidality only elicits clucking disapproval from the heroes playing straight man to her.
• I don’t know much about Booster Gold. My understanding is that he’s a time traveler who uses future tech to play hero in the present. I think of him as vaingloriously insufferable like Crackerjack in Astro City, but King writes him just more as a brash source of endlessly convenient tech. So at least he’s not insufferable.
• Booster Gold’s bromance with Blue Beetle is even kinda nice, evoking the military esprit de corps with which King is well acquainted. Not all close relationships have to be sexual…
• … unless between women. I guess Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy are lovers or something?
• The main plot of Heroes in Crisis is a mass murder mystery with a gaggle of C-list heroes as the victims. There are good mystery stories and bad ones. In the good ones, a series of clues leads the heroes to both deduce and prove the identity of the killer. In the bad ones, the heroes flail around for a while chasing clues, and then the culprit presents himself for a spontaneous confession. This story, sad to say, is one of the bad ones. I won’t reveal the culprit, or even the suspects. I will say that the revelation enraged fandom on an Identity Crisis scale.
• The finale is something of a deus ex machina requiring heroes blithely to agree that clones are not real people. It’s handled gliby and quickly, and it doesn’t seem to have caused outrage, but it should have.
Smaller observations:
• Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are referred to by other characters as “the trinity.” This bugs me, not for religious reasons. Granted that those three have been DC’s marketing bread and butter for decades, despite attempts to elevate other heroes in the mass media’s awareness. DC's recent movies have not helped, though TV exposure has probably been good for Green Arrow and The Flash. Anyway, “Trinity” is a fandom term which doesn’t belong on the lips of characters in the stories.
• It’s always fun to see the Hall of Justice as a base of operations.
• Batgirl is Harley Quinn’s main foil in this story, and she comes across well. At one point in the “confessional booth” she shows the scar from where Joker shot her in The Killing Joke. Just one of many moments that only make sense to long-time DC readers.
• Halfway through the series (occupying most of the fifth issue out of nine), Superman gives a long speech about how psychologically wounded warriors should be respected rather than sidelined or feared. “This need for healing is… not the mark of a madman.” OK, again that’s obviously a favorite topic of King. It’s also an opportunity for a long series of pin-ups of various underutilized characters, including Adam Strange, Mister Terrific, and Grant Morrison’s female version of Shining Knight. Apparently The Guardian is back to being a white guy now though?
• Gnarrk the caveman gets several humorous pages, spread throughout, in which he quotes philosophers while enduring a simulated primeval environment. That’s King’s college degree in philosophy shining through. Write what you know!
• Green Arrow and Black Canary’s only in-story appearance is this out-of-context page in which they are standing on a cliff, and GA is about to shoot a baseball cap into the ocean. Anybody have a clue what this is about?
Ever since Crisis on Infinite Earths, “Crisis” at DC has been code for a sprawling series with tons of characters guaranteed to goose sales. This 2018 Tom King series garnered praise and criticism for what have become the usual Tom King reasons: Lots of characterization, not a lot of action, taking liberties with long-established characters. However much you liked the balance that King achieved of these elements in his previous work, this one is unlikely to sway you from that. I fall on the sympathetic side, on the whole.
Some general spoiler-free thoughts:
• King often incorporates elements of his experiences working with soldiers in Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein, and this one is no exception. The central premise is that various PTSD-inflicted heroes and semi-heroes and semi-villains come to a rural retreat set up by Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. They work out their hangups through video testimonials and virtual reality re-enactments of encounters with those who have helped and hurt them before, their families, or even themselves.
• The best part of the series is the testimonials, which give King a chance to show each hero as a different person. Artist Clay Mann shines on the expression and body language in these scenes, as when Arsenal (the former Speedy, Green Arrow’s sidekick) recounts the origins of his narcotics addiction, a familiar tale among soldiers.
• King wrings plenty of pathos and laughs out of those scenes, zipping through many characters with just a single panel each. The Red Tornado panel below is a joke keying off the similarities between Red Tornado and The Vision. Tom King previously wrote a Vision series in which the Vision’s attempt to create a family went catastrophically wrong, making this panel drenched in irony. Really, if the whole series were limited to just these scenes, maybe doled out monthly in a “Direct Currents” column running in all DC comics, it might have been declared an unmitigated success.
• King has previously taken second string characters like Omega Men and Mister Miracle and Vision and built really interesting stories around them. This time around, the main characters are Booster Gold and Harley Quinn, about whom I have no fond feelings and moderate negative feelings, respectively. Harley is this generation’s Deadpool, a zany cartoon of loony dialogue and absurdly unstoppable omni-competency.
Her constant homicidality only elicits clucking disapproval from the heroes playing straight man to her.
• I don’t know much about Booster Gold. My understanding is that he’s a time traveler who uses future tech to play hero in the present. I think of him as vaingloriously insufferable like Crackerjack in Astro City, but King writes him just more as a brash source of endlessly convenient tech. So at least he’s not insufferable.
• Booster Gold’s bromance with Blue Beetle is even kinda nice, evoking the military esprit de corps with which King is well acquainted. Not all close relationships have to be sexual…
• … unless between women. I guess Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy are lovers or something?
• The main plot of Heroes in Crisis is a mass murder mystery with a gaggle of C-list heroes as the victims. There are good mystery stories and bad ones. In the good ones, a series of clues leads the heroes to both deduce and prove the identity of the killer. In the bad ones, the heroes flail around for a while chasing clues, and then the culprit presents himself for a spontaneous confession. This story, sad to say, is one of the bad ones. I won’t reveal the culprit, or even the suspects. I will say that the revelation enraged fandom on an Identity Crisis scale.
• The finale is something of a deus ex machina requiring heroes blithely to agree that clones are not real people. It’s handled gliby and quickly, and it doesn’t seem to have caused outrage, but it should have.
Smaller observations:
• Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are referred to by other characters as “the trinity.” This bugs me, not for religious reasons. Granted that those three have been DC’s marketing bread and butter for decades, despite attempts to elevate other heroes in the mass media’s awareness. DC's recent movies have not helped, though TV exposure has probably been good for Green Arrow and The Flash. Anyway, “Trinity” is a fandom term which doesn’t belong on the lips of characters in the stories.
• It’s always fun to see the Hall of Justice as a base of operations.
• Batgirl is Harley Quinn’s main foil in this story, and she comes across well. At one point in the “confessional booth” she shows the scar from where Joker shot her in The Killing Joke. Just one of many moments that only make sense to long-time DC readers.
• Halfway through the series (occupying most of the fifth issue out of nine), Superman gives a long speech about how psychologically wounded warriors should be respected rather than sidelined or feared. “This need for healing is… not the mark of a madman.” OK, again that’s obviously a favorite topic of King. It’s also an opportunity for a long series of pin-ups of various underutilized characters, including Adam Strange, Mister Terrific, and Grant Morrison’s female version of Shining Knight. Apparently The Guardian is back to being a white guy now though?
• Gnarrk the caveman gets several humorous pages, spread throughout, in which he quotes philosophers while enduring a simulated primeval environment. That’s King’s college degree in philosophy shining through. Write what you know!
• Green Arrow and Black Canary’s only in-story appearance is this out-of-context page in which they are standing on a cliff, and GA is about to shoot a baseball cap into the ocean. Anybody have a clue what this is about?
