The Doomino Effect for Feb 4, 2009
In this episode: Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #3 | Adventure Comics #0 | Sandman: The Dream Hunters #4 | The Mighty #1 | Immortal Iron Fist #22
Speaking of The Immortal Iron Fist #22, this was my first issue back on board with this series since the disappointing bonus-sized issue #14.
Doom DeLuise and I have had some conversations over the past few months about how the heightened critical awareness involved in writing about the comic books you like and why tends to make one more creator-centric than he might be without having to put thoughts and words behind the sense of satisfaction and enjoyment. I had come to pair my enjoyment of Iron Fist with the creative team of Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction and David Aja, and so I conditioned myself to believe that if the creators who made me love the book left, then I would no longer love the book.
Well, I decided to put that theory to the test this week, and I’m glad I did. I don’t have enough creator awareness of Duane Swierczynski or Travel Foreman to have had any kind of predisposition toward their work. But what I found was that Swierczynski has done a fine job of carrying on the tone and mystical kung-fu adventures of his predecessors, and while I’m not crazy about Foreman’s art, I respect that it’s more of a disagreement of style than it is thinking “This guy isn’t any good.”
I was very fond of the dark, realistic style David Aja used on the book, which was part of the stylistic movement that has carried books like Captain America and Daredevil as well. Foreman’s work actually reminds me quite a bit of Larry Stroman, if Stroman were reigned in substantially and forced to adhere to principles of biology and physics. His art seems to fluctuate between the ultra-detailed architecture of the supernatural cities and the remarkably minimal conversation scenes, often completely devoid of backgrounds. He takes those principles of panel pacing to the extreme.
Beyond that, I don’t have too much specific to say about this issue. The highest compliment I can pay it is that it has convinced me that the change in creators is not resulting in a change from what I grew to love about the series. I’m back on board.
Speaking of having your back on a board, that leads me to Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #3, which opens with the funeral pyre of the last Green Lantern, Rond Vidar. Lar Gand and some Legionnaires travel to Oa to appeal to Sodam Yot, now Ion, and urge him to join the battle against Superboy and the future baddies. It appeared to be rather easy, as it only took them two pages. But to be fair, when he has George Perez on board, Geoff Johns fit more story into two pages than someone like Robert Kirkman puts in a trade paperback. As to how George Perez can draw so many panels while also drawing double-truck splash pages that include lots of extremely detailed buildings and about 800 people, I have no idea. Maybe that has something to do with why I can’t remember when issue #2 came out.
So Superboy and his gang go around killing more people as Superman attempts to get through to Superboy by appealing to that human side that’s down there somewhere. This does not work. Karate Kid gets killed, while Chameleon Girl, Timber Wolf, Lightning Lass, Ultra Boy, Shrinking Violet and Night Girl are at very least close to death, when suddenly, up in the sky, it’s two more Legions from alternate worlds, plus the members of the Legion of that world who hadn’t showed up yet! Various versions of Legionnaires meet each other, like the Saturn Girls, Karate Kids, Phantom Girls and Ultra Boy / Man.
Johns makes the point of drawing attention to one of the three Garth Ranzzs being Element Lad, rather than having a Lightning name. I’m not sure if this is a carry-over from whatever last happened with that particular Legion (wasn’t their last appearance in Teen Titans?) or just something done for the convenience of this story, because with “a flicker of the living lightning” in Brainiac’s lightning rod, he’s back to being Live Wire. So what that was all about, I have no idea. Meanwhile, Dawnstar, Wildfire and Polar Boy go back in time to Smallville to get one of Lex Luthor’s hairs.
Brainiac treats XS to her origin, while also explaining how she’s connected to Barry Allen and Bart Allen. I’m not enough of a Legion fan to know how much of Brainiac’s story is recap and how much is retcon. But Johns does address the apparent contradiction involved with the adult Legion being part of New Earth’s future, even though a different Legion partnered with New Earth’s Supergirl in the One Year Later storyline. It was a pretty simple explanation — if you’re going to the future, it’s very easy to skip across the multiverse. The only problem is that DC has defined down the multiverse to only 52 worlds, so one of those 52 now has to be completely identical to ours in order to create a future in which the 2007 worlds were indistinguishable from each other.
Maybe someone can help explain this to me, but I don’t understand why Superboy Prime would be so upset that the Legion wanted to bring “him” back. He was throwing such a hissy fit that, for a second, I actually thought maybe I completely misinterpreted all the clues and that the Legion was going to bring back the Superboy that died in Infinite Crisis (maybe that would explain why they wanted Luthor DNA?), explaining why Superboy would be so mad. But no, even with all the technology in the future, they still need the dumb old Cosmic Treadmill so that they can bring back Bart Allen. So now there are four Flashes.
Speaking of bringing people back to life, and Superboys, that leads me to Adventure Comics #0, which is primarily a reprint of the Legion’s first appearance, but also includes a fancy new backup story.
This is why I love Geoff Johns: he truly approaches his stories as parts of the much larger DC Universe context. In this handful of pages, he has tied the aftermath of New Krypton with the upcoming Blackest Night. Luthor thinks he has one up on Brainiac, but Brainiac has been using Luthor and now tells Luthor that the two of them are working together.
Scar the Scarred Guardian, the narrator of this story, says Luthor will have control over Dead Superboy. But then she also says that the Black Lanterns control the dead. So I’m not really clear on who will be controlling Dead Superboy. Maybe they’ll share. The Black Lanterns are shaping up to be kind of like the Yellow Lanterns in that their roster looks pretty formidable — Earth 2 Superman, Superboy, Supergirl’s Dad and Martian Manhunter are some pretty powerful people. Scar does say that she questions what the book shows her. Either way, it looks awesome.
Speaking of the ambiguity of prophecy, that leads me to Sandman: The Dream Hunters #4, a fantastic finale for this mini series. The plot of this final chapter is laid out quite clearly at the beginning when the fox says “I shall seek the Buddha … but first I shall seek revenge.” Heck yeah. It’s like Neil Gaiman meets an action movie, only with trickery and seduction. It’s fun watching how the fox uses her sexuality to drive the Onmyoji bonkers, getting him to play perfectly into her hands (paws?). I actually laughed out loud at how the seemingly accidental slip of a breast from the gap in her robe made the old jerk sweat. She’s awesomely mean while playing oh-so innocent, driving the old jerk to willfully throw away everything he had.
I’m going to make a completely unfair comparison here, but as I read the final pages of this story, I couldn’t help but think of Final Crisis. Gaiman and P. Craig Russell experiment with storytelling, toss around symbolism and use deliberately vague language, but it’s in such an inviting way that it seems to encourage the reader to think harder for an added experience. The contrast between this story and the ambiguity and obfuscation in Final Crisis could not seem more stark. Yet to many Final Crisis apologists, all those who didn’t like it can be conveniently lumped into an artificial grouping of “People who don’t want to think about their comics.” Obviously, Final Crisis and The Dream Hunters were attempting two different things, so I want to be clear that I don’t think this comparison is entirely fair. But I very much enjoyed that this series was poetic and beautiful and functioned on several levels, for those who don’t care to think hard and for those who would like to.
And it was always $2.99 with no ads. Is DC losing money on this?
I completely forgot about our Book of Doom this week. It was The Mighty #1. I thought it was pretty good. Check out the roundtable for four perspectives.