Why I Hate Infinite Crisis, Part 3
Another part?!?!? What could it be this time? I'm sure you're thinking something along these lines.
Infinte Crisis came out of four miniseries, each dealing with a drastically different aspect of the DC Universe as a whole. These were to be the four building blocks everything was built on leading to the big event. Then came the Pocket Dimension--*spit*--to ruin my fun. I'll come back to that in a bit.
Let me tell you about a good miniseries from DC. A little less than 2 years ago, a miniseries featuring the space-based character Adam Strange started. Great art, cool story, it was a damn good comic. At the end, Starbreaker's disciple, Shri Valkyr of Thanagar reprogrammed a computer causing the planet Rann to teleport right next to the planet Thanagar, throwing the latter satellite into its sun. This was the beginning of the Rann-Thanagar War.
The first of the Countdown miniseries to get it's own special was Day of Vengeance, where The Spectre is going around without a host killing any and all major magic users. Nabu, the Lord of Order who was truly the original Dr. Fate, tricked The Spectre into killing him. This was done to get... God to force The Spectre to be bound to a new host once more.
Before this special came out, Infinte Crisis #3 showed The Spectre killing a bunch of Atlantean magicians. The next issue came out and suddenly The Spectre is inhabiting the recently dead cop, Crispus Allen. Anyone who is just reading Infinte Crisis gets to sit there and say, "Did I miss an issue somewhere?" The right answer to that question is "No."
Basically, Infinte Crisis is largely ignoring the elements that got readers to this point in favor of solely focusing on the Pocket Dimension subplot. Yes, I said "subplot." That's what it is, the fifth major subplot, the fifth crisis.
I just got done reading the Rann-Thanagar War special. When the war was last addressed to any significant degree (read: the miniseries), a rift had been opened in space, right in front of the biggest battle of the war to date. This has been shown to be the hands of Alexander Luthor, pushing the universes/worlds/Earths apart. OK, continuity, that's good.
Infinte Crisis #4 went out of its way to explain that Alexander Luthor sent Superboy-Prime to blow up some planets, effectively creating the rift that appeared in the middle of the interstellar war. I thought this was a fair enough explanation. Then they told me that Brother Eye, the killer satellite controlling the OMACs, was given sentience by Alexander Luthor (saw it coming). Furthermore, this allows Alexander Luthor to control Brother Eye and the OMACs at will, which he does, like flipping a light switch.
Maxwell Lord was villain of the year last year, in no small part because of his pal, Brother Eye. They were a team. After Max died, Brother Eye got pissy and started maliciously going after everybody and Wonder Woman too. Brother Eye was a scary killer satellite.
And in one page, Brother Eye became nothing more than a little bitch villain. No reason why Brother Eye would obey Alexander Luthor--a meta collaborator, the very type of person Brother Eye and the OMACs want to kill!--just that the satellite is taking orders like an obedient dog. It's this extra step to reign in the threat people were really enthused about that pisses me off, it's just so forced.
Similarly, in the Rann-Thanagar War special, a big revelation is made: Superboy-Prime pushed Thanagar toward the star Polaris. So, instead of Rannians or Thanagarians causing their war (and further proving the conclusions of the Pocket Dimension characters--this universe is a bad universe), it all becomes the fault of the Pocket Dimension characters. No, the freaky death cultist that gets in some spite while she dies, she can't cause the war she started. Superboy--no, Superbitch-Prime has to.
Thus, the true threat is revealed: the Pocket Dimension characters possess the ability to bitch any character and any past storyline. The more fun a story was, the more it can be bitched.
Pocket Dimension bitching aside, there are two real problems here. 1. Things that are part of the core plot of the crisis, such as the defeat of The Spectre, should at least be addressed in the miniseries with "crisis" in its name. 2. Move on--don't get so mired in one story that you have to tell your version of that story; it's been done before, so do something different.
Infinte Crisis came out of four miniseries, each dealing with a drastically different aspect of the DC Universe as a whole. These were to be the four building blocks everything was built on leading to the big event. Then came the Pocket Dimension--*spit*--to ruin my fun. I'll come back to that in a bit.
Let me tell you about a good miniseries from DC. A little less than 2 years ago, a miniseries featuring the space-based character Adam Strange started. Great art, cool story, it was a damn good comic. At the end, Starbreaker's disciple, Shri Valkyr of Thanagar reprogrammed a computer causing the planet Rann to teleport right next to the planet Thanagar, throwing the latter satellite into its sun. This was the beginning of the Rann-Thanagar War.
The first of the Countdown miniseries to get it's own special was Day of Vengeance, where The Spectre is going around without a host killing any and all major magic users. Nabu, the Lord of Order who was truly the original Dr. Fate, tricked The Spectre into killing him. This was done to get... God to force The Spectre to be bound to a new host once more.
Before this special came out, Infinte Crisis #3 showed The Spectre killing a bunch of Atlantean magicians. The next issue came out and suddenly The Spectre is inhabiting the recently dead cop, Crispus Allen. Anyone who is just reading Infinte Crisis gets to sit there and say, "Did I miss an issue somewhere?" The right answer to that question is "No."
Basically, Infinte Crisis is largely ignoring the elements that got readers to this point in favor of solely focusing on the Pocket Dimension subplot. Yes, I said "subplot." That's what it is, the fifth major subplot, the fifth crisis.
I just got done reading the Rann-Thanagar War special. When the war was last addressed to any significant degree (read: the miniseries), a rift had been opened in space, right in front of the biggest battle of the war to date. This has been shown to be the hands of Alexander Luthor, pushing the universes/worlds/Earths apart. OK, continuity, that's good.
Infinte Crisis #4 went out of its way to explain that Alexander Luthor sent Superboy-Prime to blow up some planets, effectively creating the rift that appeared in the middle of the interstellar war. I thought this was a fair enough explanation. Then they told me that Brother Eye, the killer satellite controlling the OMACs, was given sentience by Alexander Luthor (saw it coming). Furthermore, this allows Alexander Luthor to control Brother Eye and the OMACs at will, which he does, like flipping a light switch.
Maxwell Lord was villain of the year last year, in no small part because of his pal, Brother Eye. They were a team. After Max died, Brother Eye got pissy and started maliciously going after everybody and Wonder Woman too. Brother Eye was a scary killer satellite.
And in one page, Brother Eye became nothing more than a little bitch villain. No reason why Brother Eye would obey Alexander Luthor--a meta collaborator, the very type of person Brother Eye and the OMACs want to kill!--just that the satellite is taking orders like an obedient dog. It's this extra step to reign in the threat people were really enthused about that pisses me off, it's just so forced.
Similarly, in the Rann-Thanagar War special, a big revelation is made: Superboy-Prime pushed Thanagar toward the star Polaris. So, instead of Rannians or Thanagarians causing their war (and further proving the conclusions of the Pocket Dimension characters--this universe is a bad universe), it all becomes the fault of the Pocket Dimension characters. No, the freaky death cultist that gets in some spite while she dies, she can't cause the war she started. Superboy--no, Superbitch-Prime has to.
Thus, the true threat is revealed: the Pocket Dimension characters possess the ability to bitch any character and any past storyline. The more fun a story was, the more it can be bitched.
Pocket Dimension bitching aside, there are two real problems here. 1. Things that are part of the core plot of the crisis, such as the defeat of The Spectre, should at least be addressed in the miniseries with "crisis" in its name. 2. Move on--don't get so mired in one story that you have to tell your version of that story; it's been done before, so do something different.
posted by LEN! at 12:48 AM
1 Comments:
Accuracy Addendum:
After some discussion with a few others, I've learned there is a heavily veiled reference to Superbitch-Prime and Alexander Luthor starting the Rann-Thanagar War in the most recent issue of Infinite Crisis.
I still think it was unnecessary and pointless to make such a creative decision. But, aside from that complaint, the special issue was better than the entire Rann-Thanagar War miniseries.
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