The Doomino Effect for Aug 27, 2008
Thanks to Labor Day delaying new comics, I can be a day late with this and still end up on New Comics Eve.
Starting off this week’s Doomino Effect is DC Universe: Last Will and Testament #1, a story that was good and bad.
The premise is that it’s the last night before the end of the world, and everyone decides how they’re going to spend it in an obviously telling moment. The story revolves around Geo-Force, a character who I’ve always seemed more fitting for a mid-80s line of toys ripping off the He-Man characters, sort of like a Go-Bot Leader-1 to Optimus Prime, except Geo-Force isn’t on the lines of He-Man; he’s more like a cheap analog to Meckaneck. So I guess that’s a really convoluted way of saying that I really doubt anyone cares about Geo-Force to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of comics fans would forget to list him if a kidnapper said “Write down a list of every DC Universe hero on this paper NOW!” The lone exception, of course, is Brad Meltzer, who put the guy in the new JLA.
That said, the presentation and characterization of the guy was pretty good. He’s an angry enough fellow that he doesn’t want the world to end without Deathstroke being punished for what he did. Problem is, I didn’t realize Deathstroke was guilty of doing to Terra what Geo-Force said he did. I also probably care as little about Terra as I do about Geo-Force, so there’s that. I read this fully accepting that Deathstroke probably has earned himself some retribution by this point.
Geo-Force wants Black Lightning to help him, but Black Lightning would much rather spend his last night with his daughters (and by, I did keep thinking “Hey! It’s dark out! If you have “Last night on earth” plans, get to it!) than help Geo-Force commit murder. So anyway, long story short, Geo-Force goes out and takes on the ultimate premeditated trapper and lures him into his premeditated trap. Tables turned, hooray for Geo-Force, blah blah blah. As an isolated story, particularly with the little interludes starring Captain Cold and the Bat Family, it was a nice look at how some people decided to spend their last night.
So anyway, people keep saying that Superman told them the world was ending tomorrow. When did that happen? I’m guessing it has to be some point after Final Crisis #3, since I’ve read those first three issues and don’t remember that happening. But a bunch of people clearly think it is happening. And so Wonder Woman is going to fight … what? Not sure. Superman seems resigned to reality just going dark. I guess I would have a better idea if I knew what Superman actually said and when and why he said it.
This overlooks the fact that Batman got abducted when, like issue #1 or #2? He’s been held up at the Evil Factory for a while, yet he’s also apparently out patrolling Gotham on the last night on Earth. Is this significant or is this just entry number 8 billion on the list of continuity things DC has screwed up with this? The Bat-family scene was nice, though, so I wouldn’t be surprised — if DC even realized there was a problem — if they were just like “Eh, that scene is good enough, let’s just leave it. Not like this is a ‘Countdown’ or ‘DONG’-level problem.”
The scene with Hal Jordan wasn’t as good as the Bat-family scenes. He’s just out and about, flying around even though Granny Goodness tricked the Alpha Lanterns into believing Hal killed Orion (this time) with the magic god bullet from the future over in Final Crisis. The Hal problem makes me think DC just doesn’t realize what an editorial failure this mess is.
My biggest problem here is not a continuity issue — it’s that Meltzer makes it clear that “heroes don’t murder” and Geo-Force’s struggle is with that line between heroics and revenge. Black Lightning was fully aware of that dilemma and tried to talk Geo-Force out of it, yet there he is at the end congratulating Geo-Force and calling him a hero. The unspoken irony is supposed the fact that BL thinks the throat-slitting was Deathstroke’s doing, when it was actually self-imposed. How about the fact that Deathstroke’s near-death was only a near-death because Geo-Force failed to do what he set out to do?
Heroes don’t murder, but they’re still heroes if they attempt to strike a lethal blow but fail? Missing vital organs makes you a hero?
Overall, Meltzer’s storytelling was immensely better than it was on the JLA run. The art was pretty decent. I know Joe Kubert is a legend and everything, but his inking makes all women look like they’re covered in a long coat of fur. I liked this book until I thought about it.
Speaking of liking books until thinking about them, that leads me to New Avengers #44, in which the secret of the Secret Invasion is revealed! This issue has been plugged for a while and I was really looking forward to it. It started out great, with a meeting of the Illuminati discussing escaping from the Skrulls when the bums figure out that they haven’t escaped from the Skrulls yet! It was a great opening scene, and I remarked to Doom DeLuise, who was sitting across a McDonald’s table from me at the time, that Secret Invasion “…is as good as it is ambitious.”
The secret of Secret Invasion was a result of the Skrull embedding process. The Skrulls sought to make such perfect sleeper agents from the heroes’ DNA that some sleeper agents would actually believe themselves to be the heroes they were posing as (though I have yet to get a grasp on which Skrulls are in the loop and which aren’t). They weren’t having the kind of success they wanted because, as hard as it was to admit, they weren’t as smart as someone like Reed Richards, and Richards’ stubborn human heroism made tactics like torture useless.
But the duplicates are created from the heroes’ DNA, so they had their own version of Richards’ imagination and logical abilities. Problem was, each duplicate also had Richards’ sense of heroism, so the strategy evolved — rather than stealing ingenuity from Richards’ mind by force, they would create multiple scenarios in which they could attempt to get Richards’ ideas from him through manipulation. The potentially endless supply of Richards duplicates meant they could attempt a potentially endless list of scenarios without having to worry about the implications of tipping their hand to Richards himself.
You know, nevermind. I initially had kind of a bad taste in my mouth about this, but as I think about it while typing it up, I like it all over again. I mean, it’s a clever way to get around the problems Richards’ heroics present, and it also results in that much more of an effective weapon against the humans. It also presents two problems for the Skrulls — 1) Skrull pride is a huge thing, and they are operating with the shame of knowing they had to rely on Reed Richards to execute this plan, and 2) if Reed Richards escapes, he’s going to know how to stop them. So Reed’s ability to figure out how to unravel their practical invisibility from SI #5 is given some storyline justification.
Yeah, I guess I like it again. But speaking of Secret Invasion, that leads me to Mighty Avengers #17, in which we learn that the Skrulls have had to make numerous attempts to get a Hank Pym sub. While NA showed how the Skrulls can capitalize on duplication of heroes’ personalities, MA is showing how the Skrulls are hindered. Pym is an insecure sissy, and the presence of his personality inside the Skrull infiltrator’s body means the Skrulls have to keep killing “him” and replacing “him.”
There didn’t appear to be much more point to this issue, and it kind of renders that previous issue moot when we saw Pym getting replaced by his hot-for-teacher student. The issue ends with a callback to his fling with Tigra, which I think happened right before Pym solved the Ultron problem, so I guess at the very least, we know Skrull Pym was involved in “fixing” Tony Stark.
Khoi Pham’s art is okay — more like what I’d expect from ’90s Marvel than ’00s Marvel, particularly on an important book like Avengers. I guess all the superstars are busy.
Speaking of superstar artists, though, that leads me to Wolverine #68, part 3 of Old Man Logan. I knew from the beginning that the greatness of this story was not going to be in whether or not Wolverine got his toughness back, but what moment would make him snap back from the old wimp to an old awesome mean machine. The moment, and what led to it, definitely did not disappoint.
This story is gruesome but awesome, and Steve McNiven’s art is probably as good as it’s ever been. I’m guessing he’s probably the reason the next issue doesn’t come out until mid-November, which sucks. It’s been a long time since I finished an issue of a comic book and gave an audible “Awww yeah…” laugh of anticipation for the next issue.
And hey, speaking of the next issue, that leads me to Daredevil #110, also known as what will likely be my last issue of Daredevil.
I’ve been buying this comic since issue #41. Some friends were like “If you’re getting back into comics, you need to read Daredevil. It’s great.” I was like “Daredevil is LAME.” But I picked up #41 and was immediately hooked, even though I’d later realize how formulaic Bendis’ Daredevil arcs would become. Brubaker started strong with Matt Murdock in prison, but since then, his formula has become a tired retread of what Bendis was doing.
It just feels like this book is stuck in a rut. I think maybe the true crime / real life stuff has played out, because I would love for Daredevil to start fighting people in costumes. Maybe this Lady Bullseye character next issue will turn that page. I DON’T KNOW. But I think I’ve also sworn I bought my last issue of Daredevil for about 10 months in a row now.
I flipped through NA, and while I thought it was decent, I didn’t understand why it had been built up so much. There was nothing particularly revelatory, just some more little background details giving extra context to Secret Invasion. Overall, I’m still mixed on the event. There are pieces I’ve loved and then a lot of just dillying around, and the maxi-arc seems to be crab-walking, scuttling around sideways all the time with only occasional jumps forward.
And we’ll have to agree to disagree on Wolverine. I hated the first issue of the arc and have hated everything since. And the moment that made Wolverine break out the badness felt too forced and minor to me. Why would he become a badass again to save a guy he barely knows and doesn’t like all that much when he won’t protect his livelihood and family from the Hulks?
As for DD, it’s become like Law & Order. There’s a certain level of quality to it, and the stories are all pretty similar, but after this long it’s become almost mind-numbingly consistent.
I thought he and Hawkeye were good buds..?
I definitely agree with NA being built up too much, which is probably why I had that downward dislike curve. I enjoyed the issue when I read it, but then was like “Wait, THAT’s what they built up to?” But then obviously, as I thought about it more when I wrote the review, I hate to fault a book just because of its hype, because the more I think about it the more I like that the ultra-proud Skrulls had to turn to a Reed Richards duplicate in order to conquer Earth. Like I said in the review, it’s a subtext that opens several doors. The eventual impact will maybe technically live up to that hype, but I think it was a bad way to market that issue.
There’s one big thing about SI that bothers me, in the sense that one of the greatest things I was looking forward to is no longer applicable. I thought the Skrull Invasion was going to be Marvel’s version of “Superboy punched reality” — a more plausible and less contrived way of attempting to explain the continuity problems of the past few decades. I was assuming the Skrulls would be used to explain all those out-of-character moments, people who were supposed to be dead (at least some of them) and stuff like that. The fact that the Skrull Invasion only seems to have started after New Avengers began is a little disappointing to me, and since some of the Skrulls don’t even know they’re Skrulls, their presence can actually explain none of the out-of-character moments.
The great focus on the small moments in this series is probably what has me thinking it’s better than it is. I loved the opening scene in this issue of NA, for example. I loved Hawkeye’s execution of his Skrull wife in SI #5. I love the frustrations of the Skrulls trying repeatedly to manipulate their clones in these soundstage laboratories.
Those little moments are all excellent, and to Bendis’ credit, he’s doing a great job of writing this without every piece of it dripping of Bendisism (or whatever you want to call it). But what you’re bringing up about the lack of scope furthers my thinking that this is an event that gets all the micro-level content perfect and yet still isn’t winning me over on the macro level. I’ve enjoyed everything, but then I haven’t been able to get caught up in it to any degree at all, even though I really want to get swept up in a good comics story.
One of the problems is how long Bendis has been lingering on not only the same settings and characters, but the same points. Again and again we’ve had the exact same stuff happening in the Savage Land (and that awesome reveal of old heroes returned to earth ended up having zero long-term complexity or impact), heroes being kidnapped and replaced and Nick Fury building his arm/attacking. Like I said, the plot is shuttling, not sprinting.
But, then, it doesn’t have a pink-haired-heroine-turned-villain/whore ripping the heads off of giant Dalmations, so I guess that makes it the summer’s big winner.
Totally agree on that second paragraph. I am very disappointed that NOBODY on the shuttle was the real deal.