Spoiler Sunday--Whither Kon-El?!?

WARNING: this post contains SPOILERS for this week's Flash #21 and Action Comics #978. If you haven't read 'em yet, come on back later!!

Poor DC. They never, ever know how to pull the band-aid off quickly.

It's been 11 months since the Rebirth special, and almost everywhere we're still treading water, as if they're waiting for some more cocktail napkin scribblings from Geoff Johns before they dare proceed because they really have no idea what's actually happening in this "story." Even double-publishing their big titles every month, a year later we're no closer to understanding what the hell is going on

Hell, we haven't even had the reveal of who our "villains" are yet, which makes this even more dragged out than the pre-Crisis Monitor cameos. Yes, yes, we know who they are...which makes the whole "gee, who is behind all this" even more frustrating.

At this rate, this whole Rebirth project--whose sole purpose is to (re)(de)(un)boot the fiasco of Flushpoint/nu52--is going to take 3 years. Check back in 2020 to see if I'm wrong.

Still, this last week's comics have made clear that the prime motivation of DC is indeed to largely reinstall the continuity of post-Crisis DC...yet somehow keep the stuff they like about the nu52.

Man, that's going to be messy and awful.

Flash #21, for example, pretty firmly reestablishes that the Justice League was formed in the way we had always known, and that you wasted your time and money reading the Geoff Johns/Jim Lee version:

Oh, and that also told us that Identity Crisis is back in continuity, because who didn't miss that charming tale of rape, brainwashing, jealous ex-spouses walking in people's brains, and heroes no longer being heroic?

But the biggest actual confirmed changes are in Superman's life story, as Action Comics very firmly says that the five year timeline of the nu52 is to be forgotten, and that virtually everything post Byrne-reboot is back as official history. But most (some?) of the nu52 happened, too!

His first meeting with Lois, for example:

Note that this confirms that Kal-El did, at one point, wear the red trunks!! So there's really no reason they can't go back to it...

But note--this also means that the Grant Morrison/young Superman in blue jeans and a home-made cape stories from nu52 Action never happened!! Poor Grant--flushed from continuity again!

And Superman's own memories--and the data crystals at the Fortress of Solitude--confirm that pretty much everything post-Crisis did indeed happen in the current Superman's history:

But he still adopted the terrible nu52 costume at some point...

And all of the nu52 stories happened--except for the ones that didn't, like the dalliance with Wonder Woman, or Clark quitting the Daily Planet to be a blogger, or....well, hold on, we'll have to wait for Geoff Johns to tell us what's what.

Oh, but not everything post-Crisis is back on the table. Take this discussion of the Death Of Superman (which definitely occurred):

Wait...one, two, three...somebody's missing...

Oh, yeah, that guy!!

So, really...Conner Kent/Kon-El Kent, clone created from DNA of both Superman and Lex Luthor, the best incarnation of Superboy, isn't coming back with everyone else??

Others have pointed out, they didn't definitively say he wasn't part of the new history--they just didn't list him. Even though they had plenty of room. Maybe. But dude, they made room to show Space Gladiator Kal-El, so you'd think they squeeze in a guy whose own series lasted 102 issues and was a member of Titans and the Legion, if they wanted to,

And as still others have noted, DC is releasing reprint trades of Superboy's series later this year, and that must mean they have plans for him, right? Sorry, I can't agree there--DC is also releasing reprints of Night Force, and I'll wager they're not coming back. No, DC is in a position where they have to keep releasing reprint collections, so they'll have as many as previous years, or their sales will go down versus previous years and someone will be canned, so everything they can tidy up is being reprinted, whether it's relevant to current plans or not.

It seems that DC is so intent on building up their current Superboy, Jon Kent, that they don't want to reestablish the clone Superboy, despite his being a pretty vital part that era of DC history (Legion! Young Justice! Titans! Ravers! The Superman Family!). So much for Rebirth restoring legacy to the DCU!

Of course, this could all be resolved when Geoff Johns mumbles something in his sleep that the listening device in his quarters passes on to DC as holy writ. But for now, it sure likes DC is restoring post-Crisis continuity, but going out of their way to exclude the best incarnation of Superboy. What a shame.

Manic Monday Bonus--A Reminder Of What We Have Lost

This is just a reminder that, prior to Flushpoint, we had a vibrant, millennia-spanning family of Flashes:

Then, because someone out there thought that not only was Barry Allen the best Flash, but that the existence of any other Flash somehow detracted from his glory. Barry Allen is a jealous god, and we must worship no Flash beside him, apparently.

Oh, that family tree? It's from the Flash Museum in the 30th century, when we were allowed to have nice things like that:

From The Flash: Secret Files #1 (1997)

Self-Awareness Sunday: I Am Shocked--SHOCKED--To Find A Crisis In This Establishment!!

From this week's Justice League #40:

So, this little commentary saying that the DC Universe had had too many crises, that it's hurting the universe's cohesion, that it's been done too often, that the DC Universe cannot survive another crisis?

That was written by Geoff Johns.

The same Geoff Johns who wrote Infinite Crisis.

The same Geoff Johns who wrote Flashpoint.

The same Geoff Johns who had Superboy-Prime "punch the universe" to rearrange continuity to his liking.

The same Geoff Johns who bent logic and reality to restore his favorite characters to life.

The same Geoff Johns who is, in the very comic just scanned, starting yet another "crisis" with "The Darkseid War."

So...is Geoff Johns critiquing himself, and his body of work? Or is he just displaying a ridiculous amount of chutzpah?

Or, perhaps, is he just totally unaware of the ridiculous irony of what he just wrote?

"Reality has been taken apart and put back together too many times"??? Physician, heal thyself!!

Manic Eternity--The Battle Flushpoint Has Denied Us!!

Kid Eternity and Captain Marvel started out with different companies--the Kid said Eternity in Quality Comics, whereas Billy Batson said SHAZAM for Fawcett.

But both companies went under, and the DC Borg Empire acquired the rights to all their characters, so the Kid and The Big Red Cheese both ended up as denizens of Earth-S. They even went so far as to retcon a name for the Kid, Christopher Freeman, and had him to out to be Freddie Freeman's brother.

Of course, then Grant Morrison and the Vertigo series re-did that retcon, severing the connection; and then Kid Eternity was gratuitously slain in a Geoff Johns James Robinson comic (mea culpa), and brought back to life just to be beaten to death by the Calculator, because, well, DC sucks; and then his appearance in National Comics once again redid his story so now he's a pale imitation of the TV show Pushing Daisies, but without the pies.

Pshaw.

Still, that brief, golden window of Marvel Family/Kid Eternity co-existence had such possibilities. Note, for example, these summonings, all from Kid Eternity #5 (1947):

...and...

...and...

...and from Hit Comics #30 (1943):

Hmmm...Hercules, Atlas, Achilles, Mercury...where have I heard that before?

Of course, those are 4/6 of the ancients who bestowed their power upon Captain Marvel. And I'm sure that, given enough time, I could dig up instances where Kid Eternity summoned Zeus and Solomon for his adventures.

Which means, that, in a fight with the Marvel Family, the Kid could summon the entities to counter-balance their powers--and maybe even strip their powers away!!

Of course, I'm not allowed to write comic books, but if I were, and I could write in that 1970-1991 window, man, I would write the hell out of that story. And it would be the second greatest Kid Eternity story EVER (the first, of course, was the time the evil mesmerist hypnotized the Kid to summon Adolph Hitler to help him conquer the world, and when he came out of the trance Kid summoned Svengali to counter the mesmerist, and...well, then it got kind of crazy).

So, curse you Grant Morrison and Flushpoint!! Dam you to Hell!!!!

No One Can Eat Just One

Back in the day, Lays potato chips had a slogan: "No one can eat just one" (on occasion, it was put as "Betchya can't eat just one"). Easy, winning concept--our product is so good, if you try to limit your snack to one chip, you will fail, and probably end up eating the whole damn bag. No one can resist the temptation...even if an inability to stop stuffing your face with chips might, ultimately, be a pretty bad thing for your health.

Well, let's turn that into an overwrought metaphor, shall we? Just as, after one delicious chip, you can't resist going back for more, there are story ideas that are great, even brilliant the first time. But future writers can't resist going back to that well, again and again, even though it might not be a healthy idea for the franchise. No one can use X just once.

An example from another medium: the holodeck.

Hey, the holdeck is a clever idea. And there were several pretty good holodeck stories. But the writers couldn't resist going back to the bag for just one more chip, time and time again.

That's not to say that every later holodeck story was bad. Hey, some were pretty good. But lordy, there were some goshawful ones, and they basically wore the concept into the ground. And yet they still couldn't stop going back to that well, again and again.

A comic book example? How about Franklin Richards' powers?

For the past almost 40 years, we've been going back time and time (and time) again through the cycle of Franklin gets powers/powers are too dangerous/FF finds a way to lock off Franklin's powers "forever."

These stories haven't all been bad...heck, I even rather enjoy Hickman's take on the idea.

But the idea is something that never really should have been repeated--having an essentially omnipotent member of the family that you can pull out whenever you've written yourself into a corner is probably not healthy for the concept of the Fantastic Four. Even non-FF writers will play the Franklin ex machina card, illogically, in the midst of their epic mega-event. No one can eat just one, it seems.

Oh, DC has their infinite cans of worms, as well:

Hey, I loved Crisis On Infinite Earths. And, while you can certainly argue whether or not it was wise, or even necessary, on its own terms it was largely successful.

Yet DC couldn't stop with just one reboot. What should have been a once in a lifetime action became DC's prime option every single time someone had a burr under their saddle about some issue. Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, the whatever-the-hell-that-was of Final Crisis, multiple ridiculous re- and de- and re-re-boots in Legion, and of course the magic that was Flushpoint.

Of course, those are just my opinions. Surely you all have your own bugaboos, your own thoughts on what was a good idea the first time, maybe the second time, but annoying or damaging when the creators couldn't eat just one?

Have at it.

snell Is Finally Rendered Speechless

This house ad appeared in all the DC's this week:

I mean...wait, really, because...uhh...of all the things to hard sell, they...ummmm...1990s...Look, I er...well, you know...

Hrmmmmm.

Manic Monday--Flash Can't Drive 55!!

You know, I've been a tiny bit too calm lately. How about a nice, blood-pressure-rising fan entitlement rant?

The following is from the DC All Access panel at ECCC this past weekend. And in fairness, let's acknowledge that the writer of the piece tells us that this is a "rough breakdown" of the Q & A session, not a verbatim transcription...and the DC person responding to the question isn't even identified. So, there's a lot of room for DC to walk this back, or say it was taken down wrong, or whatever. Still, let's look at what we have:

Q: Why are you literally making the Flash go slower?

A: We want him to have more challenges. A character that does nothing but zip around at the speed of light might get old after a while.

You see, one of the ongoing plotlines in The Flash right now has him unable to use too much superspeed, or else the Speed Force energy creates wormholes and EMPs and other bad things.

Now, I had been thinking that this was just some temporary setback, an obstacle for him to overcome, and then back to the status quo. Apparently, not so much...

Now, given that the Flash has been "zipping around at the speed of light" for 55 years or so, you'd think we were past the point of "might get old after a while."

And you think that, given DC's determination to revive Barry Allen, come hell or high water, they'd want to keep some of the things that made him Barry Allen. Nope, instead it's become, "we're bringing back Barry, but erasing his wife and most of his family, and he can't run as fast or do most of the things he used to do...but by gum, at least he's not Wally!"

I'm (sadly) reminded of the Star Trek The Next Generation episode Force Of Nature, wherein the writers sort of crazily decided to do a story which revealed that warp drive damaged the fabric of space and time, opening subspace rifts and other gobbledygook, so Star Fleet passed a rule that ships couldn't go faster than Warp 5. (Said effects and rules were quickly and conveniently excused/forgotten/never mentioned again upon fear of banishment).

It's a pretty terrible episode, and if you want to see it properly dumped upon, see my friend Siskoid's takedown. But the reason I bring it up here is...why would you want to emulate such a disaster? Just as virtually no one wanted to see the Enterprise seek out new life and new civilizations--just REALLY slowly--who out there is agitating to see The Fastest Man Alive obey some arbitrary and ridiculous plot contrivance putting a governor on his speed?

The Fastest Man Alive is boring because he's too fast? Time travel tales and jaunts to other dimensions "get old?" You give Barry back his Cosmic Treadmill, but instead of using it to do cool stuff, it's merely to burn off his excess energy? He's going to have to check his power meter several times an issue, to make sure he's not approaching his limit? That's Iron Man in the 60s and 70s, not the Flash!!

None of this should be taken as a stab at Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato, who have been doing wonderful work on the title. (And it should be noted, neither was at this panel). And I'm sure that, whether this was their idea or not, they'll keep turning out great stories.

But good gravy, this is a perfect picture of what's been wrong with much of the nu52--a deliberate tamping down of imagination and fancy, exchanging the fantastical for the lead-footed and prosaic.

Guys, this is the freakin' Flash!!! If I wanted to read about someone who could just run really fast, I'd go dig some Quicksilver books out of the quarter bin...

Spoiler Saturday--Demon Knights #4 (& The Whole nu52)

If I had a webcam, you'd be able to see that I am dancing the Dance Of Much Joy And Happiness right now.

Cast your mind back to November. Reread this post of mine, wherein I posit that a silly pun is actually the basis for the entire set-up of the post-Flushpoint DCU.

Go read it, it's a short one. I'll wait.

Welcome back. Gosh, I love it when I'm right.

So how do I know that my silly theory was actually correct? Well, check out this weeks Demon Knights #4. Merlin is talking to The Shining Knight in a vision, warning her him about the past and the future:

(There's that mysterious "they" again...)



See, they just thought that Merlin was naming the group the Demon Knights, but nope, he was trying to warn Ystina about the Daemonites.

The mysterious Ms. Monitor told Flash that "they" had split the timeline into three, in order to weaken us for their coming. Merlin was trying to establish Camelot again and again in hopes of stopping this "they." In Stormwatch, also by Paul Cornell, a mysterious being came to cause great devastation on Earth, in order to toughen us up for "their" coming.

And you may recall back in Superman #1, someone blew that mysterious big-ass horn, summoning "them." And ever since then Kal-El has been fighting mysterious alien menaces. And now there's the solicitation for Superman #7 in March:

The start of an insanely epic arc from the new writing team of Keith Giffen and Dan Jurgens! New love interests, new roommates, and a new foe: the wicked Helspont! What does this monster want with Superman, and how does it all connect to the Daemonites?

Straight outta Wildstorm, it's Helspont and the Daemonite menace.

Folks, "Demon Knights" is a pun that proves that Jim Lee is full on importing his Wildstorm villains, the Daemonites, to be the new Big Bad for the nuDCU.

I predict that by the end of the first Justice League arc, Darkseid himself will name drop the Daemonites, probably one again as the mysterious "they." And we'll see more and more references dropped in the other nu52 books to the Daemonites.

And the first big mega crossover for the nu52 will be the Daemonite invasion of Earth. Yup, I'm calling it right now.

And you'd better believe me--I'm on a streak!! After all, I was right about the Teselecta in Doctor Who...

And my dance of happiness?!? If you could see it, it would look a little like this:

Superman 2020--Much Better Than Jayden Or Madison

As we bemoan the loss of Superman 2020, we come to the cruelest blow of all.

Some of you may have wondered--since Superman II had the secret identity of Jorel Kent, and his son, Superman III, had been Kalel Kent (before he faked his own death!!)--just how secret could these identities have been?

Very secret, it turns out. Because the fifth--and most important--reason the loss of Superman 2020 is a tragedy, is this:

Dude--Kryptonian names became common?!?!? That is so rad!!

Just think--we could have been living in a world where we're rubbing shoulders with Jorels and Karas and Laras and Kalels...but now, thanks to Flushpoint, we're stuck with a world where people fear and hate and resent heroes, so there's no way they'd give their kids Kryptonian names. No, the xenophobic nuDCU public is more likely to name their kids Newt or Snoop Dogg or Wo Fat than Zorel or Zod. Sigh...

Speaking of xenophobes, who is our narrator here, the guy making a big deal about "mixed blood?" Stay tuned...

From Superman #354 (1980)

Why Breaking Up Lois And Clark Was A Bad Idea

Whatever else you may think of the rebooting the DC Universe, it has put something very momentous in jeopardy:

What??

Oh, ye of short memories. Back in Superman #354 (1980), the concept of Superman 2020 was introduced, and it WASN'T billed as an imaginary story or a "possible" future--this was going to happen!!

What was going to happen?


(huh, huh, huh huh, he said "sired!")


Well, that may all be out the window now. Thanks to the reboot, broody nuSuperman has to somehow find a woman willing to hang around with his whiny butt long enough to "sire" a child, have that child spawn his own offspring, and have that grandchild be old enough to take on the Superman mantle--in just 8 years!!

Pretty unlikely.

(Yes, yes, I know, there wouldn't have been sufficient time under the old continuity, either. But at least Kal-El was married, so there was a much better chance of children than current emo Clark Kent has. Throw in the made up sci-fi growth rates of Kryptonese/human hybrids, time travel, and a little Mxyzptlk jazz, and it could have happened. )

And why is it so important that we preserve the possibility of Superman 2020? Well, that's a story for tomorrow...

Ask The Answer Manic Monday #4--Life Was Better Pre-Crisis

From the Ask The Answer Man column in Superman #347 (1980):

No history changing--IT'S THE LAW!!

Of course, said law was revoked by Crisis On Infinite Earths, and several later DC events which explicitly relied on some nefarious people changing history (as a sub rosa way of doing massive resets/reboots/retcons/digging our way out of the mess we made last time).

I'll tell you what: I'll vote for whichever presidential candidate promises to restore the "history can't be changed" rule...

What If...Ma and Paw Kent Were Dickweeds?

I know my pal Siskoid dealt with this story earlier this year, but since I just found Adventure Into Fear #17 (1973) in the quarter bin, I do have to expand a tiny bit.

A scientist and his wife from the planet Dakkam are convinced that their sun is going to go nova [SPOILER ALERT: They were wrong!]. So they launch their infant child into space.

But here on Marvel Earth-616, things went a little bit differently:



D'oh!!! No kindly Kents in this universe!!

Then again, since we have yet to see even the tiniest glimpse of the Kents in the post-Flushpoint DC Universe, and we have yet to see much of nuSuperman as something other than a broody dingus, maybe the nu52 Kents were just as big a couple of dickweeds...

So what was satire in 1973 has become reality in 2011?? I report, you decide!!

Overdue

Well, phew, that was some trip to 1981. Did I miss anything here in 2011 while I was gone?

Oh, dear, yes:

Look at the "bonus feature" DC gave us to justify charging us one dollar extra for Justice League #3.

All right, so Geoff Johns (who is credited with "writing" the "bonus feature") decided to waste one whole page--20% of the allotted 5 pages--on a particularly poorly designed book cover.

Fine, fine, so I'm whining. Surely it gets better, though, right?

Wow.

Really, that's exactly what we needed, an exciting and stimulating facsimile of a book's library status. That adds so much depth and information to our understanding of the nuDC Justice League.

Seriously, don't you feel like you're reading a 10-page assignment from a student who decided to get cute and put on 3 title pages and used triple-spacing and an extra-large font to fill up the space? Except, of course, we're being charged extra money for this shallow bit of "contractual obligation."

I don't mind if DC wants to charge us extra for this magazine, as long as they give us something extra. But this has the rancid stench of Geoff Johns and "designer" Brian Walters saying, "This will be our highest selling comics, so let's charge them an extra dollar. This whole Flushpoint business was so rushed that we don't have our back-up features ready to go yet, but really, who cares, so we're only going to put 12 seconds into actually giving the reader anything for their money."

It's greedy and contemptible. DC Comics, you should be ashamed of yourself.