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Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Infinite reviews
When I interviewed Dan DiDio he noted that one of the goals of the Infinite Crisis programming was to give fans a feeling that they must pick up the latest comics tying into the overarching storyline as soon as they hit. For those fans that did wait out for collected editions now all the main storylines leading up to the Infinite Crisis mini-series are available. Reviewing three of them (as well as one parody I’ll get to at the end) gives a glimpse of what the strengths and weaknesses of modern superhero storytelling are.
The plan to create this vast story for the DC Universe came from DiDio seeing so much potential in Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales’s Identity Crisis. DiDio gathered Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka and Judd Winick to plan out what will happen to the DC superheroes based on this story. While many of the mini-series and story arcs base plot points on the content on Identity Crisis JLA: Crisis of Conscience is a direct sequel to the original mini-series. Written by Johns and Young Avengers writer Allan Heinberg with art by Chris Batista it’s not only, as the cover states, “the explosive aftermath to” Meltzer’s story, it’s also a significant improvement.
The drowsy narration captions, choppy fight scenes and dour mood are all gone. CoC, perhaps because it was published in a continuing superhero title, is much more comfortable with itself as a superhero story. The plot works off of the “magical lobotomy” moments of Identity Crisis, with characters from that era’s Justice League roster arguing over whether they had gone to far in their actions against supervillains like Dr. Light or not. Johns and Heinberg actually treat Meltzer’s concept better than he did by having the characters act in full-blown superhero soap opera mood. Characters like Green Arrow and Hawkman don’t seem angst-ridden as much over-the-top actors putting on a Greek tragedy. It seems hammy but it might be the only effective way to tell a story where a man dressed like Robin Hood argues with a guy who has wings on his back about what a woman wearing a sexy tuxedo with fishnets should do. Batista draws the heroes with a fine grasp of superhuman anatomy, leading to great poses by the heroes either in emotional battle with each other or physical battle with their enemies. Johns and Heinberg never forget they’re writing a Justice League of America story and make sure to put in plenty of fight scenes. The internal and external fights the superheroes deal with are intertwined, leading to a very exciting ending featuring a classic JLA villain.
It’s not really an ending though, as the last page of the book is sure to tell us. These are books written with continuing monthly books in mind so they read better as one aspect to this much bigger storyline that will take many books to get complete story. When I read Adam Strange I was disappointed that the cliffhanger ending felt tacked on. Here, because it was expected from the writers all along, it’s much more effective at creating anticipation. The bit about Catwoman seems interesting, almost as if the writers are trying to create an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the superhero world.
Villains United and Rann-Thanagar War are part of the same project but are very different. One exemplifies the best of modern superhero comics while the other just gives readers the worst. VU starts with pages of back information. Panels from previous comics tell of the lead up to a bunch of DC supervillains uniting against the threat of mind wiping. It seems hard to get a handle on but writer Gail Simone creates a story that is easy to enjoy. It features a defiant team of villains and all a reader needs to know, including the ending, is self-contained in this mini-series. The book is filled with double- and triple-crossing and the main characters can only be seen as heroes in comparison to the villains they are rebelling against. Simone still manages to make a case for the Secret Six. She is a master of building characterization through only a few pieces of dialogue. Elements like New Gods character Parademon and second-generation villain Ragdoll’s affection for each other aren’t necessary for Simone to get the story from Infinite Crisis Plot Point A to Infinite Crisis Plot Point B. Including that relationship in VU just makes the characters more fun to read. By the end I wanted to read a lot more about Catman (who should change his name to Orange Batman) and Deadshot’s partnership, so I’m glad a Secret Six mini-series with Simone writing is coming soon.
RTW barely features any characterization even though with all the different aliens running around it could certainly use it. Dave Gibbons just packs the comic with character shouting at each other and stuff blowing up. Ivan Reis has a great talent for drawing superheroic action and adventure but his work gets bogged down in this drunken vomit of a plot. Almost all of his drawings for the first half of the plot are washed up in too-bright oranges and reds. If you are familiar with the final battle in Adam Strange (Jog’s take on it isn’t far from reality) then imagine that battle strung along for six issues, complete with a similar ending that seemingly wraps everything up until something bad happens coincidentally enough and everybody realizes “oh wait, we have to do this all over again.”
The book is a prime example of what I’m writing about when I write how some books can only be useful to readers who are familiar with decades of continuity and can appreciate when these characters are dealing with a crisis. I realize now that editorial plans aren’t wholly to blame here. Both Gibbons and Simone got instructions of what events their books were meant to depict but Simone still tells a complete story that works on its own while Gibbons’s book only makes sense as a muddled puzzle piece in a long line of other comics. Both CoC and VU created enough sense of drama that someone like me, who had many hesitations about this crossover business, now wants to read more of this story. RTW just makes me weary of Gibbons’s superhero writing.
An odd thing I noticed about these trades is that they aren’t uniform in their presentation. VU has all these excerpts from other comics and then identifies every character in the book in the back pages (and I mean every character, even if they appeared in one panel). RTW could certainly have used that same move but instead we just got one page of text that’s as much of a read as the rest of the comic. You’d think they’d at least use panels from Adam Strange. All three of the books tout their Infinite Crisis association the cover but there’s no mention of it on the spines. That seems like a real missed opportunity.
During the publication of Plastic Man Kyle Baker published books of family comedy and historical drama under his own company. He also illustrated the political satire Birth of a Nation, published by Crown. When he writes about superheroes he sees them from a much wider perspective than many other creators at DC Comics. Baker seems bewildered why so much energy would be put into create stories about superheroes grappling with life-changing issues. The first three pages of Plastic Man #20 are damning attack on the mentality behind Infinite Crisis. Baker feels he is out of step with the current superhero world and his perspective as an outsider is smart as well as being very funny. DiDio and the star creators under him have a clear vision for the types of comic books they want to create. They’ve achieved success in communicating that vision and in the reception it has received, at least in terms of sales. If creators like Johns and Heinberg tried to create the story they did as well as make every issue accessible for ages five to 85 it wouldn’t have been effective. To create the world for DC they wanted they ad to leave behind the kind of superhero comics Baker and others want. DC overall does have a wide variety of genre comics and by publishing Plastic Man they actually refute some of what is asserted in Plastic Man. But this issue is the last of the series. It failed why the Infinite Crisis books go on strong for now. Overwhelming DC fans, creators and editorial alike want high drama and the sense that everything they read matters on a larger scale. It’s just a matter of telling a good story amongst all those expectations.
My thanks to DC Comics for making the reviews of JLA: Crisis of Conscience, Villains United and Rann-Thanagar War possible. My thanks to James Sime for making the review of Plastic Man #20 possible.
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