Not a lot to say about this issue, other than "oh wow." Also, having finally gotten to read DC UNIVERSE: LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT, I'm not going to be annotating it here--it doesn't make any direct references to FINAL CRISIS proper, and it can't possibly fit anywhere in the timeline, despite the original claim that it would be "in-continuity" and "positioned between issues #3 and #4 of FINAL CRISIS." C'est la vie. Let's just call it apocryphal.
Pg. 1:
The character in panel 3 is Black Manta, created by Bob Haney and Nick Cardy, who first appeared in 1967's AQUAMAN #35. The cold thing he did that he's referring to is killing Aquaman's infant son in ADVENTURE COMICS #452--foreshadowing the end of this issue.
On the left of panel 5 is the Rudy Jones version of the Parasite, created by John Ostrander and Joe Brozowski, who first appeared in THE FURY OF FIRESTORM #58 (in a sequence of events instigated by Darkseid!), based on a character created by Jim Shooter and Al Plastino who first appeared in 1966's ACTION COMICS #340. Not sure who the guy on the right is--is it Metallo?
Pg. 3:
Golden Glider first appeared in 1977's FLASH #250, and Chillblaine killed her in 1996's FLASH #113. (It's probably worth noting that he had gotten his cold weapons from her, and that she'd been giving guys cold weapons and calling them Chillblaine for a while--in fact, she killed the first one herself in FLASH ANNUAL #5. But the Rogues, as previously noted, are prone to self-deception.)
Pg. 4:
Paul Gambi, created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, first appeared in 1963's FLASH #141. Chill, created by Frank Tieri and Jim Calafiore, first appeared in GOTHAM UNDERGROUND #4.
Pg. 5:
Also debuting in GOTHAM UNDERGROUND #4: Weather Witch, Mr. Magic, Mirror Man. Burn first turned up in GOTHAM UNDERGROUND #8.
Pg. 7:
The cosmic treadmill explosion was in FLASH #196. [Thanks to Kelson for the correction.]
Pg. 9:
The introductory dialogue here is one of the occasional signs that this was condensed from a 6x22-page story to a 3x30-page story...
Pg. 11:
Heat Wave actually went straight twice: once in the early '90s, once in the late '90s, apparently both times under the influence of the Top.
Pg. 13:
Johns always did write Weather Wizard as a little bit more brainy than the other Rogues.
Pg. 15:
Sam Scudder (the first Mirror Master) died in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #10.
Pg. 16:
We first saw Weather Wizard's kid, Josh Jackam, in 2001's FLASH #170. [Thanks for the correction, Kelson.] As we'll see later, he's got his father's eyes.
Pg. 17:
Yeah, it really wouldn't be a Geoff Johns comic without a little dismemberment, would it?
Pg. 19:
I wouldn't say the Pied Piper is "the only Rogue left who's on the straight-and-narrow"--what about the second Captain Boomerang and Goldface?
Pg. 20:
This ties directly into FC #2-3, of course.
Pg. 20:
For the sake of completeness (and because I don't have a lot of my back issues at hand), anybody know if the nameless Snart-dad first appeared before 2002's FLASH #182? I don't think so--and his face was never quite shown in that issue either.
Pg. 23:
Len did actually cry in FLASH #182.
Pg. 27:
Anybody know what "the observatory" is? I'm drawing a blank here. [ETA: the consensus is that it's probably Clyde Mardon's laboratory on Big Water Lake, as seen in FLASH #110, which makes sense.]
Pg. 29:
Can somebody please parse the phrase "they can unlock the door that our great evil has shut"? Interesting, also, that Abra Kadabra and Dr. Alchemy aren't counted among "the Rogues" proper, especially since Mr. Magic was part of the new Rogues.
Okay, quick quiz: are Libra's eyes white (as seen in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #111)? Are they blue (as seen in DC UNIVERSE 0)? Are they red (as seen on this page)?
Pg. 30:
The correct answer is: purple! Or maybe it's some trick of the light that's also changed Josh's hair from brown to black.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Final Crisis: Superman Beyond #1
Well. Good to see you all again. I'm here late, but on the other hand I got to read this issue while sitting in the shadow of this structure, so I think it was worth it. As expected, David Uzumeri and his Legion of Super-Observant Commenters got to this issue first, so an awful lot of what appears below is cribbed directly from that site. I make no particular claims for originality.
Pg. 1:
As Jeff O'Boyle noted in the comments over at Funnybook Babylon, the Dark Monitor's pose here is based on the cover of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #96. Interesting! Note that Superman is wearing some kind of armor (check out the gauntlets, which are like the ones on the Monitors' "weapon" later this issue), and that his face doesn't quite look like his own, although the cape design is our Kal-El's. (We don't know who's inside the armor, of course, and Tom suggests in the comments that this might be a ZENITH-style switcheroo.)
I could swear I've seen the line "what shall we engrave upon your tombstone?" somewhere before, but I can't think of where.
This (and the opening of the next two-page spread) are pretty clearly a nod to the old DC splash-page tradition--the way stories would open with an image that would somehow encapsulate the central conflict of the story, then jump back to reveal how we got there.
Pp. 2-6:
A flashback to FC #3, of course. Scott over at Polite Dissent has a few things to say about the quasi-medicine on display here. Also, yeah, you'd think they'd have brought in the Purple Ray or some Kilowog-tech or something.
Is it me, or is the "recruit the greatest super-champions of the multiverse" business nearly identical to the premise of COUNTDOWN: ARENA?
Pg. 7:
"Universe designate zero": apparently DC UNIVERSE 0 was named after the place where it's set! The 52 parallel universes are numbered 0 through 51, not 1 through 52... but then what's Earth-1?
Pg. 8:
"Ultima Thule" basically means more north than north. There's also a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem by that title, which may be sort of relevant here.
The word "ultramenstruum" first appeared in THE INVISIBLES #22 in 1999; until now, I'm pretty sure, it was a hapax legomenon. "The Bleed" was first mentioned in STORMWATCH #7 in 1998. (Apparently Überfraulein's mention of the bleeding skies in FC #3 really was meant to have the implication of menstruation after all.) "The bleed" is also, of course, the space off the edge of the comics page
The phrase "germ-worlds" probably first appeared in Zadel Barnes Gustafson's 1879 poem "William Cullen Bryant."
"4-D vision" is also a callback to THE INVISIBLES, a surprising amount of which is concerned with the question of how to represent a greater-than-three-dimensional construct on a two-dimensional picture plane (like a comic book page); a 3-D comic book makes it easier to represent a four-dimensional construct. But what is the fourth dimension, you ask? It's time, of course; 4-D vision allows one to perceive multiple times simultaneously, instead of a temporal cross-section.
Pg. 9:
"Cast off! Weigh anchor!": I'm amused by the way Morrison has alien characters speak in totally Earthly metaphors (e.g. "dust for radiation").
As David Uzumeri notes, Übermensch is saying "We will have to accept losses! This machine is about to explode!" We first saw the Dr. Manhattan-ish version of Captain Atom in Nix's drawings in FC #2, pg. 9. And the Captain Marvel we're seeing here is not the DCU (0) one but the one from Earth-5 (a variation on Earth-S), where all the Fawcett characters live in their original incarnations.
Pg. 12:
Ultraman here--whose "weapons" appear to include a version of Etrigan the Demon and a version of, maybe, Batwoman?--appeared in his initial form in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #29 in 1964. Per pg. 18, this version is the one from Morrison's JLA: EARTH 2, which was actually not about the Silver Age Earth-Two (or the one Geoff Johns used recently in JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA ANNUAL #1) but about an antimatter universe that doesn't seem to be counted among the 52 basic universes. Don't confuse him with the Ultraman from Earth-3's Crime Society of America as seen in COUNTDOWN PRESENTS THE SEARCH FOR RAY PALMER: CRIME SOCIETY #1, although he is probably the Ultraman who turned up in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #11.
Pg. 13:
Earth-6 here, first seen for real in COUNTDOWN: ARENA #2, has a very familiar kind of New York cityscape, and is going through some kind of Civil War/Secret Invasion mashup. Plus: the guy in armor is secretly a shape-changing alien!
Pg. 14:
I like this little transtion from the plebeian quasi-Marvel Universe cityscape to the curvy high-tech one in the more brightly-lit world.
Earth-51 would appear to be the one from "moving part 51" that had been lost as of FC #1; its entire universe was destroyed in COUNTDOWN #14, then reinstated in COUNTDOWN #9, then turned into a Kamandi-like mess via the Morticoccus virus, and now... everything's dead again?
Pg. 15:
Lady Blackhawk and a character Morrison has referred to as "Doc Fate" are here on Earth-20. Earth-17 appeared very briefly in 52 #52; it's rather like the old Atomic Knights stories.
Pg. 17:
A yottabyte is one septillion bytes. The Zillo Valla/Overman scene is as weird as seductions get...
Pg. 18:
Overman is saying "All these universes vibrate at different frequencies."
Captain Allen Adam, the Dr. Manhattan/Captain Atom type from Earth-4 (established in 52 #52 as the Charlton-heroes-via-Watchmen world), is I don't think quite the same as the Earth-4 Captain Atom seen in COUNTDOWN: ARENA #4. (There was an albino Dr. Manhattan sort, Doctor Metropolis, who appeared there, according to Keith Champagne.)
Pg. 19:
And now we get to see Grant Morrison doing his own version of ARCHITECTURE & MORTALITY! This version of Limbo first appeared in ANIMAL MAN #25--see also the "monkey with a typewriter" business below. In the lower panel, besides Merryman (of the Inferior Five; created by E. Nelson Bridwell and Joe Orlando, first appeared in SHOWCASE #62 in 1966), Chris Eckert and David Uzumeri have identified Nightblade, members of the Alliance, Ace the Bathound, Gunfire, Voiceover, Ballistic, Golem, Geist, Hardhat, Chronos and Private Eyes.
Pg. 20:
Overman is saying something like "What is that? I can't remember why I made this. The whole business is for the dogs." The broken-off shard from the Rock of Eternity happened in DAY OF VENGEANCE, i.e. it may not have happened to this version of Captain Marvel.
I'm betting what the library gate should say (slightly misspelled) is "facilis descensus Averno" (or "Averni"): a line from the Aeneid, basically meaning "the road to evil is easy."
Pg. 21:
The monkey/infinite pages/infinite content business was referred to in ANIMAL MAN #25, but it goes back at least to 1913. Before J.L. Borges wrote "The Library of Babel" in 1941, he wrote an essay called "The Total Library" in 1939 that covered similar territory; the concept also has ties to Borges' "The Aleph," from 1949, and the Book of Destiny that turned up in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD.
Of course, if the Library contains all possible books, it also contains infinite sets of false instructions for repairing the Ultima Thule...
Pg. 22:
"In the beginning" is how a story with a finite starting point begins; "Previously!" is how an installment in a serial begins. And this is, after all, a serialized multiverse. The "concept to contain the flaw" looks a bit like Metron's chair, doesn't it? Also, emphasizing "intricate" in the final panel is a very Kirby-ish gesture.
Pg. 23:
"Liiving" is not to be confused with Liviiing. The last panel is, as David U. notes, a bit from CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS.
Pg. 24:
The majestic golden Superman here might be a callback to the conclusion of DC ONE MILLION. I suspect that Superman-as-a-concept is the original "flaw" in "Monitor perfection," the thing that makes possible infinite stories; it's sealed over with the divine golden metal (it's not likely that the golden metal of the time travelers in that totally baffling, apropos-of-nothing scene in 52 #27, which also involved time being frozen and space between seconds, is related, but I can always hope).
Pg. 25:
So wait, is the decadent doomed civilization threatened by "loathing and greed beyond measure" and waitin' for a Superman supposed to be comics readership?
Pg. 26:
"Who knew the day of holocaust would come again!": a callback to the first page of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #96 (Jeff O'Boyle pointed this out).
Pg. 27:
More prophetic language I could swear I've seen before: "ultimate good is ultimate evil," "the thing most despised will save the most beloved."
Pg. 29:
Overman's cousin must've been the late Überfraulein. "Carriers, destroyers, tankers and explorers": the Carrier from THE AUTHORITY is also part of the Monitor nanotech fleet.
Pg. 30:
The book contains all possible stories, including, I'd imagine, ones where evil doesn't win in the end... and I would feel much better about that "coming soon" if SUPERMAN BEYOND #2 were actually on the schedule.
Still catching up. More to follow...
Pg. 1:
As Jeff O'Boyle noted in the comments over at Funnybook Babylon, the Dark Monitor's pose here is based on the cover of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #96. Interesting! Note that Superman is wearing some kind of armor (check out the gauntlets, which are like the ones on the Monitors' "weapon" later this issue), and that his face doesn't quite look like his own, although the cape design is our Kal-El's. (We don't know who's inside the armor, of course, and Tom suggests in the comments that this might be a ZENITH-style switcheroo.)
I could swear I've seen the line "what shall we engrave upon your tombstone?" somewhere before, but I can't think of where.
This (and the opening of the next two-page spread) are pretty clearly a nod to the old DC splash-page tradition--the way stories would open with an image that would somehow encapsulate the central conflict of the story, then jump back to reveal how we got there.
Pp. 2-6:
A flashback to FC #3, of course. Scott over at Polite Dissent has a few things to say about the quasi-medicine on display here. Also, yeah, you'd think they'd have brought in the Purple Ray or some Kilowog-tech or something.
Is it me, or is the "recruit the greatest super-champions of the multiverse" business nearly identical to the premise of COUNTDOWN: ARENA?
Pg. 7:
"Universe designate zero": apparently DC UNIVERSE 0 was named after the place where it's set! The 52 parallel universes are numbered 0 through 51, not 1 through 52... but then what's Earth-1?
Pg. 8:
"Ultima Thule" basically means more north than north. There's also a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem by that title, which may be sort of relevant here.
The word "ultramenstruum" first appeared in THE INVISIBLES #22 in 1999; until now, I'm pretty sure, it was a hapax legomenon. "The Bleed" was first mentioned in STORMWATCH #7 in 1998. (Apparently Überfraulein's mention of the bleeding skies in FC #3 really was meant to have the implication of menstruation after all.) "The bleed" is also, of course, the space off the edge of the comics page
The phrase "germ-worlds" probably first appeared in Zadel Barnes Gustafson's 1879 poem "William Cullen Bryant."
"4-D vision" is also a callback to THE INVISIBLES, a surprising amount of which is concerned with the question of how to represent a greater-than-three-dimensional construct on a two-dimensional picture plane (like a comic book page); a 3-D comic book makes it easier to represent a four-dimensional construct. But what is the fourth dimension, you ask? It's time, of course; 4-D vision allows one to perceive multiple times simultaneously, instead of a temporal cross-section.
Pg. 9:
"Cast off! Weigh anchor!": I'm amused by the way Morrison has alien characters speak in totally Earthly metaphors (e.g. "dust for radiation").
As David Uzumeri notes, Übermensch is saying "We will have to accept losses! This machine is about to explode!" We first saw the Dr. Manhattan-ish version of Captain Atom in Nix's drawings in FC #2, pg. 9. And the Captain Marvel we're seeing here is not the DCU (0) one but the one from Earth-5 (a variation on Earth-S), where all the Fawcett characters live in their original incarnations.
Pg. 12:
Ultraman here--whose "weapons" appear to include a version of Etrigan the Demon and a version of, maybe, Batwoman?--appeared in his initial form in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #29 in 1964. Per pg. 18, this version is the one from Morrison's JLA: EARTH 2, which was actually not about the Silver Age Earth-Two (or the one Geoff Johns used recently in JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA ANNUAL #1) but about an antimatter universe that doesn't seem to be counted among the 52 basic universes. Don't confuse him with the Ultraman from Earth-3's Crime Society of America as seen in COUNTDOWN PRESENTS THE SEARCH FOR RAY PALMER: CRIME SOCIETY #1, although he is probably the Ultraman who turned up in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #11.
Pg. 13:
Earth-6 here, first seen for real in COUNTDOWN: ARENA #2, has a very familiar kind of New York cityscape, and is going through some kind of Civil War/Secret Invasion mashup. Plus: the guy in armor is secretly a shape-changing alien!
Pg. 14:
I like this little transtion from the plebeian quasi-Marvel Universe cityscape to the curvy high-tech one in the more brightly-lit world.
Earth-51 would appear to be the one from "moving part 51" that had been lost as of FC #1; its entire universe was destroyed in COUNTDOWN #14, then reinstated in COUNTDOWN #9, then turned into a Kamandi-like mess via the Morticoccus virus, and now... everything's dead again?
Pg. 15:
Lady Blackhawk and a character Morrison has referred to as "Doc Fate" are here on Earth-20. Earth-17 appeared very briefly in 52 #52; it's rather like the old Atomic Knights stories.
Pg. 17:
A yottabyte is one septillion bytes. The Zillo Valla/Overman scene is as weird as seductions get...
Pg. 18:
Overman is saying "All these universes vibrate at different frequencies."
Captain Allen Adam, the Dr. Manhattan/Captain Atom type from Earth-4 (established in 52 #52 as the Charlton-heroes-via-Watchmen world), is I don't think quite the same as the Earth-4 Captain Atom seen in COUNTDOWN: ARENA #4. (There was an albino Dr. Manhattan sort, Doctor Metropolis, who appeared there, according to Keith Champagne.)
Pg. 19:
And now we get to see Grant Morrison doing his own version of ARCHITECTURE & MORTALITY! This version of Limbo first appeared in ANIMAL MAN #25--see also the "monkey with a typewriter" business below. In the lower panel, besides Merryman (of the Inferior Five; created by E. Nelson Bridwell and Joe Orlando, first appeared in SHOWCASE #62 in 1966), Chris Eckert and David Uzumeri have identified Nightblade, members of the Alliance, Ace the Bathound, Gunfire, Voiceover, Ballistic, Golem, Geist, Hardhat, Chronos and Private Eyes.
Pg. 20:
Overman is saying something like "What is that? I can't remember why I made this. The whole business is for the dogs." The broken-off shard from the Rock of Eternity happened in DAY OF VENGEANCE, i.e. it may not have happened to this version of Captain Marvel.
I'm betting what the library gate should say (slightly misspelled) is "facilis descensus Averno" (or "Averni"): a line from the Aeneid, basically meaning "the road to evil is easy."
Pg. 21:
The monkey/infinite pages/infinite content business was referred to in ANIMAL MAN #25, but it goes back at least to 1913. Before J.L. Borges wrote "The Library of Babel" in 1941, he wrote an essay called "The Total Library" in 1939 that covered similar territory; the concept also has ties to Borges' "The Aleph," from 1949, and the Book of Destiny that turned up in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD.
Of course, if the Library contains all possible books, it also contains infinite sets of false instructions for repairing the Ultima Thule...
Pg. 22:
"In the beginning" is how a story with a finite starting point begins; "Previously!" is how an installment in a serial begins. And this is, after all, a serialized multiverse. The "concept to contain the flaw" looks a bit like Metron's chair, doesn't it? Also, emphasizing "intricate" in the final panel is a very Kirby-ish gesture.
Pg. 23:
"Liiving" is not to be confused with Liviiing. The last panel is, as David U. notes, a bit from CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS.
Pg. 24:
The majestic golden Superman here might be a callback to the conclusion of DC ONE MILLION. I suspect that Superman-as-a-concept is the original "flaw" in "Monitor perfection," the thing that makes possible infinite stories; it's sealed over with the divine golden metal (it's not likely that the golden metal of the time travelers in that totally baffling, apropos-of-nothing scene in 52 #27, which also involved time being frozen and space between seconds, is related, but I can always hope).
Pg. 25:
So wait, is the decadent doomed civilization threatened by "loathing and greed beyond measure" and waitin' for a Superman supposed to be comics readership?
Pg. 26:
"Who knew the day of holocaust would come again!": a callback to the first page of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #96 (Jeff O'Boyle pointed this out).
Pg. 27:
More prophetic language I could swear I've seen before: "ultimate good is ultimate evil," "the thing most despised will save the most beloved."
Pg. 29:
Overman's cousin must've been the late Überfraulein. "Carriers, destroyers, tankers and explorers": the Carrier from THE AUTHORITY is also part of the Monitor nanotech fleet.
Pg. 30:
The book contains all possible stories, including, I'd imagine, ones where evil doesn't win in the end... and I would feel much better about that "coming soon" if SUPERMAN BEYOND #2 were actually on the schedule.
Still catching up. More to follow...
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #1
"I can't wait to see someone do annotations on the first issue"--Geoff Johns
At your service. Before I start my own annotations, I should note that Michael Grabois over at The Legion Omnicom has been gearing up to do some scarily complete annotations for this mini (from which I am stealing lots of information)--even before the appearance of this issue, he'd already posted lists of the first appearances and creators of every character in all three incarnations of the Legion.
Three incarnations? Right. The Legion of Super-Heroes has three separate continuities: the first set is the stories published between 1958 and 1994, the second ran 1994-2004, and the third is 2004-present. They're sometimes called the "pre-ZH Legion" (ZH being ZERO HOUR, the miniseries that reconfigured the timestream), the "reboot" and the "threeboot." For the purposes of notes on this mini-series, I'm just going to call them L(I), L(II) and L(III) when distinctions are necessary.
On top of that, Lo3W builds on "Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes," which ran in ACTION COMICS #858-864, and featured an older version of L(I) that nonetheless hadn't lived through the events published in the LEGION series that ran from 1989 to 1994. "Superman and the Legion," in turn, builds on several Legionnaires' appearance in "The Lightning Saga," in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #8-10 and JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #5-6. And, in JSA #6, Superman refers to the "Legion of Three Worlds" being "one of the Legion's greatest adventures." That title is of course a riff on "Flash of Two Worlds", the first story to propose the existence of "Earth-Two" (and the source of Libra's headquarters).
Confused yet? This story will allegedly be how all that stuff gets un-confused. We'll see. And, for all that, this is a fairly self-explanatory story; in the same interview linked up top, Johns claims that "[y]ou don't need to know who Superboy-Prime is when you read issue #1. You don't need to know who the Legion are, and you don't need to know anything about their world. You don't even need to know who Superman is when you pick up issue #1." Nonetheless, it's got more Easter eggs than a PAAS factory.
Also, I'm not noting everybody in every group shot, partly because life is short, and partly because Timothy Callahan's annotations already did all the heavy lifting there. Also, you should read them because they're funnier than mine.
Pg. 1:
This is the Time Trapper, created by Edmond Hamilton and John Forte, who first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #318 in 1964. (He later retroactively became Time Master, who had appeared in WONDER WOMAN #101 in 1958. This sort of thing happens a lot when he's around.) "The Legion will live no longer" is a riff on the team's catchphrase, "long live the Legion."
Flour beetles are actually likely to survive longer than cockroaches, but the point is made.
The Time Trapper's headquarters may well be Vanishing Point, the HQ of the Linear Men, which is also on an asteroid and also at the end of time; I don't have visual reference for that on hand, though.
Pg. 2:
As far as I know, none of these years (or the ones elsewhere in the issue) have specific DCU implications.
Smallville is Superman's boyhood home, and this sequence isn't just a parodic replay of Superman's origin, it's a parodic replay of a previous Johns parodic replay--ACTION COMICS #858, where the hyper-xenophobic Jun (originally "Juun") and Mara first appeared. Their names, I suppose, are also 31st-century equivalents of Jonathan and Martha. Kind of amusing that cup/saucer/utensil design hasn't changed in a thousand years, I guess, but Jun and Mara seem like traditionalists anyway. "Boys and girls" may be a riff on the "Attribute Boy" Legion naming paradigm.
Michael Grabois identifies the newscaster as Marella Tao, created by Paul Levitz and Greg LaRoque, who first appeared in 1987's LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #36.
Pg. 4:
Ah, Superman-Prime. (Although is this the first time Superboy has been called by that name in a new DC comic since the Superboy lawsuit?) Created by Elliot S! Maggin and Curt Swan, he first appeared--as Superboy-Prime--in DC COMICS PRESENTS #87 in 1985. That 1985 is significant: Geoff Johns writes him as an "evil fanboy" who wants everything to be the way it was when he was reading comics in the mid-'80s...
Prime was last seen, I think, in COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #13, destroying moving part 51. Not sure how he got from there to here.
Pg. 5:
Prime looks rather Li'l Abner in panel 7, doesn't he?
The "Welcome to Smallville" sign should, by rights, be in Interlac, but it was established as being in English in ACTION #858. The sign in the final panel, though, is in Interlac: it says "Superman Museum."
Pp. 6-7:
The golden statue in the middle is of course a riff on the cover of ACTION COMICS #1, with exploding Krypton and the Discovery of the El Child behind it. Left, top row, we see Ma and Pa Kent with little Clark; Clark and Lois on their wedding day in SUPERMAN: THE WEDDING ALBUM; Jimmy, Perry and Clark at the Daily Planet offices; Lex Luthor being led away. The second row is an early Joe Shuster-style Superman, the DC One Million version (wait--isn't that still in the far future of this timeline?), the Kingdom Come version, and the TANGENT COMICS: THE SUPERMAN version. Bottom row: Jonathan Kent, Martha Kent, Pete Ross and Lana Lang. Anyone know who that is in the crystal structure?
Right, top row: Power Girl, Steel, Lori Lemaris and the seven core members of the Justice League. Middle row: Krypto, Superwoman (as seen in the pre-Crisis DC COMICS PRESENTS ANNUAL #2 and #4), some version of Supergirl, and Connor Kent/Superboy. Bottom row: Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Perry White.
Pg. 8:
"Strange visitor" is a phrase that dates back to the very early days of Superman. Apparently the Jimmy-guide speaks in 21st-century American English.
"Hall of 1,000 Olsens" is a riff on JIMMY OLSEN #105--"The World of 1000 Olsens!" In evidence: the Super-Brain Olsen from JIMMY OLSEN #22, the Elastic Lad incarnation of Jimmy who first appeared in JIMMY OLSEN #37, Jupiter Jimmy from JIMMY OLSEN #32, the Wolf-Man of Metropolis from JIMMY OLSEN #44, the Giant Turtle Man from JIMMY OLSEN #53, the Human Octopus from JIMMY OLSEN #41, the Human Flame-Thrower from JIMMY OLSEN #33, the Human Porcupine from JIMMY OLSEN #65, the Fat Boy of Metropolis from JIMMY OLSEN #49, Jimmy the Gorilla Reporter from JIMMY OLSEN #24 although the cover of its reprint in JIMMY OLSEN #116 is funnier, and... who else? Anyone recognize the chicken-footed one or the tornado-like one?
Pg. 9:
The caped figures are Nightwing and Flamebird, from SUPERMAN #158 and many times thereafter, although, as Jimmy indicates, that's now out of continuity. Ow.
Interlac in Panel 2: "Olsen Photo..." In panel 8, the portrait gallery says "Portrait Ga...," and below the Supermans in the case: "...ster," "Boring," "Swan," "Garcia-Lopez," "...ne," and "L...feld." Those Supermans are drawn in approximations of the styles of Joe Shuster, Wayne Boring, Curt Swan, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, John Byrne--although mostly obscured--and... could the one where almost all you can see is feet be dedicated to Rob Liefeld? [ETA: I misread it: it's actually "H... feld," a tribute to Al Hirschfeld, apparently inserted by inker Scott Koblish: there is a "Nina" on each foot. Thanks to Michael for catching it...] Below the left figure, "Bu..."; below the right figure, "Pérez."
Pg. 10:
Panel 2: the Interlac does indeed say "...hantom Zone" and "on loan."
Panel 3: L(I), in the incarnation that appeared in "Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes."
R.J. Brande first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #350, by E. Nelson Bridwell and Curt Swan, referred to only as "the richest man in the universe"; the story of his attempted assassination (and the beginning of the Legion) appeared in SUPERBOY #147, a few years later. Leland McCauley (only two Cs!) first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #374.
Panel 7: This is the Legion as they appeared in the late '80s, before the "five years later" period. Which segues nicely into reader Joe G.'s question: "Is 'five years later' no longer in continuity? When in Legion continuity (by which I mean assuming 5YL is tossed out) does 'The Lightning Saga' start? When are these Legionnaires from? I guess the Levitz Baxter-paper run?" Glad you asked, Joe G.! I have no idea what the answer is. In ACTION COMICS #864, Batman notes that this Lightning Lad was the one he'd met in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #148--as opposed to the L(II) version from THE FINAL NIGHT and the L(III) version from Waid/Pérez's THE BRAVE & THE BOLD. On the other hand, supposedly "every Legionnaire to have ever existed" is going to appear in this story. Which means that once we see, e.g., Kent Shakespeare and Laurel Gand, things may become clearer. See also the note on Karate Kid II, pg. 22 below.
My best guess right now is that the three Legions are from parallel universes, but the Johnsverse version, the 5YL version, and the original Jim Shooter "Adult Legion" story from ADVENTURE COMICS #354 (which incidentally includes an offhanded reference to Dr. Light!) and #355 are all alternate timelines from a single universe. But who knows? Any speculation is welcome.
Pg. 11:
Panel 1: Steel's hammer, Superboy's jacket, the Guardian's shield, various varieties of Kryptonite.
Panel 2: Gaston Dominguez-Letelier co-owns Meltdown Comics in Hollywood. Interlac: "...olitude." The exhibit is the key to the Fortress of Solitude, and I think that's Dubbilex in the lower left-hand corner.
Panel 7: He's looking past the Cyborg, Toyman, and... is that the Psycho-Pirate?
Pg. 12:
That "parallel Earth long dead" is our world!
The fight with the Titans happened in TEEN TITANS #32 in 2006; he actually killed Connor Kent in INFINITE CRISIS #6; the fight with Sodam Yat happened in GREEN LANTERN CORPS #18. Prime is considerably tougher than Jimmy is letting on here. And Neutron is, really, fairly minor, although I'll take this opportunity to link to the cover of his first appearance, ACTION COMICS #525, by Marv Wolfman and Joe Staton.
Pg. 13:
The diorama is Connor/Superboy out in front of the Titans.
Pg. 14:
Helmets: "SPD." Vests: "Police." Since when is freezing-breath one of Prime's powers?
Pg. 15:
Panel 3 includes insets of Comet the Super-Horse, Mary Marvel or Captain Marvel's cape, and some stuff I don't recognize.
Pg. 16:
Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl were all created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino, and debuted in ADVENTURE COMICS #247.
Pg. 17:
Interlac in panel 9: "Saturn."
Pg. 18:
This sequence, with Mon-El being yanked out of the Phantom Zone, is sort of a recurring motif in Legion comics. In current continuity, he first went into the Phantom Zone in ACTION COMICS ANNUAL #10, and has spent a lot of time in there; as of "Superman and the Legion," he's been re-banished to the Phantom Zone by the Justice League of Earth.
Phantom Girl, created by Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney, first appeared in ACTION COMICS #276. Lightning Lass, created by Edmond Hamilton and John Forte, first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #308. Shadow Lass, created by Jim Shooter and Curt Swan, first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #365.
General Zod, created by Robert Bernstein and George Papp, first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #283. Ursa first appeared in the 1978 SUPERMAN movie, although she didn't appear in comics until ACTION COMICS #845 in 2006.
Pg. 19:
Mon-El, created by Robert Bernstein and George Papp, first appeared in SUPERBOY #89. Brainiac 5, created by Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney, also first appeared in ACTION COMICS #276.
Pg. 21:
Sun Boy, created by Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney, was yet another ACTION COMICS #276 debut. Polar Boy, created by Edmond Hamilton, Buddy La Vigne and John Forte, first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #306.
The structure in panel 6 is a building, loosely based on the Legion's original "clubhouse," that appeared in "Superman and the Legion."
Pg. 22:
Panel 3: Karate Kid II, here, was created by Paul Levitz and Steve Lightle, and first appeared in LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #13. But he didn't actually join the Legion until the Five-Year Gap period, which indicates that the Lo3W history diverges sometime after that.
Panel 7: Ah, Dr. Gym'll. Created by Paul Levitz and Pat Broderick, he first appeared in LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #284 in 1980.
Panel 8: Taltar is the home world of Spider-Girl (!), although I don't know if Taltarians have previously been established as having green skin. (The Taltarian in ADVENTURE COMICS #368 doesn't, anyway, which is not to say that others don't.)
Panel 11: Nullport appeared in LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #285.
Panel 12: Kaffar appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #343. Durla is a can of worms, as we'll see.
Pg. 24:
Takron-Galtos first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #359; it was destroyed in 1986's LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #18. Hence, it's been rebuilt.
Pg. 26:
Lightning Lord, Saturn Queen and Cosmic King, created by Jerry Siegel and Curt Swan, first appeared in SUPERMAN #147 in 1961. They all turned up relatively recently in an alternate-future-history story in SUPERMAN/BATMAN #14-18.
Just as Superboy inspired the LSH, Prime inspired the LSV...
"A dark being whose name was never spoken": Interesting. Cain? Darkseid?
Pg. 27:
Uh, Earthgov has kind of made "the American way" as a phrase obsolete, hasn't it?
Pg. 29:
As we all know, when you kill a Skrull, they turn back to their--Durlan. Durlan, sorry. R.J. Brande, by the way, was initially revealed as a Durlan in SECRETS OF THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #3, back in 1981. (Which also revealed that he was indeed Chameleon Boy's father.)
Pg. 31:
It's time for a big round of the "begats." Colossal Boy, created by Otto Binder and Wayne Boring, first appeared in ACTION COMICS #267, and the same goes for Chameleon Boy. Night Girl, created by Edmond Hamilton and John Forte, first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #306; Hamilton and Forte also created Element Lad (ADVENTURE COMICS #307), Dream Girl (ADVENTURE COMICS #317) and Timber Wolf (ADVENTURE COMICS #327). Shrinking Violet: Siegel, Mooney, ACTION #276 again. Invisible Kid II, created by Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen, first appeared in LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES ANNUAL #1. Ultra Boy, created by Jerry Siegel and Curt Swan, first appeared in SUPERBOY #98. Blok, created by Gerry Conway and Joe Staton, first appeared in SUPERBOY #253. Dawnstar, created by Paul Levitz and Mike Grell, first appeared in SUPERBOY #226. Wildfire, created by Cary Bates and Dave Cockrum, first appeared in SUPERBOY #195.
Also on the screen in the last couple of panels: the White Witch, Duo Damsel, Bouncing Boy... is that Rond Vidar?... Quislet... Sensor Girl/Projectra?... Tellus and Tyroc.
Pg. 33:
Superman got the "ripcord" ring in ACTION #864.
Pg. 34:
Prime killed one of the Guardians in GREEN LANTERN #25.
Pp. 35-36:
The Legion on the left is L(II); the one on the right is L(III). And no, I'm not going to name all the characters this time. I note, though, that L(III) includes Supergirl in the same outfit she's wearing on pg. 7. And the proposed redemption of Prime is an interesting parallel to the proposed redemption of Inertia over in ROGUES' REVENGE.
Then there's the matter of "a long time ago" (perhaps that was the first "Legion of Three Worlds" adventure), and "the first Crisis." Wasn't Psycho-Pirate the only one who remembered CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS? I'm sure this has been tweaked over the years; can anybody explain it? In "The Lightning Saga," Superman also notes "the last time I saw [the Legion] was after the first Crisis, and they never came back." Maybe he means 1987's SUPERMAN #8?
*****
Bits of Non-Legionnaire Business: There are three, count 'em, three Final Crisis-related titles being published next week: ROGUES' REVENGE #2, SUPERMAN BEYOND #1 (there is still no sign of a #2 in the solicitations for November; perhaps it's been abridged back to a one-shot?) and DC UNIVERSE: LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to post anything here until the following week (when there are no FC-related titles scheduled--and here I was hoping for a roughly one-a-week pace), since I will be on my annual vacation, very far away from the Internet (and comic book stores). In the meantime, I bet David Uzumeri over at Funnybook Babylon will have something interesting to say about SUPERMAN BEYOND, at least. See you in September.
At your service. Before I start my own annotations, I should note that Michael Grabois over at The Legion Omnicom has been gearing up to do some scarily complete annotations for this mini (from which I am stealing lots of information)--even before the appearance of this issue, he'd already posted lists of the first appearances and creators of every character in all three incarnations of the Legion.
Three incarnations? Right. The Legion of Super-Heroes has three separate continuities: the first set is the stories published between 1958 and 1994, the second ran 1994-2004, and the third is 2004-present. They're sometimes called the "pre-ZH Legion" (ZH being ZERO HOUR, the miniseries that reconfigured the timestream), the "reboot" and the "threeboot." For the purposes of notes on this mini-series, I'm just going to call them L(I), L(II) and L(III) when distinctions are necessary.
On top of that, Lo3W builds on "Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes," which ran in ACTION COMICS #858-864, and featured an older version of L(I) that nonetheless hadn't lived through the events published in the LEGION series that ran from 1989 to 1994. "Superman and the Legion," in turn, builds on several Legionnaires' appearance in "The Lightning Saga," in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #8-10 and JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #5-6. And, in JSA #6, Superman refers to the "Legion of Three Worlds" being "one of the Legion's greatest adventures." That title is of course a riff on "Flash of Two Worlds", the first story to propose the existence of "Earth-Two" (and the source of Libra's headquarters).
Confused yet? This story will allegedly be how all that stuff gets un-confused. We'll see. And, for all that, this is a fairly self-explanatory story; in the same interview linked up top, Johns claims that "[y]ou don't need to know who Superboy-Prime is when you read issue #1. You don't need to know who the Legion are, and you don't need to know anything about their world. You don't even need to know who Superman is when you pick up issue #1." Nonetheless, it's got more Easter eggs than a PAAS factory.
Also, I'm not noting everybody in every group shot, partly because life is short, and partly because Timothy Callahan's annotations already did all the heavy lifting there. Also, you should read them because they're funnier than mine.
Pg. 1:
This is the Time Trapper, created by Edmond Hamilton and John Forte, who first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #318 in 1964. (He later retroactively became Time Master, who had appeared in WONDER WOMAN #101 in 1958. This sort of thing happens a lot when he's around.) "The Legion will live no longer" is a riff on the team's catchphrase, "long live the Legion."
Flour beetles are actually likely to survive longer than cockroaches, but the point is made.
The Time Trapper's headquarters may well be Vanishing Point, the HQ of the Linear Men, which is also on an asteroid and also at the end of time; I don't have visual reference for that on hand, though.
Pg. 2:
As far as I know, none of these years (or the ones elsewhere in the issue) have specific DCU implications.
Smallville is Superman's boyhood home, and this sequence isn't just a parodic replay of Superman's origin, it's a parodic replay of a previous Johns parodic replay--ACTION COMICS #858, where the hyper-xenophobic Jun (originally "Juun") and Mara first appeared. Their names, I suppose, are also 31st-century equivalents of Jonathan and Martha. Kind of amusing that cup/saucer/utensil design hasn't changed in a thousand years, I guess, but Jun and Mara seem like traditionalists anyway. "Boys and girls" may be a riff on the "Attribute Boy" Legion naming paradigm.
Michael Grabois identifies the newscaster as Marella Tao, created by Paul Levitz and Greg LaRoque, who first appeared in 1987's LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #36.
Pg. 4:
Ah, Superman-Prime. (Although is this the first time Superboy has been called by that name in a new DC comic since the Superboy lawsuit?) Created by Elliot S! Maggin and Curt Swan, he first appeared--as Superboy-Prime--in DC COMICS PRESENTS #87 in 1985. That 1985 is significant: Geoff Johns writes him as an "evil fanboy" who wants everything to be the way it was when he was reading comics in the mid-'80s...
Prime was last seen, I think, in COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #13, destroying moving part 51. Not sure how he got from there to here.
Pg. 5:
Prime looks rather Li'l Abner in panel 7, doesn't he?
The "Welcome to Smallville" sign should, by rights, be in Interlac, but it was established as being in English in ACTION #858. The sign in the final panel, though, is in Interlac: it says "Superman Museum."
Pp. 6-7:
The golden statue in the middle is of course a riff on the cover of ACTION COMICS #1, with exploding Krypton and the Discovery of the El Child behind it. Left, top row, we see Ma and Pa Kent with little Clark; Clark and Lois on their wedding day in SUPERMAN: THE WEDDING ALBUM; Jimmy, Perry and Clark at the Daily Planet offices; Lex Luthor being led away. The second row is an early Joe Shuster-style Superman, the DC One Million version (wait--isn't that still in the far future of this timeline?), the Kingdom Come version, and the TANGENT COMICS: THE SUPERMAN version. Bottom row: Jonathan Kent, Martha Kent, Pete Ross and Lana Lang. Anyone know who that is in the crystal structure?
Right, top row: Power Girl, Steel, Lori Lemaris and the seven core members of the Justice League. Middle row: Krypto, Superwoman (as seen in the pre-Crisis DC COMICS PRESENTS ANNUAL #2 and #4), some version of Supergirl, and Connor Kent/Superboy. Bottom row: Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Perry White.
Pg. 8:
"Strange visitor" is a phrase that dates back to the very early days of Superman. Apparently the Jimmy-guide speaks in 21st-century American English.
"Hall of 1,000 Olsens" is a riff on JIMMY OLSEN #105--"The World of 1000 Olsens!" In evidence: the Super-Brain Olsen from JIMMY OLSEN #22, the Elastic Lad incarnation of Jimmy who first appeared in JIMMY OLSEN #37, Jupiter Jimmy from JIMMY OLSEN #32, the Wolf-Man of Metropolis from JIMMY OLSEN #44, the Giant Turtle Man from JIMMY OLSEN #53, the Human Octopus from JIMMY OLSEN #41, the Human Flame-Thrower from JIMMY OLSEN #33, the Human Porcupine from JIMMY OLSEN #65, the Fat Boy of Metropolis from JIMMY OLSEN #49, Jimmy the Gorilla Reporter from JIMMY OLSEN #24 although the cover of its reprint in JIMMY OLSEN #116 is funnier, and... who else? Anyone recognize the chicken-footed one or the tornado-like one?
Pg. 9:
The caped figures are Nightwing and Flamebird, from SUPERMAN #158 and many times thereafter, although, as Jimmy indicates, that's now out of continuity. Ow.
Interlac in Panel 2: "Olsen Photo..." In panel 8, the portrait gallery says "Portrait Ga...," and below the Supermans in the case: "...ster," "Boring," "Swan," "Garcia-Lopez," "...ne," and "L...feld." Those Supermans are drawn in approximations of the styles of Joe Shuster, Wayne Boring, Curt Swan, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, John Byrne--although mostly obscured--and... could the one where almost all you can see is feet be dedicated to Rob Liefeld? [ETA: I misread it: it's actually "H... feld," a tribute to Al Hirschfeld, apparently inserted by inker Scott Koblish: there is a "Nina" on each foot. Thanks to Michael for catching it...] Below the left figure, "Bu..."; below the right figure, "Pérez."
Pg. 10:
Panel 2: the Interlac does indeed say "...hantom Zone" and "on loan."
Panel 3: L(I), in the incarnation that appeared in "Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes."
R.J. Brande first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #350, by E. Nelson Bridwell and Curt Swan, referred to only as "the richest man in the universe"; the story of his attempted assassination (and the beginning of the Legion) appeared in SUPERBOY #147, a few years later. Leland McCauley (only two Cs!) first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #374.
Panel 7: This is the Legion as they appeared in the late '80s, before the "five years later" period. Which segues nicely into reader Joe G.'s question: "Is 'five years later' no longer in continuity? When in Legion continuity (by which I mean assuming 5YL is tossed out) does 'The Lightning Saga' start? When are these Legionnaires from? I guess the Levitz Baxter-paper run?" Glad you asked, Joe G.! I have no idea what the answer is. In ACTION COMICS #864, Batman notes that this Lightning Lad was the one he'd met in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #148--as opposed to the L(II) version from THE FINAL NIGHT and the L(III) version from Waid/Pérez's THE BRAVE & THE BOLD. On the other hand, supposedly "every Legionnaire to have ever existed" is going to appear in this story. Which means that once we see, e.g., Kent Shakespeare and Laurel Gand, things may become clearer. See also the note on Karate Kid II, pg. 22 below.
My best guess right now is that the three Legions are from parallel universes, but the Johnsverse version, the 5YL version, and the original Jim Shooter "Adult Legion" story from ADVENTURE COMICS #354 (which incidentally includes an offhanded reference to Dr. Light!) and #355 are all alternate timelines from a single universe. But who knows? Any speculation is welcome.
Pg. 11:
Panel 1: Steel's hammer, Superboy's jacket, the Guardian's shield, various varieties of Kryptonite.
Panel 2: Gaston Dominguez-Letelier co-owns Meltdown Comics in Hollywood. Interlac: "...olitude." The exhibit is the key to the Fortress of Solitude, and I think that's Dubbilex in the lower left-hand corner.
Panel 7: He's looking past the Cyborg, Toyman, and... is that the Psycho-Pirate?
Pg. 12:
That "parallel Earth long dead" is our world!
The fight with the Titans happened in TEEN TITANS #32 in 2006; he actually killed Connor Kent in INFINITE CRISIS #6; the fight with Sodam Yat happened in GREEN LANTERN CORPS #18. Prime is considerably tougher than Jimmy is letting on here. And Neutron is, really, fairly minor, although I'll take this opportunity to link to the cover of his first appearance, ACTION COMICS #525, by Marv Wolfman and Joe Staton.
Pg. 13:
The diorama is Connor/Superboy out in front of the Titans.
Pg. 14:
Helmets: "SPD." Vests: "Police." Since when is freezing-breath one of Prime's powers?
Pg. 15:
Panel 3 includes insets of Comet the Super-Horse, Mary Marvel or Captain Marvel's cape, and some stuff I don't recognize.
Pg. 16:
Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl were all created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino, and debuted in ADVENTURE COMICS #247.
Pg. 17:
Interlac in panel 9: "Saturn."
Pg. 18:
This sequence, with Mon-El being yanked out of the Phantom Zone, is sort of a recurring motif in Legion comics. In current continuity, he first went into the Phantom Zone in ACTION COMICS ANNUAL #10, and has spent a lot of time in there; as of "Superman and the Legion," he's been re-banished to the Phantom Zone by the Justice League of Earth.
Phantom Girl, created by Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney, first appeared in ACTION COMICS #276. Lightning Lass, created by Edmond Hamilton and John Forte, first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #308. Shadow Lass, created by Jim Shooter and Curt Swan, first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #365.
General Zod, created by Robert Bernstein and George Papp, first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #283. Ursa first appeared in the 1978 SUPERMAN movie, although she didn't appear in comics until ACTION COMICS #845 in 2006.
Pg. 19:
Mon-El, created by Robert Bernstein and George Papp, first appeared in SUPERBOY #89. Brainiac 5, created by Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney, also first appeared in ACTION COMICS #276.
Pg. 21:
Sun Boy, created by Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney, was yet another ACTION COMICS #276 debut. Polar Boy, created by Edmond Hamilton, Buddy La Vigne and John Forte, first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #306.
The structure in panel 6 is a building, loosely based on the Legion's original "clubhouse," that appeared in "Superman and the Legion."
Pg. 22:
Panel 3: Karate Kid II, here, was created by Paul Levitz and Steve Lightle, and first appeared in LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #13. But he didn't actually join the Legion until the Five-Year Gap period, which indicates that the Lo3W history diverges sometime after that.
Panel 7: Ah, Dr. Gym'll. Created by Paul Levitz and Pat Broderick, he first appeared in LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #284 in 1980.
Panel 8: Taltar is the home world of Spider-Girl (!), although I don't know if Taltarians have previously been established as having green skin. (The Taltarian in ADVENTURE COMICS #368 doesn't, anyway, which is not to say that others don't.)
Panel 11: Nullport appeared in LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #285.
Panel 12: Kaffar appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #343. Durla is a can of worms, as we'll see.
Pg. 24:
Takron-Galtos first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #359; it was destroyed in 1986's LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #18. Hence, it's been rebuilt.
Pg. 26:
Lightning Lord, Saturn Queen and Cosmic King, created by Jerry Siegel and Curt Swan, first appeared in SUPERMAN #147 in 1961. They all turned up relatively recently in an alternate-future-history story in SUPERMAN/BATMAN #14-18.
Just as Superboy inspired the LSH, Prime inspired the LSV...
"A dark being whose name was never spoken": Interesting. Cain? Darkseid?
Pg. 27:
Uh, Earthgov has kind of made "the American way" as a phrase obsolete, hasn't it?
Pg. 29:
As we all know, when you kill a Skrull, they turn back to their--Durlan. Durlan, sorry. R.J. Brande, by the way, was initially revealed as a Durlan in SECRETS OF THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #3, back in 1981. (Which also revealed that he was indeed Chameleon Boy's father.)
Pg. 31:
It's time for a big round of the "begats." Colossal Boy, created by Otto Binder and Wayne Boring, first appeared in ACTION COMICS #267, and the same goes for Chameleon Boy. Night Girl, created by Edmond Hamilton and John Forte, first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #306; Hamilton and Forte also created Element Lad (ADVENTURE COMICS #307), Dream Girl (ADVENTURE COMICS #317) and Timber Wolf (ADVENTURE COMICS #327). Shrinking Violet: Siegel, Mooney, ACTION #276 again. Invisible Kid II, created by Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen, first appeared in LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES ANNUAL #1. Ultra Boy, created by Jerry Siegel and Curt Swan, first appeared in SUPERBOY #98. Blok, created by Gerry Conway and Joe Staton, first appeared in SUPERBOY #253. Dawnstar, created by Paul Levitz and Mike Grell, first appeared in SUPERBOY #226. Wildfire, created by Cary Bates and Dave Cockrum, first appeared in SUPERBOY #195.
Also on the screen in the last couple of panels: the White Witch, Duo Damsel, Bouncing Boy... is that Rond Vidar?... Quislet... Sensor Girl/Projectra?... Tellus and Tyroc.
Pg. 33:
Superman got the "ripcord" ring in ACTION #864.
Pg. 34:
Prime killed one of the Guardians in GREEN LANTERN #25.
Pp. 35-36:
The Legion on the left is L(II); the one on the right is L(III). And no, I'm not going to name all the characters this time. I note, though, that L(III) includes Supergirl in the same outfit she's wearing on pg. 7. And the proposed redemption of Prime is an interesting parallel to the proposed redemption of Inertia over in ROGUES' REVENGE.
Then there's the matter of "a long time ago" (perhaps that was the first "Legion of Three Worlds" adventure), and "the first Crisis." Wasn't Psycho-Pirate the only one who remembered CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS? I'm sure this has been tweaked over the years; can anybody explain it? In "The Lightning Saga," Superman also notes "the last time I saw [the Legion] was after the first Crisis, and they never came back." Maybe he means 1987's SUPERMAN #8?
*****
Bits of Non-Legionnaire Business: There are three, count 'em, three Final Crisis-related titles being published next week: ROGUES' REVENGE #2, SUPERMAN BEYOND #1 (there is still no sign of a #2 in the solicitations for November; perhaps it's been abridged back to a one-shot?) and DC UNIVERSE: LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to post anything here until the following week (when there are no FC-related titles scheduled--and here I was hoping for a roughly one-a-week pace), since I will be on my annual vacation, very far away from the Internet (and comic book stores). In the meantime, I bet David Uzumeri over at Funnybook Babylon will have something interesting to say about SUPERMAN BEYOND, at least. See you in September.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Final Crisis: Revelations #1
By way of transition, let's start out with a quote from Darkseid in FOREVER PEOPLE #3, the source of the original Justifiers: "I like you, Glorious Godfrey! You're a shallow, precious child--the Revelationist, happy with the sweeping sound of words! But I am the Revelation! The tiger-force at the core of all things! When you cry out in your dreams--it is Darkseid that you see!"
I have to confess I'm disappointed that the Powers That Be ended up going with "Revelations" instead of "Revelation" for this--what people think the book of the New Testament is called, rather than what it actually is called. And now it shares a foreboding subhead with THE PHOENIX RESURRECTION: REVELATIONS, SOLAR, MAN OF THE ATOM: REVELATIONS and the uncomfortably recent WILDSTORM: REVELATIONS. (The only American comic that's ever gotten it right, as far as I can tell, is WOLVERINE/THE PUNISHER: REVELATION.)
Pg. 1:
Great opening line. The scene here is the memorial statues of Superman and Superboy in Metropolis that were unveiled in 52 #1; what's being broadcast is Superman's funeral oration for J'onn J'onzz from FC #2. "Homicide: we work for God" is probably most familiar as a line from a 1993 episode of Homicide: Life on the Street.
Pp. 2-3:
We seem to have moved away from Metropolis, since the rain raineth chiefly on the just. Arthur is, of course, revising his involvement upwards. And he has more specific tastes in his victims than we ever knew: check out the oversized bracelets on "Donna."
The implication is that Light's party is happening at the same time as, or immediately after, the memorial service, but Light is still around in Libra's entourage as of the scene after the funeral in FC #2. Maybe he's just gone on a multi-day bender. (ETA: The solicitation for #4 mentions "a Justifier siege," so that issue apparently happens after FC #3.)
It's worth mentioning that Dr. Light hasn't always been Mr. Rapey-Rape--I don't think that was part of his profile until IDENTITY CRISIS, actually. For a long time, the deal with him was that he had no particular arch-enemy: he got his ass handed to him by everybody in turn, first by the Justice League, then the Atom, then Green Lantern (although now I have to wonder if a "Missouri mule" would be some kind of sicko sexual reference), then the Flash (on one of those famously wide Central City sidewalks), and eventually Superman and Batman together, Superman on his own, Batman with Supergirl, Aquaman, Teen Titans both old and new (he's totally checking out Starfire's butt there, the bastard)... the punch line to all this was a story I still remember from FLASH #12 in 1988, in which he gets taken down by the children of Little Boy Blue & the Blue Boys.
Pp. 4-5:
Well, this one's been a long time coming. (And, of course, now Arthur's revising his involvement downwards. Weasel.) The out-out-brief-candle bit is another example of the Spectre's fondness for punishments that fit crimes; Dr. Light has been given the same weakness that J'onn had...
But, if you'll forgive a bit more Dr. Light biography: he is well familiar with the DCU afterlife's revolving door, because this is in fact the fourth time he's died. A Parademon killed him in SUICIDE SQUAD #36, which you'd think would have taught him not to mess with Apokolips; having gone to Hell, he was resurrected three times (and killed twice more) in the course of SUICIDE SQUAD #52.
Pg. 7:
St. Faustino (and his friend St. Giovita) are the patron saints of Brescia, Italy; Faustino was a 15th century martyr who's often considered the patron saint of singles, too.
I don't think Dr. Tochioka has appeared before.
Pg. 8:
I also couldn't tell you who Sister Clarice is (or, uh, was). But one important Clarice in the Spectre's life was Jim Corrigan's fiancée Clarice Winston; the Spectre had been keeping her alive for a long time, and severed her lifeline in 1995's SPECTRE #30. Also, thinking of "Clarice" and "Spectre" together led me to think of the author Clarice Lispector.
Pg. 9:
Martyn Van Wyck was Effigy, the flame-based villain who helped kill the Martian Manhunter in FC #1. First Cris snuffs the candle, then he snuffs the wick...
Pg. 10:
I really wish Cris would avoid conflating the concepts of crime and sin. (Crimes are committed against secular laws, sins against divine laws. Jaywalking is a crime; violating the Sabbath is a sin; murder is both.)
Effigy burned the "Hollywood" sign in, I think, 1999's GREEN LANTERN #113.
Pg. 11:
Montoya became the leader of the Order of the Stone at the end of what I prefer to think of as THE QUESTION: FIVE LESSONS OF BLOOD (a.k.a. the CRIME BIBLE miniseries, which led out of the "crime religion" plot of 52).
Pg. 17:
The Hangmen--Killshot, Shock Trauma, Provoke, Stranglehold and Breathtaker--were created by Jay Faerber and Paul Pelletier, and first appeared in 2000's THE TITANS #21. They were roundly mocked by Scipio in 2005, and apparently killed by an angry mob under the direction of Dr. Psycho in 2006's MANHUNTER #21.
Pg. 19:
How many mortal shells has the Spectre worn? Was there anyone before Jim Corrigan? Anyone know?
Pg. 20:
You know, killing off characters loses something of its dramatic impact when they were already dead last time we saw them.
Pg. 23:
I know I've been crying wolf about this particular artifact a lot in the course of these notes, but I'm going to guess once again that what we're seeing here is the Spear of Destiny, which was introduced to the DC Universe in 1977's WEIRD WAR TALES #50, by Steve Englehart, Dick Ayers and Alfredo Alcala. "In the ocean off the coast of England" isn't something I'd previously imagined as a likely spot for the Spear, seeing as how the last time it popped up it had been hurled into the sun; is there a story I missed? [ETA: Yes there is. Commenter narm00 points out that the Spear ended up in the ocean in JSA CLASSIFIED #8-9.]
The business with the "First" etc. is the standard invocations of the Crime Cult. The First is Cain (although more the Biblical Cain than the keeper-of-the-House-of-Mystery Cain, although that house appeared in 52); the Red Rock is not actually named in Genesis 4, although it's semi-traditional that Cain killed Abel with a rock. Commenter Ragtime points out that red + rage could be cues toward "Rage of the Red Lanterns."
Pg. 26:
Cris, as the Spectre, killed his son (who had killed the crooked cop, coincidentally named Jim Corrigan, who had killed him) in CRISIS AFTERMATH: THE SPECTRE #3--a story that, as Rucka has noted, doesn't exactly echo Genesis 22. Which leads Cris to echo Matthew 27:46 here.
The "mercy/vengeance" thing that's being batted around this issue, in combination with the reference to the "Angel of Mercy" in that interview and Rucka's mentioning a new character who'll show up in #2, makes me wonder if the mysterious Clarice might not turn out to be a Spirit of Mercy of some kind.
(ETA: The solicitation for #4 mentions a character called Radiant; the light-vs.-shadow implications of that name w/r/t "Spectre" makes me think such a character might be something along those lines, too. DC already has a different character called the Radiant, but that's never stopped anyone before.)
The DCU's Hell, of course, has its own problems right now--cf. REIGN IN HELL.
Pg. 30:
Hey, it's the old GOTHAM CENTRAL team back together!
I have to confess I'm disappointed that the Powers That Be ended up going with "Revelations" instead of "Revelation" for this--what people think the book of the New Testament is called, rather than what it actually is called. And now it shares a foreboding subhead with THE PHOENIX RESURRECTION: REVELATIONS, SOLAR, MAN OF THE ATOM: REVELATIONS and the uncomfortably recent WILDSTORM: REVELATIONS. (The only American comic that's ever gotten it right, as far as I can tell, is WOLVERINE/THE PUNISHER: REVELATION.)
Pg. 1:
Great opening line. The scene here is the memorial statues of Superman and Superboy in Metropolis that were unveiled in 52 #1; what's being broadcast is Superman's funeral oration for J'onn J'onzz from FC #2. "Homicide: we work for God" is probably most familiar as a line from a 1993 episode of Homicide: Life on the Street.
Pp. 2-3:
We seem to have moved away from Metropolis, since the rain raineth chiefly on the just. Arthur is, of course, revising his involvement upwards. And he has more specific tastes in his victims than we ever knew: check out the oversized bracelets on "Donna."
The implication is that Light's party is happening at the same time as, or immediately after, the memorial service, but Light is still around in Libra's entourage as of the scene after the funeral in FC #2. Maybe he's just gone on a multi-day bender. (ETA: The solicitation for #4 mentions "a Justifier siege," so that issue apparently happens after FC #3.)
It's worth mentioning that Dr. Light hasn't always been Mr. Rapey-Rape--I don't think that was part of his profile until IDENTITY CRISIS, actually. For a long time, the deal with him was that he had no particular arch-enemy: he got his ass handed to him by everybody in turn, first by the Justice League, then the Atom, then Green Lantern (although now I have to wonder if a "Missouri mule" would be some kind of sicko sexual reference), then the Flash (on one of those famously wide Central City sidewalks), and eventually Superman and Batman together, Superman on his own, Batman with Supergirl, Aquaman, Teen Titans both old and new (he's totally checking out Starfire's butt there, the bastard)... the punch line to all this was a story I still remember from FLASH #12 in 1988, in which he gets taken down by the children of Little Boy Blue & the Blue Boys.
Pp. 4-5:
Well, this one's been a long time coming. (And, of course, now Arthur's revising his involvement downwards. Weasel.) The out-out-brief-candle bit is another example of the Spectre's fondness for punishments that fit crimes; Dr. Light has been given the same weakness that J'onn had...
But, if you'll forgive a bit more Dr. Light biography: he is well familiar with the DCU afterlife's revolving door, because this is in fact the fourth time he's died. A Parademon killed him in SUICIDE SQUAD #36, which you'd think would have taught him not to mess with Apokolips; having gone to Hell, he was resurrected three times (and killed twice more) in the course of SUICIDE SQUAD #52.
Pg. 7:
St. Faustino (and his friend St. Giovita) are the patron saints of Brescia, Italy; Faustino was a 15th century martyr who's often considered the patron saint of singles, too.
I don't think Dr. Tochioka has appeared before.
Pg. 8:
I also couldn't tell you who Sister Clarice is (or, uh, was). But one important Clarice in the Spectre's life was Jim Corrigan's fiancée Clarice Winston; the Spectre had been keeping her alive for a long time, and severed her lifeline in 1995's SPECTRE #30. Also, thinking of "Clarice" and "Spectre" together led me to think of the author Clarice Lispector.
Pg. 9:
Martyn Van Wyck was Effigy, the flame-based villain who helped kill the Martian Manhunter in FC #1. First Cris snuffs the candle, then he snuffs the wick...
Pg. 10:
I really wish Cris would avoid conflating the concepts of crime and sin. (Crimes are committed against secular laws, sins against divine laws. Jaywalking is a crime; violating the Sabbath is a sin; murder is both.)
Effigy burned the "Hollywood" sign in, I think, 1999's GREEN LANTERN #113.
Pg. 11:
Montoya became the leader of the Order of the Stone at the end of what I prefer to think of as THE QUESTION: FIVE LESSONS OF BLOOD (a.k.a. the CRIME BIBLE miniseries, which led out of the "crime religion" plot of 52).
Pg. 17:
The Hangmen--Killshot, Shock Trauma, Provoke, Stranglehold and Breathtaker--were created by Jay Faerber and Paul Pelletier, and first appeared in 2000's THE TITANS #21. They were roundly mocked by Scipio in 2005, and apparently killed by an angry mob under the direction of Dr. Psycho in 2006's MANHUNTER #21.
Pg. 19:
How many mortal shells has the Spectre worn? Was there anyone before Jim Corrigan? Anyone know?
Pg. 20:
You know, killing off characters loses something of its dramatic impact when they were already dead last time we saw them.
Pg. 23:
I know I've been crying wolf about this particular artifact a lot in the course of these notes, but I'm going to guess once again that what we're seeing here is the Spear of Destiny, which was introduced to the DC Universe in 1977's WEIRD WAR TALES #50, by Steve Englehart, Dick Ayers and Alfredo Alcala. "In the ocean off the coast of England" isn't something I'd previously imagined as a likely spot for the Spear, seeing as how the last time it popped up it had been hurled into the sun; is there a story I missed? [ETA: Yes there is. Commenter narm00 points out that the Spear ended up in the ocean in JSA CLASSIFIED #8-9.]
The business with the "First" etc. is the standard invocations of the Crime Cult. The First is Cain (although more the Biblical Cain than the keeper-of-the-House-of-Mystery Cain, although that house appeared in 52); the Red Rock is not actually named in Genesis 4, although it's semi-traditional that Cain killed Abel with a rock. Commenter Ragtime points out that red + rage could be cues toward "Rage of the Red Lanterns."
Pg. 26:
Cris, as the Spectre, killed his son (who had killed the crooked cop, coincidentally named Jim Corrigan, who had killed him) in CRISIS AFTERMATH: THE SPECTRE #3--a story that, as Rucka has noted, doesn't exactly echo Genesis 22. Which leads Cris to echo Matthew 27:46 here.
The "mercy/vengeance" thing that's being batted around this issue, in combination with the reference to the "Angel of Mercy" in that interview and Rucka's mentioning a new character who'll show up in #2, makes me wonder if the mysterious Clarice might not turn out to be a Spirit of Mercy of some kind.
(ETA: The solicitation for #4 mentions a character called Radiant; the light-vs.-shadow implications of that name w/r/t "Spectre" makes me think such a character might be something along those lines, too. DC already has a different character called the Radiant, but that's never stopped anyone before.)
The DCU's Hell, of course, has its own problems right now--cf. REIGN IN HELL.
Pg. 30:
Hey, it's the old GOTHAM CENTRAL team back together!
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Final Crisis #3
Pg. 1:
Frankenstein! This incarnation of the character first appeared in SEVEN SOLDIERS: FRANKENSTEIN #1, created by Grant Morrison and Doug Mahnke; besides the obvious Mary Shelley source, the first version of the Frankenstein monster to appear in a DC comic was in DETECTIVE COMICS #135, back in 1948.
S.H.A.D.E., the Super Human Advanced Defence Executive, first appeared in SEVEN SOLDIERS: FRANKENSTEIN #3.
Apparently Darkseid has managed to burn out Puff Daddy's body.
Pg. 2:
In keeping with DCU New York's being full of planned-but-not-yet-executed architectural projects from our world, the building Überfraulein is crashing through here is 200 Greenwich Street.
Pg. 3:
"Know evil": the bit with the moving finger writing is similar to the way the mysterious hand used to write messages on the Source Wall. This time, though, the digit in question is more... digital. (In the comments, Renegade Photography also notes the should've-been-obvious Biblical allusion.)
Father Time here is the version we saw in FRANKENSTEIN (who had his face ripped off by Black Adam during World War III II), not the reborn version(s) we saw in UNCLE SAM AND THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS. Curious.
Taleb is Taleb Beni Khalid, the Black King of Checkmate, created by Greg Rucka and Jesus Saiz; he first appeared in CHECKMATE #1 in 2006.
I'm guessing what they found is the Spear of Destiny, not the Ark of the Covenant, but that doesn't stop Taleb from making a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" joke. (You know, that movie Philip Tan thinks is nothing special... amusingly, an actor named Philip Tan appeared in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"...)
Down in the comments, Matt/Kyle makes the excellent point that the Question's involvement with S.H.A.D.E. could be a nod toward the faceless Global Peace Agency operatives from Jack Kirby's OMAC.
Pg. 4:
You'd think, given the extra week this issue took for production stuff, somebody could've fixed the computer-font problems here. Which is to say: this isn't "berfraulein," it's gotta be "Überfraulein"--the Nazi Supergirl. What she's saying, translated from German, is "No. It's the... the bleeding heavens. Hell... is... is here." Which is probably a reference to the red skies as the Bleed from THE AUTHORITY, if that recent Morrison interview is any indication. Also, Chris Eckert unpacks the run-up to "Nazi superheroes from Earth-10" over at Funnybook Babylon.
Pg. 5:
Calvin "Cave" Carson and his team (Bulldozer Smith, Christie Madison and Johnny Blake), created by France Herron and Bruno Premiani, first appeared in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #31 in 1960. The "cave art" is the Metron design/sigil, and doesn't it look like the scales of justice too? In fact, since the "director's cut" of FC #1 notes that the Anthro sequence happens in what is now New York (so the Statue of Liberty bit is a time fluctuation, not time-and-space), this might well be the version of it we saw Anthro drawing near the end of #1.
Nix is about to get recruited by Zillo Valla, one of his old Monitor comrades; we'll see her again on pg. 13.
Pg. 6:
The woman with gray hair is Jay's wife Joan Garrick, created by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert, who first appeared in FLASH COMICS #1 in 1940.
Pp. 8-9:
"Red-shifting toward the speed of light": This is almost certainly a reference to the relativistic Doppler effect and an allusion to the red/black color scheme, but wouldn't it be great if it had something to do with the Khunds from SUPERBOY AND THE RAVERS?
I totally love the line "it's a little-known fact that death can't travel faster than the speed of light."
Pg. 10:
Oh hey, it's the Hall of Doom! (But why have Libra and crew relocated here from the community center/strip club? Per Dwayne McDuffie's Injustice League storyline in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, the Hall is located in Florida swampland, which is quite a commute from Central/Keystone City.)
The helmet is a variation on the one that Glorious Godfrey's Justifiers wore in FOREVER PEOPLE #3. The Justifiers aren't named here until the flyer on the last page, but it's clear that's what they are.
One of Luthor's bodyguards may be Mercy Graves (created by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini for Superman: The Animated Series; first appeared in comics in CATWOMAN #74 in 1999). (Or maybe not; E points out in the comments that they've had a falling out in INFINITY INC.) Anyone recognize the other one?
Pg. 11:
See Glorious Godfrey's banner in FOREVER PEOPLE #3: "Judge others! Enslave others! Kill others! Anti-Life will give you the right!"
I'm still wondering where ROGUES' REVENGE fits into this timeline: when does Luthor start "eating out of [Libra's] hand"? There's only a sub-24-hour window when that might have happened before the transformation of the world, and you'd think that telling Luthor to "renounce science" would be the very best way to tick him off.
Pg. 12:
I'm pretty sure a Metropolis Memorial Hospital has only previously appeared in fan-fiction.
Dirk Armstrong is a conservative opinion columnist for the Daily Planet, who first appeared in 1996 in SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF TOMORROW #6.
Jimmy knew that Clark is Superman as of a few issues into COUNTDOWN, right? Has anything reversed that?
Pg. 14:
The Celestials, created by Jack Kirby, first appeared in THE ETERNALS #1--no, wait.
Pg. 15:
Hey, Black Lightning finally gets a speaking part! So now I get to mention that he was created by Tony Isabella and Trevor Von Eeden, and first appeared in BLACK LIGHTNING #1 in 1977.
The All-Star Squadron first appeared in 1981's JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #193, but I'm pretty sure this is the first we've heard of Article X. I thought FDR assembled the A-SS the way all subsequent super-teams have been assembled: by spreading out a bunch of photographs on a tabletop.
Pg. 16:
Oracle, as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, was created by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino, and first appeared in 1967's DETECTIVE COMICS #359. She became Oracle in 1989's SUICIDE SQUAD #23, by John Ostrander and Luke McDonnell. As for the mysterious new Aquaman... he's mysterious. But perhaps he's the one who turned up in REQUIEM. (The original version, created by Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris, first appeared in 1941 in MORE FUN COMICS #73.) Is the seahorse he's riding Storm?
Ah, here's Mr. Tawky Tawny, created by Otto Binder and C.C. Beck, who first appeared in 1947's CAPTAIN MARVEL ADVENTURES #79. I know of no Marvel Family story involving "tiger tea"; maybe he's thinking of this? (And can someone please document his jet pack? That would make me happy.)
Freddy used to be Captain Marvel Jr. (created by Ed Herron and Mac Raboy; first appeared in WHIZ COMICS #25 in 1941) and is now going by Shazam (thanks to DCUboy for the correction). "Billy's gone": well, actually Billy Batson, the original Captain Marvel, is occupying the old job of the wizard Shazam now, per THE TRIALS OF SHAZAM! The "change to somebody stronger than me... and never come back" routine really is amazingly reminiscent of the Kid Miracleman business, isn't it? And is his magic word "Shazam" or "Captain Marvel" these days? (If it's the latter, would that be Mary's lips in the inset?)
Pg. 17:
Wait, so they need to round up all the superheroes they can in a hurry... so they send a printed draft notice? In the mail? Nightwing got practically every superhero in the DCU off-planet in about 20 minutes in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD two weeks ago...
There have been a... whole lot of variations on Supergirl over the years--the Wikipedia page on her does a decent job of untangling the Kara Zor-El - Matrix - Linda Danvers - oh whoops we meant Kara Zor-El after all mess. For brevity's sake, let's just say that she was created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino and first appeared in ACTION COMICS #252 in 1969, and that this version of the character first appeared in SUPERMAN/BATMAN #8 in 2004. (The Linda Danvers version turned up in REIGN IN HELL #1 last week.)
Morrison has mentioned that his take on Supergirl was inspired by Jessica Abel and Dylan Horrocks' Supergirl story, "The Clubhouse of Solitude," in BIZARRO COMICS, which features Mary Marvel in a very different sort of role from the one she has this issue.
Streaky the Supercat, created by Otto Binder and Jim Mooney, first appeared in 1960's ACTION COMICS #261, and also popped up in our old friend ANIMAL MAN #24. This version of Streaky first appeared in SUPERGIRL #10. I don't think she's super yet.
Pg. 18:
I suppose event comics aren't really event comics without crowd scenes, huh? Let's see:
Top corner: dunno, Bombshell (who, as E points out in the comments, was evil, de-powered and throat-slit the last time we saw her).
First full row: Cyclone, Firestorm, Raven, Blue Beetle, Starfire, Batgirl, Metamorpho, Geo-Force, Blue Devil.
Second row: Red Devil, Amazing-Man, Zatanna, Mysterious New Aquaman, Red Arrow, Supergirl, Thunderbolt.
Third row: Wildcat (Jr.), Green Arrow, Liberty Belle, Hourman, Black Lightning, Vixen, Mr. Terrific, Animal Man--hey, I guess Morrison wasn't quite done with him after all!--Enchantress, Ragman.
Fourth row, by which point my definition of "row" is getting a little ragged: Black Canary, Wildcat, Sasha Bordeaux, Dr. Mid-Nite, Katana, Hawkgirl.
Fifth row: Steel, Damage, Nightwing, Wonder Girl, Red Tornado.
Sixth row: The Atom, Robin, Stargirl, The Flash/Jay Garrick, Power Girl, somebody who looks an awful lot like Jade who was still dead last I checked (kevings suggests this might be Argent)
Front row: Donna Troy (shouldn't she be off monitoring the Monitors?), Huntress, Captain Marvel, Hawkman, Detective Chimp, and of course Green Lantern/Alan Scott out front
(Thanks to Blogenheimer, Jmizz505 and kevings for the assist!)
Pg. 19:
"I crawled out of my own grave": see the end of SEVEN SOLDIERS #1.
Pg. 21:
The Wonder Wagon: yes! Guess that's the upgraded version of the Whiz Wagon from JIMMY OLSEN #133 etc.
Pg. 22:
Renfield is also the name of the bug-eating freak from Bram Stoker's Dracula--a good name for a street in Blüdhaven.
Sgt. Grayle has to be Gardner Grayle from the original Atomic Knights stories.
Pg. 23:
Marene Herald appeared in those stories too, along with her brother Douglas, who we'll see in a few pages.
Pg. 24:
Duncan, commenting over at Funnybook Babylon, points out that Replika appeared in SEVEN SOLDIERS: FRANKENSTEIN #3; Strange Visitor, in the same comments, notes that Wonder Woman did indeed see someone turned inside out in WONDER WOMAN #247.
And speaking of Otto Binder creations, Mary Marvel was created by Binder and Mark Swayze, and first appeared in 1942's CAPTAIN MARVEL ADVENTURES #18. Her story has been a mess for the last few years, but as far as I can tell, she was de-powered thanks to the death of Shazam in DAY OF VENGEANCE #6, although for some reason Black Adam wasn't; he gave her his powers, and she turned all bad and stuff and started wearing a black costume. She lost those powers in a fight with Eclipso, then turned all good and stuff again, got back her original set of powers and a gray costume, then met Darkseid, got Black Adam's powers, got the black costume again... this would mean, by the way, that her current set of powers come from Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury, Shu, Heru, Amon, Zehuti, Aten, Mehen and Isis. Her outfit here takes her costume's evolution to its logical conclusion and riffs on Jack Kirby's designs for the Female Furies; not bad! (Although this scene does make me wonder where all those "she's never really killed anyone, not reaaally" conversations during COUNTDOWN were meant to go.)
Pg. 28:
By "the world," does Mokkari mean "the Fourth World"? And does this make him the King of All Spammers?
Mr. Terrific here was created by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake, and first appeared in 1997's SPECTRE #54. He's got ties to the first Mr. Terrific, created by Charles Resizenstein and Hal Sharpe, who first appeared in SENSATION COMICS #1 in 1942.
Pg. 29:
David Uzumeri points out the visual resonance with the opening of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS here.
Pg. 30:
So we've got the Four Dogswomen of Apokolips here, in the roles of the original Female Furies from MISTER MIRACLE #6. Catwoman's obviously in the Lashina role, Giganta (I guess) is Stompa (compare the skull-and-crossbones motif on their foreheads), Wonder Woman is Bernadeth, and... would that be Batwoman as Mad Harriet? Looks like a similar bat motif on her chest, and long red hair. (The original Mad Harriet was killed in COUNTDOWN #11.)
Anybody recognize that vehicle up in the sky?
Okay, what'd I miss?
Frankenstein! This incarnation of the character first appeared in SEVEN SOLDIERS: FRANKENSTEIN #1, created by Grant Morrison and Doug Mahnke; besides the obvious Mary Shelley source, the first version of the Frankenstein monster to appear in a DC comic was in DETECTIVE COMICS #135, back in 1948.
S.H.A.D.E., the Super Human Advanced Defence Executive, first appeared in SEVEN SOLDIERS: FRANKENSTEIN #3.
Apparently Darkseid has managed to burn out Puff Daddy's body.
Pg. 2:
In keeping with DCU New York's being full of planned-but-not-yet-executed architectural projects from our world, the building Überfraulein is crashing through here is 200 Greenwich Street.
Pg. 3:
"Know evil": the bit with the moving finger writing is similar to the way the mysterious hand used to write messages on the Source Wall. This time, though, the digit in question is more... digital. (In the comments, Renegade Photography also notes the should've-been-obvious Biblical allusion.)
Father Time here is the version we saw in FRANKENSTEIN (who had his face ripped off by Black Adam during World War III II), not the reborn version(s) we saw in UNCLE SAM AND THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS. Curious.
Taleb is Taleb Beni Khalid, the Black King of Checkmate, created by Greg Rucka and Jesus Saiz; he first appeared in CHECKMATE #1 in 2006.
I'm guessing what they found is the Spear of Destiny, not the Ark of the Covenant, but that doesn't stop Taleb from making a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" joke. (You know, that movie Philip Tan thinks is nothing special... amusingly, an actor named Philip Tan appeared in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"...)
Down in the comments, Matt/Kyle makes the excellent point that the Question's involvement with S.H.A.D.E. could be a nod toward the faceless Global Peace Agency operatives from Jack Kirby's OMAC.
Pg. 4:
You'd think, given the extra week this issue took for production stuff, somebody could've fixed the computer-font problems here. Which is to say: this isn't "berfraulein," it's gotta be "Überfraulein"--the Nazi Supergirl. What she's saying, translated from German, is "No. It's the... the bleeding heavens. Hell... is... is here." Which is probably a reference to the red skies as the Bleed from THE AUTHORITY, if that recent Morrison interview is any indication. Also, Chris Eckert unpacks the run-up to "Nazi superheroes from Earth-10" over at Funnybook Babylon.
Pg. 5:
Calvin "Cave" Carson and his team (Bulldozer Smith, Christie Madison and Johnny Blake), created by France Herron and Bruno Premiani, first appeared in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #31 in 1960. The "cave art" is the Metron design/sigil, and doesn't it look like the scales of justice too? In fact, since the "director's cut" of FC #1 notes that the Anthro sequence happens in what is now New York (so the Statue of Liberty bit is a time fluctuation, not time-and-space), this might well be the version of it we saw Anthro drawing near the end of #1.
Nix is about to get recruited by Zillo Valla, one of his old Monitor comrades; we'll see her again on pg. 13.
Pg. 6:
The woman with gray hair is Jay's wife Joan Garrick, created by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert, who first appeared in FLASH COMICS #1 in 1940.
Pp. 8-9:
"Red-shifting toward the speed of light": This is almost certainly a reference to the relativistic Doppler effect and an allusion to the red/black color scheme, but wouldn't it be great if it had something to do with the Khunds from SUPERBOY AND THE RAVERS?
I totally love the line "it's a little-known fact that death can't travel faster than the speed of light."
Pg. 10:
Oh hey, it's the Hall of Doom! (But why have Libra and crew relocated here from the community center/strip club? Per Dwayne McDuffie's Injustice League storyline in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, the Hall is located in Florida swampland, which is quite a commute from Central/Keystone City.)
The helmet is a variation on the one that Glorious Godfrey's Justifiers wore in FOREVER PEOPLE #3. The Justifiers aren't named here until the flyer on the last page, but it's clear that's what they are.
One of Luthor's bodyguards may be Mercy Graves (created by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini for Superman: The Animated Series; first appeared in comics in CATWOMAN #74 in 1999). (Or maybe not; E points out in the comments that they've had a falling out in INFINITY INC.) Anyone recognize the other one?
Pg. 11:
See Glorious Godfrey's banner in FOREVER PEOPLE #3: "Judge others! Enslave others! Kill others! Anti-Life will give you the right!"
I'm still wondering where ROGUES' REVENGE fits into this timeline: when does Luthor start "eating out of [Libra's] hand"? There's only a sub-24-hour window when that might have happened before the transformation of the world, and you'd think that telling Luthor to "renounce science" would be the very best way to tick him off.
Pg. 12:
I'm pretty sure a Metropolis Memorial Hospital has only previously appeared in fan-fiction.
Dirk Armstrong is a conservative opinion columnist for the Daily Planet, who first appeared in 1996 in SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF TOMORROW #6.
Jimmy knew that Clark is Superman as of a few issues into COUNTDOWN, right? Has anything reversed that?
Pg. 14:
The Celestials, created by Jack Kirby, first appeared in THE ETERNALS #1--no, wait.
Pg. 15:
Hey, Black Lightning finally gets a speaking part! So now I get to mention that he was created by Tony Isabella and Trevor Von Eeden, and first appeared in BLACK LIGHTNING #1 in 1977.
The All-Star Squadron first appeared in 1981's JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #193, but I'm pretty sure this is the first we've heard of Article X. I thought FDR assembled the A-SS the way all subsequent super-teams have been assembled: by spreading out a bunch of photographs on a tabletop.
Pg. 16:
Oracle, as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, was created by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino, and first appeared in 1967's DETECTIVE COMICS #359. She became Oracle in 1989's SUICIDE SQUAD #23, by John Ostrander and Luke McDonnell. As for the mysterious new Aquaman... he's mysterious. But perhaps he's the one who turned up in REQUIEM. (The original version, created by Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris, first appeared in 1941 in MORE FUN COMICS #73.) Is the seahorse he's riding Storm?
Ah, here's Mr. Tawky Tawny, created by Otto Binder and C.C. Beck, who first appeared in 1947's CAPTAIN MARVEL ADVENTURES #79. I know of no Marvel Family story involving "tiger tea"; maybe he's thinking of this? (And can someone please document his jet pack? That would make me happy.)
Freddy used to be Captain Marvel Jr. (created by Ed Herron and Mac Raboy; first appeared in WHIZ COMICS #25 in 1941) and is now going by Shazam (thanks to DCUboy for the correction). "Billy's gone": well, actually Billy Batson, the original Captain Marvel, is occupying the old job of the wizard Shazam now, per THE TRIALS OF SHAZAM! The "change to somebody stronger than me... and never come back" routine really is amazingly reminiscent of the Kid Miracleman business, isn't it? And is his magic word "Shazam" or "Captain Marvel" these days? (If it's the latter, would that be Mary's lips in the inset?)
Pg. 17:
Wait, so they need to round up all the superheroes they can in a hurry... so they send a printed draft notice? In the mail? Nightwing got practically every superhero in the DCU off-planet in about 20 minutes in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD two weeks ago...
There have been a... whole lot of variations on Supergirl over the years--the Wikipedia page on her does a decent job of untangling the Kara Zor-El - Matrix - Linda Danvers - oh whoops we meant Kara Zor-El after all mess. For brevity's sake, let's just say that she was created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino and first appeared in ACTION COMICS #252 in 1969, and that this version of the character first appeared in SUPERMAN/BATMAN #8 in 2004. (The Linda Danvers version turned up in REIGN IN HELL #1 last week.)
Morrison has mentioned that his take on Supergirl was inspired by Jessica Abel and Dylan Horrocks' Supergirl story, "The Clubhouse of Solitude," in BIZARRO COMICS, which features Mary Marvel in a very different sort of role from the one she has this issue.
Streaky the Supercat, created by Otto Binder and Jim Mooney, first appeared in 1960's ACTION COMICS #261, and also popped up in our old friend ANIMAL MAN #24. This version of Streaky first appeared in SUPERGIRL #10. I don't think she's super yet.
Pg. 18:
I suppose event comics aren't really event comics without crowd scenes, huh? Let's see:
Top corner: dunno, Bombshell (who, as E points out in the comments, was evil, de-powered and throat-slit the last time we saw her).
First full row: Cyclone, Firestorm, Raven, Blue Beetle, Starfire, Batgirl, Metamorpho, Geo-Force, Blue Devil.
Second row: Red Devil, Amazing-Man, Zatanna, Mysterious New Aquaman, Red Arrow, Supergirl, Thunderbolt.
Third row: Wildcat (Jr.), Green Arrow, Liberty Belle, Hourman, Black Lightning, Vixen, Mr. Terrific, Animal Man--hey, I guess Morrison wasn't quite done with him after all!--Enchantress, Ragman.
Fourth row, by which point my definition of "row" is getting a little ragged: Black Canary, Wildcat, Sasha Bordeaux, Dr. Mid-Nite, Katana, Hawkgirl.
Fifth row: Steel, Damage, Nightwing, Wonder Girl, Red Tornado.
Sixth row: The Atom, Robin, Stargirl, The Flash/Jay Garrick, Power Girl, somebody who looks an awful lot like Jade who was still dead last I checked (kevings suggests this might be Argent)
Front row: Donna Troy (shouldn't she be off monitoring the Monitors?), Huntress, Captain Marvel, Hawkman, Detective Chimp, and of course Green Lantern/Alan Scott out front
(Thanks to Blogenheimer, Jmizz505 and kevings for the assist!)
Pg. 19:
"I crawled out of my own grave": see the end of SEVEN SOLDIERS #1.
Pg. 21:
The Wonder Wagon: yes! Guess that's the upgraded version of the Whiz Wagon from JIMMY OLSEN #133 etc.
Pg. 22:
Renfield is also the name of the bug-eating freak from Bram Stoker's Dracula--a good name for a street in Blüdhaven.
Sgt. Grayle has to be Gardner Grayle from the original Atomic Knights stories.
Pg. 23:
Marene Herald appeared in those stories too, along with her brother Douglas, who we'll see in a few pages.
Pg. 24:
Duncan, commenting over at Funnybook Babylon, points out that Replika appeared in SEVEN SOLDIERS: FRANKENSTEIN #3; Strange Visitor, in the same comments, notes that Wonder Woman did indeed see someone turned inside out in WONDER WOMAN #247.
And speaking of Otto Binder creations, Mary Marvel was created by Binder and Mark Swayze, and first appeared in 1942's CAPTAIN MARVEL ADVENTURES #18. Her story has been a mess for the last few years, but as far as I can tell, she was de-powered thanks to the death of Shazam in DAY OF VENGEANCE #6, although for some reason Black Adam wasn't; he gave her his powers, and she turned all bad and stuff and started wearing a black costume. She lost those powers in a fight with Eclipso, then turned all good and stuff again, got back her original set of powers and a gray costume, then met Darkseid, got Black Adam's powers, got the black costume again... this would mean, by the way, that her current set of powers come from Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury, Shu, Heru, Amon, Zehuti, Aten, Mehen and Isis. Her outfit here takes her costume's evolution to its logical conclusion and riffs on Jack Kirby's designs for the Female Furies; not bad! (Although this scene does make me wonder where all those "she's never really killed anyone, not reaaally" conversations during COUNTDOWN were meant to go.)
Pg. 28:
By "the world," does Mokkari mean "the Fourth World"? And does this make him the King of All Spammers?
Mr. Terrific here was created by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake, and first appeared in 1997's SPECTRE #54. He's got ties to the first Mr. Terrific, created by Charles Resizenstein and Hal Sharpe, who first appeared in SENSATION COMICS #1 in 1942.
Pg. 29:
David Uzumeri points out the visual resonance with the opening of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS here.
Pg. 30:
So we've got the Four Dogswomen of Apokolips here, in the roles of the original Female Furies from MISTER MIRACLE #6. Catwoman's obviously in the Lashina role, Giganta (I guess) is Stompa (compare the skull-and-crossbones motif on their foreheads), Wonder Woman is Bernadeth, and... would that be Batwoman as Mad Harriet? Looks like a similar bat motif on her chest, and long red hair. (The original Mad Harriet was killed in COUNTDOWN #11.)
Anybody recognize that vehicle up in the sky?
Okay, what'd I miss?
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge 1
Cover: The sliver cover is based on, or at least inspired by, George Pérez's image of the dying Barry Allen in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #8. The portrait cover bears some resemblance to FLASH #193 from 1969, which Johns has noted was the first Flash comic he ever read.
Pg. 1:
Here's that lightning again!
The Flash they killed was Bart Allen, in THE FLASH: THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #13.
Pg. 2:
"Uh" isn't really a Scots-accent way of saying "a," is it? It just reminds me of Captain Beefheart.
Pg. 3:
"Lex Luthor eatin' outta his hand": guess Luthor was impressed by the explosion in FC #2 after all, so this scene dates this issue to some time after that one. "You better not be dealing again": in Johns-written comics, Captain Cold is vehement about his no-drugs rule for the Rogues (and he beats up Mirror Master for doing cocaine in FLASH #213). So the Rogues' coke scene COUNTDOWN #50 provoked a reaction from him...
Pp. 4-5:
It's maybe not quite correct to say that they "murdered Kid Flash"--Bart was the full-on Flash at that point, and had only gone under the name Kid Flash briefly--but the general cadence of the descriptive blurb is very much like the top-of-page-1 blurbs that used to run in Marvel comics in the late '70s and early '80s. The "Gaspar" on the Daily Planet clipping has to be a reference to Gaspar Saladino, the longtime DC letterer who for a few years did the lettering on every DC splash page... and "I hate running"--of course they would.
Pg. 6:
"Climate is what we expect...": this is often attributed to Mark Twain, but I've yet to see an identified source. (As "Climate is what you expect...," it was used by Robert A. Heinlein in Time Enough for Love in 1973. It's also sometimes attributed to meteorologist Edward Lorenz.)
Pg. 9:
The first Trickster, James Jesse, was created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, and first appeared in FLASH #113 in 1960. The one we're seeing here, Axel Walker, was created by Johns and Kolins, and first appeared in FLASH #183 in 2002.
Pg. 10:
James Jesse was killed by Deadshot in COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #22. Tar Pit was a Johns/Kolins creation who hasn't appeared in a while. Zoom turned up in FLASH: THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #10, hired by Iris to attack Bart in order to protect him from Inertia. Not sure how the Flash Museum enters into that scenario. Computron, I'm guessing, is Colonel Computron (now there's a name I haven't heard in a while); the Rogues were indeed banished to the "war planet" in SALVATION RUN. Double Down is another Johns/Kolins creation; Bart was tight with the Titans, so of course their enemies would assume that the Titans would take some kind of revenge.
ETA: Commenters point out that a new floating-head Computron was introduced in FLASH #217... and was killed in CHECKMATE #11.
Pg. 12:
"Gambi" is Paul Gambi, the Crime Tailor, who's made occasional appearances since 1963. But what would he do with a bunch of heavily used villain suits?
As David Uzumeri points out in the comments, that's really not how Bart's death happened. Although, of course, the Rogues have tremendous capacity for self-deception--and the Pied Piper noted in that issue that he had his own agenda.
Pg. 13:
Jared Morillo and Fred Chyre, created by Johns and Kolins, first appeared in FLASH #171 in 2001. The Pied Piper, created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, first appeared in FLASH #106 in 1959. He had reformed as of FLASH #20 in 1988.
Pg. 17:
Iris Allen was married to the second Flash, Barry Allen, as of 1966's FLASH #165; created by Robert Kanigher, Carmine Infantino and Joe Kubert, she first appeared in good ol' SHOWCASE #4 in 1956. She was born in the future, died, came back to life, etc. ... long story. As good an explanation as you're going to get is here.
Pg. 19:
"This is a rock." The rock-as-first-murder-weapon is one of the central symbols of the Religion of Crime--see 52 and CRIME BIBLE: THE FIVE LESSONS OF BLOOD. And see David Uzumeri's comment for who some of the folks Libra is talking to are. "Evil's skin is the tool of murder": Squashua notes that Darkseid's skin is rocklike.
Pg. 20:
"One of my... shaving mirrors" would be funnier if Light hadn't vehemently refused Mirror Master's offer of "Peruvian flake" in FC #1 ("No, no! Do I look like some junkie?").
Pg. 21:
Inertia, created by Todd DeZago, Grant Morrison, Mike Wieringo and Ethan Van Sciver, first appeared in 1999 in IMPULSE #50. He was frozen into statue form in last year's ALL-FLASH #1.
This, sadly, creates some difficulties with the timeline, as David U. points out. The Flash Museum was badly damaged by a fire in FLASH #241, so Wally retrieved Inertia from it; by then, though, Iris West was no longer in the condition she's in on pg. 28.
Pg. 22:
Gregory Wolfe (the warden of Iron Heights), created by Johns and Van Sciver, first appeared in 2001's THE FLASH: IRON HEIGHTS. Apparently he didn't actually die in OUTSIDERS ANNUAL #1 after all.
Pg. 25:
The patented Geoff Johns Gross-Out! Yeah, that's quite a myth: the intestine's unstretched length is usually between 20 and 28 feet, and it might be able to stretch a few feet beyond that, but it's really not all that elastic.
Pg. 26:
The Pied Piper's real name is Hartley Rathaway, so he's in the family estate here. (His father paid for Will Magnus to cure his childhood deafness, according to FLASH #190.)
Pg. 27:
The "I'm not a murderer" speech here reprises Cold's dialogue in FLASH #182.
Pg. 28:
Jai and Iris first appeared in FLASH #225 (although we didn't learn their names until ALL-FLASH #1). Their mom is Linda Park-West, created by William Messner-Loebs and Greg LaRoque, who first appeared in FLASH #28.
Pg. 30:
Zoom showed up in DC UNIVERSE ZERO, so I'm sort of wondering what took him this long. His deal is that he "challenges" heroes to make them better... although he tends to be pretty homicidal about it.
*****
Looks like, thanks to the FC #3 delay, I probably won't be posting here again until August 6 or so. In the meantime, if you happen to be in San Diego for Comic-Con International, why not come by one of my panels? I'll be moderating six of 'em:
July 24:
1-2: The Future of the Comics Pamphlet, Room 32AB (with Joe Keatinge, DCU 0 namesake Carr D'Angelo, and other luminaries to be announced)
6-7: The Comics Blogosphere, Room 32AB (with David Brothers, Jeff Lester, Laura Hudson and Tim Robins)
July 25:
5-6--Teaching Comics--Room 4 (with Phil Jimenez, Matt Silady, James Sturm and Steve Lieber)
July 26:
11:30-12:30: Image Comics/Tori Amos--Room 6B (with Tori herself and a cast of thousands)
2:00-3:00: Lettering Roundtable--Room 8 (with Todd Klein, John Roshell, Tom Orzechowski and Jared K. Fletcher)
4:30-5:30: The Story of an Image--Room 4 (with Kim Deitch, Jim Woodring, Jim Ottaviani and Kyle Baker)
And, on Friday the 25th at 11:30, I'll be giving a talk called "Against a Canon of Comics" as part of the Comic Arts Conference in Room 30AB, and probably signing Reading Comics somewhere afterward.
Pg. 1:
Here's that lightning again!
The Flash they killed was Bart Allen, in THE FLASH: THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #13.
Pg. 2:
"Uh" isn't really a Scots-accent way of saying "a," is it? It just reminds me of Captain Beefheart.
Pg. 3:
"Lex Luthor eatin' outta his hand": guess Luthor was impressed by the explosion in FC #2 after all, so this scene dates this issue to some time after that one. "You better not be dealing again": in Johns-written comics, Captain Cold is vehement about his no-drugs rule for the Rogues (and he beats up Mirror Master for doing cocaine in FLASH #213). So the Rogues' coke scene COUNTDOWN #50 provoked a reaction from him...
Pp. 4-5:
It's maybe not quite correct to say that they "murdered Kid Flash"--Bart was the full-on Flash at that point, and had only gone under the name Kid Flash briefly--but the general cadence of the descriptive blurb is very much like the top-of-page-1 blurbs that used to run in Marvel comics in the late '70s and early '80s. The "Gaspar" on the Daily Planet clipping has to be a reference to Gaspar Saladino, the longtime DC letterer who for a few years did the lettering on every DC splash page... and "I hate running"--of course they would.
Pg. 6:
"Climate is what we expect...": this is often attributed to Mark Twain, but I've yet to see an identified source. (As "Climate is what you expect...," it was used by Robert A. Heinlein in Time Enough for Love in 1973. It's also sometimes attributed to meteorologist Edward Lorenz.)
Pg. 9:
The first Trickster, James Jesse, was created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, and first appeared in FLASH #113 in 1960. The one we're seeing here, Axel Walker, was created by Johns and Kolins, and first appeared in FLASH #183 in 2002.
Pg. 10:
James Jesse was killed by Deadshot in COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #22. Tar Pit was a Johns/Kolins creation who hasn't appeared in a while. Zoom turned up in FLASH: THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #10, hired by Iris to attack Bart in order to protect him from Inertia. Not sure how the Flash Museum enters into that scenario. Computron, I'm guessing, is Colonel Computron (now there's a name I haven't heard in a while); the Rogues were indeed banished to the "war planet" in SALVATION RUN. Double Down is another Johns/Kolins creation; Bart was tight with the Titans, so of course their enemies would assume that the Titans would take some kind of revenge.
ETA: Commenters point out that a new floating-head Computron was introduced in FLASH #217... and was killed in CHECKMATE #11.
Pg. 12:
"Gambi" is Paul Gambi, the Crime Tailor, who's made occasional appearances since 1963. But what would he do with a bunch of heavily used villain suits?
As David Uzumeri points out in the comments, that's really not how Bart's death happened. Although, of course, the Rogues have tremendous capacity for self-deception--and the Pied Piper noted in that issue that he had his own agenda.
Pg. 13:
Jared Morillo and Fred Chyre, created by Johns and Kolins, first appeared in FLASH #171 in 2001. The Pied Piper, created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, first appeared in FLASH #106 in 1959. He had reformed as of FLASH #20 in 1988.
Pg. 17:
Iris Allen was married to the second Flash, Barry Allen, as of 1966's FLASH #165; created by Robert Kanigher, Carmine Infantino and Joe Kubert, she first appeared in good ol' SHOWCASE #4 in 1956. She was born in the future, died, came back to life, etc. ... long story. As good an explanation as you're going to get is here.
Pg. 19:
"This is a rock." The rock-as-first-murder-weapon is one of the central symbols of the Religion of Crime--see 52 and CRIME BIBLE: THE FIVE LESSONS OF BLOOD. And see David Uzumeri's comment for who some of the folks Libra is talking to are. "Evil's skin is the tool of murder": Squashua notes that Darkseid's skin is rocklike.
Pg. 20:
"One of my... shaving mirrors" would be funnier if Light hadn't vehemently refused Mirror Master's offer of "Peruvian flake" in FC #1 ("No, no! Do I look like some junkie?").
Pg. 21:
Inertia, created by Todd DeZago, Grant Morrison, Mike Wieringo and Ethan Van Sciver, first appeared in 1999 in IMPULSE #50. He was frozen into statue form in last year's ALL-FLASH #1.
This, sadly, creates some difficulties with the timeline, as David U. points out. The Flash Museum was badly damaged by a fire in FLASH #241, so Wally retrieved Inertia from it; by then, though, Iris West was no longer in the condition she's in on pg. 28.
Pg. 22:
Gregory Wolfe (the warden of Iron Heights), created by Johns and Van Sciver, first appeared in 2001's THE FLASH: IRON HEIGHTS. Apparently he didn't actually die in OUTSIDERS ANNUAL #1 after all.
Pg. 25:
The patented Geoff Johns Gross-Out! Yeah, that's quite a myth: the intestine's unstretched length is usually between 20 and 28 feet, and it might be able to stretch a few feet beyond that, but it's really not all that elastic.
Pg. 26:
The Pied Piper's real name is Hartley Rathaway, so he's in the family estate here. (His father paid for Will Magnus to cure his childhood deafness, according to FLASH #190.)
Pg. 27:
The "I'm not a murderer" speech here reprises Cold's dialogue in FLASH #182.
Pg. 28:
Jai and Iris first appeared in FLASH #225 (although we didn't learn their names until ALL-FLASH #1). Their mom is Linda Park-West, created by William Messner-Loebs and Greg LaRoque, who first appeared in FLASH #28.
Pg. 30:
Zoom showed up in DC UNIVERSE ZERO, so I'm sort of wondering what took him this long. His deal is that he "challenges" heroes to make them better... although he tends to be pretty homicidal about it.
*****
Looks like, thanks to the FC #3 delay, I probably won't be posting here again until August 6 or so. In the meantime, if you happen to be in San Diego for Comic-Con International, why not come by one of my panels? I'll be moderating six of 'em:
July 24:
1-2: The Future of the Comics Pamphlet, Room 32AB (with Joe Keatinge, DCU 0 namesake Carr D'Angelo, and other luminaries to be announced)
6-7: The Comics Blogosphere, Room 32AB (with David Brothers, Jeff Lester, Laura Hudson and Tim Robins)
July 25:
5-6--Teaching Comics--Room 4 (with Phil Jimenez, Matt Silady, James Sturm and Steve Lieber)
July 26:
11:30-12:30: Image Comics/Tori Amos--Room 6B (with Tori herself and a cast of thousands)
2:00-3:00: Lettering Roundtable--Room 8 (with Todd Klein, John Roshell, Tom Orzechowski and Jared K. Fletcher)
4:30-5:30: The Story of an Image--Room 4 (with Kim Deitch, Jim Woodring, Jim Ottaviani and Kyle Baker)
And, on Friday the 25th at 11:30, I'll be giving a talk called "Against a Canon of Comics" as part of the Comic Arts Conference in Room 30AB, and probably signing Reading Comics somewhere afterward.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Final Crisis: Requiem
I confess that this is the one announced-to-date issue in this entire project that made me think "let's just get this over with" before I'd even seen it. So... let's get this over with.
Pg. 2:
Clockwise from top left: Dr. Mid-Nite (I think), Wildcat with somebody or other behind him, Wonder Woman, Grace, Wonder Girl, Black Lightning, looks like Captain Marvel, Superman with somebody else behind him, Mr. Terrific, Firestorm, Hawkgirl, Booster Gold, Starman, Plastic Man, Bulleteer (who never to my knowledge even met J'onn), Green Arrow, Stargirl, Aquaman--
Wait a second! Aquaman's dead! What's he doing here??
--Anyway. Donna Troy, Starfire, Batman, somebody whose white legs I don't recognize, Red Arrow, Geo-Force, Flash/Wally West, Ion/Green Lantern/Kyle Rayner (who was alleged in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #1,000,000 to have been a key player in a moment in J'onn's life when "everything seemed darkest," although that issue also presents J'onn as being alive and having his consciousness unified with Mars 853 centuries in the future--but then again BOOSTER GOLD #1,000,000 just came out this week, so I'm assuming that future is still in play), Power Girl, Adam Strange, Supergirl, Hourman, Damage, a boot that appears to belong to Dr. Light/Kimiyo Hoshi, Blue Beetle, Sand, Zatanna comparing fishnets with Black Canary, Green Lantern/Alan Scott, Huntress, Red Tornado, Steel, Flash/Jay Garrick, Hawkman with somebody behind him I can't identify, a green boot that might well belong to Green Lantern/John Stewart, Cyclone, a totally unidentifiable figure, Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, Vixen, Nightwing and Robin with Beast Boy and Raven behind them, Metamorpho. [Thanks to Adan and Don MacPherson for correcting some of my more egregious errors.]
Moving on--
Pg. 4:
A flashback to FC #1, obviously. But there's still a missing bit of information here: what led up to this, to recap, was that J'onn went to the prison planet in SALVATION RUN to see what was going on, disguised as Blockbuster; he saved Catwoman's life (in her own series), for which she repaid him by betraying him to Luthor; Luthor imprisoned him in a flaming cage, then left him behind when he brought everyone else back to Earth; and J'onn disappeared via boom tube in JLA #21. Who called up the boom tube and delivered him to Effigy and Dr. Light? And if that was Libra, what does he need Effigy and Dr. Light for?
Pg. 7:
Yeah, I didn't like that new uniform either.
Pg. 8:
Panel 3: The stretchy guy at left is the Elongated Man, who is also presently dead.
Pg. 10:
Panel 1: I guess he really is a "hairy-chested love god"!
Pg. 13:
"Malacandran": Martians call Mars "Ma'aleca'andra," as in "Malecandra" from C.S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet. "I know how it all ends": might that be some kind of reference to DC ONE MILLION?
Pp. 14-15:
I see that Superman is talking to himself again, and that he's still forgetting his participation in THE DEATH OF THE NEW GODS. And perhaps he should have kept a closer eye on Lois, you know?
The invisible chick in the bottom tier is Gypsy, created by Gerry Conway and Chuck Patton, who first appeared in 1984's JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA ANNUAL #2--one of J'onn's teammates from the mid-'80s "Justice League Detroit" era; after her own death, she was resurrected thanks to J'onn's intervention with his god H'ronmeer in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #12. And you thought Superman was a "proactive God"! Squashua points out that she's a human/Martian hybrid.
Pg. 17:
The Rose Center for Earth and Space exists in the real world, believe it or not.
Pg. 18:
Wait, so they kill J'onn in Central City (which I think is generally considered to be in the Kansas City sort of area) and then transport his body to New York City just so they can staple it to a model of Mars in the Hayden Planetarium? Seems like kind of an excessive gesture.
Pg. 19:
I'm betting all the framed pictures in panel 2 are redrawn versions of old JLA covers; anyone want to identify them? UPDATED: top row is something that looks fairly unidentifiable, JUSTICE LEAGUE #1, and a variation on THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #28; lower row is something that's sort-of-but-not-really like JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #258, and two I can't identify, although something keeps calling Darwyn Cooke to my mind in conjunction with the middle one. [Thanks to Don MacPherson again.]
Pg. 21:
A Turkey Tearror Broadhead is a very nasty-looking (but reportedly sort of ineffectual) arrowhead for shooting turkeys with a bow.
"My Favorite Martian."
Pg. 22:
Oh Jesus, Batman's a Skrull too?
"Green and white tore each other apart": the division between Green and White Martians first came up in the first Justice League series (as Garrie Burr points out), and reappeared in the early issues of Grant Morrison's mid-'90s run on JLA.
H'ronmeer was first mentioned in the 1988 MARTIAN MANHUNTER miniseries, I think. Ma'alefa'ak turned up in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #0, ten years later. These five pages are more or less a recap of the John Ostrander MM series.
Pg. 24:
The Josh Johnstone thing happened in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #20. The Bronze Wraith and the rest of the Justice Experience first appeared in CHASE #6.
Pg. 27:
The Fernus business happened in JLA #84-89, which Mahnke drew.
Pg. 28:
J'onn's fondness for Oreos was a running gag in the Keith Giffen JUSTICE LEAGUE series. They became "Chocos" as of MARTIAN MANHUNTER #24, an issue that is yet another example of the plural form of "Revelations."
Jeff notes that the Spectre moved J'onn's ancestral home to a pyramid in the Gobi desert--where there aren't actually pyramids, so I bet it won't be missed now that Superman's re-relocated it to Mars--in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #23.
Pg. 30:
Interestingly, the first Martian Manhunter story that Peter J. Tomasi wrote--back in SHOWCASE '95 #9--was also on the theme of death reuniting people with their loved ones.
*****
In other news, FINAL CRISIS #3 has officially been bumped to August 6. Congratulations, everyone who guessed that issue in the contest! Email me at finalcrisis [at-sign-goes-here] douglaswolk period com, and we'll figure out what your prize is.
Pg. 2:
Clockwise from top left: Dr. Mid-Nite (I think), Wildcat with somebody or other behind him, Wonder Woman, Grace, Wonder Girl, Black Lightning, looks like Captain Marvel, Superman with somebody else behind him, Mr. Terrific, Firestorm, Hawkgirl, Booster Gold, Starman, Plastic Man, Bulleteer (who never to my knowledge even met J'onn), Green Arrow, Stargirl, Aquaman--
Wait a second! Aquaman's dead! What's he doing here??
--Anyway. Donna Troy, Starfire, Batman, somebody whose white legs I don't recognize, Red Arrow, Geo-Force, Flash/Wally West, Ion/Green Lantern/Kyle Rayner (who was alleged in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #1,000,000 to have been a key player in a moment in J'onn's life when "everything seemed darkest," although that issue also presents J'onn as being alive and having his consciousness unified with Mars 853 centuries in the future--but then again BOOSTER GOLD #1,000,000 just came out this week, so I'm assuming that future is still in play), Power Girl, Adam Strange, Supergirl, Hourman, Damage, a boot that appears to belong to Dr. Light/Kimiyo Hoshi, Blue Beetle, Sand, Zatanna comparing fishnets with Black Canary, Green Lantern/Alan Scott, Huntress, Red Tornado, Steel, Flash/Jay Garrick, Hawkman with somebody behind him I can't identify, a green boot that might well belong to Green Lantern/John Stewart, Cyclone, a totally unidentifiable figure, Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, Vixen, Nightwing and Robin with Beast Boy and Raven behind them, Metamorpho. [Thanks to Adan and Don MacPherson for correcting some of my more egregious errors.]
Moving on--
Pg. 4:
A flashback to FC #1, obviously. But there's still a missing bit of information here: what led up to this, to recap, was that J'onn went to the prison planet in SALVATION RUN to see what was going on, disguised as Blockbuster; he saved Catwoman's life (in her own series), for which she repaid him by betraying him to Luthor; Luthor imprisoned him in a flaming cage, then left him behind when he brought everyone else back to Earth; and J'onn disappeared via boom tube in JLA #21. Who called up the boom tube and delivered him to Effigy and Dr. Light? And if that was Libra, what does he need Effigy and Dr. Light for?
Pg. 7:
Yeah, I didn't like that new uniform either.
Pg. 8:
Panel 3: The stretchy guy at left is the Elongated Man, who is also presently dead.
Pg. 10:
Panel 1: I guess he really is a "hairy-chested love god"!
Pg. 13:
"Malacandran": Martians call Mars "Ma'aleca'andra," as in "Malecandra" from C.S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet. "I know how it all ends": might that be some kind of reference to DC ONE MILLION?
Pp. 14-15:
I see that Superman is talking to himself again, and that he's still forgetting his participation in THE DEATH OF THE NEW GODS. And perhaps he should have kept a closer eye on Lois, you know?
The invisible chick in the bottom tier is Gypsy, created by Gerry Conway and Chuck Patton, who first appeared in 1984's JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA ANNUAL #2--one of J'onn's teammates from the mid-'80s "Justice League Detroit" era; after her own death, she was resurrected thanks to J'onn's intervention with his god H'ronmeer in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #12. And you thought Superman was a "proactive God"! Squashua points out that she's a human/Martian hybrid.
Pg. 17:
The Rose Center for Earth and Space exists in the real world, believe it or not.
Pg. 18:
Wait, so they kill J'onn in Central City (which I think is generally considered to be in the Kansas City sort of area) and then transport his body to New York City just so they can staple it to a model of Mars in the Hayden Planetarium? Seems like kind of an excessive gesture.
Pg. 19:
I'm betting all the framed pictures in panel 2 are redrawn versions of old JLA covers; anyone want to identify them? UPDATED: top row is something that looks fairly unidentifiable, JUSTICE LEAGUE #1, and a variation on THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #28; lower row is something that's sort-of-but-not-really like JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #258, and two I can't identify, although something keeps calling Darwyn Cooke to my mind in conjunction with the middle one. [Thanks to Don MacPherson again.]
Pg. 21:
A Turkey Tearror Broadhead is a very nasty-looking (but reportedly sort of ineffectual) arrowhead for shooting turkeys with a bow.
"My Favorite Martian."
Pg. 22:
Oh Jesus, Batman's a Skrull too?
"Green and white tore each other apart": the division between Green and White Martians first came up in the first Justice League series (as Garrie Burr points out), and reappeared in the early issues of Grant Morrison's mid-'90s run on JLA.
H'ronmeer was first mentioned in the 1988 MARTIAN MANHUNTER miniseries, I think. Ma'alefa'ak turned up in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #0, ten years later. These five pages are more or less a recap of the John Ostrander MM series.
Pg. 24:
The Josh Johnstone thing happened in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #20. The Bronze Wraith and the rest of the Justice Experience first appeared in CHASE #6.
Pg. 27:
The Fernus business happened in JLA #84-89, which Mahnke drew.
Pg. 28:
J'onn's fondness for Oreos was a running gag in the Keith Giffen JUSTICE LEAGUE series. They became "Chocos" as of MARTIAN MANHUNTER #24, an issue that is yet another example of the plural form of "Revelations."
Jeff notes that the Spectre moved J'onn's ancestral home to a pyramid in the Gobi desert--where there aren't actually pyramids, so I bet it won't be missed now that Superman's re-relocated it to Mars--in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #23.
Pg. 30:
Interestingly, the first Martian Manhunter story that Peter J. Tomasi wrote--back in SHOWCASE '95 #9--was also on the theme of death reuniting people with their loved ones.
*****
In other news, FINAL CRISIS #3 has officially been bumped to August 6. Congratulations, everyone who guessed that issue in the contest! Email me at finalcrisis [at-sign-goes-here] douglaswolk period com, and we'll figure out what your prize is.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
