I've been curious to see if the whole Final Crisis project has a consistent chronology, so I've been piecing it together. Here's a stab at a timeline, with thanks to Chris Miller (whose Unauthorized Chronology of the DC Universe is mightily entertaining, and very useful for figuring out how Countdown et al. fit into continuity) and David Uzumeri, both of whose helpful suggestions I have totally ignored. (Last updated 12/27/08)
40,000 years ago:
In what will one day be New York City, Anthro meets Metron, who gives him fire. Vandal Savage attacks Anthro's tribe; Anthro fights back. (FC #1)
Slightly less than 40,000 years ago:
In the NYC of the distant past, Anthro draws the Metron diagram and has a vision of Kamandi. (FC #1)
Sometime before Day 1, I'm guessing:
Superman catches the "rip cord back to the 31st century" (Lo3W #1). (He seems to be in a pretty good mood when he's called in, so I assume it happens on a day before everything goes to hell.)
Day 1:
Turpin finds Orion in the garbage in Metropolis. John Stewart is called in to investigate. The Question meets with Turpin and gives him a Dark Side Club flyer. The Guardians seal off Earth. Dr. Light and Mirror Master retrieve Metron's chair during the "protest march against vigilante brutality." (FC #1)
(There could be a time-gap of a day or more in here, but it doesn't seem like either John Stewart or Dan Turpin would delay their investigations if they didn't have something else really pressing going on.)
Day 2:
In Gotham City, the end of the BATMAN R.I.P. storyline happens on the night between Day 1 and Day 2, per BATMAN #683. Batman heads back to the cave and talks to Alfred; he's just gotten a call from the Justice League, probably about Orion.
In Central City, Dr. Light and Effigy carry J'onn to Libra. (REQUIEM) Libra stabs the Martian Manhunter. (FC #1) Then he fights for a while longer (REQUIEM) before his heart explodes (per FC #2). Superman, Batman, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Hal Jordan and Gypsy get psychic vibes from J'onn as he's dying. This seems to be a nighttime scene, so maybe it happens after the Justice League's meeting, but I figure it might actually be very early morning. (REQUIEM)
Turpin goes to New York City, where the Tattooed Man takes him to the Dark Side club and he meets Boss Dark Side and the sharp-toothed little kids. The Justice League meets in Washington, DC; the Alpha Lanterns arrive. In the Monitors' realm, Nix Uotan is exiled, and Zillo Valla and Weeja Dell talk. (FC #1)
RAGE OF THE RED LANTERNS happens here--between FC #1 and 2, per its opening caption, and Hal's narration indicates that it happens the day after the Code 1011 goes out.
In New York City, Nightwing discovers J'onn's body at the Rose Center. His body is brought to Washington, DC, where Hal and Ollie discuss the situation. Batman, Superman, Hal, Gypsy and Black Canary--who's in Happy Harbor for some reason--write down J'onn's memories. (REQUIEM) (Batman's dressed as Bruce Wayne, which would make the Black Glove's announcement in BATMAN #681 that "the next time you wear [the cape and cowl] will be your last" not literally accurate, but whatever--otherwise he'd have been in the costume for two days straight immediately after R.I.P. Let the guy have a night's sleep in his pajamas.)
Day 3:
In Central City--I'm guessing that's where he is, from the fact that he seems to get local news from the same town as Iris Allen in FC #3--Nix Uotan wakes up in a human body to find the death of the Martian Manhunter being reported on the morning news. (FC #1)
(Again, it's possible that there could be a break of a day or more here, but not likely.)
In Tokyo, Megayakuza challenges Sonny Sumo and gets what's coming to him, while Super Young Team gawk. Shilo Norman, cued by Motherboxxx, comes to Tokyo to talk to Sonny. In Central City, Nix goes to his job at Big Belly Burger and draws pictures of otherworldly super-folks. In Metropolis, the possessed Turpin beats up the Mad Hatter and buys a ticket to Blüdhaven. (FC #2)
In Washington, the Green Lanterns arrive to transport everyone to Mars, and Superman flies J'onn's pyramid there from the Gobi Desert. You'd think if the Alpha Lanterns had quarantined the planet, the very last people they'd want leaving for a little while would be super muk muks, but oh well. (REQUIEM)
On Mars, Superman gives J'onn's funeral oration (FC #2), which is simulcast in Metropolis (REVELATIONS #1). Then everyone stands around for a while. After the GLs fly most people home, the transcribers say their final goodbyes. (REQUIEM)
In Central City, Libra and crew (still including Mirror Master and Weather Wizard) meet again. In Washington, the Justice League talks to Kraken; Batman suspects a bullet was involved. In Metropolis, that night, John Stewart and Opto investigate Orion's murder, and John finds the god-bullet and gets attacked. (FC #2)
That night, in an unknown location, Dr. Light has a little party, and gets melted by the Spectre. Somewhere, Sister Clarice flatlines. In Hollywood, the Spectre melts Effigy. (REVELATIONS #1)
We now encounter a weird little glitch, if we're going to count JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #27 as canonical to FC: the Shadow Cabinet is in the Hall of Justice and the JLA satellite stealing Dr. Light's mortal remains ("an old candle"), and they're met by a crew including John Stewart (and Superman), and Batman is Bruce. #30 appears to be the first post-FC issue; I have no idea where the story in #27 could have time to happen.
Somewhere in here, the League has to locate and rescue the injured John Stewart, who is holding the god-bullet (FC #2). Batman collects the bullet and sticks it in his utility belt (BATMAN #683).
Day 4:
In Coast City, very early in the morning, the Alpha Lanterns arrest Hal. In Washington, Superman and Batman confer, Batman fights Kraken, and Kraken throws him into a Boom Tube. In Blüdhaven, Turpin finds Rev. Good, who leads him to Command D, where he sees Kamandi and the restrained Batman. In Metropolis, Clark Kent turns in some copy, and Clayface-as-Jimmy blows up the Daily Planet. (FC #2)
The events of ROGUES' REVENGE #1 have to happen here--Luthor at least gives the Rogues the impression that he's "eating out of Libra's hand" (although he doesn't seem to have ever really gotten with Libra's program), Libra is still in the Central City club, and Barry's not back yet. The final scenes of the issue happen around 3 AM; the tingling the twins feel probably has to do with Barry's return. (ROGUES' REVENGE #1)
That night, Wally and Jay investigate Libra's HQ in Central City and find Barry. (FC #2)
Also that night, in New York, S.H.A.D.E. hits the Dark Side Club, where they find Montoya and Boss Dark Side's corpse. Überfraulein falls out of the sky; S.H.A.D.E. tells Montoya to come with them. (FC #3)
Day 5:
In Central City, Nix gets fired, and Jay brings Iris and Wally's family up to date. (FC #3).
The Rogues find Gambi; the "new Rogues" tell them to "report back to the club." Zoom is training Inertia. The old Rogues dispense with the new; Iris is crying with happiness after getting the update from Jay. (ROGUES' REVENGE #2)
In Portsmouth, England, Montoya fights the Bible Crew and jumps onto a boat. (Perhaps S.H.A.D.E. gave her a lift there, off-panel.) The Spectre goes to the Central City Community Center to meet up with Libra, who's conferring with the Hangmen; the Spectre kills the Hangmen and vanishes. (REVELATIONS #1) Morrison has suggested that Libra relocates because the Flashes compromised the Central City hideout, but I suspect the smoking midair corpses of the Hangmen were a much more significant compromise...
At the Hall of Evil in Florida, Libra puts the Justifier helmet on Mike, and Luthor notes that Superman "hasn't answered a single emergency call for 18 hours." (Perhaps Libra figured that the HQ wasn't the best place to be with all those dead Hangmen there.) Libra says that the Big One is coming "in less than 24 hours." (FC #3) Libra, still at the Hall of Doom (see the establishing shot at the top of the page), confers with Grodd; his monitor board has lots of shots of what's happened to a bunch of characters and... anticipates what's going to happen to Wonder Woman. (ROGUES' REVENGE #2)
In Central City, the Rogues head to the Observatory, then fight with the Zooms; Libra shows up with the kid. A big fight transpires, and the Rogues drop off Kid Zoom's body in Keystone City, then return to the basement of the Flash Museum. (ROGUES' REVENGE #3)
Back off the coast of England, the Cultists find the Spear of Destiny and fight Montoya. Cris goes to his son's grave--although, actually, the grave he goes to is Jake's. Which is strange, because Jake Allen isn't dead; Malcolm is the son Cris-as-the-Spectre killed in CRISIS AFTERMATH: THE SPECTRE #3. I guess we can chalk that up to Darkseid's fall too. Anyway, the Spectre proceeds to teleport himself to where Montoya is to judge her. (REVELATIONS #1) They fight, then the Spectre teleports them away... (REVELATIONS #2) ...and the first big internal continuity hiccup of the project happens here. See Day 6 for details.
In Metropolis, Superman is by Lois's side, and Jimmy notes that "Superman hasn't been seen since yesterday." Zillo Valla walks in and gives Clark "one ultimate chance." (FC #3) She freezes time, which apparently gets unfrozen sometime after that, and she and Superman head off for nutty parallel-Earth adventures. (SUPERMAN BEYOND #1) In Washington, Alan Scott and Wonder Woman suggest it's time to invoke Article X. (FC #3)
Day 6:
Oracle, Aquaman, Freddie Freeman, Supergirl, Green Arrow and Black Canary get their draft notices delivered on paper (Ollie and Dinah seem to be getting theirs in the morning). Alan Scott assembles the forces. We can assume everybody gets where they're going by some kind of fancy JLA teleportation-type device. (FC #3)
In Tokyo, Shilo's about to leave Japan when he and Sonny are attacked, and rescued by Super Young Team in the Wonder Wagon. Wonder Woman investigates Blüdhaven and gets attacked by Mary Marvel, who gives her a disease. At 5:30 PM EST (per FC #4), also in Blüdhaven, Mokkari sends the ultimate spam message out. In Washington, Oracle tries to pull the plug on the Internet (FC #3), and actually succeeds, per FC #4.
Here's that first continuity hiccup: we have to assume that the Spectre teleported Montoya mid-word from Day 5 to Day 6, as well as from the boat to Gotham City. The scenes with the Spectre and the Question together in REVELATIONS #1 and 2 clearly happen continuously, and occupy five or ten minutes at the very most; in the meantime, Wrack gets the Spear of Destiny back to shore, then gets the word out, summons the forces, heads to wherever Vandal Savage is located (which sure doesn't look like it's anywhere near the coast of England), stabs him and turns him into Cain. [Perhaps this is one of the "time distortions" mentioned in FC #5.]
So. Having jumped a day into the future, Cris and Renee observe Batwoman, and then the Radiant shows up. Cris cries over the son he didn't kill, rather than the one he did. Cris, Montoya and the Radiant talk theology. The Gotham Central Anti-Life Crew attacks. The Radiant teleports Montoya away, and she's attacked by Anti-Life Batwoman. (REVELATIONS #2)
The Spectre and the Radiant fight Anti-Life legions; Montoya fights Batwoman. Vandal Savage/Cain leads his crew along the tree-lined coastline, and... lickety-split, they're in the U.S., gazing upon the strung-up bodies in Westbrook (or whatever that suburb of Gotham is called). Maybe he's got some kind of magical teleportation powers. In Gotham City, Montoya, the Radiant and the Spectre take refuge in a cathedral, while hordes of Darkseidians attack outside (and Catwoman is hanging out outside too). Cain shows up and stabs the Spectre. (REVELATIONS #3)
[Weirdly, Montoya asserts that "what's happened in Gotham, it's happened everywhere... I was at the Checkmate castle. I've seen it." It's hard to imagine when that might have happened; she was in S.H.A.D.E.'s custody late on Day 4 and early on Day 5, and turns up at the castle on Day 20, below, but there's no space in the story between the Ultimate E-Mail and this sequence for her to get there and back, or indeed to find out what's going on anywhere other than her immediate surroundings.]
Cain has split the Spectre from Cris. Montoya fights Cain; then the Huntress shows up. The Radiant protects the church, and explains the Spear of Destiny to Montoya. Then she confronts Cain, who makes the Spectre recite the Anti-Life Equation and declares victory. (REVELATIONS #4)
Meanwhile, in Antarctica, Ice shows up and attacks the Checkmate outpost; Mr. Terrific and Taleb hunker down in the bunker, and Sasha Bordeaux shuts down. (RESIST)
Day 10:
At S.T.A.R. Labs in California, Snapper Carr destroys the bioweapons, then returns to Antarctica. (RESIST)
Day 11:
Snapper goes to the Watchtower to confront Firehawk and sees the Cheetah. (RESIST)
Days 17, 20, 25, 27, 29:
Snapper keeps up the resistance (RESIST).
Day 31:
Snapper gets busy with the Cheetah, then gets attacked by Justifier-Grodd and teleports himself and the Cheetah back to Camp Oswald. (RESIST)
Day 32:
Mr. Terrific does something hand-wave-y involving the Code Zoo and Sasha. A zillion OMACs attack the bunker, and Mr. Terrific, the Cheetah, Taleb and Snapper head off with some OMACs. (RESIST)
Day 36 or so:
In Washington, DC, Black Lightning, en route to rescue somebody from the Hall of Justice and deliver some papers, runs into the Tattooed Man (who's been protecting his family for "two weeks"), and they have a brief adventure together that ends badly. (SUBMIT) (It would actually have to be longer than two weeks to fit the timeline of RESIST--Mr. Terrific has to get back to the Checkmate castle in Switzerland by this day. Call it a time distortion if you like. But where are the OMACs? Who knows?)
Shortly thereafter, the Ray rescues the Tattooed Man and drags him into the Hall of Justice, which is under attack. Black Canary, the Flash family, the Ray and the Tattooed Man teleport to the JLA satellite, and Green Arrow gets captured.
In Blüdhaven, the Checkmate attack force has been slaughtered, Turpin is fighting off Darkseid's influence, and Kalibak is chowing down on Opto309.
In Switzerland, the Checkmate castle is under attack, and Amanda Waller is about to show Montoya something; then the Wonder Wagon arrives. At the Fortress of Solitude, adorable tykes and a printing press are around. Superbia is falling. Gorilla City is under attack. (FC #4)
In Central City, the Flashes encounter the new Female Furies, then go off and rescue Iris. (FC #3-4)
Turpin/Darkseid gives the thumbs down. (FC #4)
In Blüdhaven, Batman is having his memories strip-mined by the Lump, Simyan and Mokkari. He fights it off. S & M's experiment fails spectacularly, and they shoot the Lump, then run away as it trashes the lab. (BATMAN #682-3)
Hal Jordan is tried on Oa; Guy and Kyle show up and fight Kraken. There are mentions of time distortions on Earth, which would suggest that time is passing much more slowly off Earth, so this could be shortly after day 4 relative to Hal's experience.
At the Checkmate castle, Waller and Khalid show Montoya the Biomacs.
In Blüdhaven, the Female Furies (who've gotten back there somehow...) are suiting up. Simyan, Mokkari and Godfrey are petitioning Turpin/Darkseid, who sends the Furies out to "end it all."
At the Castle, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Alan Scott, etc., are fighting Justifiers. Mr. Terrific arrives where the Wonder Wagon has crashed, and Sonny Sumo shows off Motherboxxx. The Castle's "shields will fail in 15 minutes."
In Blüdhaven, Kalibak and the Tiger-Men ride out, and the cavalry arrives at the bridge.
Wherever Nix Uotan is, he's thrown into a holding cell with the mysterious hooded guy and the Metron-avatar who solves the Rubik's Cube; he remembers Weeja Dell.
Somewhere, Libra is about to hang the Calculator, and has words with Luthor.
In Blüdhaven, John's ring isn't working right. Turpin/Darkseid kills his minions. Supergirl and Mary Marvel start fighting.
The Green Lanterns, approaching Earth, "freefall into the singularity."
In Washington, DC, the Justifiers have found the President's bunker.
Darkseid arrives, and so does Nix. (FC #5)
1000 years from now:
Prime roasts the faux Kents and busts up the Superman Museum, and the Legion of Super-Heroes does their Legiony thing. (Lo3W #1 and 2)
The End of Time:
The Time Trapper complains about bugs. (Lo3W #1)
I'll be updating this as future issues come out, but comments and suggestions are very welcome.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Final Crisis: Revelations #2
EDITED TO ADD: A brief note on the chronology of this issue: it is weird. I'm working on an overall FC chronology, but it appears that all the Montoya stuff this issue happens more or less continuously, with no breaks of more than a few minutes. In the meantime, Sister Wrack recovers herself, gets back to shore, summons every "all of our order for a thousand miles" to wherever Vandal Savage is located, and turns him into Cain. That has to take a lot more time.
The one easy out for this is that when the Spectre teleports himself and Montoya to Gotham City, he also sends them a day into the future. That also means that the Spectre could've confronted Libra the day before Mokkari ended the Fourth World--which would explain why Libra (and the Headmen) were in the Central City strip club rather than the Hall of Doom, to which Libra relocated later that day.
Commenter Will Staples asks how this squares up with S.H.A.D.E. picking up Montoya in New York City at the beginning of FC #3. I figure she had a conversation with them and they dropped her off in Portsmouth in time for REVELATIONS #1, which would fit the timeline.
Pp. 2-3:
I see Renee has picked up Charlie's old habit of wisecracking while wearing the mask. Cris was killed in GOTHAM CENTRAL #38.
Pg. 9:
Ah, Batwoman. First appeared in 52 #7, created by... okay, this is a tough one, since so many hands were involved, but I'm going to provisionally say Alex Ross, Greg Rucka and J.G. Jones, and open it up for corrections; she's based on a character created by Sheldon Moldoff and (possibly) Bob Kane who first appeared in DETECTIVE COMICS #233. As per S.O.P., she's fighting what I'm guessing is one of Intergang's giant lizard critters.
Pg. 11:
As we saw in 52 #1, the Bat-Signal is within viewing range of Montoya's old apartment.
Pg. 12:
Gehenna is almost certainly not the character by that name who first appeared in VILLAINS UNITED #5, as entertaining as it is to consider that possibility. The Spectre appears to be using "Gehenna" to mean something like "unending horrors," but that's not quite what it signifies theologically. In Judaism it's where the wicked are punished and purified for a finite or infinite span; it's named after a dump south of Jerusalem where garbage was burned. Even when Jesus uses the term, it generally implies the fires of God's judgement. In other words, pretty much what the Spectre does already.
Pg. 13:
They made her their leader in 52 AFTERMATH: CRIME BIBLE: FIVE LESSONS OF BLOOD #5.
Pg. 14:
Called it on Clarice/the Radiant as the spirit of mercy!
Pg. 17:
The Radiant is quoting Matthew 5:39. Nice to know that God's agents like the King James Version best too.
Pg. 19:
Since basically every Biblical and quasi-Biblical name has already been used for a comics character, there's already a Lilith who first appeared in TEEN TITANS #25. The "original" Lilith, despite her reputation as Adam's first wife, doesn't quite turn up in the Bible itself, unless you count Isaiah 34:14, which is pushing it. In CRIME BIBLE #2, though, the sex cult affiliated with the dark faith was Lilith's Daughters, and Lilith figures prominently (as a teacher figure) in the Crime Bible and its faith; the text encoded at the beginning of each chapter of the series appears here. The relevant passage is the ending: "the gods once new now old will see the sign and know the time of their reckoning is come."
Pg. 20:
Maybe that's what everybody's computers look like after Oracle failed to unplug the Internet.
Pg. 22:
"And in the days between worlds" etc.: pseudo-Biblical prophecy--I think it's not from any previously seen text, although it might be from the Crime Bible. ("Between worlds," as in after the end of the Fourth World but before the beginning of the Fifth.)
Pg. 23:
So...Vandal Savage is Cain? Not the one who first appeared in HOUSE OF MYSTERY #175, who also killed his brother Abel etc. per SWAMP THING #33, but the marked one? And the Spectre gave him his mark? Which looks kind of like a set of scales?
Wait a second. Consult Genesis 4 (no, not GENESIS #4), in which the Lord Himself puts the mark on Cain--and does it to prevent anyone from killing Cain. Also, FC #1 is fairly consistent with the established history of Vandal Savage (he was a caveman from the Blood Tribe who became immortal after exposure to a meteorite); this isn't. Hmm.
Pg. 24:
Clarice is of course quoting from PICTURE STORIES FROM THE BIBLE: OLD TESTAMENT #3 here. I don't think I've ever previously come across the suggestion that the ram was actually Abraham's son. That's a little heterodox, theologically speaking.
Pg. 25:
Jonah entered the Lord's service in JONAH HEX #24. (I'm kidding. It actually happened in SUPERBOY #98. Although he first appeared on the cover of this issue.)
Stacy, who I don't think ever got a last name, was the perma-temp in GOTHAM CENTRAL whose job was turning on the Bat-Signal; GOTHAM CENTRAL #11 focused on her, although she appeared earlier too.
Pg. 26:
Captain Maggie Sawyer, created by John Byrne, first appeared in 1987's SUPERMAN #7.
Pg. 27:
This is the formulation of the Anti-Life Equation that first appeared in SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE #3.
Pg. 28:
And what would "the same force that spared Libra" be? Answer: "It's intentionally vague." Although commenter Astro over there notes that, per 2002's SPECTRE #19--and that is one freaky cover--the Spectre's not allowed to kill Darkseid.
No more new Final Crisis books for another four weeks, it appears--back on the first entry of this blog, I've been updating ship dates for everything. FINAL CRISIS #4, ROGUES' REVENGE #3 and LEGION OF THREE WORLDS #2 have all been bumped from Sep. 17 to Oct. 15; SUBMIT has been bumped from Oct. 1 to Oct. 8, the same day as REVELATIONS #3. So--it might be a busy mid-October! See you thenabouts.
The one easy out for this is that when the Spectre teleports himself and Montoya to Gotham City, he also sends them a day into the future. That also means that the Spectre could've confronted Libra the day before Mokkari ended the Fourth World--which would explain why Libra (and the Headmen) were in the Central City strip club rather than the Hall of Doom, to which Libra relocated later that day.
Commenter Will Staples asks how this squares up with S.H.A.D.E. picking up Montoya in New York City at the beginning of FC #3. I figure she had a conversation with them and they dropped her off in Portsmouth in time for REVELATIONS #1, which would fit the timeline.
Pp. 2-3:
I see Renee has picked up Charlie's old habit of wisecracking while wearing the mask. Cris was killed in GOTHAM CENTRAL #38.
Pg. 9:
Ah, Batwoman. First appeared in 52 #7, created by... okay, this is a tough one, since so many hands were involved, but I'm going to provisionally say Alex Ross, Greg Rucka and J.G. Jones, and open it up for corrections; she's based on a character created by Sheldon Moldoff and (possibly) Bob Kane who first appeared in DETECTIVE COMICS #233. As per S.O.P., she's fighting what I'm guessing is one of Intergang's giant lizard critters.
Pg. 11:
As we saw in 52 #1, the Bat-Signal is within viewing range of Montoya's old apartment.
Pg. 12:
Gehenna is almost certainly not the character by that name who first appeared in VILLAINS UNITED #5, as entertaining as it is to consider that possibility. The Spectre appears to be using "Gehenna" to mean something like "unending horrors," but that's not quite what it signifies theologically. In Judaism it's where the wicked are punished and purified for a finite or infinite span; it's named after a dump south of Jerusalem where garbage was burned. Even when Jesus uses the term, it generally implies the fires of God's judgement. In other words, pretty much what the Spectre does already.
Pg. 13:
They made her their leader in 52 AFTERMATH: CRIME BIBLE: FIVE LESSONS OF BLOOD #5.
Pg. 14:
Called it on Clarice/the Radiant as the spirit of mercy!
Pg. 17:
The Radiant is quoting Matthew 5:39. Nice to know that God's agents like the King James Version best too.
Pg. 19:
Since basically every Biblical and quasi-Biblical name has already been used for a comics character, there's already a Lilith who first appeared in TEEN TITANS #25. The "original" Lilith, despite her reputation as Adam's first wife, doesn't quite turn up in the Bible itself, unless you count Isaiah 34:14, which is pushing it. In CRIME BIBLE #2, though, the sex cult affiliated with the dark faith was Lilith's Daughters, and Lilith figures prominently (as a teacher figure) in the Crime Bible and its faith; the text encoded at the beginning of each chapter of the series appears here. The relevant passage is the ending: "the gods once new now old will see the sign and know the time of their reckoning is come."
Pg. 20:
Maybe that's what everybody's computers look like after Oracle failed to unplug the Internet.
Pg. 22:
"And in the days between worlds" etc.: pseudo-Biblical prophecy--I think it's not from any previously seen text, although it might be from the Crime Bible. ("Between worlds," as in after the end of the Fourth World but before the beginning of the Fifth.)
Pg. 23:
So...Vandal Savage is Cain? Not the one who first appeared in HOUSE OF MYSTERY #175, who also killed his brother Abel etc. per SWAMP THING #33, but the marked one? And the Spectre gave him his mark? Which looks kind of like a set of scales?
Wait a second. Consult Genesis 4 (no, not GENESIS #4), in which the Lord Himself puts the mark on Cain--and does it to prevent anyone from killing Cain. Also, FC #1 is fairly consistent with the established history of Vandal Savage (he was a caveman from the Blood Tribe who became immortal after exposure to a meteorite); this isn't. Hmm.
Pg. 24:
Clarice is of course quoting from PICTURE STORIES FROM THE BIBLE: OLD TESTAMENT #3 here. I don't think I've ever previously come across the suggestion that the ram was actually Abraham's son. That's a little heterodox, theologically speaking.
Pg. 25:
Jonah entered the Lord's service in JONAH HEX #24. (I'm kidding. It actually happened in SUPERBOY #98. Although he first appeared on the cover of this issue.)
Stacy, who I don't think ever got a last name, was the perma-temp in GOTHAM CENTRAL whose job was turning on the Bat-Signal; GOTHAM CENTRAL #11 focused on her, although she appeared earlier too.
Pg. 26:
Captain Maggie Sawyer, created by John Byrne, first appeared in 1987's SUPERMAN #7.
Pg. 27:
This is the formulation of the Anti-Life Equation that first appeared in SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE #3.
Pg. 28:
And what would "the same force that spared Libra" be? Answer: "It's intentionally vague." Although commenter Astro over there notes that, per 2002's SPECTRE #19--and that is one freaky cover--the Spectre's not allowed to kill Darkseid.
No more new Final Crisis books for another four weeks, it appears--back on the first entry of this blog, I've been updating ship dates for everything. FINAL CRISIS #4, ROGUES' REVENGE #3 and LEGION OF THREE WORLDS #2 have all been bumped from Sep. 17 to Oct. 15; SUBMIT has been bumped from Oct. 1 to Oct. 8, the same day as REVELATIONS #3. So--it might be a busy mid-October! See you thenabouts.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge #2
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.
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.
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?
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