Cover: The sliver cover is based on, or at least inspired by, George Pérez's image of the dying Barry Allen in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #8. The portrait cover bears some resemblance to FLASH #193 from 1969, which Johns has noted was the first Flash comic he ever read.
Pg. 1:
Here's that lightning again!
The Flash they killed was Bart Allen, in THE FLASH: THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #13.
Pg. 2:
"Uh" isn't really a Scots-accent way of saying "a," is it? It just reminds me of Captain Beefheart.
Pg. 3:
"Lex Luthor eatin' outta his hand": guess Luthor was impressed by the explosion in FC #2 after all, so this scene dates this issue to some time after that one. "You better not be dealing again": in Johns-written comics, Captain Cold is vehement about his no-drugs rule for the Rogues (and he beats up Mirror Master for doing cocaine in FLASH #213). So the Rogues' coke scene COUNTDOWN #50 provoked a reaction from him...
Pp. 4-5:
It's maybe not quite correct to say that they "murdered Kid Flash"--Bart was the full-on Flash at that point, and had only gone under the name Kid Flash briefly--but the general cadence of the descriptive blurb is very much like the top-of-page-1 blurbs that used to run in Marvel comics in the late '70s and early '80s. The "Gaspar" on the Daily Planet clipping has to be a reference to Gaspar Saladino, the longtime DC letterer who for a few years did the lettering on every DC splash page... and "I hate running"--of course they would.
Pg. 6:
"Climate is what we expect...": this is often attributed to Mark Twain, but I've yet to see an identified source. (As "Climate is what you expect...," it was used by Robert A. Heinlein in Time Enough for Love in 1973. It's also sometimes attributed to meteorologist Edward Lorenz.)
Pg. 9:
The first Trickster, James Jesse, was created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, and first appeared in FLASH #113 in 1960. The one we're seeing here, Axel Walker, was created by Johns and Kolins, and first appeared in FLASH #183 in 2002.
Pg. 10:
James Jesse was killed by Deadshot in COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #22. Tar Pit was a Johns/Kolins creation who hasn't appeared in a while. Zoom turned up in FLASH: THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #10, hired by Iris to attack Bart in order to protect him from Inertia. Not sure how the Flash Museum enters into that scenario. Computron, I'm guessing, is Colonel Computron (now there's a name I haven't heard in a while); the Rogues were indeed banished to the "war planet" in SALVATION RUN. Double Down is another Johns/Kolins creation; Bart was tight with the Titans, so of course their enemies would assume that the Titans would take some kind of revenge.
ETA: Commenters point out that a new floating-head Computron was introduced in FLASH #217... and was killed in CHECKMATE #11.
Pg. 12:
"Gambi" is Paul Gambi, the Crime Tailor, who's made occasional appearances since 1963. But what would he do with a bunch of heavily used villain suits?
As David Uzumeri points out in the comments, that's really not how Bart's death happened. Although, of course, the Rogues have tremendous capacity for self-deception--and the Pied Piper noted in that issue that he had his own agenda.
Pg. 13:
Jared Morillo and Fred Chyre, created by Johns and Kolins, first appeared in FLASH #171 in 2001. The Pied Piper, created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, first appeared in FLASH #106 in 1959. He had reformed as of FLASH #20 in 1988.
Pg. 17:
Iris Allen was married to the second Flash, Barry Allen, as of 1966's FLASH #165; created by Robert Kanigher, Carmine Infantino and Joe Kubert, she first appeared in good ol' SHOWCASE #4 in 1956. She was born in the future, died, came back to life, etc. ... long story. As good an explanation as you're going to get is here.
Pg. 19:
"This is a rock." The rock-as-first-murder-weapon is one of the central symbols of the Religion of Crime--see 52 and CRIME BIBLE: THE FIVE LESSONS OF BLOOD. And see David Uzumeri's comment for who some of the folks Libra is talking to are. "Evil's skin is the tool of murder": Squashua notes that Darkseid's skin is rocklike.
Pg. 20:
"One of my... shaving mirrors" would be funnier if Light hadn't vehemently refused Mirror Master's offer of "Peruvian flake" in FC #1 ("No, no! Do I look like some junkie?").
Pg. 21:
Inertia, created by Todd DeZago, Grant Morrison, Mike Wieringo and Ethan Van Sciver, first appeared in 1999 in IMPULSE #50. He was frozen into statue form in last year's ALL-FLASH #1.
This, sadly, creates some difficulties with the timeline, as David U. points out. The Flash Museum was badly damaged by a fire in FLASH #241, so Wally retrieved Inertia from it; by then, though, Iris West was no longer in the condition she's in on pg. 28.
Pg. 22:
Gregory Wolfe (the warden of Iron Heights), created by Johns and Van Sciver, first appeared in 2001's THE FLASH: IRON HEIGHTS. Apparently he didn't actually die in OUTSIDERS ANNUAL #1 after all.
Pg. 25:
The patented Geoff Johns Gross-Out! Yeah, that's quite a myth: the intestine's unstretched length is usually between 20 and 28 feet, and it might be able to stretch a few feet beyond that, but it's really not all that elastic.
Pg. 26:
The Pied Piper's real name is Hartley Rathaway, so he's in the family estate here. (His father paid for Will Magnus to cure his childhood deafness, according to FLASH #190.)
Pg. 27:
The "I'm not a murderer" speech here reprises Cold's dialogue in FLASH #182.
Pg. 28:
Jai and Iris first appeared in FLASH #225 (although we didn't learn their names until ALL-FLASH #1). Their mom is Linda Park-West, created by William Messner-Loebs and Greg LaRoque, who first appeared in FLASH #28.
Pg. 30:
Zoom showed up in DC UNIVERSE ZERO, so I'm sort of wondering what took him this long. His deal is that he "challenges" heroes to make them better... although he tends to be pretty homicidal about it.
*****
Looks like, thanks to the FC #3 delay, I probably won't be posting here again until August 6 or so. In the meantime, if you happen to be in San Diego for Comic-Con International, why not come by one of my panels? I'll be moderating six of 'em:
July 24:
1-2: The Future of the Comics Pamphlet, Room 32AB (with Joe Keatinge, DCU 0 namesake Carr D'Angelo, and other luminaries to be announced)
6-7: The Comics Blogosphere, Room 32AB (with David Brothers, Jeff Lester, Laura Hudson and Tim Robins)
July 25:
5-6--Teaching Comics--Room 4 (with Phil Jimenez, Matt Silady, James Sturm and Steve Lieber)
July 26:
11:30-12:30: Image Comics/Tori Amos--Room 6B (with Tori herself and a cast of thousands)
2:00-3:00: Lettering Roundtable--Room 8 (with Todd Klein, John Roshell, Tom Orzechowski and Jared K. Fletcher)
4:30-5:30: The Story of an Image--Room 4 (with Kim Deitch, Jim Woodring, Jim Ottaviani and Kyle Baker)
And, on Friday the 25th at 11:30, I'll be giving a talk called "Against a Canon of Comics" as part of the Comic Arts Conference in Room 30AB, and probably signing Reading Comics somewhere afterward.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Final Crisis: Requiem
I confess that this is the one announced-to-date issue in this entire project that made me think "let's just get this over with" before I'd even seen it. So... let's get this over with.
Pg. 2:
Clockwise from top left: Dr. Mid-Nite (I think), Wildcat with somebody or other behind him, Wonder Woman, Grace, Wonder Girl, Black Lightning, looks like Captain Marvel, Superman with somebody else behind him, Mr. Terrific, Firestorm, Hawkgirl, Booster Gold, Starman, Plastic Man, Bulleteer (who never to my knowledge even met J'onn), Green Arrow, Stargirl, Aquaman--
Wait a second! Aquaman's dead! What's he doing here??
--Anyway. Donna Troy, Starfire, Batman, somebody whose white legs I don't recognize, Red Arrow, Geo-Force, Flash/Wally West, Ion/Green Lantern/Kyle Rayner (who was alleged in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #1,000,000 to have been a key player in a moment in J'onn's life when "everything seemed darkest," although that issue also presents J'onn as being alive and having his consciousness unified with Mars 853 centuries in the future--but then again BOOSTER GOLD #1,000,000 just came out this week, so I'm assuming that future is still in play), Power Girl, Adam Strange, Supergirl, Hourman, Damage, a boot that appears to belong to Dr. Light/Kimiyo Hoshi, Blue Beetle, Sand, Zatanna comparing fishnets with Black Canary, Green Lantern/Alan Scott, Huntress, Red Tornado, Steel, Flash/Jay Garrick, Hawkman with somebody behind him I can't identify, a green boot that might well belong to Green Lantern/John Stewart, Cyclone, a totally unidentifiable figure, Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, Vixen, Nightwing and Robin with Beast Boy and Raven behind them, Metamorpho. [Thanks to Adan and Don MacPherson for correcting some of my more egregious errors.]
Moving on--
Pg. 4:
A flashback to FC #1, obviously. But there's still a missing bit of information here: what led up to this, to recap, was that J'onn went to the prison planet in SALVATION RUN to see what was going on, disguised as Blockbuster; he saved Catwoman's life (in her own series), for which she repaid him by betraying him to Luthor; Luthor imprisoned him in a flaming cage, then left him behind when he brought everyone else back to Earth; and J'onn disappeared via boom tube in JLA #21. Who called up the boom tube and delivered him to Effigy and Dr. Light? And if that was Libra, what does he need Effigy and Dr. Light for?
Pg. 7:
Yeah, I didn't like that new uniform either.
Pg. 8:
Panel 3: The stretchy guy at left is the Elongated Man, who is also presently dead.
Pg. 10:
Panel 1: I guess he really is a "hairy-chested love god"!
Pg. 13:
"Malacandran": Martians call Mars "Ma'aleca'andra," as in "Malecandra" from C.S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet. "I know how it all ends": might that be some kind of reference to DC ONE MILLION?
Pp. 14-15:
I see that Superman is talking to himself again, and that he's still forgetting his participation in THE DEATH OF THE NEW GODS. And perhaps he should have kept a closer eye on Lois, you know?
The invisible chick in the bottom tier is Gypsy, created by Gerry Conway and Chuck Patton, who first appeared in 1984's JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA ANNUAL #2--one of J'onn's teammates from the mid-'80s "Justice League Detroit" era; after her own death, she was resurrected thanks to J'onn's intervention with his god H'ronmeer in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #12. And you thought Superman was a "proactive God"! Squashua points out that she's a human/Martian hybrid.
Pg. 17:
The Rose Center for Earth and Space exists in the real world, believe it or not.
Pg. 18:
Wait, so they kill J'onn in Central City (which I think is generally considered to be in the Kansas City sort of area) and then transport his body to New York City just so they can staple it to a model of Mars in the Hayden Planetarium? Seems like kind of an excessive gesture.
Pg. 19:
I'm betting all the framed pictures in panel 2 are redrawn versions of old JLA covers; anyone want to identify them? UPDATED: top row is something that looks fairly unidentifiable, JUSTICE LEAGUE #1, and a variation on THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #28; lower row is something that's sort-of-but-not-really like JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #258, and two I can't identify, although something keeps calling Darwyn Cooke to my mind in conjunction with the middle one. [Thanks to Don MacPherson again.]
Pg. 21:
A Turkey Tearror Broadhead is a very nasty-looking (but reportedly sort of ineffectual) arrowhead for shooting turkeys with a bow.
"My Favorite Martian."
Pg. 22:
Oh Jesus, Batman's a Skrull too?
"Green and white tore each other apart": the division between Green and White Martians first came up in the first Justice League series (as Garrie Burr points out), and reappeared in the early issues of Grant Morrison's mid-'90s run on JLA.
H'ronmeer was first mentioned in the 1988 MARTIAN MANHUNTER miniseries, I think. Ma'alefa'ak turned up in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #0, ten years later. These five pages are more or less a recap of the John Ostrander MM series.
Pg. 24:
The Josh Johnstone thing happened in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #20. The Bronze Wraith and the rest of the Justice Experience first appeared in CHASE #6.
Pg. 27:
The Fernus business happened in JLA #84-89, which Mahnke drew.
Pg. 28:
J'onn's fondness for Oreos was a running gag in the Keith Giffen JUSTICE LEAGUE series. They became "Chocos" as of MARTIAN MANHUNTER #24, an issue that is yet another example of the plural form of "Revelations."
Jeff notes that the Spectre moved J'onn's ancestral home to a pyramid in the Gobi desert--where there aren't actually pyramids, so I bet it won't be missed now that Superman's re-relocated it to Mars--in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #23.
Pg. 30:
Interestingly, the first Martian Manhunter story that Peter J. Tomasi wrote--back in SHOWCASE '95 #9--was also on the theme of death reuniting people with their loved ones.
*****
In other news, FINAL CRISIS #3 has officially been bumped to August 6. Congratulations, everyone who guessed that issue in the contest! Email me at finalcrisis [at-sign-goes-here] douglaswolk period com, and we'll figure out what your prize is.
Pg. 2:
Clockwise from top left: Dr. Mid-Nite (I think), Wildcat with somebody or other behind him, Wonder Woman, Grace, Wonder Girl, Black Lightning, looks like Captain Marvel, Superman with somebody else behind him, Mr. Terrific, Firestorm, Hawkgirl, Booster Gold, Starman, Plastic Man, Bulleteer (who never to my knowledge even met J'onn), Green Arrow, Stargirl, Aquaman--
Wait a second! Aquaman's dead! What's he doing here??
--Anyway. Donna Troy, Starfire, Batman, somebody whose white legs I don't recognize, Red Arrow, Geo-Force, Flash/Wally West, Ion/Green Lantern/Kyle Rayner (who was alleged in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #1,000,000 to have been a key player in a moment in J'onn's life when "everything seemed darkest," although that issue also presents J'onn as being alive and having his consciousness unified with Mars 853 centuries in the future--but then again BOOSTER GOLD #1,000,000 just came out this week, so I'm assuming that future is still in play), Power Girl, Adam Strange, Supergirl, Hourman, Damage, a boot that appears to belong to Dr. Light/Kimiyo Hoshi, Blue Beetle, Sand, Zatanna comparing fishnets with Black Canary, Green Lantern/Alan Scott, Huntress, Red Tornado, Steel, Flash/Jay Garrick, Hawkman with somebody behind him I can't identify, a green boot that might well belong to Green Lantern/John Stewart, Cyclone, a totally unidentifiable figure, Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, Vixen, Nightwing and Robin with Beast Boy and Raven behind them, Metamorpho. [Thanks to Adan and Don MacPherson for correcting some of my more egregious errors.]
Moving on--
Pg. 4:
A flashback to FC #1, obviously. But there's still a missing bit of information here: what led up to this, to recap, was that J'onn went to the prison planet in SALVATION RUN to see what was going on, disguised as Blockbuster; he saved Catwoman's life (in her own series), for which she repaid him by betraying him to Luthor; Luthor imprisoned him in a flaming cage, then left him behind when he brought everyone else back to Earth; and J'onn disappeared via boom tube in JLA #21. Who called up the boom tube and delivered him to Effigy and Dr. Light? And if that was Libra, what does he need Effigy and Dr. Light for?
Pg. 7:
Yeah, I didn't like that new uniform either.
Pg. 8:
Panel 3: The stretchy guy at left is the Elongated Man, who is also presently dead.
Pg. 10:
Panel 1: I guess he really is a "hairy-chested love god"!
Pg. 13:
"Malacandran": Martians call Mars "Ma'aleca'andra," as in "Malecandra" from C.S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet. "I know how it all ends": might that be some kind of reference to DC ONE MILLION?
Pp. 14-15:
I see that Superman is talking to himself again, and that he's still forgetting his participation in THE DEATH OF THE NEW GODS. And perhaps he should have kept a closer eye on Lois, you know?
The invisible chick in the bottom tier is Gypsy, created by Gerry Conway and Chuck Patton, who first appeared in 1984's JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA ANNUAL #2--one of J'onn's teammates from the mid-'80s "Justice League Detroit" era; after her own death, she was resurrected thanks to J'onn's intervention with his god H'ronmeer in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #12. And you thought Superman was a "proactive God"! Squashua points out that she's a human/Martian hybrid.
Pg. 17:
The Rose Center for Earth and Space exists in the real world, believe it or not.
Pg. 18:
Wait, so they kill J'onn in Central City (which I think is generally considered to be in the Kansas City sort of area) and then transport his body to New York City just so they can staple it to a model of Mars in the Hayden Planetarium? Seems like kind of an excessive gesture.
Pg. 19:
I'm betting all the framed pictures in panel 2 are redrawn versions of old JLA covers; anyone want to identify them? UPDATED: top row is something that looks fairly unidentifiable, JUSTICE LEAGUE #1, and a variation on THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #28; lower row is something that's sort-of-but-not-really like JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #258, and two I can't identify, although something keeps calling Darwyn Cooke to my mind in conjunction with the middle one. [Thanks to Don MacPherson again.]
Pg. 21:
A Turkey Tearror Broadhead is a very nasty-looking (but reportedly sort of ineffectual) arrowhead for shooting turkeys with a bow.
"My Favorite Martian."
Pg. 22:
Oh Jesus, Batman's a Skrull too?
"Green and white tore each other apart": the division between Green and White Martians first came up in the first Justice League series (as Garrie Burr points out), and reappeared in the early issues of Grant Morrison's mid-'90s run on JLA.
H'ronmeer was first mentioned in the 1988 MARTIAN MANHUNTER miniseries, I think. Ma'alefa'ak turned up in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #0, ten years later. These five pages are more or less a recap of the John Ostrander MM series.
Pg. 24:
The Josh Johnstone thing happened in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #20. The Bronze Wraith and the rest of the Justice Experience first appeared in CHASE #6.
Pg. 27:
The Fernus business happened in JLA #84-89, which Mahnke drew.
Pg. 28:
J'onn's fondness for Oreos was a running gag in the Keith Giffen JUSTICE LEAGUE series. They became "Chocos" as of MARTIAN MANHUNTER #24, an issue that is yet another example of the plural form of "Revelations."
Jeff notes that the Spectre moved J'onn's ancestral home to a pyramid in the Gobi desert--where there aren't actually pyramids, so I bet it won't be missed now that Superman's re-relocated it to Mars--in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #23.
Pg. 30:
Interestingly, the first Martian Manhunter story that Peter J. Tomasi wrote--back in SHOWCASE '95 #9--was also on the theme of death reuniting people with their loved ones.
*****
In other news, FINAL CRISIS #3 has officially been bumped to August 6. Congratulations, everyone who guessed that issue in the contest! Email me at finalcrisis [at-sign-goes-here] douglaswolk period com, and we'll figure out what your prize is.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Final Crisis #2
Pg. 1:
None of these characters are anybody in particular, as far as I know, although most of them allude to various DC characters. I'm pretty amused by the Robin-logo bag slung over the jacket that reprises the cover of BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE. And I'm not sure what to make of the young woman in a variation on Mary Marvel's costume having exactly the same pose as the guy in the variation on Midnight's costume standing a few feet behind her.
Somebody with better Japanese than mine want to translate the signs? [ETA: See severefun's comment. Thank you!]
ETA: David Uzumeri points out--and, like him, I can't believe I didn't catch this--the allusion to the cover of 1966's FLASH #163. (See also 2004's DC COMICS PRESENTS: THE FLASH.)
Pp. 2-3:
Big Science Action was fleshed out a bit in the FC Sketchbook, but in the top panel, left to right, we're seeing Boss Bosozuko, Rising Sun (the only member of the BSA not created by Morrison: he first appeared in SUPER FRIENDS #8 in 1977, and was created by E. Nelson Bridwell and Ramona Fradon), Junior Waveman, Hammersuit Zero-X, Ultimon (flying), a monster I'm going to assume is Fushikuraje, Cosmo Racer, and Goraiko (who first appeared in JLA #26).
(I also note that the description of BSA in the FC Sketchbook mentions Sunfire. Whoops: wrong company!)
Note the rays-of-rising-sun motif of the page layout. The members of Super Young Team are identified in the Sketchbook too: in the lower left-hand panel, clockwise from lower left, we're seeing Shiny Happy Aquazon, Shy Crazy Lolita Canary, Most Excellent Super Bat, Big Atomic Lantern Boy and Well-Spoken Sonic Lightning Flash.
Pg. 4:
Sonny Sumo, created by Jack Kirby, first appeared in FOREVER PEOPLE #4 in 1971. (God, what great cover copy.) He was last seen a few issues later, when he was lost in time; apparently he got found again. [ETA: Or maybe he didn't. See this intriguing Morrison interview.] Interestingly, Sonny also contained part of the Anti-Life Equation. I don't know of any earlier references to Megayakuza, although obviously it's an allusion to the Yakuza, the Japanese organized crime group.
Pg. 7:
And, once again, fire is associated with contact with gods. This version of Mister Miracle is Shilo Norman, another Jack Kirby creation, who first appeared in MISTER MIRACLE #15 in 1973; he was the star of SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE.
Pg. 8:
Mother Box--or Motherboxxx, as SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE put it in a nod to OutKast--is a device that appeared throughout Kirby's Fourth World comics; they can heal the injured, and they make a "ping ping ping" sound. Sonny Sumo managed to get the Forever People's Mother Box back to them in Kirby's story.
Pg. 9:
Panel 1: Nix Uotan is reading through the dictionary, and some of the words he's reading have Kirbyverse resonance. "Bedazzle" could be a reference to Lightray; "bedlam" to Baron Bedlam; "cathexis" just has to do with the investment of emotional energy in a particular idea or thing (like... comics); "cathode" is an electrical term that might allude to Mother Box, although that's stretching it. ETA: Chris Harrison points out that The Cathexis are a sixth-dimensional race that turned up in JLA #52!
Panel 2: He's riding the L train between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Hey, ex-Monitor, what's on your iPod?
Panel 3: Big Belly Burger is a chain with a longstanding history at DC; it first appeared in ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #441 in 1988.
Panel 4: "Finding the magic word"--and systematically going through possibilities--suggests the Marvel Family, and specifically the business with Black Adam trying to find his magic word at the end of 52.
Panel 5: I'm guessing the Overman on the lower sheet is some kind of scary alternate-world Superman, with a lightning-bolt-as-S logo. (ETA: There's a similar creepy übermensch-type, also called Overman, who appeared in this Morrison-written ANIMAL MAN storyline from 1990. Look on the bottom of that cover, and you'll see FLASH #163 too... also: Overgirl! And the screaming face looks a bit like the J'onn-on-fire drawing from the FC SKETCHBOOK.) On the top sheet, the hydrogen-atom-on-forehead thing suggests Captain Atom by way of Dr. Manhattan. Not sure which Monitor young Nix is drawing. Of the possible magic words here, "criminal" is pretty broad, "crinkle" doesn't have a specific resonance I can think of, and "crimson" might allude to the Crimson Avenger, one of the very earliest DC superheroes, or just to the "red skies" effect of a Crisis--back to the "red and black" motif. (Thanks, Gary.) (ETA: squashua points out that he hasn't quite gotten to "crisis" yet.)
Pg. 10:
The guy Turpin is pounding to hell is the Mad Hatter, created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger (and obviously modeled on the Lewis Carroll character), who first appeared in BATMAN #49 in 1948.
Pg. 11:
Panel 1: "President Horne": Jonathan Horne first appeared, I think, in SUPERMAN SECRET FILES & ORIGINS 2004, and was created by Geoff and Jeremy Johns and Jim Fern. The recent history of the DCU Oval Office is sort of a mess: Lex Luthor was elected in 2000, but impeached in 2004, and replaced briefly by Pete Ross, who pulled out of that year's race and was replaced (successfully) by Horne. The next election--maybe the DCU has Presidential elections every two years?--was won by an evil robot called Gonzo posing as Senator Frank Knight, per UNCLE SAM AND THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS, but Horne seems to have ended up back in the office by some kind of "whoops we elected an evil robot by mistake" clause.
Panel 4: Note the combination of the broken mirror and Turpin's forehead. Remind you of anyone?
Pg. 12:
Panel 1: Booster Gold with Skeets, Mr. Terrific, Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, Zatanna, Vixen, Ion, Red Tornado, Stargirl, Wonder Woman.
Panel 2: Green Lantern/John Stewart (providing air for everyone, evidently, since this is happening on Mars), Wildcat, Black Lightning, Doctor Mid-Nite, Hourman, Superman, Green Lantern/Alan Scott, Geo-Force, Black Canary, Flash.
Panel 3: Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Green Arrow, Firestorm, Metamorpho, Batman, Red Arrow, and... Power Girl, maybe?
"Pray for a resurrection": no superhero seems to stay dead forever, of course, and as noted below, we've already seen J'onn alive in the distant future.
It's sort of an open question which Batman we're seeing in this issue, given recent events in his own title, but his little "Hh" on pg. 20 suggests that it's probably still Bruce Wayne.
Pg. 13:
The growling guy in panel 3 is Clayface--specifically the first Clayface, Basil Karlo, created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, who first appeared in DETECTIVE COMICS #40 in 1940.
Pg. 14:
The end of this page is a rather Alan Moore-like "dun dun daaaaah" moment, don't you think?
Pg. 15:
Panel 2: J'onn impersonated Blockbuster in SALVATION RUN.
Panel 3: Alpha Lantern Kraken first appeared in GREEN LANTERN #25 last year; she's one of the Green Lanterns of Space Sector 38. Relevant panels on her background appear here; the short version is that before becoming an Alpha Lantern, she rescued her partner, Raker Qarrigat, "from Darkseid's clutches," and is rumored to have been "targeted by the Female Furies of Apokolips." (Unrelatedly, it occurs to me that the Alpha Lanterns might have something to do with the Alpha Bullets from FOREVER PEOPLE #7--although it might just be alpha vs. omega symbolism at work in both places.)
Hal is responsible for Space Sector 2814, which does indeed include the city-in-space Heliopolis, seen in GREEN LANTERN #166 in 1983, as well as M'Brai, seen in GREEN LANTERN #153 in 1982, and Athmoora, seen in GREEN LANTERN #16 in 1962. [Thanks for the clarification, DRMOUSE2814.]
Pg. 16:
Panel 4: Commenter fcfanatic points out the Kirby krackle where Wonder Woman touches Kraken, as well as the panels on pages 18 and 21 where other characters touch her.
Pg. 17:
Opto309V first appeared in 2007's 52 #41. [Thanks for the clarification, t67443 and DRMOUSE2814.]
"Theotoxic" is quite a neologism! Per Kirby, "radion" is the substance New Gods are vulnerable to. You know, like "frostonite." Curiously, Radion is also the name of a DC villain who was most recently seen in Geoff Johns & Kurt Busiek's "Up, Up and Away!" storyline in SUPERMAN and ACTION COMICS, hired by (fellow Kirby-creation) Intergang to kill Clark Kent. I don't know if there's a connection, but there could be.
Pg. 18:
"Say goodbye to your eyes": I have no idea if this relates somehow to the business with Alan Scott's eyes, Adam Strange's eyes, and the Emerald Eye of Ekron in 52, but the scene's confusing enough that I'm grasping for anything. And it's very strange that we don't see the ring on John's right middle finger in panel 4--and that it's so mysterious about who's attacking John--given page 21.
Pg. 19:
"No Lantern escapes the Alpha Lanterns": a riff on "no man escapes the Manhunters," the slogan of the robot crimefighters created by the Guardians before the Green Lanterns--see JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #140, as well as the about-to-be-reprinted MILLENNIUM miniseries, for details.
Pg. 20:
Panel 2: The Purple Ray is Amazon healing technology, invented by Wonder Woman in her very first appearance, ALL STAR COMICS #8. Its cousin, the Purple Death Ray, introduced in INFINITE CRISIS #3, was subsequently redacted from the collected edition of that series...
Panel 5: Hal Jordan's possession by Parallax happened in GREEN LANTERN #50 in 1994.
Pg. 21:
Panel 1: I believe this is what one of Barbelith's commenters referred to as a "NUH MUH BRAIN!!!!!!" moment. Kraken's got John's ring imprinted in her hand (apparently he does have a hell of a right hook), although his ring seemed to have disappeared immediately before he hit his assailant? What?
Pg. 22:
Kraken's "a new plaything for Granny" echoes Superbat's "Spirit into toy!" on pg. 3.
Pg. 23:
In the background of the first panel: the Atomic Knights, riding their Dalmatians. The Knights were created by John Broome and Murphy Anderson, and first appeared in STRANGE ADVENTURES #117 in 1960. I love them, and wish DC would just reprint all of their stories already. (There was supposed to be a SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE GREAT DISASTER FEATURING THE ATOMIC KNIGHTS volume published last year, with all of their stories--which centered on the aftermath of a nuclear war in 1986--plus HERCULES UNBOUND in its entirety, various "The Day After Doomsday" shorts from horror and war titles, etc.; it was yanked from the schedule for unexplained reasons.) This incarnation of the Knights first appeared in THE BATTLE FOR BLÜDHAVEN in 2006.
[ETA: The Morrison Newsarama interview notes that the giant dogs also imply "an immediate connection to the Dog Cavalry of Apokolips."]
Pg. 24:
"The air out there": maybe Blüdhaven still smells like the remnants of Chemo. Has Turpin's son been mentioned before? What matters here, actually, is that Kalibak is Darkseid's son... which means that Turpin is now a host for Darkseid. (Note his face.) And the place where all this is happening is Command D.
In Jack Kirby's original KAMANDI #1 in 1972, "Command D" was the bunker where Kamandi was found, giving him his name. As of the end of THE BATTLE FOR BLÜDHAVEN, there was a Command D located under the ruins of Blüdhaven. There's also a bunch of Kamandi stuff in COUNTDOWN, but I have no idea if that's even relevant to FC, so until I see otherwise, the heck with it.
Pg. 25:
Simyan and Mokkari, created by Jack Kirby, first appeared in SUPERMAN'S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN #135 in 1971--the original "Evil Factory" story. Who's the tiger on the table? Morrison's said that Tawky Tawny is involved in FC, but this looks more like one of the Tiger-Men from KAMANDI; we know from 52 that Intergang is in the business of making beast-men. [ETA: The Morrison interview at Newsarama confirms that this isn't Tawky Tawny; it's Kalibak's new body.]
Pg. 26:
Perry White, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, made his first comics appearance in SUPERMAN #7 in 1940 (he'd appeared on the radio show The Adventures of Superman first). Siegel and Shuster also created Jimmy Olsen (who was also on radio first, then in SUPERMAN #13 in 1941) and Lois Lane (who goes all the way back to 1938's ACTION COMICS #1).
"Hamburger Hegemony." Ha!
Pg. 27:
Sundoller Coffee was first mentioned in 52 #2, I believe. You'd think that somebody who was faster than a speeding bullet could catch on to what was happening with an explosion like this before it did much damage...
Pg. 28:
Panel 1: The Flash on the left is Wally West, created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, who first appeared in THE FLASH #110 in 1959 and became the Flash in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #12 in 1986. The one on the right is Jay Garrick, created by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert, who first appeared in FLASH COMICS #1 in 1940. Wouldn't the relevant delay here be load time?
Panel 3: Looks like I was right about Twisters (or Duele Dlite? Perhaps it's got both names!) being the former Central City Community Center, not that it was that tough a deduction--see DC Universe 0 notes.
Panel 5: "I hate anything to do with time in all its forms": well, Jay is artificially youthful thanks to an encounter with Ian Karkull in ALL-STAR SQUADRON ANNUAL #3, but he's still a fairly old man. (And maybe this is to set up an opposition to Barry, who did rather a lot of time traveling.)
Pg. 30:
And, as the issue began with "Stop!," it ends with "RUN!" The guy hotfooting it away from the Black Racer is the second Flash, Barry Allen, whose return has been teased since DCU 0. This is also the fulfillment of the prophecy in Johns' FLASH comics that Wally would see Barry again three more times, on the three worst days of his life; the second was FLASH #225, and evidently this is the third. Not to mention the payoff for the "starter's bullet" line in DCU 0, and maybe for its red-and-black imagery, as well.
Comments, corrections, etc. are welcome. Those who are as trainspottery as I am may enjoy looking at J.G. Jones' original black-and-white art for #1, at this site.
None of these characters are anybody in particular, as far as I know, although most of them allude to various DC characters. I'm pretty amused by the Robin-logo bag slung over the jacket that reprises the cover of BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE. And I'm not sure what to make of the young woman in a variation on Mary Marvel's costume having exactly the same pose as the guy in the variation on Midnight's costume standing a few feet behind her.
Somebody with better Japanese than mine want to translate the signs? [ETA: See severefun's comment. Thank you!]
ETA: David Uzumeri points out--and, like him, I can't believe I didn't catch this--the allusion to the cover of 1966's FLASH #163. (See also 2004's DC COMICS PRESENTS: THE FLASH.)
Pp. 2-3:
Big Science Action was fleshed out a bit in the FC Sketchbook, but in the top panel, left to right, we're seeing Boss Bosozuko, Rising Sun (the only member of the BSA not created by Morrison: he first appeared in SUPER FRIENDS #8 in 1977, and was created by E. Nelson Bridwell and Ramona Fradon), Junior Waveman, Hammersuit Zero-X, Ultimon (flying), a monster I'm going to assume is Fushikuraje, Cosmo Racer, and Goraiko (who first appeared in JLA #26).
(I also note that the description of BSA in the FC Sketchbook mentions Sunfire. Whoops: wrong company!)
Note the rays-of-rising-sun motif of the page layout. The members of Super Young Team are identified in the Sketchbook too: in the lower left-hand panel, clockwise from lower left, we're seeing Shiny Happy Aquazon, Shy Crazy Lolita Canary, Most Excellent Super Bat, Big Atomic Lantern Boy and Well-Spoken Sonic Lightning Flash.
Pg. 4:
Sonny Sumo, created by Jack Kirby, first appeared in FOREVER PEOPLE #4 in 1971. (God, what great cover copy.) He was last seen a few issues later, when he was lost in time; apparently he got found again. [ETA: Or maybe he didn't. See this intriguing Morrison interview.] Interestingly, Sonny also contained part of the Anti-Life Equation. I don't know of any earlier references to Megayakuza, although obviously it's an allusion to the Yakuza, the Japanese organized crime group.
Pg. 7:
And, once again, fire is associated with contact with gods. This version of Mister Miracle is Shilo Norman, another Jack Kirby creation, who first appeared in MISTER MIRACLE #15 in 1973; he was the star of SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE.
Pg. 8:
Mother Box--or Motherboxxx, as SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE put it in a nod to OutKast--is a device that appeared throughout Kirby's Fourth World comics; they can heal the injured, and they make a "ping ping ping" sound. Sonny Sumo managed to get the Forever People's Mother Box back to them in Kirby's story.
Pg. 9:
Panel 1: Nix Uotan is reading through the dictionary, and some of the words he's reading have Kirbyverse resonance. "Bedazzle" could be a reference to Lightray; "bedlam" to Baron Bedlam; "cathexis" just has to do with the investment of emotional energy in a particular idea or thing (like... comics); "cathode" is an electrical term that might allude to Mother Box, although that's stretching it. ETA: Chris Harrison points out that The Cathexis are a sixth-dimensional race that turned up in JLA #52!
Panel 2: He's riding the L train between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Hey, ex-Monitor, what's on your iPod?
Panel 3: Big Belly Burger is a chain with a longstanding history at DC; it first appeared in ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #441 in 1988.
Panel 4: "Finding the magic word"--and systematically going through possibilities--suggests the Marvel Family, and specifically the business with Black Adam trying to find his magic word at the end of 52.
Panel 5: I'm guessing the Overman on the lower sheet is some kind of scary alternate-world Superman, with a lightning-bolt-as-S logo. (ETA: There's a similar creepy übermensch-type, also called Overman, who appeared in this Morrison-written ANIMAL MAN storyline from 1990. Look on the bottom of that cover, and you'll see FLASH #163 too... also: Overgirl! And the screaming face looks a bit like the J'onn-on-fire drawing from the FC SKETCHBOOK.) On the top sheet, the hydrogen-atom-on-forehead thing suggests Captain Atom by way of Dr. Manhattan. Not sure which Monitor young Nix is drawing. Of the possible magic words here, "criminal" is pretty broad, "crinkle" doesn't have a specific resonance I can think of, and "crimson" might allude to the Crimson Avenger, one of the very earliest DC superheroes, or just to the "red skies" effect of a Crisis--back to the "red and black" motif. (Thanks, Gary.) (ETA: squashua points out that he hasn't quite gotten to "crisis" yet.)
Pg. 10:
The guy Turpin is pounding to hell is the Mad Hatter, created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger (and obviously modeled on the Lewis Carroll character), who first appeared in BATMAN #49 in 1948.
Pg. 11:
Panel 1: "President Horne": Jonathan Horne first appeared, I think, in SUPERMAN SECRET FILES & ORIGINS 2004, and was created by Geoff and Jeremy Johns and Jim Fern. The recent history of the DCU Oval Office is sort of a mess: Lex Luthor was elected in 2000, but impeached in 2004, and replaced briefly by Pete Ross, who pulled out of that year's race and was replaced (successfully) by Horne. The next election--maybe the DCU has Presidential elections every two years?--was won by an evil robot called Gonzo posing as Senator Frank Knight, per UNCLE SAM AND THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS, but Horne seems to have ended up back in the office by some kind of "whoops we elected an evil robot by mistake" clause.
Panel 4: Note the combination of the broken mirror and Turpin's forehead. Remind you of anyone?
Pg. 12:
Panel 1: Booster Gold with Skeets, Mr. Terrific, Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, Zatanna, Vixen, Ion, Red Tornado, Stargirl, Wonder Woman.
Panel 2: Green Lantern/John Stewart (providing air for everyone, evidently, since this is happening on Mars), Wildcat, Black Lightning, Doctor Mid-Nite, Hourman, Superman, Green Lantern/Alan Scott, Geo-Force, Black Canary, Flash.
Panel 3: Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Green Arrow, Firestorm, Metamorpho, Batman, Red Arrow, and... Power Girl, maybe?
"Pray for a resurrection": no superhero seems to stay dead forever, of course, and as noted below, we've already seen J'onn alive in the distant future.
It's sort of an open question which Batman we're seeing in this issue, given recent events in his own title, but his little "Hh" on pg. 20 suggests that it's probably still Bruce Wayne.
Pg. 13:
The growling guy in panel 3 is Clayface--specifically the first Clayface, Basil Karlo, created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, who first appeared in DETECTIVE COMICS #40 in 1940.
Pg. 14:
The end of this page is a rather Alan Moore-like "dun dun daaaaah" moment, don't you think?
Pg. 15:
Panel 2: J'onn impersonated Blockbuster in SALVATION RUN.
Panel 3: Alpha Lantern Kraken first appeared in GREEN LANTERN #25 last year; she's one of the Green Lanterns of Space Sector 38. Relevant panels on her background appear here; the short version is that before becoming an Alpha Lantern, she rescued her partner, Raker Qarrigat, "from Darkseid's clutches," and is rumored to have been "targeted by the Female Furies of Apokolips." (Unrelatedly, it occurs to me that the Alpha Lanterns might have something to do with the Alpha Bullets from FOREVER PEOPLE #7--although it might just be alpha vs. omega symbolism at work in both places.)
Hal is responsible for Space Sector 2814, which does indeed include the city-in-space Heliopolis, seen in GREEN LANTERN #166 in 1983, as well as M'Brai, seen in GREEN LANTERN #153 in 1982, and Athmoora, seen in GREEN LANTERN #16 in 1962. [Thanks for the clarification, DRMOUSE2814.]
Pg. 16:
Panel 4: Commenter fcfanatic points out the Kirby krackle where Wonder Woman touches Kraken, as well as the panels on pages 18 and 21 where other characters touch her.
Pg. 17:
Opto309V first appeared in 2007's 52 #41. [Thanks for the clarification, t67443 and DRMOUSE2814.]
"Theotoxic" is quite a neologism! Per Kirby, "radion" is the substance New Gods are vulnerable to. You know, like "frostonite." Curiously, Radion is also the name of a DC villain who was most recently seen in Geoff Johns & Kurt Busiek's "Up, Up and Away!" storyline in SUPERMAN and ACTION COMICS, hired by (fellow Kirby-creation) Intergang to kill Clark Kent. I don't know if there's a connection, but there could be.
Pg. 18:
"Say goodbye to your eyes": I have no idea if this relates somehow to the business with Alan Scott's eyes, Adam Strange's eyes, and the Emerald Eye of Ekron in 52, but the scene's confusing enough that I'm grasping for anything. And it's very strange that we don't see the ring on John's right middle finger in panel 4--and that it's so mysterious about who's attacking John--given page 21.
Pg. 19:
"No Lantern escapes the Alpha Lanterns": a riff on "no man escapes the Manhunters," the slogan of the robot crimefighters created by the Guardians before the Green Lanterns--see JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #140, as well as the about-to-be-reprinted MILLENNIUM miniseries, for details.
Pg. 20:
Panel 2: The Purple Ray is Amazon healing technology, invented by Wonder Woman in her very first appearance, ALL STAR COMICS #8. Its cousin, the Purple Death Ray, introduced in INFINITE CRISIS #3, was subsequently redacted from the collected edition of that series...
Panel 5: Hal Jordan's possession by Parallax happened in GREEN LANTERN #50 in 1994.
Pg. 21:
Panel 1: I believe this is what one of Barbelith's commenters referred to as a "NUH MUH BRAIN!!!!!!" moment. Kraken's got John's ring imprinted in her hand (apparently he does have a hell of a right hook), although his ring seemed to have disappeared immediately before he hit his assailant? What?
Pg. 22:
Kraken's "a new plaything for Granny" echoes Superbat's "Spirit into toy!" on pg. 3.
Pg. 23:
In the background of the first panel: the Atomic Knights, riding their Dalmatians. The Knights were created by John Broome and Murphy Anderson, and first appeared in STRANGE ADVENTURES #117 in 1960. I love them, and wish DC would just reprint all of their stories already. (There was supposed to be a SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE GREAT DISASTER FEATURING THE ATOMIC KNIGHTS volume published last year, with all of their stories--which centered on the aftermath of a nuclear war in 1986--plus HERCULES UNBOUND in its entirety, various "The Day After Doomsday" shorts from horror and war titles, etc.; it was yanked from the schedule for unexplained reasons.) This incarnation of the Knights first appeared in THE BATTLE FOR BLÜDHAVEN in 2006.
[ETA: The Morrison Newsarama interview notes that the giant dogs also imply "an immediate connection to the Dog Cavalry of Apokolips."]
Pg. 24:
"The air out there": maybe Blüdhaven still smells like the remnants of Chemo. Has Turpin's son been mentioned before? What matters here, actually, is that Kalibak is Darkseid's son... which means that Turpin is now a host for Darkseid. (Note his face.) And the place where all this is happening is Command D.
In Jack Kirby's original KAMANDI #1 in 1972, "Command D" was the bunker where Kamandi was found, giving him his name. As of the end of THE BATTLE FOR BLÜDHAVEN, there was a Command D located under the ruins of Blüdhaven. There's also a bunch of Kamandi stuff in COUNTDOWN, but I have no idea if that's even relevant to FC, so until I see otherwise, the heck with it.
Pg. 25:
Simyan and Mokkari, created by Jack Kirby, first appeared in SUPERMAN'S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN #135 in 1971--the original "Evil Factory" story. Who's the tiger on the table? Morrison's said that Tawky Tawny is involved in FC, but this looks more like one of the Tiger-Men from KAMANDI; we know from 52 that Intergang is in the business of making beast-men. [ETA: The Morrison interview at Newsarama confirms that this isn't Tawky Tawny; it's Kalibak's new body.]
Pg. 26:
Perry White, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, made his first comics appearance in SUPERMAN #7 in 1940 (he'd appeared on the radio show The Adventures of Superman first). Siegel and Shuster also created Jimmy Olsen (who was also on radio first, then in SUPERMAN #13 in 1941) and Lois Lane (who goes all the way back to 1938's ACTION COMICS #1).
"Hamburger Hegemony." Ha!
Pg. 27:
Sundoller Coffee was first mentioned in 52 #2, I believe. You'd think that somebody who was faster than a speeding bullet could catch on to what was happening with an explosion like this before it did much damage...
Pg. 28:
Panel 1: The Flash on the left is Wally West, created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, who first appeared in THE FLASH #110 in 1959 and became the Flash in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #12 in 1986. The one on the right is Jay Garrick, created by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert, who first appeared in FLASH COMICS #1 in 1940. Wouldn't the relevant delay here be load time?
Panel 3: Looks like I was right about Twisters (or Duele Dlite? Perhaps it's got both names!) being the former Central City Community Center, not that it was that tough a deduction--see DC Universe 0 notes.
Panel 5: "I hate anything to do with time in all its forms": well, Jay is artificially youthful thanks to an encounter with Ian Karkull in ALL-STAR SQUADRON ANNUAL #3, but he's still a fairly old man. (And maybe this is to set up an opposition to Barry, who did rather a lot of time traveling.)
Pg. 30:
And, as the issue began with "Stop!," it ends with "RUN!" The guy hotfooting it away from the Black Racer is the second Flash, Barry Allen, whose return has been teased since DCU 0. This is also the fulfillment of the prophecy in Johns' FLASH comics that Wally would see Barry again three more times, on the three worst days of his life; the second was FLASH #225, and evidently this is the third. Not to mention the payoff for the "starter's bullet" line in DCU 0, and maybe for its red-and-black imagery, as well.
Comments, corrections, etc. are welcome. Those who are as trainspottery as I am may enjoy looking at J.G. Jones' original black-and-white art for #1, at this site.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
A note on Fourth World continuity, plus a contest update
There's been a good deal of chatter about this Grant Morrison interview, in which he addresses the inconsistencies between FC, COUNTDOWN and THE DEATH OF THE NEW GODS. (Worth reading: the Funnybook Babylon commentary, here, and its antecedent, here.) As Morrison tells it, the first issue of FC was written before the other two series were conceived of; the idea was that the New Gods would be off-panel and unlike hepatitis B for a few years (aside from the avatars that popped up in the SEVEN SOLDIERS project), so it'd be a shock to see Orion turn up dead in a dumpster at the beginning of FC #1. TRINITY, as I understand, was initially going to be the weekly series that followed 52; then it was bumped for a year by COUNTDOWN, which was intended to get certain ducks in a row for FC and provide a dramatic build-up to it.
Which ducks? That's not clear, but the non-Fourth World threads we've seen from COUNTDOWN so far are basically just the Monitors in general, Nix Uotan and Solomon in particular, the destruction of Earth-51, and the new background for Kamandi. Evidently, somebody in a position of authority radically misunderstood the premises of the project the whole line has been building up to since at least SEVEN SOLDIERS and 52 (I have a feeling that Montoya finding the Kirbytech gun in 52 #4 was one of the first major tremors of FC), and commissioned a 51-issue series and an 8-issue series to "set it up" in ways that directly contradict both FC and each other. The ducks are not just not in a row, they're randomly scattered across the multiverse. If DC is going to sell a complicated, serialized narrative on a week-to-week basis, it's entirely reasonable for readers to demand that it make sense on a week-to-week basis; it's a bad sign that the people reading the work have a clearer sense of how it's supposed to fit together than some of the people making the work.
Yes, the contradictions can be explained away with some difficulty, in a sort of No-Prize way, or simply ignored, as Morrison suggests. And it's worth remembering that the edges of Kirby's Fourth World canon were frayed from the start, and that by the time he wrote and drew the NEW GODS "conclusion" and The Hunger Dogs, there had already been a couple of other Fourth World series--not bad ones, either. There was a 1977 revival of MISTER MIRACLE, initially by Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers, later by Steve Gerber and Michael Golden. The New Gods first reappeared in 1976 in the last issue of 1ST ISSUE SPECIAL--don't ask--and then in a not-bad series by Gerry Conway and the late, great Don Newton that lasted eight issues before ducking into ADVENTURE COMICS for a couple of issues' worth of "the last battle" and "the end of the war of the New Gods". (It's always the end with this crew.) For that matter, one bit of Fourth World mythology that generally gets taken for granted--the Source Wall, seen throughout DOTNG--wasn't even Kirby's: it was introduced in the distinctly out-of-continuity X-MEN/TEEN TITANS one-shot.
(FC and its associated titles, in fact, are something like the third full-scale post-Kirby Fourth World revival. In 1988, there was Jim Starlin and Mike Mignola's COSMIC ODYSSEY miniseries [and the Forever People's six-issue miniseries by J.M. DeMatteis and Paris Cullins], followed by NEW GODS and MISTER MIRACLE series; both NEW GODS and MISTER MIRACLE reappeared in the mid-'90s, then effectively merged into JACK KIRBY'S FOURTH WORLD.)
Perhaps a less frustrating way to deal with the contradictions is not to try to explain them but to accept them as a pesky but integral part of the story, a sort of continuity koan. Continuity is at least sort of mutable--rarely more explicitly so than in Morrison's superhero comics. The prolegomenon to FINAL CRISIS is SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE, in which Shilo Norman's many alternate lives both do and don't happen. "Hypertime" is one way of putting it; another is to say that all stories are more or less true, but better stories, more satisfying stories, are more true in the long term.
*****
Update on that contest: I've recently come into possession of a few boxes of good comics from the '80s, many of which duplicate stuff I already owned. The winners of each of the three parts of the contest will get to pick a batch for themselves. Again, the deadline to enter is June 25, and the three questions you're trying to answer most accurately are:
1) How many issues of additional FINAL CRISIS tie-ins will be announced after April 30 but before the end of the series? (Three have been added so far--although neither FC: SUBMIT nor FC: SUPERMAN BEYOND #2 appear on the September solicitations. "Aftermath" titles don't count.)
2) Which will be the first issue of FINAL CRISIS or its associated titles to be released later than its scheduled ship week?
3) When will the final issue of FINAL CRISIS be released? [This contest is now closed.]
Which ducks? That's not clear, but the non-Fourth World threads we've seen from COUNTDOWN so far are basically just the Monitors in general, Nix Uotan and Solomon in particular, the destruction of Earth-51, and the new background for Kamandi. Evidently, somebody in a position of authority radically misunderstood the premises of the project the whole line has been building up to since at least SEVEN SOLDIERS and 52 (I have a feeling that Montoya finding the Kirbytech gun in 52 #4 was one of the first major tremors of FC), and commissioned a 51-issue series and an 8-issue series to "set it up" in ways that directly contradict both FC and each other. The ducks are not just not in a row, they're randomly scattered across the multiverse. If DC is going to sell a complicated, serialized narrative on a week-to-week basis, it's entirely reasonable for readers to demand that it make sense on a week-to-week basis; it's a bad sign that the people reading the work have a clearer sense of how it's supposed to fit together than some of the people making the work.
Yes, the contradictions can be explained away with some difficulty, in a sort of No-Prize way, or simply ignored, as Morrison suggests. And it's worth remembering that the edges of Kirby's Fourth World canon were frayed from the start, and that by the time he wrote and drew the NEW GODS "conclusion" and The Hunger Dogs, there had already been a couple of other Fourth World series--not bad ones, either. There was a 1977 revival of MISTER MIRACLE, initially by Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers, later by Steve Gerber and Michael Golden. The New Gods first reappeared in 1976 in the last issue of 1ST ISSUE SPECIAL--don't ask--and then in a not-bad series by Gerry Conway and the late, great Don Newton that lasted eight issues before ducking into ADVENTURE COMICS for a couple of issues' worth of "the last battle" and "the end of the war of the New Gods". (It's always the end with this crew.) For that matter, one bit of Fourth World mythology that generally gets taken for granted--the Source Wall, seen throughout DOTNG--wasn't even Kirby's: it was introduced in the distinctly out-of-continuity X-MEN/TEEN TITANS one-shot.
(FC and its associated titles, in fact, are something like the third full-scale post-Kirby Fourth World revival. In 1988, there was Jim Starlin and Mike Mignola's COSMIC ODYSSEY miniseries [and the Forever People's six-issue miniseries by J.M. DeMatteis and Paris Cullins], followed by NEW GODS and MISTER MIRACLE series; both NEW GODS and MISTER MIRACLE reappeared in the mid-'90s, then effectively merged into JACK KIRBY'S FOURTH WORLD.)
Perhaps a less frustrating way to deal with the contradictions is not to try to explain them but to accept them as a pesky but integral part of the story, a sort of continuity koan. Continuity is at least sort of mutable--rarely more explicitly so than in Morrison's superhero comics. The prolegomenon to FINAL CRISIS is SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE, in which Shilo Norman's many alternate lives both do and don't happen. "Hypertime" is one way of putting it; another is to say that all stories are more or less true, but better stories, more satisfying stories, are more true in the long term.
*****
Update on that contest: I've recently come into possession of a few boxes of good comics from the '80s, many of which duplicate stuff I already owned. The winners of each of the three parts of the contest will get to pick a batch for themselves. Again, the deadline to enter is June 25, and the three questions you're trying to answer most accurately are:
1) How many issues of additional FINAL CRISIS tie-ins will be announced after April 30 but before the end of the series? (Three have been added so far--although neither FC: SUBMIT nor FC: SUPERMAN BEYOND #2 appear on the September solicitations. "Aftermath" titles don't count.)
2) Which will be the first issue of FINAL CRISIS or its associated titles to be released later than its scheduled ship week?
3) When will the final issue of FINAL CRISIS be released? [This contest is now closed.]
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Final Crisis #1
And away we go!
Pg. 1:
This is Anthro; he was created by Howie Post, and first appeared in SHOWCASE #74 in 1968. Morrison has said that FC will begin with the first boy on Earth and end with the last boy on Earth (Kamandi). The standard line on Anthro is that he's the first Cro-Magnon boy. (And Metron calls him "man"; I suspect that the distinction between boys and men may be thematically significant, as well as the distinctions between gods and men and between mortality and immortality.)
So what period are we seeing here? Cro-Magnons, specifically, seem to have first appeared about 45,000 years ago; modern humans date to something 130,000 years ago; the people Anthro attacks a little while later seem surprised by fire, although controlled fire predates modern humans by many hundreds of thousands of years; at the end of this issue, Anthro's got a bow and arrow, which were invented only around 10,000 years ago. In other words: this happened a long time ago, and Morrison is hand-waving on the details.
Pp. 2-3:
Metron, sitting in his "Möbius Chair" on the right, is the first of many, many characters we'll see in this series that were created by Jack Kirby. He first appeared in NEW GODS #1 in 1971, and apparently died in THE DEATH OF THE NEW GODS #7 a couple of months ago.
Metron is significant in connection with Morrison, who claims to have summoned him in a magical ritual. He's talked about it several times, notably in this Arthur interview: "So when Chaos Magic came along to say that instead of summoning up Hermes, you could just as easily summon up DC comics super-speedster The Flash and The Flash would appear, visibly, I was naturally excited. [laughs] So I’m going, Bullshit, and I summoned Metron from the “New Gods” comics…and I got Metron! Or I should say what I got was the distilled, descending power and magic of language, speed and information which was wearing Metron drag in order to talk to me."
It's also worth mentioning the connection to Morrison's SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY project here. SEVEN SOLDIERS #1 includes a scene drawn by J.H. Williams III in high-Kirby style, in which we learn about the origin of super-heroics on Earth: in 40,000 B.C., "the sky tribes bring structure to a savage world," the caption says, and we see Neanderthals running from Metron, Orion and Lightray of the New Gods. Aurakles, a Neanderthal warrior, becomes Earth's first superhero, and a civilization arises, until the world is harrowed, leaving just enough people for humanity to rebuild itself. (Call it the Sheeda catastrophe theory.) Presumably, that all happens before Anthro's time. Unless Anthro is actually Aurakles, which doesn't seem right: his hair is reddish here, but it's not Aurakles-style flaming red.
Pg. 4:
Panel 3: The fiery sign Metron is making with his finger appears to be the astrological symbol of Mars, the god of war. Is Metron playing Prometheus, giving fire-as-knowledge to mortals? Sure looks like it, and the caption on pg. 7 reinforces that idea.
Pg. 5:
The black-haired guy in the middle is the immortal Vandal Savage, who was created by Alfred Bester and Martin Nodell and first appeared in GREEN LANTERN #10 in 1943. (Man, that's a good cover.) He's been around since roughly 50,000 B.C.
Pg. 6:
The characters in the original Anthro stories could talk. Nobody's sure when spoken human language developed, but one guesstimate is around the time of Vandal Savage's birth.
Panel 4: Is there a more enduring cliché than the caveman dragging a woman by her hair?
Pg. 8:
Grant Morrison's script for this and the next four pages can be seen at Entertainment Weekly's preview here. My favorite detail: Morrison's description of Turpin as "Jack Kirby as drawn by Frank Miller."
We seem to be in Metropolis in this scene--note the "Star Liner" ship. (Metropolis has a little bit of a star/planet motif: in the early years, the Daily Planet newspaper was the Daily Star.)
Panel 2: Dan "Terrible" Turpin was created by Jack Kirby, and first appeared under that name in NEW GODS #5. (There's a retcon I'm not gonna get into here that would have made him appear earlier as Brooklyn of the Boy Commandos.)
Panel 3: Orion was also created by Jack Kirby, and also first appeared in NEW GODS #1. When we last saw him, in COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #2, he had just ripped out the heart of his father, Darkseid, and was staggering off into the distance, badly injured. If Orion's Mother Box has been destroyed, though, you'd think his face would appear more bestial. [ETA: Per that infamous Morrison interview, we've... actually last seen Orion in DEATH OF THE NEW GODS #6, and COUNTDOWN #2 is more or less apocryphal.]
Panel 4: "Six missing kids": besides the obvious referent later this issue, this echoes the group of six Titans that Dark Side is trying to collect in this week's TEEN TITANS.
Pg. 9:
Panel 1: As we saw in the Metron/Anthro scene, knowledge-as-fire burns.
Panel 3: "They" are presumably the New Gods (killed off in, naturally, DEATH OF THE NEW GODS); "he" is presumably Darkseid.
Panel 4: That's the (newly redesigned) death avatar Black Racer in the background: created by Jack Kirby, who else, he first appeared in NEW GODS #3. Note that the sky has turned red over the course of the page: the Crisis is on now.
Pg. 10:
Panel 1: The script says this is the version of New York seen in SEVEN SOLDIERS--the "Cinderella city" between Metropolis and Gotham City--but commenter chad nevett points out that it's actually drawn as Detroit, which is what the script for the second panel asks for.
Panel 4: "2814.2": John Stewart is one of the two Green Lanterns assigned to Space Sector 2814, which includes Earth. [Thanks for the correction, doc_loki.]
Pg. 11:
Panel 1: "Metropolis Special Crimes Unit": a division of the police department devoted to superhuman-related affairs. Created by John Byrne, it was first referred to in SUPERMAN #4 in 1987.
Panel 4: 2814.1 would be Hal Jordan, who's based in Coast City (commenter pla points out that it's apparently somewhere in California).
Pg. 12:
Panel 2: The woman in the hat is Renee Montoya, a.k.a. the Question. In her civilian identity, she was created by Paul Dini and Mitch Brian, for Batman: The Animated Series, and first appeared in comics in BATMAN #475 in 1992. She became the Question over the course of 52.
Panel 3: The first Question, Charles Victor Szasz, a.k.a. Vic Sage, was created by Steve Ditko and first appeared in BLUE BEETLE #1 in 1967. He did indeed die of lung cancer in 52 #38. Which, as Turpin suggested earlier, sort of counts as another way of using fire to kill oneself.
Pg. 13:
Panel 2: "Danny boy": the previous Question sang "Danny Boy" at dramatically significant moments in THE QUESTION #2 and 52 #34.
Panel 4: The Dark Side Club first appeared in SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE, and has been turning up in various DC titles over the last couple of weeks.
Pg. 14:
Panel 1: The Mister Miracle poster on the wall is presumably for the Shilo Norman version of the character, as seen in SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE.
Hal's facial scar here is significant, the Director's Cut edition notes.
Pg. 15:
Panel 1: "Lagrangian point" (or Lagrange--not "LaGrange"--point) is defined here; there are actually five such points in the planet's orbit, I believe, but hey, the Guardians are guardians, not astrophysicists. And "dust for radiation prints"--I get what they're saying, but the metaphor's a little strained.
Panel 2: The Alpha Lanterns are essentially the Green Lanterns' internal-affairs investigation force.
Pg. 16:
Panel 1: Metron's Möbius Chair.
Panel 2: Sparx, created by Karl Kesel, Tom Grummett and Ed Hannigan, first appeared in ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN ANNUAL #5 in 1993. Empress, created by Peter David and Todd Nauck, first appeared in YOUNG JUSTICE #16 in 2000; David Uzumeri points out that she has a piece of the Anti-Life Equation in her brain. Mas y Menos, created by Sam Register, Glen Murakami, David Slack and Alex Soto for the Teen Titans animated series, first appeared on-panel in comics in TEEN TITANS #38 in 2006. This is the first we've seen of the League of Titans. And, most likely, the last we'll see. Is the New Gods' domain really "another reality"?
Panel 4: Dr. Light was established in IDENTITY CRISIS as a serial rapist.
Pg. 17:
Panel 1: [ETA: Commenter raphaeladidas points out that the guy in the yellow cape is Signalman, created by Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff, who first appeared in BATMAN #112 in 1957.] (And shouldn't most of these folks be in jail anyway? Or is there something we don't know from SALVATION RUN? For that matter, what's Red Tornado doing with a body?) On the right: Black Canary, a version of a character created by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino who first appeared in FLASH COMICS #86 in 1947. (This is actually that character's daughter, although explaining how and when the switchoff occurred is kind of a headache.)
Pg. 18:
Panel 1: The bald guy is Doctor Sivana, created by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck, who first appeared in WHIZ COMICS #2 in 1940.
Panel 4: Libra is now sitting in Metron's chair, and has a Crime Bible. [Thanks, alonso.]
Pg. 19:
Oh, Mike. Sigh.
Might be a red herring, but commenter michael suggests that Libra's staff might actually be the Spear of Destiny--the spear that pierced Christ's side, which is a very powerful mystical artifact in the DCU. The long explanation is here, but when last seen (in DAY OF JUDGMENT SECRET FILES #1 in 1999), it had been hurled into the sun and could only be retrieved by the Sentinels of Magic working collectively. [ETA: The solicitation for FC: REVELATIONS #2 mentions the Spear of Destiny being in Vandal Savage's hands...]
Pg. 20:
Yes, maybe fire was a bad idea. The guy with the flaming head here, as David Uzumeri points out, is Effigy, created by Ron Marz and Darryl Banks, who first appeared in GREEN LANTERN #113 in 1999.
Panel 3: M'yri'ah was the Martian Manhunter's late wife. I suspect that J'onn isn't really dead--not just because N.E.R.D. in superhero comics, but because we've seen in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #1,000,000 that he's alive many centuries in the future, and his history is bound up with Darkseid's.
Pg. 21:
Panel 2: Blüdhaven, located near Gotham City, was destroyed in INFINITE CRISIS #4. This is Rev. G. Godfrey Goode, a variation on Glorious Godfrey, a demagogue created by Jack Kirby who first appeared in FOREVER PEOPLE #3 in 1971. [Thanks for the correction, innerbrat.]
Panel 3: This is Mark Richards, the third Tattooed Man, who first appeared in GREEN LANTERN #9 in 2006; he's a variation on a character created by Gardner Fox and Gil Kane in GREEN LANTERN #23 in 1963.
Panel 5: We're in New York now--cf. the Statue of Liberty in the background. I guess Turpin doesn't have to worry about jurisdiction issues.
Pg. 22:
Dark Side is a sort of human projection of Darkseid, the evil god created by Jack Kirby who first appeared in SUPERMAN'S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN #134 in 1970; this version of him is the one seen in SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE.
Panel 3: The original versions of Kalibak and Kanto are also Kirby kreations, respectively first seen in NEW GODS #1 and MISTER MIRACLE #7, both in 1971.
Panel 5: "My father used to say the same thing": Turpin is being identified as, perhaps, the new Orion, since Darkseid was Orion's father. "Granny" would be Granny Goodness, created by Kirby for MISTER MIRACLE #2 in 1971. Her Dark Side Club incarnation was apparently killed (gruesomely) in last week's BIRDS OF PREY #118.
Pg. 23:
Panel 1: "There was a war in Heaven... and I won." Compare Metron's speech in SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE #1: "There was a war in Heaven. And the wrong side won. The dark side won."
Pg. 24:
You know, you'd think Superman would talk about the New Gods in a more familiar way, since he was on panel for most of DEATH OF THE NEW GODS. (The aforementioned Morrison interview notes that those stories were written after this one.)
Pg. 25:
Panel 1: Green Man, created by Mike W. Barr and Keith Pollard, first appeared in GREEN LANTERN #164 in 1983. Boodikka, created by Gerard Jones, Pat Broderick and Romeo Tanghal, first appeared in GREEN LANTERN #20 in 1992. Varix, created by Paul Kupperberg and Trevor von Eeden, first appeared in TALES OF THE GREEN LANTERN CORPS ANNUAL #2 in 1986.
Panel 2: "New Earth" is the main DC Universe Earth, following the rejiggering of all creation in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, INFINITE CRISIS and 52.
Pg. 26:
The universe of Earth-51 was destroyed in COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #13, then partly re-created and re-destroyed, as far as I can tell. (I'll get around to reading that series one of these days. Maybe.) If anyone can identify these Monitors by their hairstyles, please do. The original Monitor was created by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, circa 1982, and appeared in a bunch of comics leading up to CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, in which he was a major character.
Pg. 27:
Nix Uotan first appeared in COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #21 (thanks, commenter amedeo turturro). I think this is the first named appearance of both Tahoteh and Weeja Dell.
Pp. 28-29:
Ditto for Zillo Valla and Ogama. The creepy Monitor in the last panel is Solomon, who was seen in COUNTDOWN.
Pg. 30:
Apparently Anthro has also invented both dreadlocks and cooking, and possibly also archery. Smart kid. And he's drawing Metron's costume design in the dirt.
Pg. 31:
Panel 1: One effect of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths was temporal anomalies like this. The blond kid is Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth, created by--ready for this?--Jack Kirby, and the sunken Statue of Liberty recalls the cover of his first appearance, 1972's KAMANDI #1, as well as the COUNTDOWN teaser image (and, of course, Planet of the Apes).
Panel 4: The Metron costume design has appeared on Anthro's face. My guess is that, through contact with the gods, people become those gods: we've earlier seen Turpin becoming Orion, and here, Anthro has mastered knowledge and fire, and is invoking Metron in himself, in a sort of ritual to access his ability to transcend time and space. But other theories are more than welcome here.
Pg. 32:
Panel 1: This appears to be Nix Uotan suddenly finding himself mortal and in an apartment full of human stuff, but I initially read it as the Tattooed Man waking up without his tattoos. And does his Mohawk hint to anybody else that he's got some connection to OMAC?
Panel 2: Nix's bookshelf appears to include a Super Bat title (as seen in the FC Sketchbook). Jog points out that "aww, man" echoes "Man" on pg. 1.
Panel 3: Mark Simmons points out that Nix's head is framed by the image of the sun here--some kind of sun-god thing going on, perhaps?
Panel 4: On the TV is Green Arrow, created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp, who first appeared in MORE FUN COMICS #73 in 1941. Timothy Callahan points out that Nix's wall has a postcard from Oolong Island, the vacation retreat for evil scientists from 52.
As for the title: Mars is the god of war, so the reference might be to Orion (who filled that role in the period of Morrison's JLA stories when the lineup was meant to be analogous to the Greek pantheon) or to the Martian Manhunter, or both.
****
Please post questions, corrections and emendations in the comments, and I'll try to incorporate them into these annotations. (And note that David Uzumeri has his own excellent annotations up here.)
A quick procedural question: when I link to individual issues at the Grand Comics Database Project, do you prefer links to the issue details or the big cover art?
Also, if these notes are helpful or interesting to you, please consider buying a book from the Amazon links you see on the right.
Pg. 1:
This is Anthro; he was created by Howie Post, and first appeared in SHOWCASE #74 in 1968. Morrison has said that FC will begin with the first boy on Earth and end with the last boy on Earth (Kamandi). The standard line on Anthro is that he's the first Cro-Magnon boy. (And Metron calls him "man"; I suspect that the distinction between boys and men may be thematically significant, as well as the distinctions between gods and men and between mortality and immortality.)
So what period are we seeing here? Cro-Magnons, specifically, seem to have first appeared about 45,000 years ago; modern humans date to something 130,000 years ago; the people Anthro attacks a little while later seem surprised by fire, although controlled fire predates modern humans by many hundreds of thousands of years; at the end of this issue, Anthro's got a bow and arrow, which were invented only around 10,000 years ago. In other words: this happened a long time ago, and Morrison is hand-waving on the details.
Pp. 2-3:
Metron, sitting in his "Möbius Chair" on the right, is the first of many, many characters we'll see in this series that were created by Jack Kirby. He first appeared in NEW GODS #1 in 1971, and apparently died in THE DEATH OF THE NEW GODS #7 a couple of months ago.
Metron is significant in connection with Morrison, who claims to have summoned him in a magical ritual. He's talked about it several times, notably in this Arthur interview: "So when Chaos Magic came along to say that instead of summoning up Hermes, you could just as easily summon up DC comics super-speedster The Flash and The Flash would appear, visibly, I was naturally excited. [laughs] So I’m going, Bullshit, and I summoned Metron from the “New Gods” comics…and I got Metron! Or I should say what I got was the distilled, descending power and magic of language, speed and information which was wearing Metron drag in order to talk to me."
It's also worth mentioning the connection to Morrison's SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY project here. SEVEN SOLDIERS #1 includes a scene drawn by J.H. Williams III in high-Kirby style, in which we learn about the origin of super-heroics on Earth: in 40,000 B.C., "the sky tribes bring structure to a savage world," the caption says, and we see Neanderthals running from Metron, Orion and Lightray of the New Gods. Aurakles, a Neanderthal warrior, becomes Earth's first superhero, and a civilization arises, until the world is harrowed, leaving just enough people for humanity to rebuild itself. (Call it the Sheeda catastrophe theory.) Presumably, that all happens before Anthro's time. Unless Anthro is actually Aurakles, which doesn't seem right: his hair is reddish here, but it's not Aurakles-style flaming red.
Pg. 4:
Panel 3: The fiery sign Metron is making with his finger appears to be the astrological symbol of Mars, the god of war. Is Metron playing Prometheus, giving fire-as-knowledge to mortals? Sure looks like it, and the caption on pg. 7 reinforces that idea.
Pg. 5:
The black-haired guy in the middle is the immortal Vandal Savage, who was created by Alfred Bester and Martin Nodell and first appeared in GREEN LANTERN #10 in 1943. (Man, that's a good cover.) He's been around since roughly 50,000 B.C.
Pg. 6:
The characters in the original Anthro stories could talk. Nobody's sure when spoken human language developed, but one guesstimate is around the time of Vandal Savage's birth.
Panel 4: Is there a more enduring cliché than the caveman dragging a woman by her hair?
Pg. 8:
Grant Morrison's script for this and the next four pages can be seen at Entertainment Weekly's preview here. My favorite detail: Morrison's description of Turpin as "Jack Kirby as drawn by Frank Miller."
We seem to be in Metropolis in this scene--note the "Star Liner" ship. (Metropolis has a little bit of a star/planet motif: in the early years, the Daily Planet newspaper was the Daily Star.)
Panel 2: Dan "Terrible" Turpin was created by Jack Kirby, and first appeared under that name in NEW GODS #5. (There's a retcon I'm not gonna get into here that would have made him appear earlier as Brooklyn of the Boy Commandos.)
Panel 3: Orion was also created by Jack Kirby, and also first appeared in NEW GODS #1. When we last saw him, in COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #2, he had just ripped out the heart of his father, Darkseid, and was staggering off into the distance, badly injured. If Orion's Mother Box has been destroyed, though, you'd think his face would appear more bestial. [ETA: Per that infamous Morrison interview, we've... actually last seen Orion in DEATH OF THE NEW GODS #6, and COUNTDOWN #2 is more or less apocryphal.]
Panel 4: "Six missing kids": besides the obvious referent later this issue, this echoes the group of six Titans that Dark Side is trying to collect in this week's TEEN TITANS.
Pg. 9:
Panel 1: As we saw in the Metron/Anthro scene, knowledge-as-fire burns.
Panel 3: "They" are presumably the New Gods (killed off in, naturally, DEATH OF THE NEW GODS); "he" is presumably Darkseid.
Panel 4: That's the (newly redesigned) death avatar Black Racer in the background: created by Jack Kirby, who else, he first appeared in NEW GODS #3. Note that the sky has turned red over the course of the page: the Crisis is on now.
Pg. 10:
Panel 1: The script says this is the version of New York seen in SEVEN SOLDIERS--the "Cinderella city" between Metropolis and Gotham City--but commenter chad nevett points out that it's actually drawn as Detroit, which is what the script for the second panel asks for.
Panel 4: "2814.2": John Stewart is one of the two Green Lanterns assigned to Space Sector 2814, which includes Earth. [Thanks for the correction, doc_loki.]
Pg. 11:
Panel 1: "Metropolis Special Crimes Unit": a division of the police department devoted to superhuman-related affairs. Created by John Byrne, it was first referred to in SUPERMAN #4 in 1987.
Panel 4: 2814.1 would be Hal Jordan, who's based in Coast City (commenter pla points out that it's apparently somewhere in California).
Pg. 12:
Panel 2: The woman in the hat is Renee Montoya, a.k.a. the Question. In her civilian identity, she was created by Paul Dini and Mitch Brian, for Batman: The Animated Series, and first appeared in comics in BATMAN #475 in 1992. She became the Question over the course of 52.
Panel 3: The first Question, Charles Victor Szasz, a.k.a. Vic Sage, was created by Steve Ditko and first appeared in BLUE BEETLE #1 in 1967. He did indeed die of lung cancer in 52 #38. Which, as Turpin suggested earlier, sort of counts as another way of using fire to kill oneself.
Pg. 13:
Panel 2: "Danny boy": the previous Question sang "Danny Boy" at dramatically significant moments in THE QUESTION #2 and 52 #34.
Panel 4: The Dark Side Club first appeared in SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE, and has been turning up in various DC titles over the last couple of weeks.
Pg. 14:
Panel 1: The Mister Miracle poster on the wall is presumably for the Shilo Norman version of the character, as seen in SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE.
Hal's facial scar here is significant, the Director's Cut edition notes.
Pg. 15:
Panel 1: "Lagrangian point" (or Lagrange--not "LaGrange"--point) is defined here; there are actually five such points in the planet's orbit, I believe, but hey, the Guardians are guardians, not astrophysicists. And "dust for radiation prints"--I get what they're saying, but the metaphor's a little strained.
Panel 2: The Alpha Lanterns are essentially the Green Lanterns' internal-affairs investigation force.
Pg. 16:
Panel 1: Metron's Möbius Chair.
Panel 2: Sparx, created by Karl Kesel, Tom Grummett and Ed Hannigan, first appeared in ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN ANNUAL #5 in 1993. Empress, created by Peter David and Todd Nauck, first appeared in YOUNG JUSTICE #16 in 2000; David Uzumeri points out that she has a piece of the Anti-Life Equation in her brain. Mas y Menos, created by Sam Register, Glen Murakami, David Slack and Alex Soto for the Teen Titans animated series, first appeared on-panel in comics in TEEN TITANS #38 in 2006. This is the first we've seen of the League of Titans. And, most likely, the last we'll see. Is the New Gods' domain really "another reality"?
Panel 4: Dr. Light was established in IDENTITY CRISIS as a serial rapist.
Pg. 17:
Panel 1: [ETA: Commenter raphaeladidas points out that the guy in the yellow cape is Signalman, created by Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff, who first appeared in BATMAN #112 in 1957.] (And shouldn't most of these folks be in jail anyway? Or is there something we don't know from SALVATION RUN? For that matter, what's Red Tornado doing with a body?) On the right: Black Canary, a version of a character created by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino who first appeared in FLASH COMICS #86 in 1947. (This is actually that character's daughter, although explaining how and when the switchoff occurred is kind of a headache.)
Pg. 18:
Panel 1: The bald guy is Doctor Sivana, created by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck, who first appeared in WHIZ COMICS #2 in 1940.
Panel 4: Libra is now sitting in Metron's chair, and has a Crime Bible. [Thanks, alonso.]
Pg. 19:
Oh, Mike. Sigh.
Might be a red herring, but commenter michael suggests that Libra's staff might actually be the Spear of Destiny--the spear that pierced Christ's side, which is a very powerful mystical artifact in the DCU. The long explanation is here, but when last seen (in DAY OF JUDGMENT SECRET FILES #1 in 1999), it had been hurled into the sun and could only be retrieved by the Sentinels of Magic working collectively. [ETA: The solicitation for FC: REVELATIONS #2 mentions the Spear of Destiny being in Vandal Savage's hands...]
Pg. 20:
Yes, maybe fire was a bad idea. The guy with the flaming head here, as David Uzumeri points out, is Effigy, created by Ron Marz and Darryl Banks, who first appeared in GREEN LANTERN #113 in 1999.
Panel 3: M'yri'ah was the Martian Manhunter's late wife. I suspect that J'onn isn't really dead--not just because N.E.R.D. in superhero comics, but because we've seen in MARTIAN MANHUNTER #1,000,000 that he's alive many centuries in the future, and his history is bound up with Darkseid's.
Pg. 21:
Panel 2: Blüdhaven, located near Gotham City, was destroyed in INFINITE CRISIS #4. This is Rev. G. Godfrey Goode, a variation on Glorious Godfrey, a demagogue created by Jack Kirby who first appeared in FOREVER PEOPLE #3 in 1971. [Thanks for the correction, innerbrat.]
Panel 3: This is Mark Richards, the third Tattooed Man, who first appeared in GREEN LANTERN #9 in 2006; he's a variation on a character created by Gardner Fox and Gil Kane in GREEN LANTERN #23 in 1963.
Panel 5: We're in New York now--cf. the Statue of Liberty in the background. I guess Turpin doesn't have to worry about jurisdiction issues.
Pg. 22:
Dark Side is a sort of human projection of Darkseid, the evil god created by Jack Kirby who first appeared in SUPERMAN'S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN #134 in 1970; this version of him is the one seen in SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE.
Panel 3: The original versions of Kalibak and Kanto are also Kirby kreations, respectively first seen in NEW GODS #1 and MISTER MIRACLE #7, both in 1971.
Panel 5: "My father used to say the same thing": Turpin is being identified as, perhaps, the new Orion, since Darkseid was Orion's father. "Granny" would be Granny Goodness, created by Kirby for MISTER MIRACLE #2 in 1971. Her Dark Side Club incarnation was apparently killed (gruesomely) in last week's BIRDS OF PREY #118.
Pg. 23:
Panel 1: "There was a war in Heaven... and I won." Compare Metron's speech in SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE #1: "There was a war in Heaven. And the wrong side won. The dark side won."
Pg. 24:
You know, you'd think Superman would talk about the New Gods in a more familiar way, since he was on panel for most of DEATH OF THE NEW GODS. (The aforementioned Morrison interview notes that those stories were written after this one.)
Pg. 25:
Panel 1: Green Man, created by Mike W. Barr and Keith Pollard, first appeared in GREEN LANTERN #164 in 1983. Boodikka, created by Gerard Jones, Pat Broderick and Romeo Tanghal, first appeared in GREEN LANTERN #20 in 1992. Varix, created by Paul Kupperberg and Trevor von Eeden, first appeared in TALES OF THE GREEN LANTERN CORPS ANNUAL #2 in 1986.
Panel 2: "New Earth" is the main DC Universe Earth, following the rejiggering of all creation in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, INFINITE CRISIS and 52.
Pg. 26:
The universe of Earth-51 was destroyed in COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #13, then partly re-created and re-destroyed, as far as I can tell. (I'll get around to reading that series one of these days. Maybe.) If anyone can identify these Monitors by their hairstyles, please do. The original Monitor was created by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, circa 1982, and appeared in a bunch of comics leading up to CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, in which he was a major character.
Pg. 27:
Nix Uotan first appeared in COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #21 (thanks, commenter amedeo turturro). I think this is the first named appearance of both Tahoteh and Weeja Dell.
Pp. 28-29:
Ditto for Zillo Valla and Ogama. The creepy Monitor in the last panel is Solomon, who was seen in COUNTDOWN.
Pg. 30:
Apparently Anthro has also invented both dreadlocks and cooking, and possibly also archery. Smart kid. And he's drawing Metron's costume design in the dirt.
Pg. 31:
Panel 1: One effect of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths was temporal anomalies like this. The blond kid is Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth, created by--ready for this?--Jack Kirby, and the sunken Statue of Liberty recalls the cover of his first appearance, 1972's KAMANDI #1, as well as the COUNTDOWN teaser image (and, of course, Planet of the Apes).
Panel 4: The Metron costume design has appeared on Anthro's face. My guess is that, through contact with the gods, people become those gods: we've earlier seen Turpin becoming Orion, and here, Anthro has mastered knowledge and fire, and is invoking Metron in himself, in a sort of ritual to access his ability to transcend time and space. But other theories are more than welcome here.
Pg. 32:
Panel 1: This appears to be Nix Uotan suddenly finding himself mortal and in an apartment full of human stuff, but I initially read it as the Tattooed Man waking up without his tattoos. And does his Mohawk hint to anybody else that he's got some connection to OMAC?
Panel 2: Nix's bookshelf appears to include a Super Bat title (as seen in the FC Sketchbook). Jog points out that "aww, man" echoes "Man" on pg. 1.
Panel 3: Mark Simmons points out that Nix's head is framed by the image of the sun here--some kind of sun-god thing going on, perhaps?
Panel 4: On the TV is Green Arrow, created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp, who first appeared in MORE FUN COMICS #73 in 1941. Timothy Callahan points out that Nix's wall has a postcard from Oolong Island, the vacation retreat for evil scientists from 52.
As for the title: Mars is the god of war, so the reference might be to Orion (who filled that role in the period of Morrison's JLA stories when the lineup was meant to be analogous to the Greek pantheon) or to the Martian Manhunter, or both.
****
Please post questions, corrections and emendations in the comments, and I'll try to incorporate them into these annotations. (And note that David Uzumeri has his own excellent annotations up here.)
A quick procedural question: when I link to individual issues at the Grand Comics Database Project, do you prefer links to the issue details or the big cover art?
Also, if these notes are helpful or interesting to you, please consider buying a book from the Amazon links you see on the right.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Justice League of America #21
Hello to io9 readers!
This is a strange, neither-fish-nor-fowl sort of issue--it leads directly into FC, but FC also has to be able to function without it (for the inevitable collection), so it's going to end up being a bit redundant, I suspect. Still, the issue number is formally appropriate: the last time there was a JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #21, back in 1963, it was the very first "Crisis"!
Cover: This is the first appearance of the "Sightings" banner, which... well, graphically speaking, it sure doesn't look like Chip Kidd designed it. And that would appear to be a Crime Bible in Libra's hand.
Pg. 1:
Yes, there really was a Mr. Polka-Dot, seen in DETECTIVE COMICS #300 in 1962, and never since. (Fred Hembeck covered that story here, in a piece that also explains the "little girl in the comic strip" joke for anyone who doesn't get it.)
Pp. 2-3:
Can anyone identify the provenance of the Einstein quote? I haven't found a source for it that suggests its context.
John Henry Irons is also known as Steel; "boom tubes" are getting-from-here-to-there-instantly technology created by Jack Kirby for his Fourth World comics.
Pg. 4:
Vixen kissed Superman in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #15, which is also where the "teaching moment" mentioned a few pages later happened.
Pg. 6:
The race was in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #10; the hole-punching bit was in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #6.
Pg. 9:
The "secret mission" was infiltrating Cygnus 4019, the prison planet in SALVATION RUN. (How that series dovetails with this issue is unclear--the final issue was supposed to be out two weeks ago, but it's been pushed back to June 18.) The new Atom is Dr. (Ryan) Choi; Ray Palmer, the previous Atom, disappeared after his ex-wife Jean Loring killed their friend Sue Dibny in IDENTITY CRISIS. Jean, who'd been Eclipso for a while (let's not get into it), was last seen in COUNTDOWN TO MYSTERY #4, apparently about to either drown or be eaten by a shark. Ray, as of the end of COUNTDOWN, is one of the new meta-Monitors, but word doesn't seem to have gotten around, so "losing Jean" here probably refers to her being insane and institutionalized in IDENTITY CRISIS.
Pg. 10:
Ah, here we go. The Human Flame's first and only appearance before DC UNIVERSE 0 was that 5 2/3-page Martian Manhunter backup in DETECTIVE COMICS #274, a story so skimpy we didn't even learn his last name. It was reprinted in that 80-page DC UNIVERSE SPECIAL: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA a couple of weeks ago, but if you want a really, really in-depth (and very funny) analysis of it, I recommend the Absorbascon's five-part exegesis, here, here, here, here and here.
Pg. 12:
Hawkgirl was created by Gardner Fox and Sheldon Moldoff, and first appeared (under that name) in ALL STAR COMICS #5 in 1941. This incarnation of the character first appeared in JSA SECRET FILES #1 in 1999.
Red Arrow was created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp (I think--Wikipedia claims Paul Norris; can anyone set the record straight?), and first appeared in MORE FUN COMICS #73 in 1941. He started using the name Red Arrow in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #7 last year, although a future version of him as Red Arrow had appeared in the sorta-kinda-in-continuity miniseries KINGDOM COME much earlier.
Pg. 18:
I'm guessing this is supposed to be Twisters (the ceiling lighting fixture is the same), although it'd have been nice if there'd been some common reference for stuff like the exterior, the chairs, the lighting...
I'm gonna need some help to identify the characters here. Panel 2, going clockwise from Libra and the Human Flame, we have [unidentified], Dr. Polaris, the Key, Weather Wizard, Shatterfist, Shrike, Cyborgirl, Ace and... Ten?... from the '80s version of the Royal Flush Gang, and the Icicle. [Thanks to Tom Bondurant and Frank Lee Delano.]
Pg. 19:
The guy with the arrow on his head is Red Tornado, who was created by Gardner Fox and Dick Dillin, and first appeared in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #64 in 1968. The one with the flaming head, who isn't in a position to even be talking about making that kind of joke, is Firestorm, created by Gerry Conway and Al Milgrom, who first appeared in FIRESTORM #1 in 1979; this version of the character first appeared in the FIRESTORM #1 published in 2004. And I believe this is the first mention of Libra being an "alien warlord"--I'm pretty sure that wasn't suggested in his first appearance.
Pp. 20-21:
Clockwise after Libra and the Human Flame: Gorilla Grodd, Ocean Master, Talia al Ghul, Vandal Savage, Lex Luthor. Grodd, created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, first appeared in 1959 in FLASH #106. Luthor, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, first appeared in 1940 in ACTION COMICS #23.
Pg. 22:
J'onn J'onzz, here apparently traveling via Boom Tube, was created by Joseph Samachson and/or Jack Miller (not the same person; see comments) and Joe Certa. He first appeared in 1955, in DETECTIVE COMICS #225.
This is a strange, neither-fish-nor-fowl sort of issue--it leads directly into FC, but FC also has to be able to function without it (for the inevitable collection), so it's going to end up being a bit redundant, I suspect. Still, the issue number is formally appropriate: the last time there was a JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #21, back in 1963, it was the very first "Crisis"!
Cover: This is the first appearance of the "Sightings" banner, which... well, graphically speaking, it sure doesn't look like Chip Kidd designed it. And that would appear to be a Crime Bible in Libra's hand.
Pg. 1:
Yes, there really was a Mr. Polka-Dot, seen in DETECTIVE COMICS #300 in 1962, and never since. (Fred Hembeck covered that story here, in a piece that also explains the "little girl in the comic strip" joke for anyone who doesn't get it.)
Pp. 2-3:
Can anyone identify the provenance of the Einstein quote? I haven't found a source for it that suggests its context.
John Henry Irons is also known as Steel; "boom tubes" are getting-from-here-to-there-instantly technology created by Jack Kirby for his Fourth World comics.
Pg. 4:
Vixen kissed Superman in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #15, which is also where the "teaching moment" mentioned a few pages later happened.
Pg. 6:
The race was in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #10; the hole-punching bit was in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #6.
Pg. 9:
The "secret mission" was infiltrating Cygnus 4019, the prison planet in SALVATION RUN. (How that series dovetails with this issue is unclear--the final issue was supposed to be out two weeks ago, but it's been pushed back to June 18.) The new Atom is Dr. (Ryan) Choi; Ray Palmer, the previous Atom, disappeared after his ex-wife Jean Loring killed their friend Sue Dibny in IDENTITY CRISIS. Jean, who'd been Eclipso for a while (let's not get into it), was last seen in COUNTDOWN TO MYSTERY #4, apparently about to either drown or be eaten by a shark. Ray, as of the end of COUNTDOWN, is one of the new meta-Monitors, but word doesn't seem to have gotten around, so "losing Jean" here probably refers to her being insane and institutionalized in IDENTITY CRISIS.
Pg. 10:
Ah, here we go. The Human Flame's first and only appearance before DC UNIVERSE 0 was that 5 2/3-page Martian Manhunter backup in DETECTIVE COMICS #274, a story so skimpy we didn't even learn his last name. It was reprinted in that 80-page DC UNIVERSE SPECIAL: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA a couple of weeks ago, but if you want a really, really in-depth (and very funny) analysis of it, I recommend the Absorbascon's five-part exegesis, here, here, here, here and here.
Pg. 12:
Hawkgirl was created by Gardner Fox and Sheldon Moldoff, and first appeared (under that name) in ALL STAR COMICS #5 in 1941. This incarnation of the character first appeared in JSA SECRET FILES #1 in 1999.
Red Arrow was created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp (I think--Wikipedia claims Paul Norris; can anyone set the record straight?), and first appeared in MORE FUN COMICS #73 in 1941. He started using the name Red Arrow in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #7 last year, although a future version of him as Red Arrow had appeared in the sorta-kinda-in-continuity miniseries KINGDOM COME much earlier.
Pg. 18:
I'm guessing this is supposed to be Twisters (the ceiling lighting fixture is the same), although it'd have been nice if there'd been some common reference for stuff like the exterior, the chairs, the lighting...
I'm gonna need some help to identify the characters here. Panel 2, going clockwise from Libra and the Human Flame, we have [unidentified], Dr. Polaris, the Key, Weather Wizard, Shatterfist, Shrike, Cyborgirl, Ace and... Ten?... from the '80s version of the Royal Flush Gang, and the Icicle. [Thanks to Tom Bondurant and Frank Lee Delano.]
Pg. 19:
The guy with the arrow on his head is Red Tornado, who was created by Gardner Fox and Dick Dillin, and first appeared in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #64 in 1968. The one with the flaming head, who isn't in a position to even be talking about making that kind of joke, is Firestorm, created by Gerry Conway and Al Milgrom, who first appeared in FIRESTORM #1 in 1979; this version of the character first appeared in the FIRESTORM #1 published in 2004. And I believe this is the first mention of Libra being an "alien warlord"--I'm pretty sure that wasn't suggested in his first appearance.
Pp. 20-21:
Clockwise after Libra and the Human Flame: Gorilla Grodd, Ocean Master, Talia al Ghul, Vandal Savage, Lex Luthor. Grodd, created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, first appeared in 1959 in FLASH #106. Luthor, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, first appeared in 1940 in ACTION COMICS #23.
Pg. 22:
J'onn J'onzz, here apparently traveling via Boom Tube, was created by Joseph Samachson and/or Jack Miller (not the same person; see comments) and Joe Certa. He first appeared in 1955, in DETECTIVE COMICS #225.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Final Crisis Sketchbook
Not a lot to say about this one, but a few notes:
Cover:
This is a repurposing of the promo piece for FC, usually captioned "Heroes die. Legends live forever." Clockwise from top left: Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, Superman, Hawkman, Batman, Flash (unclear which one), Wonder Woman. This is also the first official use of Chip Kidd's trade dress for FC, about which there's a pretty interesting interview here.
Pp. 2-9:
I'll get to all the Kirby characters when they're introduced in the story proper, but in the meantime, there's always Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus, Vol. 1
as a starting point...
Pg. 11:
I love the phrase "orrery of worlds." A quick Google search has revealed two earlier uses of it: an 1856 lecture by Joseph Haven on "mental science as a branch of education," and an 1886 sermon called "God's Great Day-and-Night Engine." Both of which are somehow appropriate.
Pp. 12-20:
Very interesting commentary from Will Staples here on the Japanese heroes and their roots in actual Japanese media--I'm a little put off by some of the names too. It's worth noting, also, that Super Young Team were first mentioned back in 52 #6, and that "Young Team" is a reference to Glasgow gangs (see also the Mogwai album with that title).
Pp. 21-22:
Wow, that sure looks like the Martian Manhunter on fire in the top middle image of pg. 21. And top left image of pg. 22 brings in the gigantic-hand motif that, as commenter I noted in the DCU 0 entry, also looks like it's going to be a part of TRINITY.
Cover:
This is a repurposing of the promo piece for FC, usually captioned "Heroes die. Legends live forever." Clockwise from top left: Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, Superman, Hawkman, Batman, Flash (unclear which one), Wonder Woman. This is also the first official use of Chip Kidd's trade dress for FC, about which there's a pretty interesting interview here.
Pp. 2-9:
I'll get to all the Kirby characters when they're introduced in the story proper, but in the meantime, there's always Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus, Vol. 1
as a starting point... Pg. 11:
I love the phrase "orrery of worlds." A quick Google search has revealed two earlier uses of it: an 1856 lecture by Joseph Haven on "mental science as a branch of education," and an 1886 sermon called "God's Great Day-and-Night Engine." Both of which are somehow appropriate.
Pp. 12-20:
Very interesting commentary from Will Staples here on the Japanese heroes and their roots in actual Japanese media--I'm a little put off by some of the names too. It's worth noting, also, that Super Young Team were first mentioned back in 52 #6, and that "Young Team" is a reference to Glasgow gangs (see also the Mogwai album with that title).
Pp. 21-22:
Wow, that sure looks like the Martian Manhunter on fire in the top middle image of pg. 21. And top left image of pg. 22 brings in the gigantic-hand motif that, as commenter I noted in the DCU 0 entry, also looks like it's going to be a part of TRINITY.
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