Countdown to Infinite Crisis
Apr. 5th, 2005 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiFinally got and read it. Has there ever been a worse title for, well, anything? "Countdown" was a good name, but this? Ick. Maybe they could have called it "Countdown to Infinite Crisis of Doom!!!!!!!!" At least then they could have taken the silly-title concept over the top. Anyway, my thoughts:
Overall, not a bad story, although the teasers for three of the four "spin-offs" (Rann/Thanagar War, Secret Society of Super-Villains, and Day of Vengeance) felt really forced. But it's a decent enough tale, and most of the cast was written well.
As some of you know, Ted Kord is one of my favorite characters in the entire DC Universe. That doesn't mean I feel his death is inherently bullshit. Good storytelling involves making you care about a character, and if only bad guys die and good guys live, you get something with no meaning (in fact, you get most of comicdom over the years). Likewise, creating new characters just to kill them off doesn't have much meaning. So having Beetle die (sacrifice himself, actually), after 80 pages of him being written at his best -- as a hero who is often underestimated, who is smart, driven, inventive, and always there for his friends -- is as good a way to go as any.
That said, the one thing that rang false here was huge. Max Lord as a megalomaniacal head of a secret society of paranoid anti-metas.
Um, no.
Lord's never been a good guy, per se, but we've seen too much of him over the years to make this believable. Especially if this plan was supposedly in place since the early days of the JLI. We've seen too much of him -- from his interactions with his ex-wife, to the various Waller/Squad crossovers, to the close interactions with a certain Martian telepath (who is, incidentally, the other criminally miswritten character), it just doesn't fly.
So why'd it happen?
Because they had a damned good story to tell, and had everything in place, but needed someone to fill the betrayer role.
This is a problem they encountered before, during Millennium. For those who don't remember, that was a crossover series whose plot is too convoluted to tell, but suffice to say, it involved various friends and associates of heroes turning out to be traitors (in some cases, real traitors, in others, robots in disguise, although that copyright never belonged to DC). In one or two cases, the betrayals were shocking (Wally West's dad) or at least well told (Booster Gold's agent), but in many others, they were clearly reaching for someone -- Laurel Kent in the LSH turned out to be a robot, in spite of the fact that she had already shown weakness to Kryptonite, and the LSH wasn't really involved in the crossover other than being a DC title at the time.
But I digress.
They needed someone to betray Beetle and to be the head of the organization (I suppose that they could have had the betrayer be an enforcer, but that would have been trickier). It couldn't be Batman, of course, nor could it be Luthor (it wouldn't have been a betrayal, but at least he has the money and power). They could have made someone up, of course, but doing that would have made the betrayal obvious from page 1. So they grabbed Max, and re-wrote him completely.
It's somewhere between lazy storytelling and sloppy storytelling. But whichever way it falls, it's bad storytelling.
That said, I'm still intrigued by OMAC, and might give the other minis a shot. But if they start pulling the "you must read this month'sRorschach Batman" crap, I'm out of there. I made a vow a long time ago not to buy any book that had a forced crossover* with another book (this is what caused me to drop Mark Waid's Flash run about five issues in), and in an age when I'm just looking for an excuse to drop some monthlies and save money, my trigger finger is itching.
Overall, 70 pages of good in an 80-page book. And hey -- at least, thanks to the return of Jason Todd, it's not the dumbest thing that Judd Winick or DC has been involved with this month.
Maybe Beetle can come back in fifteen years for revenge, too.
*I'm fine with a crossover that summarizes the other book and doesn't force you to buy it, just not books that require you to pay another $3 a month to get the story.
Overall, not a bad story, although the teasers for three of the four "spin-offs" (Rann/Thanagar War, Secret Society of Super-Villains, and Day of Vengeance) felt really forced. But it's a decent enough tale, and most of the cast was written well.
As some of you know, Ted Kord is one of my favorite characters in the entire DC Universe. That doesn't mean I feel his death is inherently bullshit. Good storytelling involves making you care about a character, and if only bad guys die and good guys live, you get something with no meaning (in fact, you get most of comicdom over the years). Likewise, creating new characters just to kill them off doesn't have much meaning. So having Beetle die (sacrifice himself, actually), after 80 pages of him being written at his best -- as a hero who is often underestimated, who is smart, driven, inventive, and always there for his friends -- is as good a way to go as any.
That said, the one thing that rang false here was huge. Max Lord as a megalomaniacal head of a secret society of paranoid anti-metas.
Um, no.
Lord's never been a good guy, per se, but we've seen too much of him over the years to make this believable. Especially if this plan was supposedly in place since the early days of the JLI. We've seen too much of him -- from his interactions with his ex-wife, to the various Waller/Squad crossovers, to the close interactions with a certain Martian telepath (who is, incidentally, the other criminally miswritten character), it just doesn't fly.
So why'd it happen?
Because they had a damned good story to tell, and had everything in place, but needed someone to fill the betrayer role.
This is a problem they encountered before, during Millennium. For those who don't remember, that was a crossover series whose plot is too convoluted to tell, but suffice to say, it involved various friends and associates of heroes turning out to be traitors (in some cases, real traitors, in others, robots in disguise, although that copyright never belonged to DC). In one or two cases, the betrayals were shocking (Wally West's dad) or at least well told (Booster Gold's agent), but in many others, they were clearly reaching for someone -- Laurel Kent in the LSH turned out to be a robot, in spite of the fact that she had already shown weakness to Kryptonite, and the LSH wasn't really involved in the crossover other than being a DC title at the time.
But I digress.
They needed someone to betray Beetle and to be the head of the organization (I suppose that they could have had the betrayer be an enforcer, but that would have been trickier). It couldn't be Batman, of course, nor could it be Luthor (it wouldn't have been a betrayal, but at least he has the money and power). They could have made someone up, of course, but doing that would have made the betrayal obvious from page 1. So they grabbed Max, and re-wrote him completely.
It's somewhere between lazy storytelling and sloppy storytelling. But whichever way it falls, it's bad storytelling.
That said, I'm still intrigued by OMAC, and might give the other minis a shot. But if they start pulling the "you must read this month's
Overall, 70 pages of good in an 80-page book. And hey -- at least, thanks to the return of Jason Todd, it's not the dumbest thing that Judd Winick or DC has been involved with this month.
Maybe Beetle can come back in fifteen years for revenge, too.
*I'm fine with a crossover that summarizes the other book and doesn't force you to buy it, just not books that require you to pay another $3 a month to get the story.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 12:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 03:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 02:23 am (UTC)First off, that scarab of his predecessor's. Egypt. Reincarnation. That stuff. So what if he left it at Shazam's cave?
Second, by any stretch his was a death of betrayal. A certain Spirit of Vengeance has been running around without a human soul attached to it, and do you really think the Blue Beetle Revival Squad will raise a fuss if Ted Kord becomes the next Spectre?
JSM
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 03:26 am (UTC)As far as the scarab goes, I had hope at the beginning of the story, but with it in Shazam's hand, it's more likely going to eventually fall into the hands of Blue Beetle III (who may or may not be Booster Gold).
And as far as the Spectre goes, although he was killed by betrayal, Kord just doesn't have the right personality for the Spectre. Plus, they'd probably want to try something different than a recently-killed DC hero.
Also, with Beetle coming back that soon, the death itself has no impact at all.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 07:20 am (UTC)Hello? A large portion of fandom has already sat through what they're doing now. Big 'events' like Countdown and its subsequent spinoffs, only make me want to go and rifle through the indy shelf at my local comic shop.
I don't buy Marvel and if DC continues in this vein, I'll probably stop buying their titles as well.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 11:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 12:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 12:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 12:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 12:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 12:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 12:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 12:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 12:53 pm (UTC)BASK in the irony.
Date: 2005-04-12 06:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-20 06:29 am (UTC)