Chris Reviews Infinite Crisis #7
Right, then. So different review format this week, because both Infinite Crisis and Civil War deserve their own posts. Plus, the other comics I got (all 2 of them) deserve their own post as well. So here's what you're getting:---today -- Infinite Crisis
---Thursday -- Miscellaneous Comics
---Friday -- Civil War
Got it? Good. So get ready: here comes the Infinite Crisis. Dun-dun-DUUNNNNNNN!
INFINITE CRISIS #7 (of 7)
Alright, the finish line is here! With extra pages! Woo! Hoo! Never have I read a conclusion to a huge event that was so dedicated to resolving discrete plot points, to the extent that the whole comic reads like a bulleted list of threads that had to be wrapped up in one page or less.
And so, I will now break down the much-hyped, Dan Didio-loved, final issue of Infinite Crisis. Those with weak hearts or high IQs will want to immediately leave. Sigh.
THE COVER: I cannot believe that the Jim Lee "Every Green Lantern In The World" cover is outselling the Perez cover. The Perez cover kicks so much ass it's not even funny. OW! Did you hear that? That's my ass being kicked by the Perez cover. Moving on.
Page 1: Big 3 + Old Man Supers wring hands over Connor's death.
Page 2 and 3: Splash page of battle royale in Metropolis, oddly colored so that the artist could get the pages in on time and wouldn't have to waste time on "background".
Page 4: Miscellaneous fight panels. Someone mentions how the Spectre's an ass.
Page 5: Meaningless banter between A-Lex and SuperPrime about Earth Prime and so on.
Page 6 and 7: Admittedly cool splash of the two Supermen attacking Doomsday.
Page 8: Less-cool-than-they-thought-it-would-be panel of Superman leading the heroes into battle. More skinny fight panels.
Page 9: Old Man Supes confronting A-Lex about...stuff. 'Are You Kidding Me?' Moment #1: SuperPrime heat-visions A-Lex's computer thingy, which leads to the following speech bubble: "My World View! It was calculating the Society's war plans." He named his computer World View.
(Sign that this was tacked on after the fact as plot point: the 'war plans' line ends with a period. If you were writing that sequence naturally, wouldn't you use an exclamation point?)
Page 10 and 11: Bart Allen returns as The Flash, punches SuperPrime. SuperPrime decides that he's going to fly through Oa to create a new big bang. Heroes follow him. Martian Manhunter's pirate boots are at maximum flare.
Page 12: Breach dies, because his series was cancelled. Captain Atom reappears. I yawn.
Page 13: Batman slams Deathstroke's head into the ground, which is the first fun moment of the comic. A-Lex fires... um... A-Lex power or something, which Nightwing jumps in front of.
Page 14: SuperPrime in transition, flying to Oa.
Page 15 and 16: "F@#$ yeah!" moment: Guy Gardner and every friggin' Green Lantern in the world are there to greet SuperPrime. "The thin green line" comment is fantastic. When does GL Corps start again?
Page 16 and 17: Inexplicably, SuperPrime's freeze breath in deep space starts killing Lanterns left and right. Guy Gardner sums up my feelings precisely with the line, "Excessive force has been approved! And encouraged for this crybaby."
Page 18: 'Are You Kidding Me?' Moment #2: Batman and A-Lex confrontation under some rubble. Nightwing is depicted as a lifeless bloody corpse. Batman pulls a gun (WTF?!?) on A-Lex. Points it at his head. And no, we don't know where the gun came from.
Page 19: Hey, I knew Wonder Woman was still in comics! She walks up, drops her sword on the ground, which makes Batman drop the gun on the ground, and then a building falls on A-Lex. I am not making this up.
Page 20, 21, 22: The Supermen fly SuperPrime through Krypton's red sun, which shreds his armor, then they crash land into Mogo, the Green Lantern Planet. I can feel my IQ dropping as I type this.
Page 23, 24, 25, 26: Fight between Supermen and SuperPrime. B-action movie chatter during the fight, Supes-2 gets mashed to a bloody pulp, then SuperPrime loses. The rest of the heroes show up. Superman collapses from all the Kryptonite around him.
Page 27: Old Man Superman dies making the trite "I'll always be with you" point to Power Girl, who quite frankly I'm now inexplicably inclined to be pissed at for this whole mess in the first place. Power Girl, go away. There. I said it. Oh, and OMS pulls a "Lion King" and we see a shot of him and Lois reflected in the stars. Cheap and unaffecting at this point.
Page 28: Cut to: days later. A bunch of miscellaneous scenes intended to tease the upcoming series and plot points in DC, plus the admission by Bart "I Was A Teenage Flash" Allen to Jay Garrick that he no longer has the Speed Force, and he hands over the Flash costume, saying to Jay "---You're the Fastest Man Alive Again". Wally, Linda and the twins? Second. Shittiest. Send-Off. Ever ("they just disappeared"). As a Flash fan, I'm underwhelmed.
Page 29: A-Lex is wandering the streets of Gotham(?!?). He gets accosted in the alley by acid to the face from...
Page 30: The Joker! BOO-YEAH! Joker hits him with some more acid, some joy buzzer electricity, then we get the following exchange, which is super-cool:
LEX LUTHOR (stepping out of the shadows): "You made a lot of mistakes [Alex]. ...But the biggest one?"
A-LEX: "N-no...p-please..."
LEX LUTHOR: "You didn't let the Joker play."
JOKER: (shoots A-Lex in the head and laughs)
Oh, man, was that sweet.
Page 31 and 32: Diana, Clark, and Bruce are talking. Apparently, having been given this wake-up call and having fought a time-spanning battle royale, the plans of the Big 3 during the 52 weeks gone are to...
wait for it...
wait for it...
take a vacation.
Well, that's just a big pile of meh.
Diana decides she's going to fly off in her invisible jet to "find out who Diana is". Superman is just going to hang out with Lois until his powers come back (they're gone from taking a Kryptonite bath on Mogo, remember?), and Bruce decides he's going to retrace his steps he first took when setting out to become Batman, only this time he's taking Dick Grayson and Tim Drake with him on the voyage. (That was kind of neat, I'll admit.)
Page 33 and 34: Splash page of most of the present day DC heroes.
(Side Note: Carter Hall is in the middle, which reminds me----Hawkman! They didn't fucking explain where Hawkman went, or what happened to him! Those fuckers! They don't know, do they? They just decided to shake up Hawkman with the new creative team and figured 'we'll explain it later', didn't they? Goddammit, DC, quit giving Hawkman the shaft! I am so pissed about this.)
(Additional Side Note: Sign this was tacked on afterward as plot point: Alan Scott is in costume, and his eye that we've seen patched in Checkmate has what looks like a green smudge over it, so it could be an inking error, or it could be deliberate. Way to hedge the ol' bets there, DC.)
Page 35: Cheap shock value horror movie ending: SuperPrime is encased within a red sun (allegedly provided by Donna Troy---hey! Geoff Johns remembered she existed!), guarded by 50 Green Lanterns ... we focus in and see that he's alive, he's burnt an "S" onto his chest, and he vows to get out someday. Dun-dun-DUUNNNNNN!
Best Moment: The Joker finally shows up and blows A-Lex's head off while laughing.
Worst Moment: If I was a Wonder Woman fan, I would be all kinds of pissed at this. She's MIA most of the series, Rucka's well-received , thoughtful run was interrupted for this nonsense, and she just flies off in an invisible jet at the end, having made no contribution to the effort. Nice work, DC. Worst. Send-Off. Ever.
Comic Book Goodness: 2/5. And I'm being generous because it's the end. I'll have more thoughts on the series as a whole next week. But this was an oddly emotionless conclusion of pure unadulterated plot hammering.
6 Comments:
I'm a Wonder Woman fan, but I was actually more torqued at the lack of action by Donna and Kyle's group.
I mean, what was the whole point of RTW? Why did they kill off Jade other than she's more useful as a ghost for four pages in JSA#85 than as a living hero for 15 years?
But on the other hand, did you see the Green Lanterns? Some of them were wimmens!
I have to admit, the Guy Gardner scene and the Joker scene were probably some of the best I've witnessed in a while. It's rare that a comic scene will make me feel actual excitement but those both gave me goosebumps.
Way to confuse us MORE about Blue Beetle. And did you get the spelling mistake as well? "sepll casters" It's like a dyslexic Zatanna.
I thought Batman found the gun on the ground, presumably after it was dropped by someone the wields guns.
I was too horribly impressed either, but I think this lost a lot of its power what with One Year Later already in its second month, we've already seen most of the changes, this just had to make sure not to contradict them too badly.
Which is kind of sad. I figured the rest of the comics were supposed to dance to the tune of the Ginat Universe Changing Event Comic, not the other way around.
I'm going to save the rest of ym reactions for a post later today.
Batman got the gun from Deathstroke, who you yourself pointed out he was just fighting. And I got the feeling A-Lex used the rest of his powers to destroy that building so he could get away.
I was more than pleased with IC #7. Sure, there were a few rushed moments but overall, it did its job. I think if One Year Later launched after this, people would like the issue more. For myself, I have no problems with it and loved the entire series, issue to issue.
I wasn't overly impressed with the entire Infinite Crisis series. But as the One Year Later stories have been nothing but good, I'm willing to give the series a walk. I'm just happy now because I can finally read Superman: For Tomorrow and understand what the bloody hell is going on.
I concur with the Joker scenes being the coolest part of Infinite Crisis. Back in 2 or 1, was it when he took apart the Royal Flush gang and taking out Alex Luthor were the two highlights of the series. And I'm not a huge Joker fan by any stretch of the imagination...well done, Geoff...you made me like the Joker.
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