Page 2 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast
Results 16 to 30 of 60
  1. #16
    Astonishing Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    New York
    Posts
    4,117

    Default

    I liked this a lot. It reminded me tonally of Brightest Day a smidge, in a variety of disparate characters interacting and setting up a sort of unfolding premise that'll all converge at some point. This is a shorter story that's going to open out into chapters or phases, so hopefully it'll stick the landing and not meander as much as Brightest Day did. But I really respect that it seems like Williamson is taking this Totality concept and using it to directly address the fallout of not just the most recent situation (Death Metal) but specifically to deal with fallout from a few different things, all of which I'm really eager to see fallout from addressed. It's all pretty new reader friendly, but the keen long-term reader can see them specifically riffing on aftermath details from Morrison's Final Crisis (Pirate/Darkseid explicitly reference Barry's rebirth) to say nothing of Justice Incarnate ... Morrison's Multiversity (probably the most overt) ... Johns' Blackest Night/Brightest Day/Flashpoint/Darkseid War/Crisis Riffs and probably Doomsday Clock ... Snyder's Metal/Justice/Death Metal ... and I even see a dash of repair-work for Heroes In Crisis (Williamson has done the lion's share in salvaging anything worthwhile from that mess and since Barry is here this still serves as pseudo-sequel to his excellent Flash run) as well as even some Convergence, which I'm always happy to see.

    Barry arriving at Planet Omega and feeling that sense of meta-textual "I recognize this ... as a crime scene" vibe reeks of the Omega Effect of Darkseid as seen in Final Crisis, as does his vibrational Map-Run to get there. Downright Morrisonian, which is cool - we've had him play with Vintage Barry, TV Barry, and a lot of Johnsian and other aspects of Flash, but this is the first time his Barry has felt fully bathed in that Morrison/Flash/JLA/Crisis bigness.

    A level-up for Psycho Pirate is very long overdue and works exceedingly well here. I wonder if Pirate is sort of the new "Libra", but I'm not sure - you get the sense there's more to it than that, and vibing on Williamson, frankly, you get the sense Libra might show up somewhere, too, so who knows. It's quite mysterious. Like, Darkseid is the biggie but being able to topple not just Highfather (New Gods), or Hera (War of the Gods) or the Wizard (Ditto) or whatever doesn't just have ramifications ... Phantom Stranger and Spectre are there and that's trouble. That's like Darkseid being able to topple Earth-0 power brokers of the entire Fifth Dimensional "orderly side" of the god-spheres. What does that mean as far as like the more chaotic/evil sides like Hell-Sphere, Nightmare, or the Imp/Djinn facets of 5D Reality? Unclear. And I mean, it's depicted as like, N52 Highfather and Hera stylings ... not their multiversal or Omni full 5D Aspect selves. Don't know if Spectre is fused with Corrigan or could re-recruit Crispus in an emergency. That sort of stuff. More speculation there later I guess.

    Oh man, so much set-up and stuff happens here, where to even continue? Flashpoint Batman is such a contrast to the Multiversity that thematically it resonates immediately, obviously with Carrot being the living symbolism for that contrast - they simply must become odd friends, it's storytelling gold. The mystery of the nature of the "Survival" or mapping or charting of Flashpoint Reality factors in pretty nicely with some of the other Missing or Mystery Reality angles they're exploring. It's subtle but I think there's a direct sort of correlation to the shifts in the Multiverse Mapping and the Local Multiverse vs. Greater Omniverse. That ties back to Convergence of Doomsday Clock naturally - but the key things I'm thinking of are the Robinson Earth-2 seem to have shifted out of the Local so the more Classic Earth-2 can shift back in, Earth-3 as we know from the series is rebooted, and so forth.

    Roy was probably the most obvious thing. It has cool ramifications. How it came to be ... could Death Metal Batman's like ... guilt and good heart about Sanctuary and lost sidekicks have led to an accidental permanent retcon-proof Roy revival ... sort of the ultimate unconscious My Good Friend Green Arrow's/My Proteges Dick and Jason's Bestie ... accidental cosmic huge deal? I'd like to think so, and all the while his Cat-wife is secretly unknowingly training Roy's retcon-revival kid while his assassin-son becomes besties/rivals with Ollie's assassin-son? It's so funny conceptually, just how intertwined the Bat and Arrow families are right now.

    Art was gorgeous. Still think it's funny that Extant is just casually used as a quick Totality threat to show their seriousness. I liked Williamson's dialogue with Alan Scott - if you're handed this sort of high concept inclusive riff on this character, I think his usage of the Retcon/Crisis reality fallout and restoration of his kids to have him reassess his life priorities even in his older age is a smart bit of dialogue to quickly explain the change. Kind of gives Alan the power or the character vibe of changing it so that he's "telling his own story now" and not letting the fact that his reality was re-written be the external force of change or whatever. Like, granted, metatextually, Alan Scott's reality has been rewritten so that he was a closeted gay man and his entire chronology has been retconned, but I still like the characterization a lot - doing a lot of heavy lifting with pretty efficient dialogue.

    So good stuff over all. Intrigued. Like the cast more or less. I'm sure it's going to be a bit of an unwieldy cast size with all sorts of strange story choices and whatever else that come with something like this, but so was Final Crisis and I love that. Williamson continues to develop I think into one of my current top three of this generation of DC writers, and I'm glad someone with his sort of 'big picture perspective' and pretty on-point grasp on the DC roster of characters is getting to do the next big sort of Crisis-level escapade.
    Retro315 no more. Anonymity is so 2005.
    retrowarbird.blogspot.com

  2. #17
    Astonishing Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    New York
    Posts
    4,117

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by kalai View Post
    I liked the Black Lantern twist, wasn't expecting that.
    Flashpoint Batman could be from another multiverse according to the Justice Incarnate.

    And about the Omega World, I don't think Darkseid is behind everything.
    In issue#0, the Quintessence said they trapped the "new threat" to the new multiverse,
    and Omega World will be "its" prison,
    then Darkseid showed up and defeated all the Quintessence,
    so I think there is something else.
    Obviously Darkseid is a dangerous ... er ... "ally" ... to have, even in any greater multi-cosmic-crisis, so "teaming" with him will be like hugging a porcupine. But as for the "New Threat" I'm paying attention to any clues we might get, which is few so far. New Threat certainly implies it's not Anti-Monitor (the whole Monitor crew had a pretty big show in Death Metal that really tied up a lot of their threads from COIE to IC to Johns' GL/JL to whatever, from Perpetua to the Triplets to Nix and Mandrakk and the Fifty-Two Monitorkind) so it wouldn't be that and that seems implicit in Pirate having Darkseid as boss now instead. Extant being a nuisance dealt with on page one seems to imply that the "Big Threats" of past non-"Crisis" Crisis events are small potatoes here and are more or less off the board.

    The callbacks to various multiversal and crisis-level stories and fact that this actually addresses fallout from a lot of them could mean something like the return of the Empty Hand and the Gentry from Multiversity, which jives fairly well with the current DCU impetus on interesting new "future hope" type characters, diversification and turning the classics into mentors for lots and lots of new characters. But I'm not sure anyone is clamoring for that, for either anyone to try to tackle Morrison's weird Empty Hand and its nebulous Neh-Buh-Loh connections and the dangers of us cynical a-holes here on Qwewq having too much influence ... Williamson has proven himself pretty good at revivifying and revitalizing, putting new spins on classics, creating new characters, or having SHOCKING RETURNS culled from bygone continuity be the culprit, so I tend to suspect that the new threat is either a Brand New Thing (perhaps teased in his Flash run's "coming soon/future" glimpses) or a "Whoa Look What Shocking Gold He Mined From Continuity Past?!" situation or a sort of combination of both.

    One thing is likely certain - it's not likely to be an entire "Evil Mirror of the Entire Multiversal Hero Totality" concept, because that's literally already basically just what the Dark Multiverse is and they've already been like "what's this, any Dark Multiverse energy? Nope? Okay gotcha" in the first issue. We've glimpsed that already and already know how it plays out. Everyone is evil and Nineties and horrible and somehow Batman is even more over-used than ever ... we can likely rule out A. Dark Multiverse, B. Monitors, C. Apokolips and B. Time Threats.

    To be a threat that a Morrison-Level Multiverse Brigade made up of concepts formed by the best 20 or so DCU writers of the last 30 years and a Back-to-Kirby Levels Darkseid might have to team-up for ... man I'm not actually even sure?

    An enemy made entirely of the symbolic concept of creators not getting credit for their creations? Something that co-opts entire universes?

    A cosmic AT&T from Beyond the Bleed Borders?
    Last edited by K. Jones; 06-22-2021 at 03:51 PM.
    Retro315 no more. Anonymity is so 2005.
    retrowarbird.blogspot.com

  3. #18
    Ultimate Member Robotman's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Location
    California
    Posts
    12,029

    Default

    In Multiversity, Morrison established that there are various multiverse clusters kind of like galaxies. It’s never really been touched on since then. I wonder if this series will finally acknowledge it.

    Liked seeing Machinehead get some lines. He’s usually just in the background. If Marvel can have Heroes Reborn revolve around their DC doppelgängers it’s only fitting that Earth 8 gets some page time.

  4. #19
    Mighty Member Jody Garland's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Posts
    1,668

    Default

    This was fun. I don't really have whole lot others- especially the always excellent K. Jones- said better than I could, but I'll add that I really dig the Psycho Pirate's new look. That neon black and white look is swanky no matter who they try it on.

    EDIT: Actually, I do have something to add. It's interesting that there is nothing, not even frequencies, going on on the Omega Earth. It seems completely inert as a universe. That doesn't seem like typical Darkseid to me.

  5. #20
    OUTRAGEOUS!! Thor-Ul's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Location
    Halfway between Asgard & Krypton
    Posts
    6,437

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Robotman View Post
    In Multiversity, Morrison established that there are various multiverse clusters kind of like galaxies. It’s never really been touched on since then. I wonder if this series will finally acknowledge it.

    Liked seeing Machinehead get some lines. He’s usually just in the background. If Marvel can have Heroes Reborn revolve around their DC doppelgängers it’s only fitting that Earth 8 gets some page time.
    It seems fair. Maybe a visit to earth 8 or machinehead calling home could be nice to see.
    "Never assign to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity or ignorance."

    "Great stories will always return to their original forms"

    "Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable." James Baldwin

  6. #21
    Incredible Member blunt_eastwood's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Posts
    597

    Default

    Is this all we can do anymore? Crisis after endless Crisis?

    The more they keep doing this, the more they destroy the weight of the previous events.

  7. #22
    Astonishing Member Stanlos's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2014
    Posts
    4,167

    Default

    I cannot believe I am going to type this, but: I could use a nice long break from the Fourth World characters and especially Darkseid and the increasingly pedestrian Anti-Life stuff. They have been
    run into the ground
    Last edited by Stanlos; 06-23-2021 at 05:00 AM.

  8. #23
    Extraordinary Member Restingvoice's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Posts
    9,574

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by sifighter View Post
    Alright so right out the gate there is a lot to talk about here, because there are a lot of characters all doing there own thing and all of it is pretty grand in scope because it all concerns big mysteries, the multiverse, and a few reveals we may not have seen coming. That in mind I’ve decided to break into all spoiler boxes under specific characters after a brief intro, hope that’s okay.

    Anyway I will say that not a lot of this is follow up from the #0 issue back in March, obviously things like Alan Scott, Barry Allen, Roy Harper, and Darkseid are all important but it’s not exactly 1 for 1 as things have moved on and only certain characters are getting focus compared to the whole DC universe. There’s also a lot to deal with the multiverse and how to handle it in the wake of events such as Death Metal, in fact they do reference the dark multiverse a few times. Either way I think it’s an interesting first issue that’s throwing us into a multiverse mystery that will lead to a crisis event, only problem is that it’s not new reader friendly.

    It does not take time to explain who people are and goes straight into the story, which is fine and for some people like me who read a bunch of comics from a wide variety of stories since childhood. But unfortunately if you don’t know about Director Bones, Agent Chase, The Justice Incarnate, Flashpoint Batman, and the Psycho Pirate, which you may not be because its a wide range of odd characters from Earth-0 to Flashpoint, to the multiverse, then you may be a bit confused when a Batman crash lands on Earth-23. Luckily Secret Files is a thing huh. But I do think it’s a good start to an interesting story that I can’t wait to see more of. And with that onto the spoilers.

    Alan Scott and Family (Obsidian and Jade only)

    spoilers:
    So after stomping on Extant in the opening, Alan goes off with Obsidian to an old JSA base in Gotham where Jade is with undisclosed friends, no doubt a JSA or Infinity Inc. tease, but then the base blows up via green fire and everyone including Jade has suddenly disappeared and Obsidian can’t track her. In reading this scene it does feel like it may tie-in to what’s going on with Roy and Flashpoint Batman.
    end of spoilers

    Chase and Director Bones

    spoilers:
    Not too much happens here, it’s basically Bones recruiting Chase in a reformed DEO to deal with the fact that the multiverse is now common knowledge and that weird stuff is happening because of it. I’m assuming it leads to more but not much for the first issue.
    end of spoilers

    Flashpoint Batman and The Justice Incarnate

    spoilers:
    Okay so as the preview shows Thomas Wayne crash lands on Earth-23 in a ship in front of Calvin Ellis’ parents and Calvin takes the unconscious body to the Justice Incarnate to get a look at him and see what’s going on. Because as you recall last we saw old Thomas Bane had broken his back in prison but this makes it seem that since then someone captured him and kept him trapped somewhere else and he only now managed to escape, maybe the same people who captured Jade and the JSA, but who knows. All we know is someone is kidnapping and holding multiverse people hostage.
    end of spoilers

    Barry Allen and Psycho Pirate

    spoilers:
    So Barry has gone off on his own to explore the Omega world and to do so he’s decided to run through the whole “mapped” multiverse to build up speed and energy, by the way I like that scene because we get a glimpse of what looks like classic Earth-2 Helena Wayne. But anyway Barry’s plan works but he immediately regrets it when he comes across the murdered corpses of the Quintessence.

    But he doesn’t get long to think about it when an upgraded Psycho Pirate attacks working alongside Darkseid who apparently want Barry for something. All we truly know is that Psycho knows of a coming crisis and says he and Barry will be on the same side. So yeah Psycho and Darkseid have captured the Fastest man alive now.
    end of spoilers

    Finally Roy Harper......and the mysterious new Black Lantern (shocked gasps!), yeah they reveal who it is in the first issue of series.

    spoilers:
    So Roy is sitting in a dinner and the scene is kind of long because we are just getting dialogue of people talking about Death Metal and the multiverse and then we get a guy who basically claims the Multiverse is fake news created by the superheroes...but that doesn’t last long when that new multiverse bounty hunter X-tract shows up coming for Roy with a squad of henchmen.

    And things look bad until the black lantern appears and kicks out X-tract and her people. The Black lantern of course is none other then....Roy Harper! That’s right, Roy is the Black Lantern and is making constructs of himself. I guess that’s where Batman’s black lantern ring went but Roy looks a little concerned of course he probably should be because I think he was around for Blackest Night. But that’s the final shot of the issue, Roy in Black Lantern gear with dark colored constructs of his past.
    end of spoilers

    All sounds pretty crazy right. Either way I know I’m coming back next issue as I’m generally intrigued by multiverse shenanigans and big crazy ideas like what Williamson presents here.
    Trading this but keeping up with the news, the only name I don't know is Extant and X-tract but they don't sound that important

    Also, Psycho Pirate was last seen in Arkham as well, unless he showed up fighting in Death Metal, but then again Death Metal timeline was reset so it's like it didn't happen, so he should be returned back to Arkham

    Anyway, just a thought that maybe if Darkseid freed Psycho Pirate, then maybe he's responsible for Flashpoint Batman removal as well.

    Quote Originally Posted by sifighter View Post
    By the way wasn’t the Gotham base for the JSA a pre-crisis thing? Also I hope someone just goes “before the reality rewrite that wasn’t a JSA base, it was a Starbucks!”
    It was in Post Crisis too. Batgirl Year One.

  9. #24
    Ultimate Member sifighter's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Posts
    10,395

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Restingvoice View Post
    Trading this but keeping up with the news, the only name I don't know is Extant and X-tract but they don't sound that important

    Also, Psycho Pirate was last seen in Arkham as well, unless he showed up fighting in Death Metal, but then again Death Metal timeline was reset so it's like it didn't happen, so he should be returned back to Arkham

    Anyway, just a thought that maybe if Darkseid freed Psycho Pirate, then maybe he's responsible for Flashpoint Batman removal as well.



    It was in Post Crisis too. Batgirl Year One.
    X-tract is brand new, I only know the name because I follow Williamson on twitter. Extant is an old 90’s villain with one of the more convoluted backstories in comics history who was involved in Zero Hour with Parallax and a story arc in the 90’s/early 00’s JSA run.
    "It's fun and it's cool, so that's all that matters. It's what comics are for, Duh."
    Words to live by.

  10. #25
    Ultimate Member j9ac9k's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Posts
    12,009

    Default

    So if Earth-2 is back, does that mean we can actually get a "JSA of two earths" crossover at some point? The mind boggles...

    I haven't been keeping up, but do we know how Flashpoint Batman for into an escape pod? I don't know why, but after the "Why would someone ship us a Batman?" line I just thought of this:

    Man, the internet is handy....

  11. #26
    Invincible Member Vordan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2018
    Posts
    26,376

    Default

    Enjoyed the issue, kind of curious where it’s going. Others summarized the issue much better than I could so I won’t repeat them here. Looks like New 52 Earth 2 got wiped or has been moved somewhere else. How the hell did Roy get a Black Lantern ring I wonder?
    For when my rants on the forums just aren’t enough: https://thevindicativevordan.tumblr.com/

  12. #27
    Ultimate Member sifighter's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Posts
    10,395

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Vordan View Post
    Enjoyed the issue, kind of curious where it’s going. Others summarized the issue much better than I could so I won’t repeat them here. Looks like New 52 Earth 2 got wiped or has been moved somewhere else. How the hell did Roy get a Black Lantern ring I wonder?
    I just assumed it was Batman's from Death Metal.

    Edit: Also I guess this means that Roy is still dead? Granted I've never truly understood whether or not one truly needs to be dead to wield a black lantern ring considering that John Stewart managed it for a little while, though he did it with Indigo power and Roy's just naturally okay without the whole zombie thing.
    Last edited by sifighter; 06-23-2021 at 01:32 PM.
    "It's fun and it's cool, so that's all that matters. It's what comics are for, Duh."
    Words to live by.

  13. #28
    Astonishing Member BatmanJones's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    4,262

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Vordan View Post
    Enjoyed the issue, kind of curious where it’s going. Others summarized the issue much better than I could so I won’t repeat them here. Looks like New 52 Earth 2 got wiped or has been moved somewhere else. How the hell did Roy get a Black Lantern ring I wonder?
    IIRC you don’t get a Black Lantern ring, a Black Lantern ring gets you.

  14. #29
    Ultimate Member Robotman's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Location
    California
    Posts
    12,029

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Stanlos View Post
    I cannot believe I am going to type this, but: I could use a nice long break from the Fourth World characters and especially Darkseid and the increasingly pedestrian Anti-Life stuff. They have been
    run into the ground
    Darkseid is one of my favorite characters but I totally agree. They need to give him a rest.

    Though I think it would be cool if he created his own Quintessence. Call them the Antithesis. Darkseid, Ares, Sabbac, Neron, and Lady Blaze.

  15. #30

    Default

    Although I have developed multiverse fatigue over the decades, these little crisis's are great for bringing forth heroes who would not normally get the spotlight under regular DC titles, and...

    (I have always felt that DC's strength over Marvel has been it's vast array of obscure and interesting heroes to choose from that lies outside of the trinity)

    Notes:

    - You know your getting old when you can remember Barry Allen's first encounter with the Psycho Pirate (Cool new costume though)
    - I loved the new Infinite Frontier Secret Files with Mister Bones & Captain Boomerang. Two great characters!

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •