Did the pages in between the covers change? No? Then no. It was awful on many, many fronts and this dead horse has been beat enough. I read The Price. I Read Flash Forward. I read Flash Annual #1.
Everything is trying to move Heaven and Earth to apologize and undo that story. There's a reason for that. It was a mess.
I still think it is a terrible story...for so many reasons. Trashing Wally and so much of it doesn't make sense.
BUT...it doesn't bother me anymore because Jeremy Adams kicked all sorts of ass fixing it and made it a fun read at the same time. So HIC is still horrible but I don't care anymore.
Has the sanctuary been used or mentioned later other than in Wally's appearances?
Firestorm did blow up once-he like Atom would understand how dangerous exploding they would be and would fly as far away from everyone.
Wally would not have known.
Folks would still take issue with the book because you had plenty of folks in there who have NOT been seen in years getting killed off. Shock value mess and one guy looking like Trayvon Martin and recently appeared in another book under the same editor to be badmouthed for being a Teen Titan.
It would be one thing if King's pitch lead up to this with a build up and fleshing out those slated to die or even showing others coming in and out. Lets say a 24 issue run. Not that mess we got that a line of writers had to try to fix because ONCE again DC is ticking off fans to the point they leave.
King didn’t stick the landing on HiC. Otherwise I absolutely loved it. I loved ID Crisis start to finish. I couldn’t care less about bad things happening to or because of characters I like or love. I want them to have real world problems and emotions, I want them to make terrible mistakes and have character flaws. It makes me identify with them more. And of course their mistakes are going to have extreme consequences because comic book reasons.
I do wish we’d see a LOT more of Sanctuary but that seems unlikely.
It was a character assasination for no reason
I’ve been reading comics since 2010 DC has not had any compelling events in my time
Never had a dog in the Flash fight but damn that was a hit job.
Last edited by Gaius; 08-02-2021 at 03:46 PM.
I haven't seen such enticing options since someone screwed up the phrase and told me to "eat **** or die."
What choices!
More directly answering the OP:
Heroes in Crisis has very poor characterization across multiple characters that shows very shoddy understanding of their history and voices.
It is not a particularly effective murder mystery.
It fails on the advertised presence about highlighting mental health by turning Wally into a victim and simultaneously portraying him as the culprit. Every time they have a chance to sympathize with him, instead the creative team doubles down on making him worse until you can no longer say anything about getting mental health assistance.
He went to a clinic to get help. He snapped and accidentally killed everyone.
Then he desecrated their corpses and covered it up to try and make things right.
He proceeds to pin the blame on other victims, one of which is grieving the lover she's accused of killing.
Then he takes everyone's confidential information and violates them by leaking their most private moments in order to make others feel okay. He violated his friends and family, some of which he killed or is responsible for killing people important to them.
Then he commits suicide.
Remember, this is the character who did the right thing. He stepped up and went to get help. Good fucking message.
Before we even get into who it is, it's already a mess. It turns the discussion on mental health into a vehicle for a grossly pedestrian murder mystery that says nothing save it's okay to be selfish and hurt others if you justify it by being hurt.
As someone who's had to deal with mental illness and help others who suffered it as well, I'll say the book was insulting and leave it at that. It made a monster out of a victim and kept compounding on it.
And King never made it about Wally until they told him to.
Before we get into the Trinity jobbing to Harley (LOL that's awful) or Wally being responsible, it's just poor storytelling.
And no amount of books that are busy retconning that mess will fix HiC. Emerald Twilight isn't retroactively good just because Rebirth was. There's a lot of fallout because it wasn't good and now they have to clean up a radioactive spill.
Hated it from start to finish and hope to never read or see it again.
"Life is too short so love the one you got cause you might get run over or you might get shot" - Sublime