Black Manta #5 Preview

[Hypo]

Black Manta #5 Preview
Writer: Chuck Brown
Artist: Valentine De Landro

[Frontier]

I gotta be honest, him randomly becoming a janitor for the Suicide Squad or just stumbling into the Tower of Fate (Man-Bat, what?) felt kind of comical .

I could question the concept of Manta and the Legion of Doom fighting a classical version of the Justice League that still has Cyborg and Hawkgirl in it, but it's more funny that the guy finally realized what being a henchmen to a Supervillain means.

[TheCasualReader]

I gotta be honest, him randomly becoming a janitor for the Suicide Squad or just stumbling into the Tower of Fate (Man-Bat, what?) felt kind of comical .

I could question the concept of Manta and the Legion of Doom fighting a classical version of the Justice League that still has Cyborg and Hawkgirl in it, but it's more funny that the guy finally realized what being a henchmen to a Supervillain means.

I think Man-Bat and Etrigan (from JLD) are suppose to be looking for the thief. Honestly, it's an example of why I view every comic as its own continuity because otherwise, stuff like this just seems ridiculously nonsensical if it belongs to a collective continuity. The Tower of Fate literally has no doors or windows so how did he get in? That heist requires its own explanation.

It's just to make the character look more impressive for the sake of this story.

[lemonpeace]

I think Man-Bat and Etrigan (from JLD) are suppose to be looking for the thief. Honestly, it's an example of why I view every comic as its own continuity because otherwise, stuff like this just seems ridiculously nonsensical. The Tower of Fate literally has no doors or windows so how did he get in? That heist requires its own explanation.

It's just to make the character look more impressive for the sake of this story.

we literally saw Devil Ray "hack" magic to enter his secret base in issue #1, and it's not like magic locations haven't been broken into or infiltrated before by various means; so I don't understand this critique. "oh their just trying to make the character more impressive for the story" is such an arbitrary nitpick, it doesn't mean anything because that can be applied to virtually any character in superhero fiction. he simply did an impressive thing, like almost all characters in superhero mediums. the story isn't about the heist or JLD or the Tower of Fate, so we don't need all the details on that. he needed something regarding magic, he's in the DC universe and in the DC universe the Tower or Fate holds a lot of secrets regarding magic, so he infiltrated the Tower of Fate.

[Frontier]

I think Man-Bat and Etrigan (from JLD) are suppose to be looking for the thief. Honestly, it's an example of why I view every comic as its own continuity because otherwise, stuff like this just seems ridiculously nonsensical if it belongs to a collective continuity. The Tower of Fate literally has no doors or windows so how did he get in? That heist requires its own explanation.

It's just to make the character look more impressive for the sake of this story.

Oh...now I understand the context. Yeah, that seems to be a bit much.

Continuity-wise it seems all over the place because Man-Bat wasn't even involved in the JLD until, like, years later than his seemingly in-universe timeline.

To be honest I prefer my take that he's just randomly at the Tower of Fate and just staring at two people on top of it.

[TheCasualReader]

we literally saw Devil Ray "hack" magic to enter his secret base in issue #1, and it's not like magic locations haven't been broken into or infiltrated before by various means; so I don't understand this critique. "oh their just trying to make the character more impressive for the story" is such an arbitrary nitpick, it doesn't mean anything because that can be applied to virtually any character in superhero fiction. he simply did an impressive thing, like almost all characters in superhero mediums. the story isn't about the heist or JLD or the Tower of Fate, so we don't need all the details on that. he needed something regarding magic, he's in the DC universe and in the DC universe the Tower or Fate holds a lot of secrets regarding magic, so he infiltrated the Tower of Fate.

You misunderstand or maybe I phrased myself poorly. Basically, you've more or less summed up my sentiment here:

"He simply did an impressive thing, like almost all characters in superhero mediums. the story isn't about the heist or JLD or the Tower of Fate, so we don't need all the details on that. he needed something regarding magic, he's in the DC universe and in the DC universe the Tower or Fate holds a lot of secrets regarding magic, so he infiltrated the Tower of Fate."

I enjoy stories more when I view each series as its own continuity that doesn't need to fit with the continuity of another series. In JLD, the Tower of Fate is shown to have no windows and no traditional doors. It's not a place you can just infiltrate, as seen in the preview, even if you are really skilled and you can't just hack magic, but I don't have a real problem with it here and don't require an explanation because "Black Manta" is its own story with its own rules for things and this is for that story. If it happened in "Justice League Dark", I would have a real problem with it.

That's what I mean. Hopefully, that makes more sense.

Oh...now I understand the context. Yeah, that seems to be a bit much.

Continuity-wise it seems all over the place because Man-Bat wasn't even involved in the JLD until, like, years later than his seemingly in-universe timeline.

To be honest I prefer my take that he's just randomly at the Tower of Fate and just staring at two people on top of it.

I like to imagine that seeing a man-bat and a demon just doesn't raise an eyebrow anymore. You don't need to have seen man-bats and demons before: you just live in a world where strangeness is so normal it doesn't even provoke a "Huh, that's new" anymore.

But seriously, I have no idea what the timeline for Kirk is. I found out that he apparently died in a Batman's book after some event in the Tower of Fate and now, he's a zombie but nobody in the JLD treats him as having died so who knows? The JLD series also didn't mention that Diana had died at some point so that was a surprise for me when I happened to stumble across that revelation. In this book, he's atop the Tower of Fate with Etrigan which means this had to be during the early part of the Merlin arc.