Justice League: Road to Dark Crisis #1 Discussion/Spoilers

[Rakzo]

As the title says, this issue is dedicated as a prologue to the upcoming Dark Crisis crossover and weirdly enough, it doesn't offer us more about the plot of the event itself as much as a perspective of all the characters about what's about to happen.

The issue opens with a little story between Nightwing and Jon Kent written by Joshua Williamson and I believe is the one that handles the main theme the best. Both characters reflect about what they will do in a world without a Justice League with Nightwing coming to the conclusion that they will eventually return as usual. Once again, Williamson uses continuity to reinforce a story while also contributing to Dick Grayson's classic hopeful characterization (and maybe even hinting that Williamson doesn't take the whole Death of the Justice League mandate seriously) while also keeping the tone serious by mentioning that not every character comes back from the dead. This is all handling nicely and showcases a few charming moments (although I'm not fond of the sudden friendship that Tom Taylor created between the protagonists). Dan Jurgens handles the art and is solid with expressive characters and clear storytelling.

Jeremy Adams follows with a segment between Wally and Wallace and after dropping the main Flash title for a while, I'm sad to learn that some of the problems are still present here. The direction for Wally West is fine but the whole execution still feels overwritten with characters saying more than they should and ending in a rather average manner. Rosi Kampe's artwork is decent though, following the speed moments appropriately.

The section focusing on Aquaman works a little better thanks to Chuck Brown's more elegant writing that depicts Jackson's characterization clearly thanks to the more natural dialogue. If there's a complaint though is that Hal Jordan's appearance here doesn't offer much insight aside from some cool moments due that he has no connection to Jackson (and very little with Arthur to be honest). Fico Ossio's artwork is fantastic here, very vibrant and beautiful.

Phillip Kennedy Johnson brings one of the most interesting stories from this special focusing on Pariah due that it explores his backgrounds and reveals more about his history and motivations (which quite honestly, have been lacking all these years) and serves as an actual set-up for the upcoming event. Leila Del Luca's pencils are pleasent to look at due to the detailed characters.

Finally, Stephanie Phillips creates a segment about Nocturna dealing with a lot of the ideas that Robbie Thompson has been handling on Suicide Squad... which is automatically a negative and sadly Phillips doesn't do much to make the character more interesting and feels like one of the weirdest persons to connect to the main crossover. At least Clayton Henry's artwork is good looking and follows the story appropriately.

Overall, a decent read but not really necessary in the grand scheme of things.

[king81992]

I didn't recognize most of the people who showed up to recruit Nocturna.

[Johnny]

Dick: "I remember how much Barry's death impacted Wally. But sometimes I think Barry coming back hurt him more..."

The subtlety. The funny thing is story-wise that line makes no sense. From an in-universe perspective, in what way was Wally more hurt by Barry's return than by his death? Did he have moments where he was wondering if there was a place left for him with Barry back. If Williamson wanted to stick it to DiDio for hurting his favorite Flash, go right ahead, but if he'll have actual characters bring that up in a story, at least make the line make sense in the story.

And unless I've missed a lot, since when is Barry's identity public knowledge? There's a plaque with his name on a statue in front of the Flash museum.

As for Hal, I've said this before, the idea that he was clueless about the League's death until another Earth hero told him about it is absurd. Being in deep space for so long is irrelevant when John is still the leader of the GLC and he was shown to be back on Oa when he was transported with the other JL members. Even if Hal didn't know about the other Leaguers, how would he not know about John.

[king81992]

Dick: "I remember how much Barry's death impacted Wally. But sometimes I think Barry coming back hurt him more..."

The subtlety. The funny thing is story-wise that line makes no sense. From an in-universe perspective, in what way was Wally more hurt by Barry's return than by his death? Did he have moments where he was wondering if there was a place left for him with Barry back. If Williamson wanted to stick it to DiDio for hurting his favorite Flash, go right ahead, but if he'll have actual characters bring that up in a story, at least make the line make sense in the story.

And unless I've missed a lot, since when is Barry's identity public knowledge? There's a plaque with his name on a statue in front of the Flash museum.

As for Hal, I've said this before, the idea that he was clueless about the League's death until another Earth hero told him about it is absurd. Being in deep space for so long is irrelevant when John is still the leader of the GLC and he was shown to be back on Oa when he was transported with the other JL members. Even if Hal didn't know about the other Leaguers, how would he not know about John.

The Wally line can be interpreted in many ways, most of them not good.

[Johnny]

Character-wise, there's nothing I can think of Wally being more hurt by Barry's return than by his death. Williamson is obviously referring to DC erasing Wally both from marketing and continuity in the New-52, but in terms of lore and character perspective there's no reason why Wally would feel more hurt by Barry coming back than by him dying, or he certainly hasn't expressed himself in such a way about it. Did he say something like that during the Flash War story since I've yet to read that.

[Morgoth]

It was brought up in Speed Metal as well, but even there it was also just an attempt to make a metacommentary about how badly Barry's return hurt Wally.

[Frontier]

Character-wise, there's nothing I can think of Wally being more hurt by Barry's return than by his death. Williamson is obviously referring to DC erasing Wally both from marketing and continuity in the New-52, but in terms of lore and character perspective there's no reason why Wally would feel more hurt by Barry coming back than by him dying, or he certainly hasn't expressed himself in such a way about it. Did he say something like that during the Flash War story since I've yet to read that.

Bart took Barry coming back worse than Wally did.

[Digifiend]

Dick: "I remember how much Barry's death impacted Wally. But sometimes I think Barry coming back hurt him more..."

The subtlety. The funny thing is story-wise that line makes no sense. From an in-universe perspective, in what way was Wally more hurt by Barry's return than by his death? Did he have moments where he was wondering if there was a place left for him with Barry back. If Williamson wanted to stick it to DiDio for hurting his favorite Flash, go right ahead, but if he'll have actual characters bring that up in a story, at least make the line make sense in the story.

And unless I've missed a lot, since when is Barry's identity public knowledge? There's a plaque with his name on a statue in front of the Flash museum.

As for Hal, I've said this before, the idea that he was clueless about the League's death until another Earth hero told him about it is absurd. Being in deep space for so long is irrelevant when John is still the leader of the GLC and he was shown to be back on Oa when he was transported with the other JL members. Even if Hal didn't know about the other Leaguers, how would he not know about John.

Because the people on Oa ALREADY thought John was dead in unrelated circumstances. Him being shown there was a continuity mistake, it contradicts Green Lantern #12.

[sifighter]

The Nocturna in this issue is not the same one as the recent Suicide Squad series, Waller kidnapped people from the multiverse and mind whammed them and one was Nocturna who was made to believe she was this earths version. The Nocturna from Suicide Squad left the multiverse in War for Earth-3 with her boyfriend Match (the Bizarro clone of Conner Kent).

I thought the Pariah story had some really cool implications about Pariah and what he’s doing.

I loved the Jackson and Hal Jordan story but just because it was cool seeing those two team up.

I liked the Flash story, but I’m a flash reader so it was just fun to see more Wally.

Felt the Jon and Dick story was okay, it was exactly what was said in the interviews and they showed it all in the preview so I feel like it was fully revealed ahead of time.

[HsssH]

It was brought up in Speed Metal as well, but even there it was also just an attempt to make a metacommentary about how badly Barry's return hurt Wally.

I wonder what people who don't follow "politics" of comics think about such lines when they read them? Must be rather confusing.

[Rakzo]

The whole "Barry's return hurt Wally more than his death" works in a meta sense obviously but I think is also fitting because of how the Flashpoint deal ended erasing Wally's family and their memories for a while.

Oh, and also there's the little point that this comes from Dick's perspective, not Wally's and it actually makes sense that Dick might think this because he was the closest to Wally since his return and watched his full ordeal from Titans to the atrocious moments in Heroes in Crisis.

[Frontier]

The whole "Barry's return hurt Wally more than his death" works in a meta sense obviously but I think is also fitting because of how the Flashpoint deal ended erasing Wally's family and their memories for a while.

Oh, and also there's the little point that this comes from Dick's perspective, not Wally's and it actually makes sense that Dick might think this because he was the closest to Wally since his return and watched his full ordeal from Titans to the atrocious moments in Heroes in Crisis.

I'm not sure how aware of that Dick would even be to be honest.

[Rakzo]

I'm not sure how aware of that Dick would even be to be honest.

Well, they shared a lot of moments in Titans and I believe they also had moments together written by Williamson during his Flash run.

And everyone knows what happened in Heroes in Crisis so that's another point.

[Frontier]

Well, they shared a lot of moments in Titans and I believe they also had moments together written by Williamson during his Flash run.

And everyone knows what happened in Heroes in Crisis so that's another point.

Yeah, but I'm not sure if Barry (or any responsibility he held in that) would've come up in that way between them.

[Rakzo]

Yeah, but I'm not sure if Barry (or any responsibility he held in that) would've come up in that way between them.

Again, this is just from what Dick "thinks" it happened.