Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part XLIX: Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2010 (contents: 2009)
Borrowed from the library
Read August 2015

Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance

Writer: Joe Casey

Pencillers: ChrisCross, André Coelho, Eduardo Pansica
Inkers: Rob Stull, Mick Gray, Wayne Faucher, ChrisCross, André Coelho, Sandro Ribeiro, Marc Deering
Colorists: Snakebite, Pete Pantazis
Letterer: Sal Cipriano

The Super Young Team was one of the more interesting aspects of Final Crisis, a group of Japanese super-teens designed as a contemporary version of Jack Kirby's Forever People, and as a result, Dance was the Final Crisis Aftermath tale that I was looking forward to the most.

Though this came out in 2009, Dance feels like it could sit alongside what Phil Sandifer calls the "New Pop" style of contemporary comics, like Batgirl and Young Avengers. Except that... it's just not as good. There could be some interesting ideas about the boldness of youth, what it means to grow up, how to be a superhero in the era of Twitter, but none of that's actually here. Rather, we watch the Super Young Team be manipulated by hackneyed PR managers for five issues when they suddenly get their crap together and save the day. It's not quite as cliche as it sounds-- I did like that Most Excellent Superbat doesn't decide to give up Twitter, but instead invents a replacement for it that joins people brain-to-brain, and I also liked the reveal of the grave threat facing Japan-- but it didn't really have anything to say.

There are glimpses of big ideas in it, but they don't come to fruition. Both Most Excellent Superbat and Shiny Happy Aquazon ultimately turn down heroes from the previous generation to forge their own paths, but there's no sense of why it's important, of what the younger generation gains by rejecting the older generation's identity and forging its own. Or, what about the fact that the supposed deficiencies of this generation come from the previous one: we're just living in the PR-fueled world our parents created. Nothing like this is really grappled with. The book just becomes generic superheroics without anything to say that you haven't seen before, even if it does occasionally want to try.

I feel like there's potential in these characters, so it's a shame this was it for them, as far as I know; the "New 52" reboot restored the original Forever People in an insta-cancelled series by Dan DiDio and Keith Giffen. All five of them seemed like they could be really interesting given the chance, and I also really liked the sense of a history of Japanese superheroics created by Morrison and Casey, with the JLA-esque Big Science Action, who shout delightful things like "Big Science Emergency"! The appearances of ur-hero Ultimon-Alpha, with his stereotypical doomsaying, was one of my favorite parts of the books. Hopefully someone tries something with the Super Young Team again one day; I really like it when DC takes that very American idea of the superhero and filters it through the sensibilities of other cultures.

Next Week: What will become of the Tattooed Man now that he's turned from villain to hero? Find out in Ink!

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Star City, Part XIV: Green Arrow and Black Canary: Family Business

Comic trade paperback, 128 pages
Published 2009 (contents: 2008)
Borrowed from the library
Read January 2010

Green Arrow and Black Canary: Family Business

Writer: Judd Winick
Artists: Cliff Chiang, Mike Norton, Wayne Faucher, Rodney Ramos, André Coelho
Colorist: David Baron
Letterers: Travis Lanham, Jared K. Fletcher, Steve Wands, Sal Cipriano, Pat Brosseau

After the strong The Wedding Album, Judd Winick returns to form: to add insult to injury, at the beginning of this book, the comatose and brain-dead Connor Hawke is kidnapped. Oliver, Dinah, and Mia spend the book hunting for him, aided by some British "bloke" and various other faces from around the DC universe. By the end of the book... they've actually pretty much accomplished nothing, because it's taken them five issues to find out who didn't do it. I could forgive this if other interesting things were going on, but they're not; mostly, Oliver is just snarling a lot. I did like the fakeout with the aliens, though.

The saving grace of this book is the artwork: Cliff Chiang is the best and most interesting artist this title has had since Phil Hester and Ande Parks left. Mike Norton takes over halfway through the book, but does such a good job that you'd barely know.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Star City, Part XIII: Green Arrow / Black Canary: The Wedding Album

Comic hardcover, 175 pages
Published 2008 (contents: 2007-08)
Borrowed from the library
Read December 2009

Green Arrow / Black Canary: The Wedding Album

Writer: Judd Winick
Artists: Amanda Conner, Cliff Chiang, André Coelho
Colorists: Paul Mounts, Trish Mulvihill, David Baron
Letterers: Ken Lopez, Pat Brosseau

After three volumes with other authors (Connor Hawke: Dragon's Blood, For Better or For Worse, and Road to the Altar), I was dreading the return of Judd Winick to writing duties for Green Arrow; I'd gotten mightily sick of him after six volumes of the old series. But quite to my surprise, this books opens exceptionally. The actual wedding of Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance swings between touching, humorous, and shocking with ease, and the story that springs out of that is very good, too, seeing Black Canary, the new Green Arrow, and Speedy hunting for the once-again-"dead" old Green Arrow. There's some good banter, the story moves quickly, the twists are clever, and I liked the sprawling nature of it, a sharp difference from the very street-level old Green Arrow series. It really felt like both Oliver and Dinah's book, not Oliver's book with Dinah tacked on. Best of all, Connor Hawke actually got something to do. Which is why I should have known better...

Winick's favorite tactic on Green Arrow was to beat Connor up to prove the situation was serious, meaning that this expert martial artist-- who had served as Green Arrow by himself for years while Ollie was dead-- always looked a bit useless and never got any good character moments. This really got on my nerves by the end of the series, but Winick goes one further by putting him into a coma and wiping his mind! Argh! Why is this even good writing? How many times do I need to watch scenes of Ollie angsting over his relationship with his son? The only good thing I can say about this development, which ruined an almost-brilliant book for me, is that it finally pays off the revelation at the end of The Archer's Quest, a good five years prior.

On the upside, the wedding story itself is drawn by Amanda Conner, whose work on Wednesday Comics's Supergirl feature was fabulous, and she does a pretty good job here, too (though it's sometimes hard to tell her out-of-costume superheroes apart). The majority of the book is drawn by Cliff Chiang, who has a very clean, "kinetic" style that works well, especially with the bright colors of David Baron. Green Arrow and Black Canary look the best they've looked in years (I mean, look at that slick cover)... it's a shame they just can't have a story to match it.