Power Girl: Power Trip by Geoff Johns, Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Amanda Conner

Power Girl: Power Trip

Collection published: 2023
Contents originally published: 2005-10
Acquired and read: August 2023

Writers: Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Geoff Johns, Amanda Conner

Artist: Amanda Conner
Inker: Jimmy Palmiotti

Colorist: Paul Mounts

Letterers: John J. Hill, Rob Leigh

When I reread the "Power Trip" arc of JSA Classified (see item #39 in the long list below), I was reminded of how awful Geoff Johns's writing was... but also what a brilliant artist Amanda Conner was, and what a good fit she was for the buoyant, expressive Power Girl. So I decided to pick up this collection, which contains all twelve issues of her run on Power Girl vol. 2. (Unfortunately, it also includes that terrible JSA Classified story, but I skipped it rather than suffer through it a third time. Note that Geoff Johns gets first billing on the cover for writing just four of the seventeen issues included here, whereas Amanda Conner—the only person to work on all seventeen and the volume's clear star—is down in fourth. Must be nice to be the former president of DC!)

The twelve issues of Power Girl collected here run concurrently with Justice Society of America vol. 3 #29-40 and JSA All-Stars vol. 2 #1-6, taking place during the time when Power Girl is leading the JSA. (When the volume opens, the team seems to be unified still; by the time of the closing arc, it has split up, and Magog has left.) But the story's focus is on the fact that despite what's happening with the Justice Society, Power Girl is no longer frustrated at her lack of a clear origin, and just trying to be herself—whoever that may be. So for the first time in a long while, she's reactivated her civilian identity of Karen Starr, and is using it to build a technology company while she moves out of the JSA brownstone into an apartment of her own. She develops friendships, and builds up her own supporting cast. There's even her cat from her JLI days.

I would not have guessed Wonder Woman was great with cats... except to the extent that she's great at everything, I suppose.
from Wonder Woman vol. 1 #600 (script & art by Amanda Conner)

It's one of those runs that you can't point to a single issue and say "this is an amazing comic book" but where you can point to the whole and say "this is what a superhero comic book should be." It's funny, it's charming, it's goofy, it has a unique personality all its own. Sometimes Power Girl is battling the Ultra-Humanite and his former lover Santana, but sometimes she's stopping alien girls gone wild and a virile alien warlord who wants to repopulate his sterilized planet, sometimes she's helping out a teenage boy by going comic book shopping with him. Writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti have admittedly produced some real shit in their time at DC, but this plays to their strengths—or at least to Conner's, who is surely in the Top Ten of superhero comics artists, and consistently elevates any material she is given.

Bring back Vartox.
from Power Girl vol. 2 #12 (script by Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti, art by Amanda Conner)

In Conner's hands, comedy, action, and emotion all get good play, letting the whole story come alive. Sometimes the main conflict of one of these stories will end halfway through an issue, and the rest will just be about Power Girl chilling with her sidekick/new friend Terra—and it is always a delight. Conner hits the perfect note with PG's physical appearance, giving us a woman who is attractive but not objectified. I mean, Gray and Palmiotti definitely write in gratuitous moments, but they feel natural and part of the story. (Which is not always the case with Power Girl; shortly before writing this review, I read JSA All-Stars #1, where PG's costume gets strategically torn in such a way as to reveal her entire midriff, and where her boobs are always hanging in "attractive" unnatural positions... bleh.)

My favorite Atlee moment, though, is probably the bit where she pretends to be from Australia.
from Power Girl vol. 2 #3 (script by Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti, art by Amanda Conner)

Like many great runs, the worst thing about it is that it wasn't longer; I gladly would have read another twelve issues from this team. I felt that the supporting cast at Karen's new company barely got started in what they could do, and I want more Kara and Atlee bonding in New York City. But even though this comic lasted another fifteen issues, Judd Winick took over as writer and it became (to my understanding, anyway) a Brightest Day tie-in; neither the writer nor the change of focus appeals. That said, it did make me interested in picking up PG's newest series... the journey never ends, does it?

This post is forty-seventh in an ever-expanding series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers volume 2 of JSA All-Stars. Previous installments are listed below:

Terra by Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Amanda Conner

Terra

Collection published: 2009
Contents originally published: 2007-09
Acquired and read: August 2023

Writers: Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti

Penciller: Amanda Conner
Inkers: Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner

Colorists: Rod Reis, Paul Mounts

Letterers: Rob Leigh, Travis Lanham, Sal Cipriano, Swands

After I read Justice Society of America vol. 3, I moved onto Power Girl: Power Trip, which collects a Power Girl ongoing that overlapped with it. But a few issues into it, I was starting to wonder what the deal was with "Terra," Power Girl's sidekick and friend, who comes from a hidden nation of subterranean people. Well, it turned out the answer was in this book by the same creative team of writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti and artist Amanda Conner, so I paused reading Power Trip to delve into this long out-of-print collection.

Terra is a bit frustrating in that much of the time, we view this new character from the outside; we don't get much of her own struggle. What are her stakes? This is never really clear. The first issue here teams her up with Supergirl, in one of her particularly selfish periods; Terra's perky selflessness serves as a contrast. Then she meets up with Power Girl and Doctor Mid-Nite, then (groan) Geo-Force. Her deal is that she tries to take care of collisions between the surface world and the subterranean one, protecting the underground ecosystem from human intervention and humanity from subterranean creatures. She comes from a whole thriving underground world with a myriad different kinds of life. It's a neat set-up for stories potentially, but one the volume on its own ultimately doesn't make a ton of use of—and since Terra never got another series, I'm guessing was never really used in future stories, either.

Like, I wanted to know more about her relationship with her dad.
from Terra #3 (art by Amanda Conner)

Alongside this, there's a subplot about a guy digging underground who accidentally turns himself into a living diamond. This culminates in him attacking Terra's people, and she and Geo-Force team up to defeat him. It's pretty perfunctory stuff, I feel like more could have been made of the bad guy. (There's also some stuff about this Terra's place as the... third, I think, superhero of that name, but I don't know anything about the Teen Titans, so it was all underexplained gibberish to me. For some reason, Geo-Force's memory has to be erased even though he learned that someone was impersonating his dead sister; seems a bit mean. How his dead sister can be from underground, I don't really know.)

Not hard to be more of a hero than this version of Supergirl.
from Supergirl vol. 5 #12 (art by Amanda Conner & Jimmy Palmiotti)

Then in a half-issue coda, Terra goes back to the surface and bumps into Power Girl again. This made me very glad I paused Power Trip to read this, because it's basically a set-up for that series, pushing Kara into the decision to resume living her civilian identity and lead a normal life.

Terra and Power Girl did not get off to a great start, to be honest.
from Terra #2 (art by Amanda Conner)

So writing wise, it's basically fine. Decent idea, but mediocre execution—which honestly feels par for the course for Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, who are hacks (meant in the nicest possible way, of course) if ever there were any; they did, after all, write Infinite Crisis Aftermath, Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters, parts of Countdown, and what is probably the worst superhero comic ever. But what elevates it is their collaboration with one of superhero comics' best-ever artists, Amanda Conner. Conner's art is fun, bold, sexy, and above all, character driven. You get a sense of personality from her faces that mostly fails to come across from the writing. It's delightful, I knew I would love it, I did love it, and it's the whole reason I bought this book as opposed to just reading the issues on DC Universe Infinite, and it was worth it. Get Amanda Conner to draw every comic book, please.

This post is forty-sixth in an ever-expanding series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers Power Girl: Power Trip. Previous installments are listed below:

The Stories between the Stories: JSA Classified

In 2005, the Justice Society reached a new milestone: two ongoing series at once. JSA Classified lasted thirty-nine issues, from Sept. 2005 to Aug. 2008, which means it overlapped with both JSA (which ended Sept. 2006) and Justice Society of America vol. 3 (which began Feb. 2007).

Those other ongoings were clearly the "main" ones. JSA Classified featured rotating creative teams on shorter stories that focused on one or two or occasionally a couple more JSA members at a time. There are two four-part stories; the rest are usually two- or three-parters, with the occasional one-off. No writer or artist works on more than one storyline, with the exception of Alex Sanchez (who illustrates two stories for a total of five issues) and Jimmy Palmiotti (who inks two stories for a total of eight issues, making him the series's most prolific contributor).

Very little of the series has been collected. Issues #1-4, a Power Girl story by Geoff Johns and Amanda Conner, have been collected a few times; I previously read them in The Sequential Art of Amanda Conner. #5-9 were collected as Honor Among Thieves, the only JSA Classified–branded trade. A couple more issues have been chucked into collections here and there: #21-22, by Walter Simonson, were included in Hawkgirl: Hawkman Returns and #25 and 32-33 were part of JSA Presents Green Lantern. Rather than track down the floppies, I decided to read the whole series on DC Universe Infinite, except I skipped the issues in JSA Presents Green Lantern, since I had just read that trade.

As you might expect for an anthology series, some stories are better than others. I'm not going to go blow by blow, but I will give you some highlights.

When I first read Power Trip (#1-4, by Geoff Johns, Amanda Conner, and Jimmy Palmiotti), I didn't like it; rereading it made it even worse. It's a story focused on continuity with nothing to say about character... except it doesn't even really say anything about continuity, either, as the story is just a series of fakeouts about things that are not Power Girl's origin. Amanda Conner's art is brilliant, though, and it made me decide to incorporate her Power Girl ongoing into this project.

On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised by Honor Among Thieves (#5-7, by Jen Van Meter, Patrick Olliffe, et al.). This is about the Injustice Society planning a heist in JSA headquarters, and I have found most modern takes on the Injustice Society, from Roy Thomas on, gratuitously violent. But Jen Van Meter produces a charming story about underdogs who have to work together to do something that's, well, if not the right thing, not the worst thing either. I liked it a lot, and I'm excited to see that Van Meter returns to some of these characters in a backup she writes for Justice Society vol. 3.

Another villain-focused story did have the problems of gratuitous violence: "The Fall & Rise of Vandal Savage" (#10-13, by Stuart Moore, Paul Gulacy, and Jimmy Palmiotti) just went on and on and on, and had little of interest. Similarly, I didn't like the two Doctor Mid-Nite stories, "Skin Trade" (#19-20, by Scott Beatty, Rags Morales, and Michael Bair) and "Nightfall" (#23-24, by J. T. Krul, Alex Sanchez, and Jack Purcell). Both had lots of squicky stuff. Worse, "Skin Trade" mutilates some minor characters from other series just to prove the situation is serious, one of my least favorite superhero tropes. (On the other hand, it did pick up an interesting loose end from Ultra-Humanite's backstory.)

But when the series is great, it's really great. One thing I didn't like about Geoff Johns's JSA run is that the actual people of the JSA often seemed lost in the way the series lurched from massive event to massive event. Here, we get a lot of nice character-focused stories about the people who make the world's first superhero team also its best. I am not a Scott McDaniel fan, nor a Bane one, so I was pleasantly surprised by "The Venom Connection" (#17-18, by Tony Bedard, Scott McDaniel, and Andy Owens), where Bane comes to Hourman and his son Hourman, seeking help with Venom... which it turns out might be related to the drug that gives them their powers, Miraclo. It's a great focus on the younger Hourman, Rick Tyler, and also Bane himself, with some good (if comic-book-level) discussion of addiction.

I often feel like Wildcat gets a bit flanderized: ooh, he talks funny and he gives Power Girl crap and he drinks beer. So again, I was pleasantly surprised when I ended up enjoying all three of JSA Classified's Wildcat stories: "Fight Game" (#26-27, by Frank Tieri, Jerome Moore, et al.), "Forward through the Past" (#35-37, by B. Clay Moore and Ramon Perez), and "Body and Soul" (#38-39, by Mike W. Barr and Shawn Martinbrough). Each story does a good job focusing on his history, and tying into his interest in wrestling without making it contrived. He uproots a gambling ring, takes on criminals using his old gyms in Gotham, and stops people from stealing the mental patterns of retired wrestlers. Each story is solid, but I particularly enjoyed "Forward through the Past," which has some great character-focused writing and, especially, great art. I don't know that I've ever really registered either B. Clay Moore or Ramon Perez before, but I will look out for more by them. Their depiction of the relationship between Wildcat and Catwoman intrigued me, so now I plan to circle back and read a couple stories about that as well.

The only other stories I found particularly bad were the Justice League Detroit one, "Double or Nothing" (#14-16, by Steve Englehart, Tom Derenick, et al.), and the Mr. Terrific one, "Mr. Horrific" (#29-31, by Arvid Nelson and Alex Sanchez). The former was confusing and poorly explained—and also I'm totally over stories where villains force heroes to fight each other for gambling purposes. Maybe I'll like it more when I reread it in the Justice League Detroit omnibus? But I kind of doubt it. "Mr. Horrific" was just awful: nonsensical leaps in the writing, ugly impenetrable artwork.

Beyond that, you have a number of solid, enjoyable stories. If I have an overall complaint, it's that I wish we'd seen more JSA members. Some more focus on the younger members would have been good; Stargirl's only story was the terrible "Double or Nothing," and Jakeem Thunder just gets a one-parter (#28, by Fabian Nicieza and Steve Uy). Or, it would be nice to open the series up some more so it's not so focused on the present-day JSA: give me a good Atom story, or a good World War II–era one, or whatever.

But on the whole I liked it a lot, more than I expected. I kind of though it was a series to burn off bad fill-ins by mediocre creative teams, but it was nothing like that at all. To be honest, I wish the regular JSA series had been more like this: nothing overdramatic, just good character-focused stories drawing on these people's long histories.

This post is thirty-ninth in a series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers JSA: Ragnarok. Previous installments are listed below:

1. All Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever (1976-79)
2. The Huntress: Origins (1977-82)
3. All-Star Squadron (1981-87)
4. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume One (1983-84)
5. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume Two (1984-85)
6. Showcase Presents... Power Girl (1978)
7. America vs. the Justice Society (1985)
8. Jonni Thunder, a.k.a. Thunderbolt (1985)
9. Crisis on Multiple Earths, Volume 7 (1983-85)
10. Infinity, Inc. #11-53 (1985-88) [reading order]
11. Last Days of the Justice Society of America (1986-88)
12. All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant (1999)
13. Steel, the Indestructible Man (1978)
14. Superman vs. Wonder Woman: An Untold Epic of World War Two (1977)
• Wonder Woman: Earth-Two (1977-78)
15. Secret Origins of the Golden Age (1986-89)
16. The Young All-Stars (1987-89)
17. Gladiator (1930) ["Man-God!" (1976)]
    
18. The Crimson Avenger: The Dark Cross Conspiracy (1981-88)
19. The Immortal Doctor Fate (1940-82)
20. Justice Society of America: The Demise of Justice (1951-91)
21. Armageddon: Inferno (1992)
22. Justice Society of America vol. 2 (1992-93)
23. The Adventures of Alan Scott--Green Lantern (1992-93)
24. Damage (1994-96)
25. The Justice Society Returns! (1999-2001)
26. Chase (1998-2002)
27. Stargirl by Geoff Johns (1999-2003)
28. The Sandman Presents: The Furies (2002)
29. JSA by Geoff Johns, Book One (1999-2000)
30. Wonder Woman: The 18th Letter: A Love Story (2000)
31. Two Thousand (2000)
32. JSA by Geoff Johns, Book Two (1999-2003)
33. Golden Age Secret Files & Origins (2001)
34. JSA by Geoff Johns, Book Three (1999-2003)
35. JSA by Geoff Johns, Book Four (2002-03)
36. JSA Presents Green Lantern (2002-08)
37. JSA #46-87 (2003-06)
38. JSA: Strange Adventures (2004-05)
    

Faster than a DC Bullet: All-New All-Different DC, Part XIII: Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer

Comic trade paperback, 158 pages
Published 2008 (contents: 2007-08)
Borrowed from the library
Read March 2017

Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer

Writers: Ron Marz, Sean McKeever, Peter Johnson, Matt Cherniss, Brian Augustyn, Alan Burnett, Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti

Pencillers: Angel Unzueta, Jamal Igle, Kelley Jones, Eric Battle, Greg Tocchini, Travel Foreman, Kalman Andrasofszky, Jeremy Haun, David Hahn, David Baldeón
Inkers: Oliver Nome, Richard Friend, Saleem Crawford, Trevor Scott, Rob Hunter, Kelley Jones, Derek Fridolfs, Vicente Cifuentes, Jonathan Glapion, Jesse Delperdang, Paul Neary, Lorenzo Ruggiero, Kalman Andrasofszky, Norm Rapmund, Álvaro López, Rick Ketcham, David Hahn, Steve Bird
Colorists: Allen Passalaqua, John Kalisz, Mark Chiarello, Art Lyon, Rod Reis, Pete Pantazis, Kanila Tripp
Letterers: John J. Hill, Steve Wands, Travis Lanham

I read this because I thought that it would tie-in to The All New Atom in some way. I still assume it does, because the next volume of The All New Atom is called The Hunt For Ray Palmer!, but "all-new Atom" Ryan Choi does not put in an appearance here. Instead, this volume follows the so-called "Challengers from Beyond" from Countdown to Final Crisis, expanding on their multiverse-hopping search for the original Atom, Ray Palmer, covered in volumes two and three of that series. Honestly, though I know it would have inflated that series to five volumes, and no one out there wanted more of Countdown to Final Crisis, DC should have included these issues with those ones somehow, because they don't stand on their own in any way.

I will never ever care about Monarch, DC, no matter how hard you try.
from Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer: Wildstorm #1 (script by Ron Marz, art by Angel Unzueta and Oliver Nome & Richard Friend & Saleem Crawford & Trevor Scott)

The various issues collected here mostly show visits by the Challengers from Beyond to different worlds in the multiverse while they look for Ray Palmer, giving us extra adventures that went unseen in the main Countdown to Final Crisis series. As such, there's no real set-up (just a text page to recap salient points from the main series) and no resolution beyond an ad for Countdown to Final Crisis, Volume Three. And some parts are just confusing; for example, the Jokester from Earth-Three joins the Challengers at the end of one issue, but is nowhere to be seen in the next; that's because Countdown #30-22* took place between these two issues, and the Jokester died in #29, but there's no indication whatsoever of that here. And obviously I read Countdown to Final Crisis, but so long ago that I didn't remember this. C'mon, DC, at least try to make your collections readable. (Thanks to Cosmic Teams for being the only people on the whole Internet invested enough in Countdown to write an issue-by-issue timeline for it. Most of The Search for Ray Palmer occurs between issues #22 and 21 of Countdown, so during the middle of volume three.)

Faster than a DC Bullet: All-New All-Different DC, Part II: Manhunter: Trial by Fire

Comic trade paperback, 222 pages
Published 2007 (contents: 2005)
Borrowed from the library
Read December 2016

Manhunter: Trial by Fire

Writer: Marc Andreyko

Pencillers: Javier Pina, Jesus Saiz, Brad Walker, Diego Olmos
Inkers: Fernando Blanco, Jimmy Palmiotti, Bob Petrecca
Colorist: Steve Buccellato
Letterers: Jared K. Fletcher, Rob Leigh, Pat Brosseau, Nick J. Napolitano, Travis Lanham

This book is good but not great. Which is fine; lots of comic books out there aren't even good. But Manhunter seems like it should be great. All the pieces are there, and there are lots of things to like here. I like showing what happens when a supervillain gets arrested and goes on trial (Kate calls Hawkman and Superman as witnesses in the trial of Shadow Thief for the murder of Firestorm). I like that Superman takes the time to sign a photo for Kate's son. I like that Andreyko delves into the history of DC's various Manhunters, showing her as the latest in a lineage (DC's sense of history and tradition was the highlight of the post-Crisis/pre-Flashpoint universe). I like that Kate isn't always nice, struggles with smoking, and has an ex-henchman she goes to for technical support.

When I told my wife (who is reading Manhunter along with me) that I liked it when Superman testified, she said, "Of course you did." I guess I am predictable.
from Manhunter vol. 3 #7 (art by Jesus Saiz & Fernando Blanco)

But the book never clicks as much as I want it to. The trial of Shadow Thief is interrupted by various supervillains trying to kill him so he can't testify against them, a mistrial is declared... and that's it, the storyline is over while they wait for a new trial to come along. The Manhunter stuff just gets confusing because there's so many Manhunters, and I've even read the issue of Secret Origins that organized all their histories into one coherent narrative. And bringing it all in for a five-issue story doesn't quite work because it pulls this series away from its core purpose a little too much: how does Kate carry out the kind of justice the legal system won't let her?

I mean, yeah, of course.
from Manhunter vol. 3 #13 (art by Brad Walker & Jimmy Palmiotti)

That said, the stories are decent. I like the sense of Kate as someone who struggles in combat, who is improvising and doing her best, and sometimes failing. She gets beat up, she suffers, but she plunges back into it all. She has tenacity and luck on her side-- she survives a fight with Cheshire, which might seem improable, but is mostly because she cares more than Cheshire. Cheshire is a hired gun and has a reason to just give up, while Kate has a dozen reasons to just keep going regardless.

The fakeout about who was killing Manhunters might have worked better if I could keep track of who they all were.
from Manhunter vol. 3 #13 (art by Brad Walker & Jimmy Palmiotti)

Anyway, I like it, and I'll obviously keep reading. But I'm still hoping that Manhunter delivers on its potential.

Next Week: Captain Atom crosses universes and experiences Armageddon!

Faster than a DC Bullet: All-New All-Different DC, Part I: Manhunter: Street Justice

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2005 (contents: 2004-05)
Borrowed from the library
Read November 2016

Manhunter: Street Justice

Writer: Marc Andreyko

Penciller: Jesus Saiz
Inker: Jimmy Palmiotti
Colorist: Steve Buccellato
Letterers: Phil Balsman, Jared K. Fletcher, Pat Brosseau

These days Marvel gets a lot of praise, and rightly so, for its "All-New All-Different" titles, series like Ms. Marvel and Thor and so on that update classic heroes with new diverse characters-- and also diverse storytelling and artistic styles. DC had a similar, if unnamed, initiative in the mid-2000s, where they revived old characters with new twists in ongoing series: a divorced female Manhunter, a Mexican-American Blue Beetle, a Chinese-American Atom, a lesbian Latina Question, and a lesbian Batwoman. Many of these series didn't last too long (there are only two The Question collections, for example), but I've long been curious about them, so I'm going to be reading them all intermixed in publication order. One of the things I like about the (pre-Flashpoint) DC universe is the sense of legacy and history, which is part of what makes me curious about these characters. They were, after all, the sixth Manhunter, the third Blue Beetle, the fourth Atom, the second Question, and the second Batwoman. Some of the books I'll be reading won't quite fit into the rubric of revivals of old characters with new, diverse premises, but were related books coming out around the same time with that interest in the history of the DCU, like Captain Atom: Armageddon, Doctor 13: Architecture & Mortality, and Booster Gold.

NO MAN ESCAPES THE LOS ANGELES GIRL!
from Manhunter vol. 3 #1

So the first up is Manhunter, in a series that began shortly before Identity Crisis. Kate Spencer is a divorced district attorney in Los Angeles, who becomes tired of the fact that that supervillains always break out of jail and kill again after she's put them away. So she decides to take the law into her own hands and track down escaped villains... and kill them. She steals superpowered equipment from the evidence locker and bullies a former henchman in witness protection into providing her with technical support. In the meantime, she has to balance her superheroics with being a mother.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LXI: Zero Year

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2015 (contents: 2013-14)
Borrowed from the library
Read October 2016

DC Comics: Zero Year

Writers: Scott Snyder, James Tynion, Greg Pak, Marguerite Bennett, Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti, Marc Andreyko, Christy Marx, John Layman, Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato, Jeff Lemire, Van Jensen with Robert Venditti, Kyle Higgins

Artists: Greg Capullo & Danny Miki, Rafael Albuquerque, Aaron Kuder, Fernando Pasarin & Jonathan Glapion, Eduardo Pansica & Júlio Ferreira, Trevor McCarthy, Andrea Mutti, Pat Olliffe, Jim Fern, Jay Leisten & Tom Nguyen, Romano Molenaar, Daniel Sampere, Travis Moore, Vicente Cifuentes, Scott McDaniel, Aaron Lopresti & Art Thibert, Jason Fabok, Chris Sprouse & Francis Manapul, Karl Story & Keith Champagne, Andre Sorrentino, Denys Cowan & Bill Sienciewicz, Victor Drujiniu & Juan Castro, Ivan Fernandez & Rob Lean, Allan Jefferson, Will Conrad & Cliff Richards, Andy Clarke
Colorists: Fco Plascencia, Dave McCaig, Arif Prianto, Blond, Paul Mounts, Guy Major, Chris Sotomayor, Sonia Oback, Tomeu Morey, Brian Buccellato, Marcelo Maiolo, Matt Hollingsworth, Garry Henderson, Peter Pantazis
Letterers: Nick Napolitano, Taylor Esposito, Dezi Sienty, Todd Klein, Travis Lanham, Jared K. Fletcher, Carlos M. Mangual, Rob Leigh

Strictly speaking, this book doesn't cover a crisis, but throughout this project I have found it interesting to examine the fallout of crises as much as crises themselves: reading History of the DC Universe and Legends added to my comprehension of Crisis on Infinite Earths, for example. So, I'll be reading the five big collections DC has released from the "New 52" era (after Flashpoint, before Rebirth) in the order they take place.

This book gives snapshots of the early lives of a number of superheroes, framed by two parts of a Batman origin story. Someday I will read the full Batman: Zero Year story, but I liked what I got of it here. The book opens with Bruce Wayne as Batman taking down the Red Hood Gang, in what seems to be one of his first real superheroic actions. It's hard to judge the writing, since I only have a snippet of the story, but I really enjoyed Greg Capullo's art and Fco Plascencia's colors. This is a moody Gotham, but in a very different way to that of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli. This is a harsh, dynamic, neon Gotham-- a purifying crucible for the weird. The story ends with a little epilogue that introduces the idea that a giant storm is about to hit Gotham... and some fellow calling himself the Riddler has deactivated the electrical grid.

Who knew Gotham was so pink?
from Batman vol. 2 #24 (script by Scott Snyder, art by Greg Capullo & Danny Miki)

This provides the setup for the stories that follow, as various young heroes who either live in Gotham or come to render aid to Gotham each has their own experiences during the hurricane. I think there are about twenty-five different stories, and as you might imagine, that results in quite a range of quality, andI don't think I could point to any I found outright terrible, though many are somewhat generic, which is perhaps worse.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LVII: The World of Flashpoint featuring Batman

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2012 (contents: 2011)
Borrowed from the library
Read August 2016

The World of Flashpoint featuring Batman

Writers: Brian Azzarello, J. T. Krul, Jimmy Palmiotti, Peter Milligan

Artists: Eduardo Risso, Fabrizio Fiorentino, Mikel Janin, Alejandro Giraldo, Joe Bennett, Tony Shasteen, Alex Massacci, John Dell, George Pérez, Fernando Blanco, Scott Koblish

Colorists: Patricia Mulvihill, Ulises Arreola, Kyle Ritter, Ander Zarate, the Hories, Tom Smith, Brian Buccellato
Letterers: Clem Robins, Patrick Brosseau, Dave Sharpe, Travis Lanham, Rob Leigh

I don't know if these World of Flashpoint books are getting better or if I'm just acclimating to their style and purpose, but I think this volume was the best of them so far. It doesn't have the best individual story in it (that's probably "Project Superman"), but it has three decently enjoyable tales and only one real dud. The reading sequence I devised/picked/was given continues to work well, too: the Booster Gold story in the previous volume alluded to the fact that there was something not right about this timeline's Batman, and in this volume we get to see what that is.

If you thought Batman was grumpy, wait until you see his alternate universe Batman dad.
from Flashpoint: Batman: Knight of Vengeance #1 (script by Brian Azzarello, art by Eduardo Risso)

"Knight of Vengeance" is a gritty noir tale from Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso. Azzarello excels as this kind of thing. I'm not sure there was really a story here, but it provides an effective series of snapshots of this universe's Batman and Joker, who manage to be even more broken than those of the primary timeline. We see Batman's crime-fighting empire and criminal(!) empire, his relationship with Jim Gordon (yay!), and the dark twisted night that changed everything for him. Batman alludes to the existence of the primary timeline in a conversation with the Joker; I suppose I'll get to see how he knows about it when I reach the main Flashpoint book. Eduardo Risso on art also impresses. I don't think I've ever seen any of his work before, but his simple style works really well for communicating the darkness of this story. Less a tale and more a demonstration of the need to change this world back, "Knight of Vengeance" leaves me more eager to get to the main event.

Revolutionary Reading: An Examination of the Legion of Super-Heroes Threeboot, Final Part: Dominator War

I had two reviews posted at Unreality SF last week: one of last year's Doctor Who audio trilogy with the seventh Doctor and Mel, and one of Series Four of Survivors. Posting this notice before this review makes me think there should be a Doctor Who comics by Mark Waid and Barry Kitson. They would be good at it. But then, I think they would be good at almost any comic.

Comic trade paperback, 124 pages
Published 2007 (contents: 2007) 
Acquired February 2016
Read May 2016

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes: Dominator War

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Writer: Mark Waid with Tony Bedard

Pencils: Barry Kitson with Kevin Sharpe
Inks: Mick Gray with Jimmy Palmiotti, Mark McKenna, Jack Purcell
Colors: Nathan Eyring
Letters: Travis Lanham, Jared K. Fletcher, Pat Brosseau, Phil Balsman

This is the final volume of Mark Waid and Barry Kitson's run on Legion of Super-Heroes, which means it will be my last post in this short-lived series of posts (though I do plan on eventually picking up what Tony Bedard and Jim Shooter did with this version of the Legion later on). In my review of Teenage Revolution, I set up the idea that a lot of fiction about revolutions deals with idea of "shrugging": how a character justifies the deaths that are needed to bring about utopia. Though Waid and Kitson's Legion of Super-Heroes has largely shied from depicting violence by the Legion against the state, this volume does have a pretty big example of justified violence, albeit in the context of warfare.

The last couple volumes have included among their many subplots the simmering threat of the Dominators; in this one, it finally comes to the fore. The Dominators are genetically engineered zealots. Each one believes in the genetic superiority of their species, and things are getting worse, as a Dominator scientist has introduced new genetic code that will propagate through the species, making every Dominator superpowered within a few generations. This means a conventional military defeat is insufficient; the Legion must commit genocide in order to win. If they just confine the Dominators to their homeworld, within a few generations, the Dominators will be unstoppable.

Cosmic Boy, still leader of the Legion, debates if he has the right to commit genocide:

from Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #30 (script by Mark Waid, art by Barry Kitson and Mick Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti)

Thus we have Cos assuming a sort of Ozymandias-like posture: this is a burden he must take, only he is capable of doing so. He's the only person advanced enough to sanction mass murder to save universe.

So the Dominator homeworld is destroyed by Mon-El:

from Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #30 (script by Mark Waid, art by Barry Kitson and Mick Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti)

I think this cops out on the series's confrontation with revolutionary violence in a few ways. The first is that the violence is all directed outwards; the Legion has never had to use lethal force against, for example, the Science Police during the course of the series. No one from the Legion's own society suffers as a result of their actions. The second is that the Dominators are basically genetically engineered to be evil. Obviously this can't happen in the real world, but it is often used to make genocide palatable in science fiction, like with the Daleks in Doctor Who. If every Dalek is an evil soldier, killing them is just what you must do during wartime, and the same applies here to the Dominators. There are no "innocent" Dominators, and thus Cosmic Boy is merely a general ordering the deaths of enemy soldiers. The third is that no genocide actually happens:

from Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #30 (script by Mark Waid, art by Barry Kitson and Mick Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti)

Both Mon-El and the Dominators are not actually dead, but shunted into another dimension. Everyone thinks Cosmic Boy committed genocide, but he actually did not, though the continued existence of the Dominators needs to be kept a secret for various plot reasons. Now I'm not complaining that I don't get to read a comic book about teenagers committing genocide per se, but there are a lot of ethical complexities to revolution, and since this book framed itself as being about one, I wish it had delved into them a little bit more. If it doesn't, it doesn't take sufficient advantage of its unique premise, and becomes just another superhero team comic.

But I think that's what DC wanted. In my discussion of Adult Education, I talked about how Waid and Kitson modeled the reading practices they wanted their readers to follow. But it wasn't working, at least so the sales indicated. Soon after Waid and Kitson left the book, they were replaced by Jim Shooter, who had written the Legion back in the 1970s. The metatextual message here seems pretty clear to me: here is the Legion you knew and loved in the past. If DC Comics had been trying to cultivate a new, younger readership with the "threeboot," they had given up and were now chasing after the older die-hards who had read the Legion as children. I haven't read Shooter's run yet, but I understand that under him, the idea of the Legion as a youth movement was diminished, and it became a more traditional superhero team book.

In an interview a couple of years ago, Waid reflected on the difficulties DC had with his and Kitson's run:

I thought we had a home run on our hands. I really did. The reader response to it was really good. In-house, people loved it. At DC. I felt like we were hitting it out of the park. But we were right at that point where the marketplace was deciding whether or not fresh takes on old things or whether it wanted what it read in the 1980s. "Why can't comics be good the way they were when Mommy was still alive?" And we lost that bet. It felt to me that we did exactly the right thing, which was, "Look, I’m going to treat this beloved franchise as if it’s been a moribund, dead property for 15 years and we’re dusting it off and give you a whole new spin on it." There was an appetite for it at first, it seemed like, but then it just... people love their Legion comics the way they were in 1985. I can’t fault them, but I thought that would have been over the fence.

Either ironically or inevitably, the very nostalgic reading practices they had used the comic to argue against proved its undoing. Not even Jim Shooter could save the "threeboot" Legion, however; in 2009, just two years after Waid and Kitson left, DC cancelled the book, and it was replaced by the "deboot" Legion, which restored the status quo to what it had been in 1986, ignoring everything that had come in the intervening 23 years.

Nostalgia had defeated the revolution.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part XLI: Countdown to Final Crisis: 12...11...10...09...08...07...06...05...04...03...02...01...00...

Comic trade paperback, 271 pages
Published 2008 (contents: 2008) 
Borrowed from the library
Read May 2015

Countdown to Final Crisis: 12...11...10...09...08...07...06...05...04...03...02...01...00...

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Writers: Paul Dini, Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Adam Beechen, Sean McKeever
Story Consultant: Keith Giffen

Pencillers: Jesus Saiz, Tom Derenick, Mike Norton, Scott Kolins, Carlos Magno, Jim Starlin, Jamal Igle, Freddie Williams II
Inkers: Jimmy Palmiotti, Scott Kolins, Freddie Williams II, Mark McKenna, Wayne Faucher, Rod Ramos, Keith Champagne
Letterers: Ken Lopez, Travis Lanham, Steve Wands
Colorist: Pete Pantazis

Do you remember when Earth-51 was destroyed in volume three of Countdown to Final Crisis? Well, apparently none of the writers or characters in volume four do, because here it's destroyed all over again! I think because the account of its destruction in volume three was inconsistent with that of its destruction in Final Crisis, they rolled the events back and did it all over again to make it match up with the account that was given in Final Crisis. Sloppy plotting at its finest!

Other things that don't matter:

• Harley Quinn and Holly Robinson are given superpowers by the Amazonian gods. No one cares!
• Mary Marvel is arbitrarily given her powers back. Then she loses them. Then she turns evil again. Then she's fine. What is the point of all this? I have absolutely no idea. This character has essentially been brainwashed off-and-on for 52 issues. What on Earth could even be interesting about that? We haven't learned a thing about Mary as a character. No one cares!
• Various members of the Legion of Super-Heroes are killed off. No one cares!
• The cover of issue #4 is a close-up on Mary Marvel's giant boobs. No one cares!
• Darkseid and Orion have a final showdown. Again. No one cares!
• The Challengers from Beyond (that utterly dull group of characters including Jason Todd, Donna Troy, and some others I don't even remember) tell the Monitors that they'll be monitoring them. You can expect this to literally never be followed up on despite the fact that it really ought to impact Final Crisis because... No one cares!

Really, the only joy you can take in Countdown to Final Crisis at this point is mocking it. It's astounding that talented people like Paul Dini, Keith Giffen, and Jim Starlin got together and produced 1,159 pages of sheer worthlessness. But at least it was always fast-paced, I guess?

Next Week: More stuff no one could ever care about! Lord Havok and the Extremists!

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part XXXIX: Countdown to Final Crisis: 25...24...23...22...21...20...19...18...17...16...15...14...13...

My wife and I spent December and January rewatching the E-Space trilogy, a classic 1980-81 run of Doctor Who stories. Not exactly coincidentally, I have a review up at Unreality SF of Big Finish's audio sequel, the New E-Space Trilogy. It was interesting to experience the two trilogies in close proximity: it diminished my enjoyment of some of the audio stories, and enhanced that of others! (Something I forgot to mention in my review: I like how 35 years after it was mentioned for the first and last time in State of Decay, Jonathan Morris finally provided an explanation for what "The Wasting" was in The Entropy Plague!)

Comic trade paperback, 294 pages
Published 2008 (contents: 2007-08) 
Borrowed from the library
Read May 2015

Countdown to Final Crisis: 25...24...23...22...21...20...19...18...17...16...15...14...13...

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Writers: Paul Dini, Adam Beechen, Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Tony Bedard, Sean McKeever
Story Consultant: Keith Giffen

Pencillers: Ron Lim, Tom Derenick, Carlos Magno, Jamal Igle, Howard Porter, Jesus Saiz, Scott Kolins, Pete Woods
Inkers: Jimmy Palmiotti, Scott Kolins, Pete Woods, John Stanisci, Wayne Faucher, Rod Ramos, Mark McKenna, Art Thibert
Letterers: Travis Lanham, Rob Leigh, Ken Lopez, Jared K. Fletcher, Steve Wands
Colorists: Pete Pantazis, Tom Chu

Because I got horrendously behind, I've been writing this stretch of reviews (from July 2015's 52 Omnibus to March 2016's Final Crisis: Revelations) without reference to the actual books, months after I read them. (Ten months in this case!) I'm finding that many of the details of Countdown to Final Crisis have faded into oblivion, even when I read synopses of the stories in the Grand Comics Database, I kind of wonder if these events really happened in something I read. All I really remember is a massive sense of disappointment and futility. But here are a couple notes:

• Superboy-Prime, now Superman-Prime, is in it. That pretty much never works to the advantage of a story, as he is a worse villain than even Monarch and Mongul.
• Pied Piper having to drag around the Trickster's body is actually kind of effective. Of course, it might have been emotionally devastating if these two had been written in a way at all interesting prior to this.
• The cover to issue #18 (by Karl Kerschl) is actually, genuinely great.
• Earth-51 is destroyed and everyone on it dies. You should remember this, because the writers didn't.
• Jesus Christ, who gives a crap about Monarch? Armageddon 2001 was seventeen years ago, DC. Let it go.

Next Week: There came a time when the New Gods died! It was in a trade paperback called The Death of the New Gods!

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part XXXVII: Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters: Brave New World

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2008 (contents: 2007-08)
Borrowed from the library
Read May 2015

Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters: Brave New World

Story by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti

Art by Renato Arlem
Letters by Rob Leigh
Colors by Alex Bleyaert and Rob Schwager

God exists, and He hates me. How do I know this? He permitted the existence of a second volume of Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters. (Actually, he permitted the existence of still more, but in His mercy He left those ones uncollected.) Only the sheer deep-rootedness of my completist instincts can explain why I read this: given that I'd read the previous volume and that it takes place during Countdown to Final Crisis, I felt compelled to read it, but now that I've typed that it out, it seems a wholly inadequate explanation for why I inflicted this on myself. Perhaps I, like God, hate me.

This is like the first volume, but worse if you can imagine it. Nothing that any character does in here mean anything; I want to give Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti the benefit of the doubt, but this reads like sheer hackwork, comics vomited out to fulfill some kind of contractual obligation. (Is DC required to publish stories featuring the characters/concepts they inherited from Quality Comics? Surely nothing else could explain their insistence of releasing terrible comic after terrible comic featuring them.) One imagines they wrote each issue in mere minutes, never edited a word, and then laughed as they cashed their paychecks. (2007-08 was a good time for them and shit writing, given they were also partly responsible for Countdown to Final Crisis.) As a fan of what I've read of Christopher Priest's run on The Ray, I'm glad he's not alive so he didn't have to witness their utter ineptitude in handling the characters he poured so much brilliance into.

The only person more guilty than the writers of this comic is its artist. Seriously, Renato Arlem's art is irredeemably bad and completely terrible. A heavy user of Photoshop, characters usually don't move from panel to panel, and images are reused in different contexts despite inappropriate poses and facial expressions, and what the dialogue and narration indicate ought to be happening is often wholly undepicted in the artwork. That anyone has ever hired him to "draw" anything boggles my mind. I can only assume that since 50% of his drawings are reused, he costs 50% of other artists. (Caleb Mozzocco has said much the same at me, but at length, and with pictures.)

Don't be like me. Don't make my mistake. Don't turn on God. Don't read this book!

Next Week: It can get worse! Countdown: Arena!

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part XXXVI: Countdown to Final Crisis: 38...37...36...35...34...33...32...31...30...29...28...27...26...

Comic trade paperback, 294 pages
Published 2008 (contents: 2007) 
Borrowed from the library
Read March 2015

Countdown to Final Crisis: 38...37...36...35...34...33...32...31...30...29...28...27...26...

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Writers: Paul Dini, Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti, Adam Beechen, Tony Bedard, Sean McKeever
Story Consultant: Keith Giffen

Pencillers: Jesus Saiz, David Lopez, Mike Norton, Jim Calafiore, Manuel Garcia, Carlos Magno, Al Barrionuevo
Inkers: Jimmy Palmiotti, Don Hillsman, Rod Ramos, Jack Purcell, Mark McKenna, Jay Leisten, Art Thibert
Letterers: Jared K. Fletcher, Ken Lopez, Travis Lanham
Colorists: Tom Chu, Alex Bleyaert, Pete Pantazis, Rod Reis

Forget anything nice I said about Volume One, because as soon as you have time to think about it, Countdown to Final Crisis is terrible. In this volume:

• Jimmy Olsen learns that his powers only activate when he's in danger for the fourth or fifth time.
• Mary Marvel acts like a spoiled brat; upon learning she's gone evil, Zatanna's reaction is to shrug her shoulders and do nothing about it.
• All sorts of terrible and uninteresting and incomprehensible stuff happens revolving around whether or not Jason Todd is evil, whether or not the Monitors are evil, whether or not you can tell the Monitors apart, whether or not anyone cares abut Monarch (stop trying to make Monarch happen, DC), whether or not Donna Troy has a personality, whether or not anyone has ever cared about Lord Havok and the Extremists, and it's just painful and dull through and through.
• Mary Marvel is duped by Klarion the Witch-Boy like a rank amateur. Grant Morrison reinvents a character for you, DC, and the only thing you can think to do with him is put him in Countdown!?
• The story ties into The Battle for Blüdhaven, I can only assume because God hates us. (Jack Kirby's Buddy Blank of OMAC fame is living under Blüdhaven.)
• Karate Kid is sick for some reason. 
• Jimmy Olsen and a bug-woman fall in love with each other, seemingly just because she's hot. No one ever explains what she might see in him.

I'll admit I did kind of like Supergirl and Stargirl trying to get into Black Canary's bachelorette party.

At least we're halfway through!

Next Week: We take a break from the countdown to find out what Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters are up to in Brave New World!