Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Heroes in Crisis #1-3: Signs and Contradictions

All I have to add are some observations from lining up, side-by-side, events where the three issues have given us at least two accounts. There are numerous inconsistencies. (That's not to say that they are all contradictory: There are various ways to explain these.) The location of Roy and Wally has been mentioned, but there are also these:

1) The trio of greeter androids inside the house is an older couple (who resemble the Kents) and a younger woman. In HIC #1, the younger woman is black. In HIC #3, she is white with red hair in a ponytail.

2) The cluster of dead heroes outside the house is considerably different in HIC #1 and HIC #3. Lagoon Boy and Hotspot are feet-together in #1 but heads-together in #3. Those around them include Commander Steel in #1 and Red Devil in #3. Basically none of the details match.

3) Wally's costume leg is ripped in #1. In #3, he's killed with a single blow to the head. There'd be no reason for his costume leg to become ripped.

4) Obviously, Booster and Harley contradict one another, each saying that the other did it.

5) Booster's memory and recordings are inconsistent. At the time he apparently sees Harley kill Wally, he says that it's his first day there. The session recordings are not the same, and in one, he says that it's his first day. If all of these scenes are real and on the level, then he must have made two recordings introducing himself on the same day. (There are many other explanations.) Harley says that she didn't know he was there and his explanation is that it's his first day.

6) Booster and Harley have scratches/cuts, and costume tears in #1, but none when they meet in #3. Perhaps we missed a fight between them, but it would seem odd for any of Booster's weapons or tactics to give Harley scratches.

7) The shadows fall in almost opposite directions when Booster arrives at the house in #3 and when Superman arrives in #1. This is probably just an error, but it could indicate sunrise vs. sunset.

8) Ivy's testimony in #3 involves a direct and immediate contradiction/correction/refinement of how long she's been there when she says "A week. Nine days." We don't know if that recording and the one seen in #2 are from the same session or not. It seems that the one in #2, coinciding with Harley's arrival, must likely be shortly before the murders. This makes it odd that she is still explaining her justification for being there, nine or more days after her arrival. There's no direct contradiction here, but it calls into question the soundness of Ivy's thoughts.

9) Booster's costume is intact after Skeets wakes him up, despite the tears and injuries earlier. Perhaps Skeets' technology includes costume repair.

10) Booster's memory of the session where he's talking to a virtual copy of himself indicates that the attack began when he was not present, another contradiction of Harley's assertion that Booster committed the murders.

Obviously, this is a lot of contradiction, and it's got to be resolved. A lot could be resolved in one tidy package if we simply find out that Booster is delusional. More could be resolved if we find out that someone rearranged the crime scene.

I think we're a long way away from answers here. Neither Booster nor Harley is the killer in the simplest sense: The solicits for #5 and #6 indicate that someone or something corrupted the Sanctuary AI and the Sanctuary AI, by giving the heroes counterproductive "therapy" made their problems worse rather than better, until one or more of them snapped. The villain stands a good chance of being someone we haven't even seen on-panel yet. A bug in the software owing to Batman's paranoia (see the kryptonite in the belt) would be a plausible explanation except that's just what the Brother Eye plot was.

I'm glad we've got six issues to go. There's a long way to go for the mystery, and we haven't gotten very deep into the psychology yet.

3 comments:

  1. I'm still trying to reconcile the various inconsistencies in the mystery so far but there's still another six issues and all things are possible with "Kryptonian Crystal Technology Stuff."
    The only hint I may have found makes me think Green Arrow/Arsenal may be more involved. My (very rough) theory based on the confessions from Wonder Woman and Blue Jay talking about arrow injuries and the object that impales Lagoon Boy possibly has arrow tips. Wally's first word after finding Roy is "Why?" not "How?" And also, the last issue of Mister Miracle had a prominently seen Green Arrow doll amongst Jake's toy collection. All could be unrelated; hard to tell sometimes with King.

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    1. It's also plausible that could be the next King/Gerard's project.

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  2. This book has been so haphazard, fanservice-y and otherwise exploitative (like the blatant Troops Are Good speech in issue 5) that it's hard to believe this is the guy who gave us Omega Men.

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