Justice League #34

The best team stories are the ones where different characters all have a different role to play in some way that's more sophisticated than whether their superpower is to communicate with sea life or run very fast. Justice League #34, "Unlikely Allies," is a fascinating phase deep into a very deep strategic game with several players representing several different sides. We can't actually see who has what planned, but in this issue, Geoff Johns gives us a glance at a few players' cards.

Aside from the classic heroes whose interests are presumably aligned, we have front and center Lex Luthor, who has been teased as a good guy in stories going back to the Sixties. This always ends with him turning out to be a very dark agent practicing duplicity or a self-interested party capable of serving the greater good when it serves his interests. We've seen the former in 1961's Death of Superman and Kingdom Come and the latter in Final Crisis, Injustice: Gods Above and many other stories. Since Forever Evil, it's been hard to decipher Luthor's game plan, but we know by the end of JL #34 that he is masking his true intentions and is allied with Owlman. This makes it more tantalizing to re-read the scene where he asks Wonder Woman to use her lasso on him but she does not, because he has apparently engineered that interaction very carefully to seem like a conflicted figure in order to keep her from actually using her lasso and discovering his deception.

That revelation, however, isn't the "bwah hah hah" revelation of evil that it might be in a simpler story. Owlman was possibly being forthright in Forever Evil when he proposed an alliance with Dick Grayson against the stronger members of the Crime Syndicate. While we can't expect the best of Owlman's desire to take possession of the super-powerful offspring of Ultraman and Superwoman, he may have some endgame in mind that is not entirely at cross-purposes with the Justice League.

What makes it credible that the moderately-evil characters in this ongoing story might be allied with the heroes is the looming threat of a purely-evil menace as discussed by Cyborg and seen in Justice League #34. The sentient ring from Power Ring, now fighting for control of Jessica Cruz, has indicated that its intention is to lure the being who destroyed Earth 3 to Earth 0 so it can take possession of Superwoman's child, the very same objective that Owlman has. It is unclear, though, how these three sides square off, except that it is unlikely that they are all aligned. Owlman probably does not crave destruction for its own sake, and would prefer to be as powerful as possible on some Earth or another. Luthor, no  doubt, would like that same outcome for himself, a vision that could place them into alliance or eventual conflict.

The spare information we have about the really evil characters is that some unknown character is helping the Anti-Monitor find worlds to consume, which is feeding him energy for an anticipated battle with Darkseid. Darkseid, the conqueror of Earth 2 and would-be conqueror from the DCNU's earliest stories, Final Crisis and countless previous works, has nonetheless been allied with our heroes against the Anti-Monitor in COIE. The win our heroes need to engineer may involve playing the two evil forces against one another. This story is likely to play out on a grand scale over the coming months, with tie-ins galore, certainly including Earth 2, likely the Green Lantern/New Gods Godhead miniseries, and possibly Multiversity, although in the past Grant Morrison stories have maintained separation from other plans other than a few minor points of tie-in.

The heroes see a deeper game, with Batman and Superman planning to snare Luthor, but perhaps not nearly as deep as the game really is. Johns is setting up one of his epic crossovers such as we've seen done – usually quite well – over the past 7 years. Among other mysteries that he's keeping secret is the identity of the character who is allied with the Anti-Monitor. Johns has a flare for going "big" with his villains, which makes me wonder if he'll bring Superboy Prime, one of his regulars from pre-Flashpoint, into this story, or perhaps Volthoom from Green Lantern lore, although he has also used characters as obscure as Nekron and Qull of the Five Inversions, and could possibly draw from just about any story in DC's past, but it is more Johns' style to use an existing character here, whether prominent or obscure, than present us with someone totally new.

The main upshot is that we are approaching a story on a grand scale and this issue is an important one on that path. The action scenes in JL #34 and even the revelation of Captain Cold's duplicity seem like minor sideplots while the grand design moves forward. We know, in the main, that good will prevail, but there could be some wonderful sound and fury along the way.

Retro Review: Crisis on Infinite Earths

Crisis on Infinite Earths is a work of singular importance in DC Comics; it was and remains unprecedentedly broad in both scope and in ambition. Although various sequels have been published, none of them has had the power of the original. COIE was, essentially, destined to succeed owing to the sheer boldness of its objectives: It’s impossible to discuss the history of DC Comics without discussing COIE and impossible to understand a great many of the comics that followed it without having a passing knowledge of it. It brought to DC the company-wide crossover format which has yielded many subsequent successes; it altered the destiny of many characters; and, it altered the basic nature of the DC Universe for decades to follow. Simply put, it is tremendously important and influential.

But is it good? In many ways, yes; in other ways, less so, but this depends on one’s criteria, and should be taken in the context of what COIE tried to accomplish.

There are at least four distinct roles that COIE played:

1) It made a sharp before-and-after change in the basic facts of the DC Universe. Most important, it moved the Earth Two characters into the same world and timeline as the Earth One characters, creating a new unified timeline that resolved the generational contradictions in a new way.

2) It made several changes of immediate importance in rearranging DC’s lineup; such as, removing the Flash (Barry Allen) and Supergirl entirely, while putting characters such as Blue Beetle, Wally West, the new Wildcat Yolanda Montez and Green Lantern Guy Gardner into the spotlight.

3) It was one of several works that changed the tone of DC Comics, reflecting an increased maturity level (and age) of readers. While the story is in many scenes bright and optimistic, it also portrayed murder, madness, torture, and genocide.

4) It was itself a story that captured a great deal of attention. Changes (1) and (2) could have been made with – rather than a 12-issue miniseries – a one-page editorial proclamation. They chose, however, to convey the sweeping changes through a story, with science fiction plot elements that made the changes happen to the characters. The story tells a tale that goes about these changes in a particular fashion, bringing to DC a crossover "event" format that had previously been used by Marvel Comics, and while it left many contradictions and loose ends for other works to resolve, it related those changes taking place as part of one grand science fiction story, which can be read and enjoyed on its own merits.

On those first three points, readers may express their own feelings about the strategic merits and demerits of what COIE did to the DC Universe, much of which was proclaimed from editorial heights downward, outside of the will of creators Marv Wolfman and George Perez. These changes spun off over two decades’ worth of storylines that took the setup laid out by COIE and took it forward into directions like the John Byrne reboot of Superman, Keith Giffen's take on the Justice League, and later to new characters like Kyle Rayner, Bane, and Doomsday. Some of these changes were controversial among fans, creating debates between generations of fans as to whether the changes should be retained or undone. Eventually, the pendulum swung the other way, with a penchant for Silver Age revival underlying many changes to the Justice League and Superman, among other characters, in various ways back to their pre-COIE states, and COIE’s single universe has once again been replaced by a Multiverse. History shows that COIE’s changes endured for a long while, then were largely undone.

As a story itself, COIE is certainly large and eventful. It is well-drawn and exciting. New characters capture the imagination and emotion springs forth from tragedy.

For the modern reader, it has many shortcomings. It is extraordinarily repetitive. For example, Pariah explains his predicament half a dozen times, more than once to almost-identical scenes of a world dying. We’re told many times that Harbinger must, against her will, kill the Monitor, and after it happens, we’re reminded of it several more times. One may understand this as a product of its publication history: A 12-issue release which some readers read piecemeal, giving the writers a need to bring along casual readers as well as the devoted.

It is also repetitive in raising then resolving serial threats. The heroes and villians begin at odds, then ally together, then fight each other, then ally again, then end up at odds. When the Anti-Monitor’s Plan A fails, he goes on to Plan B, Plan C, and… without taking notes, it’s hard even to remember how many new threats he raises. In fact, there are about six distinct cycles of threats raised by the Anti-Monitor and resolutions, plus one threat issuing from the super villains who are otherwise allied with heroes against their common foe. The reader may grow weary of if not overwhelmed by the large number of gyrations in the plot, though in fairness, this is a characteristic of epics as far back as the Iliad. The following outline sketches out COIE's major developments.

1) Anti-Monitor's antimatter wave destroys over 1000 matter universes.

2) Monitor sends groups of heroes and villains to defend five tuning forks placed in different times and places.

3) Harbinger kills Monitor.

4) Energy of Monitor's death places Earths 1 and 2 into netherverse, leaving only three more threatened universes: Earth X, Earth S, and Earth 4.

5) Earths 1 and 2 threaten to merge, which would destroy them.

6) Harbinger moves Earths X, S, and 4 to the netherverse, joining Earths 1 and 2.

7) Strongest heroes attack Anti-Monitor. Supergirl dies.

8) Anti-Monitor builds cannon to continue his attack. Destroyed by the Flash, Barry Allen, who dies.

9) Remaining Earths jeopardized by a time/dimensional flux.

10) Super villains conquer Earths X, S, and 4.

11) Anti-Monitor launches attack at the beginning of time. Heroes fail to stop him. Villains fail to stop Krona.

12) Spectre opposes Anti-Monitor and Universe begins again.

13) Single Universe with only the heroes remembering the Multiverse and Crisis.

14) Anti-Monitor brings Earth to antimatter universe.

15) Shadow demons attack Earth, then sent away by magicians.

16) Anti-Monitor blasted by Darkseid, then destroyed by Kal-L.

The logic of the story is not exceptionally coherent. Twice, characters ask the Monitor why he assembled precisely the team he did instead of a more powerful team, and both times he dodges the question. More than once, the story reminds us that it was not simply copies of the planet Earth but entire universes (infinite Ranns, infinite Kryptons, infinite Thanagars, infinite Andromeda Galaxies, etc.) which were being destroyed and merged, but then it lazily reverts to the Earths alone. Wouldn’t it have been easier to simply avoid those questions rather than to first raise and then dodge them?

If the Internet had existed in 1986, there probably would have been a record of discussion and discontent owing to the similarities between COIE and Marvel's Secret Wars event, which ran one year earlier. Secret Wars was also 12 issues long, and involved virtually all of Marvel's most prominent characters, brought together by a single, mysterious cosmically-powerful figure. On the surface, COIE seems to import or even steal its basic ideas from Secret Wars, although in fact COIE was being planned before Secret Wars was published, and some of the similarities are likely to be coincidental.

In pursuing its goal of reinventing the superheroes' world, COIE resorts too often to giving the superheroes an inflated sense of importance. Billions of innocent beings die, but a tear-jerker scene is devoted to Wildcat Ted Grant accepting the fact that he has been crippled. While millions die on the newly merged Earth, reporters Lois Lane and Lana Lang are choken up on-air by the death of superhero Dove. And while Pariah voices anguish over the deaths of ordinary citizens, the story repeatedly uses them as nameless mass fodder while superheroes are both saviors and victim. The focus on superheroes to the exclusion of regular people goes so far that in the reworking of the Multiverse into a Universe, no one is even bothered to mention if Alexander still conquered the ancient world, or how World War Two turned out. On one level, this is understandable, as the reader buys a comic with superheroes on the cover expecting a series about superheroes, not alternate timelines for Julius Caesar and Abraham Lincoln. The degree of the focus, however, is strange and unnecessary. Superhero comics began with the premise of powerful, benevolent people providing justice for ordinary citizens. COIE's 12 issues could have devoted more than a few perfunctory pages to the inter-global consequences of worlds merging.

And while the story is mature in terms of sheer violence, it doesn’t offer sophistication to match. At the climax of one issue, the Flash tells the Anti-Monitor, who had destroyed a thousand universes, that he’s done nothing to prove himself. Then the Anti-Monitor steps out of the shadows to reveal himself and the Flash is silent with shock, as though by being ugly the Anti-Monitor “proves himself” more than he did by destroying universes.

And yet, we must remember the DC Universe that COIE changed. If Marv Wolfman's dialogue and characterization seem weak in comparison to those of Alan Moore or Grant Morrison, that is natural given the state of comics in 1985. The passion generated around the sacrifices of Barry Allen and Supergirl was effective and real and needs no apologies. From the disorientation that Batman and Superman show early on to Wally West's mournful acceptance of his mentor's death, the story succeeds in making us feel, in part because of the surprise of seeing these erstwhile ever-happy, ever-smiling characters thrown into shock by death and mayhem.

If COIE were written in 2014, released in a shorter time frame, with current sensibilities, it would probably be a better work. And yet, it has not been easy to improve upon: It's sequels have not been remembered as better than COIE, and its level of fan appeal has been exceeded by few subsequent events. Even now that the world it created has been erased, the path between DC Comics' first half-century and the present can only be understood by reading COIE and its status as a must-read work cannot be erased.

While it began in title and in concept as an extension of the "Crisis" theme begun in JLA-JSA crossovers, COIE has itself been much-imitated, spinning off memorable sequels such as Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis, and JLA/Avengers. With Geoff Johns' recent events Trinity War and Forever Evil depicting the destruction of Earth Three by the Anti-Monitor, it is clear we have another, if slowly developing, sequel to COIE in progress, and readers who want to understand DC's future find themselves once again opening the pages of COIE to understand adequately DC's past.

Forever Evil #7

Geoff Johns is, as we already knew, orchestrating serial events, now in the New 52 as he did for much of the past several years beginning with Infinite Crisis. Trinity War led right into Forever Evil, and it's long been apparent that another event would take the baton, in due time, from this one.

While it followed many familiar patterns from pre-Flashpoint continuity, Forever Evil ended on an original note, or at the very least blended a large number of stories we'd seen before. Johns did some of his most inventive work in creating or adapting new characters in his reimagined Crime Syndicate, although most of that squad, save its own Trinity, is now dead.

Probably the single greatest surprise of the series is that the heavy hitters of the Justice League did absolutely nothing to defeat the big bads. Batman and Cyborg played supporting roles in the victory, but most of the Leaguers needed to be saved themselves, thereby disproving the old adage that every major DC event ends with Superman punching something.

The event's possible death was teased but Dick Grayson literally came back from the dead. We've seen the death of the Nightwing character, but DC's ninth-oldest superhero lives to fight another day.

The great original stroke of the series is that a group of classic super villains saved the day, not in a supporting role, but doing almost all of the heavy lifting. Luthor prevailed as the central figure, leading the more powerful members of his team, slaying two members of the Crime Syndicate, and single-handedly saving Dick Grayson, Batman, and Superman. This leads to Luthor asking for JLA membership in Justice League #30, seizing to capitalize on his role as a human savior with no superhuman powers.

But, despite Luthor's plausible story while lassoed by Wonder Woman, is this all just an act? Luthor surely has the ability, whether with self hypnosis or some other means, to fake his way around that test. The older story guiding the narrative here might be 1961's "Death of Superman" story in which Luthor pretends, over an extended period of time, to turn good in order to lure Superman into a death trap. Despite outward appearances, perhaps Luthor is doing so here. Evidence of this is his unilateral invitation of Shazam to join the Justice League despite his ongoing disdain of superpowered beings. Maybe Shazam's strength will be utilized by Luthor in a future devastating strike against the Justice League. This would hearken to another existing story in which Luthor used a mind-controlled Shazam as a weapon against Superman, Kingdom Come. The richest possibilties might be for the story to explore Luthor as a hero for several months, then have him find out, to his own surprise, that he'd been acting that way as a ruse involving self hypnosis, with the heroes struggling to fend off his betrayal.

Johns was also used misdirection in his clues regarding the bigger threat to come. While it seemed all along (and still does, to Superman at least) that Darkseid was the threat behind Earth Three's destruction, we find out at the end that the Anti-Monitor is the muscle behind the event, but someone still unknown is the mastermind. This is in keeping with Johns' love of throwing the biggest villains into a surprise reveal, and he's used the Anti-Monitor for this purpose before, with one page at the end of Sinestro Corps War Special #1 containing Sinestro, Parallax, Superboy Prime, Cyborg Superman, the Manhunters, and the Anti-Monitor. Johns also used the Anti-Monitor in Blackest Night. Here, we see a war of unsurpassable proportions building: The Anti-Monitor and his unseen master are planning an attack against Darkseid. In order to gain power for these attacks, he consumes the energy of a positive-matter universe, and he began with Earth Three. As I observed in an earlier post, destroying Earth Three is precisely how Crisis on Infinite Earths began, so Johns is setting up a sequel to that event. For those who are keeping score in the New 52, Darkseid has been turned away from an attack on Earth Prime, and has devastated Earth Two, nearly conquering it. Now we see that his nemesis has taken Earth Three for its sheer energy, and we have the makings of a battle that could carry over to any of the 49 other Earths as well.

Again, we see Johns riffing on older stories on an unprecedented level, as even Infinite Crisis was a sequel to COIE. Forever Evil #7 managed to remix old themes just enough to avoid the series being a forgettable retelling of ideas we'd seen before. Johns continues to keep interest going, but he's teetering on the edge of a Crisis of Infinite Story Recycling.