Superboy and the Ravers #14

Genesis Suicide Squad

Steve McMattsson & Karl McKesel – Writers
Paul McPelletier – Penciller
Dan McDavis – Inker
Stu McChaifetz – Computer Colorist
Kevin McCunningham – Letterer
Maureen McTigue – Asst. Editor
Mike McAvennie – Editor

Our cover by Pelletier and Davis shows the Ravers being defeated by the forces of Darkseid, and this image is only a slight exaggeration of what happens. It is nice to have a tie-in issue so directly represent the events of the main event series — even if said event is pretty crappy. Unfortunately, this issue contains a surprisingly small amount of Genesis content, as the bulk of the story is taken up by a series of flashbacks showing what each Raver was up to before Genesis began.

Our story picks up shortly after the group of 16 heroes is expelled from the Source. Superboy and the Ravers join with everybody in the big fight against all of Darkseid's minions. Superman quickly becomes impatient, saying they all need to go after Darkseid himself. So Kindred Marx basically volunteers his Ravers and teleports all the other heroes directly into Darkseid's stronghold.

The Ravers continue to fight, and Superboy takes on Kalibak one-on-one, just as is shown on the cover. Unfortunately, this is a bit of an inconsistency, as Genesis #4 showed Superboy being teleported to Darkseid's citadel and coming face-to-face with the god of Apokolips himself. Anyway, Kalibak gains the upper hand, and is about to dispose of Superboy, when suddenly the Source Wall reappears and Darkseid's massive ship disappears. (I guess we're completely skipping over the part where all the living creatures in the universe were united telepathically.)

But I do like this part. Superboy asks Metron how this is possible, and he literally says, "Deus ex machina! 'God out of the machine.' " That truly is the best way to describe the ending of Genesis. And yeah, Kindred Marx's hand-stamp tattoos vanished after the Source was restored, so he was unable to teleport all the heroes home and/or exert whatever control he could have over the heroes. But as we saw in Genesis #4, getting everybody back home was a nonissue.




There! We're finally done with this accursed event! I am surprised at how poorly this book matched the main series, especially since it was the only tie-in to be referenced in an editor's note. And I'm also sad that Impulse did not interact with Superboy in any way. But this whole, massive story has exhausted me past the point of caring. So now I'm just going to move forward and never think about this again.

Next time, we'll do something fun. We'll get to see what Impulse could have looked like in the DC Animated Universe with Adventures in the DC Universe Annual #1.