Superman #18

Truth

Brian Michael Bendis Writer

Ivan Reis Pencils

Joe Prado Inks

Alex Sinclair Colors

Dave Sharpe Letters

Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Alex Sinclair Cover

Bryan Hitch and Alex Sinclair Variant Cover

Jessica Chen Associate Editor

Mike Cotton Editor

Brian Cunningham Group Editor

Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Supergirl based on the characters created by Jerry Siegel.

By special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family.

Our cover is simple, direct and effective. Superman is revealing his secret identity. It's a pretty momentous event, and the plain, white background was the right choice for it. Plus, it's done by one of my favorite artists, Ivan Reis (I really wish he was on Action Comics, instead, since that's where Young Justice has more appearances). All in all, this is a great cover.

The story is exactly what the cover states. Superman holds a massive news conference to tell the entire world that he is Clark Kent. He did tell a couple of people close to him beforehand, such as Perry White and Jimmy Olsen, prompting emotional and funny reactions. But for the most part, this issue is Superman giving a lengthy speech, while heroes and villains around the world watch. And from the heroes, there seems to be an overwhelmingly positive reaction — especially from the Flash and Impulse.

And that's basically it. The issue ends with a thrilling shot of Lex Luthor silently absorbing this information. And, of course, only time will tell if this moment leads to any lasting change. As for Young Justice ... well, this is yet another example of Bendis ignoring his own continuity. Young Justice just barely came back home, only to have Superboy promptly be sent away to another planet. So they really didn't have any time to sit around and watch this press conference on Tim's phone. Anyway ... this was certainly an ... interesting issue. I don't know. This isn't a Superman blog. So let's call things here and check out the new ads:

There is no justice without truth. Superman: Year One.

The Batman Who Laughs vs. "Apex" Lex. Hell Arisen.

And the DC Nation page is a spotlight on the aforementioned Hell Arisen comic.

Well, that's it for 2019. Next time will be the Year in Review, before we come hauntingly close to catching up to real time.

Young Justice #11

Lost in the Multiverse Part 5

Brian Michael Bendis Script

John Timms Art

Gabe Eltaeb Colors

Wes Abbott Letters

Timms and Eltaeb Cover

Nick Bradshaw and Alex Sinclair Variant Cover

Brittany Holzherr Associate Editor

Mike Cotton Editor

Brian Cunningham Group Editor

Superboy created by Jerry Siegel.

By special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family.

Our main cover prominently features Naomi once again, visually making her Wonder Girl's equal, although the text creates intrigue with Superboy. It's a fine cover, but Impulse feels like an afterthought. And it would be nice to move away from these generic poses and actually show what the story inside is like. But then again, we would need an actual story inside to promote.

The variant cover is pretty nice, but kind of weird, since none of the characters are the same size. Everything's kind of random and hodgepodge — except for the deliberate choice to make Naomi front and center. Tim is accidentally still in his Robin costume. And poor Bart once again is the smallest afterthought. But for this issue, as we'll soon see, that is quite appropriate.

Our story picks up where we left off, with Young Justice arriving in Naomi's hometown of Port Oswego, Oregon. Everyone is desperately hanging onto Jinny's truck, more or less freaking out. Bart is loudly pleading for this Earth to finally be the right one.

When they finally do land, they're all surrounded by scientists and Naomi. Cassie and Tim try to diplomatically introduce themselves, but Jinny interrupts them by swearing and demanding to know which Earth this is. Naturally, nobody knows how to answer this question, but Naomi reveals she does know who Young Justice is. She calls Bart Kid Flash before correcting herself and saying Impulse. She calls Tim Red Robin, but he obstinately insists she call him Drake. Suddenly, Naomi collapses and passes out, as she has come to the end of a very long day.

Our heroes are also exhausted, and since nobody knew what to do with them, Naomi's parents brought all the teenagers to their house to sleep for the night. All except Impulse, who mysteriously takes off for who knows where. His disappearance isn't acknowledged until the morning, when Superboy announces he's taking off to investigate the S.T.A.R. Lab creeps who sent him to Gemworld in the first place. Unfortunately, they trick him once again, sending Kon to Warworld this time.

And that's it. Bendis was so hellbent on promoting his original character, Naomi, that he insisted on inserting her into this already-bloated cast of characters. Naturally, this forces several characters into the background, and Impulse drew the short straw this issue. Who cares that he's one of the three founding members of Young Justice and we haven't answered any questions about him in 11 issues? We need to promote Naomi! And send Superboy away again ... Well, let's take a break from complaining and look at the new ads:

Diana's oldest enemy returns — and wants to be her closest ally! Wonder Woman: The Just War.

We have an ad for Watchmen ... even though it's like 30 years old at this point ...

A DC Nation interview with Grant Morrison on Green Lantern: Blackstars.

Next time, we'll take a quick look at Superman #18.

Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Blackest Night #1

Tim Seeley Writer

Kyle Hotz Pencils

Dexter Vines, Walden Wong & Danny Miki Inks

David Baron & Allen Passalaqua Colors

Tom Napolitano Letters

Lee Weeks & Brad Anderson Cover

Full disclosure: I was supposed to review this issue before the Infinite Crisis one, but I got them mixed up. I hope you can forgive me. Anyway, our cover shows Sinestro being attacked by the Black Lantern versions of the Justice League. If you look closely, you'll notice that Sinestro is wearing both a white ring and a black ring. It's a fine cover, recapturing the inherent creepiness of Blackest Night.

Much like the Infinite Crisis retelling, this story changes just one aspect of Blackest Night: What if Sinestro didn't share the White Lantern power? Well, the immediate answer is quickly taken care of in just two pages. Nekron wins and turns everybody into a Black Lantern zombie. Sinestro is so distraught by his failure, he commits suicide. The remaining 40 pages of comic deal with the aftermath of this crushing defeat.

We head to San Francisco 19 days later, where Lobo is smashing in the skull of zombie Kid Flash. (And poor Bart's head will permanently be squashed for the rest of this issue.) Lobo has been hired by a mysterious benefactor to capture Dove, whose connection to the Lord of Order makes her immune to the Black Lanterns. And as such, she is the last woman alive on Earth.

As Lobo viciously tears the zombie Titans apart, he's bitten by Starfire, which allows him to demonstrate his immunity to the Black Lanterns — being a Czarnian, he's able to regenerate at a cellular level at will, thus instantly expelling any infection. Anyway, Sinestro soon shows up, revealing that the White Lantern ring wouldn't let him completely kill himself. So he mainly spends his time torturing the Black Lantern zombies by briefly reviving them with his white ring before his black ring kills them again.

Eager to atone for his failure, Sinestro travels with Lobo and Dove into outer space, where we learn the man who hired Lobo is Mister Miracle — the only New God who was able to escape the Black Lanterns. Mister Miracle has a wild plan to harness the energy of the Source to destroy all the Black Lanterns at once. Well, that turns out to be pretty tricky, and in one cool moment, zombie Darkseid kills Lobo, only to witness each drop of Lobo's blood grow into another Lobo (just like we saw way back in Young Justice #36).

Anyway, Dove, the embodiment of peace, was supposed to be the template for the Source energy to create new life from. But Mister Miracle was tricked into killing her, so Lobo killed Miracle in retaliation. In desperation, Sinestro used Lobo as the template, which successfully destroyed all Black Lanterns in the universe ... but unfortunately created billions of violent Lobo-like creatures.

Once again, I was pleasantly surprised by how interesting this story was. If it didn't rely so heavily on over-the-top, grotesque violence, I would have enjoyed it a whole lot more. Altogether, I'd say our two Dark Multiverse issues were a success.

Next time, we begin the final month of 2019 with Young Justice #11.

Action Comics #1017

Metropolis Doom!

Brian Michael Bendis Writer

John Romita Jr. Penciller

Klaus Janson Inker

Brad Anderson Colorist

Dave Sharpe Letterer

Romita Jr., Janson, Anderson Cover

Lucio Parillo Variant Cover

Jessica Chen Associate Editor

Mike Cotton Editor

Brian Cunningham Group Editor

Superman created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster.

By special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family.

Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger.

Our cover shows a group of villains marching forward through rubble with the capes and accoutrements of the heroes they supposedly defeated. We have Gorilla Grodd, Cheetah, Brainiac, Sinestro, and, leading the way, is Lex Luthor, apparently. Why does he look like this? Because Year of the Villain. Anyway, I think this might be a fine cover ... if it wasn't drawn by John Romita Jr. I'm sorry, but I cannot stand his work and I will complain every time — especially when he tries to draw gorillas and cheetahs. And why are all the faces so squashed? (Sorry, not sorry.)

Our story basically opens on the scene shown in the cover. Metropolis is in ruins and these villains are standing triumphant. The only heroes left to oppose them are Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. And lying on the ground defeated are the rest of the Justice League, the Teen Titans and our lovable Young Justice.

That Robin in the foreground is most likely supposed to be Damian Wayne, even though he has a beard? Sorry, I'll stop complaining about the art. Anyway, I'm sure you're dying to know how and why Young Justice ended up lying battered and bruised alongside the Justice League and Teen Titans. But we don't find that out in this issue. After this shocking scene, the comic abruptly jumps backward in time and doesn't catch up to the beginning of this fight. I find it a rather annoying storytelling technique. But I do know we have a few more issues of Action Comics coming up ... so hopefully we'll get some answers before too long.

Not much to say this time, but we do have a couple of new ads:

They've been infected by the Batman who Laughs. Now these heroes are our worst nightmare! Year of the Villain: The Infected.

Don't get attached. Suicide Squad.

DC Nation interview with Simon Spurrier and Aaron Campbell on John Constantine: Hellblazer.

Next time: Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Blackest Night #1.

Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Infinite Crisis #1

 

James Tynion IV Writer

Aaron Lopresti Pencils

Matt Ryan Inks

Romulo Fajardo Jr. Colors

Rob Leigh Letters

Lee Weeks & Brad Anderson Cover

This is an interesting series. It's basically DC's version of Marvel's "What If?" line — but in this case, every issue asks "What if the bad guys won?" And in this simple, yet haunting cover, we see that Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern have all fallen in Infinite Crisis at the hands of ... Brother Eye and Blue Beetle?!

The framing device for this issue is a cosmic entity named Tempus Fuginaut, who has the ability to observe and compare events in both the Multiverse and the Dark Multiverse. And with Infinite Crisis, Tempus explains how the entire world was doomed by one simple change — Blue Beetle not being killed by Maxwell Lord.

Just like in the real Multiverse, the Crisis began with Ted Kord discovering that Maxwell Lord was plotting to use Batman's satellite, Brother Eye, and his army of OMACs to take over the world. But instead of refusing Lord's offer to join him, Ted tricked his former friend and killed him with his own gun, rationalizing that he was too dangerous and too far along in his plans to be allowed to live. 

Blue Beetle then teams up with Brother Eye, or Brother One, as he's called here, and together they take over Checkmate and begin tracking down the Secret Society of Super-Villains. But with each victory, Ted grows bolder and more authoritarian, even expanding his influence to outer space, by sending a legion of OMAC drones to prevent the Rann-Thanagar War. Naturally, this draws the attention of Alexander Luthor and Superboy-Prime. Ted winds up convincing Prime to turn on Alexander and join him in taking the next major step in his goal for world peace: eliminating all superheroes.

The plan came from Brother Eye's computer-logic, which Ted couldn't argue against ... but was still hesitant to fully enact. So he came up with a compromise — instead of killing the heroes, he would turn them into mindless OMAC drones. And since Prime wouldn't stop complaining about Superboy, Blue Beetle tasked him with bringing in the Teen Titans. And that's where we finally meet this version of Bart Allen.

Robin, Kid Flash and Wonder Girl picked up a distress call from Superboy, but before they can go to him, Conner is brought to them by Superboy-Prime. Tim desperately tries to revive Conner, and Bart openly worries about their odds against someone who could so easily defeat Superboy. Cassie attempts a heroic "Titans together!" But it's all for naught. Untethered from the "morality" of Alexander Luthor, this Superboy-Prime is intentionally and gleefully murdering every hero he sees. And poor Bart is gruesomely vaporized before he can even consider enlisting the other Flashes' aid.

Blue Beetle is furious with Superboy-Prime for disobeying his orders, so he converts him into a mindless drone, as well. The one hero Ted couldn't bring himself to change was his best friend, Booster Gold. But when Booster tried to kill Blue, Brother Eye's defense mechanisms kick in and murder Booster. Distraught by this loss, Ted has the computer completely fuse with him and eliminate all emotion from his mind. And in time, Blue Beetle/Brother Eye conquers the world, creating a horrifying, but peaceful planet.

I enjoyed this story a lot more than I thought I would. It did occasionally get a bit too violent for my tastes, but the artwork was very solid throughout. And the overall concept was really neat, too. Instead of just showing the bad guys winning, it took an unexpected — and frankly improbable — route. Yeah, it seems impossible for Blue Beetle to defeat Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman so easily. But at the same time, that's kind of the point. None of them ever thought Ted would go to the lengths he went to, including Ted. And that's what makes it such a great story. Once he starts rationalizing things, he can't stop. And although he successfully manipulates a few others, it was always Brother Eye who was manipulating him. Yeah, the story did have to go by a little too quick, but I was pleasantly surprised by this comic.

Next time: Action Comics #1017

Young Justice #10

Lost in the Multiverse Part 4

Brian Michael Bendis Script

John Timms (p. 1, 8-10) & Nick Derington (p. 2-7, 11-12) Art

Gabe Eltaeb & Dave Stewart Colors

Wes Abbott Letters

Timms & Eltaeb Cover

Nick Bradshaw & Alex Sinclair Variant Cover

Brittany Holzherr Associate Editor

Mike Cotton Editor

Brian Cunningham Group Editor

Superboy created by Jerry Siegel.

By special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family.

Our cover is a rather joyful image of Bendis' creation, Naomi, triumphantly leading Young Justice. I do like the optimistic vibe of the piece, and Impulse goofily being dragged along by Teen Lantern. This is also our first look at Tim Drake's new costume as ... Drake. It's as bland and boring as his new superhero name. Anyway, there is one massive problem about this cover: Naomi doesn't join Young Justice in this issue. She barely shows up on the last page.

The variant cover (which I snagged from dc.fandom.com, as always) is fantastic. It reminds me a lot of Todd Nauck and the glorious artwork of 20 years ago. For once, Teen Lantern actually looks cool and intimidating. And the subtle gag of Impulse's foot appearing in front of him is pretty neat. Tim's still wearing his Robin costume (for the last time, I guess), and Naomi is also mistakenly included. Clearly this "Lost in the Multiverse" storyline dragged out one issue longer than Bendis originally intended.

As always, we start with a recap page, which doesn't tell us anything new. It does, however, remind me that Young Justice has been away from their Earth for 10 issues now, which is kind of ridiculous. Anyway, a big chunk of this issue is devoted to Jinny Hex's backstory, but I don't really care about that. Let's get back to the action on Earth-3.

Teen Lantern and Jinny Hex are being chased by Amazon Thunder and Luthor-El. The girls understandably feel like they've been abandoned by their teammates, until Superboy suddenly shows up, followed by an army of drones escorting Batwoman, Amethyst, Wonder Girl, Impulse and the newly named Drake. (It is absolutely insane that Tim would take the time to design, create and put on a new costume while his teammates were being attacked by some pretty powerful villains. Maybe Bart helped him. Who knows?)

Impulse gives a lengthy speech about Batwoman lending her military might to their cause, and Amethyst teases Bart for liking words. But most importantly, this distraction gives Jinny enough time to finally open her mysterious trunk that came from her ancestor, the legendary Jonah Hex. As Drake blasts Luthor-El with a bazooka, Jinny activates a device that summons a half-dozen other Jinny Hexes from the multiverse, of all shapes and sizes. 

Impulse promptly plants himself on the shoulder of the giant Jinny, and our heroes make short work of their evil counterparts. Bart ensnares his doppelgänger in a whirlwind, enabling Superboy to knock out Speed Zone. In no time at all, Teen Lantern has all the villains trapped in a green bubble and all the citizens cautiously fill the streets to cheer the victory ... and call for the execution of the bad guys. Our heroes oppose this, but mostly decide it's time for them to go home.

Bart finally tells the others that Batwoman is Stephanie Brown and she's in love with Drake. Stephanie doesn't seem too pleased by this and brusquely leads Young Justice back to her Batcave, which oddly has an Impulse-like costume and a Superman costume on display in glass tubes. Stephanie explains that Ultraman from her Earth was obsessed with their Earth, and conveniently left detailed instructions on how to get there. As they fire up the machine, Bart reports that he quickly wrapped up a bunch of loose ends off-panel — he cleaned up a school and defeated the evil Amethyst, who apparently overslept and missed the big fight.

At long last, our heroes are sent back to their correct home, arriving in Port Oswego, Oregon, where Naomi is waiting for them.

That was ... actually a bit of a letdown. Bendis has so many characters to keep track of and so many backstories to tell, that a lot of things end up being tossed to the side. One of them is the action. Ten issues in, and I'm quite underwhelmed by all the action scenes in this series. And this issue was particularly bad. What's the point of bringing in six more Jinny Hexes if they don't do anything? But somehow Stephanie Brown got an entire splash page to let a single tear trickle down her cheek. Ugh. Bendis totally forgot about Amethyst's evil double (he almost forgot about the real Amethyst). And Tim's decision to not only change his name and costume in the middle of a battle, but to also use his own last name AND the name of his evil doppelgänger, is completely inexcusable. I'm quite annoyed. Here are the ads:

Far Sector. A mind-blowing mystery at the edge of the universe.

Legion of Super-Heroes by Brian Michael Bendis and Ryan Sook.

A DC Nation interview with Geoff Johns and Gary Frank on Doomsday Clock.

Next time? Well ... I'm not quite sure. I'm going to have to take a look at the Tales of the Dark Multiverse issues and decide if they're worth covering.

Action Comics #1016

Coming of Age

Brian Michael Bendis Writer

Szymon Kudranski Artist

Brad Anderson Colorist

Dave Sharpe Letterer

Jamal Campbell Cover

Bryan Hitch & Alex Sinclair Variant Cover

Jessica Chen Associate Editor

Mike Cotton Editor

Brian Cunningham Group Editor

Superman created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster.

By special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family.

Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger.

Our cover shows one of Bendis' creations, Naomi, helping Superman fight a villain called the Red Cloud. It's a fairly decent cover, although it doesn't convey the clever framing device of this issue. Almost the entire issue is told through man-on-the-street interviews to a reporter who's trying to piece together the story of the Superman/Naomi/Red Cloud fight. And as a newspaper man myself, I found this rather enjoyable.

But we're not here for Naomi or Superman. The only thing we care about is the home page for the Daily Planet's knock-off Twitter account. And this is another very clever element of this issue, dropping tons of Easter eggs and clues for upcoming storylines.

The link to the Young Justice story is a nice reminder that this team did show up in Metropolis and made quite an impact before suddenly disappearing. The hashtag #LostInTheMultiverse sort of breaks the fourth wall, though, because there's no way that anybody on this Earth would know that Young Justice went bouncing around the multiverse. Unless that's just a normal phrase people say in this wild world of superheroes. Regardless, I did enjoy this page, no matter how small it was, and I'm looking forward to Young Justice actually appearing in Action Comics.

Next time, we'll return to Young Justice #10.