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.