Batmanchuria's Profile

The best book DC has to offer keeps its momentum by doing what it does best: juggling multiple plot lines/narratives and looking great while doing so. This series has been an absolute joyride for what will probably end up being two years (!) by the time issue 12 is released. While this issue spends a good amount of time cultivating its massive narrative, it may feel like it's slowing down a tad as it focuses on just about every significant character/device that has popped up since the first issue. Rest assured, however, as by the time we reach the final pages, it becomes clear that this is the calm before the storm (calm being a relative term, in this case).

Honestly, I just can't see what Tom King saw in this one. This book has been such a downer, from start to finish, but for all the wrong reasons. This isn't some sort of provocative, grounded event like Identity Crisis, nor does this serve as an effective study/meditation on mental health. All we got was a flash in the pan at the start, with an opening plot line that we were already made aware of months in advance, a slog of filler issues and a drawn out narrative that took up the winter months (between this and Knightmares, King rung in the new year with two scoops of garbage), and a frustrating ending that turns Wally West into a walking cautionary tale for mental health. Really? They took one of the most important characters of the Rebirth era and not only turned him into a lost cause, overpowered murderer, but then they said, "let's use his folly to demonstrate why it's important for superheroes to go to therapy" before throwing him into a cell. There's no elaboration on Sanctuary's reopening, no input from the Justice League, or how to avoid another Wally-level "Crisis" from happening, it's all just another instance of Tom King hijacking characters with pre-established motives and ideals and drastically reorienting them until he's had his fill. Furthermore, it's another instance of DC throwing the Rebirth agenda out the window; we saw it with the Superman reboot, with the post-wedding dissection of Batman, and the fact that Doomsday Clock still isn't finished. Speaking of which, Doomsday Clock is out this week, so whatever's going on in this season's issue should be light years more enjoyable then what happened here.

I'm pretty interested in what Snyder and co. have to offer with this, as the mini-stories offered here do a good job of setting the stage for what's to come this year. I'm also optimistic for these tie-ins, because if done right, then we may see a more encompassing event than what we've seen from recent efforts (HiC is more or less exclusive to itself and a couple of tie-ins, and Metal's postgame line-up was really just a bunch of failing and flailing New Age titles and a Justice League segue). The only thing that has me concerned is the time-frame, which may not only take a while to get off the ground, but may also take space/time away from other DC ventures (e.g.: Doomsday Clock, future Black Labels (if any), any remaining gleam of hope for the Milestone reprise, etc.). No matter what, though, it seems like they're going to try and have some fun with this one, which is always welcome over boring sci-fi exposition, pseudo-intellectual rambling, and misguided attempts at being "deep, thought-provoking literature".

Now, while there is one issue left for King to fix this mess of a story up, it doesn't change the fact that this event was a tremendous failure, from start to finish. The peak of this mess (unless King REALLY outdoes himself with issue #9) comes from this issue's complete bastardization of Wally West. I really don't know what to say in regards to this character arc, aside from it being completely out of pocket and contradictory to the foundation of what Wally's character has been built upon since his re-introduction 3 years ago; part of me is just baffled by the inane logic that led up to this point (the whole "few billion years, few seconds" thing is simply awful), and part of me isn't sure where they'll take things from here. At best, King scrubs this whole thing up and reverses whatever damages occurred, at the cost of discrediting the entire story and removing any impact from it, whatsoever, and at worst we see a beloved character soiled for no good reason other than to give this pity party a little more weight. Either way, Tom King has managed to turn his Heroes in Crisis into no more than a hostage crisis for just about every character involved.

The biggest problem that I see from this book as that it may not even have any significant impact on the main continuity of this universe (whereas most events do). Rather, it might just result in one or two characters getting spin-off material, and maybe a follow up title from King, which would, in turn, reveal this series to be one great big vehicle for yet another unremarkable book (not unlike Metal, which turned out to be a glorified prelude to Justice League). Furthermore, these issues, month after month, continue to sully both its own title and the credibility of Tom King, from the baffling ineptitude of some characters to the downright deplorable indifference of others, to the point where they're no longer polarizing, but straight-up horrible. Ultimately, this book will most likely end with a terrible conclusion to match up with the rest of it, and the hatred and controversy that it has amassed will be the only thing saving it from obscurity down the line. And seriously, how is it that this book receives top-priority by DC, yet they treat Doomsday Clock like an afterthought?

Gerads did a great job with the art, as usual, but that's just about all this book has going for it. King delivers another slog of a narrative, not unlike what we've seen from Heroes in Crisis. What's even worse, though, is that they put out a book featuring Professor Pyg on the cover, and he has next to no visible dialogue! talk about a missed opportunity...