A Who's-Who of the Bad-Guys - Necessary Evil: Super-Villains of DC Comics

 

Review:

Part quick-reference, part origins recap, part celebration, this is a fascinating and quirky little volume.

If you have grown up reading or watching the wider DC universe, sampling the full range of villains from the creative to the goofy to the universe-shaking, you already know every one of the characters spotlighted in this volume.

Which is why the publishers made it more than just a directory of villainy.

There is no shortage of directory-style entries. Taken from the Countdown books, these all follow a similar pattern: two pages, text-heavy origin narration paired with a handful of illustrations from key moments in the villain's history, a bullet-point summary of their powers, weapons, affiliations and essential storylines. These entries are all authored by Scott Beatty and must have been an interesting challenge in his writing career: give a precis of what makes this villain worth knowing and caring about.

He delivers to us a series of fine, if unspectacular, capsules. The rotation of artists on the assignment provides us with perfunctory, uninspired visuals, handcuffed by their need to illustrate one specific moment rather than using their graphic-narrative skills to tell us a story.

If this book was only made up of those 2-page summaries, this would be such a disappointment. Fortunately, we get lots more!

Lex Luthor leads off the collection with Jeph Loeb's fascinating retelling and reinterpretation of his origin story, from Lex 2000 #1. Framed as a biographical TV documentary introducing the new President, it is narrator-driven and text heavy, yet absorbing and a clever updating of this uber-villain's mythology.

By contrast, the Sinestro tale is packed with action and typical hero/villain dialog, drama and combat. Sinestro's vicious schooling of rookie Green Lantern Dr Soranik Natu is harsh, dark and intense. Yet author Dave Gibbons leaves us feeling that Sinestro is not 100% evil. Maybe just 97%?

Darwyn Cooke's "Date Night" story of the sexy cat-and-mouse game between Batman and Catwoman is a classic and can be found in many other collections. It is always a delight and is a great choice to give the reader a glimpse of the complexities of their relationship and of Catwoman's status as a beloved anti-hero.

Batman gets a second story-length entry, reprinted from Batman #614. It is another tale written by Jeph Loeb, and like the Lex Luthor one earlier in the collection, it uses a similar narrator-driven approach. Batman's inner thoughts and turmoil are on raw display as he pummels the Joker to within an inch of his life. But Joker's survival was not his original intention - his memories of the pain and suffering caused by this most famous of DC villains drive him to finally, finally avenge them all by killing his enemy.  Robin. Batgirl. How many others? It ends here, Batman promises. 

Harley Quinn intervenes but is easily batted aside. Catwoman tries to stop him, but he uses his knowledge of her weakness to stop her interference. Finally, Commissioner Gordon gets through, he succeeds in keeping Batman on the right side of that fine line.

Jim Lee's visuals are dark, ferocious. The brutality of the violence in these close-ups is almost intimate. Watercolors, charcoals, line sketches, Lee mixes in so many techniques to convey the memories, the pain, the emotional intensity of this story - a gut-punch of an art job!

A book-length ode to supper-villains is bound to be dark and chilling, and this fits the bill, cover to cover. It ends with the cold-blooded killing of Ted Kord / Blue Beetle by Maxwell Lord. This powerful story is a pivotal moment in the arc of DC Comics history, but what is missing in this collection is much sense of Lord's own origin story. There are hints and nods in the dialog, but readers not familiar with his power, influence and multi-layered villainy may find it a confusing ending.

Description:

To coincide with an exciting new documentary from Warner Home Video about the history of DC Comics villains, DC Comics proudly presents this collection of tales starring DC's most popular villains from some of the biggest names in comics!

Collected here are stories featuring such popular creators as Geoff Johns, Jim Lee, Pete Tomasi and Darwyn Cooke, all taking on the baddest of the bad in the DC Universe.  The Joker, Bane, Lex Luthor, General Zod, the who's who of evil goes on in this action-packed trade paperback!

Collects: Action Comics Annual #10, Batman #244, 614, Batman Villains Secret Files and Origins 2005 #1, Black Adam 6, Countdown #2, 6-9, 10-11, 14-15, 16, 19, 27, 29, 33-34, 36-37, Countdown to Infinite Crisis #1, Green Lantern Corps #14, Solo #1, Superman: Lex 2000, Wonder Woman #214

Authors:  Various
Artists:  Various
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Sept. 10, 2013
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401245030
Pages:  192 pages

Crisis on Infinite Earths - the Unparalleled Grand-daddy of Cross-over Events

 

Review:

With the recent releases of the multi-part Crisis on Infinite Earths animated films, the seminal universe-shaking crossover event from DC Comics is back in the popular culture. It's amazing to think that next year marks 40 years since the publication of the original 12-issue limited series that shook the DC universe and settled some very tangled continuity.

To mark the occasion, I have been recently reviewing some collections of the Silver Age stories from Justice League of America and other titles like the Flash and the Atom. Let's turn, at last, to a look at the actual Crisis on Infinite Earths story itself. My copy is from the year 2000, so about 15 years after the stories originally ran. Long enough that writer Marv Wolfman gives his own retrospective with a short introduction. He describes where the idea came from, and how it morphed into the now-classic series.

Worlds lived. Worlds died. Heroes lived. Heroes died. And the overall result was a much-needed simplification and pruning of DC's then-convoluted and complex world of characters. And it was no accident; it was one of the things Wolfman specifically set out to do - simplify the DC Universe enough that new readers would not be put off or scared away.

To get there, however, he had to pull into this massive story at least casual nods to all those heroes, Earths, continuity wrinkles. It was a huge, complex undertaking. It meant spending a few panels on the death of one Earth here, an ode to another soon-to-be-erased character there. Sometimes their involvement could only be handled by an appearance in a crowd scene.

Who better to team with, for the artistic realization, than his longtime partner George Perez. A man who, by all accounts, lives for exactly this kind of project. Author Mark Waid, years later in 2007, described Perez as "obsessively compelled to draw every single comics character ever. Ever."*

Even today, nearly 40 years later, the pages and panels produced by Perez in Crisis are striking, powerful and engaging. They demand lingering, taking the time to explore all the little touches and surprises and background additions - what we might today call Easter Eggs. There is no better way to honor characters past and fallen in this Crisis than to breathe in the power, the beauty and the affection of his art.

It was also pioneering work in using the visuals to carry the reader through the story. The encroaching whiteness of oblivion. The stacking of Earths. The tumbling together of thumbnail panels showing the reactions of dozens of characters in a small space. A dozen stacked page-wide thin horizontal panels. Perez shows his mastery of graphical storytelling on page after page after page.

The story itself is shocking enough. The Anti-Monitor is destroying whole worlds and whole universes, absorbing their power and energy and becoming ever stronger. Heroes from so many realms and Earths fight a losing battle, eventually reduced to five Earths in a limbo created by his arch-rival, the Monitor.

They battle through time and space, all the way back to the beginning of time. The final battle leaves the only people with memory of what existed before all trapped in a pocket universe, while the heroes, villains and people of the remaining Earth have survived, but with no memory of other worlds.

Along the way, though, so many heroes die. How shocking it is to read, in consecutive chapters, of the deaths of first Supergirl and then the Barry Allen Flash! Wolfman makes clear that this is not a simple plot device to set up a resurrection in a few pages - this is final! Yet, by his own admission in his intro to this volume, he did deliberately put in a back door, a story hook to bring them back.

Four decades later, this story still shines as a masterful tale. Wolfman achieves his ambitious goals; Perez gives some of his finest work in a storied career. It became the template for universe-shaking crossovers that followed in its wake, very few of which could live up to the quality and sheer audacity of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

* See his introduction to the collection The Brave and the Bold: Lords of Luck

Description:

This is the story that changed the DC Universe forever. A mysterious being known as the Anti-Monitor has begun a crusade across time to bring about the end of all existence. As alternate earths are systematically destroyed, the Monitor quickly assembles a team of super-heroes from across time and space to battle his counterpart and stop the destruction. DC's greatest heroes including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Aquaman, assemble to stop the menace, but as they watch both the Flash and Supergirl die in battle, they begin to wonder if even all of the heroes in the world can stop this destructive force.

Collects: the complete 12-issue limited series

Authors:  Marv Wolfman
Artists:  George Perez
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Dec 1, 2000
Parental Rating: PG-13
ISBN:  978-1563897504
Pages:  364 pages

Did Truth Set Free? Review of Superman Volume 1 Before Truth

 

Review:

"What is truth?"  - Pontius Pilate

"You can't handle the truth!" - Col Nathan Jessup, A Few Good Men

"The truth shall set you free" - Jesus Christ

Truth, at least in the context of DC Comics, is the 2015 event that crossed all Superman titles. It was a time when the Man of Steel's powers were dwindling and his secret identity had been exposed by Lois Lane, of all people. I have shared my thoughts elsewhere (in reviews of Action Comics, Batman / Superman and Superman / Wonder Woman books) about how unpleasant I found this story.

But here, in Gene Luen Yang's capable hands, these tales are much more enjoyable. This collection spans the run-up, the moment of global exposure and the immediate aftermath of the big Superman = Clark Kent revelation. These tales are engrossing, engaging, absorbing, filled with passions and the drama of real relationships. The action is edge-of-your-seat intense, with close calls and narrow escapes. You feel Superman's confusion, frustration, even hints of fear, mixed with his anger and betrayal. But never the bitterness or nihilism that lurks in the other Truth collections. Rather, this is a Superman seeking peace, understanding and trust.

The first chapter, written and drawn by John Romita Jr, is a delight. The Justice League tries to work with Superman to understand his new "solar flare" power and its strengths and limitations. Delightful banter permeates these well-imagined situations, and the visuals convey as much or more than the words themselves. A casual, coffee-sipping, cowled but cape-less Batman seems so relaxed in this environment. Aquaman covering Wonder Woman's eyes at the naked "nature boy" post-flare Superman - and her swatting away that hand. A powerless, human Clark Kent drinking too much and getting hung over. Romita Jr's tale is exquisite, a somewhat standalone tale that sparkles with more fun than any of the Justice League or Superman titles of the day.

Gene Luen Yang takes the rest of the writing duties in this collection, with Romita Jr focusing on the pencil-work. And the tension ratchets up and up on almost every page. Hordr_root knows Clark's secret and manipulates (blackmails) Superman into doing his bidding. But Lois Lane's exposé robs Hordr_root of his "sort of" blackmail power. He has nothing left to hold over Clark's head.

With themes of friendship, loyalty and betrayal, duty and honor saturating these chapters, it fits into the stronger vein of Superman narratives. The characters grow; relationships fracture while others hold; the social-media world plays a believable role. This is a very well-written story arc.

John Romita Jr and Klaus Janson show us the pwer of the solar flare with stunning blasts of page-rending yellows and oranges. You can practically feel the all-consuming power it unleashes, and the disorienting after-effects.

Truth in this collection is at last an enjoyable experience.

Description:

POWERLESS, EXPOSED — BUT STILL THE WORLD’S GREATEST HERO!

Superman is going through some changes. First, there’s his new “solar flare” power, which releases tremendous amounts of energy but leaves him functionally human—fragile, vulnerable, prone to hangovers—for 24 hours.

But an even bigger change is coming. A new company called Hordr has sprung up, and its business is secrets. If you have one that you want to keep hidden, Hordr can control you—and no one has a bigger secret than Clark Kent.

Now, Hordr is threatening to expose Clark’s alter ego unless he does everything they command. Will Superman play into the hands of blackmailers to keep his loved ones out of danger? And if the truth that Superman has been hiding is exposed, will it set him free—or ruin his life?

A new era for the Man of Steel begins here - crafted by National Book Award nominated writer Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese) and legendary artists John Romita, Jr. (Kick-Ass, The Amazing Spider-Man) and Klaus Janson 

Collects: issues #40-44 and the 8-page SUPERMAN story from DIVERGENCE: FCBD SPECIAL EDITION #1

Authors:  Gene Luen Yang, John Romita Jr.
Artists:  John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  April 12, 2016
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401259815
Pages:  224 pages