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Infinite Crisis

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12:33 / 19.07.05

OK, here we go --- DC's new super-mega-event, their sequel to the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. The heroes of the DC face their darkest hour, yadda yadda....written by Geoff Johns and drawn by former-Perez-clone-now-has-his-own-style-but-his-art-still-looks-a-lot-like-Perez Phil Jimenez. A lot of this will spin out of the ramifications of Identity Crisis.

After Infinite Crisis, which is by the way supposed to be an 8-issue miniseries, the DC titles will skip ahead to "One Year Later," where a lot of stuff will be different. Dan DiDio said one of his inspirations was Marvel's first Secret Wars series, where SW was only up to issue 4 but in the regular monthly titles everyone was coming back from the Secret Wars with new costumes, changed team members, etc. and readers were going 'how did things get this way??' DiDio also said the DC editors would all swap books to change things up creatively.

Cover of the first issue, by Jim Lee (George Perez will be doing alternate covers for the series for further CRISIS nostalgia)

In recent DC solicits, JSA Classified #4 features Power Girl and the Psycho Pirate, so maybe he'll be involved. DC has said this new Crisis will not be cosmic but maybe they're fibbing.

Maybe the DCU will become sentient at the end a la Grant Morrison's prediction.

12:37 / 19.07.05

oh, and this comes out in October, I think.

14:49 / 19.07.05

That cover's awful - I really don't like Lee's art, but that one, they all look like they're in different places, looking at different things, frozen in time. Does he not like drawing Batman and Superman or something?

I wonder how much difference changing the editors would make to a book?

15:05 / 19.07.05

Editors often dictate the overall tone and sometimes general plot ideas of a book, so you never know...but it does vary a lot with each different title/situation/creators.

There have also been rumors that Wally West aka the Flash will be in trouble in this series - major DC creators keep joking that Crises are bad for Flashes - but I think that's a red herring. It's too obvious if they're telegraphing it this early on.

15:07 / 19.07.05

and even though the cover is weak, I think it's interesting that WW is taking center stage. Very much not the typical way we are presented with images of DC's Big Three.

15:19 / 19.07.05

whaaat? This was reported from the recent ComicCon:

>> "Hypertime is no longer a part of the DC Universe."
Dan Didio at the Crisis Counseling panel at San Diego Comic Con.

also...

>> "The end to Days of Vengeance will destroy all magic in the DC Universe," said Bob Wayne to a jam packed crowd of people at the panel.

> QUESTION: What's going on with the magic restructuring in the DCU?

> ANSWER: Magic will be restructured and replaced with something different come to next year's panel for the answer.

um.....ok. I've also heard rumors about the Justice League breaking up right before Infinite Crisis because the Batman being pissed about being mindwiped fallout.

15:39 / 19.07.05

Sorry, that was a positive 'I wonder how much difference' - I think a lot, I was more thinking about whether writers are going to find new editors dismissing entire ideas, character portrayal changing dramatically. It would be nice if everything felt different at DC after this, rather than just - well, that's another crisis sorted, who's on monitor duty, oh, and as anyone seen the flash?

The whole magic thing is odd, DC has a strong history of magic being important, and also does this mean that Superman suddenly becomes stronger?

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

16:56 / 19.07.05

I don't see that hypertime statement ever being backed up in the books.

19:19 / 19.07.05

Rich Johnston reports:

>> 52 COMIC PICK UP

Hot from the convention floor is this little project from DC's stables. Currently called "52," though that might change, it's a planned weekly comic from DC.

Hasn't been one of those since "Action Comics Weekly," and that wasn't a barnstorming success. However, "52" ties in with the much anticipated One Year Gap.

Spread across the DC Universe, it will cover what happened in the Gap, chronologically, week by week, using a number of creative teams-- which will naturally include Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison and Mark Waid along the way.

Should be a DC continuity fans' dream-- and an instant fillip for DC market share.

19:22 / 19.07.05

I have to say, I do like the idea that Geoff Johns, Mark Waid and especially Grant Morrison are the new writer/keepers of pretty much everything in the DCU as far as overall plots, editorial and general direction go.

ONLY NICE THINGS

19:26 / 19.07.05

Should be a DC continuity fans' dream-- and an instant fillip for DC market share.

I for one have been screaming for a chance to have Geoff Johns take me through the continuity of the DC universe on a weekly rather than fortnightly basis.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

19:57 / 19.07.05

Sounds a bit dull. No hypertime? Yay for pointlessly rigid continuity. No magic? To be replaced by what? "I Can't Believe it's Not Magic?" Will Zatanna be limited to sleights of hand?

20:13 / 19.07.05

Will Zatanna be limited to sleights of hand?

That might be an indicator that Zatanna's not going to make it through Seven Soldiers.

20:24 / 19.07.05

oh, and there's also speculation that there will be someone new under the Batman cowl when IC is all over. But they've already done that - Knightfall, plus Dick Grayson donned the Batsuit for one month of DC titles years back, post-Knightfall.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

20:32 / 19.07.05

And it's only going to last until the next Batmovie is made, and they feel the need to align the comics with the movies.

Regrettable Juvenilia

21:47 / 19.07.05

Can we establish a ground-rule now that nobody who actually buys these comics is allowed to complain about how shit they are?

21:52 / 19.07.05

Hell, no! Where's the fun in that?

21:58 / 19.07.05

Yeah, uh... I'm avoiding Infinite Crapshite or whatever in all its forms. So... urm... I couldn't care less about who Dr. Light's going to rape next, I guess. It doesn't really matter, because everything will always be the same again.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

22:44 / 19.07.05

Actually, no one's been raped in quite a while. I was just as filled with loathing as everyone else by Identity Crisis, but thanks to the two pronged assault of Green Lantern: Rebirth and the Adam Strange mini, I've been roped back into the DCU. Also helping is Rucka's excellent work on Adventures Of Superman and Johns' Teen Titans. Both of them are deeply entrenched in the Countdown stuff and are doing a great deal to get everything cohesive. The weakest link here is Winick's stuff but his Red Hood stuff in Batman is actually appealing conceptually if you read it and sift through the hamhanded narration.

So, basically, the groundwork has been laid in such a way that I'm quite interested in what exactly is going on and how everything is relating to each other. They seem to have outgrown the raping and murder and are making things a bit broader, wide-scale. Cosmic war, the eradication of magic, a global conspiracy, and, um, another global conspiracy. I have zero interest in the more salacious aspects of Countdown and Identity Crisis, but am more interested in the way that they're building up the rift between Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. It honestly doesn't show any signs of returning to the status quo after Crisis is over. After all, there hasn't been a status quo in the DCU in quite a while. Everyone's bitching at each other and beating the crap out of one another, abandoning Wonder Woman to track down Fire and Ice and the rest of Giffen era JLI, etcetera. I don't think anyone else will be Batman or anything drastic like that, but the way they've taken such a long time to make their longstanding characters evolve and grow apart from one another, I honestly can't see them going back to being all chummy and fun in a year's time. It's quite an angsty place these days, which obviously isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I'm pretty happy with it as long as everyone keeps their pants on.

Can we also have a rule then that anyone who hasn't read the books can't say how shit they ARE and instead focus semantically on how shit they appear to be?

Fair's fair, after all.

Pooky Is Just My Pornstar Name

23:40 / 19.07.05

and even though the cover is weak, I think it's interesting that WW is taking center stage. Very much not the typical way we are presented with images of DC's Big Three.

Y'know, I thought the exact same thing too. Rucka's doing a good job on the WW title right now, and it's getting a lot of good buzz. Editorial is probably also positioning WW into a more prominent role in the DC universe, stoking the character's popularity in time for Whedon's WW movie.

00:43 / 20.07.05

> ANSWER: Magic will be restructured and replaced with
> something different come to next year's panel for the
> answer.

I was told by someone who was in that panel, in another message board when I mentioned the same thing, that this was a joke. Dumb 'The Pulse' making it sound serious.

Here is the answer: LINK LINK LINK

"I was at that panel. The above line was a joke. They said "We'll replace magic with fluffy bunnies!" and made constant gags about "In Firestorm, we'll kill Nuclear Energy in the DCU!" and Bill Willingham said "The magic went out of my life years ago."

So don't take that seriously."

A

03:59 / 20.07.05

In recent DC solicits, JSA Classified #4 features Power Girl and the Psycho Pirate, so maybe he'll be involved.

Interestingly enough, I'm pretty sure that those are the only two characters in the DCU that actually remember the way things were pre-Crisis. (unless Power Girl remembering has been retconned away or something).

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

04:08 / 20.07.05

Can we establish a ground-rule now that nobody who actually buys these comics is allowed to complain about how shit they are?

Sigh.

Day of Vengence has been uniformly brilliant so far - Bill has a nice light touch (yeah yeah, Blue Devil's all grrrrim, but he's working with what he's been given, after all), and the character interaction is pretty enjoyable. The best countdown minis right now are the ones that have the biggest threats, and you don't get much bigger than the Spectre. There's a nice scene in it where all of the Magic DCU empowers Captain Marvel, and Detective Chimp is a joy.

OMAC is the second book I've decided to keep picking up - yes, blah blah Blue Beetle murdered OMG Maxwell Lord isn't really that evil! but damn, the OMACs are fucking creepy! They're a viral entity, a believable threat, and Brother One's due to break out and unleash them all over the DCU soon, which fucking creeps me out even more. Reminds me of the Judge Dredd Doomsday epic, where thousands of super-killer robots shot the shit out of justice department. By the time of IC there are due to be thousands of these things. Oh, and the JLI get major respect - they're hinted at reforming to track down Beetle's killer, who is of course going to be the first person they recruit.

Villans United isn't really that fun, interesting or scary. Shame, I was looking forward to Gail writing it, but I just can't care about the characters or the story.

Rann/Thanjejgiej war I dropped, but I might pick up again. It's Dave Gibbons doing space opera, and it's the one that kicks the Crisis off. I just hope they don't kill Kyle.

Scoff all you want - in five years this board will be full of trivia abou this event. Continuity is a guilty pleasure sometimes.

Regrettable Juvenilia

06:56 / 20.07.05

Hey, if you like this kind of thing, fair enough. Believe it or not, I'm just trying to help people out here - encourage people to get a bit better at judging books by their cover so we don't get a repeat of the All Star Batman thread ("This Jim Lee comic has terrible cheesecake art! This Frank Miller Batman comic resembles a weak pastiche of his former glories!" - well, yeah).

07:40 / 20.07.05

Or the ever grrrreat "why do I keep buying this shit!?". Well, we don't know. Brain tumour?

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:20 / 20.07.05

I'm rather enjoying Villains United, because it's a salutary reminder of how very shallow the villain talent pool is in the DCU. I mean, you expect the people on guard duty to be a bit shit, but Lex Luthor is reduced to having to have Doctor Psycho in his inner circle.

Doctor. Psycho.

On the big stuff - didn't the big three lose trust in each other during the Mark Waid JLA? Was that, in fact, as a result of Batman having kept tabs on all of them and worked out their weaknesses? And, for that matter, aren't the OMACs essentially just the Manhunters? I like the way they're presented, although they would be a lot scarier without the Savage Dragon fin, but right now I'm not seeing a huge amount of change... of course, IC is still to come, so I'm ready to be surprised.

Might be fun to have an Identity/Infinite Crisis bodycount thread. Who's actually dead (not magically dead) so far? Sue Dibney, Robin's Dad, Captain Boomerang, Bolt, Blue Beetle, Overthrow, the Fiddler, Hyena.. any more?

08:52 / 20.07.05

Changes coming from Identity Crisis:

-Villains will now no longer be allowed to call themselves 'Doctor' without first presenting valid documentation.

-Batman will forget how to drive and will have to get lifts everywhere.

-Every female superhero will go down one cup size. As will every male superhero drawn by Rob Liefeld.

-Hypertime will cease to exist, meaning that... meaning... what the fuck was hypertime again?

-DC continuity will jump forward one year. DC creativity will jump backwards about 20 years.

-Superman will ask Batman for all his stuff back. 'That giant coin, I'm pretty sure that was mine...'

-Nothing as you know it will ever be the same again. Truly. You'll go downstairs, your front door will open the wrong way, your doormat will be made of human hair, the postman will be Wil Wheaton...

09:24 / 20.07.05

Running with the directly above 'Top Changes from Infinite Secret Crises War Thing':

"Villains will now no longer be allowed to call themselves 'Doctor' without first presenting valid documentation."

Thus making the female Dr. Light both okeh and an oddly funny and disturbing joke.

"Batman will forget how to drive and will have to get lifts everywhere."

Can he ride on Flash's motorcycle? I mean, it's not like Wally needs it, y'know?

"Every female superhero will go down one cup size. As will every male superhero drawn by Rob Liefeld."

This is really just to soften the blow of making Wonder Woman a man, innit? Be honest, they told us they'd show us the man inside every character, and by 'inside' they meant nothing sexual at all, no. Flag-swimsuit tranny with a Greek accent and bondage gear; yes.

"Hypertime will cease to exist, meaning that... meaning... what the fuck was hypertime again?"

I'll love this if only its some character in meta-denial, like Bats in 'The Kingdom' being all, 'there is no Kathy Kane, there is no Batwoman, there is no Kathy...' mantra style. 'There is no Hypertime, there is no Hypertime....'

"Superman will ask Batman for all his stuff back. 'That giant coin, I'm pretty sure that was mine...'"

Well, shit, after Batmonkey lost that kryptonite ring and all. I mean, I'd be wary of lending him anything valuable, too. Right, Bruce, blame it on the earthquake, mysterious forces, the president's out to get you, right, right. Somebody get this man his medication!'

But, seriously, if this whole thing doesn't result in a return to the big, bright neon and dayglo goofball DCU with apes on the covers and Flash changing colors in prisms... fuck it. That's why God invented back issues. I lived through Teen Tony and pseudo-erasure of Pete Wisdom at that other company, y'know the one, and hey, Warren's doing Tony and holy ice weasel's Claremont's bringing back Wisdom! So, Beetle's gotta come back. He might not sound like himself, he might be written by hacks and overdone, or underdone, but he'll be back. At least, his evil-universe double with the nega-costume and goatee's gotta come back, innit? Cosmic clockwork run by the speedforce cuckoo.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

12:04 / 20.07.05

I'm rather enjoying Villains United, because it's a salutary reminder of how very shallow the villain talent pool is in the DCU.

If there's one thing I've learned reading Flash and Villains United is that DC has the bizarrest and flat out lamest cadre of villains ever created. The Top? Captain Cold? Once you wade past the Arkham gang (which is surprisingly solid throughout) and the big guns (Luthor, Brainiac, et al) you are in serious weaksauce territory. A lot of writers have made great strides in making them interesting characters (I truly pity Geoff Johns sometimes, having to turn Zoom into someone life-threatening) but they are still the most ridiculous looking group in the multiverse.

I just realized Phil will probably be gracing us with a double page spread of all two-hundred or so of them in IC. We'll probably get a Perez cover with the same. I'll have to wear sunglasses to check that shit out. Fashion Emergency!

And Fly, you're absolutely right.

12:13 / 20.07.05

I'm not really a big Mark Waid fan, but to be honest, his Flash stories did a lot more for me than the current run. His villains did a lot more for me than the current run's preoccupation with singlehandedly trying to grim'n'gritty the whole lot. I maintain the average silver-age science-criminal was far more dangerous than a thousand psycho killers. Turning a city blue, backwards, and then cutting us in half so leftside runs this way and right that... this does far more damage than just racking up a bodycount.
That violin-car does far more damage than any amount of death, with its horrible psychological underpinnings and the sheer inane sublimity of it.
Johns, in general, seems very competent at repeating or riffing off old classics, but he doesn't seem to add anything worthwhile. I can read a bunch of his comics and while they entertain, as soon as I stop reading them, I lose the energy entirely.
Morrison's superbooks have never left me flat like that. Waid, outside of 'Kingdom Come' has never left me flat like that. But, Johns, every time, I can do two dozen issues in a row and its all jazzy and fun and I care... and then - ten minute pause - I don't anymore.

13:25 / 20.07.05

Waid's JLA regained their trust in each other in JLA 50, where they all revealed their secret identities to each other to re-establish said trust. Post-DCU everyone didn't know who everyone was (although most fans assumed everyone knew each other, it wasn't always explicitly stated - sure, Kyle was called "Kyle" by everyone but Kyle didn't know who Bats and Supes were, etc.), but now they know as a result of that issue. Bryan Hitch drew it, it was actually a pretty good issue.

And yeah, those OMACs are creepy, even with the fin, which somehow works for me.

Haus of Mystery

15:14 / 20.07.05

Believe it or not, I'm just trying to help people out here - encourage people to get a bit better at judging books by their cover so we don't get a repeat of the All Star Batman thread ("This Jim Lee comic has terrible cheesecake art! This Frank Miller Batman comic resembles a weak pastiche of his former glories!" - well, yeah)

So, people aren't supposed to read stuff before we form our opinions? My hopes for ASBARTBW (Jesus...) weren't high, for sure, but I'll be damned if I'm not at least gonna sample it. Also: Congratulations for being as patronising as usual.

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

15:15 / 20.07.05

The fin's a throwback to the original Kirby stylings of OMAC - it is in fact a pseudo-mowhawk.

15:34 / 20.07.05

MacGyver> I think there's a marked difference between people picking something up with an open mind in order to see if it's any good or not, then concluding that it's not once they've read it, and certain of the comments in the All-Star Batman thread. I'm talking about stuff like "I wasn't disappointed at all with this. I already expected it to be complete shit." Seriously, what's the point?

15:37 / 20.07.05

Might be fun to have an Identity/Infinite Crisis bodycount thread. Who's actually dead (not magically dead) so far? Sue Dibney, Robin's Dad, Captain Boomerang, Bolt, Blue Beetle, Overthrow, the Fiddler, Hyena.. any more?

Hmm the white King & Queen of Checkmate as well as the Black Queen, Firestorm 1 (or is he back already?), the Golden Age Cheeta, Hades... the greek god of the dead . . . go figure

We might as well list who's back from the dead as well. Jason Todd . . . Jean Grey?

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