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Back Issues [JLA Day]: JLA #43-46

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To celebrate the release of Justice League (Snyder/Whedon, 2017), DC Comics named November 18 “Justice League Day”. Setting aside all the drama surrounding that movie, this provides a perfect excuse to spotlight DC’s top superhero team, which set the standard for super teams.

Writer: Mark Waid – Artist: Howard Porter

Story Title: “Tower of Babel, Part 1: Survival of the Fittest”
Published: July 2000

Story Title: “Tower of Babel, Part 2: Seven Little Indians”
Published: August 2000

Story Title: “Tower of Babel, Part 3: Protected by the Cold”
Published: September 2000

Story Title: “Tower of Babel, Part 4: Harsh Words”
Published: October 2000

The Background:
In the 1940s, All Star Comics brought together eight superheroes from different publishers for the first time, birthing not just the Justice Society of America (JSA) but also the first ever superhero team in comics, allowing readers to see their favourite characters interacting for the same price in a single issue. The JSA’s ever-changing roster underwent their most significant change at the late-1950s, when then-editor Julius Schwartz had writer Gardner Fox with reintroduce and rebrand the team as the Justice League of America (JLA) to capitalise on the popularity of the American Football League and Major League Baseball’s National League. Clark Kent/Superman, Bruce Wayne/Batman, Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, Hal Jordan/Green Lantern, Arthur Curry/Aquaman, Barry Allan/The Flash, and J’onn J’onzz (or “John Jones”)/Martian Manhunter debuted as the JLA in The Brave and the Bold #28. Their origin story became a best-seller and the initial line-up of DC’s heavy-hitters is arguably the most iconic, which is exactly why they were at the forefront of the team’s revamp in the 1990s. Spearheaded by Grant Morrison, the new JLA title also became a best-seller and greatly inspired their celebrated animated adventures. This new team battled the likes of White Martians and the adaptable supervillain Prometheus, whose unexpected victory over the JLA laid the foundation for this widely regarded story. Marking the beginning of Mark Waid’s memorable run on the book, “Tower of Babel” had long-term repercussions, was critically acclaimed, and was even loosely adapted into a pretty decent animated feature.

The Review:
Although I grew up reading odd issues and random annuals from the 1970s and 1980s, this is the Justice League I mostly closely associate with. Superman (fresh off his brief stint as an energy being), Batman, Wonder Woman, Wally West/The Flash, Kyle Rayner/Green Lantern, Aquaman (in his best, most intimidating look), and even Patrick O’Brian/Plastic Man being included for some visual variety and laughs made for an impressive and powerful incarnation of the team. “Tower of Babel” pits this team against Rā’s al Ghūl, the “Demon’s Head” who fronts the League of Assassins and believes humanity is a danger. His anger at an aide accidentally dooming the Javan tiger to extinction only precipitates his latest plan to wipe out humankind, which begins with him playing spiteful mind games with his respected adversary, the Batman (whom he reverentially refers to as “The Detective”), by exhuming his parents. Rā’s then dispatches his daughter, Talia, to strike the Martian Manhunter with an explosive shell of strange nanites. Nearby, the Flash and Wonder Woman desperately fight a mysterious and aggressive forest fire, only to be amazed and horrified when the source turns of to be J’onn, his body engulfed in perpetual flames that the Flash extinguishes with his fantastic speed. Aquaman and Plastic Man are then attacked within the United Nations, Aquaman being gassed by a substance that makes him deathly afraid of water and Plastic Man frozen and shattered into a dozen pieces!

Batman’s horrified when Rā’s targets the JLA using his secret contingency plans!

The injured or affected JLA members are brought to their Watchtower space satellite by their teammates. Superman analyses the nanites infecting the Martian Manhunter and discovers they’ve forced his body to combust in air. Crippled by fear toxin, Aquaman’s condition deteriorates as he rapidly dehydrates and, though the Flash pieces Plastic Man back together, they’re unable to restore him. Realising that the JLA is being targeted, Superman coordinates with John Henry Irons/Steel and Barbara Gordon/Oracle to keep their reserve members are safe but Batman abruptly refuses to help. After switching to Clark Kent to use his sources at the Daily Planet for a possible lead, Superman and the staff are astonished to find that all text has become incomprehensible! Superman races to curb the ensuring madness, learning from Oracle that the aphasia’s caused by ultrasound waves, which he successfully disrupts by retrofitting some Brainiac tech. Finally, Wally and Diana find Kyle woke up suddenly blind, which understandably causes the artist great distress. Although Aquaman figures out that the League of Assassins are tracking their signal devices, his warnings come too late and Diana is trapped within a never-ending battle simulation courtesy of a virtual reality chip. The Flash is also shot with a “vibrational projectile” that induces epileptic seizures at lightspeed and Kyle, directionless and berserk without his eyes, is easily subdued by a begrudging Talia. The world is plunged into chaos as the stock exchange collapses, gang wars break out, planes narrowly avoid collision, military services grind to a halt, and hospitals are rendered useless. The Batman angrily confronts Rā’s in his modern-day Tower of Babel, where Rā’s relishes the chaos and threatens offers to resurrect the Waynes using his rejuvenating Lazarus Pits.

The JLA is left aghast and traumatised by Batman’s betrayal.

Despite clearly being tempted and overwhelmed by the proposition of being reunited with his parents, the Batman attacks in a rage but is horrified when Rā’s brandishes synthetic red kryptonite. Subdued by Rā’s’s troops, Batman fails to warn Superman who is caught completely off-guard when he arrives to help Wally, Diana, and Kyle with Martian Manhunter (wearing a special Atlantean water suit). Although Batman escapes Rā’s and Talia seems displeased at being her father’s lapdog, Superman’s crippled with agony when the rock turns his skin transparent and overloads him with solar energy. Alarmed that Rā’s has stolen his secret contingency files and turned them on his allies, Batman desperately tries to contact Aquaman with a solution, only for Rā’s to further disrupt communications. Luckily, Batman fools his pursuers with a fake death and Plastic Man finally pulls himself back together to teleport the JLA back to the Watchtower. There, Arthur is sustained by a telepathic illusion courtesy of J’onn, Plastic Man removes the chip lodged in Diana’s brain, and Superman focuses long enough to destroy the device tormenting the Flash. Finally, Diana and J’onn work with Kyle to deduce that his ring was slipped on him during sleep and that his blindness was caused by a post-hypnotic suggestion; by focusing, Kyle’s sight returns. The shellshocked JLA discuss Batman’s actions, their faith in their teammate shattered, with Superman feeling especially betrayed. Despite knowing the JLA distrust him, the Batman gathers them in Antarctica to infiltrate Rā’s’s tower, demanding the team work together to end the worldwide disruption. The battle is incredibly brief as Superman simply explodes in a burst of power, bringing the tower down and demanding an explanation from his comrade, only to be stonewalled by Batman’s stubborn nature.

Although Rā’s is stopped, the JLA are fractured by Batman’s questionable actions.

Despite the tower’s destruction, a disgruntled Talia informs the JLA that Rā’s is still a threat, leading Batman to split the fractured team up to handle each crisis. While Green Lantern, Plastic Man, the Flash, and Wonder Woman stop a chemical attack in Rhapastan, Batman explains to Superman that he created fail-safes after the alien tyrant Agameno swapped their consciousnesses with a gang of criminals. Finding little comfort in that explanation, Superman echoes Plastic Man’s uncharacteristically stoic and enraged demeanour by leading Batman through Rā’s’s stronghold. Though Rā’s prepares to retreat in frustration and Superman’s held off by the red Kryptonite, he covers his escape by dropping the Waynes’ coffins! Luckily, the restored Aquaman and Martian Manhunter pull both Superman and Batman’s parents from danger, leaving Batman free to pursue his adversary. While Rā’s escapes, his assistant, Doctor Kant, isn’t so lucky and takes the brunt of Batman and Aquaman’s retaliation, while Wonder Woman convinces Rā’s’s agent out of unleashing his chemical agent. With the danger over and the JLA back to full strength, the team debate what to do about Batman. While the Dark Knight awaits their decision, Superman questions whether they should have safeguards against their powers being manipulated. Aquaman believes the team should be based on trust, the Flash reluctantly thinks Batman has a point, and J’onn somewhat echoes this sentiment. When Arthur challenges J’onn’s loyalty to the Batman, pointing out that he once had similar dossiers, a fight almost breaks out between them, though J’onn ultimately votes in favour of Batman. While Kyle’s also not happy about what happened, he recognises that their powers are potentially dangerous and also votes to keep Batman on the team. However, while Wonder Woman agrees in principle, she refuses to fight alongside someone she can’t trust and Plastic Man coldly agrees. Although the deciding vote comes down to Superman, Batman makes the decision for them and quits the team without a word while they’re debating.

The Summary:
Like I said, this was a great time to be a JLA fan. The artwork was always really good in these comics and the team gelled really well together visually and with their contrasting personalities. It’s a very nineties period for the JLA, of course, with guys like Aquaman and newcomer Kyle Rayner offering very different interpretations of classic characters. I’ve always loved this version of Aquaman, though, with the harpoon hand and dishevelled appearance. Kyle is and will always by my favourite Green Lantern and I enjoyed the dichotomy he brought to the team as he obviously felt a little out of his depth and often deferred to his superiors as a result. These are characteristics reminiscent of Wally’s early days as the Flash, which led them to eventually form a tight friendship, but much of Kyle’s characterisation at this time was proving (or at least realising) that he’s worthy to hang with the big boys. Plastic Man was something of a wild card, for sure, especially due to his goofy nature and bizarre abilities. “Tower of Babel” showed that there was more to him than just being a wise-ass, though, as he’s so traumatised by being frozen and shattered (and by the Batman’s actions) that he drops the jokes and dismissively votes against Batman. Indeed, this story shakes the foundations of the JLA as, up until this point, they’ve all fought together on the understanding that they can trust each other. I’m pretty certain they all know each other’s strengths, weaknesses, and secret identities, for example, and feel they’re more than just colleagues. Thus, when they discover that Rā’s al Ghūl’s plot is due to Batman’s secret contingency plans, the team rightfully feels betrayed and angry, with Superman noticeably upset since he knows Batman the best and has worked with him the longest.

The JLA is divided and rattled by Batman’s betrayal and questions his trustworthiness.

Thus, the main enemy in “Tower of Babel” is essentially Batman, while technically also being the group’s insecurities, and more accurately being the devious Rā’s, who disrupts them to facilitate his latest scheme. The JLA is caught completely off-guard when Talia and her troops ambush them, wielding weapons designed specifically to neutralise their powers or otherwise subdue them. While I believe Batman’s plan was always to non-fatally pacify his teammates if they go rogue or were manipulated, some of his contingencies are very questionable. J’onn, for example, bursts into flame when exposed to air, something that would be both physically and emotionally traumatic for him considering his fear and weakness to fire. Aquaman is almost killed by dehydration when fear toxin variant made him deathly afraid of water, forcing J’onn to put him at ease with a telepathic vision so he could be safely placed in water. The Flash had it pretty bad, too, forced to endure what felt like days of torturous seizures in less than half an hour, while Superman’s powers raged thanks to red kryptonite. Similarly, it seems Wonder Woman would’ve eventually been so lost in her endless combat that she would’ve perished and Kyle was extremely distressed when he was duped into making himself blind. Seems to me that Batman could’ve just as easily used virtual reality environments for all his allies for a similar end, so it’s likely Rā’s al Ghūl perverted his countermeasures. Either way, the JLA are outraged at both the experience and the betrayal, believing Batman misled them and cannot be trusted. Even if he was right, since the JLA are mind controlled every other week and have extremely dangerous powers, the characters are angry at the deception. I doubt their reaction would’ve been much better had they known about Batman’s fail-safes, but it certainly would’ve lessened the sting since they put a lot of trust in him as their strategist and smartest mind.

A classic story that deconstructs the JLA and had far-reaching consequences.

This ethical quandary hangs over “Tower of Babel”, creating tension and animosity within the group for the finale, where they can barely function as a cohesive unit and are extremely reluctant to listen to Batman. Though he’s horrified by what Rā’s al Ghūl has done, Batman offers no apology and little explanation. He believes he was right to create contingencies and won’t be swayed from the belief, kick-starting a long-tunning theme of Batman being a stubborn, paranoid, and somewhat unethical character whose efforts to prepare for every scenario alienated his nearest and dearest. Interestingly, “Tower of Babel” doesn’t suggest what Batman’s back-up plan was if he went rogue (though it’s implied to be the remaining JLA) and barely gives him a chance to counteract Rā’s al Ghūl’s actions since the Demon’s Head keeps messing with their communications. I would’ve liked to see more of the world being plunged into chaos but I think “Tower of Babel” wisely focuses on the JLA and how they’re affected by Batman’s actions. The entire point is to fracture DC’s greatest superhero team, which literally happens by the end when the Batman walks away without hearing a verdict, but has knock-on ramifications as tensions are high amongst the others. I enjoyed seeing the team struggle to decide Batman’s future since they were personally disgusted and angered by the betrayal but recognised the need for fail-safes, and also how black-and-white the decision was for Aquaman and Wonder Woman, who felt the betrayal outweighed the risk. “Tower of Babel” easily ranks as one of the top JLA stories for a reason and it’s a great deconstruction of the team and exploration of their powers, weaknesses, and the fragile ethics that hold them together. It had far-reaching consequences for all involved and is well worth a read, especially for fans of this era of DC Comics.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

What did you think of “Tower of Babel”? Do you consider it a classic JLA story or do you think it’s over-rated? Which of Batman’s contingencies do you think was the worst to suffer through? Did you enjoy this incarnation of the JLA or do you prefer a different line-up? Do you think Batman was right to have contingency plans or do you agree that he crossed a line? How are you celebrating Justice League Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on the JLA, feel free to share them below, check out my other Justice League reviews, and go donate to my Ko-Fi to suggest other JLA stories for me to cover.

Back Issues [Crossover Crisis]: Crisis on Infinite Earths

Dr. K13 Comments

Cover-dated April 1985, the first issue of this ground-breaking event precipitated the destruction of the “Multiverse” in favour of a unified DC canon. Though DC returned to this concept again and again, that doesn’t change how influential this massive crossover was and what better way to celebrate than with a “Crossover Crisis” of my own?

Published: 3 January 1985 (cover-dated: April 1985) to March 1986 (cover date)
Writer: Marv Wolfman
Artist: George Pérez

The Background:
In Showcase #4 (1956), writer Robert Kanigher and artist Carmine Infantino debuted Barry Allen/The Flash, the successor to Jay Garrick, who was established as an alternative version of the Fastest Man Alive. This concept was taken to the next level when Barry and Jay met face-to-face, revealing an infinite number of parallel worlds. Regular crossovers between the likes the Justice Society of America and the Justice League of America soon followed, allowing alternative heroes and various stories to exist simultaneously. Over time, writers like Mark Wolfman became frustrated with this concept, which made keeping track of continuity difficult and it was hard for both writers and readers to connect with the stories. Wolfman initially pitched a reader guide to simplify the DC universe, which then evolved into a sprawling tale of multiversal destruction seen as a risky proposition as it meant erasing all continuity and starting from scratch to attract new readers. Such an event was unprecedented and DC spent two years laying the foundation for this Crisis, hiring researchers to document every character and event in their library and bringing in George Pérez to illustrate, with the artist excited at the idea of illustrating every DC character. Crisis on Infinite Earths became a bestseller for DC Comics and was heralded as a turning point for both the publisher and the industry. The fallout saw every DC character rebooted, with Clark Kent/Superman notably being reimagined as a more grounded character and Wally West taking over as the Flash, though Carter Hall/Hawkman was irrevocably damaged for years as DC struggled to reconcile certain elements of his character. Praised as the greatest comic book crossover in history, the event popularised massive, cosmic crossovers and DC revisited this concept numerous times in subsequent years. The event was even adapted into an ambitious and well received television event and an impressive three-part animated feature.

The Review:
Confused by the concept of the multiverse? Well, Crisis on Infinite Earths has you covered, to a degree, as it opens with (and features throughout) narration and exposition from the tragic Kell Mossa/Pariah. In the beginning, before there was light and life, there was only darkness. Then, from nowhere, came a single light that grew and expanded and finally exploded in “pain [and] relief” as the multiverse was born. The idea is infinite parallel realities all co-exist at once, separated by vibrational planes, though this is noted to not have been the intention when the light burst into being. The story the shifts to one such Earth where the hooded, weeping Pariah witnesses the destruction of not only that world, but the entire reality, at the hands of an all-encompassing white light. As entropy erases everything it touches, Pariah begs to be taken with it, sparing him his grim fate, only to be teleported away as the universe meets its destructive end. We then jump to Earth-3, home of the Crime Syndicate, an evil alternative version of the Justice League. There, Harold Jordan/Power Ring and Clark Kent/Ultraman desperately try to stop the cataclysmic natural disasters springing up across their world as the anti-matter wave approaches. While Thomas Wayne Jr./Owlman and Jonathan Allen/Johnny Quick lament their helplessness against such awesome power, the world’s only superhero, Alexander Luthor, watches helplessly as lifelong enemies like Diana/Superwoman are devoured by the anti-matter wave. With no way to save his world, Alexander rushes to be with his wife, Lois, and baby son, Alexander Luthor, Jr. In a parallel to Superman’s iconic origin, the baby is loaded into a specially prepared rocket and spirited away to Earth-1 as his world dies.

With all universes at risk of annihilation, the Monitor assembles a team of heroes and villains.

The mysterious Mar Novu/The Monitor observes this from his orbiting, spherical space station alongside Lyla Michaels/Harbinger, whom he sends to recruit Earth’s greatest heroes and villains to stop the pending Crisis. Harbinger recruits King Solovar from Gorilla City, Dawnstar from the 30th century Legion of Super-Heroes, Danette Reilly/Firebrand from Earth-2 1942, Ted Kord/The Blue Beetle from Earth-4, and Roger Hayden/Psycho-Pirate from present-day Earth-2. She returns Psycho-Pirate’s emotion manipulating Medusa Mask and coerces him into quelling Louise Lincoln/Killer Frost’s bloodlust and bringing both her and Ronnie Raymond and Professor Martin Stein/Firestorm to the cause. Though Harbinger is possessed by a Shadow Demon when recruiting Ahri’ahn/Arion the Sorcerer, he joins the other recruits, including Kal-L/Superman, John Stewart/Green Lantern, Neal Emerson/Doctor Polaris, Victor Stone/Cyborg, Simon Jones/Psimon, and Todd Rice/Obsidian. With tensions running high, the group are attacked by Shadow Demons, which seem impervious to physical, mental, and energy-based attacks. While the likes of the Blue Beetle can only run and Firestorm struggles with Killer Frost’s newfound affections, Obsidian and the arrogant Dr. Polaris put their shadow- and magnetism-based powers to good use. The Monitor halts the attack and introduces both himself and the threat to their universes. Weakened by the spread of anti-matter and facing suspicion from his assembled forces, the Monitor reveals that he’s judged them as the best hope of protecting five devices spread across the different eras that he hopes will halt the anti-matter wave. Meanwhile, reality is warped across the multiverse: in prehistoric times, Anthro the Cave-Boy is as astonished to spot a futuristic city amongst the wilds as Querl Dox/Brainiac-5 is to see mammoths stampeding through the 30th century. Half a galaxy away on Oa, the Guardians of the Universe prepare to summon their entire Green Lantern Corps to meet the threat, only for a mysterious voice to corrupt the Central Battery and trap them in a stasis beam. On Earth-1, Bruce Wayne/Batman is busy confronting the Joker during his latest crime spree and is astonished when an emaciated, confused Flash suddenly appears babbling about the end of the world and begging for help before disintegrating before the Dark Knight’s eyes!

As the Crisis worsens, the Monitors prepares Alexander and a new Dr. Light to face the threat.

On the post-apocalyptic Earth-AD, Kal-L, King Solovar, and Dawnstar meet Kamandi, the last boy on Earth, and discover the Monitor’s device, a towering, golden Cosmic Tuning Fork that’s immediately (though only briefly) attacked by Shadow Demons. Arion, Obsidian and the Psycho-Pirate watch over another tower in Atlantis, only for the Psycho-Pirate to be transported to a dark realm and coerced into turning against the Monitor just as Harbinger secretly conspires with that same dark force. Oblivious, the Monitor experiments on the rapidly aging Alexander Luthor, Jr., an impossible merger of matter and anti-matter who potentially holds the key to defeating the anti-matter spread, whom Harbinger’s dark master wants destroyed before he can threaten his schemes. Meanwhile, in the far future of Earth-1, the Flash races to keep his world from being torn apart from natural disasters but is forced to vibrate at super-speed to escape death. This same anti-matter energy arrives on present-day Earth-1, much to the horror of the Teen Titans, who desperately try to both halt the destructive wave and save lives alongside Batman and Superman. As Linda Lee/Kara Zor-El/Supergirl does the same, Barbara Gordon/Batgirl gives in to self-doubt, and John Constantine arrogantly believes it’ll all work out, Vril Dox/Brainiac coldly observes the events concludes that, if he’s to survive, he must team up with Lex Luthor. While defending a Cosmic Tuning Fork from both Nazi forces and Shadow Demons in 1942 Markovia, the Blue Beetle discovers the mysterious Scarab fused to his suit is lethal to the shadowy entities but is wounded before he can put this to good use and returned to his world by the Monitor to spare him. Back on Earth-AD, the skies turn red and King Solovar succumbs to his wounds while Cyborg, Firebrand, John Stewart, and Psimon team up with some local heroes (including Jonah Hex) in 1879 to defend another tower, only to be as overwhelmed by anti-matter as the far-flung future of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Elsewhere, the terrified heroes of Earth-6 blame Pariah for the looming threat, to no avail (though Pariah does save Tashana/Lady Quark to ease his suffering). While the unseen villain forcibly recruits the Red Tornado, the Monitor activates an “ion-based energy ray” to empower Doctor Kimiyo Hoshi, transforming her into the new Doctor Light and sending her to defend his tower on Earth-1.

Following the Monitor’s death, his champions are convinced to unite and save the remaining Earths.

When the heroes attack her, believing she and the tower caused the entropy, Superman quells the fighting, though things take a turn when the Shadow Demons combine into one gigantic, terrifying entity in each era. Even Princess Diana Prince/Wonder Woman’s hopes of recruiting her Amazonian sisters fail. When Pariah berates the Monitor for not doing more to intervene, he reveals just how weak he’s become and then nobly faces his end at Harbinger’s hands. Distraught, Pariah weeps as Earth-1 and Earth-2 are finally consumed; confused to find his strength hasn’t increased as a result, the dark villain delights in having the Psycho-Pirate torture the Flash. Depowered, Lyla is distressed by her actions but a pre-recorded message from the Monitor reveals that his death allowed his essence to empower his Cosmic Tuning Forks and create a “netherverse”, a pocket dimension to keep Earth-1 and Earth-2 safe. After giving the Monitor an appropriate burial, Lyla, Pariah, and the now teenage Alexander Luthor, Jr. gather both world’s champions on the Monitor’s satellite to merge all existing realities into one lest all worlds and realities be lost. Since there are some doubters, Alexander has them witness the Red Tornado be forcibly transformed into a being of pure, primal force, one easily subdued by sorcerers like Kent Nelson/Doctor Fate and Zatanna Zatara (though Ted Grant/Wildcat’s legs are shattered during the fracas). Thus, even the most sceptical agree to defend their worlds, only for the satellite to disintegrate courtesy of the event’s big bad, the Anti-Monitor! Fleeing to the emptiness of limbo, Alexander moves to save Earth-4, -S, and -X, only for Harbinger to subdue him and take his place. While Yolanda Montez continues Wildcat’s legacy on Earth-2, the Freedom Fighters and the Monitor’s agents come to blows on Earth-X when the Psycho-Pirate, his powers augmented by the demonic Anti-Monitor, stirs fear and hatred amongst them. Similarly, on Earth-1, Billy Batson/Captain Marvel and his siblings mindlessly attack Supergirl and Wonder Woman, though the fighting ends when Harbinger forces Earth-4, -S, and -X into the netherverse alongside Earth-1 and Earth-2, exhausting her incredible powers but dooming them to be slowly merged together.

After Lyla relates the Anti-Monitor’s origin, Supergirl sacrifices herself to try and destroy him.

Thus, Lyla, Pariah, and Alexander assemble Earth-1’s Superman, Earth-2’s (Kal-L), Captain Marvel, the Blue Beetle, Lady Quark, and Uncle Sam and reveal that, ten billion years ago, the Oan scientist Krona dared to seek the beginning of the universe, witnessing a giant hand clutching a star cluster. This caused a cosmic fracture, creating not just the multiverse, but an anti-matter universe and a counterpart to Oa, Qward. After banishing Kronoa, the Oans created peacekeeping forces like the defective Manhunters and the Green Lantern Corps but were fractured by a civil war, birthing the Controllers. Amidst the fighting, the Monitor and his evil, anti-matter counterpart came into being. The Anti-Matter conquered Qward and created the Shadow Demons to spread his influence throughout the anti-matter universe before waging war against the Monitor upon sensing his presence. Evenly matched, they were rendered unconscious for nine billion years before being awoken by the misguided Pariah, once a celebrated healer and scientist who also investigated the origin of the universe. Pariah’s world paid the price, and he was damned to live forever and watch all worlds die, though the Monitor also saw him as instrumental in saving all reality. Alexander uses his unique matter/anti-matter powers to create a dimensional tear to the anti-matter universe, which Pariah leads the heroes to the Anti-Monitor’s vast stone fortress. Enraged that the Psycho-Pirate is too drained to corrupt them, the Anti-Monitor has his stronghold attack, injuring the usually invulnerable Kal-L. Dr. Light and Superman discover the Anti-Monitor’s solar collector but are attacked before they can destroy it and halt the merger of the Earths. Hearing her cousin’s agony, Supergirl flies to Superman’s aid, brutally beating the villain in a rage and chastising his disdain for life, tearing through his protective armour. Furious, the Anti-Monitor prepares to explode with all his energy and, in a last-ditch effort to destroy him, his machine, and save everyone, Supergirl tackles him, destroying his machine but being fatally blasted. As the Anti-Monitor’s deteriorating, incorporeal form slinks away, Superman mourns his cousin’s death and vows to kill the Anti-Monitor. Kal-L calms his counterpart and they escape, and a memorial service is held on Earth-2, where Superman pays homage to Supergirl, vowing to remember her and fight in her name. Despite the loss, the five worlds are saved; similarly, the Green Lantern Corps free their masters and almighty Darkseid wisely cloaks Apokalips from the Anti-Monitor’s gaze. However, the Anti-Monitor reconstitutes himself on his ship, where the Flash is imprisoned, and prepares a counterattack from Qward.

Despite the Flash’s noble sacrifice, the Anti-Monitor gains God-like power from his anti-matter universe.

Though saved, the five worlds are still overlapping, causing anomalies and damage to each while  the Anti-Monitor oversees the creation of the anti-matter cannon, which he plans to use to obliterate the worlds. Just as the Psycho-Pirate feels his powers return, the Flash escapes and angrily attacks the sadistic villain, forcing him to turn the Anti-Monitor’s slaves against their master as a distraction. Though stunned to find the anti-matter cannon is powered by concentrated anti-matter and realising that destroying it would kill him, the Flash bravely circles the weapon’s core to turn its destructive energy back on it. Staving off the agony with memories of his loved ones, the Flash runs fast enough to move back in time (explaining his earlier, sudden appearances). Though Barry successfully destroys the weapon, it costs him his life. Enraged, the Anti-Matter absorbs the anti-matter universe, literally sucking the life out of over a million worlds to feed his lust for power and vengeance, an act so awesome that it’s detected by both the Challengers of the Unknown and the embodiment of the Lord’s wrath, Jim Corrigan/The Spectre. In the face of multiversal destruction, the Guardians of the Universe offer Guy Gardner the chance to become a Green Lantern once again and, when all but one of them are all slaughtered by a sudden explosion, Guy vows to avenge them as their champion. The Brainiac/Luthor team then recruit dozens of villains to strike while the remaining Earths are weak and in disarray. As time runs amok on Earth-1 and Alexander, Lyla, and Pariah address the United Nations, the villains make their move, having conquered Earth-4, -S, and -X, encasing them within impenetrable barriers, and threatening to destroy the remaining worlds. Lyla and Jay recruit a reluctant Wally West/Kid Flash to breach the barrier with the cosmic treadmill, though neither Luthor or Brainiac care much about their losses since they still possess the power to destroy everything. However, the Spectre ends the hostilities by revealing that the Anti-Monitor still lives and plans to corrupt the flow of time and formation of life by travelling to the dawn of time.

The Spectre demands co-operation, resulting in a singular world being created.

With the villains back on side, Kal-L bids an emotional farewell to his wife, Lois Lane, to join the counterattack, alongside a surprising newcomer: the Superboy from Earth-Prime (a fictional approximation of the real world where he’s the only superhero). After a rousing speech from Uncle Sam, heroes and villains alike pool their technology and powers to travel to the dawn of time and confront the anxious Anti-Monitor. The Anti-Monitor reveals that he, not Pariah, was responsible for the destruction of Pariah’s world after he took advantage of Pariah’s experiments to rebuild his power, absolving the tragic figure of his sins. Now grown to immense proportions, the Anti-Monitor withstands the assault of those assembled (with guys like Batman offering only support), absorbing their life energy to add to his power and allowing his hand to be the one that shapes all reality, as witnessed by Kronoa. His grasp is intercepted by the Spectre and the combined magic of the unified sorcerers, reducing the battle to a literal arm wrestle between the Anti-Monitor and the Spectre. Thanks to their bickering, Luthor’s underlings fail to kill Kronoa before he can cause the creation of the multiverse and the Anti-Monitor, and all seems lost. However, following a blinding light and the literal shattering of all time and space, Kal-L awakens on present-day Earth to find he’s on the same world as his Earth-1 counterpart. Sharing the same fragmented memories, Superman explains that time seems to be healing (albeit wonkily) and that elements of multiple Earths have been merged into one. For example, everyone knows Supergirl died but not how, the Flash is presumed vanished, and Earth-2’s Keystone City and Jay Garrick now live on this Earth. Jay, Wally, and the Supermen use the cosmic treadmill to discover Earth-2 is missing. Realising that the multiverse no longer exists, Superman has to force his older counterpart to return rather than throw himself into the endless void in despair. With the cosmic treadmill irreparably damaged, Wally assembles everyone at Titans Tower, discovering guys like Captain Marvel, Superbody-Prime, Uncle Sam, and the Earth-2 Dick Grayson/Robin also exist on this world, where they’re all shocked to see Harbinger alive and powered back up. The refugees are despondent and horrified to learn their worlds, pasts, and many loved ones are gone thanks to “cosmic irony” as Harbinger explains that there is now one Earth with one coherent timeline that folds their disparate lives into its flow, sending Kal-L into a crazed distress at having lost his wife and home.

A final, all-out assault ends the Anti-Monitor and starts the universe anew, with some casualties.

After questioning the imprisoned Lex Luthor, Batman, Jason Todd/Robin, and Alexander confirm that, while some duplicates remain and some lives were restored, others weren’t and only those who present at the dawn of time remember the multiverse. Just as they’re processing this, the skies turn red and the world suddenly shifts to the anti-matter universe, where the titanic, disembodied Anti-Monitor still lives! Though incensed by their efforts, the Anti-Monitor congratulates them for handing him his first defeat in ten billion years and then decrees that they must all die. Wally’s shock at his mentor’s death is mirrored by the abject panic that sweeps the civilians following the Anti-Monitor’s threat, which doubles when the Shadow Demons kill Don Hall/Dove, Helena Wayne/Huntress, and Tula Marius/Aquagirl. While the sorcerers remove the Shadow Demons, Harbinger assembles one last effort to stop the Anti-Monitor on Qward. Though the Anti-Monitor is too large and powerful to be damaged, Harbinger has Dr. Light absorb the star feeding him power, weakening him enough for Alexander to breach the villain’s armour. With the threat seemingly ended by a combined energy blast, Alexander struggles to return Earth home and the Anti-Monitor absorbs his exiled Shadow Demons to rise again and vaporise Wonder Woman. Rather than see anyone else die, Kal-L tackles the Anti-Monitor, believing he’s got nothing to lose, and Alexander and Superboy-Prime are trapped with him. Though Darkseid, watching from Apokalips, strikes a fatal blow through Alexander’s eyes, the Anti-Monitor refuses to die, so Kal-L delivers a final strike that obliterates the tyrant. Faced with the pending destruction of the anti-matter universe, Kal-L and Superboy-Prime prepare to meet their end only for Alexander to teleport them, alongside Kal-L’s Lois, to a pocket dimension. In the aftermath, Wonder Woman returns to the clay that forms Themyscira, her Earth-2 counterpart is welcomed among the Gods, the dead heroes are memorialised, and Wally assumes the Flash mangle. Confined to Arkham Asylum, the Psycho-Pirate is dubbed a raving lunatic since he’s the only one who remembers the multiverse and the catastrophic events of the Crisis.

The Summary:
Whew, there’s a lot happening in Crisis on Infinite Earths. There’s a reason I’ve put off reviewing it for so long, and why I rarely revisit it. It’s a very dense and complex story, full of exposition and cameos and faces both obscure and iconic. As a celebration of DC’s rich history and characters, it’s hard to find much better than Crisis on Infinite Earths, which stuffs just about every costumed character, hero or villain, into its dense twelve issues! My hat’s off to George Pérez; it must’ve been painstaking to sketch all these group shots, action sequences, montages, and dramatic events. Equal praise to Marv Wolfman as I can’t imagine how difficult it was to make sense of all these different worlds and come up with a cohesive way to explain, link, and destroy them all. In the end, the solution was simple: pure, destructive, unstoppable entropy. It’s fitting that the anti-matter wave is depicted as a blinding white light that erases everything it touches, for it symbolically represents a blank page or an artist’s eraser, indicating that these colourful and convoluted worlds are being literally wiped clean for a new status quo. Our guide through most of this is Pariah, a tragic figure doomed to watch each world die as penance for kick-starting the events that follow. Immortal but seemingly powerless to intervene, all he can do is shout desperate warnings and is powerless to rescue anyone and constantly met with aggression, suspicion, and accusations. He’s merely a pawn in a much larger game, however, much like Harbinger, who acts as an all-powerful emissary of the Monitor and deliver exposition in his stead. A conflicted individual burdened with the knowledge that she will betray and murder the man to whom she owes her life, Harbinger, nevertheless works to uphold the Monitor’s legacy and bring together heroes and villains alike to stand against his dark counterpart.

The Anti-Monitor’s power sends shockwaves through the multiverse and those who’ve witnessed it.

The dreaded inevitability of death is a focal point in Crisis on Infinite Earths. When the anti-matter wave hits, heroes and villains set aside their differences and use all their powers and resources to either stop it or save people from its destructive touch. Even the abhorrent Crime Syndicate find themselves fighting to save their world and Ultraman willingly enters the wave to die on his terms. Even before the wave arrives, the worlds are shaken to their core by natural disasters; volcanoes, tsunamis, and ominous, crackling red skies precipitate the disaster as much as Pariah. Perhaps no character is more synonymous with the coming destruction than the Flash; thanks to his super-speed, he ends up travelling through time, arriving before the likes of Batman and Wally as an omen of what’s to come and taking on an appearance that resembles Death itself. The Anti-Monitor echoes this in his design; though shrouded by his all-powerful armour, he sports a skull-like visage and dark, piercing eyes. Commanding demonic shadows, he’s very much the embodiment of Death and his lust for utter annihilation drives him to snuff out all life and light. Sadistic to the core, he employs the Psycho-Pirate to foster fear and hate, turning his would-be opponents against each other and causing countless more deaths. His ruthlessness seemingly knows no boundaries as he gleefully corrupts Harbinger, relishes the death of his counterpart, and nonchalantly obliterates his rebellious slaves without a second thought. His power and cruelty are so great that even the mighty Darkseid is driven to hide rather than confront him, striking when the villain is at his most vulnerable and largely avoiding the greater conflict. For all his God-like power, the Anti-Monitor still relies on technology; his merger and destruction of worlds can be halted or stopped by Cosmic Tuning Forks or destroying his solar collector. Indeed, it’s only after his massive, world-ending cannon is destroyed that the Anti-Monitor eschews all other methods and absorbs the entire lifeforce of the anti-matter universe into himself to literally take matters into his own hands.

The Supermen anchor the story, leading the assembled champions in battle and saving all reality.

There is no one central character in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Instead, it’s a team-up story through and through, meaning some of your favourites may be sidelined. In some respects, I don’t mind this; Batman outright admits how useless he is against the Anti-Monitor and it’s clear only beings of incredible power can stand against him. Yet, the Blue Beetle is said to be pivotal in opposing the villain, the Red Tornado is briefly said to be incredibly important, and Lex Luthor comes close to co-ruling five entire worlds and even leads the charge to assassinate Kronoa. The Earth-2 Superman, Kal-L, is often at the heart of the conflict, leading the others and inspiring confidence, as is his Earth-1 counterpart. It’s therefore more tragic seeing Superman’s grief-stricken reaction to his cousin’s death; holding Supergirl in his arms, the Man of Steel briefly forgets his morals and vows to kill the Anti-Monitor as recompense. This is but one of the unforgettable deaths featured in Crisis on Infinite Earths as the Flash sacrifices himself to deal a critical blow to the Anti-Monitor, making a martyr of himself for decades before DC made the bone-headed decision to revive him. There’s an odd dichotomy in Crisis on Infinite Earths; these alternative worlds and characters co-exist and are even folded into one by the end. Rather than wiping everything away and starting afresh by the conclusion, the story clunkily has the survivors forget key events and weaves characters like Captain Marvel and the Justice Society into a unified timeline. This works for me as I prefer a coherent narrative, but it essentially means Crisis on Infinite Earth takes place mid-way through the early years of the post-Crisis reboot and reimaginings like John Byrne’s Superman stories happen before and during this event, rather than after it.

Worlds lived, worlds died, and the DC Universe was never the same…for about twenty years…

These days, Crisis on Infinite Earths may be a lot for modern readers to take in. Many of its characters and concepts are either forgotten, wildly different, or have been done to death thanks to the multiple reality-altering events that followed (many specifically to address loose ends from this story). At the time, though, I’d wager many long-term DC readers appreciated the cameos and call-backs weaved into the story. I’m glad DC devoted twelve issues to the story and didn’t rush it, but it does get repetitive and convoluted as it drags on. The secondary threat of Brainiac and Luthor directing a team of villains to conquer the five worlds, for example, could probably be skipped or relegated to a tie-in comic. Similarly, the defending of the Cosmic Tuning Forks isn’t very interesting and doesn’t really add to the story since we barely see any action around this, the Shadow Demons are too powerful to be interesting, and it’s all negated by the Monitor’s death. In this respect, I think the event could’ve been cut down to eight or ten issues and still been just as effective, especially as many Earths and characters feature as quick cameos to be obliterated. The remaining five Earths are said to be the most important, which is a little disrespectful to those that perished by the Anti-Monitor’s hand and a bit of an insult to any fans of those worlds. I liked seeing new heroes rise during the chaos, like a new Dr. Light (who was an aggressive bitch throughout), Wildcat, and Guy being Green Lantern again, though it falls a little flat when you know the canon is going to be altered after this to return the status quo. I liked the Anti-Monitor’s design and his characterisation as a reprehensible being who craved only power and destruction, but it was hard to get a sense of his power and limitations. One minute he’s weakened by giant towers, then his armour is containing his energy, and then he’s being powered by a black sun despite having absorbed the lifeforce of his anti-matter universe. Still, the unification of heroes and villains to oppose him was fun to see, the sacrifices and determination were poignant, and the weaving together of a singular continuity, while flawed, was ambitious and visually engaging to behold.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

Have you ever read Crisis on Infinite Earths? What did you think of this unprecedented mash-up of DC’s various worlds and characters? Which parallel world was your favourite and were you upset to see destroyed? What did you think to the Anti-Monitor, his vast power and his stubborn refusal to die? Were you shocked to see Supergirl and the Flash die so dramatically? Do you agree that the story dragged on a bit by the end? Which of the subsequent Crisis events was your favourite and what are some of your favourite cosmic events? Drop a comment below to share your thoughts about Crisis on Infinite Earths and feel free to check out my reviews of other notable crossovers.

Screen Time [JLA Day]: Justice League: Secret Origins

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To celebrate the release of Justice League (Snyder/Whedon, 2017), DC Comics named November 18 “Justice League Day”. Setting aside all the drama surrounding that movie, this provides a perfect excuse to spotlight DC’s premier superhero team, which set the standard for super teams in comics by bringing together DC’s most powerful heroes.

“Secret Origins”

Air Date: 17 November 2001
Director: Dan Riba and Butch Lukic
Original Network: Cartoon Network
Stars: George Newbern, Kevin Conroy, Susan Eisenberg, Phil LaMarr, Michael Rosenbaum, Maria Canals-Barrera, Carl Lumbly, and Kevin Michael Richardson

The Background:
In 1992, hot off the success of Tim Burton’s gothic Batman movies, Bruce Timm and Paul Dini produced one of the most lauded cartoons of an entire generation with Batman: The Animated Series (1992 to 1995). The award-winning animated series was soon accompanied by one of the greatest adaptations of Clark Kent/Superman’s adventures, and it wasn’t long after that The New Batman Adventures (1997 to 1999) and Superman: The Animated Series (1996 to 2000) were crossing over. Superman also introduced a number of additional superheroes into the celebrated DC Animated Universe (DCAU), colourful faces familiar to comics readers who would be pushed to the forefront when Dini and Timm collaborated on the illustrious Justice League animated series (2001 to 2004). The late, great Kevin Conroy (for many the definitive Bruce Wayne/Batman) returned to voice the Dark Knight, though George Newbern replaced Tim Daly as the Man of Steel, and the show came to define the values and appeal of the titular team. Starting with a bang with a three-episode arc that was later collected as a feature-length presentation, Justice League expanded its lore and roster evermore in its sister-series and has been widely praised for its mature themes, relatable characters, and for setting a new standard for animated adaptations, to the point that DC’s later animated ventures are often directly compared to the DCAU.

The Plot:
When the alien invaders who decimated Mars attack the Earth, the planet’s greatest superheroes are called together for the first time by Martian survivor J’onn J’onnz (Lumbly) to combat the threat.

The Review:
The DCAU started as a very grounded affair. Batman: The Animated Series largely stuck to street-level or city-wide disturbances, focusing on Batman villains who were crazed, yes, but largely human. There were obviously exceptions, but things rarely got too fantastical. That changed when Superman: The Animated Series was confirmed to take place in the same continuity; suddenly, Batman existed alongside aliens, magic, and other supernatural threats far beyond his mortal limits. Yet, even then, Superman: The Animated Series focused more on the titular Man of Steel and his exploits; when costumed heroes did appear, it was more of a spotlight or a cameo, a glimpse into an even bigger world. I say all this as “Secret Origins” wisely starts off from Batman’s perspective, with him investigating a series security breaches in WayneTech’s global deep space monitoring network and finding the culprits are guilty of more than simple corporate espionage. Confronting the facility staff as they attach an alien device to a satellite dish, Batman is stunned to find the employees not only speaking an alien language but exhibiting superhuman strength and an unnerving ability to reconstitute broken limbs. Stubborn as ever, Batman refuses Superman’s help when he stops by, only to end up aiding the Man of Steel when he’s half-crippled by what appears to be a psychic attack. Though Batman scoffs at the idea of calling for Superman’s help with his signal watch, he pockets the device and continues his investigation over the next six months, undeterred despite his enemy being far outside of his weight class. However, when checking out a Metropolis warehouse, Batman discovers more scientists, this time encased in disgusting, egg-like pods, held in stasis so the alien invaders can better assume their identities. When he’s attacked by an alien guard dog, Batman’s forced to signal Superman for help but even the Man of Steel is seemingly powerless when a series of meteors crash to Earth and birth gigantic, tripod-like alien walkers that decimate the world’s major cities.

When invaders attack, Earth’s heroes are forced to work together (and with J’onn) to fight back.

Despite throwing his best punches, Superman barely slows the destructive walkers, but another psychic barrage clues him in on the key to fending off the invaders. Closely followed by Batman, who’s no match even in his kitted-out Batplane, the World’s Finest find a strange alien humanoid held in captivity in an alien base. Freeing the visitor, they learn that he is J’onn J’onnz, the last survivor of Mars, and that he was attempting to communicate to Superman on a mental level. Though naturally distrustful, even after J’onn assumes a more human guise, Batman listens intently as J’onn relates how the once-peaceful Martian civilization was decimated by the relentless, gloop-like invaders. They destroyed all trace of J’onn’s people, committing mass genocide and even stealing their shape-shifting powers, and were only stopped when J’onn himself led a final, desperate attack on their underground stronghold and paralysed them with a nerve gas. Though he sealed the invaders away and kept watch for 500 years, J’onn was in a hibernation cycle when two astronauts accidentally opened the tomb, reawakening the invaders and turning their aggression towards Earth. Desperate to ensure that another civilisation doesn’t suffer as his did, J’onn escaped and tried to warn the Earth, only to be captured and studied. Luckily, he retained enough of his power to call out not just to Superman, but to Wally West/The Flash (Rosenbaum), John Stewart/Green Lantern (LaMarr), and Shayera Hol/Hawkgirl (Canals-Barrera), who all join the fight and take down a contingent of the alien walkers. Their efforts are further aided by Princess Diana of Themyscira/Wonder Woman (Eisenberg), a “rookie” hero (as John puts it) who abandons her island paradise to aid mankind. Though new to the hero game, Wonder Woman makes an immediate impression, deflecting incoming fire with her wrist guards and showcasing superhuman strength and flight, aiding Hawkgirl and taking down the walkers as forcefully as Superman. Still, distrust is rife amongst the fledgling Justice League; not only are they wary of J’onn but Diana’s expertise is called into question, and the group initially struggles to gel. John immediately takes charge, barking orders and dividing the group into teams to gain intel on the walkers, only to be lumbered with the childish Flash and left chastising Wally for his reckless nature. Such recklessness is echoed in both Hawkgirl and Wonder Woman, whose first instinct is to fight and cause them to blindly charge into ambushes and traps as a result. Superman is constantly trying to help everyone and therefore lets his guard down. Apparently somewhat complacent since he’s largely invulnerable, Superman’s easily subdued by the invaders’ powerful tech.

The fledgling Justice League ultimately triumph over the invaders and become a cohesive unit.

Although they’re unsure about J’onn, he proves to be dependable and is extremely capable in a fight. Boasting psychic powers, he can also fly, turn invisible and intangible, and exhibits superhuman strength on par with his peers. He also holds the key to shutting down one of the invaders’ drilling facility, working alongside Wonder Woman and Batman to steal the ion crystal, only for Batman to be left behind and seemingly gunned down. As the only member of the team without superpowers, Batman is at a physical disadvantage, but he does his best. He has his toys, of course, but his greatest asset is his mind. He colludes with J’onn to fake his death, an act that galvanises the team to work harder in rescuing Superman and Hawkgirl, and which deceives the invaders and their overseer, the Imperium (Richardson), a Lovecraftian, tentacled nightmare that delights in torturing J’onn before his newfound allies. The Imperium realises all-too late that Batman has survived as the Dark Knight sabotages the ion crystal, reversing its polarity and dispelling the polluting cloud that’s blanketed the Earth since the invaders arrived. It’s also Batman who deduces that the invaders are vulnerable to sunlight, a weakness the team quickly takes advantage of by ripping holes in the alien craft, killing the creatures without a second’s hesitation. Though they have no name, the alien invaders are a formidable force; they use shape-shifting abilities stolen from the Martians to impersonate public figures and even the heroes, laying the groundwork for their forces to arrive. They also wield laser blasters and are fully malleable, pulling themselves back together or reforming after taking damage. Most notably, they attack humanity using tripod-like walkers ripped right out of The War of the Worlds (Wells, 1898) just as the Imperium’s arrival is ripped from Independence Day (Emmerich, 1996). Their numbers and advanced alien tech make them more than a match for each of the team individually, even overpowered members like Superman and J’onn, but, once the disparate heroes start working together, the invaders are summarily driven off and Earth gains a powerful group of protectors.

The Summary:
“Secret Origins” has quite a mountain to climb. Sure, while DCAU viewers would’ve been well acquainted with Batman and Superman and have some knowledge of the Flash and the Green Lantern Corps, Wally, John, Shayera, and Diana are essentially brand-new characters in this sprawling continuity. Rather than spending time delving into the background of each of these new heroes, “Secret Origins” spends more time focusing on introducing J’onn and Wonder Woman, assuming the audiences will remember lore about the Flash and the Green Lantern Corps from Superman: The Animated Series and simply dropping Hawkgirl in our laps. I think this was a good approach; I liked that the first part was essentially another Batman/Superman team-up as it showcased neither man could fight off the invaders alone and that the two together wouldn’t be enough, either. This greatly aided in establishing the invaders as a true threat; they easily manhandled Batman, forcing him to ask Superman for aid, and Superman was distracted by J’onn’s attempts to communicate and unprepared to face a physical challenge. J’onn is depicted as a suitably tragic figure, one who’s seen his whole world die at the hands of these invaders and who is determined to prevent it happening again. J’onn even apologises for humanity’s violent nature and defends the very people who treated him so poorly when he arrived. He finds a kindred spirit in Superman and a surrogate family in the Justice League, who eventually accept him as one of them through his courageous actions. This arc is echoed in Wonder Woman, who renounces her place in paradise out of curiosity to explore “Man’s World” and a sense of duty to defend the planet from its aggressors. However, as she’s new to the superhero lark, she’s initially treated with contempt by the strait-laced John Stewart. A gruff military man who focuses solely on the job, John has no time for the Flash’s games and is dismissive of Diana for being a “rookie”. The others are much more accepting and even John is turned around after seeing the fantastic abilities Wonder Woman brings to the table.

Heroes old and new must learn to fight together to defend the Earth.

The dynamic between the fledgling Justice League is at the forefront of “Secret Origins”. J’onn calls them together to defend the planet but none of them have any experience working together. Sure, Batman and Superman have teamed up, but they didn’t exactly like it or make a habit of it. Indeed, the only one with a sense of teamwork is John and even he’s bad at it, ordering the heroes around like he’s king shit and simply expecting them to fall in line or work together without laying the groundwork first. Egos and personalities clash throughout, with Batman being his usual pig-headed self, Hawkgirl charging into conflict, and the Flash toying with his foes, seemingly oblivious to the stakes. Even Superman struggles with the team dynamic, feeling obligated to help everyone and being blindsided as a result, and consequently sees the value in bringing the team together as a permanent fixture. Superman’s focus is on solving all the world’s problems, so much so that he doesn’t even suspect he’s being manipulated by the invaders to weaken Earth’s defences. The invaders are relentless and extremely aggressive, laying waste to cities with little resistance, but are both formidable and extremely vulnerable. Even Batman takes them out with enough effort and their machines are brought down by the heroes, but their sheer numbers and tenacity mean they can easily subdue even the Justice League. It isn’t until they underestimate Batman and their weakness is exposed that they show any signs of fear, with the Imperium desperately fleeing once its exposed to sunlight, only for Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl to violently bring down its escape craft and send the rest of its kind scurrying back to the depths of space. Again, it’s a very War of the Worlds-like ending and perhaps a little too contrived and nonsensical for the invaders to have such a glaring weakness, but it’s used to emphasise the team coming together as a unified force, so I’ll allow it. Ultimately this was a great introduction to the DCAU Justice League. “Secret Origins” established their different and conflicting personalities and how their various powers and abilities will work going forward, emphasising that they all have a part to play, and showed that there are some threats that require a whole group of special heroes to oppose it.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

What did you think to “Secret Origins”? Did you enjoy seeing these heroes come together? What did you think to threat they faced? Would you have liked to get a little more insight into the Flash and Hawkgirl? Are you a fan of J’onn J’onnz? What are some of your favourite Justice League episodes? Feel free to use the comment section below to share your opinions and be sure to check out my other Justice League content across the site.

Back Issues [JLA Day]: Justice League of America #9

Dr. K2 Comments

To celebrate the release of Justice League (Snyder/Whedon, 2017), DC Comics named November 18 “Justice League Day”. Setting aside all the drama surrounding that movie, this provides a perfect excuse to spotlight DC’s premier superhero team, which set the standard for super teams in comics by bringing together DC’s most powerful heroes.

Story Title: “The Origin of the Justice League”
Published: February 1962
Writer: Gardner Fox
Artist: Mike Sekowsky

The Background:
All Star Comics (1940/1941) brought together eight superheroes from different publishers for the first time, birthing not just the Justice Society of America (JSA) but also the first ever superhero team in comics, allowing readers to see their favourite characters interacting all for the same price as any one comic. The JSA’s roster expanded and changed over the years but the team underwent their most significant change in the late-1950s when then-editor Julius Schwartz tasked writer Gardner Fox with reintroducing and rebranding the team as the Justice League of America (JLA) to capitalise on the popularity of the American Football League and Major League Baseball’s National League. The Clark Kent/Superman, Bruce Wayne/Batman, Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, Hal Jordan/Green Lantern, Arthur Curry/Aquaman, Barry Allan/The Flash, and J’onn J’onzz (or “John Jones”)/Martian Manhunter debuted as the JLA in The Brave and the Bold #28, a title famous for featuring superhero team-ups. However, the team’s actual origin wasn’t revealed until this issue of their self-titled series, which became one of DC Comic’s best-selling titles. Over time, the JLA’s roster has also changed and many splinter groups and spin-offs have been introduced, but perhaps there is no more iconic line-up than this original roster of DC’s heavy-hitters.

The Review:
I was going to open this review by saying how odd it was that the Justice League’s debut story wasn’t actually a bumper tale about how these seven characters first came together, but quite a few first appearances of famous comic book teams and characters simply started with them already in their superhero role or somewhat established as a team, so I guess it wasn’t completely against the norm. “The Origin of the Justice League” gets off to a rocky start with perennial hanger-on, Lucas “Snapper” Carr, racing to the Justice League’s cavernous headquarters, the Secret Sanctuary, to celebrate a birthday, though he can only imagine which member of the team is to be honoured. When he gets there, he finds Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Oliver Queen/Green Arrow in the midst of getting the place and spik-and-span for the party; there’s something a bit odd about seeing Amazonian warrior and peacekeeper Diana Prince wiping down a table like a scullery maid but it’s great to see them making Snapper do menial chores like mopping the floor and cleaning out their display cabinets since this aggravating hipster youth really isn’t fit for anything else. It doesn’t take Snapper long to get distracted, however, when he spies a display case filled with wooden splinters that is directly tied to the team’s first mission. Wonder Woman has the entire Justice League pitch in getting the Secret Sanctuary ready for their event, which is of course to celebrate the anniversary of the first time they came together, and each of Leaguers take it in turns to share the story with their overexcited mascot.

J’onn and Aquaman are the first to encounter alien beings and to be transformed into trees!

J’onn J’onnz starts things off since it was he who first discovered the threat that would unite the world’s greatest heroes. After hearing a “queer report” about people spontaneously having turned to stone, J’onn investigated and found an entire town full of people turned to stone and confronted the source of the petrification: a massive stone giant that proves impervious physical assault. Using his “Martian vision”, the Martian Manhunter learned that the giant came from the alien world Appellax and was one of seven contenders to the throne who came to Earth in a meteor storm with the goal of conquering the planet to earn the title of Emperor (or “Kalar”) of his home world. Although the giant briefly sapped J’onn’s strength after learning of his weakness to fire, J’onn easily used his “Martian breath” to suck up some water from a fire hydrant to extinguish the flames and then attacked the giant’s weak spot with his great Martian strength. With the giant rendered unconscious, his victims returned to normal and J’onn summoned the police to “take the giant into custody” (apparently leading to them smashing the alien rock monster with sledgehammers!) but was transformed into a tree when he investigated the meteor that brought the being to Earth. While swimming through the Indian ocean, Aquaman learned from a dorado of another meteor, one causing panic in the seas after spawning a strange alien creature made of glass who turned underwater life to glass. Although also turned to glass the moment he investigated, Aquaman was still able to call upon his fishy friends to attack the creature, first attempting to shatter it with brute force and then succeeding in defeating the alien by causing massive sonic vibrations. However, when learned of another meteor and raced to oppose its threat, he too was transformed into a tree.

Wonder Woman and Green Lantern overcome their limitations to defeat their alien threats.

Wonder Woman’s arrival on Themyscira was ruined by the presence of strange glittering globs all over the island that unleashed a living blob of mercury that transformed the Amazons into liquid. Calling upon Hera for strength, Wonder Woman whipped out her magical lasso to ensnare the blob-like alien; although she was unable to simply fling it into space since her strength was divided between fending off the creature’s “queer radiation”, Wonder Woman was, inexplicably, able to swing the creature around so fast that it was destroyed by the resulting friction heat. Although this caused her great strain, Wonder Woman was ultimately successful and returned her sisters to normal, but she too was turned into a twisted tree-like being when she investigated the other meteor. Around the same time, Green Lantern was returning to Earth and was startled by the sudden appearance of one of these meteors, and even more shocked when it spawned a gigantic golden bird that systematically began transforming humans and animals alike into ghastly winged creatures using a “white ray”. Since his Power Ring is useless against anything even remotely yellow, Green Lantern was powerless and being partially transformed into a bird-man himself before luring the creature into a nearby waterfall and using his Power Ring to freeze both solid. With the winged terror effectively subdued, all of its victims returned to normal and Green Lantern got them to safety but found himself becoming a gnarled tree at the same time as Wonder Woman!

The Flash and the others help to free their comrades so Wonder Woman can finish off the wood alien.

While in Europe acting as a representative to an Interpol meeting, the Flash learned of a strange meteor falling near Italy and raced out to investigate, finding a flaming humanoid creature transforming humans into similarly blazing monsters. His attempts to whip up a strong wind, douse the flaming alien with water, and snuff it out with sand were all unsuccessful, however, when the creature proved powerful enough to turn these to steam and glass. The Flash quickly discovered the solution was the same as almost every situation he ever finds himself in and he simply ran around super fast to create a vacuum that extinguished the flaming beast, returning its victims to normal, but he wasn’t fast enough to avoid becoming a tree like his fellow costumed heroes. Their great powers rendered mute and their strength inert by the meteor’s radiation, the fledgling Justice League were powerless to stop a massive wooden alien from emerging from its cocoon and compelling them to follow its bidding. Did I say powerless? Well, not quite as Aquaman (of all people) summoned the strength necessary to chip a small piece of wood from Green Lantern’s hand, exposing his Power Ring and enabling him to free J’onn’s face. J’onn then used his Martian breath to free the Flash, who then helped to free Wonder Woman, thereby allowing her to regain just enough control over themselves to easily destroy the wood-like alien by stripping it to splinters with her magical lasso.  

Superman finishes off the last alien with little to no help from the other heroes.

This wasn’t the end for the colourful heroes, however; one last meteor landed in Greenland but, when they flew over to confront the final claimant to Appellax’s throne, they found Batman and Superman already clashing with the alien, this one a jagged, slender ice being. Although the other heroes were content to leave this last alien to the World’s Finest, Superman ran into a spot of bother when the meteor turned out to be made of Kryptonite, leaving him weak and vulnerable. Although his arms and legs were rapidly turning to diamond as a result of the creature, the Batman was able to use his Batplane to get the meteor away from the Man of Steel, allowing Superman to instantly destroy the creature by using one of his many crazy super powers to turn it into harmless coal. In the aftermath, despite none of the individual heroes even remotely learning anything about working as a team or coming together to destroy a threat greater than any one of them with the exception of Batman and Superman (who had already worked together numerous times by this point), the seven superheroes agree to form a the Justice League to oppose any threats to the sanctity of peace and justice. Back in the Secret Sanctuary, Snapper is blown away by the story, and Superman’s solution to the problem; although awestruck, he wants to know even more of the team’s secrets, like how the Secret Sanctuary was built, but is content to set these questions aside and join his masked friends in celebrating their anniversary.

The Summary:
Have I mentioned how much I detest Snapper-bloody-Carr? Jeez, I mean, of all the jive talkin’, hipster teenage characters in comics from this era, he’s got to be the dirt worst. At least he’s not constantly snapping his fingers like a moron throughout this story, but the way he talks just grates on me. Did the writers really think kids would appreciate seeing a character like this mooching off their favourite superheroes? It really blows my mind to think that this was ever considered a good idea; I mean, if you want to toss in a teenager for the young ‘uns to relate to, just use Dick Grayson/Robin! Anyway, luckily, Snapper is hardly in this story and he doesn’t get to take all the glory for himself like in the Justice League’s first issue, but that doesn’t make this story any better, to be honest. Like in their first issue, the Justice League is painfully divided here, and the focus is more on the less popular superheroes, meaning Batman and Superman don’t show up until the very end. To be fair, though, I don’t actually mind this; especially in today’s world, where Batman is everywhere, on every team, all the time and massively overexposed, it’s nice to see guys like Green Lantern and the Flash get a bit more of the spotlight (Hell, all Batman does is get the Kryptonite away from Superman; he’s probably in the story less than Snapper Carr!)

The combination of Snapper, a weak threat, and lack of teamwork make for a mediocre origin story.

Unfortunately, this isn’t really a compelling origin story. The idea that these seven elemental aliens have landed on Earth and are causing havoc has a lot of potential; seven threats for seven heroes to unite against. Instead though, each threat is dealt with individually; while this does showcase the power of Wonder Woman and the extent of Aquaman’s telepathy, it’s really not a good way to justify them forming a team. The only time they even remotely do anything even slightly team-orientated is when they free each other from the wood-alien’s control; they don’t get overwhelmed and need another hero’s help and they don’t come together to face off a greater threat. They just dispose of their individual menaces, get turned into wood like idiots, and then watch on as Superman finishes off the last alien since he doesn’t need their help. How much better would it’ve been if, say, one alien was boiling or freezing the sea, so the Flash had to use friction to help out Aquaman? Or if Wonder Woman had to bail out Green Lantern after his Power Ring proved useless? Or if J’onn faced the fire alien and Aquaman helped him out with water? The primary appeal of this story is paying the same price you would for a solo book and seeing seven superheroes in action, but the action and narrative really isn’t all the compelling; the aliens have no personalities or characterisations or motivations beyond this throwaway desire to rule the world, and they’re all pretty weak. The wood one is built up as this major threat, but it’s disposed of pretty easily, and the ice/diamond one is similarly undone in the blink of an eye by Superman. Honestly, I feel like Starro the Conqueror was a far more credible and League-worthy threat and, if you recall from my review of that story, he was basically a joke as well, meaning I can’t really take this menace that seriously or find the idea that these heroes would ever want to form a team after this lacklustre experience.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

What did you think to the JLA’s origin story? Were you satisfied with the explanation of how the seven came together or, like me, did you find the threat and motivation incredibly weak? What did you think to the aliens the heroes faced off with and would you have liked to see the heroes interacting a little more? Are you a fan of Snapper Car and, if so, why? Which era or incarnation of the JLA is your favourite and what are some of your favourite JLA stories? Who would you like to see in the JLA some day? How are you celebrating Justice League Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on the JLA, feel free to share them below or join the discussion on my social media.

Movie Night: The Flash

Dr. K3 Comments

This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper.
If you’d like to support the site, you can do so at my Ko-Fi page.

Released: 4 November 2022
Director: Andy Muschietti
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Budget: $200 to 220 million
Stars: Ezra Miller, Sasha Calle, Michael Keaton, and Ben Affleck

The Plot:
After realising the true extent of his superspeed, Barry Allen/The Flash (Miller) travels back in time to prevent the death of his mother, Nora (Maribel Verdú), and ends up breaking the timeline and teaming up with an alternative version of Bruce Wayne/Batman (Keaton) in order to set things right.

The Background:
After the Marvel Cinematic Universe became an unstoppable juggernaut, Warner Bros. scrambled to craft their own cinematic universe with Man of Steel (Snyder, 2013); despite the presence of acclaimed superstar Ben Affleck and reaping a hefty box office, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (ibid, 2016) divided many and Warner Bros. got cold feet regarding Snyder’s vision for the DCEU. This resulted in two different versions of the big Justice League movie but, even though the future of DC’s live-action universe is questionable and a planned team-up between the Flash and Victor Stone/Cyborg (Ray Fisher) fell apart, development of a solo Flash movie continued onwards. Of course, the Scarlet Speedster is no stranger to adaptation, having been brought to life in numerous cartoons and live-action portrayals, most notably by John Wesley Shipp, Michael Rosenbaum, and Grant Gustin, and the character has often been at the epicentre of reality-bending “Crisis” events, but I don’t think anyone expected the Flash’s first solo feature to feature multiverse shenanigans. However, after taking the reins of the film, director Andy Muschietti set about not just returning Keaton to his iconic role, but also bringing back Ben Affleck to finish up his Batman tenure and introducing a version of Supergirl (Calle) to the DCEU. The aim was to both introduce the multiverse to the DCEU and streamline the continuity to address the negative criticism aimed at Warner’s prior efforts and, although the production was mired by an unfortunate on-location accident, COVID-19 delays, and Ezra Miller’s bizarre behaviour. In thw end, The Flash made $271.3 million at the box office and wasmet with generally positive reviews; most of these focused on Keaton’s return as Batman and the balance of emotion and humour, though the special effects and messy narrative drew some criticism and the future of the speedster was thrown into question when James Gunn came onboard and announced plans to reboot the DCEU.

The Review:
The Flash is one of the last holdouts of the DCEU as it existed for about ten years. It’s a film that has been so much development strife that I’m surprised it even got made and has always been something of an anomaly. On the one hand, producing solo movies for DC characters after their big team up is certainly one way to catch up to and separate themselves from the MCU, as is producing darker, grittier movies but that didn’t exactly last long, did it? I was actually onboard with the idea of each DCEU solo film featuring a team up between two of their characters to help speed things up, but my faith in The Flash was tainted by three very specific things. The first was Ezra Miller, who I’ve never really enjoyed in the role as he acts more like Bart Allen/Impulse than the more methodical Barry; the second was the decision to prey on nostalgia by bringing back Michael Keaton rather than actually try to solve the DCEU’s bonkers multiverse by resetting into Robert Pattinson’s new world; and the third was the bizarre decision to have the Flash’s first solo outing be an adaptation of Flashpoint (Johns, et al, 2011), a universe-altering event that not only ushered in one of the worst DC runs of all time for me but also painted Barry as a selfish and misguided man who broke the multiverse for the worst. I’ve talked about this a few times, but I don’t necessarily hate the idea of the multiverse, I just think it’s the sort of thing you should build up to, not rush into before we’ve had a chance to connect with the existing characters, and some of these issues are certainly present in The Flash.

Socially awkward Barry is astonished when his selfishness beaks the timeline.

The tone of the movie is established right off the bat as we catch up with Barry, still a forensic scientist and still as neurotic as ever. In a way, I understand Ezra’s portrayal of Barry as a constantly agitated, awkward social recluse; for him, even mundane tasks take too long and he’s constantly jittery thanks to the Speed Force, which allows him to run superhumanly fast, even up walls and in defiance of gravity, and to vibrate his molecules so he can pass through solid objects. However, Barry was clearly more than a little maladjusted before he got his powers; flashbacks tohis childhood show young Barry (Ian Loh) obsessing over numbers and quandaries and struggling to focus on one task at a time. Barry’s social skills haven’t improved all that much since his time with the Justice League; he talks rapidly and about absolute nonsense, goes off on tangents, and generally seems incredibly uncomfortable in social situations, even more so when gorgeous reporter Iris West (Kiersey Clemons) tries to approach him and his immediate assumption is that she’s looking for an exclusive comment regarding his wrongly imprisoned father, Henry (Ron Livingston). Barry’s been tormented by his mother’s death and championing his father’s innocence since he was a kid, and it’s heavily implied that a lot of his neurosis is due to losing his mother to a random murder, to the point where he’s constantly driven to use any means necessary to prove his father’s innocence and haunted by his grief. Thus, when he realises (or remembers, depending on your perspective; both appear valid here) that he can effectively time travel using the Speed Force, Barry can’t help but use his abilities to save his mother despite Bruce Wayne/Batman’s (Ben Affleck) warning that meddling with time, even in minor ways, could be disastrous.

Barry’s time travel shenanigans see him confronting the worst of himself to make things right.

At first, Barry is elated to see that one small change sees him having a happy childhood with both his parents; however, after a demonic figure knocks him out of the Speed Force, he accidentally winds up in 2013 rather than the present day. Again, this is fine at first as he reconnects with his parents, but he’s soon forced to tackle his younger, even more obnoxious and aggravating self and realises that he’s altered time in such a way that Young Barry won’t get his powers unless he intervenes. This is a great way to show the Flash’s origin in a unique way, but it predictably results in Barry losing his powers because of Young Barry’s stupidity and then having to desperately try and train his younger self to realise the scope of his super speed when General Zod (Michael Shannon) and his forces have come seeking Kal-El (Henry Cavill) and Barry learns that his actions have somehow robbed the world of metahumans. Barry’s interactions with Young Barry teach him some valuable lessons about how annoying he can be; his younger self is ridiculously excitable even before he starts flashing about with reckless abandon and takes his life and happiness for granted, which frustrates Barry almost as much as seeing how his selfishness has “broken” the timeline. Young Barry is confused by the entire situation and mainly stoked to suddenly have awesome powers and be hanging around the Batcave; he’s like a kid with a new toy when he borrows the Flash suit and learns that he’s destined to be a superhero, but he hasn’t had to deal with loss like his older, alternate self and so treats the missions as more of a game. Over the course of the movie, the gravity of the situation eventually sinks in; the Barrys have a relationship akin to squabbling siblings, which is quite endearing when they’re not being annoying or aggravating characters, and Young Barry’s eventual determination to both prove himself and prevent his newfound friends from dying serves as a crucial wake-up call for Barry to realise that he needs to let go of his past and his pain in order to save the entire multiverse.

The undo the damage he’s caused, Barry turns to an older, alternate version of Batman.

Although the Justice League are absent from Barry’s meddling, he’s relieved to learn that Bruce Wayne and the Batman still exist, so he coerces Young Barry into travelling to Wayne Manor to recruit Bruce’s help in locating Superman, the only one powerful enough to oppose Zod. Barry’s stunned to find the manor once again in disarray and Bruce an elderly recluse, and even more shocked to see he’s an entirely different person! This Bruce is conveniently as clued in on multiverse theory as Barry’s Bruce and explains (using pasta as a metaphor) how Barry’s actions have caused changes all throughout time as time isn’t linear and instead intersects at multiple points. Though intrigued by Barry’s story, Bruce refuses to actively help; his Gotham City has become one of the safest places in the world and outgrew the need for a Batman, which apparently was enough for him to give up his crusade both in and out of the suit. However, he can’t help but listen in as Barry uses the Batcomputer to locate Superman and, inspired by Barry’s dedication to saving a world that isn’t even his, he decides to suit up and help out. Though older and jaded, Batman is no less capable; he has a wealth of gadgets on hand to help them break into the Russian facility where Superman’s pod is being held and is surprisingly a far more capable fighter in his twilight years than at his peak. Keaton was a selling point of the film (and for many, I’m sure) and, while I was annoyed that we went backwards rather than forwards with the character, it’s a blast to see him back in the suit and assuming a proactive mentor role. Keaton definitely steals the show (thanks in no small part to his upgraded suit (despite the poor cowl), assortment of other suits, and snippets of Danny Elfman’s theme) and Batman finds his passion again in aiding Barry’s quest, to the point where he’s willing to sacrifice his life to save the world.

The traumatised Supergirl ends up being the best shot at opposing General Zod’s mad ambitions.

Barry’s goal for much of the film is to find Superman. He’s convinced that Superman will be able to defeat Zod as before, thus saving the world and allowing him to live in a timeline with both his parents. Like him running to Batman, much of this can be attributed to displacement; he screwed up and knows it, and his kneejerk reaction is to “fix” it like he tried to with Nora. However, when he finds that it’s not Superman but an emaciated Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (Calle), he doesn’t hesitate to help her and, despite her having every reason to hate humanity after they made her suffer in a cage for years, she’s compelled to aid him after witnessing Zod slaughter humans without mercy. Kara is instrumental in helping Barry regain his powers when Bruce’s makeshift device fails on him, finally restoring Barry to full power, and she’s driven into a rage when she learns that Zod intercepted her infant cousin’s pod and killed him in his relentless quest to restore Krypton to prominence. As much as I enjoyed seeing Michael Keaton back in action, I went into The Flash equally as excited for Supergirl; Sasha looks gorgeous in the suit and plays the role (essentially substituting for Superman from Flashpoint) really well. She’s suffered greatly not just at the hands of humanity but in losing her world and initially has no interest in helping Barry; like Bruce, she’s inspired by him and his selfless nature and desire to undo his mistake and throws herself into the battle against Zod, and she proves to be the catalyst for an emotional showdown between the two Barry’s. Surprisingly, The Flash doesn’t really have a main antagonist; on paper, it’s Zod and the Kryptonian threat but really the main villain is time and Barry himself. Stopping Zod is seen as the primary goal to course correct this new timeline, and he proves to be as ruthless as ever as he cuts down anyone in his way, including the fledgling Supergirl, and proves such an insurmountable threat that Young Barry becomes obsessed with reversing time again and again to find a way to stop him and save Batman and Supergirl from falling in battle.

The Nitty-Gritty:
A principal theme in The Flash is of dealing with loss; it’d be difficult for anyone, much less the socially awkward Barry, to come to terms with the traumatic loss of their mother and subsequent imprisonment of their father, and dealing with this loss and the frustrating lack of evidence in favour of his father is very much at the heart of Barry’s motivations not just as a superhero, but in this film. This, as much as anything, is perhaps why he relates so closely to Bruce; while he resents being a glorified janitor for the Justice League, he connects with Bruce over their shared pain but is far too reckless and impulsive to heed his advice regarding meddling with time. However, Barry is switched on enough to recognise when he’s screwed up but it takes him much of the movie to realise that he can’t just “fix” things as easily as he would like, and he literally comes face to face with his neurotic obsession with undoing the bad when Young Barry realises the potential of the Speed Force. Although both are driven to do good things, Young Barry is inexperienced and less adjusted compared to his counterpart, and Barry’s hardly setting a high standard for responsibility here as it is! Still, the entire reason the alternate Bruce and Supergirl agree to aid Barry is by seeing that he has a drive towards protecting others, despite his flaws as a character.

While some effects are a bit dodgy, The Flash is visually impressive, especially the costumes.

I think a major issue with The Flash is the same thing that was present in his previous appearances; there’s nothing new happening here for the character. His plight about Nora and Henry has been expertly tackled in The Flash (2014 to 2023), as was the Flashpoint story, parallel worlds, and alternate characters. I understand that many audiences might not have watched the show so these aspects would be new to them, but the presentation of Nora’s death isn’t as compelling as in the comics or TV show since it isn’t attributed to a dark mirror of the Flash. Similarly, Iris may as well not even be in the film since she doesn’t really do anything and is basically a glorified cameo, as cute as she is and despite the potential she has for a future relationship with Barry. On the flip side, the presentation of the Flash’s powers is generally quite visually exciting; sure, we’ve seen the super slow-motion speed scenes before but never with a character saving a bunch of babies plummeting from a collapsing hospital. I quite like how destructive Barry’s speed and lightning can be; he now sports a sleek, comic accurate suit that glows when he channels the Speed Force and monitors his “energy” (basically a recurring gag where he stuffs himself full of carbs to refuel) and Barry has far better control over his speed, but Young Barry still has the wild, destructive blue lightning and is constantly getting into scrapes as his clothes burn up. Similarly impressive are the new Batsuits and Bat-gadgets and Supergirl’s eye-watering suit; Keaton’s Batman also flies and fights with a grace never seen before, and I was impressed by good his and Affleck’s stunt doubles performed in their new suits. I also enjoyed the depiction of the Speed Force and time travel; we get a bit of spaghetti-fication as Barry travels faster than light and, within his bubble, he can view multiple timelines at once and engage with them as he likes, though Ezra continues to have a weird weightlessness to him and the strangest running stance I’ve ever seen.

With the sake of his friends, and the multiverse, at stake, Barry makes the ultimate sacrifice.

Devoid of his powers, Barry has no choice but to rely on Batman and his exasperating younger self for much of the middle film. Young Barry proves a poor student but, to be fair, he has a lot of pressure suddenly thrust upon him and lacks the years of training Barry has (which we get a glimpse of with another flashback that shows the proto-Flash was also in Metropolis when Zod invaded). Given how dire Zod’s threat is, Barry risks his life being struck by lightning once more to regain his powers and his substitute Justice League fly into battle against the Kryptonians. However, even with Supergirl and Batman’s amazing Bat-toys, it’s an unwinnable battle; no matter how hard Young Barry tries, he can’t prevent Batman and Supergirl being killed in the battle and his obsession with trying to prevent it horrifies Barry when he sees the damage it causes both to Young Barry and the multiverse. Within the Speed Force, Barry sees a bevvy of cameos (including deepfakes of Christopher Reeve, Helen Slater, and Nicolas Cage and archival footage of Adam West and George Reeves but, oddly, no cameo from Grant Gustin) as worlds and timelines collide and are destroyed by his increasingly manic double. Young Barry’s obsession then takes physical form when the demonic entity reappears and is revealed to be an older version of Young Barry, one who’s spent untold years desperately trying to find a way to succeed and has become so corrupted by this notion that he doesn’t care about the damage he’s causing. Finally learning that he needs to let go and restore the timeline, Barry resolves to undo his actions, thus dooming his mother; although Young Barry is aghast by this, he’s so disgusted by dark doppelgänger that he sacrifices his life to save Barry, thus erasing himself and the Dark Flash. After a heartfelt, incognito goodbye to his mother, Barry resets time but, apparently having learnt nothing about temporal causality, can’t himself from making another minor change. This is enough to see Henry acquitted for his crimes and apparently restores the world to normal…if you don’t count Bruce Wayne being changed once more, this time into George Clooney and ending the movie on a hefty sigh rather than truly restarting or rebooting the DCEU as I expected.

The Summary:
I was sceptical about The Flash. I’m not a fan of Ezra Miller or his portrayal of the character, I feel it came out way past the point where it could’ve actually been meaningful, I definitely was miffed that it was skipped right to Flashpoint rather than focusing on the Flash’s rogues, and I questioned the heavy reliance on Michael Keaton’s return as Batman. I grew up with Keaton; he was an excellent Batman and set a standard for others to follow but bringing him in just seemed like such a blatant trick to get people to see this film that I was sure it would be terrible. Thankfully, despite these issues being the case, that wasn’t true, and I enjoyed it more than I expected. Barry is, however, a fundamentally awful and often unlikeable character because of how whiny, awkward, and ungainly he is; I did like seeing him interact with his younger self and realising how obnoxious he can be, and the character arc of him learning to let go of the past was executed well, even if it was very derivative. The film suffers a bit from some wonky special effects (the deepfakes were especially unnerving) but mostly delivers some fun visuals with the Flash’s powers and I loved the practical suits used in the film. It was awesome giving Keaton one last crack at the character, but I can’t help but feel like The Flash missed an opportunity to properly re-align the DCU. Instead, the message here, again, is that the multiverse exists, and everything is canon as it’s all connected, which is fine, but I honestly prefer the focus to be on one singular continuity. Still, The Flash was quite fun and had some thrilling action scenes, especially those involving the Bat-actors’ stunt doubles. The primary themes of the film landed well, too, even if Barry just seems like a selfish, petulant child most of the time, and I was glad (and surprised) to find that it just about managed to hold its head above water amidst all the clarified cameos and references.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Did you enjoy The Flash? Were you disappointed that it skipped to Flashpoint or were you simply won over by the cameos? Do you enjoy Ezra Miller’s portrayal of the character and what did you think to the relationship between Barry and Young Barry? Were you excited to see Michael Keaton return or did you think it was weird how the only character who changed faces was Bruce Wayne? Who’s your favourite version of the Flash and where do you see the DCEU going next? Whatever your thoughts, please leave a comment below or on my social media.

Back Issues: Flashpoint

Dr. K4 Comments

This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper.
If you’d like to support the site, you can do so at my Ko-Fi page.

Story Title: “Flashpoint” (comprised of “Chapter One” to “Chapter Five”)
Published: July 2011 to October 2011
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Andy Kubert

The Background:
Robert Kanigher and artist Carmine Infantino introduced readers to Barry Allen/The Flash in Showcase #4 (1956) and heralded the “Silver Age” of comics; this new incarnation of the Scarlet Speedster may have taken the place of his predecessor, Jay Garrick, but it wasn’t too long before the two were coming face-to-face thanks to the concept of the multiverse. Barry fast became one of the most popular and iconic characters to carry the Flash mantle, and his death in Crisis on Infinite Earths (Wolfman, et al, 1985 to 1986) was long-regarded as one of the few permanent fixtures in comics. However, in the ridiculously confusing Final Crisis event (Morrison, et al, 2008 to 2009), DC finally brought Barry back and reinstated him as the Flash, a decision that irked (and continues to irk) many fans of his replacement, Wally West. Though Barry was returned to a world that had largely passed him by, a series of retcons enabled him to slip back into his old role; however, despite having already torn apart and rebuilt the multiverse just five years prior in Infinite Crisis (Johns, et al, 2005 to 2006), writer Geoff Johns decided to shake up the DC Universe with this five-issue event, which was bolstered by a number of tie-in stories. Flashpoint saw massive changes to DC’s timeline, characters, and continuity; it directly led to one of my least-favourite eras of the comics, The New 52, and both compressed, altered, and confused many of DC’s storylines. The story proved quite influential, however; not only was it partially referenced in The Flash (2014 to present), it was also adapted into a well-received direct-to-DVD animated feature, and served as significant inspiration for the Flash’s big-screen solo film.

The Review:
Flashpoint begins and is punctuated by narration from Professor Zoom, Eobard Thawne/The Reverse-Flash, Barry Allen’s long-time nemesis who has a warped hero worship of the Flash that compels him to cause the Fastest Man Alive nothing but pain and misery in a twisted attempt to make him a better hero. A series of little flashbacks establish Barry’s close relationship with his mother early on; he adored Nora as a child and the mystery of her strange and brutal death haunted him even into his adult life, where he became a forensic scientist. Once he was struck by that errant lightning bolt and gained his superspeed, the Flash found a happiness that was missing from his life: friends and colleagues in the Justice League, love with his own wife, Iris West, and a family of fellow speedsters. However, all of that randomly changes for Barry when he’s roused from sleep at the Central City Police Department to find that Central City is under the protection of a questionable hero, Leonard Snart/Citizen Cold, the Flash’s rogues gallery doesn’t exist and, to Barry’s horror, he no longer has his superspeed or identity as the Flash.

Barry finds the world has changed for the worst and that Bruce has been replaced by his violent father!

If that wasn’t bad enough, Iris is in a loving relationship with another man; however, on the plus side, Nora Allen is still alive but, while Barry is overjoyed at being reunited with his beloved mother, his analytical mind immediately sets to work trying to figure out what’s happened to the world; he still remembers heroes like Clark Kent/Superman and the Justice League, but neither of these aspects appear to exist anymore…with one exception: Batman. The story jumps over to Gotham City, now a bustling metropolis with neon billboards promoting “Wayne Resorts and Casinos” and haunted by a far darker and more violent version of the Caped Crusader. While this Batman is far more callous than his mainline counterpart, and perfectly happy with tossing costumed baddies to their deaths, he’s just as driven to hunting down the Joker, and especially motivated as the Harlequin of Hate has kidnapped Mayor Harvey Dent’s twins. His investigation is interrupted by Victor Stone/Cyborg who, rather than judging Batman’s violent methods, invites him to align with a motley crew of alternative heroes and villains in order to oppose Arthur Curry/Aquaman and Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, whose warring nations threaten to destroy the world in their conflict. Batman, however, is uninterested in joining their cause since none of them stand a chance at fighting the Atlanteans and the Amazons, and his disinterest causes many of Cyborg’s followers to cut out as well, leaving the man-machine despondent. Confused and desperate for answers, Barry is forced to endure the frustration of traffic jams in order to travel to Gotham City to ask Bruce Wayne for help. However, when he arrives at Wayne Manor, he finds Alfred Pennyworth missing, the stately home in disarray, and is shocked to discover that this Batman isn’t Bruce…but his father, Doctor Thomas Wayne!

Barry goes to extreme lengths to regain his powers before he loses his memories of the original timeline.

In this world, it was young Bruce who died that night in Crime Alley, turning Thomas into a brutal and sadistic bat-themed vigilante. Believing Barry to be delusional, and angered at his knowledge of Bruce, Thomas breaks Barry’s finger and puts a beating on him, unimpressed with his claims to be the Fastest Man Alive. The conflict with Thomas not only assaults Barry’s body, but also his mind as his memories start to change to align with this new world, one caught in the middle of a war between Atlantis and Themyscira that has devastated large parts of the world. One year previously, the hostile Aquaman and his half-brother Orm Marius/Ocean Master flooded much of Western Europe and, before that, Wonder Woman and her Amazons attacked and conquered London, re-christening it New Themyscira. Barry finds his Flash ring in the Batcave but is shocked to find Thawne’s Reverse-Flash uniform in there instead of his Flash costume and theorises that the maniacal time-traveller must be behind the changes to the timeline. Although initially sceptical of Barry’s story, Thomas is intrigued by Barry’s tragic and twisted history with Thawne, who purposely travelled back in time to cause him anguish by killing his mother and hounding his superhero career, and spurred to help him since restoring the timeline will mean that Bruce never gets murdered. However, the only way they can hope to achieve this is to restore Barry’s superspeed before he forgets everything about the previous timeline, but his initial attempt to recreate the accident that doused him with chemicals and saw him struck by lightning leaves him a charred and scarred mess. Although left in agonising pain from third degree burns over seventy-five percent of his body, Barry is adamant about trying again, with an even bigger bolt of lightning, before his new memories completely override everything he used to be and know. Thomas, of course, thinks he’s a madman for risking his life in such a desperate attempt, but the second bolt of lightning does the trick and Barry’s superspeed and connection to the Speed Force is restored, which has the added effect of speeding up his recovery time. Barry whips himself up a fresh new Flash costume and sets to work trying to figure out what else has changed in this new timeline and who else is available to help; he explains the dangers and mechanics of time travel to a cynical Thomas, that Thawne is afforded additional abilities thanks to his “Negative” Speed Force and has no compunction about screwing up the timeline, which can have serious consequences even if only small changes are made.

Since Superman’s no help, Batman joins the Resistance, but they’re hopelessly outmatched against their foes.

Believing that Thawne purposely orchestrated this new timeline to take the world’s greatest superheroes out of action, Barry discovers that the Kryptonian rocket carrying the infant Superman crashed into Metropolis and killed thirty-five thousand people, and Thomas agrees to be Cyborg’s strategist in exchange for access to classified government information on the rocket that only Victor can supply. Thomas has absolutely no problem with deceiving Cyborg since, if they’re successful, time will be forever changed and none of their strife will have happened or mattered, which is perfectly fine with this jaded, semi-suicidal version of Batman. Cyborg leads the two to a secret underground facility beneath Metropolis, the home of “Project: Superman”, which they sneak into and discover the skeletal remains of a Kryptonian canine and an emaciated, terrified Kal-El who has been routinely tortured, experimented on, and kept out of the sun’s rays his entire life. Batman is less than impressed with Barry’s so-called “saviour”, who has little to no control over his powers and deserts them the moment that General Sam Lane’s soldiers close in. Thankfully, they’re saved by Emily Sung/Element Woman, who chemically incapacitates the soldiers, but Barry continues to be plagued by the physical pain and seizures his new memories cause him; these show a life where his mother was constantly by his side encouraging him, even after his father’s tragic heart attack, and a version of Barry who continuously struggled to find a woman to settle down with. After Colonel Steve Trevor fails to liberate reporter Lois Lane from New Themyscira, the United States President is left with no choice but to employ the full might of the U. S. military, which results in Hal Jordan (who never received the Green Lantern ring in this world and resents the world’s superheroes for not getting involved in the greater conflict) being shot down and killed by the Amazon’s invisible jets. With the entire world on the brink of all-out war, and the United Kingdom threatened by a devastating tidal wave, Barry berates Thomas for writing his world off; arguing that, at any moment, Barry could completely forget Bruce and the former timeline, Barry encourages Cyborg to make contact with the superhero community to defend the world and, although their ace in the hole, “Superman”, has literally flown the coop, they’re joined by Billy Batson and his adopted family, who are collectively known as Captain Thunder in this world. Such is the allure of Batman’s urban legend that all it takes is his involvement and leadership to unite the world’s superheroes in interceding in the battle between Aquaman and Wonder Woman, however they’re betrayed by June Moon/The Enchantress, who forcibly transforms Captain Thunder back into his mortal form so that Diana can run him through with her sword.

Reverse-Flash’s boasting is cut short and Barry is seemingly able to set the timeline right…

It’s here, in the midst of a brutal war with the fate of this alternative world in the balance, that the Reverse-Flash finally makes his physically appearance. Naturally, a vicious fist fight breaks out between the two, but Barry is devastated to learn that it was he who caused this dark new timeline and not Thawne. Thawne “[resets Barry’s] internal vibrations” to reveal that Barry was so distraught after learning that Thawne killed his mother that he pushed himself further than he’d ever gone before, travelled back in time, and called upon the entire power of the Speed Force to prevent that event from ever happening. The result was a fracturing of the timeline in wild and unpredictable ways, and also that Thawne has been “removed from the timeline” so that, no matter what happens in the past, present, or future, he will continue to exist to plague his foe. This means that Thawne no longer has to rely on Barry being alive to ensure his creation in the far future, and nothing Barry does will prevent Thawne from existing. However, just as it seems like Thawne has achieved his ultimate victory, Batman stabs Thawne through the back and kills him, admonishing him for turning his back on the battlefield. Even though Superman makes a dramatic reappearance to join the fight, the war escalates uncontrollably; Atlantis plans to sink the United Kingdom and Enchantress mortally wounds Batman, who begs Barry to set things right. Reluctant to leave the world to its fate, Barry first stops by to talk to his mother, who encourages him to do the right thing since he’s literally sacrificed billions of lives and made the world a complete hellhole just to save her life. Heartbroken, but galvanised by her blessing, Barry intercepts his past self and knocks him from the Cosmic Treadmill but, when he returns to the time stream, Barry finds that there are three separate, competing timelines and a mysterious, hooded woman warns that time has been splintered and that only Barry can help merge them back into one unified timeline. When Barry awakens at his desk, the world appears to be back to normal; the first thing he does is race to the Batcave to talk with Bruce, who is once again Batman and who, surprisingly, reassurances Barry that he’s only human and couldn’t have known that saving his mother would have screwed the world up so badly. In an interesting twist, Barry retains his memories of the “Flashpoint” universe, and leaves Bruce in tears when he delivers him a letter rom his father. However, Barry fails to notice a few changes that have occurred as a result of his time meddling; not only is his Flash suit different, but so is the Batsuit, and all of the world’s heroes have been altered into their God-awful “New 52” forms, but the extent of Barry’s actions wouldn’t be revealed for some time and, for all intents and purposes, this is now the “real world”.

The Summary:
If there’s one reason to read Flashpoint, it’s the gorgeous artwork by Andy Kubert; stylistically similar to Jim Lee and John Romita Jr., Kubert really emphasises the kinetic energy of his characters, which is perfect for the Flash, while still balancing the many secondary characters in a way that’s bold and striking and crafting a far darker and more fearsome rendition of Batman. Each issue is accompanied by supplementary materials about this changed world, such as a world map that shows who controls which territory and where these new groups of alternative characters operate, and line art showing Kubert’s process. Sadly, though, just reading the main five issues doesn’t give you the entire story of Flashpoint; like pretty much every big Crisis and crossover event these days, Flashpoint was accompanied by four one-shots, two preludes, and no less than seven additional tie-in titles that further explored this alternative world and these far darker, less hopeful characters. I haven’t actually read any of these as I never felt compelled to explore it further as I subscribed to Thomas Wayne’s philosophy that it really doesn’t matter what happened to him, Aquaman, Hal Jordan, or any of the other characters changed by Barry’s actions as the timeline is reset at the end of the story. That and I really can’t afford to by the omnibus edition that collects all these issues, I don’t want any of the tie-ins taking up space on my shelves, and I really don’t care for the story enough to want to read any more about it.

Barry really comes across as a hypocritical, selfish asshole in this story.

This really isn’t a great story, or look, for Barry Allen. For someone like me, who grew up reading Wally West’s adventures as the Flash, it was already quite the insult to have him so readily supplanted by his predecessor, but to write a story where Barry’s so selfish that he screws up the entire timeline and, not only that, hesitates to set things right because he can’t stand to lose his mother? Yeah, that’s not a great look. And I get it; he’s grieving and in pain and not thinking rationally, but it’s especially odd that Bruce reassures him that he (as in Bruce) probably would’ve done the same thing…despite the fact that he turned down the chance to see the world and timeline reorganised in his favour in Infinite Crisis. The message seems to be that we have to sympathise with Barry but, while he’s obviously suffered a terrible loss at the hands of one of his worst enemies, it kind of seems like Geoff Johns wrote this twist simply because it’d be too predictable to have Thawne be behind the changes to the timeline. On the plus side, Barry certainly suffers for his selfishness; he’s nearly killed by the lightning bolts he attracts to himself and endures an unimaginable amount of agony from their impact, which is the least he deserves to go through. It’s interesting, though, as Barry feels morally obligated (or, perhaps, guilty enough) to help save this world and even has the gall to lecture Thomas Wayne about condemning the world to die. He even hesitates to undo his actions and is desperate to find a way to save his mother and the world at the same time, but finally being convinced to do, y’know, the right thing and prioritise the greater good and he doesn’t even do that right as it births the New 52 world.

Thomas Wayne’s violent, jaded Batman steals the show and delivers a heart-warming end to the story.

Flashpoint’s nightmare timeline is very different from the mainline DC Universe; it’s full of conflict, loss, and despair. A world constantly on the brink of war, under threat by two warring superpowered nations, and suffering without the world’s greatest superhero. This is a world where the public has lost faith in costumed heroes since they’re reluctant to stand against the forces of Atlantis and Themyscira and many of them have either been killed, maimed, or forced to make unlikely alliances and rely on subterfuge to survive and try to take a stand. However, the allure of Batman’s reputation remains as strong as ever; while Cyborg doesn’t approve of Batman’s violent methods, he knows that the Resistance will only really commit to fighting if Batman is onboard and goes out of his way to try and recruit the Dark Knight in order to spark some small sliver of hope. Thomas Wayne, naturally, steals the show here; his darker costume and demeanour show an alternative version of Batman who’s much older and far more cynical than Bruce Wayne. It’s consistently hinted that Thomas Wayne is in such a dark place that he’s not only completely given up on the world, but he also doesn’t really care whether he lives or dies. For him, nothing really matters anymore as not only was his entire world ripped away from him when he watched his son die before his eyes, but everything could be wiped out at a moment’s notice. He is compelled to help Barry, despite his cynicism, not to save his world, but to undo it entirely, fulfilling both of these goals, and really makes an impression with his surly demeanour, willingness to kill, and glowing red eyes. Sadly, despite appearing to die here and this timeline being erased, Thomas Wayne’s Batman would return later down the line and actually oppose his son as yet another dark analogue to the Caped Crusader, but I have to admit that he was one of the few highlights of this Crisis.

As if besmirching Barry’s character wasn’t enough, Flashpoint resulted in the dreadful New 52 era!

Overall, I really don’t care for this story specifically because it spelt the end for the DC Universe as I knew it and the beginning of my least favourite time in DC Comics, the New 52 run. I just didn’t understand the need to even do this and reset things in such an extreme way when Infinite Crisis had already done that not too long before this was published. As a self-contained, throwaway Flash tale that taught Barry a serious lesson about dealing with his grief, it could’ve worked; hell, even as a longer story the stretched over a few of the Flash titles and shook up the status quo for the Flash might have been more enjoyable, but it falls pretty flat as a reality-warping Crisis event because it’s a mere five issues and is lacking the expansive scope of these events. For me, it just doesn’t work since it paints Barry in such a poor light, and it feels completely pointless to dip into any of the tie-in stories since this was obviously never going to last as a timeline. I absolutely feel this could have worked much better if the Reverse-Flash had been the mastermind behind it and had cropped up a bit more in these five issues; this could’ve been a great showcase to show how depraved and twisted he is and could have presented a nightmare timeline where he’s the hero and the Flash is a villain, but he shows up far too late in the story to really make much of an impression and, despite boasting that he’s effectively immortal, is dispatched pretty easily by Batman and his trusty sword. In hindsight, now that the New 52 has finally been undone, Flashpoint isn’t as bad as it was when I first read it and was struggling to cope with all the rubbish decisions made in that era, but it’s still easily skipped over, I think. Just the idea that Barry, who lectures Thomas on how dangerous haphazard time travel can be, would make such a poor, selfish decision without thought to the consequences really doesn’t warm me to his character and, in many ways, makes him as reprehensible as Hal Jordan was back when he was Parallax. These are the actions of a misguided villain, not a sympathetic hero, and all the heart-warming letters from dead fathers and grief over lost mothers in the world can’t save this utter dreck of a story.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Are you a fan of Flashpoint? If so, what did you like about it? If you read the tie-in stories, which ones were your favourite and what did you think to this alternative timeline? Were you a fan of DC’s decision to reset their continuity again? What did you think to Barry’s decision to save his mother? Did you sympathise with him or did it paint him in a bad light? Were you a fan of Thomas Wayne’s Batman? Which Flash or speedster is your favourite? What’s your favourite Flash story? Which of DC’s infinite parallel worlds is your favourite? Feel free to sign up and share your thoughts on Flashpoint below or drop a comment on my social media.

Back Issues: Showcase #4

Dr. K13 Comments

This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper.
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Story Title: “Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt!”
Published: October 1956
Writer: Robert Kanigher
Artist: Carmine Infantino

The Background:
In 1940, writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert introduced readers to Jay Garrick, a college student granted superhuman speed after inhaling “hard water vapours”, and thus the very first superhero to use the name “The Flash” was born. The Flash not only became a charter member of the Justice Society of America but also graduated to his own solo book a year after his debut; however, All-Flash was cancelled after thirty-two issues when the onset of the Second World War saw superheroes decline in popularity. In the seven years that passed after Jay’s last publication hit comic book stands, a lot had changed; the rights to the Flash were now held by DC Comics, who set about reinventing “Golden Age” superheroes like the Flash and Alan Scott/Green Lantern. Thus, in 1956, readers of Showcase #4 were introduced to an all-new version of the Scarlet Speedster; created by writer Robert Kanigher and artist Carmine Infantino, forensic chemist Barry Allen heralded not only the “Silver Age” of comics but also the concept of the multiverse as it was later revealed that Jay existed on a parallel version of Earth. Barry quickly became one of the most popular and iconic incarnations of the Flash mantle, being a founding member of the Justice League of America and cementing his legacy after sacrificing his life in the Crisis on Infinite Earths epic (Wolfman, et al, 1985 to 1986). Although Barry’s demise lasted longer than most superhero deaths, he was eventually brought back in the ridiculously confusing Final Crisis event (Morrison, et al, 2008 to 2009) and his popularity and influence has seen him in a starring role in two live-action television shows, feature prominently in DC cartoons and videogames, and also seen him brought to life on the big screen as part of the largely disastrous DC Extended Universe.

The Review:
Our story begins with a crisis at a radar station on the East Coast; two military personnel are startled after picking up a strange object travelling faster than anything ever recorded before it sends their equipment haywire. To explain this phenomenon, the story flashes back a short time to Central City on a night when the city was ravaged by a tumultuous lightning storm. Here, in the police laboratory, we meet scientist Barry Allen, who marvels over stories of the Jay Garrick version of the Flash, who at this point exists only in comic books in a slice of metatext. As he returns to his mysterious experiment (which, apparently, requires the use of “every chemical known to science”), a bolt of lightning causes him to be doused in chemicals, leaving him wet and dazed but otherwise unharmed. Shaken, Barry leaves but is too late to hail a cab so tries to chase one down, only to find himself flying along at super speed! Believing his near-death experience has caused him to imagine things, Barry stops at a diner to catch his breath and is startled to find that he can now perceive time in slow motion, moving so fast that a clumsy waitress cannot comprehend what happened, but he still believes he’s suffering from shock so he goes home to rest. By the morning, he’s used some wonky logic to explain everything away but, when he meets Iris West for a date (receiving a talking down for his poor timekeeping), his super speed kicks in again just as a stray bullet threatens her life! Acting quickly, he tackles Iris out of harm’s way, earning him her gratitude, and finally realises that his molecular structure has been altered by the accident to turn him into the fastest man on Earth. Inspired by the adventures of Jay Garrick, Barry…somehow…crafts himself a sleek, form-fitting costume that can condense into a ring on his finger and makes his debut as the Flash to answer a burglar alarm at the city’s central bank.

After gaining superhuman speed, Barry Allen tracks down the sloth-like villain the Turtle Man.

Thanks to his superhuman speed, the Flash can effortlessly race down the sides of buildings and across town so fast that he breaks the sound barrier, thus explaining the disruption monitored at the start of the story. At the bank, The Flash finds nothing has been stolen; questioning the holdup victims, he learns that the perpetrator was “The Turtle Man”, a villain known as the slowest man on Earth, and somehow intuits that the thief left the job half finished to complete it later on. This odd logic is compounded when the Flash is easily fooled by a silhouette painted on a brick wall, like he’s Wile E. Coyote, and goes crashing through a wall while trying to apprehend the Turtle Man. Somehow, despite the fact that the Flash just appeared and no one even knows about him, Barry believes the villain is “using [his] speed […] as a weapon […] against [him]” and stays on his guard as he follows the Turtle Man’s trail through a sewer and to the river. The Turtle Man certainly lives up to his name; not only does he talk in laborious sentences, but he also chooses a rowboat for his getaway, yet he is also smart enough to boobytrap a speedboat to keep the Flash from pursing him. Thankfully, the laws of physics mean nothing to the Scarlet Speedster and he races across he water’s surface, but he’s unable to apprehend the villain because his movements only push the rowboat further away. Instead, the Flash circles the rowboat at superspeed, trapping it in a vortex and easily capturing the sloth-like crook. The cops and press are awestruck by the feat and the Flash becomes the talk of the town; even Iris swoons over the super-speedy hero completely unaware that she’s already dating the Scarlet Speedster.

The Summary:
Well, I’m not gonna lie…this was a bit of a disappointment. These older comic book tales always tend to be very brief and simplistic but I found Barry’s debut story to be particularly bland considering how colourful and versatile the Flash and his powers can be. I liked that Barry didn’t immediately realise what’d happened after the lightning strike but it takes him so long to figure out what happened that he comes across as a bit of a dunce. His misadventures do give a taste of what he’s now capable of, showing that he can accelerate to inhuman speeds, defy gravity and physics, and even perceive time differently, but it’s handled very clunkily and not in an especially engaging or entertaining way. Barry’s clothes don’t catch fire from the friction, which would’ve been a fun visual, and he’s far too quick to explain away what’s happening with weak logic. Once he does figure things out, he’s somehow able to create this amazing suit that shrinks down into a ring, something I always thought came along later in his career but isn’t even explained with a wishy-washy trope like “unstable molecules”.

An unfortunately dull story with a foolish hero and a ridiculous villain that fails to impress.

The Turtle Man isn’t exactly a visually interesting or threatening first villain, either. I get the idea of pitting the world’s slowest man against the world’s fastest man as a kind of thematic parallel but it doesn’t really work because…why the hell would the world’s slowest man pose a threat to the Flash, of all people?! And…he doesn’t. He briefly bamboozles the Flash by fleeing the crime scene, causes him to run into a wall and sink, both of which are minor inconveniences at best, and is easily apprehended without really taxing the Flash’s powers or intelligence anywhere near their limit. It feels as though this story needed a few more pages; there are other standalone Flash stories in this issue but I would’ve used the extra pages to establish the Flash in the city before he encounters the Turtle Man as the villain is…somehow…aware of the Scarlet Speedster and relishing in their conflict despite him just making his debut! In the end, it’s a kind of fun, wacky tale but a bit of an inauspicious debut for one of DC Comics’ most popular heroes; a lot of the groundwork is here and there’s some fun art showcasing the Flash’s super speed and such but it’s ultimately a bit lacklustre and too simplistic for me to be the definitive origin story for the character.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

What did you think about Barry Allen’s debut as the Flash? Were you impressed by it at the time or were you left a little fulfilled, like me? What did you think to the new Flash and how do you think he compared to Jay Garrick? Did you also find it odd that Barry took so long to figure out what was going on? What did you think to the Turtle Man and his threat to the Flash? Which Flash or speedster is your favourite and what are some of your favourite Barry Allen moments? Feel free to share your thoughts on the Flash below and be sure to check out my other Flash-related content!

Back Issues [Robin Month]: The Brave and the Bold #54

Dr. K7 Comments

In April of 1940, about a year after the debut of arguably their most popular character, Bruce Wayne/Batman, DC Comics debuted “the sensational find of [that year]”, Dick Grayson/Robin. Since then, Batman’s pixie-boots-wearing partner has changed outfits and a number of different characters have assumed the mantle as the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin have become an iconic staple of DC Comics. Considering my fondness for the character and those who assumed the mantle over the years, what better way to celebrate this dynamic debut than to dedicate every Thursday of April to celebrating the character?

Story Title: “The Thousand-and-One Dooms of Mr. Twister”
Published: July 1964
Writer: Bob Haney
Artist: Bruno Premiani

The Background:
All Star Comics (1940/1941) brought together the Justice Society of America (JSA) for the first time, birthing the first ever superhero team in comics. While the JSA’s roster expanded and changed over the years, they were rebranded entirely in the late 1950s when editor Julius Schwartz tasked writer Gardner Fox with breathing new life into the team as the Justice League of America (JLA). The JLA brought together eight of DC’s heavy-hitters and their origin issue became one of DC Comic’s best-selling titles; a mere four years later, DC would assemble a new team, one that specifically targeted their younger readers by bringing together the sidekicks of three DC Comics’ most powerful superheroes. Under the leadership of Dick Grayson/Robin, the trio would later be expanded considerable and come to be known as the Teen Titans, with runs by the likes of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez being notably influential, and the team has seen success in both animated and live-action ventures.

The Review:
Our story begins in the town hall of Hatton Corners, where an “unusual” public meeting is taking place; specifically, Mayor Corliss is leading the charge against the disruptive and workshy youth of the day by calling for a curfew to help solve the town’s teenage problem. At the same time, in a dilapidated barn across town, the Mayor’s son, Eddie, is rallying the town’s teenagers, threatening that they’ll go “on strike” if they don’t get their new clubhouse, and both mobs are vehemently against the other. Robin, colourful partner and ward to Bruce Wayne/Batman, is on the side of Hatton Corners’ youths; while the Batman believes that the kids are acting like spoiled brats, Robin believes the kids’ voices need to be heard and accepts their invitation to join the Hatton Corners Teen Club (with Batman’s permission, in an amusing bit of irony). Barry Allen/The Flash is equally disturbed by the teenagers’ unruly attitude but his young partner, Wally West/Kid Flash, believes that adults have forgotten what it’s like to be a teenager and also agrees to join the club (again, with his mentor’s permission). The Hatton Corners Teen Club is so adamant about recruiting teenage heroes to their cause that they’re even able to extend an invitation (via an eel carrying a note in a bottle…) to Gar/Aqualad at the bottom of the ocean! Although Arthur Curry/Aquaman believes that kids shouldn’t dispute with their elders and warns Aqualad that he can’t survive out of the water for longer than an hour, he also allows his youthful companion to attend, and the three arrive at the club astonished not only to see each other there but also to find the barn demolished and deserted.

Mr. Twister kidnaps the rebellious youths of Hatton Corners and delivers a bizarre threat.

The trio go to Mayor Corliss for answers and he shows them a note form Eddie that reveals he and his fellow “cats” decided to “skip” until the adults “get hip” and build them a new clubhouse. While the Mayor and the town’s other adults believe it’s a ruse to get attention, Robin believes the note is phony since it didn’t use a more appropriate word for “music” (like “jive”); realising that the town’s elders won’t be of any help, the Boy Wonder takes charge and tasks Kid Flash with scouting around the area and Aqualand with checking out the surrounding waters for any sign of a clue. Robin stays in town and is thus on hand to help get the townsfolk to safety when a twister suddenly comes barrelling into Hatton Corners; despite his best efforts to resist the wind, Robin is tossed into the tornado and faces certain death courtesy of Bromwell Stikk/Mister Twister. Thankfully, Kid Flash is able to use his incredible speed to brave the winds and bring Robin to safety, but the young speedster is knocked for a loop when he tries to confront Mr. Twister and gets a blast from his odd staff. Mr. Twister takes credit for the missing children and threatens Mayor Corliss that the youths won’t be returned unless he bows to his demands; in the unspecified amount of time that follows, the townsfolk express regret at how quiet and lifeless it is without the kids, much to the trio’s disgust (though we never see the reactions from any parents except for the Mayor, who seems more bothered about Mr. Twister’s return than the loss of his son).

Mr. Twister’s threat to the kids is all-too-real, necessitating the intervention of Kid Flash.

Mayor Corliss sheds some light on what Mr. twister’s beef is; back in colonial days, Bromwell’s ancestor, Jacob, allowed settlers to build Hatton Corners on his land in return for him and his descendants being paid one passenger feather a year or forfeit one of their youths. Since the demand was so ludicrous, the town’s founders never honoured the agreement and, when Bromwell showed up looking claim on the unpaid debt, he was laughed out of the Mayor’s office and vowed revenge. With passenger pigeons having gone extinct in the intervening years, Robin decides to do a little detective work to find the missing kids and discovers records of “unidentified flying objects” heading southwest to…Goat Island…the same night the teenagers vanished. Aqualad arranges them some transport to the island on the back of a manta ray; along the way, he and Kid Flash get into a bit of a dispute over the appeals of the sea and super speed and Kid Flash even questions Robin’s tendency to bark orders considering his lack of superpowers. Still, they arrive at the island and find the missing teens being put to work by Mr. Twister to build a massive stone tower in his honour. Although Eddie tries to fight back by…throwing a rope at their captor…his efforts are easily subdued thanks to Mr. Twister’s staff and he (as in Eddie) and his fellow teens are suddenly longing for the safety and security of their town and its adults. Mr. Twister leaves to run an errand and threatens them with punishment if his tower isn’t completed by the time he gets back; while Robin goes to uncover the source of the villain’s powers, Kid Flash uses his superspeed to build the tower in no time at all, thereby sparing the youths the wrath of their kidnapper.

Despite being touted as invincible, Mr. Twister is defeated with a ridiculous amount of ease.

Back on the mainland, Robin discovers Mr. Twister using “long lost Indian medicine” to empower his staff; when he’s discovered, Robin leaps into action, tossing sand in the villain’s face and landing an uppercut to his jaw. However, his eagerness backfires; as long as Mr. Twister is in possession of his staff, his body automatically repels any force used against it. Mr. Twister uses a tornado to dump Robin back into town with a further threat to destroy the town unless his debt is paid, but the Boy Wonder is clueless how they can meet the villain’s demands or oppose the power of his staff. Jealous of the adulation Kid Flash receives from the town’s kids, Aqualand returns to the ocean to revitalise his strength and discovers that Goat Island is…somehow…held aloft by an extremely narrow piece of earth under the sea. Using his command over marine life, Aqualad has a bunch of whales literally transport the island out of Mr. Twister’s grasp, bamboozling the villain and earning him the admiration of the kids. Although the teenagers are safely returned to town, Mr. Twister makes good on his threat by conjuring a cloud of dust to bury the town; however, Kid Flash is easily able to disperse it with his superspeed. When Mr. Twister tries to flood the town in torrential rain, Aqualad is able to drain the water by commanding a narwhal to bore a hole into the ground but, when the villain rains literal fire upon the town, Kid Flash and Aqualad are incapacitated by bolts from his staff and the town is slowly consumed by fire (…despite the fact it was just half-submerged under water). Robin pulls his friends to safety and hops into a fire engine; he climbs up the fire ladder and is able to disarm the villain with a ridiculous amount of ease simply by tossing his Bat-Rope and because Mr. Twister was apparently unable to get a clean shot…even though he hit Kid Flash mere moments earlier! Anyway, Mr. Twister is depowered and apprehended, the trio put out the fire, the adults agree to build the teenagers their clubhouse, and everyone celebrates their newfound appreciation of each other.

The Summary:
Holy God! I was expecting this to be pretty bad but, somehow, the first team-up of the proto-Teen Titans managed to exceed my wildest dreams. I’ve said many times how much I dislike the dialogue and characterisations of teenagers and women of this era of comics, so it’s no surprise that I wasn’t best impressed by all the lame attempts to be “cool” by shoehorning in language and anti-adult attitudes all over the story. I liked that the story kind of acknowledged this when Robin noticed the note was clearly written by an adult; it’s ironic as this story, and all other teenage characters, was written by adults trying to capture the speech and beliefs of the younger generation and it just comes across as awkward and out of touch. The whole “teenagers against adults” thing is pretty overplayed throughout comics, especially in the pages of Teen Titans and its successors, but it’s paper thin here; we’re never seen what the Hatton Corners teenagers do that’s deserving of a curfew and the kids only rally against the adults because they won’t build them a clubhouse. There’s no discussion about the relationship between Mayor Corliss and Eddie, no reaction from any parents, and the kids immediately start praising the ground the adults walk on when they’re forced into slavery by Mr. Twister.

Although portrayed as a threat, Mr. Twister’s motives are paper thin and he’s easily defeated.

Speaking of whom…what the fuck is this villain? He’s the descendant of some landowner who made a bonkers agreement that was immediately welched on and yet he somehow stumbled upon some poorly defined “Indian” magic to empower his staff and gain control of the elements. I mean, I’ve seen some pretty wacky villains in comics in my time, but Mr. Twister takes the cake! He’s literally willing to kidnap a whole bunch of kids, force them to build him a monument, and destroy the entire town, killing all of its inhabitants, unless he’s given a bunch of feathers! He makes the pompous Mayor Corliss look reasonable by that measurement, but the worst part is that he’s portrayed as a credible threat! And that’s a really weird thing for me to complain about as I’m normally bemoaning the fact that the villains of these team-ups aren’t enough of a threat, but Mr. Twister makes mincemeat of both Kid Flash and Aqualad with his staff’s power and could’ve easily killed Robin when he had him unconscious but chose not to for no bloody reason! And yet, despite his vast power, the heroes have to triumph so the story pulls some of the most ludicrous explanations out of its ass to facilitate that; Goat Island is held aloft by a thin perch of earth? A goddamn narwhal? And the fact that Mr. Twister can “kayo” the two superpowered teens but can’t hit Robin because he’s climbing a ladder?!

Thanks to Kid Flash and Aqualad’s bickering, it’s easy for Robin to stand out and take charge.

The whole story is just a complete mess of a fever dream. The three teenage heroes are brought together in the most contrived way possible and, for all their high and mighty talk of the troubles of the youth moment, only go to Hatton Corners when their mentors give them the go-ahead! The dynamic between the three isn’t very developed, but there’s definitely potential here; the rivalry between Kid Flash and Aqualad doesn’t get a lot of play but it was kind of fun seeing them out-doing each other to impress the girls and bickering about their respective powers. If there’s a standout of this story, it’s Robin; he takes command of the three easily and naturally and they listen to him without question (save for one inconsequential remark from Kid Flash). As the far more logical and level-headed of the three, it’s fitting that Robin discovers where the kids have been taken and the source of Mr. Twisters power, and the remarks about his lack of superpowers mean he was obviously going to be the one to topple the villain…I just wish it had been in a more impressive fashion. In the end, “The Thousand-and-One Dooms of Mr. Twister” is indicative of the storytelling of its era; it might seem unfair to hold that against it, but I’m going to. There are certainly far better Teen Titans origin tales out there and you’re really not missing all that much if you skip this one unless you’re a big fan of outdated slang, outmoded opinions on both age groups, and nonsensical storytelling.

My Rating:

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Terrible

Have you ever read “The Thousand-and-One Dooms of Mr. Twister”? If so, what did you think to it? Do you own a copy of the original comic or do you remember reading it when it was first published? What did you think to the first team-up of Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad? Were you also put off by the outdated slang and attitudes or did you enjoy these aspects? What did you think to Mr. Twister, his motivations and powers, and the way he was defeated? What are some of your favourite Teen Titans stories? Whatever your thoughts on the Teen Titans, and Robin, drop a comment down below and check back next Thursday for more Robin content.

Game Corner [Crossover Crisis]: Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (Xbox 360)

Dr. K6 Comments

In April 1985, the first issue of the ground-breaking Crisis on Infinite Earths (Wolfman, et al, 1986) released and saw the temporary destruction of the “Multiverse”. To celebrate this momentous event, I’m discussing multiversal crossovers all throughout April in an event I dubbed “Crossover Crisis”.

Released: 16 November 2008
Developer: Midway Games
Also Available For: PlayStation 3

The Background:
Mortal Kombat (Midway, 1992) stood out from the competition at the time with its focus on gore and violence and unique digitised graphics; the game was a massive success for Midway and the first real competition for Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Capcom, 1991) in arcades and on home consoles. However, while the franchise went from strength to strength during the 2D era of gaming, Mortal Kombat struggled to find a footing in the emerging 3D fighter arena, leading to the developers desperately trying to be innovative and appealing in an increasingly competitive business. Since Capcom had seen some success with crossovers with Marvel Comics and other fighting game developers, Mortal Kombat co-developer Ed Boon scrapped plans for a back-to-basics reboot of his violent fighting series in favour of a crossover with DC Comics. While incorporating popular DC characters like Bruce Wayne/Batman and Clark Kent/Superman had the potential to broaden Mortal Kombat’s mainstream appeal, the license carried many restrictions for the developers; Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe was hampered by a “Teen” rating, which substantially neutered the series’ trademark violence. This, as much as anything, greatly contributed to the game’s mediocre reception; while some found the title surprisingly enjoyable, despite its bonkers premise, others found the gameplay and variety frustratingly tedious. Although the game received a “Kollector’s Edition” release, this was Midway Games’ last project before they went bankrupt and plans for downloadable content were subsequently scrapped. Thankfully, this wasn’t the final nail in the coffin for the franchise; the association with DC’ s parent company, Warner Bros, saw Midway being purchased by Warner and restructured into NetherRealm Studios, and the ultra violent was not only soon back on track but the new studio also eventually found success with the DC license in a separate series of fighting games.

The Plot:
After Raiden and Superman repel invasions from both their worlds simultaneously in their separate universes, villains, Shao Kahn and Darkseid are unexpectedly merged into “Dark Kahn” and the two universes to begin merging, with catastrophic events. With characters from both universes wildly fluctuating in power, representatives from both worlds come together to stop the merger by any means necessary.

Gameplay:
Mirroring the style and presentation of its mainline series, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is a 2.5D fighting game in which players pick from a roster initially comprised of twenty fighters of iconic characters from both franchise’s and battle through the game’s single-player story mode, fight one-on-one against another player or computer-controlled opponent, battle their way through an arcade ladder, or take on a series of increasingly difficult combo challenges. By default, fights take place in a best-of-three format and against a time limit but you can alter these settings (and many others, including the game’s difficulty and the use of blood) in the game’s main options menu to speed up gameplay or make it more accessible to you. Rather than employing different fighting styles and weapon combat like its predecessors, or properly incorporate different variations like in the later games, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe takes a very barebones approach to combat and gameplay options: controls are fully customisable but, by default, you can throw with X or Y, kicks with A or B, toss them aside with a generic throw with Left Bumper, block incoming attacks by holding the Right Trigger, dash towards (but not away from) your opponent, jump in or crouch down to attack or avoid incoming attacks, and string together combos by quickly pressing the attack buttons alongside directional inputs. The game includes a practice mode to help you get to grips with this, and a “Kombo Challenge” feature that helps you practice the game’s tricky combo system, but you can bring up your fighter’s moves at any time by pausing the game. It has to be said that combat is quite a hurdle here; you’ll sometimes jump or dash when you don’t mean to, even when using the directional pad, jumping punches can be very floaty and often miss, and the game seems weighted in the CPU’s favour even when playing on the easiest setting as they have no difficulty pulling off some of the ridiculous combos on offer here.

Unleash your Rage, pummel opponents in Free-Fall, or smash them through walls.

Each fighter can pull off a number of unique special moves with simple button and directional inputs (back, back, X, for example, or left, down, B); while these can be stringed together with combos, they can’t be enhanced like in subsequent games as your “Rage Meter” only allows you to pull of the ever-annoying breakers to interrupt combos and attacks when filled to the first tier and activate the game’s “Rage Mode” by pressing RT and LT at the same time. This will put you into “Rage” mode, which powers up your attacks and coats you in a glowing armour that weakens the damage you receive, shrugs off projectiles, and keeps you from being stunned or knocked over. This doesn’t last for very long but it can easily make short work of your opponent, and activating it will even see you unleash a burst of energy that knocks your foe away, so properly timing the burning of your Rage Meter can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The game also features a few unique gameplay mechanics: if you grab your opponent with the Right Bumper , you’ll activate “Klose Combat” mode, which sees you pummelling or breaking your opponent’s limbs with successive presses of the face buttons. They (and you) can counter these attacks by pressing the right button at the right time, and these quasi-quick-time events (QTEs) also crop up in the “Free-Fall Kombat” and stage transition moments. In some stages, you can send your opponent plummeting down to a new part of the arena; while in free fall, you can mash different face buttons to deal damage and finish them off with RB, but they’ll turn the tide against you if they hit the right buttons. Similarly, some stages allow you to charge your opponent through a way, whereupon you’re asked to “Test Your Might!” in a tug-of-way style button mashing sequence that inflicts more damage the more of the bar you manage to fill. These mechanics can be fun ways to spice up the somewhat lacklustre in-game combat and definitely open up the otherwise bland and empty arenas a bit more since you can literally smash your opponent to new areas, but they’re a far cry from the stage transitions seen in the Injustice series (NetherRealm Studios, 2013 to present).

While you can get up close and personal with foes, the dull finishing moves will leave you disappointed.

Sadly, that’s about it for in-game options; some stages very destructible elements you can smash into, and all of the game’s characters sport special moves befitting of them (Sub-Zero’s ice blast, for example, and Bruce Wayne/Batman’s Batarangs) but, since the game is hampered by a lower rating, there is very little blood and none of the gore you’d expect from a Mortal Kombat. That’s not to say that Fatalities aren’t present, however, they’re just…what’s the word..?…oh yes! Shit. Unlike in subsequent games, you can’t view your character’s finisher inputs from the pause screen, which makes finishing your opponent a real chore, but very few of these moves are even worth your time pulling off. All of the Mortal Kombat characters can execute two Fatalities that will see them murder their opponent in the most PG way imaginable; while some leave the opponent an exceptionally dry and clean skeleton, most boil down to you simply stabbing, shooting, or crushing them with very little bloodshed. The more morally pure DC superheroes will opt to finish their opponent with one of two “Heroic Brutalities”, though many of these would no doubt leave the foe severely crippled or dead since we see the likes of Clark Kent/Superman driving them into the ground and Barry Allen/The Flash pummelling them at superspeed. Unlike in previous (and subsequent) Mortal Kombat videogames, there are no mini games to distract you and is no in-game currency to earn, no player profile or fighter card to customise, and no Krypt to explore to send your coins. There aren’t even alternate skins for the fighters beyond a very minor palette swap when choosing the same character, and the best the game offers is allowing you to view bios, character models, and endings in the “Extras” menu, all of which makes for a very stripped down title even compared to its predecessor, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (Midway Games, 2006).

While there’s not much to the arcade mode, the story mode is decent enough, if limited and tedious.

This also means that there are no challenge towers or option combat modes like “Test Your Luck” or tag-team combat to spice up multi-player gameplay; you can play locally or online (well, I assume you can’t do this latter any more) in ranked and “King of the Hill” style matches but the arcade ladder is a standard, ten-fight challenge where the extent of the game’s variety is offering you the choice between facing all Mortal Kombat or all DC Universe opponents or a mixture of the two. Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe does, however, feature a single-player story mode but, strangely, it only allows you to play as up to eight characters from either side. After picking either the Mortal Kombat or DC Universe story, you’ll take control of a specific character and battle anywhere from three to five opponents as part of the campaign. This remains a great way to familiarise players with the vast majority of the game’s fighters and their unique combos and special moves, but you cannot perform finishing moves when playing the story mode. Although you can’t skip any of the cutscenes, or jump to specific chapters and fights after completion, you can save and quit…which is definitely something, though the game’s difficulty can become frustrating as the computer-controlled characters love to block your attacks, uppercut you out of nowhere, and jump-kick you out of the air, and can seemingly juggle you in an inescapable combo at will! Unlike in later NetherRealm Studios games, the story mode is as basic as it gets; the only time it actually tries anything remotely different is during Major Jackson “Jax” Briggs’ chapter as you’re forced to battle Diana Prince/Wonder Woman without your machine gun, which means you’re robbed of on of your ranged attacks. If you’re defeated, you have ten in-game seconds to choose between continuing and quitting, which is true of the arcade and two-player bouts as well. Unfortunately, winning or losing in two-player mode simply dumps you back to the fighter select screen and, as far as I could tell, there isn’t even a way to select your stage let alone input Kombat Kodes or activate anything interesting to make the fights less of a chore.

Graphics and Sound:
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe looks pretty good, for the most part; the character models are very similar to those seen in Mortal Kombat (NetherRealm Studios, 2011), meaning they hold up about as well, but some suffer more than others. Women, for example, look particularly off; sure, it’s great seeing Selina Kyle/Catwoman’s amply cleavage and Lieutenant Sonya Blade’s nipples poking through her top, but they’re all impossibly sexualised and their hair is very blocky and static. Unlike later NetherRealm Studios offerings, character’s don’t have unique intros or dialogue with each other before a fight; the camera simply pans the arena and zooms in to find the combatants ready to go and, while they do have little animations between rounds, these don’t seem particularly unique to any fighter. Post-fight animations are a little more unique, but there’s a definite lack of variety and character in each fighter which reminds me of the cut-and-paste job seen in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (with the exception of the Joker, who dances and prances all over the place at every opportunity). On the plus side, characters do take battle damage; you’ll see their clothes rip, blood and bruises form on skin, and even uncover Scorpion’s skull as inflict damage on your opponent, which is fun, but the lack of any alternate attires or skins is a major tick in the “Con” column for this barebones title.

Stages are quite bland, but character models and cutscenes are okay, save for the poor endings.

There are some other notable little details on offer, however; when you toss Kano’s dagger at an opponent, it’ll stay stuck in their chest for a bit, you can sheath and unsheathe Baraka’s arm-claws with a press of B, you’ll see Sub-Zero’s icy breath, and there’s even a reference to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Meyer, 1982) thrown in for good measure. Another thing in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe’s favour, however, is that the CGI cutscenes are basically indistinguishable from the in-fight graphics; while the character models might be a little less detailed than in later games and have that action figure sheen that is common in this generation of games, it’s still impressive that there’s little distinction between the two, though the voice acting leaves a lot to be desired (the DC Animated Universe this is not!) and there’s very little to inspire you in the soundtrack, either. Similarly, stages are quite a let-down; the majority of them have this half-and-half theme going on where the DC Universe is split or merging with that of Outworld, NetherRealm, or Earthrealm but, even with that, there’s hardly anything to see or do and the stages are disappointingly bland and empty considering how big they are and the fat that you can navigate them in a 3D space. The likes of Oa, Themyscira, and the Fortress of Solitude probably stand out the most and have a few things to see in the background, but there’s a distinct and disappointing lack of Easter Eggs and visually interesting stages. Probably the most interesting one is the asteroid stage that sees you transitioning above and below thanks to the messed up gravity, but the game continues to bug me with presenting all these passable CGI cutscenes and relegating the arcade mode endings to a series of still pictures with narration.

Enemies and Bosses:
Since this is a fighting game, every character will inevitably be your enemy at some point so it can be useful to get an idea of what each one is capable of by playing through the story mode and completing their arcade ladders. However, there isn’t really too much to distinguish each character; you’ think the Flash would be faster and slippery to control compared to Liu Kang but he really isn’t and, while Jax and Billy Batson/Captain Marvel may utilise powerful grabs, they don’t feel any slower than someone like Kano or Hal Jordan/Green Lantern. Every character has a few simple combos that it’s best to learn so you can leap in, mash X three times or X, X, Y and then hit a special move or a throw to deal some decent damage, and they’re obviously made a bit more unique by their individual special moves. Characters will invariably have a projectile or some kind of range attack, a rush or grapple of some kind, and sometimes even disorientating gadgets like flash or smoke grenades. Some have more special moves on offer than others; Shang Tsung, for example, can toss flaming skulls across the screen and from above, suck his opponent’s health to fill his own, swap places (but not bodies) with them, and pull off a slide while other characters, like Batman, Sub-Zero, and the Joker, have parry moves in their arsenal that can interrupt attacks. Some characters are also a little more versatile than others; Superman can suck enemies in for a big punch, rush at them and smack them out of the air, fry them with his heat vision, freeze them with his breath, and perform flying attacks while Lex Luthor relies on his mech suit to fire missiles and blast away from danger. It’s when playing or fighting against the Mortal Kombat characters that long-time series fans will be at their most familiar: Liu Kang tosses his trademark fireballs and flying kicks, Jax grabs his foe and causes shockwaves, Kane launches himself like a cannonball, Scorpion throws his trademark spear, and Kitana uses her fans and dashes about in the air to be her usual annoying self.

Overcome the largely interchangeable fighters to chip away at the monstrous despots.

The lack of powered-up attacks, unique throws, and the generic effects of Rage Mode mean that you really don’t have to tailor your fighting style all that much against different opponents; Raiden’s abilities don’t really make him all that different from Slade Wilson/Deathstroke as both can be jumped over, ducked under, and attacked even if one has a dash and teleport and the other relies more on ranged attacks. You also won’t have to worry about any secret fighters cropping up in the arcade ladder; what you see is basically what you get but you do have to watch for characters like Sonya stringing together their multi-kick attacks in a cheap-ass combo. The exception to this comes in the form of the game’s big bad, Dark Kahn, who basically just looks like a slightly tweaked version of Blaze from Mortal Kombat: Armageddon and fights with a combination of moves from Shao Kahn and Darkseid. Dark Kahn awaits at the end of the story mode and arcade tower and is easily the biggest challenge you’ll face outside of the harder difficulties and opponents getting cheaper and more aggressive. A lumbering, monstrous foe, Dark Kahn can absorb a great deal of damage, gains armour and invincibility frames, and can drain your health bar to nothing in just a few basic swipes to say nothing of his energy barrier, shoulder charge, rising knee, and Warhammer attacks. Your best bet against him is to soften him up with ranged attacks and projectiles and stay moving; hop in, land a combo, and follow it up with a jump kick and then back away to avoid him stringing together his devastating moves in an inescapable barrage. The same is true of Shao Kahn and Darkseid, who act as sub-bosses in the arcade ladder; individually, they’re almost as formidable as their merged form, with both able to stun you with their hammer, fry you with their eye lasers, and smash you into the ground with a leaping attack. While you can’t play as Dark Kahn or perform your finishing moves on him, you can perform your finishing moves against Shao Kahn and Darkseid but, while both of these characters are unlocked after finishing the story mode (and, confusingly, pressing RB on the character select screen rather than adding them to the roster), neither of them have Fatalities of their own. Ultimately, while these three aren’t as impossible or as cheap as other Mortal Kombat bosses and sub-bosses, none of them really challenge your combat skills beyond relying on hit-and-run and spam tactics much like the previous two Mortal Kombat videogames that just ended with this hulking beast that could wreck you if given a chance rather than something that actually requires a bit more skill.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
There’s absolutely nothing on offer in this regard in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe beyond the individual character’s special moves; this game is severely lacking even for a one-on-one fighter as there are no codes or options to spice up gameplay, no weapons to grab, barely anything to interact with in stages, and characters don’t even get buffs or anything with their special moves the closest they get is teleporting, surrounding themselves in a damaging aura for a bit, or tossing bombs or grenades either close, mid-range, or far away.

Additional Features:
There are fifty Achievements on offer in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe; many of these are obtained simply by playing through the story mode, with Achievements popping after certain chapters and completing each (and both) stories. Simpler ones are acquired by performing a ten-hit combat, initiating Klose- and Free-Fall Kombat, and performing one Fatality or Heroic Brutality. Things get a little more complicated and frustrating when you try to perform all of these moments as a handful of them require you to press up, which makes you jump and interrupts the sequence, and in trying to get the 5G Achievements from completing each character’s Kombo Challenge otherwise, you’ll get Achievements for finishing the arcade ladder with all characters and competing in online fights, which are probably impossible to get these days. These involved standard fare that you might expect, as mentioned, and you can fight locally, but beyond unlocking every character’s ending and trying to finish their Kombo Challenges, there really isn’t anything else on offer here once you’ve finished the story mode and a few arcade ladders. There’s no concept art, character models, or extras to unlock, no gear or skins or arenas to unlock, and no downloadable fighters on offer, making for an extremely barebones and lacklustre fighting title that struggles to compete against others in the genre or even its predecessors.

The Summary:  
There was a lot of promise in the concept of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe; after the success that Capcom had with their ventures with Marvel Comics, this could’ve been a great springboard to a more mainstream audience. Sadly the game is let-down at almost every turn: everything from the music to the visuals and the depths of the combat is just lacking, to say nothing of the additional features and options for replayability. It’s interesting revisiting this after playing Mortal Kombat ’11 since that game was supposed to be the franchise’s back-to-basics approach but it’s hard to get more barebones than Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Even some of the 2D games had little extras, mini games or cheats or options to tweak the gameplay, but there’s absolutely nothing here, not even alternate skins for the fighters! The story mode is okay; it’s a paper thin excuse to mash these worlds together but it works, but I have no idea why it’s not a twenty-chapter mode that lets you play as each character from both sides. I’m actually a bit lenient on the lacklustre finishing moves; I get that the game couldn’t show spines being ripped out and flash being melted, but I think a little more effort could’ve gone into these and I really don’t like the term “Heroic Brutality”. The Free-Fall Kombat, Klose Kombat, and stage transitions are somewhat interesting, but the stages are so bland and empty that they’re completely wasted here. similarly, the lack of individuality to these colourful characters and the generic nature of their special moves and the Rage Mode really make this probably the most mediocre game in the entire franchise. Ultimately, this feels like a rushed, budget title that was hampered by pressing deadlines and financial pressure and a complete waste of the DC license. If you can get it cheap, give it a try and nab some easy Achievements, but otherwise you’re better off playing NetherRealm’s later games as this is just such a throwaway disappointment of a game.

My Rating:

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Terrible

What did you think to Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe? Were you disappointed by its use of the DC license? What were your thoughts on the game’s story and its depiction of these worlds merging? Which of the game’s fighters was your favourite and why? What did you think to the Free-Fall and Klose Kombat features? Were you disappointed by the lack of special features and the Rage Mode mechanic? Which characters or features would you have liked to see added to the game? Which Mortal Kombat and/or DC Comics videogame, movie, comic, or other piece of media is your favourite? Are you a fan of multiverse stories and crossovers? Whatever you think about Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, eave a comment down below and be sure to check back in next Tuesday for more Crossover Crisis content!

Game Corner [JLA Day]: Justice League Heroes (PlayStation 2)

Dr. KLeave a comment

To celebrate the release of Justice League (Snyder/Whedon, 2017), DC Comics named November 18 “Justice League Day”. Setting aside all the drama surrounding that movie, this provides a perfect excuse to spotlight DC’s premier superhero team, which set the standard for super teams in comics by bringing together DC’s most powerful heroes.

Released: 22 November 2006
Developer: Snowblind Studios
Also Available For: Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, and Xbox

The Background:
After coming together in November 1959, the Justice League of America (JLA) quickly became one of DC Comic’s best-selling titles. This shouldn’t be entirely surprising considering the team came to be comprised of DC’s most popular characters: Clark Kent/Superman, Bruce Wayne/Batman, Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, Hal Jordan/Green Lantern, Arthur Curry/Aquaman, Barry Allan/The Flash, and J’onn J’onzz (also known as “John Jones”)/Martian Manhunter. The team saw many members come and go over the years but was a constant staple of DC’s library of comic books and soon expanded into other media. Interestingly, the Justice League’s success hasn’t always resulted in the best videogames, though, meaning developers Snowblind Studios faced a bit of an uphill battle right from the start when creating Justice League Heroes. Built out of a modified engine of their critically acclaimed title Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance (ibid, 2001), the developers ending up removing features from that game and engine to focus on extending the length of Justice League Heroes, which has more than a few similarities to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (Raven Software/Barking Lizards Technologies, 2006), which released about a month earlier. Reviews of the game were mixed across platforms, though, and the game was generally regarded as a bit of a mediocre and mindless beat-‘em-up.

The Plot:
The Earth is under attack from the robot forces of Brainiac, who has coerced many of the world’s most notorious supervillains into helping him consolidate the power afforded to him by a mysterious box from the stars. In response, the world’s greatest heroes, the Justice League, leap into action and team up to oppose Brainiac’s plot in a globe-trotting adventure that requires all of their individual abilities and skills.

Gameplay:
Justice League Heroes is a top-down action brawler in which you (and either another player or a computer-controlled partner) battle through a number of recognisable locations from the DC universe as various members of the Justice League. The game’s story is split into a number of missions that see two members of the Justice League teaming up at any one time; a second, human player can join the game at any point from the pause menu, a solo player can freely switch between the two heroes at will by pressing up on the directional pad (D-pad), and you’ll also be tasked with assembling one or more custom teams of two characters later in the story but you’ll never get the opportunity to switch out characters completely or replay missions with different characters. Gameplay in Justice League Heroes revolves almost entirely around beating up endless hoards of robots and aliens and solving some very light puzzles; characters can jump with a press of the Triangle button (and double jump or fly/glide with subsequent presses depending on who you’re playing as), attack with strong and fast attacks with Circle and X, respectively, and can grab enemies or objects with Square and block incoming attacks by holding R1. By entering different button presses (X, X, O, for example), players can pull off simple combo attacks to take out enemies but there are, sadly, no team up attacks to be found here.

The Justice League’s various superpowers are at your disposal and can be upgraded to be more effective.

While every character controls the same except for their ability to fly or glide, each one is made slightly different from the other through their individual superpowers. By pressing L1 and either Triangle, Square, Circle, or X, players can pull off their character’s signature super moves as long as they have enough energy stored up. This allows you to blast enemies with Superman’s heat vision, for example, or turn them into rabbits with Zatanna Zatara’s magic, or smash them with John Stewart/Green Lantern’s massive sledgehammer. Pressing L1 and R1 will see each character (with some exceptions) pull off a more powerful  super special attack which, again, varies per character; Superman, for example, will become stronger while Batman unleashes a swarm of bats to damage foes and Martian Manhunter briefly becomes intangible and invisible. They’re all pretty useful and different enough in their own way, with most characters having a projectile of some sort, a move to boost their attack or speed, or being able to stun or otherwise incapacitate enemies and you’ll sometimes (very rarely) need to use a specific character’s superpowers to bypass obstacles in order to progress. When playing alone, you can also issue simple commands to your partner using the D-pad; this allows you to increase the aggressiveness of their attack or have them focus on defence, which can be useful when teamed with Zatanna as she’s able to heal all team members.

Rescue civilians, activate consoles, and destroy targets to progress amidst the mindless brawling.

Overall, I found the computer to be surprisingly useful and competent; if your partner gets downed, however, you’ll have to rush in to revive them but the game automatically revives any downed characters when you reach one of its numerous checkpoints and enemies will often drop health-restoring orbs to keep you ticking over. Furthermore, if you’re able to attack enemies without taking damage, you’ll build up your “Heroic Meter”, which will increase your damage output until you get hit, and you can alter the difficulty of the game and its enemies by selecting different difficulty settings from the main menu. Despite the game being extremely linear, the developers included a helpful mini map, which you can expand by pressing in the right analogue stick. This isn’t always necessary but, as many of the environments are rather drab, grey, similar, and somewhat labyrinthine at times, it’s a welcome addition to keep you on track even during the game’s shorter and more straightforward missions. Unfortunately, the top-down view can be rather restrictive at times; many areas are filled with debris or obstructions and it always seems like you can only see just enough of the area, which can lead to enemies catching you off guard or hiding behind parts of the environment with no way to see them as they don’t show up on the map. It’s not all mindless brawling, either; occasionally, you’ll be tasked with rescuing a number of civilians or hostages, faced with a time limit, or directed to activate consoles to lower barriers in order to progress. As alluded to earlier, these very rarely require you to use the Flash’s superspeed or the Martian Manhunter’s intangibility to get past obstacles and stop fans, lower energy barriers, or deactivate Kryptonite hazards so that you can progress further. Sometimes you’ll also need to destroy a wall or use a character’s flight to progress across rooftops and, in the final portion of the game, you’ll not only have to protect Superman as he smashes through Darkseid’s fortress but you’ll also be faced with an extremely frustrating and confusing teleport puzzle that was the only time I had to actively look up a solution online.

Graphics and Sound:
Thanks to its zoomed out, top-down perspective, Justice League Heroes is, largely, able to get away with hiding any inconsistencies and defects in its in-game character models. Since you never really see your characters up close, the developers can have them talk and drop hints and quips without really needing to animate their mouths and the simple beat-‘em-up action of the game means that characters just need to look somewhat decent when they throw punches, grab cars, or blast out energy beams. And, for the most part, they do; there’s some neat little touches here and there (like Martian Manhunter being able to transform into his true, more monstrous form and the Flash being accompanied by a speed force double and lightning) and characters are always talking so you know when you need to drop or combine Boosts or have a vague idea of how the story is progressing.

Sadly, the game’s environments and enemies tend to be quite dark, bland, and boring.

Sadly, enemies and environments don’t always live up to the colourful and eye-catching depiction of the titular Justice League. It takes a long time for you to battle anything other than Brainiac’s generic robots or explore areas beyond the wrecked streets of Metropolis or the cold, grey corridors of Scientific and Technological Advanced Research Laboratories (S.T.A.R. Labs) and the like. Eventually, though, you do venture into more visually unique environments like the subways, a honeycomb and sap-encrusted hive, the ruins of J’onn’s civilisation on Mars, Gorilla City, a Lovecraftian dimension populated by strange rock creatures and living tentacles, and a version of Apokolips created on Earth but there’s very little variety offered in terms of the enemies or puzzles and hazards you face as you progress. No matter where you are, it’s the same thing every time: defeat all enemies, maybe activate a console, and reach the end of the stage.

Even Ron Perlman can’t salvage the blurry, rubbery graphics of the game’s cinematics.

The bulk of the game’s story (which is about as generic as you can get for a Justice League videogame) is conveyed through CG cutscenes featuring the traditional rubbery-looking graphics you’d expect from a PlayStation 2 game. I did notice some slowdown when there was a lot happening onscreen and, in terms of music and sound, the game is very unimpressive; the voice cast isn’t even the same one as in the popular Justice League animated series (2001 to 2006) and, while I love me some Ron Perlman, he just sounds bored whenever his Batman speaks (I’m also not really a fan of how often Batman is shown in broad daylight).

Enemies and Bosses:
As I’ve mentioned a bit already, you’ll wade through numerous disposable enemies in your mission to stop Brainiac and his lieutenants but none of them are particularly interesting. You’ll battle robots of varying sizes, humanoid wasps, White Martians on the surface of Mars, Gorilla Grodd’s gorilla forces, and Parademons but, once you’ve fought one lot of enemies, you’ve fought them all as they all feature regular foot soldiers who shoot at you and both flying and bigger variants that can take a bit more punishment. Honestly, the only enemies I even remotely found interesting were the weird crab and toad-like enemies you face later in the game and the instances where you battle Brainiac’s skull robots and failed clones of Doomsday because they at least looked a little different.

Many of the game’s bosses require you to fend off minions or destroy or activate consoles to attack them.

Before you can defeat Brainiac, you’ll have to battle a number of bosses; some of these are simply bigger, more dangerous versions of enemies you’ve already fought or Brainiac’s more deadly robots and duplicates. You’ll battle a Brainiac duplicate in S.T.A.R. Labs, for example, but this fight isn’t just about throwing punches. Instead, you have to activate consoles to lower barriers and rescue the scientists against a time limit all while “Brainiac” fires lasers and energy blasts at you. You’ll also encounter some of the more obscure villains from DC Comics’ gallery; Queen Bee has established a hive in the Metropolis subway and is transforming civilians into monstrous insect hybrids and, when you confront her in her throne room, she shields herself from your attacks and rains missiles into the arena that make the floor sticky. She’s only vulnerable when she leaves her throne but your window of opportunity to attack her is hampered somewhat by her minions, her energy blasts, and her tendency to dart across the screen like a madwoman. You’ll also butt heads with the Key, of all people. Like with Brainiac’s duplicate, you have to rescue some scientists against a time limit during this battle but the Key proves to be a particularly elusive and versatile enemy as he teleports around the place and causes hazards to blast out from his dimensional portals.

Grodd and Brainiac use their powers, technology, and minions to keep you at bay.

Similarly, when fighting Doctor Louise Lincoln/Killer Frost, you’re given one minute and forty seconds to destroy three missiles (and five seconds to get away from each before they explode) in addition to battling her and her icy minions. Killer Frost can conjure grunts, form ice shields, and blast at you with ice and icicles, all of which can make battling her quite tricky and annoying as your attentions are constantly divided. After reaching the core of a pyramid-like structure on Mars, Superman and the Martian Manhunter have to battle the White Martian leader; this guy is also accompanied by disposable White Martian grunts and you’re tasked with activating four nearby power nodes to defeat him. Things get noticeably more interesting when the Justice League splits into teams; while one team flies through the upper atmosphere destroying generators on invading spacecraft, another destroys power turbines in Gorilla City and gets into a confrontation with Gorilla Grodd. Grodd primarily uses his staff to attack and is joined not only by an inexhaustible supply of gorilla minions but also a series of energy-firing turrets so it’s probably best to try and keep your distance and stay on the move to emerge victorious in this fight. After battling their own security system in their Watchtower space station, the Justice League then faces off with a larger, more powerful Doomsday clone that, unlike pretty much every other boss in the game, boils down to a question of who can attack hardest and fastest rather than distracting you with tricks and puzzles.

Of course Darkseid turns out to be the true final boss of the game!

Eventually, you’ll breach Brainiac’s main base and be forced to battle his three robot guardians before you confront him; Brainiac is completely protected by an energy shield and is only vulnerable when he rises from his throne and only for a brief window of time. He also likes to teleport you to the far end of the arena, where you’re forced to destroy the generators that power his barriers and take out some minions just to get back up to him, so it’s more a question of patience than anything. As you might have guessed, the moment you defeat Brainiac he is immediately usurped by Darkseid, who teleports you away to a hellish dimension and then converts Earth into a new Apokolips. You’ll need to assemble two teams of four to confront Darkseid, who stomps around his throne room creating shockwaves and plumes of fire along the ground and blasting at you with his powerful Omega Beams. Being an all-powerful New God, his health also regenerates over time, meaning you’ll have to keep pummelling him again and again in order to keep him down. This was, honestly, a bit of a confusing fight; you can grab the “Apokolips Hypercube” nearby, which seems to weaken him and make him vulnerable to your attacks but I also found myself running around with it in my hands and not doing any damage to Darkseid at all and then he just suddenly succumbed to my attacks and was defeated.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
In almost every area in the game, you’ll find objects that you can grab and use as weapons; some of these are limited to the specifics of your character, though, meaning that you won’t be lifting cars over your head as, say, Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, for example. Still, you can grab post boxes and parking meters and cars and such to bash over enemy’s heads, which adds a bit of variety to the otherwise relentless combat. You can also pick up temporary power-ups throughout each environment to give yourself and your team mate a bit of a power boost so it can be worth exploring a little bit and smashing destructible objects wherever you see them.

Level-up to increase your stats power-up your attacks with Skill Points and Boosts.

The game also features some light role-playing elements; as you defeat enemies, you’ll gain experience points (EXP) and level-up once you’ve earned enough EXP. This will increase your stats and abilities but you also earn Skill Points that you can spend upgrading your character’s superpowers up to five different ranks to increase their effectiveness and duration. Additionally, enemies will also drop various “Boosts” that you can equip at any time; you can also combine Boosts together to create new, more powerful Boosts and equipping these will also boost your superpowers, increase your damage output or defence, or increase the range and duration of your attacks.

Additional Features:
Although the game is extremely linear, there are often some rewards to be found through exploration; generally, these will just be stockpiles of health, energy, or Boosts but you’ll also find be civilians in danger who need rescuing who will drop “Justice League Shields”. Shields can also be found by destroying parts of the environment and you can spend these on skins and additional characters. While you can select any of the unlockable costumes at any time, they won’t actually load until you reach the next checkpoint/area and you can only select to play as the unlocked characters when the game allows you to pick a team of your own. The skins available are quite impressive, though; while not every character gets a skin, some offer bonus boosts to your stats and there’s some fan favourites available here, like Superman’s black suit, Batman’s traditional blue and grey suit, and the Jay Garrick version of the Flash. You can also unlock the likes of Green Arrow, Aquaman (sporting his water hand), Helena Bertinelli/The Huntress, and what I assume is the Kendra Saunders version of Hawkgirl.

Unlock additional characters, costumes, and modes by finding Shields and completing the game.

You’ll notice, however, that neither Huntress, Aquaman, or Hawkgirl have an L1+R1 special move, though I’m not entirely sure why. You can also unlock Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner but, despite these two being separate characters, they control exactly the same as John Stewart, which is a little disappointing; none of the unlockable characters have alternate costumes either, which is a bit of a missed opportunity in my book. Initially, you can select from Easy, Normal, or Hard difficulties but you’ll unlock two more difficulty levels (Elite and Superhero, on which most enemies will kill you in one hit) and be given the option of starting the game over from the beginning with all of the upgrades and EXP you amassed during your run upon completing the game. Sadly, there’s no option to free play any mission with any character, no versus mode, and no option to play online or with more than one other player but there are a number of cheats that you can activate from the pause menu to give yourself invincibility, infinite energy, all upgrades, and a bunch of Shields to quickly unlock all of the game’s skins and characters.

The Summary:
Justice League Heroes isn’t going to really offer you anything you can’t get from any other mindless beat-‘em-up; the stages and enemy designs can be very bland and boring and there really isn’t much asked of you other than to mash the same buttons over and over and activate a few consoles. Still, as a fan of beat-‘em-ups and brawlers, I found Justice League Heroes to be a pretty decent way of spending an afternoon; there’s a lot of characters available to you and I like that the story mixes the teams up quite often and allows you to put together your own teams, and the game is probably even more enjoyable with a friend to play with. There could have been more options and unlockables available (such as free play mode, maybe some challenges, and a boss rush), the music and graphics can stutter a bit, and the game is awash with dark, boring, grey locations, but, as a repetitive brawler featuring the Justice League, it’s decent enough, though probably not very appealing to those that aren’t fans of the source material and characters.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Have you ever played Justice League Heroes? If so, what did you think to it? Were you disappointed by the game’s presentation, selection of villains, and the inability to freely pick characters on the go? Which of the available characters was your favourite and preferred duo? What genre do you think would work for a future Justice League videogame? What version of the Justice League is your favourite and are there any DC superheroes you’d like to see added to the team someday? How are you celebrating Justice League Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on Justice League Heroes, and the Justice League in general, feel free to drop a comment below.