Infinite Crisis #3 musings Article by aviewaskewed, 01:39 AM 27th Dec Disclaimer: The following column is entirely the opinions of the author (even at that we aren‘t sure), any similarity to the opinions of any other staff or affiliate of theendlesscrew.com is entirely coincidental and unintentional. Unless specifically noted otherwise, all creator comments have been gleaned from other sources and no creators have actually endorsed any aspect of this column. Still recovering from Christmas and stuff, not sure how good or long this will be, just wanted to pop out SOMETHING, and I had a few thoughts kicking around. So the big talk of the town is Infinite Crisis #3, the issue where we finally reveal our villains, and Batman is nearly tempted to join Old Superman’s “Return to Earth-2” movement. There’s also the revelation that Superboy of Earth-Prime and Alex Luthor of Earth-3 are our major villains, completely switching sides from where they were during the first Crisis. Immediately after reading this issue, it made me think about the general idea of heroes turning into villains. I mean, here you have, at least in the case of Alex, someone who was ALL OVER in the last Crisis series, he was a pivotal player, at first it seemed completely blasphemous to me to turn him into the big bad master of evil behind all of this stuff. Not to mention kind of cheap since I could almost see Johns in a room somewhere going “yeah, this is funny…cause he’s a friggin LUTHOR, and they should have assumed this meant evil!”, once I turned off that voice of inner cynicism, and looked over the issue again, my reaction was a bit different. See, it makes a LOT of sense to have at the least, Alex and Superboy turn evil here. Like Superboy said in this issue “we did everything right, and we got blinked out of existence”, they saved the world, and got written out of history, the only thing that saved them was Alex taking them all to a “heaven” that quickly turned into something of a prison. It’s like Dusty Rhodes once said: “A great heel (bad guy) does not necessarily have to be right in his motives, but he has to BELIEVE that he is right.”. There’s a GREAT motivation here, and yeah, ok, these guys are still jerk-offs for what they’re attempting, you can’t entirely argue that they haven’t been shafted. It’s a wonderful motivation, and it continues what has really made John’s career at DC I think, picking out the mistakes of old, and finding ways to correct them. Not to mention, since it seems like the Earth-2 Superman (the ORIGINAL Siegel and Shuster Superman for those who want to get technical about such things, and it’s possible DC may try to use this in the legal battle upcoming with the heirs of the Superman creators) has NO CLUE what his compatriots are really up to (those motivations are unclear, but the clues we’ve seen thus far point towards some sort of universal Armageddon), makes it seem like he can eventually put his “stamp of approval” on the current DCU. While we’re on that subject, I also finally got the chance to read the 4th part of the Sacrifice storyline. Wonder Woman kills Max Lord, in cold blood some say, in self-defense others say. I’m in the latter camp. Max made it clear through word and deed that he could turn Superman into a raging killing machine, unable to discern from friend or foe (he put Batman in the hospital believe the Dark Knight was Darkseid), he’d practically killed Wonder Woman, and Max was going to turn him loose for round 2. She had him in her lasso, which means he COULDN’T lie, and she asked him how to stop him, and he told her to kill him. Maybe there was another way, but the only viable solutions I could see were a mind wipe (which we know doesn’t work and stick) or sending him to jail (where he’d probably just use his Checkmate authority to get out and up the meta-human slaughter program tenfold). Wonder Woman made a split second decision, and to me? It was the right call, and I think it’s odd that we’ve all debated it so hard. Well, maybe not odd, it’s always huge when a hero kills, but I think that some of the more vehement reaction against is misplaced. This was well set-up, this was a complete justifiable homicide from where I sit, the man was a monster, he was the greatest threat the earth could know at that point, and Wonder Woman, in her capacity as a hero, extinguished that threat. It also puts a layer of complexity into her character as well, since we’ve now got an ambassador of peace, having committed a very violent act. Isn’t that what people have been bitching at DC about for years? Hasn’t the argument always been DC characters are too perfect, they don’t make hard choices? They don’t relate to you and me? If nothing else, the past couple of years have certainly put the DCU’s heroes into some tough moral choices, and I think they’ve brought these perfect beings down to our level. Granted, it’s not exactly paying bills, and all that…but honestly? I think that ship has sailed. The hero as everyman has been done, and it’s somebody else’s formula anyway. DC is certainly setting up to redefine what a hero is, and Infinite Crisis is truly feeling more and more like the payoff to that process. My inner cynic won’t let me declare this a success only 3 issues in to a 7 issue mini, but I’ve certainly got some hope. Don’t let me down now Geoff. Not much in the way of notes this week. Lots of hype, lots of sizzle, not a lot of steak. Have been reading Essential X-Factor vol. 1, and really enjoying it. There’s a lot of great layers to this series, Xavier’s students, dreaming of peaceful co-existence between mutants and humans, fanning the flames of anti-mutant sentiment by posing as mutant-hunting humans. I mean, that’s a really cool angle, and it’s not something you see in most comics these days. The only book that’s close to playing up why a “secret identity” matters so much to the individual(s) involved is Daredevil. Really great stuff, I recommend picking it up, never mind the later stuff from when this went off the rails. Also, all us Yankee fans got an early Christmas present on Friday when Johnny Damon was officially presented as the new center fielder for next year. It’ll be weird not seeing Bernie play every day, but Damon is a more then worthy replacement. Not to mention, we stuck it to Red Sox Nation, see you next year gents ; ) And on that note, I will see you in this space next year as well. I’ve really enjoyed writing for all of you this past year, our first full year of operations, and I hope you enjoyed it as well. Have a great New Year’s Eve and Day, and come on back next Monday for the first bit of my ramblings for 2006. Back to Rants