Bottom of the Pile: May 3rd, 2017
I didn't want to leave this week undone when last week's (and this week's too, probably) are going to be light on entries. It's a tad unfair, but I'm writing these with the knowledge I have of the whole month so some references are probably going to be a bit different.
The promotional interviews for Doomsday Clock lets us in on the reasoning behind this. Bruce and Barry are sent back to Flashpoint so Bruce can meet his father, who begs him not to become Batman. There probably isn't much that could weaken Bruce's resolve...but being asked to stop by the one of the people he started for in the first place would definitely be one of the things that could do it.
Ultimately, I wind up torn on The Button. I want to say it was too short but it got four whole issues--they just wasted one needlessly aping the 3x3 panel design from Watchmen, while the other two never really figured out what they wanted to do besides make Bruce regret being Batman. Hopefully though, it doesn't just come down to being about Superman during Doomsday Clock--Bruce and Diana deserve to be at the forefront just as much as he does.
A....cybernetic rat villain named Ratattack? Man, Cyborg could really use some better villains. Nothing like this would ever happen over in Marvel!
Some times in comics you see a page that just puts a giant smile on your face. Kyle Rayner's Green Lantern was one of the first comics I ever bought for myself on a monthly basis, so this is exactly one of those pages, and even though that's not the direction they went, I'd love to see Kyle mentor Jessica just a bit. If they ever decide to switch things up between Hal Jordan and the GLC and Green Lanterns, it wouldn't be the worst idea to put Kyle back on Earth to be Jessica's veteran partner while Simon Baz gets to butt heads with Guy, Hal, and John on Oa. The two could use the change of pace, and more importantly I always felt like Kyle was a better fit on Earth than he was out in the cosmos.
Coming back to this just makes me hate Injustice 2 all the more. Ultimately, I "get" Damian, even if I hate that he took my boy Tim Drake's place. He's a kid trying to live up to the legacy of one of the greatest heroes of all time, while simultaneously fighting the other part of him that's everything his dad has ever fought against. He's got a huge ego, but that's mostly to deal with all the pain and fear of abandonment the little brat has gone through--and worries he'll still have to go through. And on top of that, he's easily the best trained Robin that's ever existed, which probably doesn't help with his ego. (On that note, I'd love to see an older Damian throw hands with Cassandra.) Ultimately, he's just a kid that wants to make his dad proud--proud enough that he doesn't leave him, like his mother did. Who can't understand that?
So playing Injustice and seeing him as this kid who's just so arrogant that one of his dialogue options is "My dad wasn't good enough for me" isn't just weird. It's wrong. It's the same kind of fundamental misunderstanding of the character that leads to Wonder Woman being one of the strongest proponents of Superman's overtly violent cause. It's an understanding of what you'd believe the surface characteristics of these characters are, rather than what they actually are. Like believing Captain America is just some jingoistic dickwad boy scout instead of a soldier who recognizes the country he loves isn't the best it could be, but wakes up every morning with the intent of fighting to make it that way.
As much as I enjoyed this issue, my favorite part probably came from the last page. Noble is set in a brand-new "shared universe" of superheroes from Catalyst Prime, after an event called..."The Event" made superpowers possible. Leading the series off is Noble, a comic book about a guy who got lost during a military mission only to resurface with amnesia and strange abilities. Multiple attempts have been made to capture him, but thus far his special talents have allowed him to escape every time, until the end of the issue when his wife sets out to retrieve him herself and bring him back to their family. And I have to tell you, I am absolutely all in on a comic if its about a bad-ass husband and wife team. The writer, Brandon Thomas, supposedly wants it to be a globe-trotting superhero book, and I'm all about that too. Far too often black superheroes get stuck patrolling a "hood" instead of getting to explore and save people all over like every other hero would.
Anyway, we have DC, Marvel, and Valiant, and now apparently Catalyst Prime. I wish them luck building a "fourth pillar" to the shared universe comics. Partially because I appreciate that they're trying to do a new age version of what Milestone did back in the day, creating comics that are already diverse instead of trying to force it into universes that are decades old, which is a much harder task. (And more difficult now than it was when Milestone was formed thanks to a certain group of people...) But then I'm also appreciative because I'm addicted to massive, sprawling universes and this feeds the addiction.
Recently, I learned that Transformers: Til All Are One was scheduled to be canceled, which is actually pretty unfortunate. While Lost Light was doing its own thing and Optimus Prime is closer to Revolutionaries at this point than an actual Transformers-focused book (though it's a tad more high-brow in its approach, while Revolutionaries is just a cool action comic about all the toys 80's kids had working together), TAAO was the only one that continued all the political intrigue that Transformers: Robots in Disguise was known for.
For those not keeping up with the book, they introduced the idea that long before the civil war there was a group of thirteen ships that left to colonize other parts of the universe. These ships contained various "tribes" of Transformers which is IDW's way of incorporating all the non-G1 Transformers into their universe, from Beast Wars all the way to Transformers: Animated. Being contacted after billions of years, each of the tribes sent representatives back to Cybertron to form the "Council of Worlds", choosing to unite to boost one another up, as each colony was in dire straits for one reason or another. But of course, groups like that don't just automatically get along, so every issue involved back room deals and keeping any one representative from gaining too much power. Plus you had Starscream as the king while he's literally losing his mind after being wracked with guilt from the loss of his friends, which just adds a whole other layer of tension and entertainment. When it wasn't dealing with Windstorm and her whole gimmick of talking to the cityships, it was basically Transformers Game of Thrones, so even though Mairghread Scott said she didn't want to continue the book, I hope IDW finds someone else willing to give the whole concept a reboot an keep moving forward with it.
This scene raised a bit of a stir when it came out, and I guess I'm supposed to have some problems with this, since it looks like the heroes aren't exactly being heroic. But...honestly I don't see an issue. Emma Frost once forcibly activated the pleasure centers in a bunch of reporters brains to force them to have really strong orgasms, claiming that they were basically fine and maybe they'd learn not to bug her from now on That was far more invasive against a group that was really just curious about what was going on behind the doors of the campus.
This is a woman who's trying to start a race war. She gets on television and says mutants--who as far as we know, are still endangered--should be "sent somewhere else" like the vast majority of them here aren't American citizens. Freezing her in place for a second and telling her they weren't going to put up with any of her shit is WAY nicer treatment than she deserves.
Batman
Ultimately, I wind up torn on The Button. I want to say it was too short but it got four whole issues--they just wasted one needlessly aping the 3x3 panel design from Watchmen, while the other two never really figured out what they wanted to do besides make Bruce regret being Batman. Hopefully though, it doesn't just come down to being about Superman during Doomsday Clock--Bruce and Diana deserve to be at the forefront just as much as he does.
Cyborg
Iron Fist
...Oh. Well. Nevermind, I guess.
The sad thing is that in both books these villains kinda went down like some chumps in service to some much more dangerous antagonist working against the book's title character.
The sad thing is that in both books these villains kinda went down like some chumps in service to some much more dangerous antagonist working against the book's title character.
Green Lanterns
Nightwing
So playing Injustice and seeing him as this kid who's just so arrogant that one of his dialogue options is "My dad wasn't good enough for me" isn't just weird. It's wrong. It's the same kind of fundamental misunderstanding of the character that leads to Wonder Woman being one of the strongest proponents of Superman's overtly violent cause. It's an understanding of what you'd believe the surface characteristics of these characters are, rather than what they actually are. Like believing Captain America is just some jingoistic dickwad boy scout instead of a soldier who recognizes the country he loves isn't the best it could be, but wakes up every morning with the intent of fighting to make it that way.
Noble
Anyway, we have DC, Marvel, and Valiant, and now apparently Catalyst Prime. I wish them luck building a "fourth pillar" to the shared universe comics. Partially because I appreciate that they're trying to do a new age version of what Milestone did back in the day, creating comics that are already diverse instead of trying to force it into universes that are decades old, which is a much harder task. (And more difficult now than it was when Milestone was formed thanks to a certain group of people...) But then I'm also appreciative because I'm addicted to massive, sprawling universes and this feeds the addiction.
Transformers: Till All Are One
For those not keeping up with the book, they introduced the idea that long before the civil war there was a group of thirteen ships that left to colonize other parts of the universe. These ships contained various "tribes" of Transformers which is IDW's way of incorporating all the non-G1 Transformers into their universe, from Beast Wars all the way to Transformers: Animated. Being contacted after billions of years, each of the tribes sent representatives back to Cybertron to form the "Council of Worlds", choosing to unite to boost one another up, as each colony was in dire straits for one reason or another. But of course, groups like that don't just automatically get along, so every issue involved back room deals and keeping any one representative from gaining too much power. Plus you had Starscream as the king while he's literally losing his mind after being wracked with guilt from the loss of his friends, which just adds a whole other layer of tension and entertainment. When it wasn't dealing with Windstorm and her whole gimmick of talking to the cityships, it was basically Transformers Game of Thrones, so even though Mairghread Scott said she didn't want to continue the book, I hope IDW finds someone else willing to give the whole concept a reboot an keep moving forward with it.
X-Men Gold
This is a woman who's trying to start a race war. She gets on television and says mutants--who as far as we know, are still endangered--should be "sent somewhere else" like the vast majority of them here aren't American citizens. Freezing her in place for a second and telling her they weren't going to put up with any of her shit is WAY nicer treatment than she deserves.
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