Comics are awesome.

[andersonh1]

EDIT: And I dunno, I've heard good reviews of the new Flash book, but I just can't bring myself to check it out. If I'm missing out then I'm missing out, but I just can't read a Barry Allen comic.

I'm a bit of a Wally West loyalist, but I'm willing to give Barry a shot. It's not like I was buying the Flash prior to this anyway. And Wally's supposed to get a backup feature at some point after Barry's had time to be established as the lead character.

This is a case where the comic book universe and real history get jumbled... there were no blackberries or cell phones per se in 1986 in the real world, so Allen would never have seen them. They're still portrayed as somewhat new to him. As he says in "Rebirth", the world is catching up to him. Everything moves faster now.

Of course, given the way events get moved forward, there would have been Blackberries when Barry died. The technology existed ~10 years ago. I distinctly remember seeing ads on the train while on my way to work and wondering when my income and the retail price would intersect. Crisis could not have been much more than 7 years before roughly current DC continuity. Jason Todd's time line is at least 7 years. Assume 6 months as Robin, (which would include participation in CoIE in some form), ~5years being dead (assuming he was 13 when he died and the "he would have been 18 today" line from "Hush"), 1 year for 52, and (very optimistically) 6 months since then that would include "Countdown" and "Battle for the Cowl".

Exactly, and that's where the fictional world of the comic and the real world tend to get a bit jumbled. In the real world, there weren't cell phones, blackberries and mass internet usage when Barry Allen last appeared alive. In the fictional world, there would have been, but it almost seems as if the character is being written in some ways with his real world history in mind. It's not explicit, and it may just be my impression of the character.

The timeline at the end of Zero Hour (assuming it's still valid), which is set in "the present day", puts the Crisis as 4 years ago, Jason Todd at 3 years ago as Robin, and Tim Drake as Robin 1 year ago. At least 2-3 years have passed since then in comic book time, as imprecise as that is, so 6-7 years seems like the right timeframe for the Crisis and Barry's death.

This website has an interesting, if unofficial, chronology of the DC universe: http://dcu.smartmemes.com/DCTL_5_intro.html

[Sparky Prime]

That's what I get for missing most of Blackest Night. So would I be correct in guessing that since the entity is connected to every living thing in the universe, that this perhaps accounts for the ability to go anywhere and drop in on anyone? Somehow? At least that might explain how he keeps pulling Boston Brand to the exact spot where Aquaman is, or where Dove is, or whatever.

I don't see why not. The Entity was described as being "nothing less than Godlike" in its abilities during "Blackest Night".

[Onslaught Six]

The whole thing with Spidey, as I was led to understand it, isn't that the whole Peter/MJ marriage was *literally erased.* All those events still happened as described. The results of Mephisto is just that nobody *remembers* it, so it 'may as well' not have happened. But it did...I think, specifically, to avoid these kind of questions coming up.

[Sparky Prime]

The whole thing with Spidey, as I was led to understand it, isn't that the whole Peter/MJ marriage was *literally erased.* All those events still happened as described. The results of Mephisto is just that nobody *remembers* it, so it 'may as well' not have happened. But it did...I think, specifically, to avoid these kind of questions coming up.

No, that was how they explained away his identity being revealed during "Civil War". Everyone remembers he took off his mask, but magically thanks to Mephisto, no one remembers who was under the mask anymore. And all the video, photos and newspapers apparently magically disappeared as well. He has since re-revealed his identity to the New Avengers and Fantastic Four, which apparently broke the spell for them. The marriage, on the other hand, was literally erased from happening in the first place. This upcoming "OMIT" storyline is supposed to show what happened that prevented the marriage from taking place.

[138 Scourge]

No, that was how they explained away his identity being revealed during "Civil War". Everyone remembers he took off his mask, but magically thanks to Mephisto, no one remembers who was under the mask anymore. And all the video, photos and newspapers apparently magically disappeared as well.

That part is just funny. And you just know that it's gotta be eating Norman Osborn alive. "Agh, I knew who that was, dammit!" Because that's the other crazy thing about how all this worked. Even the people that knew Spidey's identity before "Civil War" don't know it anymore.

It's definitely unwieldy, but there's been some stories that have been able to make the best out of this particular bad situation. I liked the FF/Spidey team-up where the Human Torch was almost freaked out by forgetting who Spider-Man was, and upset that Spidey wasn't talking about what went down.

The one thing that I wonder about, and keep in mind I didn't read "OMD", just "BMD". It's like...this seems like it's pretty straightforward on Mephisto's part. Leaving aside the pretty big question of what Mephisto wants a marriage for in the first place, it seems like he's stuck to his part of the bargain fairly well. It seems like there's another shoe that oughtta be dropping at some point, doesn't it?

[Dominic]

Mephisto was taking a stand against family values. The Parker marriage was legally and morally binding...and based on true love. That really frosted the red guy's weenie.


Dom
-no, seriously. That was Mephisto's motivation.

[138 Scourge]

Apparently that "Siege: Loki" comic suggests that Mephisto and Loki are involved in a game where they basically just screw around with people in the MU just to see who can do it better. (I sort of inferred this from a review, haven't gotten it myself yet.) So if he's just doing it to screw around, then it sort of makes sense.

But really, you'd think that just magically annulling the marriage wouldn't be enough, he'd want to screw around with Petey some more while he was at it.

[Dominic]

Loki and Mephisto are naturally badly behavied. But, OMD quotes Mephisto as explaining his motive as "wanting to ruin a good marriage".

Dom
-yeah.

[Sparky Prime]

But, OMD quotes Mephisto as explaining his motive as "wanting to ruin a good marriage".

There was a bit more to it than that. Mephisto said: "A love like yours comes about but once in a millennia and to take that away from Him... to deny Him... is a victory like none other imaginable." So his motivation was more that it was a way to stick it to God. And then after the deal was done, Mephisto sticks it to Peter and MJ by showing them the daughter they could have had if they had stayed married.

[138 Scourge]

Would that be Spider-Girl, or is this a second daughter?