TF Views

andersonh1 wrote:

Dominic wrote:The point of "Multiversity" (as evidenced from the recent director's cut issue) was to provide first issues/series bibles for several alternate world series. "Multiversity" ended when the weather was warm. DC has not announced a single follow-up to anything from that series.

I thought Grant Morrison was writing some follow-ups to Multiversity. I distinctly remember something about a Flash one-shot.

Yeah, Morrison announced "Multiversity Too" back in July, starting with "Multiversity Too: The Flash". It was said the series will begin sometime in 2016 but DC has yet to announce anything more than that.

Green Lantern #48
After the terrorist attack in Coast City from last issue, this issue finds Hal in the waiting room of the hospital, while his brother and sister in law are up in a room with his nephew. The boy is still alive, but in a coma. Hal's pretty broken up about it, and engages in a great little conversation with an older black lady whose husband had a heart attack at the time of the explosion. It's a nice little bit of humanity, and a rare glimpse of how the people of Coast City view Hal as Green Lantern. She offers him a mint, and says she always swipes an extra one when she and her husband go to the buffet.

About that time the news broadcasts a video from the terrorists claiming responsibility for the attack. It's the New 52 revision of Sonar, a Green Lantern villain who first appeared in the 1960s. And while I don't necessarily disapprove of the revision, it does illustrate the vast gulf between the colorful supervillains of the Silver Age, and the grimdark villains of more modern comics. Sonar as originally presented was the dictator of Modora, who was always angry that his tiny nation got no recognition on the world stage. So he invented his sonar weapon and went on the attack for the purpose of raising the profile of his tiny homeland, clashing with Hal Jordan in the process. The modern Sonar ditches the military costume and sonic handgun in favor of bombs activated by sound. He's now your garden variety terrorist with a gimmick. His goals and motivation are the same as the 60s version, but his methods are more topical.

It's an update that shows fidelity to the original while modernizing him, but as a result he's not fun, just too close to someone we might see in real life. I'm not sure I enjoy reading about a villain like that when I'm looking for escapism.

In any case, Hal goes to Batman for help in tracking Sonar down, only he finds Jim Gordon in the Batman mecha with the bunny ears, something Hal comments on. Gordon is able to help, and Hal ends up confronting some of Sonar's followers, who kill themselves rather than give up their leader, leaving Hal no closer to finding Sonar and back to being concerned about his nephew.

The final pages show Parallax at the rubble that was Oa. He rants a bit about the Corps being gone and Sinestro having followers, and then calms himself. He senses that Coast City still exists, and heads for Earth, declaring that Hal Jordan has to die.

Overall: I'm not too sure that a little too much of the fantastic hasn't been removed from Sonar to the point that he's just a run of the mill terrorist, and thus not very interesting. Otherwise, giving Hal a personal stake in the story by having his nephew as one of the victims is a good storytelling choice. And I'm rooting for Parallax to remake the New 52 universe, but I suppose it's not likely to happen.

Titans Hunt #1
So much for trade-waiting. I only had GL in my pull list this week, and with two other series I was reading having ended, I can afford to add one more. It's not the genuine Titans, but just putting some version of these characters together evokes a bit of a classic Titans feel. The cover to issue #1 is a homage to the Bronze Age JLA #100 where the forgotten Seven Soldiers of Victory were brought back for the first time since 1945. The story involves an unknown Soldier and regathering the Soldiers after they'd been scattered all through time. Titans Hunt involves a forgotten history for the Titans and a possible putting the team back together, so there's a similarity there. I've read speculation that the unknown Titan is the original Wally West, but there's no indication of that in this first issue.

Otherwise, the issue drops in on various characters who were members of the Titans prior to Flashpoint. Dick Grayson (currently an agent of Spyral), Garth (Aqualad), Donna Troy, Roy Harper, Gnark (never heard of him), Mal Duncan and Lilith. Many of these characters half remember something but can't quite put it all together, and the implication is that their memories have been suppressed. All except for Lilith, who has a file folder on each of them and seems to know what's going on.

Overall: Anything that brings something of the old continuity back interests me. I don't know where this book is actually going, or what it will do other than put together a New 52 version of the old Teen Titans, but I liked it enough to keep reading for now.

Parallax is probably supposed to be the bad guy, calling for the way things were.

DC needs to fix things though. No question.

Yeah, Morrison announced "Multiversity Too" back in July, starting with "Multiversity Too: The Flash". It was said the series will begin sometime in 2016 but DC has yet to announce anything more than that.

I will believe it when I see the first issue.

Dominic wrote:Parallax is probably supposed to be the bad guy, calling for the way things were.

As long as he isn't meant to be the equivalent of Superboy Prime, and become the voice of the whiny fanboy as seen by DC writers, we're good. He can critique the state of the DC universe all day long. He wanted to remake things back in the 90s, so if nothing else it's consistent for the character.

I find it interesting that I actually enjoy seeing Hal as Parallax in the current series when I absolutely hated the whole concept back in the day. There's an opportunity to compare renegade Hal then with renegade Hal now, so there is some character building potential here. Even with his powers amped up by the gauntlet, current Hal is way outmatched by Parallax-Hal, so I hope something more creative than a fight is one the way. We've already seen Hal as GL fight Hal as Parallax anyway, back in GL 106.

I'm in. As long as it isn't like Batman Odyssey.

NEAL ADAMS' "SUPERMAN: THE COMING OF THE SUPERMEN" TAKES THE MAN OF STEEL BACK TO BASICS

http://www.comicbookresources.com/artic ... -to-basics

What was the problem with "Odyssey"? (I never read it.)

As long as he isn't meant to be the equivalent of Superboy Prime, and become the voice of the whiny fanboy as seen by DC writers, we're good. He can critique the state of the DC universe all day long. He wanted to remake things back in the 90s, so if nothing else it's consistent for the character.

What else to you expect Parallax to be? DC is telling people to get over it and move on.

With "Zero Hour", DC told people to move on on get over it, using Hal.

With "Infinite Crisis", DC did the same thing using Superboy Prime.

Going by past experience, I think we can safely expect Hal/Parallax to be the backwards looking bad guy.




In other news, "Secret Wars" #9 is allegedly shipping next week.

Dominic wrote:What was the problem with "Odyssey"? (I never read it.)

Good art, terrible storytelling. Read some reviews here if you want the gist of it: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13532145-batman

Dominic wrote:What else to you expect Parallax to be? DC is telling people to get over it and move on.

With "Zero Hour", DC told people to move on on get over it, using Hal.

With "Infinite Crisis", DC did the same thing using Superboy Prime.

Going by past experience, I think we can safely expect Hal/Parallax to be the backwards looking bad guy.

Well Zero Hour was about Hal trying to undo Coast City's destruction, which DC used as a vehicle to try and fix oversights and contradictions that had come up since COIE. And Infinite Crisis actually brought back some of the pre-COIE stuff... So I really wouldn't say either event was trying to tell people to get over it and move on, although I'd agree Superboy Prime would take on that sort of a persona.

I think it's too early yet to know what to expect from Hal/Parallax. He has mirrored some of Superboy Prime's sentiments about the universe being 'wrong', but we have to see what they'll do with him.

On page, Hal and Superboy had the same motivations, to fix things by making them like they were. Both are intended to be giving voice to the fans who complain about how comics need to be the way comics were 25 years ago.

Superboy was more obnoxious, if only by virtue of duration. (I got the point during "Infinite Crisis" and "Countdown". But, I also wanted DC to move on and show how good modern comics could be, rather than saying it is stupid to want yesterday's comics.)

Good art, terrible storytelling. Read some reviews here if you want the gist of it: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13532145-batman

It sounds like Adams was writing to the standard of 25+ years ago. That is not a problem unique to artists turned writers though. (I avoid DeFalco for that same reason. 25 years ago, he was writing to industry standard. Now, his stuff is painfully dated.)

DC is in serious trouble due to falling sales on core titles, says this article: http://sktchd.com/longform/dc-troubles-longform/

As you can see above, in Novembers past, those titles comprised somewhere between 71 and 87% of their overall units ordered. That makes sense given the nature of DC. However, 2015’s iteration only saw a little under 57% of DC unit sales coming from its ostensible regular titles, meaning the 2.3 million number mentioned earlier was goosed by books DC can’t rely on outside of their short lifespans. While it’s great to have Dark Knight III top the sales charts, what this means is DC’s core product is faltering and in a way that’s unlike any time in the past. November 2013 was the closest comparison from the chart, but even then, DC was selling almost 400,000 total copies or 9,000 copies per title more of its main books. So the 2.3 million number isn’t likely as sustainable as it had been in the past. Not by a longshot.

The article is well worth a read, and for once we don't get "New 52 killed DC", we get an explanation about why that was possibly the first domino to fall, followed by others. And as much as I hate to see it since I enjoyed that event, the two month Convergence gap and the break it gave regular series seems to have hurt sales as people who left haven't all come back.