Crisis Time

In the sixties and the eighties summer comics meant special "annual" editions of popular comics -- thicker books with 50% to 100% more pages.

In the last decade or so summer has presaged multi-part, continuity shattering, event comic series by both major publishers. Of course this year is no different. This week DC released the first issue of Final Crisis, the seven part series that promises once more to change everything.

We've learned by now that comic book change is no more radical than political change. No matter what the promises, the word "change" usually means more of the same. I don't expect that this year will be any different. Heroes will die -- until they come back to life. (What choice do the majors have but to continually resurrect their fallen heroes when EVERY comic creator working today REFUSES to create new characters for them if they cannot own their creations.)

While I find Grant Morrison's interpretation of the DC universe interesting, it troubles me to see it canonized. I don't really understand how all these plain-clothes New Gods came to walk the Earth after Jim Starlin vaporized every one of them and set the stage for a new theological dynasty just a month or two ago. I also don't know how Detective Turpin can fail to recognize Orion -- much less the odd name Kalibak, considering his fight to near death with Kalibak in the original New Gods series. I find it less than amusing that Grant has decided the Guardians have codified the crimes of the universe like the California Highway Patrol. I could hardly care less about this Society of Super-Villains uniting under Libra, especially when it includes fourth rate characters like Mirror Master (I am SO afraid). And what makes anyone think that the death of Martian Manhunter will lend any drama to the story when it happens in a single panel. Any hero deserves a more protracted death scene than that, and any writer with the least understanding of drama knows that a struggle of some sort is required if a death is to have any punch.

No matter. What will be will be. When this is all over, it will have no more lasting effect than the last big event, and DC will not feel the least bit bound to abide by its outcome, so let them kill Superman for all I care. We know they are all coming back sometime in some future reboot and comic book history will forever be as elastic and mallable as communist political history, with characters continually airbrushed in and out of the artifacts of the past.

1985
Full disclosure -- by 1985 I was an adult in my late twenties. I owned a car, a house. I was in a commited relationship and even had a loving pet who depended on me. I was knee deep in the second horrific term of President Reagan and had already lost several loved ones to AIDS. (Where do you think they GOT the name, the AIDies?) So there is absolutely no nostalgia in my soul for the innocence of the mid eighties.

Still I found Marvel's mini series, 1985, incredibly charming and I'm more than willing to give it a fair chance.

I love the focus on real people on the real Earth, and I can honestly share the astonishment and wonder of the little boy at seeing villains and heroes of his fantasy life in the flesh.

But, hey. I read comics and I am on my way to senior citizenhood. My suspension of disbelief and appreciation of fantasy is way beyond dispute.

Action 865
You know I don't give a whit for the Toyman. I generally find the re-engineering of a character's origin dull beyond comprehension. But for some reason I really enjoyed Geoff Johns' reinterpretation of who Toyman is; his explanation for other, perhaps misguided takes on the character; and even the reintroduction of Cat Grant.

(See, I told you no one and nothing dies in comics. Sooner or later it all comes back. Here is one element of the perfect example. After years of simply building upon the John Byrne re-boot of Superman, and slowly, gently re-introducing the characters and stories of the silver age, DC has almost completely returned Superman to the continuity of the late seventies. Now all we need is the re-revival of the Lois Lane/Lana Lang rivalry over Superman. Or would that be in poor taste considering that Lana knows Superman is married to Lois as Clark? Is there a Mephisto in the DC Universe?)