Infinite Crisis #5 –A storytelling CRISIS
The upshot from DC Comics: The DC Universe shakes apart as Kal-L, Superman of Earth-2 finally confronts our Superman, Kal-El. Meanwhile, heroes are disappearing throughout the DCU, a transformed villain returns, and the mystics of every world and dimension seek help from the very Spirit that is destroying them.
FanBoyWonder deliberately waited a few days to digest this issue before posting because we didn’t want to be overly negative…at least unfairly so.
We are 5 issues into this 7 issue series and we still have no idea what the heck is going on or what it’s all about. So far this series has been a disappointment…on so many levels. More is the pity as the folks at DC have spent two solid years plotting out this sequel to 1985’s landmark 12-part epoch CRISIS on Infinite Earths.
We won’t bother with a page-by-page breakdown of events. Mile High Comics’ Newsarama does a much better job of that in their annotated commentary...check it out here http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=61722.
Our biggest or most fundamental problem with the Infinite Crisis to date is that it a very technical, by the numbers story. It’s woefully short of heart or soul and the creators have yet to score a meaningfully emotional connection.
Example: Superman and Lois Kent have appeared on the newly manufactured Earth-2 in front of the offices of the Daily Star. Lois, who has been slowly dying—presumably of old age—during their time in the post-CRISIS “paradise” dimension has been little more than window dressing up.
Until now…she’s barely had a speaking part so the reader hasn’t formed the aforementioned emotional connection. At best we’ve been connected via her husband Superman’s desperate attempts to save her. Yet the reader, at least this reader has not been clued into how or why Kal-L believes that the return of Earth-2 or the multiverse will save his wife’s life.
Despite illustrator Jerry Ordway’s best efforts, Lois Kent’s death scene where she suddenly collapses and quietly passes away in her husband’s arms is devoid of true impact—it’s as if the reader can “hear” Lois’ death on cue.
Ordway’s splash page with Kal-L screaming and holding his dead wife in his arms is deliberately reminiscent of classic cover of Crisis of Infinite Earth #7 where Kal-El holds a battle-slain Supergirl. But that’s where the comparison ends.
During the original CRISIS, we all knew Supergirl would die—it had been leaked out months before but when the moment came, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Knowing the outcome didn’t prevent the reader from connecting emotionally.
IC5’s battle of the Supermen was even less satisfying. As a grief stricken Kal-L lashes out at a confused Kal-El, the words are right but the emotion feels contrived.
We did, however like very much the cameo between Wonder Woman and the Earth-2 Wonder Woman Diana Prince. The conversation between the two Princess Dianas amounts to little more than a cameo and Diana Prince knows her time is limited so she offers some advice and a caution to her younger counterpart to allow herself to be human.
It was a touching if all too brief scene.
One thing we didn’t notice until it was pointed out to us was the apparent identity of the Flash who appeared in Tokyo near the end. We believed it was Wally West emerging from the Speed Force where the Flashes--Wally West and Kid Flash Bart Allen--had sent a rampaging Superboy Prime last issue.
Upon closer inspection of the costume, the belt appears to be straight like Barry Allen’s costume, not the zig-zag lightening bolt pattern of Wally’s Flash costume—a small but critical detail.
DC in it’s current love affair with the Silver Age already has brought Hal Jordan Green Lantern back to life and before that Oliver Queen Green Arrow was brought back from the dead…are the powers that be at DC going for the resurrect trifecta?
At the end of the issue, Flash warns that the Speed Force couldn’t contain him and that Superboy Prime, wearing a variant of the Anti-Monitor’s armor, has returned. Of course it would have been more of a surprise if DC, one week before he was “killed” in Infinite Crisis #4 hadn’t sent out solicitations for a Superboy Prime in battle armor action figure.
The bottom line: Infinite Crisis is a CRISIS because we have been TOLD for more than a year by DC that this IS a CRISIS but it doesn’t FEEL like a crisis. This remains a still promising story so but far the reader is being consumed by nothing more than an anti-matter wave of hype.
DC has plotted the Countdown and is ready to go with the One Year Later editorial launching point but somewhere along the line they forgot to pay attention to the event that was supposed to be “ground zero” of the whole affair.
This series has tried to do too many things at once so nothing is getting accomplished. Even a creative rainmaker like IC writer Geoff Johns can’t keep all of the various plot points from unraveling into chaos.
They still two issues to pull everything together but as it stands, Infinite Crisis has a long way to go to even compare to the original CRISIS while surpassing it may be impossible.
FanBoyWonder deliberately waited a few days to digest this issue before posting because we didn’t want to be overly negative…at least unfairly so.
We are 5 issues into this 7 issue series and we still have no idea what the heck is going on or what it’s all about. So far this series has been a disappointment…on so many levels. More is the pity as the folks at DC have spent two solid years plotting out this sequel to 1985’s landmark 12-part epoch CRISIS on Infinite Earths.
We won’t bother with a page-by-page breakdown of events. Mile High Comics’ Newsarama does a much better job of that in their annotated commentary...check it out here http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=61722.
Our biggest or most fundamental problem with the Infinite Crisis to date is that it a very technical, by the numbers story. It’s woefully short of heart or soul and the creators have yet to score a meaningfully emotional connection.
Example: Superman and Lois Kent have appeared on the newly manufactured Earth-2 in front of the offices of the Daily Star. Lois, who has been slowly dying—presumably of old age—during their time in the post-CRISIS “paradise” dimension has been little more than window dressing up.
Until now…she’s barely had a speaking part so the reader hasn’t formed the aforementioned emotional connection. At best we’ve been connected via her husband Superman’s desperate attempts to save her. Yet the reader, at least this reader has not been clued into how or why Kal-L believes that the return of Earth-2 or the multiverse will save his wife’s life.
Despite illustrator Jerry Ordway’s best efforts, Lois Kent’s death scene where she suddenly collapses and quietly passes away in her husband’s arms is devoid of true impact—it’s as if the reader can “hear” Lois’ death on cue.
Ordway’s splash page with Kal-L screaming and holding his dead wife in his arms is deliberately reminiscent of classic cover of Crisis of Infinite Earth #7 where Kal-El holds a battle-slain Supergirl. But that’s where the comparison ends.
During the original CRISIS, we all knew Supergirl would die—it had been leaked out months before but when the moment came, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Knowing the outcome didn’t prevent the reader from connecting emotionally.
IC5’s battle of the Supermen was even less satisfying. As a grief stricken Kal-L lashes out at a confused Kal-El, the words are right but the emotion feels contrived.
We did, however like very much the cameo between Wonder Woman and the Earth-2 Wonder Woman Diana Prince. The conversation between the two Princess Dianas amounts to little more than a cameo and Diana Prince knows her time is limited so she offers some advice and a caution to her younger counterpart to allow herself to be human.
It was a touching if all too brief scene.
One thing we didn’t notice until it was pointed out to us was the apparent identity of the Flash who appeared in Tokyo near the end. We believed it was Wally West emerging from the Speed Force where the Flashes--Wally West and Kid Flash Bart Allen--had sent a rampaging Superboy Prime last issue.
Upon closer inspection of the costume, the belt appears to be straight like Barry Allen’s costume, not the zig-zag lightening bolt pattern of Wally’s Flash costume—a small but critical detail.
DC in it’s current love affair with the Silver Age already has brought Hal Jordan Green Lantern back to life and before that Oliver Queen Green Arrow was brought back from the dead…are the powers that be at DC going for the resurrect trifecta?
At the end of the issue, Flash warns that the Speed Force couldn’t contain him and that Superboy Prime, wearing a variant of the Anti-Monitor’s armor, has returned. Of course it would have been more of a surprise if DC, one week before he was “killed” in Infinite Crisis #4 hadn’t sent out solicitations for a Superboy Prime in battle armor action figure.
The bottom line: Infinite Crisis is a CRISIS because we have been TOLD for more than a year by DC that this IS a CRISIS but it doesn’t FEEL like a crisis. This remains a still promising story so but far the reader is being consumed by nothing more than an anti-matter wave of hype.
DC has plotted the Countdown and is ready to go with the One Year Later editorial launching point but somewhere along the line they forgot to pay attention to the event that was supposed to be “ground zero” of the whole affair.
This series has tried to do too many things at once so nothing is getting accomplished. Even a creative rainmaker like IC writer Geoff Johns can’t keep all of the various plot points from unraveling into chaos.
They still two issues to pull everything together but as it stands, Infinite Crisis has a long way to go to even compare to the original CRISIS while surpassing it may be impossible.
posted by FanBoyWonder at 6:09 PM
2 Comments:
Great post. You just forgot one thing: DC is already launching the "One Year Later" before IC has actually ended.
The new OYL books allude to how much things have changed in the DCU.
The only problem is, we don't know how much things have changed because the IC books aren't done yet.
It seems like a failure of scheduling to me.
And you were right about the meeting of the two WWs. That, so far, is my favorite moment in the series, outside of Batman's realization of his mistake in issue 4.
Excellent review of Infinite Crisis #5, and of Infinite Crisis in general. You really nailed in on the head when you said that Infinite Crisis seems a crisis because we've been told so, not because it is. Frankly, despite the novelty of seeing the Earth-2 Superman interact with our heroes, I expected more from Infinite Crisis than "heroes are tricked, heroes fight, then heroes team up." As you said, there's just not been enough effort payed to make the Earth-2 survivors anything more than one-note, confused characters, and thus it is indeed hard to feel for them. This issue did have good points, but I'm hoping the next two issues bring us more of the first issue's interaction between our Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman--the characters here that we really care about.
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