Wednesday Morning Quarterback – Why Infinite Crisis Does Not Appeal to Me

By Mike “blackmore” Maillaro

When I proposed this as my first column, I immediately got the response of “WTF Blackmore, IC Rules!!” This was pretty much exactly the response I was expecting. DC has really pulled the wool over people’s eyes here. They have managed to create a brilliant piece of trickery by using bad characterization, shock value, and a lot of BS to convince the readers that they are reading the greatest comic ever written.
But, so far, Infinite Crisis has done nothing but disgust and annoy me. In honor of Valentine’s Day:

Infinite Crisis, how I hate thee. Let me count the ways:

1) Shock value: This is typical Geoff Johns. Geoff Johns’ strength as a writer is that he always has strong last pages, where your jaw hits the ground. But, his weakness as a writer is that when you pick up the next issue, you often find yourself disappointed. Blitz and Ignition over in Flash were great examples of this. I loved the idea of Flash’s identity being secret even to himself, a separation from Linda, etc. Unfortunately, in less than a year and a half, all lasting effects of Blitz were wiped out, down to Flash even getting his kids back.

The whole idea of Infinite Crisis seems to be this way. “Let’s pick the most unlikely possible person to be the villain! Now this is going to require a huge leap of faith from the reader, and lots of ret-conning, but screw ‘em. They have already bought into this mess, and they will buy it no matter what.” I think Joker’s Last Laugh and Our Worlds at War proved to DC that no matter what happens, the fans will stick by them.

2) The BS factor: Was anyone else bewildered when DiDio actually said something to the effect of “The Countdown minis tied into the grander story in ways that even we didn’t realize, so now we have to make four special single issues to cash in…err…I mean, to fill in the gaps.” Same goes for Sacrifice, which is pretty much required reading for The OMAC Project. And now even Graduation Day ties in with the “RETURN OF DONNA TROY!” Which is fair, since Graduation Day was the first sign to me that DC had no interest in keeping me as a reader anymore.

To me this all sounds suspiciously like, we’re making this up as we go along, but we know where your wallet is, and we will be plundering it freely. Just look at the wide variety of post-Infinite Crisis series, one-shots, and mini series. One for Bludhaven, one for Spectre, one for Shadow Pact, one for Checkmate, not to mention 52. DC says they have no crossovers planned at the end of 52. That’s not to say they won’t be milking this cash cow for every single penny until then.

Say what you want about Avengers Disassembled or House of M, but Marvel never forced you to buy every comic to understand the story. In fact, it didn’t even have to interfere with your normal reading. If you were a regular reader of Thunderbolts or Captain America, they gave you enough info in the “Previously In…” page that you didn’t feel left out. I can’t say the same about JLA. I’ve been trying to read the last few issues of JLA, and I have no idea what’s going on and why the characters are treating each other this way. For House of M, you wanted to read the side stories just to get more depth. For Infinite Crisis, you have to read quite a bit of the side stories to have any clue what’s going on.

3) Death of Characters: And by deaths, I am not just talking about physical deaths of C/D/Z Level characters…although there have been plenty of those. I am talking about the death of characterization too.

Let’s start with physical deaths. Why is death such an easy way out in comics? It seems whenever a writer needs a way to create stress on characters, he kills a bunch of no name side characters off. There are other ways to create tension. Hell, look at House of M. Instead of killing off all mutants, Marvel depowered them. To me, this creates much more storytelling opportunity than just killing them off. Even in The Other, Marvel didn’t need to kill off any characters to inflict conflict and change. Say what you want about these stories, but at least they tried to do something different.

Killing off Blue Beetle was bad enough, but before they killed him, they made sure to show that everyone in the DC Universe was disgusted by him. This makes no sense at all. A hero who has served with distinction and valor despite having no powers of his own comes to you pointing out some big problems he’s noticed. And the other heroes treat him like something they scraped off the bottom of their shoe.

Hell, they brought back one of my favorite characters, Max Mercury, just to kill him. Now that is what I call bloodlust!

That leads us right into the wholesale death of characterization. Since Identity Crisis, the DC universe has felt like a total stranger to me. I find it next to impossible to believe that Green Arrow would go along with mindwiping people, no matter what. I could see Ollie killing Dr. Light long before he would take his free will away. Maybe DC got him confused with his Squadron Supreme counterpart?

In the last issue of Aquaman I read, Martian Manhunter goes out of his way to treat Arthur like crap. On the bright side, at least the characterization was consistent between books. Not necessarily consistent with how these characters have ever acted in the past, but we can just sweep that under the rug. A wizard did it? A Crisis happened? Uhm. Psycho Pirate was up to his old tricks? Whatever works for you.

Over on the big three front, which seems to be the heart of this conflict: Wonder Woman kills, for a perfectly legitimate reason, and this tears the Big Three asunder. Superman has killed in the past, for pretty much the same reason. This doesn’t make much sense character wise.

Not to mention, when did DC decide to make Wonder Woman one of the big three again? After Crisis on Infinite Earths, they made it clear that Wonder Woman was a rookie and Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Black Canary, and on and on were the veterans. But whenever it’s convenient for the story, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are DC’s Trinity.

Then you have Leslie Thompkins. What brain surgeon thought it made sense that Leslie would kill an innocent, heroic young girl just to teach Batman a lesson? This seems like a drastic change in character to me. Blame it on pressure or mental manipulation all you want, but this seems as far from Leslie Thompkins as you could possibly imagine.

And of course, we have the people behind it all. Superboy, Alexander Luthor, and Golden Age Superman. Yeah, these guys would cause murder and mayhem across the galaxy for purely selfish motivations. Obviously, being a hero in the DC Universe does not mean the same thing as it used to.

4) Darkening up the Universe: I love to laugh. Nothing makes me happier than reading a comic where the writer is not afraid to poke some fun at the conventions of the comic industry. That is why I loved Young Justice, and why I love Peter David, Giffen/DeMatteis, and Dan Slott. None of that same fun seems to exist in the DC Universe anymore. I really can’t remember the last time I laughed when reading a DC book.

Even Marvel’s more serious titles like New Avengers, New T-Bolts, and Book of Lost Souls, still manage to inject at least something in each book that makes me smile. DC seems to have forgotten what makes comic books fun to read…and it ain’t murder and rape.

5) Rehashing old concepts: Twenty years ago, DC decided to get rid of the multiverse in order to make things simpler for fans…unless of course, you are a Legion fan. And now, we’re bringing it all back in a complicated and messy way. Even if it doesn’t last (which I have a feeling it will in some fashion, future covers show 2 Nightwings, 2 Wonder Womans, 2 Supergirls), it is something I could care less about. It was nice to see Superman, Lois Lane, and Superboy go to their final rest 20 years ago. But now we find out that never happened, MWHA-HA-HA! And, I just can’t bring myself to care.

I pulled this quote from DanDeRuff from GameFAQ, and it summarizes my thoughts very well: “I believe the current DC is a very interesting read for non-DC fans and hell for long time DC fans. I've been mostly a Marvel fan, but I've followed DC for a while and hate what they've done to a few heroes to "Crisis it up" (especially that damn dangling plotline of Stephanie and Leslie). If DC's lucky, after the Crisis the new fans will stay and the people they drove off will come back.”

Well, I can say for a fact, that this longtime DC fan just has no interest in coming back. When I see writers I love like Marz, Busiek and Robinson working on DC books, and that doesn’t get me to put those books back on my hold list, I realized that I am just done with mainstream DC. I still read Jonah Hex, and books from Wildstorm and Vertigo, and for now, I’ll read Legion (though I have a lot of doubts about Supergirl and the Legion), but for now, it’s “Make Mine Not-DC.”

Mailbag

All right, enough about me, let’s hit the mail bag:

Great first column Mike, I look forward to seeing what you talk about in the future

I got a question for you - Considering how long you have been collecting, do you think the comic industry is in a good place at the moment?

Some might say that because of all the movie licenses coming out that comic sales have increased and they are doing well. Another side of the argument is that a few people are actually downloadng comics illegally and we are seeing a repeat of the music industry piracy

I think that the industry will never see sales again like in the early 90's. But considering just how many variant and gimmicky covers we had I would think thats a good thing

C ya

Bradley "Rico2099" Fish

My first letter!!! Thanks for writing, Bradley!

This is something I will definitely be addressing a lot in my columns. In terms of content, I really think the industry is in a very good place. There is an outstanding variety of stuff coming out, not just from Marvel and DC, but also through Oni, Image, Dark Horse, and other companies. I feel comfortable saying that there is a comic out there for everyone, even people who swear up and down that they would never read a comic in their life.

In terms of sales, thinks are starting to look up, especially over where they were when I got back to reading comics a few years ago. But I think unless Marvel and DC actually start reaching out to new audiences, this will not last. Readers get older and lose interest, and unless some new blood steps in, this just can't last. That is a big part of what caused the 90's crash. Speculators left because there was no more money to be made, disgusted comic fans left, tired of gimmicks and comics with little substance, and no new readers stepped in to take the reins.

The 90's numbers are fairly inflated because of speculators, and not even the high point of comics sales. Action Comics and Captain Marvel back in the 30’s and 40’s would sell 1 million copies every single month. No gimmick covers, no speculator market, just solid sales figures.

And, as much as the music industry says otherwise (and as much as I hate piracy), I don’t think that piracy has hurt the music industry much. But, the music industry has multiple outlets: radio play, Itunes, CD's, etc. Comics only have one outlet: people going out and buying the books. Plus, the comic industry makes no where near as money the music industry. So, I see piracy as being potentially more harmful to comics than music. But, I also don't think we've seen too much damage, YET.

Brad responded:

That thing about the music industry was about the late 90s to early 2000 when everything was being shared online. These days stuff is still being shared but not to the same degree

I did know some people that just downloaded comics and couldn't be bothered to go out and buy them because of the "cost". I don't talk to them anymore. But I have seen people go out and buy a book just because they had a chance to read it first. I suppose its the same as browsing in a store to some people

In your column you should maybe talk about how to spread the great word of comics. Maybe talk about that.

Over here in the UK comics have a much smaller fanbase than in the US, and people aren't open to the idea of spending a lot of money a month on them. I try and influence people though, recommending certain books if they like a particular character and what else to try

Thanks for replying Mike!

Brad

See you around the board :)

One topic I will be dealing with really soon is why free comic day is a good idea done badly, and what more should be done to get comics into kid's hands. That is a topic close to my heart. I like to joke that my 11 month old cousin has more comics now than I did when I was 11 years old because of me.

I see what you're seeing about music, but even at the height of Napster, it was really just drop in the bucket. The music industry was never able to demonstrate it was a real financial drain.

All right, that wraps it up for this week. As always, please e-mail me any questions, comments, or whatevers to jackknight@gmail.com. I do read all my e-mails, and I’ll post them with my column. Also, remember to swing by GameFAQs and check out Eisner Cup season 3!

Now, go out and read some comics, you slacker!

Oh, and huge thanks to my sister, Patti, who created that wonderful Geoff Johns image for this column. You'll probably be seeing a lot of her work in the future ;)