So, the good news is, I gots me a job. The bad news is, blogging is put on hold for a bit.
The other good news is that I'm taking part in National Novel Writing Month instead. So there'll hopefully be something interesting here in the next few weeks.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
GLR: Earthbound, Part II
Almost done with Hal Jordan's adventures on Earth, so let's go into space!
Well, okay, it's not that simple. After the "One Year Later" gap following Infinite Crisis, we catch up with what Hal's been up to. And Hal's had it pretty crappy. Him, Cowgirl, and an unimportant third pilot went down in hostile territory, and were kept as POW's for about eight months during the year gap. And Hal blames himself for their trauma. Now, unlike most of Peter Parker's unnecessary angst, there's some foundation to this particular guilt trip: Hal never flies with his ring. If he'd had the ring on, he and his partners could have waltzed out of the terrorist camp with no problem. Hindsight is 20/20, and all.
To make matters worse, someone has placed an alien bounty on Jordan's head, and all sorts of bounty hunters are showing up trying to claim it. (Fortunately for Earth, Lobo didn't come calling.) However, it's not a bounty hunter who comes searching for Jordan's scalp; it's a Green Lantern, thought dead at Parallax's hands. Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner trace his path of travel to an empty region of space controlled by the Manhunters.
As you might expect from a mechanical army devoted to wiping out all life, the Manhunter "Warworld" is rather horrific; the Manhunters have a whole collection of long-dead Green Lanterns that weren't as dead as everyone thought. It turns out that the Manhunters had been collecting Green Lanterns over the years, including the so-called "Lost Lanterns", the last few to stand off against Parallax.
But it actually gets quite a bit worse, because it turns out the mysterious Grandmaster of the Manhunters is actually Hank Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman. (Hereafter called just "Cyborg", because "Cyborg Superman" is a tragically lame name.) The Cyborg is a bleak nihilist of a villain, incredibly creepy and generally obsessed with eliminating life, sentience, or some variation thereof. Most of all, though, the immortal Cyborg just wants to die.
Anywho, he's been using the kidnapped Lanterns to power his various Death Machines, but Hal and Guy initiate a jailbreak, and the freed Lanterns nuke Warworld, allowing the Guardians of the Universe to reclaim the Cyborg's now-crippled body.
Back on Earth, Cowgirl's plane goes down again (way to fly there, lady), and she's re-captured. Hal creates an international incident in his frantic search to get her back, going through alien bounty hunters, Russian and Chinese superheroes, and even the Justice League. He frees Cowgirl, and finally finds the person who placed the bounty on him in the first place: Amon Sur, son of Abin Sur.
Amon wants his father's ring, and is totally willing to kill to get it. He also rampages through Edwards AFB to reclaim his father's ship. Hal Jordan and John Stewart are tag-teaming him rather well, until he's found by a strange yellow ring, which welcomes Amon into the "Sinestro Corp." Before he can take advantage of this new weapon, it zaps him back to the Anti-Matter universe for training.
Finally, the Star Sapphire crystal is reactivated, first possessing Carol Ferris, then Cowgirl, in an attempt to get to Hal Jordan. Its creators, the Zamerons, become frustrated when Jordan figures a simple way to outwit the crystal, and decides to take a page from the Guardian's playbook, harnessing the power of the crystal into ring form to channel its energies into a stable weapon that won't warp its bearers' minds.
Really, there are four important events in this run of issues: the Sinestro Corp rings start cropping up, Amon Sur returns to the title, the Lost Lanterns are reintroduced, and the Star Sapphires officially become a corps.
The Sinestro rings are fairly simple foreshadowing, but what's worth noting is that there's almost no indication of the sheer size of the Corps. Of course, now we know that the Sinestro Corp would be created as a mirror of the Green Lantern Corp, with 7200 members; at this point, however, there's not much of a reason to suspect that size of an enemy force. It makes the inevitable reveal all the more daunting.
The Lost Lanterns are going to keep popping up to be a source of conflict for Hal, but with the exception of Lyria, aren't that important as individuals in Johns' run. And since their team will prove to have a mortality rate just slightly lower than the Teen Titans, it's best not to get too attached.
The Zamerons will prove to be smarter than Attrocitus by taking the time to purge all the crazy out of their power-source. With the violet energy of love being on the far end of the color spectrum (as the red light of rage is), it drives its bearers a bit loopy in its pure form. Most of this information, though, won't be placed into proper context until after SCW.
Amon Sur is simultaneously the most and least important part of this run of issues. He, as a character, is a loser. He's a slightly-less shrill version of Superboy Prime, a whiner with very petty goals. He's a nothing character who is somehow incredibly prominent in the title for the next year or so.
This is mainly due to not being useful as a character, but useful as a dramatic device. Immediately, Johns uses Amon for three things: first, Amon brings Abin Sur back to the readers' consciousness. Abin Sur, despite being long-dead, becomes increasingly important in the titles as we approach both Secret Origin and Blackest Night.
Second, Amon's rampage through Edwards AFB effectively ends its use as Area-51. This alone is enough to cement my dislike of Amon; it's one thing to be a lame character, but a lame character who destroys a much-more interesting story device? Sigh.
Finally, Amon is our portal into the Sinestro Corp, both here and in the Tales of the Sinestro Corp tie-in. Unfortunately, this is a bit of a head-scratcher as well. The ring that went to Amon Sur first tried to bond to Batman as a being capable of generating great fear. After he rejects it...the next greatest fearmonger on Earth is Amon Sur? Really? I mean, thankfully, Johns addresses this fallacy in Rage of the Red Lanterns and Blackest Night, but it's still a bit of a stretch just to get the story from point A to point B.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Cyborg is an incredibly cool character who is a bit underutilized. As Hal notes in his internal monologue, there's more than a little similarity between himself and the former Hank Henshaw, even considering their shared history; that's not even looking at the dramatic contrasts of their philosophies on life. But for the most part, these character traits aren't touched again after this arc.
It's really a bit of a frustrating pattern, as I've mentioned before; several villains in Johns' run could be considered dark, twisted versions of Hal Jordan, (including Amon Sur, actually), but this is never picked up on.
With the conclusion of these arcs, Johns is efficiently done building the foundation of Hal Jordan's return. Next time, we finally look at the story that sucked me into this mythos in the first place: Sinestro Corp War!
Well, I thought that was the Cyborg Superman, but he's wearing glasses. He's clearly just Cyborg Clark Kent.
Well, okay, it's not that simple. After the "One Year Later" gap following Infinite Crisis, we catch up with what Hal's been up to. And Hal's had it pretty crappy. Him, Cowgirl, and an unimportant third pilot went down in hostile territory, and were kept as POW's for about eight months during the year gap. And Hal blames himself for their trauma. Now, unlike most of Peter Parker's unnecessary angst, there's some foundation to this particular guilt trip: Hal never flies with his ring. If he'd had the ring on, he and his partners could have waltzed out of the terrorist camp with no problem. Hindsight is 20/20, and all.
To make matters worse, someone has placed an alien bounty on Jordan's head, and all sorts of bounty hunters are showing up trying to claim it. (Fortunately for Earth, Lobo didn't come calling.) However, it's not a bounty hunter who comes searching for Jordan's scalp; it's a Green Lantern, thought dead at Parallax's hands. Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner trace his path of travel to an empty region of space controlled by the Manhunters.
As you might expect from a mechanical army devoted to wiping out all life, the Manhunter "Warworld" is rather horrific; the Manhunters have a whole collection of long-dead Green Lanterns that weren't as dead as everyone thought. It turns out that the Manhunters had been collecting Green Lanterns over the years, including the so-called "Lost Lanterns", the last few to stand off against Parallax.
But it actually gets quite a bit worse, because it turns out the mysterious Grandmaster of the Manhunters is actually Hank Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman. (Hereafter called just "Cyborg", because "Cyborg Superman" is a tragically lame name.) The Cyborg is a bleak nihilist of a villain, incredibly creepy and generally obsessed with eliminating life, sentience, or some variation thereof. Most of all, though, the immortal Cyborg just wants to die.
Anywho, he's been using the kidnapped Lanterns to power his various Death Machines, but Hal and Guy initiate a jailbreak, and the freed Lanterns nuke Warworld, allowing the Guardians of the Universe to reclaim the Cyborg's now-crippled body.
Back on Earth, Cowgirl's plane goes down again (way to fly there, lady), and she's re-captured. Hal creates an international incident in his frantic search to get her back, going through alien bounty hunters, Russian and Chinese superheroes, and even the Justice League. He frees Cowgirl, and finally finds the person who placed the bounty on him in the first place: Amon Sur, son of Abin Sur.
Amon wants his father's ring, and is totally willing to kill to get it. He also rampages through Edwards AFB to reclaim his father's ship. Hal Jordan and John Stewart are tag-teaming him rather well, until he's found by a strange yellow ring, which welcomes Amon into the "Sinestro Corp." Before he can take advantage of this new weapon, it zaps him back to the Anti-Matter universe for training.
Finally, the Star Sapphire crystal is reactivated, first possessing Carol Ferris, then Cowgirl, in an attempt to get to Hal Jordan. Its creators, the Zamerons, become frustrated when Jordan figures a simple way to outwit the crystal, and decides to take a page from the Guardian's playbook, harnessing the power of the crystal into ring form to channel its energies into a stable weapon that won't warp its bearers' minds.
Really, there are four important events in this run of issues: the Sinestro Corp rings start cropping up, Amon Sur returns to the title, the Lost Lanterns are reintroduced, and the Star Sapphires officially become a corps.
The Sinestro rings are fairly simple foreshadowing, but what's worth noting is that there's almost no indication of the sheer size of the Corps. Of course, now we know that the Sinestro Corp would be created as a mirror of the Green Lantern Corp, with 7200 members; at this point, however, there's not much of a reason to suspect that size of an enemy force. It makes the inevitable reveal all the more daunting.
The Lost Lanterns are going to keep popping up to be a source of conflict for Hal, but with the exception of Lyria, aren't that important as individuals in Johns' run. And since their team will prove to have a mortality rate just slightly lower than the Teen Titans, it's best not to get too attached.
The Zamerons will prove to be smarter than Attrocitus by taking the time to purge all the crazy out of their power-source. With the violet energy of love being on the far end of the color spectrum (as the red light of rage is), it drives its bearers a bit loopy in its pure form. Most of this information, though, won't be placed into proper context until after SCW.
Amon Sur is simultaneously the most and least important part of this run of issues. He, as a character, is a loser. He's a slightly-less shrill version of Superboy Prime, a whiner with very petty goals. He's a nothing character who is somehow incredibly prominent in the title for the next year or so.
This is mainly due to not being useful as a character, but useful as a dramatic device. Immediately, Johns uses Amon for three things: first, Amon brings Abin Sur back to the readers' consciousness. Abin Sur, despite being long-dead, becomes increasingly important in the titles as we approach both Secret Origin and Blackest Night.
Second, Amon's rampage through Edwards AFB effectively ends its use as Area-51. This alone is enough to cement my dislike of Amon; it's one thing to be a lame character, but a lame character who destroys a much-more interesting story device? Sigh.
Finally, Amon is our portal into the Sinestro Corp, both here and in the Tales of the Sinestro Corp tie-in. Unfortunately, this is a bit of a head-scratcher as well. The ring that went to Amon Sur first tried to bond to Batman as a being capable of generating great fear. After he rejects it...the next greatest fearmonger on Earth is Amon Sur? Really? I mean, thankfully, Johns addresses this fallacy in Rage of the Red Lanterns and Blackest Night, but it's still a bit of a stretch just to get the story from point A to point B.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Cyborg is an incredibly cool character who is a bit underutilized. As Hal notes in his internal monologue, there's more than a little similarity between himself and the former Hank Henshaw, even considering their shared history; that's not even looking at the dramatic contrasts of their philosophies on life. But for the most part, these character traits aren't touched again after this arc.
It's really a bit of a frustrating pattern, as I've mentioned before; several villains in Johns' run could be considered dark, twisted versions of Hal Jordan, (including Amon Sur, actually), but this is never picked up on.
With the conclusion of these arcs, Johns is efficiently done building the foundation of Hal Jordan's return. Next time, we finally look at the story that sucked me into this mythos in the first place: Sinestro Corp War!
Well, I thought that was the Cyborg Superman, but he's wearing glasses. He's clearly just Cyborg Clark Kent.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Okay, I've Been Out of It
Had a really busy week this past, uh, week, so no blog updates. I'll take pains to correct that this week. Tomorrow I'll wrap up Earthbound, Part II, setting the stage for the really good stuff in Sinestro Corp War and the build-up to Blackest Night. For 'Ween Wednesday, I'll look at my favorite schlock horror franchise, Nightmare on Elm Street, reviewing the first four films of that series.
And hopefully, by Friday or Saturday, I'll have something special up. I'm starting to write again, hopefully being able to finish my sci-fi magnum opus. I haven't written fiction in a while, but I'm optimistic about my chances.
In the longer term, I'm playing with the idea of a multimedia segment of my blog, inspired by the likes of Brad Jones, Louis Lovhaugh, and Doug Walker. (All of whom are naturally excellently entertaining, and you should be following them if you're not.) But that's a bit of a ways off, mostly because I need to harass some of my peeps into helping me with some multimedia editing programs.
Hells, I might as well make the best of my unemployment for as long as I can, amirite?
And hopefully, by Friday or Saturday, I'll have something special up. I'm starting to write again, hopefully being able to finish my sci-fi magnum opus. I haven't written fiction in a while, but I'm optimistic about my chances.
In the longer term, I'm playing with the idea of a multimedia segment of my blog, inspired by the likes of Brad Jones, Louis Lovhaugh, and Doug Walker. (All of whom are naturally excellently entertaining, and you should be following them if you're not.) But that's a bit of a ways off, mostly because I need to harass some of my peeps into helping me with some multimedia editing programs.
Hells, I might as well make the best of my unemployment for as long as I can, amirite?
Friday, October 8, 2010
My Nerd Meter is Peaking
For the sake of comprehension in my GL Retrospective, I've got to deal with a matter I'd hoped to never address. It is, quite frankly, one of the nerdiest aspects of comic culture. Ever. Just trying to explain it to a non-fan is a pathway to madness. Heck, I'm afraid I'll be beaten up and have my lunch money stolen just in the process of typing this up. And I'll deserve it.
Today, we're going to discuss the DC Multiverse.
See, the idea of alternate realities and timelines is an old classic for science fiction and subsequently superhero comics, but DC took it a step too far by essentially publishing two very similar alternate universes simultaneously, universes which would constantly cross over. Admittedly, at first I was going to explain some of the reasons behind these multiple titles, but the more I think about it...well, the more it makes my head hurt.
In fairness, this concept originated in the Silver Age, when DC wasn't as big on continuity as most comics are today. However, as the medium grew more advanced and the stories became more complicated, (and the number of alternate worlds grew), it got a little confusing. So, in an attempt to simplify their publishing line, DC released a maxi-series called Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Looking back, the idea that Crisis would "simplify" anything is a bit of a joke.
The basic premise for the first (of three) Crisis series is that a fairly powerful being known as the Monitor starts collecting heroes from various universes to prevent an oncoming catastrophe. A powerful entity from the anti-matter universe, called the "Anti-Monitor", is annihilating universes one by one, planning to destroy all the mutliverse until only his anti-matter universe remains.
Let's pause here for a moment to appreciate how incredibly not-threatening the name "Anti-Monitor" is for an omnicidal cosmic force. And frankly, it's a bit non-sensical. Yeah, yeah, he's the Monitor from the anti-matter universe, but he's absolutely nothing like the good Monitor watching over the multiverse. He doesn't really "monitor" anything. Or maybe he's called this because he's the opponent of the Monitor. But why would he define himself by his arch-enemy? It's just not particularly clever naming for an ultimate evil.
And let's question the wisdom of this event in the first place. Universes are destroyed. Entire universes. Before the heroes are even involved in the plot, untold trillions have died. Kind of depressing, when you think about it. Way to drop the ball, Superman!
Stepping back from the story itself, if DC's desire was to simply restart their universe with a more coherent continuity, why not just write endings to the currently-running titles and start over? Why make an "event" out of their fourth-wall breaking editorial decision?
Whatevs. The point is, after the conclusion of CoIE, there are four survivors of the multiverse: Superman and Lois Lane of Earth-2 (where the WWII stories were designated to have happened), Alexander Luthor (the son of the good Lex Luthor from a world where heroes are villains and vice versa) and Superboy Prime (the only superhero from a world where the DCU is a comic book serial, supposed to be "our" world.) They remained in a pocket dimension outside of space and time.
CoIE caused a ton of headaches when the effects of various continuity changes started to accumulate; no one was certain what events had or hadn't happened, now. And for some reason, DC decided twenty years later to celebrate CoIE's 20th anniversary with a new Crisis: Infinite Crisis.
Infinite Crisis revolved around Alexander Luthor and Superboy Prime deciding that the new universe created at the end of CoIE was unworthy of existence, suffering from such dark and twisted events as the death of Superman, Knightfall, Emerald Twilight, and generally the entire 1990's. Alexander Luthor slipped back into reality and replaced Lex Luthor, organizing just about every super villain ever into the largest Secret Society yet. He used these resources to keep Earth's heroes off-balance while he constructed a huge citadel from the remains of the Anti-Monitor's technology. Alex's plan was to create a new, "perfect" world.
Superboy Prime, on the other hand, simply wanted his own world restored. Looking at things objectively, SP most likely suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. It's hard for most to look at him objectively, though, because Superboy Prime is hated by a large number of fans for being an immature, whiny punk of a villain. I'm rather ambivalent on him myself; I find him unintentionally hilarious at worst, somewhat threatening at best. Most villains are as petty as Prime is when you really get down to it; Prime simply lacks the trappings of style and refinement your average supervillain tends to have.
The kid says things like, "I'll kill you to death!" We're not dealing with Victor Von Doom.
At the end of IC, Lex Luthor and the Joker kill the upstart Alexander, and Superboy Prime is imprisoned by the Green Lanterns in a cell held at the center of a red sun, keeping him completely powerless. However, seeing as Earth (and many a super-hero's life) was completely in ruins due to the events of the series, DC elected to skip ahead one year to set the books up in new status quos. This timejump was called "One Year Later", because the marketing guys were feeling particularly creative that day.
Another editorial side-effect of IC is the decision that all of Alex Luthor's tampering with the fabric of reality has allowed for new continuity changes. This is going to be more important when the GL Retrospective gets to Secret Origins.
A totally awesome maxi-series called 52 dealt with events during the year-long gap between the end of IC and OYL, showing that Alex's activities had also created a new multiverse, consisting of fifty-two parallel worlds balancing on the main Earth. At first, these universes are completely identical, but when Mr. Mind attempts to consume reality (there's a sentence I never though I'd ever type), it created alterations in these universes.
Bottom line? There's a new multiverse, consisting of 52 parallel worlds balanced on the original. Only a handful of these new worlds have really been explored. And as we'll find out in a couple weeks, the re-creation of the multiverse allowed for the rebirth of the Anti-Monitor.
I'll be honest: I hate the multiverse. With the exception of 52, just about everything related to the multiverse confuses, bores, or irritates me. And the multiverse only came into play in literally the last two issues of that series. The introduction of the Monitors is Final Crisis took attention away from Darkseid's crowning moment of victory, and generally took what had been a very enjoyable series off the rails. I just. Don't. Care. About the multiverse. But since Geoff Johns wrote Infinite Crisis, a couple characters and concepts from that series pop up in future Green Lantern stories, so I gotta' deal. Alas.
Today, we're going to discuss the DC Multiverse.
See, the idea of alternate realities and timelines is an old classic for science fiction and subsequently superhero comics, but DC took it a step too far by essentially publishing two very similar alternate universes simultaneously, universes which would constantly cross over. Admittedly, at first I was going to explain some of the reasons behind these multiple titles, but the more I think about it...well, the more it makes my head hurt.
In fairness, this concept originated in the Silver Age, when DC wasn't as big on continuity as most comics are today. However, as the medium grew more advanced and the stories became more complicated, (and the number of alternate worlds grew), it got a little confusing. So, in an attempt to simplify their publishing line, DC released a maxi-series called Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Looking back, the idea that Crisis would "simplify" anything is a bit of a joke.
The basic premise for the first (of three) Crisis series is that a fairly powerful being known as the Monitor starts collecting heroes from various universes to prevent an oncoming catastrophe. A powerful entity from the anti-matter universe, called the "Anti-Monitor", is annihilating universes one by one, planning to destroy all the mutliverse until only his anti-matter universe remains.
Let's pause here for a moment to appreciate how incredibly not-threatening the name "Anti-Monitor" is for an omnicidal cosmic force. And frankly, it's a bit non-sensical. Yeah, yeah, he's the Monitor from the anti-matter universe, but he's absolutely nothing like the good Monitor watching over the multiverse. He doesn't really "monitor" anything. Or maybe he's called this because he's the opponent of the Monitor. But why would he define himself by his arch-enemy? It's just not particularly clever naming for an ultimate evil.
And let's question the wisdom of this event in the first place. Universes are destroyed. Entire universes. Before the heroes are even involved in the plot, untold trillions have died. Kind of depressing, when you think about it. Way to drop the ball, Superman!
Stepping back from the story itself, if DC's desire was to simply restart their universe with a more coherent continuity, why not just write endings to the currently-running titles and start over? Why make an "event" out of their fourth-wall breaking editorial decision?
Whatevs. The point is, after the conclusion of CoIE, there are four survivors of the multiverse: Superman and Lois Lane of Earth-2 (where the WWII stories were designated to have happened), Alexander Luthor (the son of the good Lex Luthor from a world where heroes are villains and vice versa) and Superboy Prime (the only superhero from a world where the DCU is a comic book serial, supposed to be "our" world.) They remained in a pocket dimension outside of space and time.
CoIE caused a ton of headaches when the effects of various continuity changes started to accumulate; no one was certain what events had or hadn't happened, now. And for some reason, DC decided twenty years later to celebrate CoIE's 20th anniversary with a new Crisis: Infinite Crisis.
Infinite Crisis revolved around Alexander Luthor and Superboy Prime deciding that the new universe created at the end of CoIE was unworthy of existence, suffering from such dark and twisted events as the death of Superman, Knightfall, Emerald Twilight, and generally the entire 1990's. Alexander Luthor slipped back into reality and replaced Lex Luthor, organizing just about every super villain ever into the largest Secret Society yet. He used these resources to keep Earth's heroes off-balance while he constructed a huge citadel from the remains of the Anti-Monitor's technology. Alex's plan was to create a new, "perfect" world.
Superboy Prime, on the other hand, simply wanted his own world restored. Looking at things objectively, SP most likely suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. It's hard for most to look at him objectively, though, because Superboy Prime is hated by a large number of fans for being an immature, whiny punk of a villain. I'm rather ambivalent on him myself; I find him unintentionally hilarious at worst, somewhat threatening at best. Most villains are as petty as Prime is when you really get down to it; Prime simply lacks the trappings of style and refinement your average supervillain tends to have.
The kid says things like, "I'll kill you to death!" We're not dealing with Victor Von Doom.
At the end of IC, Lex Luthor and the Joker kill the upstart Alexander, and Superboy Prime is imprisoned by the Green Lanterns in a cell held at the center of a red sun, keeping him completely powerless. However, seeing as Earth (and many a super-hero's life) was completely in ruins due to the events of the series, DC elected to skip ahead one year to set the books up in new status quos. This timejump was called "One Year Later", because the marketing guys were feeling particularly creative that day.
Another editorial side-effect of IC is the decision that all of Alex Luthor's tampering with the fabric of reality has allowed for new continuity changes. This is going to be more important when the GL Retrospective gets to Secret Origins.
A totally awesome maxi-series called 52 dealt with events during the year-long gap between the end of IC and OYL, showing that Alex's activities had also created a new multiverse, consisting of fifty-two parallel worlds balancing on the main Earth. At first, these universes are completely identical, but when Mr. Mind attempts to consume reality (there's a sentence I never though I'd ever type), it created alterations in these universes.
Bottom line? There's a new multiverse, consisting of 52 parallel worlds balanced on the original. Only a handful of these new worlds have really been explored. And as we'll find out in a couple weeks, the re-creation of the multiverse allowed for the rebirth of the Anti-Monitor.
I'll be honest: I hate the multiverse. With the exception of 52, just about everything related to the multiverse confuses, bores, or irritates me. And the multiverse only came into play in literally the last two issues of that series. The introduction of the Monitors is Final Crisis took attention away from Darkseid's crowning moment of victory, and generally took what had been a very enjoyable series off the rails. I just. Don't. Care. About the multiverse. But since Geoff Johns wrote Infinite Crisis, a couple characters and concepts from that series pop up in future Green Lantern stories, so I gotta' deal. Alas.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
'Ween Wednesday
Awesome Halloween Music
No, "Thriller" isn't on here. I assume everyone already knows about it.
No, "Thriller" isn't on here. I assume everyone already knows about it.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
GLR: Earthbound Part I
Nur wenn sie dachten, es sei sicher zu gehen zurück in das Wasser.
Gonna' break up the retrospective a bit differently this week. Rather than cover a specific book of Green Lantern, I'm going to divvy up the contents of three books, "No Fear", "Revenge of the Green Lanterns", and "Wanted: Hal Jordan" over this and the next review, using the One Year Later gap as the dividing line. The plots are a lot less complicated than "Rebirth", making it easier to explain the events therein.
The other reason for this, though, is that the recurring theme of the first two years of GL stories under Johns is unfortunately "wasted potential". Just about every Earth-bound character and plotline Johns establishes is ignored after the Sinestro Corps War. In a few cases, this is because they're brought to their logical conclusion. In most, however, it's simply because after SCW, Jordan goes off into space to get involved in the rundown to Blackest Night, which leaves no logical way for Edwards Air Force Base, Cowgirl, or Coast City to be involved or referenced.
I'm of two minds on the subject. On the one hand, I enjoyed the characters and conflicts introduced after SCW. On the other, I also enjoyed the pre-SCW status quo, if not the characters. (Cowgirl is little more than a female Hal Jordan, and the rest of the cast apart from Jim Jordan are fairly forgettable.) I'll deal more with what I like about this status quo after we examine the events of these issues.
After returning to life at the end of "Rebirth", Hal Jordan returns to the slowly-restoring Coast City. The federal government is putting a lot of money into getting the place rebuilt, but not a lot of people are interested in moving to "Ghost City".
On the personal front, Jordan gets a position at Edwards AFB, under a commander who knows his secret identity. He meets a flirtatious female AF pilot, call-sign "Cowgirl." He has a heart-to-heart with his little brother Jim, a rather timid man who is inspired by Hal's return to move his family back to Coast City.
But to Hell with that! Super heroics!
Edwards AFB is essentially acting as Area 51, holding pieces of alien technology they've found over the decades. This causes problems when one of their pieces, an old Manhunter robot, reactivates after detecting a Green Lantern in the area. Unfortunately, a new model Manhunter comes to destroy the outdated on, leaving Hal caught in the middle. The new Manhunter is equipped with a power battery in its skull, making it able to drain a GL's power ring. This is important to remember, because although Hal is able to destroy both of these Manhunters, it's not the last time we'll hear from them.
The next storyline revolves around the Gremlins, a race of amoral alien scientists (who all speak German, for some reason.) They've taken an interest in playing with evolutionary freaks of nature, enhancing them to sell as weapons to galactic despots. Old Green Lantern foe Hector Hammond, a man with psychic abilities so powerful that his brain has completely overcome the rest of his body, senses that the Gremlins are coming for him, so he alerts Jordan of their plan.
Hal is preoccupied when another of the Gremlins' pet projects, the Shark. The Shark is exactly what his name implies, a hyper-evolved shark man. None too bright, but huge, powerful, hungry, and off the California coast. While the Shark keeps Hal busy, the Gremlins abduct Hammond, as well as the villain Black Hand, last seen when the Specter mutilated the poor sap's hand. The Gremlins give Black Hand the means to regenerate his lost limb, at the cost of sucking life from those around him. Unfortunately, the poor guy's been so far traumatized by what the Specter (and, to Hand's mind, Hal Jordan, did to him that he's become a death-worshiping nihilist. This new ability is right up Black Hand's ally.
Hal manages to save Hammond, as well as defeating the Shark, Black Hand, and the Gremlins. He turns the first three over to Earth authorities, and the Gremlins over to the Green Lantern Corp. The evolutionary experiments are considered alien technology, and are held at Edwards AFB.
The next story is a direct tie-in to the events of the mega-event Infinite Crisis, which will tangentially effect the stories we examine next week. Mongul II, son of the alien who allied with the Cyborg Superman to destroy Coast City, is determined to avenge his late father and earn his legacy. Ambushing Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman in the then-destroyed JLA Watchtower, he steals a Black Mercy from the JLA vault, and teleports to Earth, being intercepted by Green Lantern and his buddy Green Arrow. I've already made my thoughts on Green Arrow clear, so I won't go into that further.
Now, a Black Mercy is a symbiotic alien plant that bonds to a host and creates an illusion in the host's mind of a perfectly content life to prevent the host from resisting the bond. Mongul II (hereafter, just "Mongul") plans to follow in his father's footsteps and weaponize the Mercy's, growing a whole field of them on Earth. Green Arrow and Green Lantern are captured by one, but are able to see through the illusion it created because the plant had to split its resources between two individuals, creating what wasn't Green Arrow's ideal world, but what Hal Jordan thought Green Arrow's ideal world would be. Freed, the two fight back Mongul, who has further competition from his own sister, Mongal. When the siblings are teleported back to their point of origin, Mongul kills his sister, determined to honor their father himself.
Finally, Green Lantern and Batman team up to take down the mysterious Tattooed Man, a former Marine covered in mystical tattoos that can manifest as demons and attack those in the real world. Hal is understandably nervous about working with Bats again. Back in Rebirth, before Hal could lead the charge against Parallax, Batman had tried to intervene, still not trusting Jordan. Hal then punched out Batman before continuing on his way.
Yeah, Hal, you'd better be scared. You don't punch Batman. Not ever.
Sure enough, when Hal steps out of line, Batman takes the opportunity to put him in his place. Hal backs down, but the two still have trouble approaching the problem; Batman plans every move and acts from the shadows, while Green Lantern literally covers himself in light and dives in head first. They ultimately use this to their advantage; Green Lantern distracts the Tattooed Man and get attacked by the demons he can manifests, while Batman ambushes Tattooed Man and fight the human host hand-to-hand.
They defeat him, and as a peace offering, Hal offers Batman a chance to use his ring. To do so requires focusing on the moment of ultimate fear in your life, and being able to move past it. Batman is able to do this (no prizes for guessing what Batman's most fearful memory is), but chooses not to, saying that the memory is what motivates him to keep fighting. However, by issue's end, he and Hal are back on friendly terms. As friendly as terms are with the Batman, anyway.
So, what do we have, here?
We have what I think is one of the coolest status quos for a super hero ever: working at Area 51. I would absolutely love for another character, a more Earthbound one, to operate at the fictional Edwards AFB and deal with both government intrigue and threats from beyond the stars. Upon looking back, a Green Lantern isn't really the best fit for this type of setting; Hal Jordan already splits his time between Earth and space. The creatures kept at Edwards aren't as frightening or mysterious to him as they would be to someone a little more grounded. And, as I've noted before, this status quo is eventually dropped entirely as Hal spends most of the next couple years in space. Still, I hope Edwards is eventually revisited.
Next we have Hector Hammond, who is reimagined by Johns as a creepy Hal-Jordan fanboy/stalker. It's actually a clever idea; Hammond is unable to move on his own because of his huge head. Really, it's like an orange on a toothpick. It's like Sputnik: spherical, but quite pointy in parts. It's got its own weather system. He cries himself to sleep every night on his huge pillow. By using his psychic abilities, he can live the exciting life of a superhero by leeching off of Jordan's memories. And, unlike the other plot threads introduced in this part of the run, Hammond actually comes back after the conclusion of Blackest Night, serving as a meat-puppet for the serpentine embodiment of Greed. I'm interested in where Johns goes with this.
The Black Hand is another character who comes back in a big way ,being the centerpiece of the Blackest Night crossover. In fact, Hand is the first character to speak of the coming of the Blackest Night, but seeing as he's out of his mind half the time, no one listens to his ramblings. It's ironic, however, that the Specter, by choosing to mutilate Hand rather than kill him outright, not only allowed for the deaths of all the people Hand kills to regrow his limb, but also allowed for the Blackest Night to occur in the first place. At the time, it would seem that the Specter's attack pushed the Hand completely over the edge, but Secret Origins and one of the Blackest Night prologues will reveal that Hand was always destined to be the avatar of death. (Admittedly, mostly via revised continuity in the wake of "Infinite Crisis".)
Mongul will play a larger role in the Green Lantern universe following the Sinestro Corp War, albeit mostly in the sister title "Green Lantern Corps". I'll deal with those developments in due time, but I think it's worth noting that Johns missed a good opportunity with this character; Mongul rivals Hal Jordan when it comes to Daddy issues. This isn't the last time such an opportunity is going to be missed, and it's a bit frustrating. The defining element of Jordan's background is his relationship with and admiration of his father, and the defining moment of his life was witnessing his father's death. Jordan is surrounded by foes with warped family relations, but they tend to be tangential rivals; none of his main enemies has any paternal angst. This is wasted dramatic potential.
As for Mongal, I'm a bit irritated at her fridging. I don't know a thing about her, or her history, but killing her seemed rather anti-climatic. If you were just going to kill her off, why bring her into this story to begin with? (Ask Raynie about the Kingpin's fate in Ultimate Spider-Man sometimes; it's a rather similar situation.) Instantly, there are two problems with her death: first, it robs us of future drama. It'd be much more interesting to bring her in as a rival during Mongul's later rise to power.
Additionally, killing her completely muddies Mongul's motivation. He claims the only reason he bothers with Earth is because his father deemed it a worthwhile target, and he's going to live up to his father's legacy. Yet when he kills his sister, he claims that family is a weakness, and he won't allow himself to have any weaknesses. So, which is it? Is family a weakness or something to honor? I suppose one could say that Mongul changes his mind during the course of the story as a result of being defeated by Green Lantern and Green Arrow; he decides not to bother honoring his father, and simply take what he can for himself. (It's worth noting that he doesn't target Earth again.) But if that's the case, it's not made very clear. Either way, Mongal should have at least gone out fighting, rather than from a comically violent cheap-shot.
Finally, we come to Batman. Jordan punching Batman was one of the most controversial events of "Rebirth", and Johns was accused of punking Batman in order to make Hal Jordan look good. Now, ignoring those rubes who insist that no one short of Jesus Christ himself should ever be able to get in a shot at Batman...there's frankly some truth to the charge. Batman in "Rebirth" is right to be skeptical of Jordan in the circumstances, and there was frankly no dramatic benefit in introducing a conflict between the two. The fact that said conflict is firmly resolved here and never mentioned again signifies how pointless it was in the first place. The original pitch for "Rebirth" had Parallax choose Batman as his host after being expelled from Jordan, and that wasn't a particularly good idea, either. For whatever reason, Johns seemed to have plans for this Batman/Green Lantern rivalry, plans he quickly dropped once he got Hal Jordan re-established.
It's just as well because, as I noted last week, Johns doesn't seem to "get" Batman, or, more accurately, his vision of Batman is firmly stuck in the worse era of the '90's. John Stewart accuses Batman of hating Hal Jordan because Batman hides in shadows and gains power through fear, which wouldn't work on Jordan. Parallax calls Batman a "disciple" of fear. And the Sinestro Corp even tries to recruit Batman as a being able to generate great fear. Now, admittedly, that last example makes sense in the context of how a Sinestro Corp ring would operate, seeing as one would later try to recruit a being whom instilled fear without any intention of doing so. Still, the recurring message of Johns' run in regards to Batman is that Batman operates through fear, without which, he is powerless.
And this is a bunch of crap.
Not to bring up the Emotional Spectrum meme again, but if Batman is a member of any Corps, it's the Blue Lanterns. Bruce Wayne gets up every day and fights against a never-ending tide of crime, violence and corruption. He knows that despite how hopeless it may seem at times, every life he saves is a step in the right direction. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not in his lifetime, but sooner or later, Gotham City is going to be a city of virtue instead of vice. Bruce never loses that hope; it drives him. He's driven by a desire to ensure that no one else will have to suffer as he had.
And aside from that, Batman isn't universally feared. His arch-enemies, for the most part, don't fear him. The Bat-family is rather expansive, and even those he doesn't see eye-to-eye with don't fear him. Most of the big members of the Justice League don't fear him. Most of the Gotham Police Department knows they don't have to fear him. And, perhaps most tellingly, children almost never fear him. Fear isn't a weapon for Batman so much as it's a defense to make up for his very human frailties. He's not someone who thinks fear is a tool used to instill social order; that would make him an ideal member of the Sinestro Corp. Batman isn't that, and it's a bit irritating that Johns implies the only reason Batman was able to reject the Sinestro Corp ring is because of his brief contact with Hal Jordan's ring.
Now, in fairness to Johns, all of my conjecture here is based not on anything he's said, but on what characters written by him have said. But more than a couple characters and events have painted a fairly consistent image of Batman, and if it's analogous to how Johns sees the character, then Johns sees one of the worse incarnations of the character. (I'm choosing not to address the Brother Eye storyline leading up to "Infinite Crisis" because I only read bits and pieces of it years ago, and can't trust my memory on the matter; additionally, I don't know who wrote/originated the plot in the first place.)
Of course, I could be wrong; I suppose we'll see when Johns presents his take on Batman's origin in "Batman: Earth One" next year. And since I should probably remember what superhero this post is really about, I'll say that next week, we'll glance over relevant events in "Infinite Crisis", deal with the One Year Gap, and see the lead-in to the Sinestro Corp War.
Oh, and Hal Jordan macks on every woman in the series with a pulse. Seriously.
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With enough prep-time, Batman can take out the Shark with little problem.
Gonna' break up the retrospective a bit differently this week. Rather than cover a specific book of Green Lantern, I'm going to divvy up the contents of three books, "No Fear", "Revenge of the Green Lanterns", and "Wanted: Hal Jordan" over this and the next review, using the One Year Later gap as the dividing line. The plots are a lot less complicated than "Rebirth", making it easier to explain the events therein.
The other reason for this, though, is that the recurring theme of the first two years of GL stories under Johns is unfortunately "wasted potential". Just about every Earth-bound character and plotline Johns establishes is ignored after the Sinestro Corps War. In a few cases, this is because they're brought to their logical conclusion. In most, however, it's simply because after SCW, Jordan goes off into space to get involved in the rundown to Blackest Night, which leaves no logical way for Edwards Air Force Base, Cowgirl, or Coast City to be involved or referenced.
I'm of two minds on the subject. On the one hand, I enjoyed the characters and conflicts introduced after SCW. On the other, I also enjoyed the pre-SCW status quo, if not the characters. (Cowgirl is little more than a female Hal Jordan, and the rest of the cast apart from Jim Jordan are fairly forgettable.) I'll deal more with what I like about this status quo after we examine the events of these issues.
After returning to life at the end of "Rebirth", Hal Jordan returns to the slowly-restoring Coast City. The federal government is putting a lot of money into getting the place rebuilt, but not a lot of people are interested in moving to "Ghost City".
On the personal front, Jordan gets a position at Edwards AFB, under a commander who knows his secret identity. He meets a flirtatious female AF pilot, call-sign "Cowgirl." He has a heart-to-heart with his little brother Jim, a rather timid man who is inspired by Hal's return to move his family back to Coast City.
But to Hell with that! Super heroics!
Edwards AFB is essentially acting as Area 51, holding pieces of alien technology they've found over the decades. This causes problems when one of their pieces, an old Manhunter robot, reactivates after detecting a Green Lantern in the area. Unfortunately, a new model Manhunter comes to destroy the outdated on, leaving Hal caught in the middle. The new Manhunter is equipped with a power battery in its skull, making it able to drain a GL's power ring. This is important to remember, because although Hal is able to destroy both of these Manhunters, it's not the last time we'll hear from them.
The next storyline revolves around the Gremlins, a race of amoral alien scientists (who all speak German, for some reason.) They've taken an interest in playing with evolutionary freaks of nature, enhancing them to sell as weapons to galactic despots. Old Green Lantern foe Hector Hammond, a man with psychic abilities so powerful that his brain has completely overcome the rest of his body, senses that the Gremlins are coming for him, so he alerts Jordan of their plan.
Hal is preoccupied when another of the Gremlins' pet projects, the Shark. The Shark is exactly what his name implies, a hyper-evolved shark man. None too bright, but huge, powerful, hungry, and off the California coast. While the Shark keeps Hal busy, the Gremlins abduct Hammond, as well as the villain Black Hand, last seen when the Specter mutilated the poor sap's hand. The Gremlins give Black Hand the means to regenerate his lost limb, at the cost of sucking life from those around him. Unfortunately, the poor guy's been so far traumatized by what the Specter (and, to Hand's mind, Hal Jordan, did to him that he's become a death-worshiping nihilist. This new ability is right up Black Hand's ally.
Hal manages to save Hammond, as well as defeating the Shark, Black Hand, and the Gremlins. He turns the first three over to Earth authorities, and the Gremlins over to the Green Lantern Corp. The evolutionary experiments are considered alien technology, and are held at Edwards AFB.
The next story is a direct tie-in to the events of the mega-event Infinite Crisis, which will tangentially effect the stories we examine next week. Mongul II, son of the alien who allied with the Cyborg Superman to destroy Coast City, is determined to avenge his late father and earn his legacy. Ambushing Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman in the then-destroyed JLA Watchtower, he steals a Black Mercy from the JLA vault, and teleports to Earth, being intercepted by Green Lantern and his buddy Green Arrow. I've already made my thoughts on Green Arrow clear, so I won't go into that further.
Now, a Black Mercy is a symbiotic alien plant that bonds to a host and creates an illusion in the host's mind of a perfectly content life to prevent the host from resisting the bond. Mongul II (hereafter, just "Mongul") plans to follow in his father's footsteps and weaponize the Mercy's, growing a whole field of them on Earth. Green Arrow and Green Lantern are captured by one, but are able to see through the illusion it created because the plant had to split its resources between two individuals, creating what wasn't Green Arrow's ideal world, but what Hal Jordan thought Green Arrow's ideal world would be. Freed, the two fight back Mongul, who has further competition from his own sister, Mongal. When the siblings are teleported back to their point of origin, Mongul kills his sister, determined to honor their father himself.
Finally, Green Lantern and Batman team up to take down the mysterious Tattooed Man, a former Marine covered in mystical tattoos that can manifest as demons and attack those in the real world. Hal is understandably nervous about working with Bats again. Back in Rebirth, before Hal could lead the charge against Parallax, Batman had tried to intervene, still not trusting Jordan. Hal then punched out Batman before continuing on his way.
Yeah, Hal, you'd better be scared. You don't punch Batman. Not ever.
Sure enough, when Hal steps out of line, Batman takes the opportunity to put him in his place. Hal backs down, but the two still have trouble approaching the problem; Batman plans every move and acts from the shadows, while Green Lantern literally covers himself in light and dives in head first. They ultimately use this to their advantage; Green Lantern distracts the Tattooed Man and get attacked by the demons he can manifests, while Batman ambushes Tattooed Man and fight the human host hand-to-hand.
They defeat him, and as a peace offering, Hal offers Batman a chance to use his ring. To do so requires focusing on the moment of ultimate fear in your life, and being able to move past it. Batman is able to do this (no prizes for guessing what Batman's most fearful memory is), but chooses not to, saying that the memory is what motivates him to keep fighting. However, by issue's end, he and Hal are back on friendly terms. As friendly as terms are with the Batman, anyway.
So, what do we have, here?
We have what I think is one of the coolest status quos for a super hero ever: working at Area 51. I would absolutely love for another character, a more Earthbound one, to operate at the fictional Edwards AFB and deal with both government intrigue and threats from beyond the stars. Upon looking back, a Green Lantern isn't really the best fit for this type of setting; Hal Jordan already splits his time between Earth and space. The creatures kept at Edwards aren't as frightening or mysterious to him as they would be to someone a little more grounded. And, as I've noted before, this status quo is eventually dropped entirely as Hal spends most of the next couple years in space. Still, I hope Edwards is eventually revisited.
Next we have Hector Hammond, who is reimagined by Johns as a creepy Hal-Jordan fanboy/stalker. It's actually a clever idea; Hammond is unable to move on his own because of his huge head. Really, it's like an orange on a toothpick. It's like Sputnik: spherical, but quite pointy in parts. It's got its own weather system. He cries himself to sleep every night on his huge pillow. By using his psychic abilities, he can live the exciting life of a superhero by leeching off of Jordan's memories. And, unlike the other plot threads introduced in this part of the run, Hammond actually comes back after the conclusion of Blackest Night, serving as a meat-puppet for the serpentine embodiment of Greed. I'm interested in where Johns goes with this.
The Black Hand is another character who comes back in a big way ,being the centerpiece of the Blackest Night crossover. In fact, Hand is the first character to speak of the coming of the Blackest Night, but seeing as he's out of his mind half the time, no one listens to his ramblings. It's ironic, however, that the Specter, by choosing to mutilate Hand rather than kill him outright, not only allowed for the deaths of all the people Hand kills to regrow his limb, but also allowed for the Blackest Night to occur in the first place. At the time, it would seem that the Specter's attack pushed the Hand completely over the edge, but Secret Origins and one of the Blackest Night prologues will reveal that Hand was always destined to be the avatar of death. (Admittedly, mostly via revised continuity in the wake of "Infinite Crisis".)
Mongul will play a larger role in the Green Lantern universe following the Sinestro Corp War, albeit mostly in the sister title "Green Lantern Corps". I'll deal with those developments in due time, but I think it's worth noting that Johns missed a good opportunity with this character; Mongul rivals Hal Jordan when it comes to Daddy issues. This isn't the last time such an opportunity is going to be missed, and it's a bit frustrating. The defining element of Jordan's background is his relationship with and admiration of his father, and the defining moment of his life was witnessing his father's death. Jordan is surrounded by foes with warped family relations, but they tend to be tangential rivals; none of his main enemies has any paternal angst. This is wasted dramatic potential.
As for Mongal, I'm a bit irritated at her fridging. I don't know a thing about her, or her history, but killing her seemed rather anti-climatic. If you were just going to kill her off, why bring her into this story to begin with? (Ask Raynie about the Kingpin's fate in Ultimate Spider-Man sometimes; it's a rather similar situation.) Instantly, there are two problems with her death: first, it robs us of future drama. It'd be much more interesting to bring her in as a rival during Mongul's later rise to power.
Additionally, killing her completely muddies Mongul's motivation. He claims the only reason he bothers with Earth is because his father deemed it a worthwhile target, and he's going to live up to his father's legacy. Yet when he kills his sister, he claims that family is a weakness, and he won't allow himself to have any weaknesses. So, which is it? Is family a weakness or something to honor? I suppose one could say that Mongul changes his mind during the course of the story as a result of being defeated by Green Lantern and Green Arrow; he decides not to bother honoring his father, and simply take what he can for himself. (It's worth noting that he doesn't target Earth again.) But if that's the case, it's not made very clear. Either way, Mongal should have at least gone out fighting, rather than from a comically violent cheap-shot.
Finally, we come to Batman. Jordan punching Batman was one of the most controversial events of "Rebirth", and Johns was accused of punking Batman in order to make Hal Jordan look good. Now, ignoring those rubes who insist that no one short of Jesus Christ himself should ever be able to get in a shot at Batman...there's frankly some truth to the charge. Batman in "Rebirth" is right to be skeptical of Jordan in the circumstances, and there was frankly no dramatic benefit in introducing a conflict between the two. The fact that said conflict is firmly resolved here and never mentioned again signifies how pointless it was in the first place. The original pitch for "Rebirth" had Parallax choose Batman as his host after being expelled from Jordan, and that wasn't a particularly good idea, either. For whatever reason, Johns seemed to have plans for this Batman/Green Lantern rivalry, plans he quickly dropped once he got Hal Jordan re-established.
It's just as well because, as I noted last week, Johns doesn't seem to "get" Batman, or, more accurately, his vision of Batman is firmly stuck in the worse era of the '90's. John Stewart accuses Batman of hating Hal Jordan because Batman hides in shadows and gains power through fear, which wouldn't work on Jordan. Parallax calls Batman a "disciple" of fear. And the Sinestro Corp even tries to recruit Batman as a being able to generate great fear. Now, admittedly, that last example makes sense in the context of how a Sinestro Corp ring would operate, seeing as one would later try to recruit a being whom instilled fear without any intention of doing so. Still, the recurring message of Johns' run in regards to Batman is that Batman operates through fear, without which, he is powerless.
And this is a bunch of crap.
Not to bring up the Emotional Spectrum meme again, but if Batman is a member of any Corps, it's the Blue Lanterns. Bruce Wayne gets up every day and fights against a never-ending tide of crime, violence and corruption. He knows that despite how hopeless it may seem at times, every life he saves is a step in the right direction. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not in his lifetime, but sooner or later, Gotham City is going to be a city of virtue instead of vice. Bruce never loses that hope; it drives him. He's driven by a desire to ensure that no one else will have to suffer as he had.
And aside from that, Batman isn't universally feared. His arch-enemies, for the most part, don't fear him. The Bat-family is rather expansive, and even those he doesn't see eye-to-eye with don't fear him. Most of the big members of the Justice League don't fear him. Most of the Gotham Police Department knows they don't have to fear him. And, perhaps most tellingly, children almost never fear him. Fear isn't a weapon for Batman so much as it's a defense to make up for his very human frailties. He's not someone who thinks fear is a tool used to instill social order; that would make him an ideal member of the Sinestro Corp. Batman isn't that, and it's a bit irritating that Johns implies the only reason Batman was able to reject the Sinestro Corp ring is because of his brief contact with Hal Jordan's ring.
Now, in fairness to Johns, all of my conjecture here is based not on anything he's said, but on what characters written by him have said. But more than a couple characters and events have painted a fairly consistent image of Batman, and if it's analogous to how Johns sees the character, then Johns sees one of the worse incarnations of the character. (I'm choosing not to address the Brother Eye storyline leading up to "Infinite Crisis" because I only read bits and pieces of it years ago, and can't trust my memory on the matter; additionally, I don't know who wrote/originated the plot in the first place.)
Of course, I could be wrong; I suppose we'll see when Johns presents his take on Batman's origin in "Batman: Earth One" next year. And since I should probably remember what superhero this post is really about, I'll say that next week, we'll glance over relevant events in "Infinite Crisis", deal with the One Year Gap, and see the lead-in to the Sinestro Corp War.
Oh, and Hal Jordan macks on every woman in the series with a pulse. Seriously.
.jpg)
With enough prep-time, Batman can take out the Shark with little problem.
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