(Read more about the Syndicate, if you care at all, with the link in the headline above.)
This event is becoming a car wreck, from which I cannot turn away. I’m still interested enough in what is happening to Jimmy Olsen, but have begun to find most of the other characters tedious and worse, not always consistent in the way they act from issue to issue. If you don't want to know about any of this you can skip to some other blog or the links over on The Right.
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Things are looking bad for the heroes of Earth-One in the DCU. Of course, things aren’t going well on some of the alternate worlds either, but it will be interesting to see how many of these survive over the next year or so. Needless, to say I expect a few more deaths (and not just the for no reason except to show what a dark little b**** Mary Marvel has become type) along the way. Hell, I’m expecting whole worlds and universes of death and destruction before the writers of this thing are done.
The hopeless Trickster & Pied Piper go from one situation to another and are frankly becoming a bit tedious. The writers seem to use them to jump for no apparent reason from one scene of chaos to another to showcase characters we don’t know. Again, it would be helpful to at least name new characters as they show up, since they all seem to know each other. A simple, “Ace-Face! What are you doing here?” might be helpful, don’t you think?
It was obvious that things would go from bad to worse for poor Jimmy Olsen when he allowed himself to be taken to Project Cadmus. Then letting yourself be strapped to some device with a name that spells out A.N.U.S. never turns out well. (You can imagine the squeals of laughter around the editorial table when somebody came up with that clever bit, can’t you?) When last seen Jimmy appears to have been split into several entities, with his physical form liquefying and slipping down a drain. This am bad juju!
Donna Troy, Jason (“I’m really not dead”) Todd and Crab-Face Guy are still traveling with Bob the Monitor. The quartet continue to pop up on one alternate Earth after the other only to find there is no reason for them to be there (Ray Palmer having long since left) except to meet with different versions of other DCU characters that we have tried to forget over the past twenty-five years. Here we get a couple of issues full of the Crime Syndicate/Society of America, basically one-note evil versions of the original Justice League. After getting their butts kicked by the CSA and joining forces with that Earth’s version of the Joker, a hero named the Jokester, the foursome plus one jumps on to a world where Jason is the current Batman and General Zod is good and known as Superman. Back on the CSA-Earth, Monarch and Forerunner (now his lieutenant) show up to offer the Syndicate a chance to be really, really evil and join forces with him.
Mary Marvel finally meets the new female Eclipso, who we knew was the unseen voice MM heard issues ago. Mary remains clueless about being manipulated and goes along with Eclipso who offers to be her mentor in nasty whatever. Meanwhile, Holly (the current Catwoman, still trying to find out exactly what the Amazons are up to) and Harley have just jumped into the waters off Paradise Island to swim with blind Great White Sharks as part of some absurd initiation rite. I guess we should be grateful that the T&A shots seem fewer in these three issues. Then again, I may have grown so accustomed to them that I don’t notice any longer.
The books are quick reads and I probably should go back to re-read the series up to this point. I may be missing something or at least figure out why I should continue to care about certain characters at this point. I know that I’m missing some of the story by not reading every single DCU book, but I don’t have the budget or interest to do so. I did pick up a couple of tie-in books this week (Countdown to Mystery & Countdown to Adventure) which I’ll talk about later this week.
Remind me again, why I’m doing this?
This event is becoming a car wreck, from which I cannot turn away. I’m still interested enough in what is happening to Jimmy Olsen, but have begun to find most of the other characters tedious and worse, not always consistent in the way they act from issue to issue. If you don't want to know about any of this you can skip to some other blog or the links over on The Right.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
Things are looking bad for the heroes of Earth-One in the DCU. Of course, things aren’t going well on some of the alternate worlds either, but it will be interesting to see how many of these survive over the next year or so. Needless, to say I expect a few more deaths (and not just the for no reason except to show what a dark little b**** Mary Marvel has become type) along the way. Hell, I’m expecting whole worlds and universes of death and destruction before the writers of this thing are done.
The hopeless Trickster & Pied Piper go from one situation to another and are frankly becoming a bit tedious. The writers seem to use them to jump for no apparent reason from one scene of chaos to another to showcase characters we don’t know. Again, it would be helpful to at least name new characters as they show up, since they all seem to know each other. A simple, “Ace-Face! What are you doing here?” might be helpful, don’t you think?
It was obvious that things would go from bad to worse for poor Jimmy Olsen when he allowed himself to be taken to Project Cadmus. Then letting yourself be strapped to some device with a name that spells out A.N.U.S. never turns out well. (You can imagine the squeals of laughter around the editorial table when somebody came up with that clever bit, can’t you?) When last seen Jimmy appears to have been split into several entities, with his physical form liquefying and slipping down a drain. This am bad juju!
Donna Troy, Jason (“I’m really not dead”) Todd and Crab-Face Guy are still traveling with Bob the Monitor. The quartet continue to pop up on one alternate Earth after the other only to find there is no reason for them to be there (Ray Palmer having long since left) except to meet with different versions of other DCU characters that we have tried to forget over the past twenty-five years. Here we get a couple of issues full of the Crime Syndicate/Society of America, basically one-note evil versions of the original Justice League. After getting their butts kicked by the CSA and joining forces with that Earth’s version of the Joker, a hero named the Jokester, the foursome plus one jumps on to a world where Jason is the current Batman and General Zod is good and known as Superman. Back on the CSA-Earth, Monarch and Forerunner (now his lieutenant) show up to offer the Syndicate a chance to be really, really evil and join forces with him.
Mary Marvel finally meets the new female Eclipso, who we knew was the unseen voice MM heard issues ago. Mary remains clueless about being manipulated and goes along with Eclipso who offers to be her mentor in nasty whatever. Meanwhile, Holly (the current Catwoman, still trying to find out exactly what the Amazons are up to) and Harley have just jumped into the waters off Paradise Island to swim with blind Great White Sharks as part of some absurd initiation rite. I guess we should be grateful that the T&A shots seem fewer in these three issues. Then again, I may have grown so accustomed to them that I don’t notice any longer.
The books are quick reads and I probably should go back to re-read the series up to this point. I may be missing something or at least figure out why I should continue to care about certain characters at this point. I know that I’m missing some of the story by not reading every single DCU book, but I don’t have the budget or interest to do so. I did pick up a couple of tie-in books this week (Countdown to Mystery & Countdown to Adventure) which I’ll talk about later this week.
Remind me again, why I’m doing this?
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