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undomielregina · 2 years ago

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Lyta Hall

Lyta is one of the most changed characters between the comics and the Sandman adaptation, so much of this will have limited applicability to her show version, I imagine. One of the interesting things I discovered in reading all of her pre-Sandman appearances was that the show version is in personality more like the character as she had previously appeared in comics than the Sandman comics version is. The difference is profound enough that it makes me wonder if people who had liked Lyta at the time were kind of upset with what the Sandman comic did with her. I didn’t think I’d be saying this — I love the Sandman comic dearly and it’s very important to me — but Neil Gaiman did her dirty back then. She was a minor character from a canceled series who had been written off even before it was canceled. She had too much bad writing making her all about her boyfriend, she was creepily mindwiped of the memories of her real parents, her backstory is a mess. She was still done dirty. I’m glad the show seems to be giving her back some of the agency and self-confidence that she displayed in Infinity, Inc.

I should, at this point, warn that Lyta’s backstory is a mess deeply rooted in some of the weirder, more complicated parts of DC comics history. Her story starts out on Earth-Two. Earth-Two was a development based in a problem of DC history, a problem Marvel mostly never had, which was the difficulty of reconciling WWII canon for their flagship characters. This was all well and good through the 50s, by the 1960s this was starting to strain credibility even in an era where most comics were episodic. Many of these characters, including DC’s most popular, had been operating continuously for over 20 years and plenty of them were mortal. And DC was understandably proud of its Golden Age work and didn’t want to just cast it out of continuity. All kinds of comic book tricks came into play, slowed aging, magic, all sorts of stuff. But eventually, in the early 1960s, they tried something completely different. They lopped the Golden Age comics off, plopped them in their own universe, and declared that the main lines took place in a world where the age of heroes had begun after World War Two. The Golden Age Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman were separate characters (this also let them dump some of the sillier stuff, like the Amazons riding giant kangaroos). Also consigned to this alternate reality were the members of the Justice Society (not league) and the All-Star Squadron. Earth-Two had a lot of the Golden Age heroes who had slipped into obscurity as they were replaced by more familiar faces.

There will be spoilers for Sandman under the cut.

This is all important because Lyta was born on Earth-Two. She first appears as a teenager in a comic where Wonder Woman (Earth-One) accidentally travels to Earth-Two and meets her counterpart there. Who is married to Steve Trevor and the mother of a teen girl they are raising as an Amazon. Because of her Amazon heritage, she’s stronger, faster, and more durable than a normal human.

(Wonder Woman #300, Feb 1983)

As you can see, one of the cool things about Earth-Two was that the major heroes there, freed from having to carry titles that existed in an eternal status quo, had been allowed to age and change. (Batman had married Catwoman, raised a daughter, and they had both died, leaving Robin (Dick Grayson, there were no later Robins on Earth-Two and he never became Nightwing) to carry on their legacy with her. She’d become Huntress; the original version. Imagine, a long-running comics continuity where Batman could die and the death stuck!) In fact, the entire Justice Society was starting to get on in years, which is where Lyta comes in.

Lyta was, in comics terms, still a fairly new character when Gaiman picked her up for Sandman; she’d only been introduced about seven years ago (her first appearance is Feb 1983, and she shows up in Sandman in Dec 1989) and had only been a heroine in her own right since March 1984, with the first issue of Infinity, Inc. (She’d also been dormant as a character between mid-1988 and late 1989, so she actually only had about 4.5 years of publication history, compared to the Justice Society characters who at this point had 40-50 years of back issues.) Infinity, Inc was a book and superteam of legacy heroes, characters with a close connection to the Justice society, either as children or as protegees, and Lyta Trevor and Hector Hall were two of the founding members. (For those who have watched Black Adam, Atom Smasher was another, under the alias of Nuklon. Having just read all his Infinity, Inc appearances, it was nice to see Al, but I wish he’d gotten to keep his doofy mohawk.) Infinity, Inc was basically the Earth-Two Teen Titans, but consisted entirely of new characters instead of consisting almost entirely of teen sidekicks with multiple years of appearances.

That’s her first appearance in costume, on the right. At this point, she’s Fury because she’s pulling from the Greek pantheon that’s her Amazon birthright. She’s assumed her own identity, she’s not a junior version of her mother, she has a generally very strong relationship with her parents, and a happy relationship with her boyfriend. That’s Hector Hall there on the far left, by the way. They’re already dating at the beginning of the series. Hector’s backstory is much less messed up than Lyta’s, except insofar as DC’s Hawks have a notoriously tangled continuity. But suffice it to say that Hector’s parents are the reincarnations of an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh and his queen, who were murdered by an enemy, and they are also the superheroes Hawkman and Hawkgirl (not the alien ones, those are different), who fly with the help of wings made out of a substance called Nth Metal that they discovered in the tomb of their original pharaonic selves. Hector’s suit is made out of the same stuff, and he feels like his parents were so obsessed with superheroics and figuring out the secrets of their past lives through archaeological digs that they never gave him enough attention. I wouldn’t bother you with this but it becomes relevant later on.

The beginning of Lyta and Hector’s romance.

So they go off, form their own team, do a bunch of superheroics, some more successful than others, and generally act like perfectly ordinary superheroes. Most notable through here is that Hector and Lyta sometimes have values conflicts and she is completely comfortable holding her own. Being raised by Wonder Woman and spending her summers on Paradise Island means she’s grown up extremely confident in her abilities and beliefs. This is where I feel like Gaiman sold her short, although there are some mitigating factors to that decision.

That kind of reaction is very natural for an Amazon, but it would be very foreign to the Lyta Hall of Sandman. While I imagine that was part of the point, there’s also the question of how she and Hector got to a point where that would seem like a reasonable direction to take the character. The answer to which begins shortly after this issue, in the aftermath of the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Crisis collapsed the entire DC multiverse (most importantly Earths One, Two, and Four (the Earth where the Charleston Comics characters like Blue Beetle lived)) into a single reality called New Earth. Most unique characters just kept right on going, some of the ones with duplicates died or were erased from existence or chose to travel beyond the boundary of the multiverse because there was no longer a place for them. The Earth-Two characters mostly remembered having been from an alternate universe for a while, but the JSA and their now-messy backstory was conveniently shuffled off stage by trapping them eternally in fighting Ragnarok (they’re still there during Sandman, there’s a brief mention in Season of Mists.) This means that Hector Hall, whose parents did not have an Earth-One counterpart (the Earth-One Hawks were aliens), retains his backstory and history. Lyta, the daughter of a now-redundant Wonder Woman, was not so lucky.

The weird thing there, part of a series of what I found to be genrally odd, often upsetting choices, is that Lyta’s backstory wasn’t just rewritten with the formation of the New Earth. Her parents survived the transition and then were taken away to Olympus, never to return.

Why would anyone think this was a good way to handle this?

So anyway, Lyta is terribly upset about being in this world where she can never see her parents again and no one but her teammates even remembers they existed. Plus she’s having an identity crisis. Fury was basically a temporary identity until she someday took over from her mother, and now there’s that other Wonder Woman instead and who the heck is she? So she’s sad about that some of the time for the following issue and then in the one after that, we get this:

Guess what’s about to happen.

Most of the issue is Lyta dreaming/remembering a time when she met the other JSA kids as preteens (there’s eventually a second version of that seen after her backstory change, but it’s not really relevant to anything here), and then this happens. I cannot believe editorial thought this was a good way to handle their Lyta problem, I really cannot:

Yeah, that’s one of her teammates and ostensibly a hero. The mindwipe works so well that no one else remembers Lyta’s parents either! So after this you get this weird period where they’ve wiped Lyta’s backstory and failed to establish a new one for her and no one has any idea about her background or where the hell her pet kanga came from (Earth-Two was the one where the Amazons rode giant kangaroos, and Trouble there was a present from her mom, the child of Lyta’s favorite mount when she visited Paradise Island.) Some of Lyta’s weird fuzziness about her own motivations for being a superhero and everything in Sandman definitely come from what a complete clusterfuck her backstory had been in the last three and a half years.

At the same time Lyta and Hector start having relationship problems and he eventually breaks up with her and leaves the team. He’s a real dick in this period, but it’s pretty clear from the start that there’s comics bullshit happening and it’s not just him being a giant douchebag.

Still, before any of that gets resolved, and before Lyta’s backstory has stabilized in its new form, she finds out she’s pregnant. Yes, this is Daniel. This is also the November 1986 issue, meaning Lyta will be pregnant for more than three years of real time. No wonder she’s so vague about the length of her pregnancy in Sandman!

Lyta gets her new backstory in the next issue, when she starts referring to “Mom and Dad Trevor” without any explanation. There’s an editorial note to see the issue’s letter page, but I don’t have access to that. She now spent her summers on “Trevor Island,” which had giant riding kangaroos and suchlike, but was a desert island her father discovered when he crash-landed on it. Her new mom used to be Miss America during WWII, but had since lost her powers. Lyta’s also adopted and knows nothing about her birth parents, or why she has all the same superpowers that used to be explained by her Amazon heritage. Until, shortly afterward, she gets dragged to Greece for reasons and learns that her birth mother was a Greek teenager who her adoptive parents saved during WWII, and who made a bargain with the Furies that granted her superpowers. Her hero name was also Fury. (Yeah, this character was made up to cover the plot holes left by not having Wonder Woman in the WWII All-Star Squadron stories anymore.)

Turns out her mom made a bargain specifically with the Fury Tisiphone, who punishes crimes of kinship, and Lyta has inherited the powersf from her. Not that that’s particularly relevant to the climax of Sandman and Lyta’s role in it or anything.

Here’s her new bio mom on her first outing fighting some Nazis.

So Lyta gets involuntarily put on maternity leave from superheroing (she’s none too pleased about this) and decides to go visit Hector at his parents’ house in New York to find out what the fuck he was doing dumping her like that, and maybe tell him about the baby if he has a good answer, and finds out that the Hawk bullshit has caught up with him. There’s an entity calling itself the Silver Scarab that insists Hector is dead.

Lyta’s immediately fighting for her life, damsel-in-distress rescued by the rest of Infinity, Inc, and then fighting to save the world. They stop the Silver Scarab because Daniel’s existence means it failed to fully destroy Hector’s humanity (no, really), but Hector is dead for real and Lyta goes off to mourn with her parents. The reasoning underlying all this is pure Hawk bullshit I don’t even pretend to follow — their history is infamously convoluted so I’m not going to waste the effort untangling it when it’s really not important for Sandman.

So Lyta goes back to her parents’ home for a while and then Al flies out to ask Lyta to marry him so the baby won’t grow up without a father, which Lyta shoots down. But her dad is concerned because there’s been a prowler lurking around peeping in Lyta’s window. And that night Al hears a noise and..

The team identifies him as Garret Sanford, the Jack Kirby Sandman from the 1970s. That’s the series that introduced Jed Walker, Brute, Glob, and the Dream Dome. Also the red and yellow Sandman costume (the “other one” is Wesley Dodds, the original Sandman and a member of the Justice Society, who in Sandman is inspired by Dream’s imprisonment and, per Odin, carries a bit of Dream’s essence.)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch,

welcome back, Hector! Here’s Hector’s story in full, because it’s definitely relevant to what Gaiman later did with him in Sandman. Honestly, Gaiman’s pretty hard on Hector too, he’s a dumbass and ways too conservative for his own good, but prior to whatever creepy personality degradation happened over time to get him where he was in Sandman, he wasn’t a buffoon.

Hector and Al go off and help the rest of Infinity, Inc in a fight, but convince Lyta to stay for the sake of the baby. Then Hector heads back with about one minute of his hour a day in reality to spare and

So, the last we see of Hector and Lyta before Sandman is their wedding.

Lyta’s wedding dress is amazingly hideous.

As for why they’re so… different… in Sandman, Gaiman’s clearly playing with the mess of Lyta’s history and the way the changes removed any real reason for her to want to be a superhero, and was also commenting on the way Infinity, Inc wound up making every story about her about Hector and their relationship. At the same time, I wish he hadn’t made her such a brittle, shattered person through the rest of the series. However, just as Hector can’t leave the “Dream Stream” for very long, I know I encountered a warning in one of the comics I read (I cannot remember which one, but it was something published before Sandman) that ordinary humans also can’t remain inside for long. So I assume that some of what we see in Sandman is the inevitable effect on mortals of living so long in dreams. (It’s possible that Dream can shield people from the effect, but it’s also possible that he can’t or just doesn’t notice what it does to them because he’s so used to dreamers.)

#the sandman #sandman comic spoilers #lyta hall #hector hall #infinity inc

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goldenbloodytears · 9 months ago

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Please do make some about Danny and Sam.

👍👍part 1 who is Superman

Superman part of the analysis:

Superman as a character is complex, but also really sympathetic when wrote right, rarely he if sadly. He is seen as simple good two shoes, boring and hypocritical for a lot of people.

Can see he imagining a perfect world were superman job is just help in emergency and natural disasters and the rest of time he can be just Clark together with everyone doing the best for everyone. In his words superman is what he can do not who he is.

In my opinion the best of Superman comics are the ones were the point is not a fight but finding different ways to stop the situation and don't cause damage, his whole life is damage control, even his powers make him the perfect first attended.

In a comic Superman and Wonder Woman are talking about how he needs training in fighting and he responded saying that he doesn't want to be good at it, that he feels he it's wrong to do so and he only fights because he knows someone needs to and he is usually the more strong and durable around, read earth.

That makes his deal with Lex Luthor interesting because Lex is in the center of humanity in a way, he's in the vanguard. Tech, politics and even media, Luthor is in the scene soo every time he deals with him, Superman gets throw in the public eye.

On a justice league animation, I think, he says how he can't wear a mask like other heros because he's already suspicious to humanity with his face laid bare and alien origin confirmed, he always on thin ice.

He safety lies on how long he can go unnoticed and insignificant to most people.

Clark can only be a person only when nobody knows that he can be superman. The moment they do he is alien man no legal rights McGee, and he can never lay low or just be again in the best of situations and be a thing to be dissected, and torn a part to study on the worst ones, making braniac gimmick of completely studying and then destroying everything a personal nightmare turned reality.

The more you learn about superman lore the more you stop thinking of him as a space Jesus and start seeing him as some weird guy just trying to make it in America, like he wasn't born there but he sure was raised as one, he saw the best humanity can offer, and he just giving back all the kindness he had received growing up.

Some of my favorite comics shows he growing up, learning himself as and being perceived as weird or creepy and still beeing loved and accepted, in fucking Kansas. Some comics the whole town of Smallville is in on it, like yes that's just the Kent's child, he is a little different and could juggle tractors like they weighted as much as air, but he is so polite and meek and kind, and the Kents, such a nice couple, always helping everyone in town, they always wanted kids, but they weren't able to conceive, they founding and raising Clark is like a fairy tale coming true.

The Kent's used to be hippies, then the high school sweet hearts settled down back were they grow up , in a farm living of the land, found a baby that come to them from the stars, took one look at him and decided that they were his family, the watched a shit ton of sci Fi movies and tried preparing him the best way they could for this world.

A lot of importance is given at his father teaching him, both the alien one teaching him about his home planet, their down fall, all the greed and desire to consume and conquer and and just thinking about what you want now and never about what others will need in the future. How he is the last of then, how he must uphold their culture, their existence and never let their mistakes repeat.

He doesn't know krypton, didn't even know that is what he is from until adulthood in some stories, he was different, but that was it, growing up he just knew what he wasn't.

Now a hologram of a man he doesn't even know appears to him like a Shakespearean ghost telling him he is his actual dead and he is indeed all alone in the universe and said universe is also kinda in his shoulders now, And Clark a kid with no past become a man with a mission, and so much more questions than before.

When Zod appears determined to conquer Earth, Clark has no choice but kill him, is his duty deal with kryptonian affairs and keep Earth save. When he can't find a peaceful solution he does kill, he hates it but he knows that is the option with less death in the end.

He already lost a home once, he will do everything to not lose another, be it fighting and even killing foes to recycling and always using the public transport.

But his other dad also was a big teacher, Jon is a strong man, the good kind of strong, the type to always help when they can and see the good in every one, a hard worker who refuse to take advantage of others, so different to that white collars from big cities that are destroying this world. Someone always looking out for the underdog.

He wants to be a hero that saves people but he doesn't want to fight much less kill.

Oooh yes, I can see what you mean—I’m always enthralled by how much superman is commentary on the immigrant experience, makes sense when you consider the Jewish origins of the comics. I do feel like it’s forgotten about when not thinking very in-depth about the general story/mythos/etc. very interesting!

Honestly he’s kinda relatable.

#superman #dc comics #clark kent

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fancoloredglasses · 3 months ago

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[RERUN] Crisis on Infinite Earths, Issue 1: ″The Summoning” (It’s not like they were using those universes anyway, right?)

[All images are owned by DC Comics. Please don’t sue me.]

With a project this big, there are bound to be some new characters introduced. Some were introduced simply because the editorial staff wanted some fresh blood and this seemed to be as good a place as any to drop them in. However, there are 6 characters that exist solely to move the story along (kind of like Doomsday was created solely to kill Superman and Bane was created solely to break Batman’s back…and those who survive the end of the story wind up about as “Now what the hell do we do with them?!” as Doomsday did), but we’ll get to those characters soon enough.

Now, on to the story! If you would like to read this issue, it (along with the rest of the series) has been collected in graphic novel form and is available (or can be ordered) at your favorite comic shop, bookstore, or online retailer…or on Read Comic Online.

We are introduced to our first character created for the series, Pariah. His sole purpose is apparently to show up in a universe to watch it be destroyed by a wave of white nothingness, only to be swept off to the next universe to be destroyed such. Wonder if Earth-C’s destruction looked like it was dipped a la Who Framed Roger Rabbit…

youtube

(Thanks to alanrecinos87)

The next contestant on Death of a Universe is Earth-3, where the Crime Syndicate is bitching about the fact that they have to try to save the world rather than rule it with iron fists. Well, Iron Fist isn’t good for heroics (that’s why he only lasted two seasons) so the universe dies.

…but not before the heroic Lex Luthor (yeah, I’m having issues wrapping my head around that too)...

…sends his infant son Alexander into the multiverse (a la Superman from Krypton, and don’t think I don’t see the irony) to Earth-1.

We are then introduced to our next two series-centric characters: Lyla (AKA Harbinger) and…well the voice of her master (who will be revealed later). Lyla’s master watches as universe after universe falls, but apparently he has a plan, as he instructs Lyla to become the Harbinger and gather 15 very specific heroes and villains from 3 Earths of different eras. They are…

Earth-1

Arion (Lord of ancient Atlantis), Cyborg (member of the Teen Titans), Dawnstar (member of the 30th century’s Legion of Super Heroes), Dr. Polaris (Green Lantern villain), Firestorm, Geo-Force (member of the Outsiders), Green Lantern John Stewart (the second favorite GL to anyone who didn’t grow up on the Dini-verse Justice League animated series), Killer Frost (Firestorm villain, whose emotions were manipulated (into loving Firestorm) to get her to come along), Psimon (Teen Titans villain), and Solovar (ruler of Gorilla City)

That’s 2/3 of those gathered, and mostly from modern times. I’m guessing the writers were really hedging their bets on familiarity.

Earth-2

Firebrand (of WW2′s All-Star Squadron), Obsidian (of Infinity, Inc.), Psycho Pirate (Justice Society villain, who was the one that manipulated Killer Frost), and Superman (aged to modern times, rather than from WW2).

Earth-4

Blue Beetle Ted Kord, in his first ever appearance in DC Comics (not entirely sure why they decided on him as the Charlton poster boy)

Given I know how the series would continue, I am surprised heroes from other Earths aren’t also part of this group.

During this gathering, Harbinger is attacked by a shadow being and compromised.

These same shadow beings attack the group as they await their host. With all their abilities, they seem to be unable to do little more than slow them down. Then the chamber fills with light, making them disappear and the third series-centric character officially appears…

Lyla’s master, the Monitor.

…which ends the issue. Kind of a weird cliffhanger, but what do I know?

WHY has the Monitor chosen these people?

HOW can they defeat the shadow beings?

WILL the writers come up with better cliffhangers?

These questions and more will be answered in the next exciting issue!

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thenixkat · 4 months ago

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so Max whent behind the League's back conspiring with the USA government to come up with ways to take down the Justice League if they whent and did shit without authorization. Like, saving the world from a global threat without consulting the UN first. B/c that makes sense

also just the red flags about Maxwell Lord where there from the start and the Maxwell Lord stans saying that the hell turn came out of nowhere and was ooc just fucking lying to people

like yer siccing cops on superheroes for them going to try and solve a global threat with time of the essence

at least wait till the crisis is over to fight superheroes for trying to save the world?

a decent chunk of the League Busters are fucking villains and also Peacemaker, the dog of the state

so a gun that can shut down people's metagenes? that sounds like useful technology that will never be used again

first up you serves which god? and also that's not how evolution works species dont reach and endpoint and have to be culled by an outside force

…heroes are the cause of humanity's downfall b/c they caused humans to reach their natural end point too quickly

yeah the downfall of humanity is tied to the creation of superbeings

dont tell me they had Ted do surgery on Booster. Ted's not a medical doctor…

sure he can make a prosthetic but I dont think he should be doing surgery also the characters saying they probably should have gone to STAR labs in the first place for Booster's stuff and liek, that's what I've been saying Dr. Soos is from STAR labs and fixed Booster's suit in the past

Booster you just got off teh opperating table and are like full of so many pain killers go lay your ass down

man superhero comics hate to have superheros actually haveing time to properly recover from their injuries b4 going back out to fight people. they're all just gonna die young

you have no proof that history changed other than you not fading from existence and you'd only do that if stable time loop was whats going on and not anything else time related

is that why Booster is so reckless/impulsive? That he knows how he's supposed to die so there's no reason to take steps to make sure that's indea what happens. B/c that's… further proof that stable time loop cant be what's happening

and Ted's chewing on information, may have figured things out. Also just too much dynamic shit happening unnecessarily

Ted figured something out and of course there's no time to explain and good lords he's just fucking shrinkwrapped in that damn costume

i def missed an issue, likely there's some fucking event tie in shit i'm not gonna go look for the missing story info b/c if it were important it would be in the story and I wouldnt have to hunt it down

Fire, Ice is clearly possessed why else would she be murdering people and working for the genocidal bad guy. You've experienced fuckers being possessed b4

i mean given Max he probably does feel as bad about nearly getting everyone killed with his bullshit as he would forgetting someone's birthday. He's a bit of a self centered asshole

so yer going to fight Captain Atom b/c you dont like his leadership and are blaming villains doing shit on his leadership. Because the genocidal fucker befucking the Earth is less of a priority to stop than Captain Atom leading a small team to try and fight him. WHat the fuck is wrong with Wonder Woman?

cause it makes sense for Max to be on some bullshit about this but there's a genocidal alien trying to wipe out the human species and yall are fucking fighting eachother b/c you think Captain Atom is being too rash about shit

Wonder Woman in what fucking universe would attempting to offer yerselves to the fucker known for ending entire species of sapients going to change the fuckers mind and convince him to spare the Earth? Yer should be smarter than that

oh hey Ted's cold weather costume. Which is a bit close to getting sued territory DC

Ted states the obvious fucking flaw in Wonder Woman's sacrifice every meta plan, the fact that humanity can make more is the fucking reason that the Overmaster wants to genocide humanity

just why the fuck did Wonder Woman think that plan had any leg to stand on, even if she could get every meta to agree to turn themselves over which is not possible

#nix meows #nix reads comics #justice league america

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sebeth · 1 year ago

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Who's Who In The DC Universe #1: Animal Man, Anthro, Apokolips

Animal Man by Gil Kane

Stunt man Buddy Baker was bathed in radiation from an alien space ship that crashed to Earth

He later discovered that he could absorb the special abilities of any animal within a certain range

Buddy designed a costume and called himself “Animal Man”

He later retired and married Ellen Frazier and had two children with her – Cliff and Maxine

Buddy was later recruited by the Immortal Man and joined several other semiretired adventurers in an organization called the Forgotten Heroes

My first exposure to Animal Man (besides Who’s Who) was his appearances in the Justice League Europe issues. I fell in love with him immediately. I love his power set – Vixen is another favorite for the same reason. He was so down to Earth and his relationship with his Ellen is one of my favorites in comics. Buddy is perfect proof that an “everyman” hero can have a wife and children. My recommendations for anyone interested in Animal Man are the Animal Man series by Grant Morrison, his appearances in the Justice League Europe series, and his role in the “52” series. As far as I know, Buddy hasn’t made any appearances in any DC animated are live-action roles – Vixen tends to be used instead. And yes, as a woman and person of color, Vixen’s appearances are important for diversity (and she’s simply a great character) but Buddy is cool too, so how both characters be allowed to shine? If Young Justice can have Superboy, Superman, Captain Marvel, and Icon (all similar powersets) than Animal Man and Vixen can make appearances in the live action/animated parts of the DC Universe.

Anthro by Howie Post

We journey to the era of time when Neanderthals were giving way to the rise of the Cro-Magnon. Anthro was born in this era, the son of a Cro-Magnon mother and a Neanderthal father.

Ne-ahn, Anthro’s father, was chief of the Bear Tribe, and Anthro’s deceased unnamed mother was a member of a tribe long thought destroyed.

Anthro’s mother doesn’t receive a name but his stepmother is Emba.

The Bear Tribe had no permanent home, lived a nomadic existence, and tried to survive the hostile elements of the dawn of civilization.

The background art shows Anthro riding wooly mammoths, spear fishing, and battling Neanderthals.

Anthro debuted in the Showcase series – issue “74. The only appearance I’ve read of Anthro was in the Crisis of Infinite Earths series. He was so much fun in his appearance. If that was typical of his character, Anthro must have been a blast in his Showcase appearance.

Apokolips by Greg Theakston

The New Gods were Jack Kirby’s original end game for the Marvel Asgardian gods. Kirby left Marvel and brought his idea to DC with a few changes (for legal reasons).

“There came a time when the old gods (the Asgardians) died. The final moment came with the fatal release of indescribable power which tore the home of the old gods (Asgard/Nine Worlds) asunder, splitting it into great halves, and filling the universe with the blinding death-flash of its destruction.” (Ragnarök)

Two worlds emerged from this explosion (Apokolips and New Genesis).

New Genesis was “given nobility and strength from the living atoms of Baldurr (Marvel’s Baldur).

Apokolips was “saturated with the evil and cunning which was once a sorceress (Marvel’s Karnilla).

Apokolips is ruled by Darkseid.

Notable locations on Apokolips include the Armagetto (home of the Hunger Dogs and the Energy Pits), Darkseid’s Tower of Rage (his home palace), and the Granny Goodness’s Happiness Home (home of the Dog Soldiers and Female Furies).

“As of this writing, New Genesis has apparently been destroyed, leaving the New Gods to seek their destiny among the stars, and leaving Darkseid among the ruins of Apokolips, a bitter, frustrated man.e

Poor Darkseid, someone took his away his toys!

I’ll delve into the importance of Darkseid and the New Gods to the DC Universe when I get to those entries, as for Apokolips itself…it has to be in the top 10 in the “alien comic book planets” category – for the entirety of comic book universes. Off the top of my head, no research, and no generic or real planets (ex – Skrull homeworld or Mars), I can list: Apokolips, New Genesis, Oa, Thanagar, Rann, Khera, Hala, Krupton, Mogo, Tamaran, etc. As a Legion fangirl, I can name numerous home planets of the Legionnaires: Colu, Rimbor, Trom, Bismol, Daxam, etc but I’m not sure how well known those are to a non-Legion fanbase. I can name numerous alien races from Marvel but blank on their home planets except for the Kree (Hala) and the Eternals (Titan).

I would also put Apokolips in the “Top 10 Worst Comic Book Locations To Live In” category. Horrible place to be born.

Apokolips has featured heavily in the comics (the various New Gods titles, Superman, Justice League, Legion of Super-Heroes, DCeased, etc) and has made multiple appearances in the animated/live actions series.

#DC Comics #DCU #animal man #buddy baker #anthro #apokolips #darkseid #new gods #new genesis #who's who in the dc universe

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lilygrants · 3 years ago

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How YJ and GLTAS Fit (Or Don’t Fit) Together

Because why do something productive with my time? In general, the Green Lantern franchise is probably the least-utilized of DC’s major properties in YJ, for two very simple reasons: 1) No “young” characters, and 2) They’re OP as hell. Seriously, one of my first exposures to the Justice League was an episode of the Superfriends cartoon where the Legion of Doom went back in time to wipe out the Justice League’s three strongest heroes: Superman, Wonder Woman, and... GREEN LANTERN. Greg Weisman, one of YJ’s two executive producers, has been very upfront about the GLs being OP as hell, and cited this as a reason that they’re often written as being away from Earth (ref: Coldhearted, all of season 2). They wanted their Justice League to exude power, yes, but they also want the kids to be useful! Even with Weisman and Vietti writing around them as much as possible, their overpoweredness STILL got them into trouble with the “missing 16 hours” plot point. Even today, you can check the “Ask Greg” archives or the YJ TV Tropes page and find a bunch of fans whining about why John Stewart didn’t just ask his ring where he’d been for 16 hours. Green Lantern is the definition of “story breaker power.” You think Superman is boring with his 96 billion super strengths and super senses? Green Lanterns can create basically anything they can imagine-- and Earth has FOUR of them in YJ, as of season 4. (Though we don’t know who the fourth one is, technically. It is prooooobably Kyle Rayner, but it could just as easily be any of the other Earth-based lanterns. I’m currently pretending it’s Aya.) First, let’s take a list of characters we know exist in both series.

Hal Jordan (main character of GLTAS, occasional, mostly-silent cameos in YJ) John Stewart (YJ’s favorite GL with bit parts in a couple of episodes and the video game, namedropped in GLTAS’ final episode) Carol Ferris (recurring character in GLTAS and Hal’s love interest, bit parts in one episode of YJ: Invasion and tie-in comic) Guy Gardner (recurring character in the 2nd half of GLTAS, bit player in YJ-- speaks more than Hal but only because him being a jackass is funny) Kilowog (main character of GLTAS, currently guest starring in YJ) Razer (main character of GLTAS, hijacked one episode of YJ and proooobably won’t be back, since he didn’t even touch the actual current plotline) Tomar Re (bit character in both shows so far) Mogo (bit character in GLTAS, namedropped in YJ) Aya (main character of GLTAS, namedropped in YJ)

So, let’s start with Hal. Hal has spoken two words in YJ. (Technically, he spoke one word twice-- “No,” in response to Guy Gardner joining the Justice League.)

https://youtu.be/MvAgVSamZe8?t=15

This is for the best, as there’s very little to contradict his actions in GLTAS. “Four years ago” places it during season 2, and all we know about Hal’s actions that year is that he spent January - June away from Earth. Presumably, most of that time was on Rimbor, but there’s still plenty of room in the second half of the year for GLTAS to happen. His personality is also a blank slate in YJ. His character design was also updated for season three, giving him a slightly different uniform, distinguished Mr. Fantastic gray temples, and some lines to his face. The law of conservation of detail suggests they did this for a reason, but I’ll be damned if I can imagine what that reason is, given that Hal is basically a nonentity in YJ.

John and Guy present the first real contradiction between the two-- ie, GLTAS depicts Hal as the only GL on Earth at start, while by the analogous time period in YJ, they’ve both been GLs and Justice Leaguers for years. So “The New Guy” did not happen in YJverse (or if the plotty events did, it wasn’t Hal and Guy’s first meeting-- they’ve known each other for an absolute minimum of 5-6 years by this point, and likely longer). There’s also the fact that Guy was also tied up in the Rimbor stuff.

Guy is also very different-looking between the two. GLTAS is almost a note-for-note translation of his usual comic character design, while YJ goes for a modernized update of a similar idea. He also has a different voice actor, owing to the fact that he was most likely cast before the decision was made to include the GLTAS-inspired events. I also suspect that he will keep his YJ voice if ever used in future episodes-- one of the ways Weisman and Vietti initially differentiated their shows from other DC properties was by avoiding reusing actors. They’ve since relaxed on that front (and reused Bruce Greenwood to start with, anyway), but I imagine they like their version of Guy well enough to keep him the way he is.

John very politely spent that time period actually on trial on Rimbor, so he presents no real conflict of events, except Hal didn’t get to make a Daily Show joke about him, since they’d known each other for years by this point.

Carol’s the one it actually gets interesting for. In YJ, Ferris Aircraft seems to be focused on spacecraft-- her two appearances show her at NASA. She looks very different between the two shows, and again, has a different voice actor. The main question about her is whether or not she has a power ring in the YJverse. YJ Carol is very aware of aliens (her big appearance shows her attempting to broaden communications with Mars). Carol’s appearances in GLTAS were few, but memorable. I suspect she’ll also retain her YJ voice actor, not least because Kari Wahlgren also voices both Saturn Girl and Phantom Girl.

Kilowog and Razer were lifted from GLTAS pretty much exactly as they were, voices included-- Jason Spisak, the workhorse of DC Nation, was already voicing Forager, and Kevin Michael Richardson was already voicing Vykin and Martian Manhunter.

My gut instinct is that they were left in GLTAS form primarily as fanservice. Razer peaces out the first chance he gets, and I personally doubt we’ll see him again any time soon, much as I’d love to be wrong. Kilowog is sticking around for the moment, but he doesn’t seem to be hugely involved in the plot just yet. Weisman and Vietti didn’t feel the need to really personalize their version of him, because he’s not a major player-- or at least that’s my theory.

It is interesting to me that Tomar Re was cast as Dee Bradley Baker. His GLTAS voice actor, Jeff Bennett, is another one of those versatile men-of-a-thousand-voices that huge casts like YJ rely on-- off the top of my head, he voices all of the male Reds, T. O. Morrow, Alfred, and Abra Kadabra. He was also in Gargoyles, so very dear to Weisman’s heart! They could have cast him-- if they wanted to. It isn’t like Guy and Carol, where they made their choice before deciding to incorporate GLTAS. But they chose Tarrlok instead. Obviously, Dee Bradley Baker is a good choice. I suspect that (unlike Kilowog and Razer) Tomar Re is going to be Involved from this point forward, and so Weisman and Vietti made him their own. I mean, he IS on the poster for this arc. He’s gotten some pathos regarding Krypton. Kilowog parented his spacekid and otherwise has not done anything worth mentioning.

Mogo’s only been mentioned as less than Guy Gardner’s ass, and Aya as the subject of Razer’s quest, but questions remain. Could any of the characters YJ actually follows have known or known of Aya? I rather doubt it, much as I would looooove to be wrong here. I remember back on the old YJ Anon fic meme, there was a prompt about Hal bringing Aya to the cave and having her join the team as his sidekick-- but her lack of representation in the grotto leads me to believe she wasn’t known to them.

#young justice #green lantern: the animated series #gltas

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the-antiapocalyptic-man · 3 years ago

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The next Totem: Nathan Heywood, Citizen Steel, The Legend of Yesterday

Son of a Filipino-American scientist, Nat’s legacy goes back to WWI and his great-grandfather, Sergeant “Steel” Heywood, a soldier who almost died after losing a hand to an explosion before a strange, alien metal bonded with him, cauterizing the wound and giving him a new, super-strong limb.

From there, Heywood’s son Henry joined the WWII era All-Star Squadron (formed by the US military in light of the Society’s formation) as Commander (later Captain) Steel. His own son didn’t become a superhero, but Doctor Heywood was the first member of his family to study the strange metal that his family had been bonded to as a blessing and a curse.

Dubbed “dilustel” and used in several secret military projects, Dr. Heywood would discover the horrifying long term effects of the metal when his son, Nate, was born with a variety of painful defects including osteogenesis imperfect, and as he grew, a personality disorder that left him lethargic and apathetic. Seeing no other choice, Dr. Heywood once again exposed a member of his family to the dilustrel, creating Citizen Steel.

Nate was still fairly quiet and withdrawn in his daily life, but as hero, he became Detroit, Michigan’s favorite son. A small team with no official name but known colloquially as the “Justice League of Detroit” formed around him as Citizen Steel came to be seen as a real life version of comic book heroes like American Crusader.

His father continued to tinker with his powers at this point, introducing a device they didn’t realize was the Zambesian Earth Totem. Nate’s strength got a slight bump, the real change was a direct connection to both the earth itself and--through interactions with his existing dilustel powers--mechanokinetic control over metal and various kinds of machinery.

#dc #headverse #fanart #citizen steel #captain steel #sargeant steel #commander steel #hank heywood #nate heywood #legends of tomorrow

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Static Shock: Shock to the System and Aftershock Review

“You know what? 13 years ago, me and some friends sat in a restaurant all night and daydreamed about the kinds of stories we would tell if we had the chance. We wanted to expand the concept of superhero to include characters that kind of looked like us, who had some of the same background, experiences and dreams as we did. We wanted to create something fun that a new generation would respond to the same way we responded to our childhood heroes -and damn if we didn't succeed beyond my wildest dreams. Today, Static Shock is a household name with millions of fans of all ages (Is there stuff I'd do differently? Yeah, almost all of season four but why nitpick?) Static is the most successful thing I've ever helped create and I'm both proud and gratified that people have taken it into their hearts. “

Dwayne McDuffie, Co-Creator of Static and Writer for Static Shock

This review is dedicated to Dwayne McDuffie and Robert L. Washington III. Rest In Power Static Shock is awesome. I grew up with the show watching it both first run on the WB and second run on Cartoon Network and loved it as much as I did other large parts of my childhood courtsey of DC like Batman the Animated Series, Teen Titans and both Justice League Shows. What makes this unique among the DC Properties is that Static wasn’t really a big name when he got a show. He wasn’t even part of the DC Universe.

See as I had no idea for probably a good decade, Static actually came from Milestone Comics, a company ran by and focused on african americans. The goal was understandable: While black heroes existed at the time, and there were some fantastic ones like Storm, Jim Rhodes and Steel... these guys weren’t the center of their universes. The big faces of the big companies, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash.. were white. So milestone was a shakeup of that with the main teams and heroes all being black, from Icon, an alien who’d lived among man but rather than end up in kansas like say superman ended up imprinting on a slave woman centuries ago and has been with us since, who was encouraged by an energetic teenager named Rocket to put on a costume and do something with his powers and his community, Hardware, a tech genius who had his work stolen by a white asshole and wanted to fight back and BLood Syndicate, a group of gang members all caught in the “The Big Bang”, a huge fight between all of Dakota, the midwest city where the comics take place, that ended when the police released a bunch of experimental gas that gave them all super powers.

As most of you who have watched the show already know, this is where Static comes from. Static was the company making their own Spider-Man, i.e. a nerdy teenager who suddenly gets super powers, in this case Virgil Hawkins who at the prodding of a friend took a gun to The Big Bang to get revenge on a bully. .but ultimately couldn’t go through with it, decided it wasn’t him and got rid of the gun and ran.. and still ended up in it, becoming Static, a young hero dedicated to using his powers to fight other “Bang Babies”.. a term that dosen’t really sound that great and they really should’ve thought through. But Phrasing aside the character was great and I look forward to reading more and only haven’t because I have to buy the issues gradually, but DC is currently re-releasing the individual issues of Static, Icon, and Hardware weekly in anticipation of a reboot of Milestone Coming in May digitally on Comixology at only 2 bucks a pop, and rereleased the original print collections that were long out of print for 10 bucks each, though i’m getting static on it’s own since i’ts really not that much less expensive as it only collects four issues while Icon and Hardware both collect 8, so I can wait a bit there on Hardware and already own Icon: A Hero’s Welcome.. and really need to review it at some point.

While Milestone’s output was good, at least from the two books i’ve read, with Robert Washinton III, who sadly not only ahs also passed but was fucking homeless for a while in the 2000′s.. what the actual hell, writing Static alongside Dwayne McDuffie, whose later moved onto animation writing tons of Static episodes all of them classics including the school shooting episode, the first three rubberbandman episodes and both Anasazi episodes. Point is it had good writers and artists and even had a distrbution deal with DC, so they had a leg up on the glut of other comic book companies.. but happened to start at the start of the comic book crash, a huge downturn in sales in the 90′s as the speculator boom, i.e. a bunch of people assuming every number one would be worth golden and silver age money, forgetting a character has to BUILD INTREST and this stuff takes time, and whose attempts to sell fast flooded the market with comics no one wanted,, caused the roof to cave in and with a bunch of assholes pegging milestone as a “Company for black people” rather than you know, a company trying to add fucking diversity and represntation to the comics industry, and that simply wanted a unvierse that was centered around people of color instead of white guys. The company eventually had to shut down, and was left to lisencing. This is where the show comes in. Producers HAD been trying to make shows based on Milestone for a while, as far back as the mid-90s and the company was was all for it but the closest it got was an x-men style team series using various characters whose first draft was terrible and whose second draft by Alan Burnett, a producer on various DC Animated shows who’d go on to produce Static Shock, that McDuffie and others really liked but sadly did not get picked up. eventually though with presistance Static ended up getting a series and as I said McDuffie went on to write for it though he did not develop it. Some changes went into place naturally to make it work for an early 2000′s kids show and while i’ll probably miss so since again, only read one issue as we go. But due to Milestone coming back my intrest was peaking, hence finally reading the copy of Icon I had to buy from the library years ago due to keeping it overdue but am now EXTREMLEY glad I own as i’ts incredibly rare and really damn good, and wanting to read static, doing so lately since it’s finally on digtiial and again not too expensive. So join me as I give you a shock to the system and revisit this hell of a series to see if it holds up.. which just to cut that short it does and i’m only holding off binging MORE because I want the first two eps to be fresh enough in my head to review properly.. and also go over the various voice actors because that’s a thing with me now and charcter co-creator dwayne mcduffie because he’s awesome.

As I like to do when covering a series first episodes, let’s run down the voice cast.

First up is an UTTER LEGEND, and I use the term voice acting legend a lot, and mean it every time and have good reason to use it when I say it, and Phil LaMarr is a GOD in the buisness, having done a metric ton of voice acting roles, and being easily the most proflific black voice actor in animation. He’s also done some acting work, mostly in pulp fiction which I have not seen, but his true staying power and talent is in animation so here’s just the roles I feel are most notable or may not be very notable but i’m bringing up anyway because it’s my list.

His roles besides Virgil include Lester Payton the Texas Ranger who showed up for one very good episode of king of the hill to be badass and show up the hickish, stupid and very punchable local Sheriff, Gearld’s obnoxious older brother Jamie O on Hey Arnold, Hermes Conrad from futurama, Carver from the Weekenders (PUT IT ON PLUS DISNEY), Axel Foley for exactly one bit in Clerks the Animated Series, but anyone whose seen it will know exactly which one, Micheal on the Proud Family, Black Vulcan on Harvey Birdman (In His Pants), Hector Con Carne and Dracula on Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Evil Con Carne, Jack on Samurai Jack something I didn’t know for decades (and I didn’t know about the carver thing till today though i’ts obvious in hindsight), John Motherfucking Stewart on Justice League and later Steel and Adult Static in the Unlimited seasons, Osmosis Jones on Ozzy and Drix, Bolbi Strogofski on Jimmy Neutron (And yes i’m just as shocked as you are.), Wilt on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Marcus on Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Bull Sharkowski on My Gym Partner is A Monkey and Also a Sociopath Please Help God My Life is a waking nightmare..... okay the rest of that title is implied but we all watched the same show, we all know in our hearts that was the title

Moving on, he was also, and yes there’s MORE: Maxie Zeus on The Batman, Philly Phil on Class of 3000, Both Robertsons AND Fancy Dan on the Spectacular Spider-Man, Jazz on Transformers Animated, Kit Fisto and Bail Organa on Star Wars the Clone Wars, Gambit and Bolivar Trask on Wolverine and the X-Men, Aquaman I, L-Ron and Green Beetle on Young Justice, J.A.R.V.I.S. and Wonder Man (Simon Williams) In Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Gabe and Carny on Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters (Really miss that game and have been snapping up what cards I can get lately), Baxter Stockman in the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (And there’s also an awesome photo of him with 2003 Baxter... the two best together in one place. I got chills), Dormammu (I’ve come to bargin) in various Marvel Shows, Noville in Mighty Magiswords, Zach’s dad Marcus in Milo Muprhy’s Law, Craig’s Douchey Brother Benard on Craig of the Creek, showing he’s clearly come full circle, And Mr. Scully on the Casagrndes. And given It took about two paragraphs to cover all of this, yeah, I MEANT legend.

Next we have Kevin Micheal Richardson as Virgil’s Dad Robert, and it’s the first time since I started introducing Voice Actors on a show that i’ve overlapped. I already covered him during the second episode of legend of the three caballeros, but for the short version he’s also very acomplished, very damn good and I somehow missed he played the old blind guy in hey arnold> Needless to say the dude is awesome.

Virgil’s Sister Sharon is played by Michele Morgan who was in the rap group BWP and did some smaller roles outside of this the one exception being Juicy on the PJ’s, which I have not watched much of but REALLY do not like, though i’ll at least give it credit for being a decently long lasted black claymation sitcom at at time when there were, and hoenstly still aren’t, many black animated shows.

Back to long casting sheets, next up is Jason Marsden, who is one of my faviorites as i’ve realized recently as Ritchie. As I also found out only recently he started on the Sitcom Step By Step and while that show is .. ehhhhhhhhh, he is great in it because he’s great in everything. He also apparently has his own internet variety show which I have to watch now. His roles include Max Goof, ironically given I was just talking about that role a few days ago, Haku in the english dub of Spirted Away, Micheal, the kid being yelled at by a bunch of 80′s cartoons characters not to take drugs in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!, Nermal in the DTV Garfield movies and The Garfield Show, Tino on the Weekenders (SERIOUSLY DISNEY), Snapper Carr on Justice League, Rikochet on Mucha Lucha! for the last season (Why I do not knkow and while I love the guy he was not the right choice), Felix on Kim Possible, Chase Young on Xiaolin Showdown (WHich I did not realize was him and now I do easily his best role and I REALLY should’ve), Red Star and Billy Numerous on Teen Titans, Speedy on Batman Brave and the Bold, Impulse/Kid Flash II on Young Justice, and Fingers on Kaijudo. He hasn’t done as much lately which is a shame but hopefully i’tll pick up again.

Next up is Hotstreak, Virgil’s brutal bully turned unhinted pyromancer played by DANIEL COOKSY, another actor i’m happy to talk about and another faviorite I haven’t seen much of lately. Daniel was an actor from childhood, playing Budnick on Salute Your Shorts, but he quickly gained a long and storied catalogue of VA Work: His first big roll was as Montana Max on Tiny Toon Adventures and if there is a god he’ll be back for the reboot, Stoop Kid on Hey Arnold, the incomprable Jack Spicer on Xiaolin Showdown, far and away his best role and part of why Chronicles sucked so bad was he was he didn’t get to reprise the role, The titular Dave the Barbarian, Django of the Dead on El Tigre (Had no idea), Kicks utterly insufferable big Brother Brad on Kick Buttowski and apparently he’s back at it again after laying low for a bit as he’s voicing Snag in Long Gone Gultch.. which I already really needed to watch but hot damn, I missed him. Sign me up.

Frieda, Virgil’s crush and close friend who in the comics was his main confidante and love intrest but here is eventually pushed aside, is voiced by Danica Mckeller whose work didn’t seem all that familiar.. until I found out she was Ms. Martian on Young Justice. Hello, Megan. Very talented and she did get a major role in a dc show eventually so good for her. Can’t wait for season 4.

So with our major players out of the way, let’s talk about Dwayne. McDuffie is an AWESOME man and my respect has grown for him more and more with time. A writer and editor at Marvel, McDuffie has a decent resume doing smaller but awesome books, which I got most of for free last year when Marvel was giving out free digital collections due to the lock down, like Damage Control, a sitcom set in the marvel universe about the company that picks up after superhero battles and the logistics and antics that insue and Dethlok, about a pacfist trapped inside a cyborg zombie. He was as mentioned one of Milestone’s founders, and wrote Icon, Hardware and co-wrote the first few issues of Static. He’d go on to a pretty stacked career in animation, writing on this show and Justice League before becoming story editor and show runner for Unlimited , even making a return to comics as a result writing the Marvel miniseries beyond and an arc of Fantastic Four in which Black Panther and Storm filled in for Reed and Sue while the two of them worked on their marriage after Reed did.. pretty much everything he did in Civil War. He also became head writer and show runner for Ben 10: Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, revamping the franchise a bit, and Alien Force, at least the first two seasons are awesome and I feel people overreacted on the changes. Ultimate Alien is okay, but has it’s problems but the finale was awesome and left the man’s legacy on a high note.. as he sadly passed in 2011 due to heart complications. He is truly missed and produced some utterly amazing stuff whlie he was alive. So on that melacholy note let’s see what happens when his creation hits the tv screen shall we?

Shock to the System:

This episode is written by Christopher Simmons, who is apparently a huge art designer guy.. but i’m not sure that’s the same chirsptoher simmons. Much more notable is the writer of the episode after this Stan Berkowitz, who was showrunner for season 1 and has done a LOT of DCAU work and is suprising talent, having written a lot of awesome Justice League episodes including Secret Society and The Royal Flush One. Point is we’re in first class hands. Before the episode itself I want to talk about the intro and how it’s unique among DCAU shows. Like most Western Animation the intros for DCAU shows didn’t change much over the seasons with the most I can see is JLU changing up the footage to preview the current episode and later adding Hawkgirl to the intro after her return to the team. I THINK superman the animated series changed some of it’s footage too, but I can’t confrim it and may of just been imagining it. As i’ve talked about on my blog it’s normally a pet peeve of mine, mostly because shows you know, change after season 1, characters get added some one shot characters used for the intro never return, and after a while it can feel dated especially in more recent shows where the status quo is not at all set in stone and things change quite a bit. But sometimes it can be good enough that either the dated elements don’t matter or general enough that you don’t need to change it and i’ts just that good.. and given Batman the Animated Series has both in spades, you can see why i’ts probably my golden standard for intros and after superman the animated series DC mostly followed suit. But being part of the teen superhero boom of the 2000′s Static is unique in that it splits the diffrence: It’s intro gets the character across perfectly like a good intro should starting with Virgil getting out of bed and running a comb across his head before showing off to his sister to bug her and literally running into his dad who hand shim his bag and smiles, silently showing off his family. He then runs to school and runs into some trouble.. and said trouble changes for each intro, with Rubberband Man for season 1, Kanga (Whose name I only know because I happened to run across it) for season 2 and your guess is as good as mine for seasons 3 and 4, though Hotstreak is a constant. They still save some money for seasons 1 and 2 by recycling some animation.. but that’s alright with mea s it was good animation, and the improtant thing is cycling out old villians for new ones, while Season 3 is the only out and out redo to show off Richie taking on the Gear identity, adding about 10 seconds of intro to let him show off. Seriously it’s an utterly great intro and like the other DCAU intros outside of superman, stuck in my brain.

The other change that’s ENTIRELY diffrent from the rest of htem is that the music changes each time. The first two have the same formula just with a difrent vocalist and backing track: a superhero theme but with some hip hop beat boxing over it. The first intro is fine enough, not specattcular but stilll god. The second song.. is eh. Not really great and feels like a marked downgrade from season 1 and just dosen’t blend an ocrehstiral superhero theme with the beatbox elements NEARLY as well. The third song though is my faviorite.. even if I HATED Little Romeo as a kid because I really did not like his nick show, it’s more a straight up rap song, but it has a faster beat that fits the intro better, and Romeo’s bragging fits Virgil’s character and penchant for Spidey quips perfectly. I also find it ironic that the theme that blends in with the dcau the most, the first season’s, is the one from BEFORE they decided to put it in the same universe. Still this season’s intro slaps, I just like the LIttle Romeo one a bit more. The opening scene is picture perfect. Some masked crooks looting a warehouse are loading some stolen TV’s into a van when suddenly the lights come on one by one above one of the crooks before his tv switches to various channels before going haywire. Cue our heroes’ entrance. Let’s tak ea good look at him

Static’s Costume is awesome. While I prefer the season 3 redesign, and clearly DC agrees as the redeisgn was used for both pre and post new-52 when they used him, and while he’s getting a fresh design for the reboot, said design takes a lot of cures from said outfit. As for how the outfit differs from the comics itself this is the design he had in the comics

It didn’t change much from the first issue, with the exception of his now iconic big puffy jacket which was added pretty early into the character’s history but I was unaware of that and just assumed he had the bodysuit the whole time. The more you know. But as you can see outside of the cool puffy jacket over a costume the two couldn’t be more diffrent. While the Dakotaverse outfit is more a standard superhero outfit, with some regular clothes touches on top the first cartoon outfit comes off more realistic, looking fantastic, but still coming off as something two teenagers could realistically have thrown together with what clothes they could buy, while still looking awesomely superheroy. IN short it’s perfect and only topped by the season 3 onward look...

But the slicker look, with an even cooler jakcet and the new colors all fitting the lighting ascetic better, but fits: not only has Virgil come along farther since he started, but with Richie now having a genius brain as Gear, he can provide a far slicker, far more professional superhero outfit on the budget the two have. This show is just great at costume design.

So getting back to the episode at hand, Static puts up a huge sign in elecrticy saying “Bad guys here”, PFFFT, and then hides away and narrates that a few days ago he’d be the last person anyone would’ve expected to be a hero. Cue Flashback.

We meet Virgil Hawkins on an average day: rapping into his razor, getting into a petty argument with his older sister Sharon, as a younger brother myself I relate to this, and talking to his dad who tries to get them to cut that out. We find out his mom has passed via his sister making really terrible eggs and saying that’s how mom made them. Exposition! Though we do get a great bit through this as when his sister gets distracted by her boyfriend calling, he uses the opportunity of her leaving the room to dump the eggs.. after having earlier jokingly prayed to his mom for a way out of breakfast. “Thanks for looking out for me mom” That’s both very sweet and very hilarious.

This is a change from the comics it turns out as I was utterly flored to find Virgil’s mom alive and well when reading the first issue of Static. Turns out this was a change made during development and one Dwane McDuffie admitted in the interview I got the tribute quote from to not liking as he had a good reason for having Virgil have a nuclear family, as most black families in media at the time were just one single parent and a kid or two with the other having either left or died. He wasn’t too bothered by it as while he preferred what he came up with in the first place, the show DID get some really good stories out of her being gone and didn’t just have her be absent because shut up. Virgil is still working over her death and the way HOW she died ends up playing an important role in this episode and gives Virgil a dislike of guns, as she died to gang violence. So the change wasn’t for stupid or racist reasons, but likely both to keep the character count down while giving them something to work with for storylines. Or it could’ve been for stupid reasons and the writers simpily made lemonade out of that very dumb lemon, either way it ended up working. Virgil also plans to ask his friend Frieda out. Frieda was a bigger deal in the comics, being Virgil’s friend and confidante as well as his ocasional love intrest, but here while she was inteded to at least be his love intrest here, that sorta fizzled out. As for the best friend role we meet her replacement in Richie, which McDuffie conceded was the kind of change a studio would make swapping out a female character for a male one. That being said the crew made the best of it and Richie is awesome, a bit of an overcompensating dipstick at times, but a good sounding board and pal for virgil and funny as hell too. He was also gay, something only revealed post series by McDuffie.. but unlike say Dumbledore, it’s a bit easier to swallow here: The early 2000′s were an even worse time for gay characters in tv let alone cartoons, and if they couldn’t kiss or have sex scenes on regular tv, there was no way we were getting any representation in a children’s show. So it was largely just hinted at by Richie overcompensating in how “into girls” he was and i’m once again fine with this being word of god as it was literally the best they could do and his counterpart in the comics was also gay, if not as relevant. Ritch encourages Virgil to work on his opening to ask her out as it’s awkward as heck, hits a bit close to home.. but I do appricate the show just .. having him try and ask her out from the first episode. They likely would’ve drug thigns out a bit granted had they used Frieda more, i’m not blind to the convetions of the time. .but as someone who got the very wrong idea from tv that just waiting around meant a girl would like you eventually, when no you need to actually try even if rejection happens, I honestly wish we had more of this in media than the other garbage morals at the time.

So he prepares to , not helped by her mentioning guy after guy is asking her out.... but before he can F-Stop, the future hotstreak, shows up. F-STOP

That being said...... it’s not as bad as the original gangster name for the comic’s version, Biz Money B. Yes BIZ MONEY B

So yeah while F-Stop is no more intimidating, it at least means I can stop laughing. Francis, because I can’t type F-Stop without laughing and this review is already behind, shoves Virgil out of the way and agressively hits on Frieda, even saying “you smell good”, the international sign your a douchebag and also to call the police. Virgil steps up to the guy and gets PAINFULLY slammed into the lockers, something I give the animation team a lot of credit for, as you can FEEL how fucking painful that was. Virgil is saved by Wade, another local gangbanger who in the comics was a close friend of Virgils but here saves him seemingly just because.. seemingly.

On the way home though Virg’s problems don’t end as naturally, the giant sized asshole with nothing better to do has his goons corner virgil before VIOLENTLY beating him.. off screen but the noises, and the clear brusies including a black eye, on virgil afterwords.. just holy damn i’m suprsied they got away with this but it shows just how horrifing it was and that this is a step above regular bullying, which make no mistake is absoluttley terrible and the series would later do an episode on it and school shootings, into straight up gang violence. Wade shows up again and gets the bastards to flee.. but also makes it clear he can’t keep doing this.. and forces Virgil to meet him at his base under the bridge. And it’s a tense sequence, with Virgil KNOWING this is a bad idea but having no real choice and Wade making it abundantly clear that he wants Virgil to join his crew, and makes a chilling point: while Virgils dad RIGHTFULLY dosen’t want his son to join a gang as Virgil points out.. he can’t be there for him all the time and eventually one of those times, Francis will be around. And he may not surivive that. Virgil nods noncomittaly. At home it gets even more grim as he dosen’t open up to his family, understandably as his dad would jsut say to call the police and well.. we’ve seen how the police treat black people. At best they’d just try and use Virgil as an informant and that likely wouldn’t end fucking well for Virgil. Ritchie points out he can’t join a gang, virgil’s mom died that way.. see told you it’d be important to the plot.. but I like how the story dosen’t offer an easy answer.. well okay he gets electric powers soon enough but without the fantastic element this is just an innocent kid caught between either joining the very thing his mom hated or hoping a system not built to protect him will keep him alive. It’s utterly saddening and chilling and holy shit is it amazing a cartoon in the early 2000′s was able to get away with.. ANY OF THIS, and they handle it great, paired down a bit from the comics but even then it’s still incredibly balsy they got THIS much in.

Naturally Wade calls in his favor and our hero is forced to come running.. and soon finds out Wade’s brought him in for a massive gang war. Welcome to the big bang, baby. He hands Virgil a gun as things get started and Virgil.. drops the thing and tries to escape, in a harrowing sequence.. and runs into Francis because god apparently REALLY hates this kid today. As if to prove that the police show up and while that prevents a beating, they demand they disassemble. then release untested gas on them because of course they do.

As a result the big bang truly begins, with the various gang members getting mutated.. and naturally so does virgil. Though he wakes up the next day seemingly fine. How’d he get home? Does his dad know where he was?

I don’t know and we’re not getting any answers, but Virgil soon finds weird stuff happening like his clock shorting out, change being attracted to him and his razor going wild. It’s only once he get sback to his room he gets an inkling of what’s going on and calls Ritchie to meet him at the Junk yard.. though it is a bit of a dick move as he dosen’t you know, tell him anything about Wade or Francis right away. He does at the yard though.. and that he has powers, having finally figured out how to use them to a point. And the series does provide a decent justification later as to why he’d get this so quickly: Virgil is a smart kid, gets great grades at school and apparnetly there’s even an episode later where he gets a scholarship to a fancy genius school. So him getting how elctromagntisim works or being a quick study on it makes perfect sense.

Richie suggest the obvious.. to become a superhero. And the thought.. hadn’t occured to Virgil. It’s honestly a nice twist on the old trope. That he hadn’t thought of it, not because he’s selfish or any of that or needs to learn a hard lesson, those have been done.. simply because the rush of getting his powers, and implicitly of having a way out of his current predciament, a way to keep Francis off his back and keep Wade from pulling him in further. His own path. But once i’ts brought up.. he jumps on it. Part of it is being a nerd like you or I, of course he wants to.. and being a good intetioned one, he knows this is the right thing to do. It’s waht makes a superhero a hero: Anyone can get powers in a universe like this, esepcailly the dcau, but it takes true courage and heart to use them selflessly and knowing you’ll be in danger. It’s why I love surperheroes: they often didn’t ask for this but they do it anyway because somebody’s gotta. We also get an intresting wrinkle is superman is, at least I think in this episode I could’ve missed it or misremembered things, mentioned as a fictional character. That’s because originally like the comics this wasn’t part of the DCAU.. but eventually the crew decided it shared staff from it, shared a network, both first run and on reruns, why not just make it part of the DCAU proper. I fully support this decisionf: While i’m midly annoyed unlimited never really used anything from static shock outside of Static himself in the time travel episode, despite you know Static and Gear having BEEN to the tower and not being much younger than Kara and defintely older than Courtney, I chalk it up to weird rights issues or something like that. But having Batman, Batman Beyond, Superman, Green Lantern and the Justice League itself all guest star was a good idea, and expanded both static’s universe and gave the DCAU something differnt as most heroes in it were older and more experinced in contrast to the up and coming virgil. Again really would’ve been nice if he and gear could’ve been a part of the expanded league but production might of just been too far ahead or, given he had his own series, they might just have wanted to stick to toher characters. Also begs the question why Icon or Hardware wasn’t adapted for the expanded League but hey, questions for later and the tricky logisitics of the milestone rights might’ve been the issue. I don’t know I wasn’t in the room.

So we get a costume montage, including Black Vulcan from Superfriends, who again ironically would be voiced by Lamarr not too long after this, though weirdly they DON’T use his outfit from the comics for this montage. I mean why not? It fits the gag and would’ve been a good second to last choice.But what could’ve been aside we get our winner and cut back to present day...

Thanks boys. Static finds out one of the things in the warehouse is a shipment of computers for the school and can’t help but show off, showing up to the school, where Frieda and Richie are setting up for the dance, and dropping off the computers, and even saying his catchphrase for the first time “I’ll put a shock to your system” (Which Richie chimes in with awesome line and I agree, great catcphrase), before helping set up and flirting with frieda.

Though as Richtie says he’s a natural. He’s not wrong as he can work a crowd. .but back it up too as his first run out had him easily taking out the crooks, and as many teen superheros and fans of heroes of hte type, myself included will tell you, getting it right in one is not easy. Not even Miles MOrales was immune. All Static needs now is a villian.

And the end of the episode provides one as we see, in horrifc and once again damn suprising detail most of hte new metas aren’t doing so good and are melting and other stuff and we catch up with Francis whose burning up.. and naturally given that hair, though given he named himself F-Stop it’s the least of his problems, he’s got fire powers and escapes to “Have me some fun”

So with that we end episode 1. And it’s excellent, a great way to introduce the hero and while the warehouse opening is a bit superflous, it is a decent addition, showing our heroes first outing in costume and giving us a bit of an action scene to get us through the very heavy rest of the episode. But the rest of the episode is no less grippping, telling the tale of a teen caught in an unwinnable scenario who suddenly finds a way out. And speaking of which waht of Wade? Will we see him again? Is he perhaps Ebon, the series big bad as I thought when I was a kid? What comes of the man who directly caused static’s origin?

Yeahhh that’s the one mistep I think the pilot makes. Frieda is understandable as that was likely a simple change in creative direction. This though? Why build this guy up if your not going to bring him back. I mean where he went was probably the grave, as he probably did due to his mutation, but it’s still VERY weird to spend a whole episode focusing on this guy, building him up as a big personal threat to our hero.. and NOT have him become the series big bad. And maybe he WAS supposed to be ebon and they just changed their mind. I don’t know but it bothers me it bothers me a lot. Otherwise though flawless. ONe more to go.

Aftershock: We open outside an electronics store, as our heroes watch the news reacap what happened in the first episode, with the media dubbing it the Big Bang and revealing their could be hundreds of “Metahumans”, as Virgil dubs after deciding the media’s term “Mutant” dosen’t fit, a nice wink to the fact that that’s the term used in dc comics and I believe milestone but could be wrong there. Me I like the term, has a nice ring to it.

At the store while Richie mulls over waht this means Static finds out he’s a human CD player.... this was before mp3 players and streaming on your phone made them horribly obsolete mind you and if you don’t know what one is congradualtions you live in some sort of bubble and you made me feel really old junior.

Frieda happens to be there and Virgil quips “What’s the matter they run out of britney cds”. Dude she’s not bad. Also be careful what you wish for man. Nickeback returned the year after this. You have not truly suffered through bad music yet my young friend. They spot a kid looking feverish, and he soon turns into a purple werewolf, as you do. It’s a bang baby.. those are richie’s exact word and you may not want to start a panic there bud. Just saying your best friend is one. THeir not all like this. Our heroes book it only to run into Francis who naturally refuses to let them leave and only doesn’t try to beat up Virgil because Virgil points otu the werewolf and nonplussed, he goes to fight it, scarring it off by revealing his own powers. He’s now dubbed himself Hotstreak which points for getting an actually good name kid. No points for what happens next as unsuprisingly getting powers did NOT mak ehim a better person and he attacks Virgil who blocks with a garbage can lid and thankfully is blasted into an ally. Richie tries to guard frieda for damn obvious reasons but gets hsi shirt burnt up because shut up Thankfully Static shows up, and we get our firsdt full on superhuman fight as both fight each other with aplomb, and it’s a damn good fight.. and one that goes pear shaped for Virg as he’s caught off guard when he finds out Hotstreak can use his powers to fly, and tackles him and his previous trauma causes him to freeze up. Thankfully , as Frieda put in a call earlier, the fire department arrive and HOt streak has to retreat, though Virgil is bummed that he “Choked”. And I love this as it not only shows Virgil’s inepxerince, as this is his first time fighting a bad guy but that just because he HAS power now dosen’t mean trauma and his previous fear of Hotstreak goes away or you won’t freeze up from time to time. It dosen’t make him weak or anything like some assholes would call it .. it makes him human. Humans make mistakes, and it makes him all the more relatable that he’s not pefect and that he did freeze up as I know I certainly would at last once in the circumstances.

Things don’t get better at dinner as Sharon and Pops argue over the bang babies with Pops calling them a meance and Sharon pointing out Static exists so they can’t all be bad. See assuming a group of superhumans are bad because a handful of them ar edick sis why the x-men had to get their own island nation. You can only save an ungreatful populous so many times before you say “fuck it i’m getting my own island, pay me for life saving drugs, save your damn selves and stop doing genocides on us. Kay thanks”. But he does bring up a valid point that rattles his son: We don’t know anything about the Bang Babies or their biological structures and it’s likely they might further mutate into monsters, Static included.

Virgil, understandably, wants to check this and thus he and richie compare blood samples in science, to no real conclusion. She he checks out with his doctor who assumes he’s sexually active in a great getting crap past the radar bit and a bit of realisim, but he agrees to the test though if something came up he would have to tell Virgil’s dsad and is up front about this. Nice dose of realisim.

That night City Council has a meeting and the Mayor TRIES to deflect Papa Hawkins questions about the bang babies which again, while being a judgmental ass as not every person hit was a gang member (Virgil, and as we discover later some others), and not every gang member is there by choice, some by circumstnace some, like virgil almost was, because they HAD no other option. Again years of reading x-men may of just made me a bit touchy on assholes admitely assuming superpower people bad. But it’s clear the public is upset and while she says an investigation is underway... Virgil and Richie are not only not convinced, but figure she’s actively covering it up. And unlike everyone else there who probably suspects the same, they can do something about it and tail her. It’s during this, and cleverly as I didn’t realie till writing this using similar skills to his human cd player act, Virgil listens in and discovers whose behind it: Edwin Alva, whose apparently richer than bill gates and a beloved phinarophist Alva, as it turns out, was actually the arch enemy of Hardware in the comics, taking advantage of the guy in his civiliian idtentiy and thus casuing him to launch a war on the asshole. He does transition into this series well though, being the one behind the gas that caused it and with the mayor agreeing to back off, planning to simply dump the info about the big bang on a disc then destroy everything for now till the heat dies down. Yup sounds like a corprate douchebag.

Static tails him, finds the lab and infiltrates it, stealing the disc.. but getting caught by Alva’s goon, and trapped in a glass prison, forced to use ALL his power to escape and barely getting out alive, but not before bouncing off alva’s car. Still he now has the proof.. and meanwhile Hotstreak, who I was wrong did get captured, is forced to take pill sbut spits them out once the orderly is gone. Dude.. WHY DIDN’T YOU WATCH HIM. Make sure he swallows that shit especially since, as he has no powers right now and can’t harm you.

Hotstreak escapes off screen and our heroes discuss the disc before he shows up, and we get a REALLY fucking amazing scene: Virgil ducks into an Alleway and ritchie is worried.. and Virgil disarms him with just one word responses Ritchie: Virg you can’t take him. Virgil: Gotta. Ritchie: Well at least wait for the fire department Virgil: Can’t. It’s simpile but it gets the point across: This is his fight, he can’t wait for help, and people need him. And this is what makes a true hero: It’s easy to be a hero when everythings going well.. but it’s the true ones who stick it out against the odds and fight anyway. And he’s going to. So we get one hell of a fight, though naturally Hotstreak burns up the disc. And I do like this as it dosen’t feel contrived.. yes Static could’ve left it with ritchie.. but he wasn’t thinking in the moment and dind’t really have time to think abotu the disc, only that people were being hurt and he was all they had between them and Hotstreak. It was no choice at all. Still that pisses Virgil off that the last night’s work is now worthless, and he fully charges up and curbstomps francis who retreats into a clearing. Hostreak brags when static follows, as even he’s figured out Static needs to be around metal, as he’s usually on his disc or the street, and in the park there suppodsidly isn’t any. But he’s not THAT smart as Virgil points out two things: one, he hoped to do this on PURPOSE so they wouldn’t be around people and no on e would get hurt and 2).. this is a city, there’s metal everywhere.. and he awesomely and cleverly proves it by unlodging a sewage pipe with his powers and dousing his foe, winning and proving his stuff. I love this solution, it’s a clever spider-man type way to disarm him, using smarts and the einvroment instead of just brute forcing it. Though the sewage part wasn’t intetional our hero still won and gets praise from the people dumb enough to follow the fight.

However at home Virgil points out it was Pyrrhic Victory and shows off his smarts by telling the tale behind it, which I didn’t know,because tv tropes didn’t exist yet: king pyrhus fought the romans and WON.. but had so little armies left that he still lost overall. That’s what this feels like to Virgil: he beat hotstreak but any chance at a cure for Bang Babies and Alva going to jail for causing them is gone. His mood does get a boost though as the doctor calls and reveals he’s fine, he just has a bit too much elctrolytes and just needs to lay off teh salt. He celebrates, we get a quick gag and the episode ends

Aftershock is another stellar episoe, giving us Virgil’s first super foe and a personal one at that, while showing some growth. As richie tells him he’s not virgil anymore he’s static and he can’t let his past get to him.. and he does’nt going from cowering in fear to easily beating his foe with simple logic. It’s a good followup that answers questions you may have from the first ep, like what does this do to virgil’s body, who supplied the gas, and why has no one done anything about this, and sets up another villian for Static in Alva. Great stuff. I highly recommend these episodes and the show as a whole: it’s fast paced, grounded and enjoyable, having just enough levity to not be too dour but just enough tension and stakes to be intresting. A throughly fantastic superhero show and one that i’d certainly love to revisit on this blog If you have an episode of static or the dcau in general you’d want me to cover, my comissions are open and details are on a tab on my blog or can be gotten simply by asking me via ask or dm. Tommorow we’re going deeper underground, there’s too much damage in this town as the Lena Retrospective continues. So expect gay ducks, straight ducks and some terrfirmains. See you next rainbow.

#static shock #static #virgil hawkins #richie foley #robert hawkins #sharon hawkins #hotstreak #milestone comics #dc comics #dc animated universe #dcau #dwayne mcduffie #robert l washington IIII #kids wb #hbo max #2000s #animation #black lives matter #black history month

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gorogues · 4 years ago

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Spoilers for comics in May!

Pretty sparse again, and it’s really just collected editions which are of interest...though Len appears on the variant cover of the Super Sons issue. I don’t think he’s in any of the stories thus far.

You can see the solicits in full at CBR.

CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER SONS #2 written by PETER J. TOMASI art by MAX RAYNOR and JORGE CORONA cover by SIMONE DI MEO card stock variant cover by NICK BRADSHAW ON SALE 5/11/21 $3.99 US | 32 PAGES | 2 of 7 | FC | DC CARD STOCK VARIANT COVER $4.99 US Okay, Robin and Superboy saved the Flash from certain annihilation...surely the day is saved and everyone can go home and watch TV, right? Wrong! Once the Doom Scroll inscribes a name on its mystical list, the bearer of that name will be imminently killed—and the heroes of the Justice League are being targeted one by one! Next up? Wonder Woman! Plus, see just what happened when the boys were snatched from reality, and how they first encountered the Doom Scroll...in medieval England?

From here, we’ve got a ton of collected editions. The Mark Waid book has some Replicant and Piper. @one-rogue-army

THE FLASH BY MARK WAID BOOK EIGHT TP written by MARK WAID, BRIAN AUGUSTYN, and JOE CASEY art by PAUL PELLETIER, DUNCAN ROULEAU, SCOTT KOLINS, DOUG BRAITHWAITE, and others cover by STEVE LIGHTLE ON SALE 6/15/21 $34.99 US | $45.99 CAN | 368 PAGES | FC | DC Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-77951-010-5 As this latest collection of Flash tales written by Mark Waid begins, meet Walter West, a Flash from a parallel reality where his beloved Linda Park died and the speedster doles out brutal justice to criminals as a response. Can the two Flashes co-exist long enough to stop Replicant, a villain with the combined powers of the Rogues Gallery? Better find out fast—the longer Walter West stays on Wally’s Earth, the more he poses a threat to all of reality! Collects The Flash #151-162, The Flash Annual #12, and pages from The Flash Secret Files #2.

This Justice League trade has a classic Eobard story, from the Secret Society of Super-Villains (he acts like a creep towards Black Canary). There’s also a good Kadabra and Sam story reprinted here.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA: THE BRONZE AGE OMNIBUS VOL. 3 HC written by GERRY CONWAY, PAUL LEVITZ, MARTIN PASKO, and STEVE ENGLEHART art by DICK DILLIN, GEORGE TUSKA, and others cover by KARL KERSCHL ON SALE 7/6/21 $125.00 US | $163.00 CAN | 1,192 PAGES | FC | DC Hardcover 7.0625" x 10.875" ISBN: 978-1-77951-016-7 The JLA moves into the second half of the ’70s with tales guest-starring the Justice Society of America, the Legion of Super-Heroes, and heroes from the long-gone past including Jonah Hex, the Viking Prince, Enemy Ace, and more. Plus, the League’s mascot, Snapper Carr, turns against the team, the Phantom Stranger helps the team battle a returning pantheon of ancient gods, the Martian Manhunter faces Despero for the lives of the League, and the Secret Society of Super-Villains swap bodies with the World’s Greatest Superheroes. Plus, Black Lightning is invited to join the JLA—but turns down the invitation for mysterious reasons. Collects Justice League of America #147-182, Super-Team Family #11-14, DC Special #27, DC Special Series #6, Secret Society of Super-Villains #15, DC Comics Presents #17, and pages from Amazing World of DC comics #14.

If you missed the digital releases, here’s your chance to buy this cool AU Hartley story!

DCEASED: HOPE AT WORLD’S END HC written by TOM TAYLOR art by DUSTIN NGUYEN, RENATO GUEDES, CARMINE DI GIANDOMENICO, MARCO FAILLA, KARL MOSTERT, and DANIELE DI NICUOLO cover by FRANCESCO MATTINA ON SALE 6/15/21 $24.99 US | $33.99 CAN | 176 PAGES | FC | DC HARDCOVER ISBN: 978-1-77951-128-7 In Earth’s darkest hour, heroes will bring hope in this new addition to the DCeased saga, taking place within the timeline of the original epic! DCeased became a smash horror hit in 2019 by offering a twisted version of the DC Universe infected by the Anti-Life Equation, transforming heroes and villains alike into mindless monsters. DCeased: Hope at World’s End, previously only available digitally, expands the world of that original DCeased series by filling in that story’s time jump and focusing on characters including Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Stephanie Brown, Wally West, and Jimmy Olsen. In DCeased: Hope at World’s End, the Anti-Life Equation has infected over a billion people on Earth. Heroes and villains have fallen. In the immediate aftermath of the destruction of Metropolis, Superman and Wonder Woman spearhead an effort to stem the tide of infection, preserve and protect survivors, and plan for what’s next. In the Earth’s darkest hour, heroes will bring hope! The war for Earth has only just begun! This volume collects DCeased: Hope at World’s End Digital Chapters 1-15.

And this is for the AU Eobard story.

TALES FROM THE DC DARK MULTIVERSE II HC stories and art by VARIOUS cover by DAVID MARQUEZ ON SALE 6/8/21 $34.99 US | $45.99 CAN | 368 PAGES | FC | DC Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-77951-007-5 The gateway into the Dark Multiverse has been opened...what stories will emerge? Follow Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Justice League as our heroes battle their way through these crumbling and shattered worlds! Collects Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Batman: Hush #1; Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Flashpoint #1; Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Wonder Woman: War of the Gods #1; Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Crisis on Infinite Earths #1; and Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Dark Nights Metal #1, plus the stories that inspired these tales from Batman #619, Flashpoint #1, Wonder Woman: War of the Gods #4, Crisis on Infinite Earths #12, and Dark Nights: Metal #6.

#Captain Cold #Professor Zoom #Pied Piper #Replicant #the Flash #solicits #spoilers: comics

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davidmann95 · 4 years ago

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To be clear, is your issue with Jupiter’s Legacy what it is or the execution of it? Because personally, I was dissapointed for all the backstory and setting itself as anti-thesis to Millar’s older work, it ended up a very simplistic and predictable „bad guys take over, good guys rise up and win“ story. But even taken as just that, it doesn’t really have cool twists or fun ideas like the original Star Wars trilogy.

The execution: if you actually go back and read Millar’s earliest interviews and forget that it’s Millar, it sounds like the coolest comic ever until the real thing ends up being a mediocre version of what he claimed would just be the focus of the first few pages. But the broad strokes? A Star Wars/Lord of the Rings-scale sprawling epic for the superhero subgenre, about the rise and fall and rise of the concept in the hands of assorted well-meaning but lacking or misguided ‘heroes’ rooted in the generational family drama of the psuedo-Justice League, against the backdrop of America’s escalating failures as a democratic capitalist global superpower, with a burgeoning mythology in the background waiting to take center stage ranging from the origins of life on Earth to alien gods shepherding our existence and the notion of the superhero to unknown ends? That should be the defining superhero comic of the 21st century, and instead you read it and go “well this took up entirely too much of Frank Quitely’s career”. I so desperately hope the Netflix show is going to be able to pull a Happy!/The Boys/any given movie adaptation of Millar’s work and do something utterly transformative to unveil even a scrap of the clear potential: I know they’re pumping a shitload of money into it, and the “5 8-episode seasons, the present-set stuff more or less moves in real time but the flashback stuff that’s half of each season leaps decades at a time with each season” format sounds promising.

#Jupiter's Legacy #Jupiter's Circle #Jupiter's Requiem #Mark Millar #Frank Quitely #Opinion

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multiverseforger · 4 years ago

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Edit

Miss Martian is a White Martian known as M'gann M'orzz. She serves as a member of the Teen Titans during the year between the events depicted in Infinite Crisis and the "One Year Later" stories. On Earth, she simplifies her name to Megan Morse.

M'gann M'orzz was originally sent by rocket from Mars to the Vega system to escape the civil war between the Green Martians and the White Martians.[4] To date, it is still unknown when she came to Earth from Vega.

Initially, M'gann pretended to be a Green Martian, like the Martian Manhunter, and joined the Teen Titans. After her feelings were hurt through insensitivity and misunderstanding with her teammates, M'gann left the Titans to be a hero in Australia. Though the Titans suspected she might have been a traitor, it turned out that her accuser, Bombshell, was the actual traitor. After helping the team defeat Bombshell and proving her loyalty, she was accepted as a full member of the Titans.[5]

Miss Martian of the future, with an apparition of Martian Manhunter. Art by Alé Garza.

M'gann and Cyborg travel to Belle Reve to interrogate the depowered Bombshell. M'gann, using her telepathy on Bombshell, discovers the existence of Titans East (Bombshell is seemingly murdered by a mind-controlled Batgirl soon thereafter, but eventually recovers).[6] M'gann fights Sun Girl, who claims to be from a future in which Martians are slaves because of something that M'gann will do (Sun Girl also claims that in the future M'gann will be her slave). Unable to convince Sun Girl to tell her what she will do in the future, M'gann dives into the ocean and then hits Sun Girl with a mass of water, dousing her flames.

The Titans Tomorrow appear with Miss Martian as a member.[7] She has a different look, having embraced her White Martian heritage. Having changed her name to Martian Manhunter, she is killed by her present-day counterpart. As a result of this encounter, the consciousness of her future self has taken refuge in Megan's own mind.[8] An epilogue to the "Titans of Tomorrow: Today!" storyline depicts Miss Martian eight years in the future; she colludes with Lex Luthor and Tim Drake, the Robin of the time and with whom she is having an affair, to clone several deceased Titans, including Superboy and Kid Flash.

Megan is attacked by Disruptor of the Terror Titans, whose weapons almost separate her from her future self.[9] Megan is captured and thrown into a room with Kid Devil, who has been savagely conditioned into a mindless beast. She attempts to calm his mind with her telepathy, but a reincarnated version of Granny Goodness has found a way to inhibit her Martian abilities.

Megan finally manages to restore Eddie's rational mind, and the two escape.[10] Back at Titans Tower, Megan implies that the encounter with Disruptor has allowed her to subdue her future self's consciousness. Her future counterpart seems still able to communicate with her, but M'gann shushes her effortlessly by the simple threat of siccing the cute puppies on her, e.g. feeding her images of cuteness and love.

Later, however, Megan begins showing signs of being unable to subdue her evil self, such as appearing before the team having chalk-white skin as opposed to her usually preferred green skin. She seems as surprised at this as the rest of the team, and later finally comes to the conclusion to leave the Titans for an unknown period of time. Before leaving, however, she says goodbye to the Titans and admits to Eddie that she will miss him the most, to which he questions if she is comparing him to the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz.

Teen Titans writer Sean McKeever has stated that Megan's departure from the Titans is part of a longer story he was working on and that she will return to the team at a later time.[11]

Megan appears in the final issue of the Terror Titans miniseries, having been posing as Star-Spangled Kid in The Dark Side Club's metahuman fights. She had been using her immunity to Clock King's mind control to slowly free the other brainwashed metahumans.[12]

Megan is briefly seen as part of an underground resistance cell in Final Crisis #5 (Dec. 2008). She rejoins the Titans in the aftermath of their failed recruitment drive, bringing new members Static and Aquagirl with her. In the same story, Megan hints that she has rid herself of her future counterpart's consciousness from her mind.

When Beast Boy returns to lead the Titans in the wake of Kid Devil's death, Megan is the only member of the team who is willing to support him. While the rest of the team is busy arguing with him, Megan is attacked and captured by a new villain known as Wyld. After a vigorous battle, Megan is rescued by her teammates.[13]

At some point prior to this, Megan is seen operating on a solo mission where she defeats Brick after he attempts to abduct a young girl and hold her for ransom. Seconds after flooring the kidnapper, Megan is visited by Jay Garrick, who recruits her for some unknown purpose.[14] In the finale of Justice League: Cry for Justice, it is revealed that Garrick recruited her in order to help interrogate Prometheus, who had destroyed Star City. When she attempts to read his mind, Megan is knocked out by specialized mental defenses Prometheus put in place after an encounter with the Martian Manhunter.[15]

Megan later accompanies her fellow Titans to the city of Dakota in order to look for Static after he goes missing. After Wonder Girl, Aquagirl, and Bombshell are kidnapped as well, the remaining Titans track them to an armored bunker. Megan tries to fight off a powerful metahuman gangster named Holocaust, but he is somehow able to resist her telepathic assault and knock her unconscious.[16] After awakening, Megan realizes that she had accidentally struck Raven with a mental barrage, which has now left her comatose. On the way back to Titans Tower, Raven is kidnapped by Wyld.[17]

Brightest DayEdit

During Brightest Day, Megan is asked by Batman to contact Starman after he is captured by a crazed Alan Scott. After coming aboard the Justice League Watchtower, she mentally reaches out to Starman and begins to relay information about his prison, only to transform into her White Martian form and attack the Justice League. Before Megan can injure any of her fellow heroes, she is knocked unconscious by Power Girl, who implies that she had been possessed by the Starheart, the cosmic entity that granted Alan his powers.[18]

Around this time, the recently resurrected Martian Manhunter contacts Titans Tower in order to talk to Megan, and is told by Superboy that she has taken a leave of absence from the team. He heads to Australia to find Megan and see if she has any information about a string of murders that seem to have been committed by a fellow Martian, only to find her tied up and severely beaten.[19] While tending to her, J'onn is contacted by the Entity, and Megan's wounds fully recover. She also senses that there is another Martian on Earth.[20] When J'onn asks Megan who did this to her, Megan says she was attacked by a female Green Martian.[4]

After a mission to rescue Raven from Wyld's dimension, Megan is left in a coma. Cyborg and a scientist named Rochelle Barnes take Megan to Cadmus Labs in order to find a way to help her, and Static (who had lost his powers after the battle with Wyld) comes along with her, stating that she should have a Titan by her side while she recovers. The issue ends with a note stating that the story will be resolved in a new Static solo series, which will launch sometime in 2011.[21]

No longer a member of the Titans, Miss Martian is later attacked by a teenaged psychic named Alexander, who kidnaps her and uses her as bait to lure Supergirl into a trap.[22] After defeating Supergirl, M'gann uses her abilities to help brainwash Blue Beetle and Robin into serving Alexander.[23] It is later revealed, however, that Miss Martian was never under Alexander's control to begin with; she had merely pretended to be while using her telepathy to tell Supergirl her plan. Miss Martian then forcefeeds Alexander's mind with mental feedback, distracting him enough for Supergirl to subdue him.

Along with a number of other former Titans, M'gann returns to assist the team during their final battle against Superboy-Prime and the Legion of Doom.[24] Working together with Solstice, M'gann defeats her old nemesis Sun Girl.[25]

The New 52Edit

In September 2011, DC carried out a revision of its superhero comic book line, including its stories and its characters' fictional histories, known as The New 52. In the revised stories, Miss Martian's first appearance is when Red Robin is shown watching a press conference where Lex Luthor shows off photographs of M'gann as part of a presentation about alien life on Earth.[26]

DC RebirthEdit

DC made another revision of its superhero comic book line, known as the DC Rebirth. Miss Martian appears in the revised stories. Here, she has been assigned by Martian Manhunter as the Justice League liaison to watch over the Titans.[27] The White Martian side of Miss Martian was eventually revealed to the Titans, as she couldn't contain her form after getting attacked by Beast Boy (who lost his self-control seemingly due to the energy of the Source Wall), when they were stranded on a strange planet.[28] With the Titans back on earth, Batman tells Donna Troy that Martian Manhunter's actual intention to place Miss Martians on the Titans was to protect her true nature and keep her safe.[29

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dagenspear · 4 years ago

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Crisis On Infinite Earths Outline Fix, Part 5: Laurel Returns!

This is the conclusion to the Crisis, Part 5! This is a bit of a longer one again. For parts 1, 2, 3 & 4, here:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

I thank God for these ideas, if He wills, that He blessed me with:

The bright green light consumes the screen.

Kara, Wally, Jjonn, Ray, Sara and Kate all wake up in their new earth.

But things are different. Black Lightning's, Supergirl's, Earth 1's, Earth 3's and another earth's are now all merged into 1. Lex is the head of the DEO. All the speedsters remember everything. Cisco's powers are back, which when he touches Wally, vibes his pre-crisis memories back. The history of Earth 3 is now apart of that earth's, the Justice Society Of America having been prominent heroes, with the members of Jay Garrick Flash, Dinah Drake Black Canary (Laurel and Sara's mom), Ted Grant Wildcat, Dr. Fate, Hawkman/Hawkgirl, Alan Scott Green Lantern, and others, apart of the team in the 80's & 90's. Barry Allen's Flash has been erased, having never existed. Wally is seen as The Flash, the 2nd Flash there's ever been, after Jay Garrick. John Diggle's life has been altered as well.

Cisco misses Barry, but has become accepting of the situation after the preparations made for it and sees it as his responsibility to maintain the protection of the city. He uses his vibing to give Caitlin, Ralph and the others their memories back, but Wally stops him from giving them to Joe and Iris, saying that he doesn't want them to bear the heartbreak of losing Barry all over again.

Iris is the head of the Central City Citizen, which Post Crisis is a prominent newspaper.

Wally is left to ponder that the people see him as the Flash, him refusing to wear the costume, stating that he's not the Flash. Cisco tells him that the people think he is.

Mia is angry and guilty about the loss of her dad. Diggle has guilt that he couldn't be there for him when it happened.

Cisco picks up a reading of something coming from space, and traces it to landing outside STAR Labs, which he confronts, to find a man landing there.

Sara and Diggle talk about Oliver's loss and she tries to assuage his guilt, stating that no matter what, Oliver wouldn't have wanted him to die fighting this threat, and that Oliver was very stubborn, which they both have a small laugh about.

Sara comforts Mia, whose beginning to be accepting of her dad's death and that he died saving the multiverse, seeing him as a hero.

Sara, though having wanted to continue fighting, is still depressed about the fact that so much of her family is gone and that she has almost no one in her life. Which she talks with Mia about.

That's when they're attacked by some shadow creatures. They fight them, but are pinned down, about to be torn apart, when suddenly...

A sonic scream emerges from the side! BLASTING THEM BACK! And from the side...

Emerges Black Canary.

Sara is shocked. But apprehensive... until Black Canary looks at them and acknowledges Sara as her sister with a smile and rushes to her. Sara realizing that this is E1 Laurel. Alive. Laurel helps her up and Sara touches her shoulders, almost in disbelief that this is real, tears springing to her eyes, before hugging her, crying, in tears of happiness and grief. Mia almost smiles at the moment as well. Mia realizes and says that if they attacked them, they may attack the others as well.

They go to STAR Labs to warn them about what's happening. And are met with Cisco stating that he knows it's not over, as they've been told by someone, that someone revealing themself as the Green Lantern AKA Guy Gardner, from the Justice League Of America 1997 TV Movie, played by Matthew Settle.

Everyone is brought together, Diggle, Kate and Mia included. Guy Gardner tells them that he was from the other earth that was merged with the others, and is questioned by Diggle in how he survived the merge with all his memories intact. He says that his ring protected him. Cisco and Guy explain that the antimatter verse portal is still open, but is slowly closing as this new timeline, of sorts, cements, and if it does, those shadow creatures will be stuck here. Cisco determines that they're gonna need to recreate the sonic pulse to try and get those shadow creatures to them, so they can somehow get them into the portal before it closes. Laurel volunteers to do it, in spite of Sara's concern. Cisco explains that because there's no way to know where they are, they're gonna need to double the pulse from before to get all of them to them. Diggle suggests Dinah. Laurel questions that, but Cisco states that the Dinah Diggle is suggesting is Zinda Blake post-crisis and doesn't have a sonic cry and Laurel's mom has never had powers. Diggle realizes that he hasn't gotten all his memories straight yet. Cisco then says that there's someone else who can help them.

We cut to E2 Laurel standing in front of Laurel. Laurel is uncertain about this. E2 Laurel maintains her memories of pre-crisis. Laurel asks how this is possible. Cisco speculates that with the merging of some universes there may be holdovers from the previous, then stating that both Laurels have the metagene for the canary cry, a now discovered gene post crisis, and, with his memories of EX Laurel, he speculates at least most, if not all the Laurels in the multiverse, have one as well. But E2's was activated by dark matter, while post crisis Laurel's was activated by a gene bomb HIVE set off in 2014, HIVE post crisis being an organization who sought to enhance humanity, using techological and biological enhancements. Laurel asks E2 Laurel if she can be trusted with her history as a villain. E2 Laurel points out that she remembers nearly dying to help and hopes that's gained something. Sara vouches for her. Laurel trusts Sara's judgement and agrees.

The group all agree that the only reason the shadow creatures would have a reason to attack them is based on the Anti-Monitor being alive still. They talk about how that's possible, Sara, among the Legends, suggests that as time hasn't fully cemented yet, he may not be erased, Cisco then suggesting that he also may be acting essentially as a time remnant or using something to keep himself from erasure, like tech or something. Jjonn tells them that he read the Anti-Monitor's mind before he transported himself away and he read that because his plan to cause an antimatter universe of his own in place of our multiverse has been stopped, he's willing to try and prevent the multiverse from forming at all, even if it means his own destruction. They work out how he'd do that, coming to the conclusion that he can use the temporal zone to go to the dawn of time to try and undo it at it's inception.

As the group works out their plan, Guy Gardner uses the STAR Labs computers to look into information about his friends post crisis, from his earth, and where they are now.

His Barry Allen is now Darryl Frye, a detective in Central City.

B. B. Dacosta is now Green Fury, her alter ego as a pop star, Madonna-esque.

His Ray Palmer is now Al Pratt, a respected physics college Professor, and first Atom post crisis.

Tori Olafsdotter is now Mary Pratt, married to Al Pratt, and a reporter.

His Martian Manhunter is unable to be located here.

Diggle is there and tells him glad that a lot of his friends are okay on this earth. Guy Gardner understands that he speaks from a place of a grief at his friend having died in the crisis. Guy Gardner and Diggle bond over that, Guy telling him that now all his friends are found, that Martian Manhunter from his earth is still missing, but he has faith that he's out there somewhere and Diggle has to have faith that his friend is somewhere out there too. Diggle agrees that he does, that it's like Oliver said, it's God's plan.

The team works out the plan.

Before starting, Sara apologizes to Laurel for what happened on the boat. Laurel tells her that she didn't go through with it. Sara says that she would've and that kills her, for being jealous and petty like that, saying that she wanted to have what Laurel had, be her, but she was just hurting herself and her whole family, stating that she doesn't want this, hating herself, to hold her back anymore, that she wants to move forward. Laurel agrees.

Kara and Kate talk, Kate telling her that she can't find Bruce and doesn't know where he is. Kara tells her that she can't give up.

The majority of the group tracks the energy signature of the Anti-Monitor, courtesy of Cisco with combination of tech and his vibe powers, through the temporal zone in a waverider pod, as Diggle, Wally, Guy Gardner, E2 Laurel and Laurel remain on the waverider, above earth. The waverider pod containing Sara, Kara, Alex, Kate, Ray, Cisco and Jjonn.

The 2 Laurels begin their sonic pulse. Guy Gardner explains that they're going to have to act quickly, as his ring is running out of power, and that's why he can't use it for flight while he's using it for the trapping of the shadow creatures and why he'll have to stand at the open door of the waverider as he does it. When Diggle asks if he can recharge it, Guy tells him that post crisis the ring isn't his anymore and will seek out it's true bearer when the time comes, and because of that he doesn't have access to charging it. When the shadow creatures are drawn to the waverider by the sonic pulse, Guy Gardner uses his ring to capture them, giving the go ahead to Wally to superspeed a speedforce portal into the closing antimatter portal, allowing Guy Gardner to funnel the creatures into it.

Meanwhile the others chase after the energy signature of the Anti-Monitor in the wavrider pod, as he flies through the temporal zone. They get close to him, but, realizing they can't catch up, Cisco breaches them both into a neutral area, the vanishing point. The waverider pod crashing. When the group climbs out, they see...

Anti-Monitor standing, unscathed, towering over them, in full comic book Crisis On Infinite Earths Anti-Monitor tech body armor.

Cisco breaches away quickly.

The Anti-Monitor mocks them for that and bringing him here, stating that he's been erased from existence, so the vanishing point no longer holds it's sway over containing him.

Sara states that they didn't bring him here for that. They just didn't want anything or anyone to be in the crossfire, when they destroy him.

They begin the battle:

Atom blasting the Anti-Monitor, even trying to fly into his ear, shrunken, but he's slapped away.

Jjonn flies into him, reaching into his chest by phasing, but the armor he's wearing electrocutes and burns Jjonn. The Anti-Monitor then responding by punching into his chest, him flying backward, being smashed into the ground.

Kara and Kate double team him in an attack of distraction and offensiveness, but are blasted away by an energy beam.

Alex begins shooting at him from behind, telling him not to touch her sister, but he, unaffected, simply redirects his beams at her, which she just barely dodges, then, on the ground, leg badly hurt, being met with another blast directly at her.

Kara quickly superspeeds inbetween her sister and the beam, trying to hold it back with her heat vision, him walking up to her, pushing her heat vision back into her eyes, grabbing her head, placing his hand over her eyes, the heat vision burning them, BLINDING HER, her yelling out in pain.

Back on the wavrider Diggle, flying above earth, tells those on board that it's time. The 2 Laurels are ready.

Sara comes up behind him with a blade, but he grabs her quickly by the throat, destroying her blade, mocking her for thinking it'd work, then saying that now she's alone again. Sara smirks, saying that she's far from alone.

Suddenly a breach opens and Brandon Routh Superman emerges, flying like a freight train into the Anti-Monitor. The Anti Monitor's grip on Sara is immediately broken, him being SMASHED into the ground.

Cisco exits the breach right after, as Cisco as ever, exclaiming, "Was that a bird? A plane? Why, I think it was Superman!" He then asks Sara if she's okay. She says that she is, but what took him so long? He explains that they had a couple last minute additions.

Out of the breach emerges:

E1 Black Canary

E2 Black Canary

Killer Frost

Citizen Steel

Heatwave

Tyler Hoechlin Superman

Black Lightning

Tom Welling Superman

Obviously Brandon Routh Superman, as he re-positions himself.

They all engage in battle with the Anti-Monitor. Their powers all together do some damage. Atom's blasts, the canary cries, the electric blasts, the cold blasting, the flamethrower flames, the heat visions of all the Supermen doing the most damage. But he's still too powerful to defeat. Cisco tries to use his breaches to slice the Anti-Monitor apart, but his suit breaks the breaches apart when they close in on him.

Alex crawls over to check on Kara, whose eyes seem almost seared in a way.

In the waverider, Guy Gardner is having a hard time containing all the shadow creatures as he funnels them into the antimatter portal. Diggle, flying the waverider with some difficulty, tells Wally that the others need help down there. Wally's uncertain he can. Diggle lays it out, telling him that it doesn't matter what he thinks, because they still need the Flash. Wally takes the Flash ring out of his pocket, pondering it. Diggle asks him if he's ready to do what it takes to save everyone. Wally, in resolve, places the ring on his finger, and extends his fist, the Flash symbol on the ring glowing in almost a lightning crackle blaze.

In the battle, Sara tells them to try to hit the Anti-Monitor with all their powers all at once. They make an attempt, but he's too powerful for them to get at with all those hits at once. Cisco tries something, throwing his breaches around the Anti-Monitor's hands, then giving the Supermen the go ahead. The Supermen do so. Brandon Routh Superman grabbing his left arm, Tom Welling Superman grabbing his right, Tyler Hoechlin Superman grabbing his head, them all holding him in place.

On the waverider, Guy Gardner's green lantern power ring starts to drain, just as the last batch of the shadow creatures are getting to the antimatter portal. He tells Diggle he's almost there. Diggle tells him it could kill him. Guy states that they have to make sure they're all gone now, as the antimatter portal's about to close, it taking all of his willpower to hold it. Just as the last shadow creature gets in, the portal closes, Guy's power ring runs out and he falls unconscious from exhaustion, falling out of the waverider into earth's atmosphere. The Green Lantern ring slips from his finger and flies off as he falls. But just before Guy's about to be hit with the heat of re-entry...

Diggle swoops in with the waverider and catches him!

The Supermen holding the Anti-Monitor gives the others the room to throw their powers (canary cries, lightning, etc.) at him at the same time. It does more damage, but he still struggles. Tom Welling Superman stating that they can't hold him much longer. Sara asks how he's still so powerful.

Kara, hearing this, realizes, and tells them, that he's still empowered by the energy of the sun that was used to cause him to form and it may take a similar energy to destroy him. Cisco, as he holds the breaches around Anti-Monitor, intensely struggling, his nose bleeding a lot, says that it could work. Sara states that the only way to be sure would be to drop him into it directly. Cisco says that could result in the energy of the sun blowing back and killing all of them here. Kara tells them no, then asking Cisco if he has enough power to drop her in front of the sun. Cisco begrudgingly says yes, understanding her goal. Kara stands up, her eyes still seared, telling him to do so on her go ahead. Alex asks Kara what she's doing. She tells Alex that Nazi Supergirl could absorb enough of the energy of a sun to explode, and that if she gets enough, she could destroy him. Alex asserts that Nazi Supergirl died from it. Kara acknowledges that. Alex telling her no, she won't accept that. Kara hugs Alex tightly, telling her that she can't lose her home again and quickly pushes Alex away from her, telling her that she loves her and tell Lena she's sorry, then telling Cisco "now", the breach opening around Kara, taking her and closing just as quickly before Alex can stop it.

Tyler Hoechlin Superman asks what's happening.

Kara floats before the energy of the yellow sun of earth, it energizing her, the energy flowing to and healing her eyes, her opening them, with the energy of the yellow sun making them glow.

At Kara's request, Cisco breaches her back into the battle.

Kara floats over the battle, telling the Supermen to get away from the Anti-Monitor. Tyler Hoechlin Superman, realizing himself what's happening, tells her no, that he can't let her die, there has to be another way. The other Supermen agree. Kara states that he has a son to take care of, all of the Supermen do, it has to be her, that protecting him was her job in the first place. Tyler Hoechlin Superman continues to reject that.

But in a flash of lightning, all the Supermen are pulled away from the Anti-Monitor, and Wally stands before them, in the full Flash costume.

The Flash lives again, as Wally circles the Anti-Monitor at superspeed, throwing lightning at him multiple times, this keeping him in place...

Allowing Kara to enact her plan. She says to Tyler Hoechlin Superman, "I love you, Kal-El." and flies towards the Anti-Monitor, her heat vision BLAZING with the fire of the sun, searing into him, it burning through his armor, burning him from the inside out, FLAMES igniting from the eyes of his suit! This use of her powers causing her eyes to crack with yellow sun energy bleeding out, the cracks spreading more and more. The Anti-Monitor, enraged, yells out, "NO!" And Kara collides with him, the force of it IMPLODING THEM IN A FLASH OF LIGHT!

Leaving nothing but a crater, and Kara's torn cape. Alex and Tyler Hoechlin Superman rushing there, seeing only the cape, them both breaking down, almost leaning on eachother, Alex devastated, inconsolable. The other Supermen stand silently in mourning, placing their hands on their shoulders in an attempt at comfort. Everyone else surrounding them, in silence.

The President gives a speech, honoring the sacrifices of Supergirl and the Green Arrow with a statue of an \S/ in National City and one of Green Arrow being built in Starling City.

Diggle visits Guy Gardner in the hospital who tells Diggle that his time is over and now it's his turn. We confirm that Diggle, now having gained full memory of both earths, in this post-crisis, his name is John Stewart.

The team honors the Flash silently with a Flash symbol built in it and empty seats for Barry, Oliver, Kara, even Bruce at the new table, in the Hall Of Justice.

In the montage of showing the earths with show the same things, but now with inclusions of:

The Birds Of Prey TV Series Earth, showing that team now working with Kevin Conroy Batman, who has a renewed pursuit of heroism.

Tom Welling Superman with Lois, watching their kids, before he gets an alert on a fire in Metropolis, with Lois being proud of him.

Justice League Of America TV Movie Martian Manhunter alive, leading martians on Mars.

Earth 1 Bruce, alive, stranded on another earth, but on the search for a way back.

Gotham TV Series Bruce as Batman in his earth.

Some quick flashes with the Batman 89 earth and Batman 66 earth.

On a re-established Earth 90 E-90 Flash speeds through the city, before getting a message from Christina McGee of a bank robbery by Trickster, E-90 Flash smirking and then speeding off to it.

On earth prime, something falling to earth in front of Diggle, but stopping just short of hitting the ground and it redirecting and pointing right at him. It emanating a green light reflecting on his face.

Ending still on the Superman The Movie nod of Brandon Routh Superman flying, his symbol back to yellow and red.

THE END.

In case ya’ll are curious, Kara and Barry aren’t really dead and aren’t gone for good. In their respective seasons, they’d return after a couple episodes or so. Please review and tell me what you think!

#Crisis on Infinite Earths #laurel lance #The Flash #supergirl #arrow

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