#but ted does. and babs likes that he does. and they know each other’s secrets and they are important to each other

[tbcanary]

i’m sorry for going on a bit of a bender but literally babs was the first one ted told about his heart condition, and also the reason why he went to get it checked out in the first place, and ted helped with birds of prey shit despite being retired, he took her out in the bug despite being retired, and she appreciated it in full in a way many people couldn’t because she’s a techie nerd just like him, and he could appreciate the work she put into her oracle displays, and they were just friends. they were just good, platonic friends, who loved and cared for and supported each other, and god i miss them.

[pluckyredhead]

What's the top 10 worst things about HiC

Oh god, it took me FOREVER to narrow this down. There are so many bad things about it!!!

Literally I’m not even going to address all the little talking heads therapy sessions and how thoroughly riddled with continuity errors and godawful characterization they are, because there’s so much else wrong with the book. Just trust that they’re a mess, even if King is trying to be Intellectual (TM) by putting them in a nine-panel grid. WE GET IT. YOU’VE READ WATCHMEN.

I’m also not putting “they killed Roy” on the list because it’s comics, characters die. The fact that this book was a slaughterhouse is a problem (see below, #2), but the fact that one of those deaths happened to be one of my favorite characters is a bummer but not necessarily evidence that the book is bad. (The book is so bad.)

But okay, so the rest of it, from least-worst to worst-worst:

10. That Poison Ivy cover: Clay Mann draws beautiful people but for some reason he decided that the cover to #7 should be a dead Poison Ivy on her stomach, cleavage pressed against the floor, her spine arched EVEN THOUGH SHE IS DEAD in order to lift her ass in the air so that the reader can see both T and A at once. This was leaked and then ultimately pulled before it hit stands and Tom King tweeted that he'd never liked it, but it’s very telling to me that either literally no one noticed how gross this cover fetishizing a dead woman was before the internet protested, or DC actively planned to use a sexy dead woman to sell comics. In their book that was supposed to be about trauma and mental health and recovery.

10b. Babs, a theoretical protagonist of this book, sexily peeling her pants down to show her bullet scars, which shouldn’t even look like that due to all the surgery she’s had: We get it, you’re only interested in women’s trauma if it’s sexy. She doesn’t even get to talk on this page.

10c. The full splash page of Lois in her underwear, saying “What do you want me to do?” like she’s inviting the reader to bone her in the middle of this story about death and trauma: Stop!!! Just stop!!!

9. The laziness of everything having to do with Booster: Okay yeah, I’m gonna be fannishly self-involved about another one of my faves here, but Booster is legitimately one of the main characters of the series, along with the Trinity, Harley, Babs, and Wally. And yet the “trauma” that places him at Sanctuary was part of a hastily shoehorned-in Batman arc directly before HiC that writes him deeply out of character (he carelessly changes the timeline when despite the fact that he’s spent 15 years protecting the timeline, including the Superman arc he starred in literally directly prior to the Batman one), instead of anything endemic to the character (because spoiler, Tom King doesn’t actually know anything about the character). The series then entirely fails to address it, hanging Booster’s emotional arc instead on his friendship with Ted...a friendship that explicitly does not exist in the Rebirth timeline. The Ted/Booster friendship/marriage is literally my favorite relationship in the entirety of the DCU, but you don’t get to rest a protagonist’s entire arc on a relationship that was retconned out of existence seven years prior and then retconned away again. Do the work. Don’t copy Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis’s papers from 31 years ago.

8. Interpretive hand jiving through the pain: You know how some people have to leave the room when characters do something very embarrassing on television? I’ve never been like that, just Jesus Christ I had to read this page between my fingers. Y i k e s :

7. Harley beating the Trinity in a fight: Come on. Harley couldn’t take a single one of them on her own, let alone all three. Don’t warp the characters to make your MC look more badass and keep the plot moving. (King also wrote Catwoman beating THREE SPEEDSTERS in his Batman run, which again: no. Absolutely not. Stop it.)

6. That Watchman reference: See above re: being so embarrassed for someone you have to read through your fingers. If you haven’t read Watchmen, the line “I did it 35 minutes ago” is extremely famous and absolutely a mic drop moment. It’s not a mic drop moment here. The characters are completely different and talking about completely different things. The only thing Heroes in Crisis has in common with Watchmen (besides copying the use of the nine-panel grid, like I said before) is that it’s about how heroes are fucked up, I guess? Which is hardly a bold statement in 2018; it’s actively cliche now, in fact. The only purpose referencing Watchmen serves here is to let the reader know that Tom King has read Watchmen, which is both pretentious because it is Art and ridiculous because it’s one of the bestselling comics of all time and millions of people have read it.

5. The abysmal “journalistic ethics” on display: There are so many characters literally and figuratively assassinated in this book that it’s easy to miss that Lois is one of them. But here’s a tip: when someone’s medical information is leaked to you, it is not in fact your obligation to share that with the world, no matter who they are. That is not information meant for public consumption, which we might assume Lois knows, since she doesn’t usually share the private business of her husband or her son or their cousin or any of their friends that she is also friends with. But suddenly she’s forgotten that because it’s on a zip drive? Not only does that show horrifying journalistic ethics from both Lois and Clark, who seems to think she had no other choice, it’s also ableist as hell - what, if someone has mental health problems or experienced trauma on the job they’re automatically a danger to the public? And despite the attempt to make this feel like a big twist, there’s actually zero point to it, because a) we never see civilians reacting to this information and b) there are literally zero consequences to publishing it in this or any subsequent comic. It’s never even mentioned again. If a tree publishes all of a superhero’s medical information and deep dark secrets in a forest and no one reacts to it in any way, shape, or form, does it make a sound?

4. The actual premise: I do sort of believe that Bruce would think “go to the middle of nowhere surrounded by robots wearing creepy robes and masks and tell your secrets to cameras which are then wiped and interact with no one” = therapy, although if that’s the case I don’t know why he keeps bothering to put people in Arkham, which at least allows them to talk to other humans. But under no circumstances do I think either Clark or Diana would go along with this horrible, horrible idea, that offers no genuine help to anyone. Not only does the fact that it’s implausible undercut literally everything that happens within the framework of Sanctuary’s existence, it’s just one of many examples of how almost everyone acts completely out of character all the time in order to keep the plot chugging along.

3. Bruce’s terrible detective skills: The World’s Greatest Detective spends like six issues seriously thinking that either Booster Gold or Harley Quinn is the killer. Booster or Harley! Booster has neither the temperament nor the ability to kill on that level and Harley would never hurt Ivy, plus neither of them are a match for Wally (who is believed to be dead at this point), and Bruce should know that. Again, weak characterization all around, but it’s especially egregious given that King wrote Batman for A HUNDRED ISSUES.

2. Wally’s character assassination: This is a three-parter:

2a. Logistical: It makes no fucking sense. Wally got his own corpse to the crime scene by traveling five days into the future and killing his future self. Everyone sees the corpse. Then Booster, Ted, Harley, and Babs talk him out of killing himself. But...he already did that and everyone saw the corpse, so now we have a paradox that’s never addressed.

2b. Moral: The comics have tried desperately to walk Wally’s actions back in the past two years, emphasizing that he didn’t mean to kill TWELVE PEOPLE, including one of his best friends. It was an accident! But he still framed Booster and Harley for literally no reason except to create a whodunnit, set them on each other which could have easily ended fatally for Booster, and then sent everyone’s private information to the media (which again, the comic frames as somehow noble and necessary, but which is actually deeply unethical). So you made this beloved 60-year-old hero into a villain...why, exactly? Just so it would be surprising? Cool, great work, Captain Edgelord.

2c. Metatextual: This comic spins out of Rebirth Special #1. The New 52 erased Wally from continuity and then brought him back as the younger, biracial Wally (and this isn’t the place to get into fandom’s response to that and DC’s response to fandom’s response so let’s just say they are both YIKES MCGIKES and leave it at that). Rebirth Special #1 brought him back, and the return of the “real” (white) Wally (again: yikes) heralded a new universe that was lighter and happier and contained way more fan favorites. It was literally branded as a gift to fans, embodied in Wally West.

In Heroes in Crisis, Wally is crushed by the weight of everyone being so happy he’s there and loving him so much while he’s struggling with grief and depression, and that’s why he snaps. It’s the metatextual equivalent of having Wally look at the reader and say “You’re happy I’m back and comics can be lighter now? Well, FUCK YOU, YOU RUINED EVERYTHING.” It essentially blames the reader for having Wally go evil, because the reader loves Wally too much.

King, what the fuck?

1. The overall message: Heroes in Crisis was sold as a thoughtful exploration of mental health and trauma, instead of just another bloodbath. Instead, it killed a dozen characters in its first issue and dicked around for another seven with an uninspired whodunnit before throwing a beloved hero in the garbage. But in the meantime, it manages to say:

Trauma is unavoidable.

But therapy doesn’t help.

Trying it does more harm than good.

If you’re struggling, you are a danger to others and don’t deserve privacy.

Good luck with that.

Therapy literally saved my life. This comic enrages me. This comic is harmful. Superhero comics as a whole have a lot to answer for when it comes to discussions of mental illness, but at least some random issue of Batman where Bruce thoughtlessly throws another “looney” into Arkham isn’t billed as a sympathetic take on PTSD. Our culture already discourages asking for help, and we don’t need a pretentious funnybook miniseries helping with that.

(If you made it all the way to the end of this post and you are struggling with trauma, depression, PTSD, whatever...please do look into therapy. I promise you it’s nothing like this comic.)

In conclusion, Heroes in Crisis is bad and it should feel bad.

THE END.

[taiblogcomics]

Absolutely Thera-Pissed

Hey there, visas and green cards. It's our ninth blogaversary! Wow, we've been going for quite a long time. Long enough to completely change platforms at least once. Considering we just finished our whole backlog, I think we should try something new in honour of the amazing coincidence of these two events synching up. Before we start on another backlog of terrible comics (trust me, I have something in mind), let's do something we've never done before on this blog. We've only ever really covered comics issue by issue. How would you feel, dear readers, if we instead did an entire storyline all at once?

And oh boy, do I have just the storyline in mind. Here's the cover:

Oh yeah. We're doing this. This story has kind of hung over this blog, mostly due to its connections to Red Hood and the Outlaws. It also prominitely features Harley Quinn, who also appeared in Suicide Squad (which ended before this story took place). And personally, I am a fan of Harley, Booster, and the Titans. And oh boy, does this comic shit all over them, in some of the most truly appalling ways possible. This is Heroes in Crisis. All nine issues. Let's jump right in~

I won’t be going over the covers of the individual issues, or even this one so much, but I do like that quote at the top. It is actually some good superhero artwork! It is an extremely awful story, but the artwork is fine~

So the first issue starts like this: Booster Gold's in one of those tiny middle-American diners. The host's loving it, since she says superheroes never show up and eat here. And oh look, here comes another one! Booster replies that that's no hero, as Harley Quinn walks in. Clearly he hasn't been reading her solo series. Harley orders some pie, and she and Booster eat in terse silence. Until suddenly Harley grabs a knife, and the two begin a real knock-down, drag-out fight. And lemme tell ya something, Harley keeps up with a guy who can fly and project forcefields pretty well. Eventually the pair are exhausted, and Booster says he's gotta bring Harley in, after what he saw her do. Harley protests, because she didn't kill all those people. She saw Booster do it.

All this is intercut with two different scenes. One is sort of a confession-cam style thing, a bunch of heroes (including Harley, Blue Jay, Booster, and Hotspot) all admitting they're here for therapy. And the second is Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman talking with each other as they land in a particular site. This place is called Sanctuary. It is currently full of dead heroes. Among the deceased here are Hotspot, Lagoon Boy, Wally West, and Roy Harper. And this is my first major complaint. Do you know what all these characters have in common? Hey, DC: Stop using the Titans as your cannon fodder. Stop treating them as a joke. Every iteration of the team deserves more respect than this.

So Harley and Booster are going to be our POV characters for this story. I like both of these characters a lot, so this is probably going to be pretty painful seeing them written horribly. Harley goes off to the Penguin for protection, and we actually get to see her in her old costume. It is a breath of fresh air, honestly. Booster, meanwhile, mostly just tries to rationalise his actions with Skeets, his robot buddy. Booster suffered kind of a psychotic break back in the Batman storyline "The Gift", which is why he was in Sanctuary to begin with. This story is basically a follow-up to that one, and has the same sort of tone.

Harley confronts the trinity in Gotham, revealing she set the whole thing up with Penguin just so she could get close to them on her terms. She uses the Lasso of Truth to confess she saw Booster Gold do it, then uses the Kryptonite in Batman's belt to skip town. The next time we see her, she's at the docks, giving a eulogy to Poison Ivy, another victim of Sanctuary. Booster Gold, meanwhile, has rationalised that Batman would solve the crime himself rather than turn himself in, and goes to Barry Allen to check in. Of course, the trinity are the only ones who know about the accident yet, so when Booster tells Barry that Wally's dead, he gets super pissed. Just like the readers are!

Issue 3 is a flashback issue, showing Booster's first day at Sanctuary. Sanctuary works like this: everyone gets their own private quarters, and if they want to visit the common areas, they wear a mask and cloak to preserve anonymity. Here's the first really big problem with Sanctuary: while therapy for superheroes is a good (possibly necessary) concept, Sanctuary is only one kind of therapy. It essentially assumes everyone responds the same to the same sort of therapy. The kind here is that Sanctuary gives you a private room that simulates your traumas (with a holodeck) and has you physically confront them. Lagoon Boy, for example, is shown to be facing the laser that killed him over and over again. Wally sets up superhero battles that still have his kids with him. And while this sort of therapy might help some people, it's definitely not universal.

Booster starts his first session, which ends up just being a hologram of himself, talking to him. Before he can get much further, though, alarms go off and everyone is urged to emergency evacuate. Lagoon Boy is killed--in a deliberate callback to his previous death, no less--and we see a few other victims, including Red Devil, Commander Steel, and Gunfire. Wally clutches Roy's body as he dies in his arms, and Harley smacks Wally in the face with her hammer. She greets Booster cheerfully, and he admits he's having a hell of a first day.

After a brief scene of Aqualad (Garth, in this case) drinking in a bar--and who can blame him for wanting to drink after experiencing this story?--Batman and Barry meet, thus showing they're still unsure who did it. Booster is being interrogated under the Lasso of Truth, and he relays the previous issue to us. In his mind, Harley did it. Harley, meanwhile, has tracked down Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) and surprisingly... they hug. Babs promises to help stick by Harley and prove her innocence. After all, Babs has been through trauma, too. The comic reminds us of this with another confession-cam video, showing Babs display the scars she received from “The Killing Joke".

So, about these confession cams... They've been interspersed between scenes, showing everyone from Batman down to guys like Gunfire or the Protector relaying their problems by confession. Again, this sort of therapy isn't for everyone, but it's the only one Sanctuary's got. Superman tells Batman that Lois has been receiving these videos anonymously. Batman responds that there are no videos. Sanctuary does not keep records, to preserve patient confidentiality. Supes replies that there are videos, he's seen them, and now the media has them. The issue ends with a breaking story about "What is the secret superhero Sanctuary?" exposé airing on television...

Speaking of breaking, Blue Beetle (Ted Kord, who I'm as surprised as anybody to find out is alive again post-Rebirth) breaks Booster out of the Hall of Justice where he's being held. The pair watch the breaking news report on television while they try to come up with a plan. Booster's idea is to confess to Barry again, figuring they won't expect the stupidest possible move, making it actually the smartest possible move. Booster has not really recovered from his insanity, I see. He and Beetle do exactly that, surprising Barry at work, which is apparently all the advantage they need. This is because Barry, as a forensic scientist, has access to the data on the autopsies.

While Superman makes a public statement to the press regarding Sanctuary, Batman passes Skeets into Batgirl's care, and she immediately violates that trust by in turn passing Skeets to Harley. It's implied Harley tortures the information regarding Booster's whereabouts out of Skeets, but it's okay because he's just a robot. Babs and Harley turn up at Booster's place as he's analysing the data he obtained from Barry. Here's where it all starts to fall into place: the data on Wally West says his body is five days older than the rest of them.

Issue 6 is kind of a triple piece, but one that can be summed up fairly quickly. It focuses on three specific characters who were all at Sanctuary. The parts regarding Gnaark the caveman (another Titans alumnus) are ultimately pointless, since the issue ends with his death. The parts with Harley focus on Joker's abuse of her and Posion Ivy's care towards her. This also ends badly. Wally's parts focus on the DC Rebirth story where he essentially willed himself back into the universe. And while that story is really good and it was a joy to see Wally again, it ultimately ended with the knowledge that Wally's family did not reappear with him. His kids are gone, his wife is with someone else and does not remember him, and until he forced his way back into everyone's memories, no one else recalled him either. This would traumatise anybody. But it may have really traumatised Wally.

The next issue starts really well, honestly. Booster and Harley are fighting it out--again--while Babs and Beetle just watch. Like, they aren't even stressed, they're both familiar with their respective charges, and this is really no surprise. In any other comic, this would be a great scene. Shame that it's in this one, and it's not nearly enough to save even a lick of it. Eventually Babs works out that Booster's forcefields are only currently working because of some jury-rigged tech that's powered by Blue Beetle's consciousness. So she knocks him out with one hit. Harley prepares a killing blow, but ultimately cannot go through with it, proving she's a good person. She and Booster just collapse on the floor, and bond over the fact that they both kind of suck as superheroes (from their own perspectives, at least).

With Booster, Beetle, Babs, and Harley (Barley?) all on the same side now, the group decide to get to the bottom of everything together. Meanwhile, the rose Harley dropped off the docks is picked up by Wally. See, while the body they found of Wally is five days older than the rest, this means he time-traveled and is still at present alive. Wally channels his Speed Force into the rose, causing it to grow rapidly--and Poison Ivy blooms from it, restored to life. I don't get it either, but if it means Ivy didn't die in this stupid story, I'll take it. Wally then apologises, since Ivy just returned to life and now she has to see death so soon. Those five days are up, and a second Wally appears, ready to literally kill himself.

So here's what really fucking happened.

Wally had been at Sanctuary three weeks already. He's frustrated because the therapy's not helping as fast as he thought it would. He does a jump into the Speed Force and basically exists everywhere at once. Spread across the time stream, he witnesses everybody's confession cams all at once. He sees "the trauma of a thousand heroes in crisis" (hey, we have a title, ladies and gentlemen). And... it's too much. Realising everybody's personal pain breaks him. He unleashes the burst of pent-up energy he'd stored to do the time jaunt thing and kills everyone at Sanctuary.

Lagoon Boy. Protector. Hotspot. Red Devil. Arsenal. Gnaark. Solstice. Tattooed Man. Gunfire. Blue Jay. Commander Steel. Nemesis. I want you to remember these names. These were all pre-existing characters. Half of them were members of the Titans at one point or another. Wally West, the Flash, killed them in a stupid, stupid storyline that not only assassinates his character, but also literally assassinates all these other characters.

Wally uses his super speed to set up the bodies, rig the crime scenes so it looks like Harley or Booster could be responsible for their deaths. He then travels forward in time to the present moment, where he has just confessed all this to Poison Ivy. He kills that version of himself and travels back in time with it to fake his own death. He then uses the VR tech of Sanctuary to trick Booster and Harley into believing they saw the other commit the deeds. Neither of them even knew they'd never left their respective therapy simulations. This leaves Wally with a five day window to figure out something good he can do to make up for killing everyone.

So the final issue wraps it up like this: Booster time-travels the group back to where Barry is about to kill his own paradox clone. Harley and Ivy reunite, which is nice. So here's the plan: this doesn't have to end with any more death. In the end, what Barry did was all an accident. So Booster travels into the future to make a clone of the paradox-Wally. This gives them a five-day-old body they can leave at the massacre, in order to close the timeloop. The present Wally turns himself in and is arrested, while the five-days-ago paradox Wally merges back into the Speed Force, still running to try and find his family.

And the "good" thing Wally did to make up for killing everyone? He was the one that leaked Sanctuary's existence to the media. In his mind, the idea that heroes are seen as constant paragons was too much pressure. By letting the public know that even superheroes need therapy, even superheroes suffer trauma just like everyone else, he he could let people know that heroes are just that: people. People like everyone else. And that it is okay for anyone to seek help if you need it. This seems like a nice sentiment, until you remember the reason Wally killed everyone is because he was impatient about how his therapy was going.  What an awful story.

-----

Like, legitimately, this story is just awful. The basic premise--that heroes could probably do with therapy--is not a bad one. The execution is just really completely mismanaged, though. Start with the beginning. Why are Harley Quinn and Booster Gold chosen as the focus characters? Because they're the ones you could believe would orchestrate a mass murder, right? Except no. You would never believe that. Booster is not that much of a screw-up, and Harley is not that much of a villain. Neither of them have been those things for many years. The readers know that, but it feels like the writer didn't.

And that's the worst part of it all. The superficiality of the story. In the end, why was this story written? To explore the concept of therapy for superheroes? Well, then, it went about it in the worst way possible. Not everyone experiences trauma in the same way. And therefore, not everyone responds to therapy in the same way. The way therapy is depicted in this story is just wrong. Frankly, Sanctuary looks like one of the worst places to get treatment, right alongside Arkham Asylum. Do you think anybody's really going to take away from this story "It's okay to talk about your traumas if you need to"? In or out of universe?

I didn't really talk about the confession cams, but they seemed highly unnecessary. They were always the same, a 3x3 of panels featuring a superhero talking about their traumas. Most of them didn't factor into the story, and at most they felt like a common scene transition. They tried to give them some weight by revealing that the contents of all these possibly got leaked? But then they just kinda dropped that subplot. Which was really kind of serious, because the traumas range from the Protector (a character created for drug PSAs) confessing that he has done drugs to Superman talking about the burden of keeping his identity secret. How much of these did the public actually get? And if it was none, what was even the point of it being a subplot~? Like, leak that Sanctuary existed, sure, but why did Lois Lane get sent all the videos that shouldn't have existed~?

What this story has done to Wally is awful. They have completely tarnished this likeable, amazing hero by having him kill twelve people (thirteen, if you include Poison Ivy), several of them colleagues and friends. All because he's trying to fake his way through therapy when it isn't helping him as fast as he wants. Know what would have been a good story? How about he learns to cope with his trauma? How about he actually gets his family back? It's unrealistic as hell, but it's a fictional story. It's escapism. It's okay to have a happy ending. I ''want'' my stories to end in happy endings, because it's so hard to get them in real life. I want something better than this.

DC Rebirth was a breath of fresh air. Wally's return to the DC universe felt like the clouds were lifitng. The stories following Rebirth felt like a return to form after the darkening of the New 52. It felt like the stories were getting good again, like the comics were getting fun and hopeful again. It couldn't last, though, could it? This story is only three years after the Rebirth initiative. Three years? That's all the hope we get in the universe? I sincerely hope this story ends up an abberation, and not a return to form of the darker, more dour universe we put up with in the New 52. Especially given current events, you can understand why a brighter, optimistic fictional world is appealing. I sincerely hope that when comics resume publication after the pandemic, a more positive outlook continues, and stories like this are left in the garbage where they belong.

This book is fucking awful, and I am done with it. Next week, we'll start reviewing an all-new series for the Taiblog. Let's just say I'm not done ranting about injustices against the Teen Titans~

[darkspellmaster]

Young Justice Theory: Connections to the Crisis Quartet....

So about this rather interesting spoiler I discovered thanks to the CBR board... Better safe than sorry on this one because if this turns out to be true then it’s a doozy of a situation that the crew is going to be put into. So a fair warning before you dive in...there are spoilers below to several DC comic events: Identity Crisis, Count down to Infinite Crisis, Infinite Crisis, Identity Crisis, Crisis on Infinite Earths, 52, Countdown to Final Crisis and Final Crisis. 

These stories contain: Death, some gore, and at least one has a rather unpleasant factor of rape being involved as part of it’s story. Because I’m going to be discussing the above things partly in this and there will be pictures that might upset some people I just want to give people a heads up. You have been warned going in. 

Okay so what the hell am I going on about and honestly when I was reading this I was freaking out. So a post of so ago I mentioned some theories about this season and talked about the possibility of the Anti life equation factoring into the story. Thanks to the gallery for the next three episodes, this wonderful post here from Spitfire or Bust, the Behind the scenes footage from this season on the DCUniverse, a post on CBR’s forums, and a link to  young justice.tv spoilers, I can almost 90% say Seasons 3 and 4 and possibly 5 will be dealing with the Crisis Quartet, or at least three of them, from DC’s main comics. 

We know that this is going to be a thing as Greg already confirmed in season 2 that season 3 was going to deal with Apokolips, just not how much directly (as this story can’t be told in 26 episodes, no way in hell it would be horribly paced). 

We also know that the names of the episodes have been pretty much confirmed as Episode 11 is Called Home Fires and the Behind the Scenes image confirmed the title in the image that we see with Iris and Bart. 

The site in question has it as episode 9, however this confirms it as Episode 11. However they have the others right so far, so either BTS got the number wrong or the site did. Doesn’t change the factor that there’s some thing interesting in the titles. 

Take each of the first letter of the first word of the names of the titles, and you get: 

Prepare the Anti Life Equation. 

This little message, has ties not only to Apokolips and Darkseid, but it also has ties directly to the Crisis Quartet and the fall out that happened after. 

So first what is the Quartet? Well it is a group of four Crisis that happened in DC comics, three of which were between 2004 to 2010, while the first happened in 1985 -1986 and affected all stories that followed going forward after it. 

So to simplify things. Here’s a fast rundown on the important factors about these Crisis and their connections to YJ Season 3, 4 and maybe 5 if things go well. 

So Way back in the 1980s DC was having issue with keeping up with it’s own continuity because there was so many books and worlds. Because of this and their own anniversary coming up they tasked then Teen Titan’s writers Marv Wolfman and artist/co-writer Jorge Perez, to come up with an event that would solidify the DCU’s continuity. These two came up with: 

Crisis on Infinite Earths: 

Now this story while really important as the backbone in the main DCU going forward doesn’t have as much to do with YJ in the long run as of yet. But it does have some important factors that will be coming into play I think later on, and we already saw a part of this happening in Season 2 with Walley vanishing. So bullet points ahoy for only the things that are important in this story for later in comments. 

Short and long of it is that a being named the monitor trying to stop another creature named the Anti-monitor from destroying the Universe. All the different DC worlds come together to fight him, Super-girl dies, along with several other characters, during this event where all the worlds in DC merge into one world with a over all collected history.  (This collection is still in print and you can find it at your local bookstore or comic shop.)

- Barry Allen vanishes as he’s running from the future or from an event that is coming from the future to warn Batman and the others an disperses into the speed force. 

We’ve already seen this with Wally in his run where he vanishes in season 2 following a pattern of what happened to Barry. 

- Superman from the Golden age, his Lois Lane, Alexander Luthor (son of Lex Luthor from another earth where the Villain versions of the JL resided and Lex and the others there are heroes), and Superboy Prime ( a superboy that is the lone hero of his world) all are put into a pocket dimension as the worlds are merged into one. 

We haven’t had that yet, but it’s an important point in later stories. The reason I bring these guys up is because of their role and how other characters can easily fill in for them in the coming events. 

Fast forward several years. The DC Universe has been remade and during the later part of the 80s and into the 90s we saw the whole “let’s go dark and gritty” thing happen. Characters like Batman had their back broken, Superman died and was reborn, Wonder woman had to figure herself out. There were light spots, JLI for example and parts of the Teen Titans, but a lot of things grew darker. Like the Outsiders and the whole Judas contract. While things did lighten up a lot in the late 90s and into the 2000s, we got Lois and Clark married by then, Jason died and came back to life, Babs got shot by Joker, YJ and a lot of other books that were more upbeat came about in the mid to late 90s, However DC decided that there was still a lot of things that could be fixed and decided to create, basically for the upcoming Anniversary of CoIE, a new set of crisis to happen. 

This started with Brad Meltzer’s quasi thriller:

Identity Crisis

This story actually has importance. While not as exact as the other stories in regard to what’s happening there are enough key things going on here. The major plot point is that someone has murdered Elastic man’s wife, and the JL has a dark secret revealed that rocks every one. (Again you can find it still in print.) 

One of the main reasons that there is significance to this story is not only does Batman leave the Justice League but also there is some tie in to characters in the past and their actions. What’s interesting here is how this narrative can be woven into the recent events of Season 2 and could become significant in season 3 and 4 given what’s going down now. 

-Zantana mind wipes Dr. Light and several other villains, and does the same for Bruce when he discovers what’s been going on and is against the altering of Dr. Light’s mind. 

Connections here may not be obvious as its clear the story line is taking Bruce leaving from the creation of the Outsiders. However there is significance here in that Batman doesn’t trust the league at this point, which adds into his paranoid view of the world at times. 

While it’s clearly not Zantana in this case, Megan has been showing similar actions in season 2. We saw her changing Conner’s memory in the past season, and we know she did the same to Psimon, and Kaldur. We can’t be sure if these were the only cases, as Greg does like to play with expectations. 

It would not be too much to buy into the idea that Psimon could play the part of Dr. Light in this story and eventually come back to form a group of villains that were mind altered by M’ggan. Now while I don’t think it will be exactly the same I feel like there’s going to be backlash from people when they find out what she did two years ago. As shown when Gar mentioned that it wasn’t cool what she did to Conner when he found out. And you know that Batman will be pissed by this, wondering if she did the same to Dick, not to mention Kaldur and wondering if he’s compromised. 

-Deathstroke takes on the League and beats them by himself. 

Deathstroke is known for being a bit OP at times, but in this story he outdid himself when he took down the whole league. We haven’t seen this happen yet as he’s only been in a handful of scene’s but given that there are hints of him returning, what with Tera missing, it wouldn’t be that hard to buy into the idea with the titles we have of one of them leading to a defeat of the whole YJ team, and pretty much protecting whatever investment he has been hired to protect. 

Not sure how he’s going to fit in or who’s he’s protecting as of yet, because he was hired by Dr. Light in the original, but I feel certain that he’s going to end up causing a lot of issue for others in this case, more than likely Aquaman and possibly Geoforce. 

-Events cause Batman to create Brother Eye, leading to the OMAC project

So because of the fact that Bruce figured out he was mind wiped by Zee, he decides to create the Brother Eye satellite that eventually goes rogue because of Maxwell Lord and Alexander Luthor mucking about with it. The main goal was to have the Satellite watch Metahumans because of the mind wipe that Batman and other had had. 

Now we recently saw the appearance of Brother Eye, don’t believe me, just look at Oracle’s eye at the moment. It’s purple and it’s the same shape as the Omac logo. Thing is, Omac’s colors, along with Brother Eye’s are purple, Oracle’s are traditionally green. 

This means that Bruce already may have built the Brother eye set up, since we don’t know if Babs could have built that sort of set up. This seems more like a Bruce thing. In addition to this, if he already has the Brother Eye project going this means that he probably knows about M’ggan doing her mind things, but isn’t telling anyone that he’s keeping an eye on them. Why? Well it’s Bruce, he’s paranoid. 

So what would this mean for this season and upcoming ones? Well...

Countdown to Infinite crisis 

In this case the story line was covering Ted Kord -Blue Beetle, who had tracked down a mystery which ended up getting him killed by his former friend Maxwell Lord who had taken over the Omac project and brother eye.  

-OMAC project lead to the death of Ted Kord via Maxwell Lord and then this allowed Checkmate to take over Superman and have him nearly kill Batman and Wonder Woman and the other JL members. Leading to Wonder Woman to snap his neck and kill him to stop the whole thing from going down. 

So one key thing here, Maxwell Lord was sort of the “Charlie” to the JLI’s “Angels”. He sent them on missions and the like, and while he wasn’t exactly a bad guy, he wasn’t exactly a good one either. By the end of the series he had realized a lot of his own faults and dealt with some issues that would take a while to discuss, so let’s say that he redeemed himself...

Then DC said screw it, we need a villain and made him become the head of Checkmate, a black ops/Shield like organization in the DC universe. He killed Ted Kord when he found out that Max was going to basically use a bunch of cyborgs and take over Superman’s mind. 

Now while we know that Ted died when he stopped Sportsmaster and Deathstroke from obtaining the scarab, and we assume it was the Light that sent them to get it in the first place, there may be some connection to this part of the story given that we may see the play out of the mother box and possibly Ted having found out info prior to his death about certain things happening. I don’t think they will go for the “Wonder woman snaps necks” but it’s possible that something else will take it’s place. 

(Okay strike that...given what happened recently with Halo in episode 6, I can see them allowing this if it’s within the reasons for the story.) 

It is important though to note that if Brother Eye is involved this could lead to an additional army for Darkseid. Brother Eye and Omac did eventually control Superman, which could be something that may happen in YJ as an option. They also became a dangerous group that attacked everyone on earth trying to protect them from Metahumans. 

And what are we seeing a huge backlash against in Markovia? Metahumans. 

-During events prior to Infinite Crisis several events happened that caused a lot of issues. Among them being a point where Superboy (Conner Kent/Kon-El) was triggered by Lex to attack the Teen Titans at the time.

While this hasn’t happened yet, we do know that Conner has DNA that links to Lex, and in this story line Lex allowed for the triggering of his DNA to basically cause Conner to shave his head and become a villain that went on to try to decimate the teen Titans. 

It’s not that hard of a guess that this could be something that could happen to him given that we’ve seen them pair up Brion with Superboy and it seems if anyone can take him on head to head in regard to raw power it’s Brion. This could lead to a moment of Brion trying to help his mentor. 

-Following Identity Crisis and during the lead up to Infinite Crises we had Day of Vengeance, where the Rock of Eternity that housed the powers of Shazam was shattered by the Specter due to breaking from Hal Jordan. 

Here it’s less about the Specter as we have not seen him in YJ proper, but the idea that someone could attack the Rock of Eternity is a rather big thing. Remember we have two powerful geological users here, and it could come down to Terra doing that over Specter in this case. Either through use of her own powers or possibly enhanced by New God equipment. 

Reason I at all bring this up is the focus on Billy in Episode one and how no one yet knows his secret ID. This may become important later as if that Rock breaks, Shazam and all his power are gone and Billy would be revealed to be a kid. This would be something Greg would do to weaken the JL and lead to Superboy having to take on something more powerful without the Big Red Cheese to help him out. (For those that don’t know that’s the nickname of Captain Marvel -Shazam.) 

Billy falling from the sky leads to the start of Infinite Crisis, which would be a very strong opening to possibly season 4 or towards the end of season 3. 

Villains United

The reason I bring this up is because this group seems to be likely the new Light. Humor me here for a moment. In Villain’s united,follows a series of events where an individual by the name of Mockingbird groups together the organization that will be later known as the Secret Six to stop the Secret society of Super Villains that seems to be run by Lex Luthor. The story goes on to have ties to the events of Infinite Crisis, but also build up to some very interesting revelations in regard to Lex and Alexander Luthor. (You can still get this run at the book store.) 

The thing about this mini series is that there’s a lot of things going on in there that could easily show up in the next few seasons of YJ. 

-Lex Luthor who is the president amasses an army to stand against the super heroes. 

We’re already seeing that Lex as Secretary has plans and is playing against the Justice League with the UN. We’re also seeing that there’s an army being made for fighting via Darkseid, but it’s clear that there’s more to it than just them giving him kids. We’re also seeing the Lex is helping to get others to dislike the Metahumans, the JL and possibly heroes. 

Now while there is no Alexander Luthor (as far as we know), we also know that Lex, like Ra’s isn’t a man that just would let Darkseid walk all over his world. So I’m curious about this. If he’s playing up the dislike for Metas and heroes as a means of using them against something bigger. 

-the Secret Society of Super Villains consists of Dr. Psycho, Deathstroke, Talia al ghul, Black Adam, Calculator. 

Of these characters we’ve seen at least three on the show so far. Talia was just shown this season, though I don’t know if she’s going to have any role working with the Light. She could easily be replaced by Queen Bee, DeathStroke we know is probably connected to the League of Assassins and could be representing them for the Light group (though that could be another person as well) and was on the show in season 2, Black Adam was shown in Season 1 and as for the other two, we know Count Vertigo is working with them still, so you can take out Dr. Psycho, and since we now have Oracle, I would expect them to get Calculator to counter her at some point in time. 

-Cheshire, Vandal Savage’s daughter and other characters that have played parts in YJ play a part in this story and here we learn about opposing groups in that story to the villains group. More importantly we learn that Lex may be playing more than one side. 

We’ve seen last season that Lex is willing to play around a lot in regard to the side he’s on. This story line could be used as an explanation to where Cheshire is at in YJ and maybe show that there’s more going on that the kids and the JL doesn’t know about. It would certainly fit into the idea of more information in coming seasons and also could be used to push Luthor into becoming President. Which is honestly where I think Greg is going with this. 

With all the new information coming out with these last three episodes, I think there’s more clues showing up for the option of Infinite Crisis happening and how that is connected into Final Crisis. 

Infinite Crisis

This long event series, written by several of DC’s best writers at the time, covered various events that had linked to the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths. This story was coinciding with the anniversary of COIE, and heavily mirrors it but also acts as a book end to the after math of the more hopeful ending of that one with a mixed bag of an ending with this one. Several well known character’s end up dead, we get a new villain, and some massive changes happen to the characters that it would take another Crisis to undo. 

The important thing about Infinite is it’s sort of the middle event, or Empire like story, for these Crisis. It also plays a role in leading up to events in Final and setting the ball rolling for Darkseid to make his moves. 

We have a number of important characters that play a huge role in Infinite Crisis and then later Countdown to Final Crisis and Final Crisis itself already on YJ and it seems like this story has aspects that could easily fit in with this season or the next. 

-Actions taken by the main trio of bad guys in this lead to the destruction of the Watchtower, and the trinity fighting with one another. Superboy Prime kills several people including Superboy, Kal -L (Earth two Superman) tried to get batman on their side but he refuses, They’re trying to use earth as a tuning fork to create a paradise and reshape the many different worlds. 

While there are a lot of things in this story that I don’t see happening, I do see a few that can be used to effectively lead into Final Crisis. For one thing having M’comm replace Superboy Prime and also have him act as the instigator in various fights and wars by having the Martians go and pretend to be other characters. 

We’ve already seen that Conner is engaged to M’ggan and her brother try to enlist her the same way that Kal tries to get Batman to join him. We’ve also seen the images of brother eye in the form of Oracle’s set up, and that the Mother boxes are being used in some way. M’comm is arguing for a revolution to make a paradise like world and we know that he is extremely strong and could easily play the part of Superboy Prime if he wanted too. We also see he’s willing to kill, something that SBP was more than willing to do, and blamed others for his actions. 

These smaller items could lead into more dramatic moments later in the series, including Superboy’s death as a possibility. 

Important events by the end hint that Bruce goes off with Dick and Tim to train, Diana returns home to find herself, and Clark has to lay low and rest to get his powers back after the events in the story. Given what we’ve been seeing with the recent episodes, we may be seeing similar things going on here. Bruce leaving to train with Dick and Tim seems likely as the story line seems to be invoking Judas contract as well and probably will be affecting Dick, who more than likely will have issues with the fall out of Brion and Tara, and Tim is going to be dealing with whatever happens with his new little crew. 

Diana is a hard one as we don’t know her relationship with Cassie or Kaldur, so it’s up in the air, but Kal may take Diana’s role of leaving to find himself after the events in the story. And if Superboy doesn’t die, then he may step up for Clark in this case, or we’ll see other Super’s come into that role. Unless Conner is the one to lose all his powers. 

52, World War III, and One Year Later

Following in the wake of Infinite crisis there’s the story of 52 which covers the time span of the 52 weeks between the end of the Crisis and the start of the countdown for Final crisis. While I don’t think 52 and the companion piece One year Later, is going to feature in this season I do think that we may see it feature in the next building up to the idea of a Final crisis like story and eventually into another time skip. 

-52 worlds come out of the Infinite Crisis and Booster Gold learns about it with another time traveler Rip Hunter, oh and his robot friend goes evil. 

It’s unknown if Booster is going to show up in this season, but there have been rumors. However, if he doesn’t show up this story line could go to a number of different characters, including Traci 13, Impulse, Flash, or even one of our new characters. 

-Cult of Superman

While the story line regarding the Cult will probably drastically change, I do think that there are a few things that may come about from it. I think that it could be Zee working with Fate to deal with Neron, and Faust if he becomes involved. 

-The Everyman project that Lex creates, which leads to Steel and Natasha Irons playing a large role. 

This I can see happening in the wake of us losing members of the JL that depart for various reasons. Either because of the fight or they have to step down for some reason. I could easily see Lex using this in later seasons to grow his own mini power struggle with the Light and it would fit in with the idea of the Government wanting to regulate the Metahumans that are now showing up. Though I feel like this would be next season over this season. 

-Jason Todd taking over as Nightwing and Supergirl returns from the 31st Century. 

We already can assume a Red Hood story will come out of this recent revelation with Jason showing up, and we have Wally missing much like Supergirl was, and it’s not that hard to buy into the idea of Wally returning from the future feeling completely unsure of himself and talking about things that can happen due to what’s going down now. Jason, more than likely, could take over Dick’s costume and screw with stuff just because he can and probably feels a bit left out of things. 

-Donna Troy takes over as Wonder Woman and Arthur becomes the Dweller of the Depths. 

In the actual story there are reasons for both, but I think that Donna may take on the role if they have Wonder Woman kill Maxwell Lord. On the other hand I think Arthur may have saved Sub Diego during the two year jump and the reason we don’t have him is because he’s become this creature known as the dweller of the Depths. This would have lead Kal to becoming a leader while Mera acts as ruler underwater while Kal acts as leader in place of Arthur. 

-J’onn comes to a different conclusion about being a martian on earth after being mind linked to Black Adam. 

While I don’t see this coming into play during this season or during the time skip in the future, it may explain where M’ggan’s new look comes from. Maybe she’s changed to her new look due to some sort of event that plays with what happened to J’onn. While I don’t think that it will happen exactly as in the comic the precedence is there as an option for the two year time skip. 

Other aspects that could play into the story and season 4 as a possibly: the trinity step down from their roles, Aquaman allies himself with Dweller of the Depths and King shark, New Doom Patrol, Hawkman goes missing, Jason and Dick both are Nightwing, New Birds of Prey is formed, Oliver Queen becomes the Mayor of Star City, New crew of Teen Titans, Vandal Savage starts up plans to regain his immortality, New JSA, Bart becomes the Flash, Tim Drake tries to clone Superboy to bring Kon back....

Not all of this will happen, but a number of these seem like givens. 

Given how the UN is treating Meta humans, I can see the Trinity being forced out of their roles for a period of time. Kaldur may have to make deals to protect his friends if Apokolips is setting up for something dark and in doing so he may get in over his head. I can easily see Greg building up a new Doom Patrol in a one year later situation, and we don’t know where Hawkman is as of right now since he’s in the Rann shot. 

Babs forming the Birds as a means of dealing with the Light and the League would make sense, Oliver could step into role of Mayor allowing for Conner Hawke to come into YJ as the new Green Arrow, and we know that the younger crew of YJ is going to come more into play. We also know that Vandel is working with Darkseid and into whatever plan he has for the Anti life equation. Bart becoming Flash could be an option if Wally isn’t brought back till later, and I have no doubt that should Conner die M’ggan will more than likely try to pull off Tim’s clone game to bring him back. 

Would be interesting in lieu of Conner coming back we get Kara and have her show that there is more than just Superman. 

Countdown to Final Crisis

So now we have come to the part where things become interesting. Countdown to Final Crisis covers the events that were supposed to lead to Final Crisis, but some of it doesn’t go anywhere. So I’m just focusing on Darkseid in this case, and if any hints of other stories shows up later in the show I’ll point it out. 

-Darkseid is planing on being the Architect of the universe, and his brother Drax, aka Infinity man (who can be summoned by the Forever people) is killing the New gods. 

Given the images we have so far and what we’ve seen in the episodes, it seems that this could be something that could play out in some way. We know Darkseid is working on creating something, probably the Anti life equation. We have Forager who comes from this story showing up in the show so far. The thing is that in this case we know that the with Infinity Man killing off the New Gods this leads to events in Final Crisis. 

Honestly I can see some of this playing out here slightly. We do have the Forever People around and it would fit into the possibility that a New God is the one that is inside Halo. 

I think for the sake of lenght that I’m going to tackle Final Crisis as it’s own thing over going forward with this one as it’s already really long. 

See Final crisis theory of YJ for the rest. :)