Event
Comics
By
Lostscribe(J.
Ryan Buck)
For two reasons I have decided to
reread and review different “Events” of the comics world.
1.I have recently gone through my own
series of Events. I was laid off of work after 12 years with the same
company. The only job I could get to help with the bills was minimum
wage, 14 hours a week which was no real help at all. You would think
being overqualified would be a good thing but it's really not. (Like
just because I know how to manage I do not know how to scrub a toilet
or something.) So I have wanted to move for years and so this
seemed like the perfect time and a sign from the big man upstairs
that I should. I toiled away in minimum wage land (there’s your
next Mario video game title!) for two and half months while I get
the house in order and look for prospective buyers. It's hard to sell
a house in this market and it's even harder to find a job right? But
like Batman broken by Bane I was determined to get back on my feet.
As Bruce said in that great crossover event, “God hates a coward.”
Next my house sells in three weeks, I am packing up the car for the
first move of my stuff and I get a call for an application I filled
out the night before and from there an interview and a job three days
later! I go back to do the second of what would end up being three
trips eight hours round trip and the next day I get into a car
accident. Following week the car is considered totaled, but my
insurance is awesome (shout out to my boys and girls at Allstate!)
and I get a check for the value of the car. Final trip back and sign
the house papers, take the last load back and buy a new/used car and
here I am. It was just like Crisis on Infinite Earths except no one
died and my car played the part of the flash (although I don't
believe it will be coming back.)
2.Second reason I have decided to
write about Event Comics is that I grabbed two boxes of comics to
take to the house, (I'm living with family right now) and when
I opened the box to see what I had, it was mostly events, so there is
the fact that it is what I have in my room right now and that is why
I am reviewing them... but also all the stuff I wrote in the first
section as well.
I realize that I have been doing
primarily Marvel comics, you would never know that I am a DC guy. I
love just great comics of any company but DC is always the one that
still gets me the most excited to go to the comic shop.
Identity Crisis
(W) Brad Meltzer (A) Rags Morales
(C) Michael Turner R.I.P.
August 2004- February 2005
We open with Elongated man and Firehawk
sitting on top of a building and watching a transaction about to
occur. A large box is to be sold and neither of the heroes knows
whats inside it. They speculate that it could be an Amazo and pray to
god it's not.
Next Clark is with his parents and
Martha comments that her check to pay for her subscription of the
Daily Planet was sent back again. She states that she is perfectly
capable of paying it herself and that Clark cannot stop her. Clark
mentions with a smile that he indeed could stop her. Martha mentions
that Batman's parent's probably never have to deal with this. Clark
gets a call from Martain Manhunter and is in his costume in the span
of one panel, he tells his parents to lock the door. (It's these
little interactions that really make this comic event great. You can
tell Brad Meltzer loves these characters and that he is writing them
from the inside out. Anyone who thinks that the DC characters are too
perfect to relate to should read this comic.)
Next Nightwing is visiting his parents
grave when Starfire lands behind him. Next he gets a call from Oracle
(Barbara Gordon) to report in. (Awkward! You see little Dick
Grayson knows both women in an intimate way. He's also bagged
Huntress and Supergirl as well, so he's like the James Bond of the DC
universe in that way I guess.)
Back at the Stakeout, Firehawk asks
Elongated Man how he met his wife. Ralph recounts meeting her at a
costume party where the Flash (Barry Allen) attended and she still
hung on Ralph’s every word while everyone else was all over Barry.
Sue Dibny met Superman, Batman, Hawkman and all the other DC universe
beefcake and still she had eyes for only Ralph. Every year for his
birthday, Sue sets up a fake mystery because if you are unaware,
Ralph is a detective on par with Batman. Even though Elongated man
always has his wife’s mysteries already figured out, he still
play's along just for the fun and to see his wife’s reactions to
the whole thing.
Meanwhile sitting in a car is small
time criminal Bolt who is the prospective buyer of the mystery box.
On the line with him is the Calculator. The Calculator is the villain
version of Oracle. He used to be one of those lame villains but now
he charges per question for villains to gain information in
situations. 2,800 dollars and three questions later, Bolt knows that
the two thugs he's about to encounter may have guns and that
Elongated Man is in the area with Firehawk. Bolt is having second
thoughts but in the end he needs whats in the box.
At Ralph’s home, his wife Sue is
getting everything ready for his birthday when she hears someone
coming around the corner.
Bolt teleport's into the alley and
demands the two boys give him whats in the box as he had no intention
of paying for it. The boys pull out their guns and cut loose.
Firehawk and Elongated man spring into action when Ralph gets an
emergency call from Sue who is being attacked at the same time. Ralph
demands that Firehawk fly him home immediately and once he arrives he
finds his wife dead and burnt almost beyond recognition.
Tim Drake (Robin) is sitting with his
father when they hear the news report Sues death.
Ray Palmer (The Atom) and Jean Loring,
his divorced wife hear about the news and having been close with both
Ralph and Sue travel together to find out what happened.
Back at the scene of the murder Batman
has already gone through the house and now Green Arrow with Mister
Miracle, The Ray, Animal Man, The Atom and two of the Metal Men are
going through everything down to a cellular level for clues. Green
Arrow mentions that they called in favors to keep the cops away and
that when the killer is caught he will wish that the police found him
first.
48 hours later it's the funeral and
Ralph is so torn up he cant even hold his form, Wonder Woman says a
few words and the hunt is on for all suspects. The Titans go after
Plasmus and Warp, the JLI go after Firefly and Scorch, the JSA pick
up Dr. Phosphorus, the Blue Beetle and Booster Gold take on Heatwave.
Everyone leaves to persue their separate leads, but all are wrong as
a select few stay behind. Green Arrow, Zatanna, Hawkman, The Atom,
Black Canary and Ralph. The six of them have a secret the others are
not aware of and they know who the killer is. Doctor Light.
The Atom is searching through a trunk
of old stuff at what used to be his house but now just belongs to his
wife. As he emerges he has a crossbow he got from Hawkman years ago
and gives it to Jean for protection, I mean after all if someone is
out to kill superheroes families then all bets are off!
Together the six who stayed behind
after the funeral are ready to take a run at Doctor Light, when
Hawkman see's that the Flash (Wally West) is vibrating out of
everyone’s sight, everyone's but his. Shortly after, Green Lantern
(Kyle Rayner) reveals himself as well. (I really miss these two
guys as the Flash and Green Lantern. I grew up with them donning the
tights and learning the ways to be heroes. All so we could get Barry
Allen and Hal Jordan back and make their journeys almost null and
void. Same goes with Green Arrow, I loved Conner so much more then
Ollie!) Wally demands to know what is going one and why they
believe that Doctor Light is the killer. The story shifts back to the
satellite era of the JLA (circa the 70's in our time.) where
we see Light wandering around the headquarters. Light waited for all
the heroes to be on Earth for him to get on board the satellite. No
one is sure why he was up there in the first place but whatever the
reason it became secondary when he came across Sue Dibny. Light
attacks and rapes Sue and Barry is the first to return and tackles
Dr. Light. Light then realizes he found every heroes weakness, attack
their families and significant others, it's the one thing that would
hurt the heroes more then anything else could. Ralph takes Sue to the
hospital which left the others to deal with Doctor Light. The Doctor
is insane with glee as they contemplate sending him to Arkham where
he comments he will have a whole new audience to show what he did as
he uses his light powers to show exactly what he did to Sue. Zatanna
makes the bad doctor forget what he did, but this leaves the problem
of him stumbling upon this revelation again and doing the same thing
to someone else. It became obvious that they needed to do something a
little more permanent to Light and his sick mind. The sides are split
with Carter (Hawkman) Zatanna and The Atom for the mindwipe and Green
Arrow, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) and Black Canary against it,
leaving Barry Allen as the deciding vote.
In the present various villains are
hanging around the abandoned satellite of the old Injustice Gang.
Various names populate the floating base, Merlyn, Mirror Master,
Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, Deathstroke and others. They are all for
hire and can be brokered through the Calculator. Suddenly Dr. Light
teleports in and asks for help, and for a price, he gets it.
Back in the past Barry votes to go
ahead and “fix” Doctor Light. Zatanna doesn’t just erase his
memory, she changes his personality and turns him into the blithering
idiot we all know him as. Wally and Kyle can't believe that they ever
did that once upon time. Green Arrow remarks, that it wasn't just
once, shocking the two young heroes, who must spring into action as
Dr. Light has just teleported into an abandoned building. Ralph in a
rage rushes into the building after Light but is sent reeling out of
the building. Stepping out with Light is Deathstroke the Terminator.
Meanwhile Dr. Midnight is performing an
autopsy on Sue Dibny when he comes to the realization that Dr. Light
is not the killer.
Wally is the first to react as he
charges forward, Deathstroke (Slade Wilson) flips a switch which
blows explosives all around himself except behind him, forcing Wally
to attack from the rear. Slade simply holds his sword (pointy end
first) behind him which Wally runs right into, impaling himself
on the blade, down goes Flash. Zatanna begins to utter the first word
of a spell but Slade moves in and strikes her in a pressure point
that makes her choke and throw up. Carter is flying in from above
ready to squash the mercenary with his mace, when Deathstroke leaps
up and cuts the Hawk's flying harness, dropping him to the ground.
Green Arrow is firing away which Slade is easily blocking and when he
takes a swipe at Ollie it appears to miss his head but was actually
intended to slice the ends of all of his arrows rendering them nearly
useless. Canary sets her jaw, ready to scream his head off but Slade
is faster still as he wraps her head up in something with one hand
and cuffs her arms behind her back with the other. Next up is the Ray
who comes in microscopic to which he is shot down with a laser
pointer, instinctively he goes big and lands right into Carter
knocking him out. GL comes in and Slade breaks his fingers and shows
Kyle that when you have a ring that runs on willpower you need to be
confident to use it! Kyle is not feeling so tough after Deathstrokes
display of cunning and fighting prowess but while he is struggling,
Ollie comes from behind and shoves an arrow into Deathstrokes blind
eye. This royally pisses Slade off as he totally loses his shit and
goes ape on Ollie, to which the rest of the heroes dogpile the
Terminator. Doctor Light watches these eight heroes tackling
Deathstroke and it all comes back to him as these same eight icons
did much the same to him as they took him down all those years ago.
Light remembers and teleports himself and Slade away, to which
Superman shows up.
Superman asks the questions they all
know they are going to have to answer, why do they believe Light
killed Sue and why did they keep it from everyone else? Wally is
quick to point out that Ralph wanted first crack at Light and that's
why they left without letting anyone else know. Clark accepts the
answer but replies that it was not Dr. Light, that the burns to Sue
were just to cover up how she really was killed, of which they are
still working to determine. With big blue's eyes and ears no longer
pointed at them, Wally pulls Ollie aside and tells him the only
reason he covered for them is because of not wanting to stain Barry
Allens good name. Wally want's some answers himself, as in how many
others have been mindwiped?
We flashback to the old days, where we
see the Injustice Society when they switched bodies with the JLA and
in a great panel we see Lex in Superman's body taking a picture of
Batman with his mask off and Superman saying, “Perfect. Go get
Flash.” (This is a panel that shows that when you read those old
issues and say, why didn’t they just find out who they were so when
they switched back they could use that against them! We'll they did.)
All the times the villains found out the heroes identities it was
this small group within a group that kept the stuff in line. Ollie
says, “people aren't stupid Wally. They believe what they want to
believe and hear what they want to hear.” and we get a close up of
Superman’s ear.
Elsewhere Captain Boomerang is sitting
in a car and talking to Calculator though his earpiece. Boomerang is
old and washed up but he's begging for a job, only no one wants to
hire him. All the while he is sitting outside of the building where
is grown son lives, his son that he put up for adoption when he was a
baby.
On the last pages, Jean Loring is
blindfolded with a noose around her neck as she tries to call her
ex-husband the Atom for help.
The Atom, traveling through the phone
lines pops out and changing his size in the fibers of the rope severs
the noose and changing back to regular size catches his wife in mid
fall. Jean looks up at him with a smile on her face as she says,
“just like the old days.”
Later as Mister Miracle is looking at
the special security system they have set up at everyone of there
loved ones homes, he finds that just like Sues attack, nothing was
tripped on the alarm. Ollie wonders if this confirms it's a
teleporter then. This time they brought Superman in to help at the
crime scene. Clark knows exactly what types of knots were used ,
after all he was a boy scout. Oracle checks her database and finds
that villain that used that kind of knot is Slipknot, but he only has
one arm now and is doing ten years in prison. Wonder Woman visits
him, wrapping him in her lasso around him and once he starts talking
they realize he had nothing to do with it. The League speculates it
could be the Suicide Squad, but Batman knows that, that is not the
truth because no one in the Suicide Squad benefits from their deaths.
Tim Drake decides to take the night off
to hang out with his dad, while Captain Boomerang comes face to face
with his adopted son and they hang out.
Ollie visits Hal Jordan's grave and Hal
appears, because he was the Spectre at this time and demands to know
who the attacker is. Hal of course knows who it is, but he answers to
a higher power (not Vince McMahon) and cannot tell him.
Finally Lois Lane is going through the
mail on her desk and finds a note saying they know who her husband
is.
This new threat brings everything to a
head as the heroes are swarming all over the villains and asking them
what they know. In one of the confrontations Firestorm is stabbed in
the chest and has to fly away so as not to blow up the entire city as
his body goes nuclear.
Jean Loring and Ray Palmer are
rekindling their love since her attack.
Captain Boomerang is teaching his son
how to throw his weapon of choice and it appears that his son is
going to be a hell of lot better then his old man.
Tim Drake has stayed home with his
father ever since the initial attack. But it's time for him to don
his Robin costume and get out their to help. Everyone of the heroes
is scared for their loved ones lives and Tim Drake is no different as
he gives his father a JLA signal watch and tells him to call for help
for anything. After his son leaves, Jack Drake finds a box and inside
the box is a note that says his name only the R in Drake is big and
red like Robins. Also in the box is a gun and another note that says,
“protect yourself.” It's at this time that Jack can hear someone
jumping onto his roof. Jack calls for help and the call goes through
Oracle. Oracle relays the message to Robin who is with Batman in the
Batmobile. Batman throws the car into reverse and speeds on to Robins
house. The intruder inters the kitchen where Jack is crouched and
hiding revealing himself to be Captain Boomerang. Jack unloads on him
blowing him away while the Captain tosses a razor-tipped boomarang
that lodges into Jacks heart. Both are left dead on the
floor and bleeding.
Wally visits Oliver and tells him that
when Dr. Light remembered what had happened, for a split second he
flashed a vision of his memory. The only one quick enough to see it
was Wally himself, but the image didn't make sense because Batman was
there too. It's then Green Arrow admits that they had to mindwipe
Bruce as well. When Batman returned and they were lobotomizing Dr.
Light he lost his shit and went for them to which they felt the only
way to keep the League together was to erase his memory. They didn't
want to do it but they knew Batman would never accept what they did.
Wally mentions that it can't last forever, Batman is the worlds
greatest detective, he will figure it out eventually.
The Calculator is in his office and
gets a call from Merlyn who asks him why he set up Captain Boomerang?
Calculator responds that all he did was get him the job, that someone
put a hit out on the cheap for Jack Drake and he was just doing him a
favor and throwing a little work his way. The strange thing is he
can't figure out where the hit job originated from and who would have
planted a gun for Jack to use.
Dr. Midnight has found the cause of
death for Sue Dibny, she had a blood clot in her brain, the fire was
as he figured just to cover the real cause of death up. As the doctor
looks closer he finds two small footprints on her brain.
At the same time, Batman is looking
through all the evidence and then realizes who the killer is as he
calls for Ray Palmer.
Meanwhile Ray and Jean are completely
back together again but Ray has a crazy look in his eyes. Just as the
two of them are about to get down to business in the bedroom Jean
asks Ray if anyone figured out who wrote the note for Jack Drake.
It's then Ray turns the bedroom light back on. How did Jean know
about the note? Batman took the note and never told the newspapers
about it. Ray confronts Jean who lies at first, but then breaks down
saying that she didn't mean to kill Sue. Ray knows she must have
found one of his suits and then used it to shrink down and that’s
why they couldn't find any evidence of an intruder. Jean figured
that she would just knock Sue out and then everyone would rush back
to their loved ones including Ray back to her. The problem was that
Jean didn't have any training using the suit and she grew too big,
killing Sue and then not wanting to get into trouble she burned the
evidence. Ray realizes that it was what Bruce said all along, who
benefits? The families of the heroes do.
Ray leaves Jean in Arkham and then not
being able to handle the guilt he shrinks seemingly out of existence.
Everything as it always does after
these things goes back to normal with Wally still mentioning that
Bruce will one day remember and their will be a reckoning when he
does. (That story is the great “Crisis of Conscience” in the
regular JLA comic. I will be doing that follow up story very soon!)
In the last part we see Ralph Dibny
laying in bed and talking to his wife who is not there. He's having a
whole conversation and doesn’t seem the least bit sad. (The follow
up to this is in the weekly 52 series which you can pick up in trade. Now 52 I will not be doing because I am not a machine, but it's really
creepy and if you don't feel like reading the whole thing, I'm sure
you can find out what happened on the interwebs somewhere.)
Thank you for those nightmares Mr. Waid!
A lot of purists hated this “Event”
but it is honestly one of my favorites, I feel that although it did
not last, it gave the old school DC universe an edge to it. Sure you
can poke hole's in the plot if you give it a second read but it's
such a good read that it warrants a blind eye in my opinion.
And as always if you missed any of my previous installments you can find them here. http://lostscribe0.blogspot.com/
Thanks for all of the support!
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