Saturday Splash Page #166

"Rage in the Rags," in Shadowpact #8, by Bill Willingham (writer), Shawn McManus (artist), Mike Atiyeh (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer)

In between Max Lord murdering Ted Kord and the start of Infinite Crisis, DC released 4 mini-series related to the various problems that were building. OMAC Project was Batman's arrogance and paranoia coming back to bite everyone in the ass. Except Ted Kord, who was already dead because of Batman's arrogance and paranoia. Rann-Thanagar War was, well it's what it says on the tin, and was some stuff going on in space that never felt particularly connected to the larger event. Villains United was about a small group of villains that brought together by a mysterious person to resist the larger villain society that formed (that eventually became Secret Six, which we'll get to sometime this year.)

Day of Vengeance was the Spectre going bugfuck crazy (again?!) and trying to destroy all magic, and a bunch of relative castoffs - Nightmaster, Enchantress, Nightshade, Ragman, Blue Devil, Detective Chimp - banding together to try and stop him. After Infinite Crisis, the cast got this ongoing series.

This was the first issue I bought, when I was looking for something from DC I as interested in. Batgirl had been canceled earlier in the year. I dropped Robin after that abysmal One Year Later storyline established Cassandra Cain as crazy, evil, and possibly hot for Tim Drake. Teen Titans was a joyless book, whose characters all seemed to hate each other and want to be any where else. As to why this book, specifically, I guess the odd cast of characters I knew little about appealed to me. If I don't have any preconceived notions, I can't be as irritated if Willingham does something stupid with them, right?

I bought it for 9 issues. This issue was the one I liked best, seeing as it's the only one I've kept up to this point. And while the plot of the moment moves in the background, it largely about tweaking Ragman's backstory. Now the ragsuit has existed in different forms for thousands of years, and it's possible for one of the trapped souls to earn release if they help the wearer often enough to atone for their sins. Although the fact the soul we see released was a Roman soldier suggests an unfriendly parole board. But DC's God is always being presented as a capricious dick, so that tracks.

Beyond this issue, Willingham seemed to try and have various smaller plots that occupied 2-3 issues, while a larger story moves in the background, while also trying to delve into or expand the casts' abilities. Blue Devil gets promoted (or demoted, you move down in ranks in Hell) and becomes a rhymer, pissing of Erigan. Nightmaster figures out some stuff about himself. But it always seemed to boil down to this character or that needing to embrace their fate and stop raging against their sacred duty or whatever.

It's also got some of that weird affection for procedure or minutiae Willingham seems to like. The team calls a press conference to essentially explain the rules they intend to operate by, which seems pointless. Willingham even includes a segment where other heroes are asked their opinions and Nightwing basically says, "No shit, that's how all of us operate." So what was the point of that scene?

At any rate, it never quite lived up to what I envisioned. Maybe the stories weren't weird enough given the cast. Maybe Tom Derenick, who drew all the issues after this one that I bought, didn't do anything for me as an artist. Willingham stepped away from the book the same issue I did, replaced by Matt Sturges for the final 10 issues. Maybe I'd have liked his stuff better, although his JSA All-Stars didn't knock my socks off.

What? What Did I Say?

A week ago, I was watching the last Inspector Alleyn mystery with my dad. It concerned a waterfall with alleged healing properties that the locals had turned into a cash cow. This being England, all their property (and the waterfall) are owned by some English woman who doesn't live there, but strongly disapproves of the commercialization of the falls. She visits the town to make her feelings known, and squabbles with the biggest booster of the falls. Then said booster winds up floating facedown in the water, someone having dropped a rock on her head.

Throughout the show, my dad had been wondering why the old woman was so deadset against the deal with the falls. I pointed out she wasn't against people visiting, or dunking their hands in, she was against the whole ridiculous show that had built up around it. Turns out she had another reason for hating the whole operation. Which doesn't mean she's the murderer, alright?

While we were arguing about this, I said, 'It doesn't matter anyway. Now that a person's been murdered there, any healing properties will be tainted, or outright gone. Like desanctifying a church.'

Dad paused for a beat, looked at me, and said, 'I wish I knew where your brain gets these little bits of information.'

Do you think telling it was from an issue of Shadowpact would have been a good idea or not?

More Tact Might Be Useful

I was looking through that first issue of the Reign in Hell mini-series, and lo and behold, there's Linda Danvers, with fire wings and everything. That was a little surprising, I thought she was persona non grata in the DCU since they brought the current Supergirl in.

I wasn't aware of the fact she was somehow connected to Neron. I suppose the fire wings should have been a clue, but I thought she was an angel on earth, so it didn't occur to me she'd be connected to their devil. I found it a little curious that the Shadowpact, worried that she might get drawn into the conflict in the infernal realms, decided to attack her, rather than approach peacefully. Given that she was doing absolutely nothing threatening at that particular moment, it seems like a needless escalation of things. Yes, she might respond in a hostile manner if they simply walk up and ask if she'll come with them, and certainly you don't want to get killed if you can avoid it, but if you attack you pretty much guarantee you'll get attacked right back.

Even if they had succeeded in restraining her, and putting her some place where she couldn't get recalled to Hell, at some point that conflict is going to be over, and what do you do then? You going to keep her locked up forever, based on her heritage, rather than what she did? Because that's very Marvel Universe isn't it, like an mystical version of the Mutant Registration Act and all those future where mutants are in camps simply because they're mutants. So that hardly seems proper for a team of heroes. So maybe they cut her loose. What's to stop her from turning around and immediately attacking them? They locked her up when she hadn't done anything. More than that, she'd built a life for herself there, and they probably wrecked it (even if they don't have a huge, destructive fight that reveals her true self to her friends and coworkers, she's probably missed work, and her friends haven't heard from her, she may have lost her home), so I'd say Ms. Danvers might feel a bit of butt-kicking was in order. You know, to redress a wrong.

Oh well, she did get recalled, so maybe the Shadowpact won't have to worry about any aftershocks..

Well, Some Island Sure Looks Empty Now

This is in regards to the abrupt appearance of an active volcano in the middle of Chicago in last month's Shadowpact.

See I was reading through a recent JSA Classified (the one starring Jakeem Thunder), and the issue had this whole big thing about how magic is about balance, and you can't magically repair one block of housing, without somehow removing the structural stability from an equally large block of housing somewhere else. I guess it's like the Law of Equivalent Exchange from Full Metal Alchemist. Although I believe that concept was always violating the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, since if you try and make something into something else, you should lose some of the mass as heat energy, but they, supposedly, were not. I think because they were drawing on the life forces of people from a parallel reality (or something, the end of the series kind of lost me, which happens frequently, as they try to explain the batshit insane stuff going on).

Anyway, so if Dr. Gotham "made" a volcano in the middle of Chicago, then it stands to reason he would have drawn the necessary components from elsewhere? Sure, there is magma under Chicago, if you go deep enough, but it isn't a tectonically active area with passages that the magma can use to reach the surface on a regular basis. So Dr. Gotham (that name seems incredibly stupid to me right now, while it really didn't before) would have to make such things occur, and at a drastically accelerated rate. So, long thought short, is there now a volcanically active region somewhere on New Earth (assuming this is New Earth, or Earth-52, or whatever), that, well, isn't volcanically active anymore?

That might not be all bad, if the people living near it have to live in a state of awareness, ready to evacuate when the volcano got active, but people like to visit volcanoes, whether it's tourists or scientists, and with the volcano gone, that could hurt the locale's economy. Though I suppose more people might move in with the threat of lava destroying their home reduced, and the scientists would probably stick around to try and figure out what happened, so maybe it would help in the long run. Of course, if he drew from a volcanic island, it might not exist anymore, which would make what he did a double whammy of murdering evilness. And all just because he got stabbed with a spear (which was seriously oversold as being bad ass, when it couldn't put down a second-rate Mordru?).

Maybe he just drew it from a undersea volcano, and so all he did was prevent the formation of a future land mass. Then again, the earth kind of seems to be in a balance, since there are places where new land emerges, and places where it submerges (subduction zones, hey I remembered something from geology, hooray!), so if he messed with that. . . hmm.

Like Puppets On A String

Is that a Neil Diamond song where they sing about 'puppets on a string', and if so, why the hell am I quoting Neil Diamond? Whatever., I'm gonna spend a little time today talking about Shadowpact #13 today. I find it weird that for two weeks straight a book I didn't give a good grade to provided interesting fodder for a post. Well, interesting to me, anyway. Maybe I need to retroactively boost scores, based on how many post ideas I get from a single issue.

So Heaven has commissioned Zauriel to SPOILER! kill Blue Devil. First off, I think it's kind of a crap move to dump that job on someone who knows the guy you want dead, and who isn't technically one of you anymore. What, the rest of the angels are too busy? It's molting season? It just gives me that vibe I got from Ennis' Ghost Rider mini, that Heaven and Hell only care about their big war, and mortals are either in the way, or tools to be used and discarded.

But setting aside what is probably a personal hang-up, Zauriel and Blue Devil are mirrors of each other in a way. Zauriel was an angel that gave up that life for love, and became a mortal. If what poets tell us about love is true, that a really good reason to give up on the perks of being an immortal warrior of Heaven. In his own way, Zauriel's presence on Earth helps to spread the word of God, helps build faith by demonstrating that yes, there are in fact angels, and they serve God, and so yes, there is a God. And since Zauriel spends his time saving lives, that tends to bolster the idea of a loving God, because he's sent one of his agents here to protect his flock. While this probably isn't why Zauriel does the things he does, I'd imagine he's aware of it, and glad to be of service to his boss.

Conversely, Dan Cassiday sold his soul for fame, and wound up as a demon. While he's also seeking something for himself, it's somewhat less pure than what Zauriel desired. Dan didn't want to love and be loved by one person, he wanted the love, adulation, respect, whatever of lots of people. People he didn't know, or would ever know. Seems greedy (and kind of dumb) by comparison. Dan's spreading the word of his benefactor, unwillingly, but he's doing it all the same. He tries to do good, but all it ends up doing is (if you can believe demons) convincing more people that selling their soul to the Devil is cool, because you can get superpowers and help save the world, and be loved by many.

So in some ways they're the opposite of each other, in other ways they're strikingly similar. Which is probably why Zauriel is the one going after Blue Devil, rather than some other ass-kicker who's still a full angel (ignoring things like Willingham preferring to go with an established character, and potential ulterior motives not yet revealed).

Is It "Please"?

Tonight's post contains spoilers for this week's 52 and the World War 3 books. Or maybe just one of them. I only skimmed them, so they're all kind of blurring together, focused around that panel of Adam putting his fist through {name deleted to eliminate spoilers}. Ouch. Anyway, if you haven't read those yet, are planning to, haven't had them spoiled by other blogs reviews, and don't want them spoiled now, you should probably mosey elsewhere, and come back when you've read them, so you can chime in. Go ahead and take a few moments to decide. The rest of us will wait.

While they're deciding, I wanted to ask you something. Looking at the cover to this week's Shadowpact (in the post right below this one), does Enchantress look a bit too busty? Maybe she just needs more fabric in the chest region of her costume. In fact, I'm sure of that, but I'm still not sure what was wrong with her old outfit. I liked the hat, but I'm a fan of hats in general. OK, they should be done deciding by now. let's get on with it.

- So, While I was skimming those books, I reach the point where Captain Marvel explains why how he tried to get Adam's powers taken away, and the Egyptian gods just laughed. So now I'm confused. If Adam gets his powers from Egyptian Gods, rather than the Greek pantheon (plus Hebrew king) Marvel invokes with "SHAZAM!", does that mean the letters stand for something different when Adam says "SHAZAM"?

There's Seth, Horus, Anubis, can Ra be called "Amon-Ra", or am I thinking of the pharaoh who claimed to be descended from Ra? I don't know any Egyptian figures that start with "Z", so I'm kind of up against a wall here. Little help?

- This second question, really shouldn't be a surprise, given the kind of posts I frequently spit out: What did Captain Marvel change Adam's word to (assuming DC has some sort of actual plan with this move)? I've considered "sorry" "forgiveness" "pimpmobile", but I'm thinking "Isis". Adam seems to be in such a place of rage, that I don't see him speaking his dead love's name aloud. Too painful. Of course, Adam may welcome the pain, and try to use it to spur him forward to still more revenge. Hmm, he really didn't seem to kill many of the people he was actually angry at, did he?

Things I Think About #24

Hey, it's my 100th post! Whee! And I'm typing it in the Biology Grad Student Office, because I'm stuck here until 7 o'clock tonight and I'm bored as hell! Uh, Woo-hoo?

Here's the question for the day: When did Alex Luthor capture Nightshade?

I saw her hooked into his Multiverse Maker, as the representative of Earth-4, I think. I can't keep all these Earths straight. When then hell did he catch her? Between making a new Earth, and killing Jade with his Giant Space Appendages, he's been busy. And Superboy-Prime was too busy throwing a hissy fit to do it. And Old Fart Superman probably wouldn't have even been told about it, since he was under the impression that Alex was only bringing back Earth-2, I think.

So when - and how - did this happen? Was it in the Day of Vengeance one-shot? Wouldn't her teammates have had something to say about her abduction? Couldn't Ragman have made passing mention of the disappearance of his fellow Shadowpacter, when he was talking to Mr. Terrific? Arrggghhhh, just how is Alex Luthor doing all this? Is he really Geoff Johns in disguise, showing off his total control of DC by doing whatever he damn well pleases?