Saturday, October 07, 2023

Saturday Splash Page #93

 
"Bizarro's Funland," in The Terrifics #22, by Gene Luen Yang (writer), Stephen Segovia (artist), Photobunker (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer)

Lemire's run on The Terrifics concluded with issue 14, with Gene Luen Yang taking over as writer through the title's end at issue 30. Yang's run seemed to be about progress. The inevitability of it, but that ensuring that people were trampled in its wake took directed effort.

So first there was an arc about an artificial intelligence achieving sentience, and how that endangered all life on the planet. The next several issues after that were about Bizarro getting a time machine from Lex Luthor (not clear on why Lex did that) and trying to use it to stop the march of technology on his world. When that failed, he and his world's version of Mr. Terrific concluded that if progress couldn't be stopped on Htrea, it must be stoppable on Earth. 

It's a nice play on the notion of Bizarro as an opposite Superman. Superman tries to protect humanity because he believes in its potential, without trying to lord over them and force them forward by just throwing Kryptonian technology. So naturally Bizarro would try to stunt any progress, especially if it renders him redundant. It's more important to him to be able to be a hero and have villains to fight.

After that, it was Mr. Terrific trying to make Gateway City into a shining "world of tomorrow" sort of place, and dealing with various setbacks or people who want to exploit it. This involved the reveal that Mr. Terrific was part of a of group of DC super-scientist types called "The T-Council", who were on-board with making the world better through science. It's one of those ideas that makes sense when you're dealing with characters who are established as wanting to help people, and have the intelligence and resources to do it in a way that doesn't involve just punching things. Of course, those sorts of things never get to carry very far, but it was probably important for Mr. Terrific's arc, to put his skills to work improving the world, rather than just putting out fires.

Yang also killed off Simon Stagg, because I guess he figured there were only so many times you can do a variation on Stagg trying to create or use some invention to make money, only to endanger everyone, while Metamorpho and Sapphire argue about whether her father can be trusted.

It still feels like it's mostly a Mr. Terrific book than a real team book. Late in Lemire's run he reaches a universe where it him who died in the car crash, and Laura Holt became Ms. Terrific. Yang plays with the notion of them trying to have a relationship, but realizing things aren't the same. This Michael Holt isn't her Michael, and she isn't his Laura, and with both of them as costumed adventurers, their differences in philosophy cause a bit more friction. Or maybe both of them had sanded away those old disagreements in their memories of their deceased spouses.

There are hints about Phantom Girl maybe having a crush on Plastic Man's kid (and a bit about Plas and "Offspring" improving their relationship), but that's about it. Metamorpho. . .gets a lot of exclamations involving Egyptian deities (see the "Osiris on a stick!" above.)

The book does have more stability in artists at this point. Stephen Segovia draws the first four issues, where they contend with the emergent artificial intelligence and we see one of the major differences of opinion between the two Holts. Segovia then draws three of the issues of the Bizarro storyline, with Sergio Davila and Max Raynor each handling the other parts. Dan Mora draws a one-off "choose your adventure" issue, though it does feed into the next issue and a major part of the conflict in "The Tomorrow War" story that wraps up the title.

As the two primary artists, Segovia and Davila are well-suited to handling the different stuff the plots ask of them. Each able to shift styles during the Bizarro story to fit the shifting realities and timelines. Segovia goes to a thicker line and squarer figures (a less busy Lenil Yu) as time starts regressing to first the '90s and later the '80s. But he and Davila are both capable of exaggerating with big, comically round eyes when the team is regressed to children, or mixing that with their normal styles when things start to break down and different characters are at different states. Davila gets to draw Lobo and Mr. Terrific using his teammates as a battle suit in one issue, and what look like Parasite's head as little scuttling monsters and makes it work.

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