10/2 Comic Reviews: New Horizons

DC All-In Special #1 written by Scott Snyder and Joshua Williamson with art by Daniel Sampere, Wes Craig, and Dan Mora

Once you’ve been reading comics for a while, one of the things you quickly get used to is some kind of reboot, relaunch, or rebranding of the lineup being pushed by mainstream publishers. I started buying comics regularly just around the time The New 52 was starting and DC had (kind of) restarted all of their comics with modernized origin stories and generally darker outlooks. On one hand, it created a fresh entry point for new readers who may have been intimidated by the decades of backlog and build-up in some of these stories, but on the other hand it erased the legacy that had become a core part of the franchise and the darker, more grounded storytelling took us away from the optimism and wonder that these heroes were meant to inspire in us. That isn’t to say these “re” shifts are always bad. Back in 2018, DC Rebirth began and felt very much like a recognition of the folly of The New 52. There was a shift towards reviving the themes of hope and legacy that defined the DC universe and made us believe once more in people who could fly. In a reality mired by cynicism and greed, we were again reminded of the virtues of doing good, accepting others and working towards creating a better future, not just for ourselves, but for the people who’d be here after we’re all long gone. I personally enjoyed Rebirth a great deal and found it to be one of the best examples of what made the DC superheroes so amazing. That said, when I heard about “DC All-In”, I honestly didn’t think much about it one way or the other. I saw there were some cool new books coming out and I kept seeing titles with the adjective “Absolute” in them. They were clearly alternate universe takes iconic characters which is cool, but also something we’ve seen plenty of times. I planned to give each book a shot, but didn’t feel much anticipation over what was coming. Having read DC All-In Special #1, I’m now equally excited for this new wave of books as I was for Rebirth, if not more so. 

The issue is divided into two stories: Alpha and Omega both written by Scott Snyder and Joshua Williamson, two writers who did phenomenal work in the Rebirth era. Alpha opens with the creation of a new Justice League membership card which is being handed out to heroes all over the world. As I realized what was happening, I could hear the sound of an orchestra followed up by the sudden shift to electric guitars in a tv show opening that has stayed in my brain since I was six years old. In the wake of recent conflicts and Crises, the Justice League has decided to expand their membership to include every hero in the world and welcome them into the Justice League Unlimited. Immediately, the issue hits us with the heights of DC’s heroes and feels like it’s celebrating them in all their glory. Superman welcomes each of them into the league with a message about the virtues of hope and unity with a promise that none of them will ever have to work alone. If Rebirth was the spark, this is the roaring blaze, fully revived and burning brighter than ever before. It promises a galvanized future full of new adventures and a re-commitment to the ideals that define these heroes. Of course, there will always be challengers to those ideals and in the middle of that opening ceremony, the greatest of those challengers returns once more. Darkseid is. Not only has the being created to be the adversary to goodness showed up right in the center, but he is now bonded to the Spectre, the very spirit of divine vengeance. Stronger than ever before, he strikes out at Superman. However, the full force of the universe’s heroes are there with him and, pooling their powers, Superman lands a strike against Darkseid, dispersing and seemingly destroying him for good. Not ones to rest on their laurels, the team immediately begins to investigate what just happened. After all, as Orion of the New Gods states, Darkseid is a universal constant. He exists to create a challenge in the universe for goodness to overcome and he can’t simply be... gone. It appears that rather than dying, he has been shifted somewhere else. The mainstream universe was recently cut off from the rest of the multiverse to prevent an incursion, but there was still one universe, nascent and unformed, adjacent enough to still be observable. Mr. Terrific refers to it as Earth Alpha, the first in a new series of universes forming the wake of Perpetua’s defeat and the expansion of the Orrery of Worlds that occurred at the end of Death Metal which in itself wrapped up Snyder’s Justice League run (I love how obtuse this sentence is). Superman refers to it as by a different name: the Elseworld. It seems that Darkseid has ended up there which has caused... something. Because of the nature of this new universe, there’s only one hero capable of traveling to it and finding out what the heck might have happened. Throughout this story, we see a variety of perspectives, but the one we keep cutting back to is Booster Gold, the time-traveling showboat who came to our time to stop crimes he knew would happen and claim all the credit and fame he wanted. Over the course of Booster’s run in comics, he’s found joy and friendship with other heroes and slowly grown into a genuinely good person. So much so that Superman personally gives him a membership card and tells him that he belongs among the greatest heroes. Booster realizes that he’s standing at a critical moment in history which Darkseid has just disrupted and resolves to step up and do his part to make things right. The  team decides to send him in for a brief check and then yank him out immediately, but Darkseid is and plans are not. Booster arrives in the new universe and witnesses a threat that may take even more than the Justice League Unlimited to face. 

The second story, Omega, is told from Darkseid’s perspective, showing us what led to his attack on the JLU and where he ended up in it’s wake. In the time before the attack, Darkseid has found himself changing in ways that make him uncertain. The severance of the multiverse has caused his power to grow and has given him the sense that there are answers in the universe being denied him. In a dark reflection to Alpha, an idea begins to bloom to make Darkseid more and he travels from the depths of Hell, to the peaks of Heaven, and to the dark side of the moon in pursuit of a certain someone. The denizens of those realms attempt to dissuade him from his pursuit with offers of power, peace, and the joy of a challenge, but Darkseid will not be dissuaded. Eventually he finds his target: Jim Corrigan, the Spectre. He attempts to extract the Spectre and use it’s divine wisdom to answer the questions plaguing him. The two share a conversation about the metaphysical underpinnings of the DC universe. The Spectre explains that the universe, in all of its wonder and terror, is life and thus defined by the desire to grow and change. In essence, the universe is hope and Superman is the embodiment of that hope, but in order for life to grow it must be challenged and Darkseid is the embodiment of that challenge. His conflicts with Superman are the conflicts that all life experiences writ large. Because he is a primal force, he has no multiversal double and exists simultaneously in all universes. However, the severance of the multiverse has cut him off from all but one universe and now all of that energy has been funneled into one place, leaving him feeling as if he’s about to explode. The Spectre assures him that it will pass as the universe begins to reconnect with others and his energy disperses again, but Darkseid is overwhelmed by the Spectre’s omniscience along with his overloaded chaotic energy and is no longer willing to remain in the box built for him. He sees a way out and allows Superman to strike a fatal blow against him. He welcomes death, but instead finds himself reawakening in a universe that has not fully formed. He integrates himself with it and it becomes a universe defined by the primal essence of challenge and turmoil, a world where familiar heroes are denied the advantages which gave them strength, a world where Darkseid is the system and hope is the chaos, a world where Darkseid is absolute.

This book really makes it feel like DC is having their cake and eating it too. On one hand, you have a universe that promises all the themes of hope and unity that we had in Rebirth and on the other hand we have a fresher, darker universe like the one we saw during The New 52. What makes me most excited about this new “Absolute Universe” are Darkseid’s words about hope needing to burn brighter than ever before if it wants to survive. While the universe may be darker, that only means that hope is all the more important and the heroes that fight for it will have to be even more inspiring in the face of such challenge. Rather than a deconstructivist take where the heroes are darker and less idealistic, this new wave of stories seems like it’s going to be celebrating the idealism of the DC universe in a whole new way. It took me from being mildly interested to actively counting down the days until these books release. 

The dichotomy of the two stories is perfectly represented in the art. In Alpha, Daniel Sampere is the artist and his work does an amazing job capturing the shining majesty of the universe’s superheroes. They stand tall and proud in a world full of light and hope and every moment we get with them is appropriately epic. It feels almost as if the characters themselves are elevated by the world they live in. Booster Gold casts a striking figure with his shiny costume, but the way he stands and the thoughtful look in his eye make even him feel heroic in a way that goes deeper than a fancy suit. He may very well be the poster child for the philosophy of this universe that brings out the best in people and the art is the lynchpin for making that case. Wes Craig is the artist for Omega and does a brilliant job capturing Darkseid’s world. It’s filled will Kirbyesque machinery and crackling energy along with shadows, dirt, and blood. His side feels grand but in a way that feels like the inverse to Alpha, and it looks fantastic as he bounces across cosmic locales, leaving chaos and destruction in his wake. His fight with the Spectre particularly stands out as the two powerhouses clash across reality with their forms shifting as they exchange both words and blows. There’s a moment where Darkseid suddenly has his whole life put in perspective and the art style changes to match the scenes being replayed before his eyes. It hammers home his history across eras of comics even to those may may not be familiar with them. Because I read my comics digitally (location issue), I actually missed out on a fun gimmick of the book. Apparently it was printed in a flip book style and the reader was meant to flip it over after finishing the first story and read the next one from the opposite side with both books sharing the same final splash page. Unfortunately, there’s not really a good way to replicate that in digital besides printing the splash page a second time at the end of Omega. On the plus side, it meant I got to see Dan Mora’s insanely epic final page twice. This page is all we’re given about Darkseid’s potential endgame, but it’s more than enough to know we’re in for an absolutely insane ride.

The purpose of this book was to get readers hooked on “DC All-In” and I’d say it more than succeeded on that front. Suddenly the world has opened up to insane new horizons and the future is full of hope and adversity in equal measures. Looking at the lineup of upcoming titles, there are a lot of new books I’ll be talking about on here soon. What else can I say? After reading this issue, I’m All-In.

Ultraman X Avengers #2 written by Kyle Higgins and Mat Groom with art by Francesco Manna

This issue picks up right where we left off with the united alliance of the Ultra Guard and the Avengers having to split their forces to not only steal a hefty piece of tech from the USP but also deal with two separate threats as kaiju have appeared while Galactus has also landed nearby. Any one of these threats would be a lot for these combined forces, but now they have to stretch themselves even thinner to deal with each crisis. Fortunately, it’ll take some time for Galactus to rev up his planet devouring machine and he’s not one to cause casualties besides the one really big one, so it’s decided that Shin and Captain Marvel will handle the kaiju while the rest of the team stages a break-in. For all of the crazy team-up action the book delivers, what really elevates it to something special is the character moments throughout.  Higgins and Groom do an amazing job giving each character in this huge cast both a distinctive voice and an opportunity to show off. As cool as the action is, the moments these characters have talking with each other are easily the best part. We get a great moment early on with Kiki Fuji and Tony Stark as he gives her some advice on working in an environment where it seems everyone else has godlike power or appears to be chosen by fate for some grand purpose. He tells her that for some people, being a hero means fighting for a seat at that table and relentlessly trying to find new ways to step up your game. He then immediately starts talking about the amazing suit of armor he’s going to build for her and I practically jumped out of my chair. The Ultraman comics have done a great job of taking a character whose main role in the original show generally kept her on the sidelines and bringing her into the action, but this would be a huge game-changer if she were to gain the means to fight alongside Ultraman. I mentioned in my last review that my biggest worry with this book was that it would be tabling all of the things being set up in the Ultraman comics in favor of a big action-fest, but it’s clear that not only is what came before still front and center, but what happens in this book is going to have lasting effects going forward. 

From there we move to the break-in with an absolutely delightful exchange between Captain America and Spider-Man (Peter). Spider-Man has always been an ally of the Avengers but never really a member outside of one iteration of the team, and Cap brutally roasts the New Avengers by pointing out that if Wolverine is on team, it doesn’t count. Of course, being the eternal good-guy, Cap clarifies that he’s joking and is honored to work alongside Peter. It’s a small moment, but again it shows a consideration for the characters. Cap and Spidey know each other, they’re from the same universe, but just because we’re in the middle of an inter-dimensional crossover doesn’t mean that every exchange needs to be between two characters who have never met. I usually try to cover the plot beats and some of the moments that really stood out to me and try to avoid spoiling all the delightful character moments, but I’m really struggling here because they’re all so good. Captain Marvel and Ultraman have a whole conversation about living between two worlds and the isolation it brings on while also encouraging each other that their unique roles provide meaningful insight to their comrades. It’s just so good! The tone of these characters is pitch perfect and the whole book feels like an orchestral performance full of harmony. The writing for the antagonists is full of nuance and depth too. The face-off with Morheim reveals some insight into her motivations that, while evil, are far more complex than doing evil for the sake of evil. Similarly, later in the book, the Ultra insists on at least trying to talk to Galactus before things get violent. He is a similar cosmic being with all the perspective that entails and hopes to be able to use that perspective to bridge the gap between humanity and the world-eater. It’s easy to forget that Galactus is not evil persay, he’s a fundamental force of the universe that requires incredible amounts of energy to sustain himself and simply sees the lives of the denizens of the worlds he eats a small price to pay for maintaining the universe as a whole. He and the Ultra exchange words and remain cordial with one another, but, sadly, he can’t be dissuaded from his next meal and is unwilling to jeopardize the universe by waiting for what he considers lower-life forms to come up with an alternative. Again, I just love the tone and depth these characters have. It makes the conflict feel sad because the Ultra is genuinely trying to find a peaceful solution. I can’t keep talking about these amazing character moments, because they’re the parts that I think need to be read firsthand to truly appreciate, but also I need to talk about the scene with Cap and Shin later in the book. They need to get Tokyo evacuated, but as a group of outlaws, the Ultra Guard doesn’t think they have the credibility to get people to listen. Instead, they leave it to Captain America to introduce himself, immediately earn the public’s trust, and get them to get the heck out of there. The speech is delivered so perfectly that you completely believe that people would actually listen. I was in Tokyo when I read this comic and I was ready to get up and leave too. Shin sees Cap’s amazing ability to inspire and realizes that it’s something he also needs to aspire towards if he wants to make the difference he’s hoping to as Ultraman, and Cap provides him with some genuine wisdom. The decision to make Sam Wilson Captain America has received (unjustifiable) criticism within the world of the comics and in the real world as well, but I dare anyone to read this and say that he doesn’t deserve that shield. He’s a man who’s struggled against adversity his whole life and even moreso after taking up Steve’s mantle, but he wears it with pride and gives each of us a look at what it means to be the best version of yourself. Not only is it a great Cap moment, but it also fills me with hope for what we’ll see Shin grow into down the line. 

None of this isn’t to say that the big moments aren’t amazing. Whether it’s Ultraman and Captain Marvel tag-teaming kaiju, or the Avengers facing an alien cyborg, they’re all awesome. Francesco Manna knows how to draw a spectacle and he delivers throughout the book. The amount of detail on every page is mind-boggling and each scene is full of kinetic energy even when it’s just characters talking. And that final page... just wow. It’s an amazing moment that I can’t believe we’re already getting two issues in. As great as it is, there’s an implicit promise that there’s even more to come. 

This book was just so good. Not only does it deliver on the large-scale action you’d expect from its premise, but it’s filled top to bottom with some of the best character-writing I’ve ever seen. If you told me they resolve everything midway through the next issue and the rest of the mini-series is just these characters sitting around talking, I’d already be throwing my money at you. This creative team is an absolute force and this book can’t be beat.

Detective Comics #1089 written by Ram V and Dan Watters with art by Guillem March and Christopher Mitten

“There’s still time for truth, justice, and one last tune.”

Here it is, the final issue of Ram V’s gothic bat-opera. Looking back on this run in its entirety, the ride we’ve been on has been utterly insane. Those early issues had so much going on, so many disparate elements that there seemed to be no way the whole thing could wrap up cohesively. And yet, here we are. The Orgham Queen is making one last strike against Batman. Killing him may be the goal, but all she really needs to do is delay him long enough for her machine to inject the fear of Johnathan Crane aka Scarecrow into the psychological underpinnings of Gotham. If she can do that, then the city is hers no matter what Batman throws at her. But Batman is never alone and his allies and enemies alike come through and deliver on their promises to help him take back Gotham’s soul. Of course, Gotham hasn’t forgotten it’s child either and we see that whether they remember him or not, Batman is a part of Gotham and it’s people, giving them the will to rise up and resist those who try to deny the least of them. Everything Batman touches becomes irrevocably changed. Even more recent enemies have found themselves with new perspectives after meeting him, gaining the strength to choose their own paths. Batman finds Johnathan Crane wrapped up in a horrible machine, tortured to the brink of whatever sanity he had and realizes that he can’t stop the machine. Faced with the choice of either letting the machine run its course or killing Crane, Batman reveals what it truly means to be Gotham’s darkness. 

What he does reverberates throughout Gotham and is felt by every person within. There’s a brief interlude by Dan Watters where we follow those reverberations and their soul-shaking consequences. There were those who chose to work with Batman purely out of necessity and thought they could just walk away and return to how things were when the fight was over, but there is no walking away from what’s happened. A person cannot go on a journey and reach the end the same as they were before. Even if the world remains frozen in time until the journey’s end, life would still be different. These don’t have to be massive shifts in perception or perspective, they can be subtle changes with one returning to the life they had before only to find it no longer fits them the way it once did. Now, having realized that they’ve changed, the only thing to do is set out on a journey once more. To journey and change means realizing that the status quo is an adversary rather than a place of safety. Each character in this tale has journeyed and changed in some way, not just the rogues. Renee Montoya has found herself once more donning an old mask in pursuit of answers to new questions. Jim Gordon has rediscovered a sense of purpose and a way to bring justice to Gotham from outside its system. Azrael finds his faith restored and reinvigorated. Things return to normal and nothing will ever be normal again. There’s a beautiful poetry to Ram V’s work on this book as the dread permeating the earliest issues gave way to hope and revelation and now ends as a new kind of darkness falls on Gotham. Batman has been redefined and, in turn, so has the city and the night. 

Guillem March is a great artist who has done a ton of top-tier work on Batman over the years, but there is one particular page of this issue that makes it clear that he is the perfect artist to end this tale. In the moment where Gotham sees its darkness, we see it too and it feels like the culmination of everything this run has been building. It’s something primal and terrifying that will become a part of your heart as much as it becomes part of Gotham’s. Christopher Mitten is the artist for the interlude and gives us moments of ice and fire as the city and its people are reforged. His art style is distinct and gritty and the differences with March’s make the interlude feel more intimate, like these characters and their moments have been tucked away from the epic taking place right above them. The whole book is so thoughtfully constructed and never feels disjointed despite the number of people working on it. In the spirit of the opera the series was inspired by, the multitude of voices harmonize together to add even more depth to the tale. 

Reaching the end of this story is bittersweet, but it’s a truly remarkable ending. This was a single story that ran for over twenty-five issues. Over the course of this story, we met allies and enemies, new and old alike. We watched Batman experience victory and defeat, go on a journey and change, and ultimately renew and redefine what it means to be Batman in the first place. Having been on this journey with him, we may very well find ourselves changed too, but all that means is that it’s time to set out on a journey once again.