Reilly2040's Blog

Ok, initial reactions here. I’ve read the issue quickly (or at least, as quickly as I could) over lunch.

As I mentioned last week, following Superman Beyond #2, I was really worried about the implications for Final Crisis. And in some regards, I think I was definitely right. Superman Beyond is required reading for Final Crisis. No two ways about it. Stuff happens towards the end that’ll make zero sense if you haven’t read it. Grant Morrison admits its an essential part of the story during yesterday’s Newsarama interview, and to be honest, I’m quite annoyed DC aren’t including it in the hardcover (from April’s solicits). Frankly, I’d have bought the hardcover of this story, but the fact that its missing vital issues makes it worthless to me. Release the whole thing or don’t bother I’d say. Especially when you’re talking about having to spend the best part of £20 on a story that’s incomplete.  I’m willing to pay more if it means getting the complete tale.

Anyway, the issue came out yesterday, and reading the initial reaction, I was pretty concerned that this series had been blown in the final issue. However, aside from the above issue of Mandraak and Superman Beyond, I have to say I enjoyed it.

Which is not to say, its not without its problems. The storytelling is very disjointed, in a way I’m sure is meant to reflect the collapse of time caused by Darkseid’s death. That makes some things hard to follow, and I’m still trying to piece together a timeline of what actually happened (specifically everyone being evacuated to Earth-51 versus the lone survivors on the Watchtower/Fortress hybrid – although I’m assuming the events on the Watchtower must preceed the evacuation).

The Monitor scenes I find a bit confusing as well. I’m not really sure what they added to the story at all, other than setting up the character of the exiled Monitor. Although their role is more carefully looked at in Superman Beyond, so taking that series as part of the whole maybe it’ll make more sense.

Talking of the Monitors, to be honest, was Mandraak really needed here?  This issue could’ve comfortably skipped that whole plot and been about the heroes trying to save the universe from the singularity resultant from Darkseid’s fall.   That whole aspect could’ve been jettisoned I feel and the story wouldn’t have lost anything (and gained the advantage of being more self-contained with the 7 issues).

All of which sounds very negative, but I do think there’s a good, epic story here, although its going to need careful re-reading, and I really think I’m going to dig out all the issues (and Submit and Superman Beyond) and read the whole thing back-to-back in the order Grant Morrison intended (barring the Batman issues, as I didn’t buy them).

Has this been a successful event? I’ve enjoyed the main mini-series, although the tie-ins generally had little to do with the events of Final Crisis, and that caused a loss of momentum for me, which Secret Invasion had (even though the main series was much less enjoyable). I think generally, Final Crisis hasn’t been viewed that well, seen as confusing and inpenetrable to non-hardcore DC readers which really hasn’t done it any favours, although I’m unsure how true that is.

I’m looking forward to passing the complete series off to my Marvel-reading friend, who reads very little DC, and seeing what he makes of it.

If you’re measuring success in terms of sales, then there’s no doubt Marvel cleaned up with Secret Invasion, so it’ll be interesting to see what Blackest Night brings to the table. Zombies are an easier sell than this story about evil Gods and the breakdown of the multiverse, so maybe the general readership (at least the online one) will go for it more.

Final Crisis has been an attempt to do something a bit different for the big event.  To write a story more meangingful than the usual “aliens turn up.  Heroes pound them into the dirt” summer event.  And for that, you’ve really got to applaud DC.   I’ve enjoyed it, and at the end of the day, since I’m buying the comics for myself, that’s what really matters.

Last week featured a big episode in new Knight Rider, as KARR was reactivated in the wake of Graiman’s death.

First thing to get out of the way, is that really the rematch was a disappointment. KARR himself was pretty much spot on. The Mustang with the yellow scanner was chilling (and underused to be honest), Cullen’s voice was a nice touch, and his personality suitably malevolent (owing more to the personality seen in KITT vs KARR, than Trust Doesn’t Rust). The main problem was that basically the fight was too short and we can thank budget cuts and the credit crunch for that.

But what we got was excellent. As I say, KARR himself was exactly as I’d hoped he’d be, and the CGI for KARR and the fight was brilliant. Its just a real shame that it got cut back. To be honest, this would’ve been a killer 2-parter, with KARR coming back online and breaking loose at the end of part 1, and chasing Mike and KITT for part 2.

However, despite the fight being a disappointment in its length, this was still a good episode. There was a lot of action and suspense, with the SSC and Knight Research being shutdown and Sarah desolate over her father’s death, its left to Mike, Billy and Zoey to break into the shutdown SSC and try to figure out where the NSA have taken KITT (as they needed his CPU to reactivate KARR). This gave us a look at the new direction for Knight Rider, with a much paired-down cast, no Government connections, and the NSA likely gunning for them.

While I worry about the show’s future in the wake of creative disagreements between NBC and the creators, budget cuts, and ratings that are debatable, I still honestly believe this is a show that would really benefit from a second season.  There’s been some really solid, fun episodes, none moreso than the previous 3.    And now the reboot is going through, I really think the show will be stronger for it.

And, of course, if they could resurrect KARR for a proper rematch that would be great.  It’d be a shame to see that yellow scanner go to waste.

I’m still trying to limit myself a bit with some of the Dark Reign titles, however this month I’ve still found myself picking up a few extra books, just to see the new status quo.

Out of all the books this month though, the must-buy really had to be Dark Avengers #1, which saw Norman setting up the new “official” Avengers team of the Marvel Universe.

In terms of the identities of the Dark Avengers, there weren’t too many surprises. I had been hoping for a twist and it not to be Norman in the Iron Patriot suit, but they’d all been pretty much guessed before the issue itself hit the stands (most being Norman’s Thunderbolts team in new identities).

The surprise was instead that these villains are actually assuming the identities of the heroes, with Venom now known as Spider-Man, Moonstone as Ms Marvel and Bullseye as Hawkeye. This is going so far as to have Moonstone taking over the Ms Marvel title (a move that could backfire if not written carefully). Of course, how this would really work in the Marvel U is questionable. Anyone seeing Carol Danvers flying around, or Peter in his red-and-blues are going to know straight away that they’re the proper versions and the ones in the Avengers are just fakes. It’ll be interesting to see how this gets addressed.

For me though, the big moment of the book was when Norman discovers one of Tony’s armouries hidden in Avengers tower.

Ignoring the fact that Tony was a complete idiot for leaving it there after Norman took over (although maybe he’s left some safeguards that’ll come up in future issues – Norman flying around in a nicked suit of Tony’s armour may bite him on the backside bigstyle), this is a huge event.

Tony’s always been incredibly protective of his armours. He went nuts during the armour wars after discovering that some of his (much older) Iron Man designs had leaked to supervillains. Now Norman Osbourne has access to entire array of armours, up to one of Tony’s most recent designs (going by the look of the Iron Patriot suit). The catastrophe for Tony this represents is huge, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how it gets addressed in the Iron Man monthly.

I’m quietly hoping one of the armours in that room is actually one of Tony’s old teleprescence suits. It’d be nice to see Tony turn the tables on Norman’s discovery by it giving him a “man” inside Norman’s operations at Avengers Tower.

One thing I will agree with Norman on though, is the scrapping of that red-and-gold helicarrier. That thing looked ugly. What was Tony thinking?

The joys of following Rich Johnston on Twitter.  He posted up a link to this earlier today

Or should that be Red Lantern #37?

So the action picks up where we left off, with Hal and the two blue lanterns heading to Ysmalt to rescue/recapture Sinestro from Atrocious and his Red Lanterns.

This issue serves as a really good tease for what’s coming up with the war of light I felt. Of course, Hal charges ahead, as he’s distrustful of the Blue Lanterns, and feels that Sinestro needs to be dealt with once and for all, rather than rescued. However, he walks straight into a trap and is jumped by Atrocious and his Red Lantern army, and its not long before Hal’s ring is failing with its power drained by the red flame.

Its at this point, things really kick off, as the Sinestro Corps turn up on a rescue mission of their own. They free Sinestro and give him his ring back. Walker and the other Blue Lantern turn up and give Hal a much-needed power boost, and try to grab Sinestro and scarper. Hal refuses to leave Laira behind though, and tries to save her. He’s just getting through to her when Sinestro kills her. Overcome by rage, Hal goes to execute Sinestro on the spot: and promptly finds himself recruited to the Red Lanterns.

Its a cracking issue once again.  And no surprise that Green Lantern had sold out by the time I got to the comic shop.   We really get a taster of the war of light here, with Green, Blue, Red and Sinestro Corps all kicking off on Ysmalt.

I’m sorry to see Laira get killed off her though.  I do have to wonder why Geoff went to the bother of bringing back Lost Lanterns, when all they’ve done since being resurrected is get killed off.  It does mean that their coming back seems to have purely been to ensure that Hal was absolved of their murders.  So far Arisia and Boodikka are really the only two getting anything to do.  Although I’m really not sure about the hinted romance building between Arisia and Sodam Yat.

Anyway, so as we leave the issue, Hal has been recruited to the Red Lanterns.  I’m guessing the fact that he still has his GL ring on could prove vital here, especially with the awesome powers exhibited by the Blue Lanterns.  I reckon a combination of Hal’s willpower, and the power-boosting abilities of the Blue Lanterns will allow Hal to shake off the red ring.  Nicely it’ll also force Hal to confront his own rage over Sinestro’s betrayals.

Interestingly then, what does this mean for the “new ring” tease in the April solicits.   Since Rage of the Red Lanterns is set between Final Crisis #1 and #2, we know that Hal is a Green Lantern once again by the end of this arc, and presumably refuses Ganthet’s offer (unless he says he’ll think about it at the end of this story, gets caught up in Final Crisis, and then goes back to Ganthet – but I suspect Hal is going to stick by his stance at the beginning of this issue, that he’s a GL and that’s that).

So why does Hal have a new ring?  I wonder if its a new type of GL ring issued to Hal when he’s given the job of tracking down Agent Orange.   We’ve seen the Blue Lanterns interfere with GL comms, and the Red rings depower GLs and can possess them without too much trouble.   Maybe the Guardians react to this and introduce some new type of GL ring specifically adapted to combat the threats of the various new Corps?

I’m really not sure what to make of Superman Beyond. Dealing with the Monitors and the subplot of Lois being near death, this 2-part series has basically filled in the gap of where Superman was while everything was going to Apokalyps in a handbasket back on Earth.

My immediate thought is that, as this is the first 3d comic I’ve bought. I’m not overly thrilled with the gimmick. I didn’t really feel it added anything to the book, and for me it just made the art distracting, and at times I was struggling to follow what was going on. There was quite a lot of story going on in these two issues, and I really didn’t feel the 3d stuff helped make it any easier to digest.

As for the story. I kind of followed what was going on, but I’m really not sure I really got that into it. The stuff with the monitors being vampires and Superman’s essence possessing a giant statue of himself just really seemed a bit too out-there for me. I can’t help but wonder if there was maybe enough going on here to make it a three part story?

Out of the tie-ins so far, this is undoubtedly the one that’s worked for me the least (a pity, as I usually enjoy Morrison’s stuff). However, its also the one that leaves me the most worried.

I’m really concerned that this 2-parter is actually going to be required reading for Final Crisis #7. There were hints in Final Crisis #6 about a great threat if mankind pierced the bleed, and this series seems to indicate its Mandraak. If Mandraak does turn out to be the main villain in Final Crisis, I’m going to feel a bit cheated by the FC mini-series, as he’s not been mentioned at all. However, I still hold out hope that its mis-direction. I’m not convinced Darkseid was defeated by Batman last issue, as Barry says that he holds the key to defeating Darkseid. Since Barry hasn’t really done anything yet, there’s obviously still stuff to come.

My key problem is that Final Crisis should tell its own story. Take the upcoming hardcover in the April solicits. All it contains is Final Crisis #1-7. Now, there’s already a gap in that story, as Lois goes from blown up in FC #2 (I think), to walked around without a scratch in FC #6. No explanation within those issues. I’m really worried that Superman Beyond is going to cover ground that’s going to lead to much bigger gaps in the FC #1-7 story.

Heck, as it stands, I really think Final Crisis: Submit should be included in that hardcover.

So, I await issue 7 of Final Crisis with baited breath. I’ve been outspoken in my love of the story so far, but will Mandraak ruin it all? Or will my worry be for nothing, and it’ll all be presented in a way that makes sense, without bothering with the Superman Beyond backstory?

Gah, I’m going to be so skint!

Its been a bit of a shock, but the previews of the Blackest Night figures hit the web the other day, and brought with them some pretty big spoilers, in that we’ve seen our first look at two of the Black Lanterns: Martian Manhunter and Earth-2 Superman. I imagine that Kal-L at least is something that DC would have preferred to keep quiet, but then I guess its hard to balance those needs with the desire to also get an action figure out alongside the story.

I’m of mixed opinion as to Earth-2 Superman being resurrected in this way after Infinite Crisis, however its probably a bit premature to get worked up about it, since all we have is an action figure preview and we still don’t really know anything about the story itself. So I’ll probably talk more about that once the Blackest Night solicits start coming out and we get a clearer picture of what’s happening.  

However, the figures themselves look excellent. I’m definitely wanting most of those and its really nice to see Kryb being featured, since she’s only appeared in the GLC title and not the main Green Lantern book.

After the massive dissappointment of the last wave, which I skipped in its entirety (although I must try and track down a Sinestro Corps Sinestro at somepoint) its nice to see this varied lineup taking full advantage of the large cast of characters. 

It’ll be nice to have a new John figure to go along with the Hal and Guy figures.  No Kyle yet, although many are already speculating that since there’s no Orange Lanterns in this line up, there may be another set of figures we’ve still to see and those could include Kyle in his new outfit.  Of course, given the recent GL solicit, maybe we’ll also have a Blue Lantern Hal to look forward to?

This is great.  It was filmed in Liverpool St Station on the 15th.   Must’ve taken a heck of a lot of planning.

Well, I say finale, but that’s not really the case, as it quickly became apparent that the New Krypton arc, was infact just the setup for the next year or so of stories.

Its not often I feel like this about most modern comic plots, but I really felt this could’ve been a bit longer.  I’d have liked to have seen more buildup to relations between the humans and Kryptonians breaking down.  As it was, the fact that Alura was a bit of a nutter just accelerated everything without the need for a gradual breakdown.

However I think this has been a really successful storyline, and I’m intrigued to see how things develop over the next year.  Obviously General Lane is as barmy as Alura, although I wonder if his resurrection will help explain this.  And the prescence of a planet of Kryptonians that Earth’s virtually on a war footing with opens up a lot of questions.

For me though, the interesting thing will be seeing how this all affects the character of Superman.  Ignoring how he’s really lost any special standing as the last son of Krypton over the last few years (and in fairness, its been done before: Lois and Clark back in the 90s had a planet of Kryptonian survivors as well), to me, a big facet of Clark’s personality has been his drive to keep alive Kryptonian culture, and his reverance (if that’s the right word) for it, with the fortress and the big statues of his parents.  That kind of thing.

However, in the post-IC DCU, Kryptonians are really not that great a bunch of people.  We know from Kurt Busiek’s Third Kryptonian arc that on discovering their powers under yellow suns, Kryptonians had formed a galaxy-spanning empire, which left them pretty unpopular.  Eventually they realised that having an entire galaxy hating you wasn’t a brilliant long-term plan, and came to the conclusion that the yellow-sun powers had perverted their race, resulting in them retreating to Krypton and becoming insular,  focused instead on science and arts, becoming the Kryptonian society we’re more familiar with.

However, memories run deep, and it was established that a lot of space-faring species still remember the Kryptonian empire and would be happy to see any survivors wiped out.  It strikes me that a planet full of them is going to eventually attract some unwanted attention.

We’re also seeing that history repeating itself.  With the powers of the yellow sun, Alura was pretty quick to declare Kryptonian’s superior to humanity, and that humanity ultimately didn’t matter by comparison.  And you can bet she’s not alone in that viewpoint.  The planet of New Krypton is a a powder-keg waiting to errupt, and I’m very interested to see how Superman intends to try to calm things down.  Especially with the reveal that Zod’s been freed from the Phantom Zone by Alura.

My point is, what is the impact of all this going to be on Superman?  To be blunt, from what we’ve seen in this arc, and learnt from the Third Kryptonian arc, you can imagine that he’d be a guy who’d be pretty ashamed to be a Kryptonian.   Granted, this is stereotyping (we know Jor-El, Zor-El, Lara and Kara Zor-El are fairly decent Kryptonians at least), but would Superman really be that proud of being the last son of a race known for intergalactic conquest, and who caused all those problems on Earth within 5 minutes of arriving there?

 It was one thing when we discovered Krypton’s history as an empire builder before realising the error of their ways, and I thought that added an interesting new element into their history.  But when we’ve got that history repeating itself in the current DCU, then I think that’s got further-reaching implications.

For myself, I’d like to see the upcoming World of New Krypton series allow Clark to explore the positive aspects of Kryptonian society.  We’ve seen so many negative aspects recently, let’s see Clark meet up with groups of Kryptonians that want to seek peace with Earth and share technology and the like.  Let’s hope it gives us a balanced view of their society, rather than just Alura and Zod foaming at the mouth, and let’s Clark experience some joy in being a Kryptonian amongst his own people for a change.

It’ll be interesting to see how long this lasts as well, and the ultimate fate of New Krypton.  Something obviously has to happen eventually that will see the number of Kryptonians in the DCU reduced once again.  Or at least, that New Krypton will be moved off to its own corner of the DCU where it can be effectively ignored until a writer has an idea for it.  

As for the events on Earth, well I have to admit, I’m not really interested in the Mon-El stuff, or the Legion turning up in Adventure Comics (despite DC’s current love-in for the Legion, I’ve never really gotten them).  The Nightwing and Flamebird stuff does look interesting though, although with Zod and co free, and Ursa turning up in Action Comics, you do have to wonder if the Connor stuff was a misdirection, and instead Nightwing’s going to be a magically-aged Chris Kent, which for me would be a bit disappointing.  Although I like the character of Chris and would like to see him back, the tactile-TK reference was just too big a clue to it being a resurrected Connor to back off from.  However I’m still interested to see who these two characters are revealed as.

So for me, I think I’ll probably be limiting myself to the World of New Krypton book and Action Comics (at least for a couple of issues until I see where they’re going).  Supergirl I’m still undecided on.  There’s no doubt the book’s definitely a lot better for its recent creative reboot, but I’m still trying to keep a handle on the number of monthlies I’m picking up, especially with recent price increases, so Supergirl may be a casualty of that.

I’d missed the news originally, but the X-Com series of games have been added to Steam by the new owners of the franchise, 2K Games.   As an added bargain, last weekend they were on sale making them only £2.99 for the complete set of UFO, Terror from the Deep, Apocalypse, Interceptor and Enforcer.

For those that have never played these games, its a classic strategy series that sees you running the organisation (X-Com) and responsible for defending Earth from the invading alien hoardes.   This management takes place across two main game-modes.  The first, the Geoscape, is a management window, where you recruit troops, buy equipment, research alien technologies, build new bases, and launch interception missions against the UFOs.

The second game mode is when you launch a ground assault against alien bases, and grounded UFOs.   Here the game switches to an isometric squad-based strategy game, typically turn-based, where you take direct control of your troops and clear the area of invading aliens, or attempt to capture them.

Now I already owned most of these, but Apocalypse has been pretty stubborn about running on anything after Windows 2000. So for £2.99 I figured it was more than worth it to have XP-friendly versions of these games.

Having now installed UFO and Apocalypse, I was amused to see that they’re running ontop of a pre-setup version of DOSBox.  I hadn’t expected that, but its nice to see it being used to make these older games available to the mass-market once again, and it strikes me that there’s no reason this couldn’t also be done with other old games.

I must admit, its great fun playing Apocalypse again after all these years. I know a lot of people don’t rate it as highly as the earlier games, but for me I always found it fun.  I’ve always quite enjoyed the (new to this game) realtime combat when it gets particularly mental and the troops start laying waste to whatever building they’re in.

However I’m surprised by UFO and Terror From the Deep running ontop of DOSBox. This is because I also bought the X-Com Collector’s Edition pack a (good) few years back. The interesting thing about this release (which contained the first four games, and Email X-Com), was that they’d ported UFO and Terror to DirectX, so they run natively on Windows XP with no problems whatsoever. I’d have thought these versions would’ve been the better ones for 2K Games to use, especially since I noticed that the Steam version of UFO isn’t entirely happy with my widescreen monitor, and the top and bottom of the window disappears off-screen, a problem that doesn’t exist on the DirectX port.

However, if you can’t get ahold of the Collector’s Edition (and in complete fairness, these games aren’t easy to buy any more), its still great to have the option to buy them on Steam, and for the price they’re an absolute bargain (£2.99 each I believe) as these are the kinds of game that will suck you in, and before you know it, you’ve just completed a 4 hour stretch.  

Here’s hoping they sell well, and 2K Games decide to expand their Steam catalogue to include other DOS-based games.