Best of the Decade #2

During 2009, I spent a lot of my comic-reading time reading stories from the Thirties forward. By and large, the older stories were formulaic and offered no surprises to readers who remembered how the previous month's stories went. The hero received notice of a problem; he faced the problem; he beat the problem. Repetition of this formula continues to the present day, although by and large, for a story to be interesting, it has to offer something else. In my view, the opening scene of Final Crisis #5 simply carried out this simple formula to perfection, and if the genre were to be summed up in six pages (the typical length of a Thirties story), it would be hard to do better than Grant Morrison's depiction of Hal Jordan bursting free.

The story up to that point was one of unstoppable losses for the heroes. The strongest players in the DCU were either banished, captive, in retreat, or diminished. Darkseid's grip on Earth had been hammered home in issue #4, and the heroes who were holding on showed broken confidence in their defiance. Issue #5 opened with a hero who by definition refuses to acknowledge underdog status. And so Hal Jordan faced a trial whose outcome he had already predicted with, "I'll be fine."

The trial concept was, in fairness to earlier creators, a refinement and retelling of earlier stories. In Green Lantern v2 #11, writer John Broome put Hal on trial on Oa for the first time. Later, Steve Englehart's wonderful story in JLA v1 #140-141 repeated the premise, with the Manhunters in that story serving very clearly the inspiration for the Alpha Lanterns in Morrison's version. In all three stories, Hal was being framed; in all three, he went willingly before the Guardians. And in Final Crisis, Hal was utterly confident that he was to be vindicated by the proceedings.

The last-minute appearance of Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner turned suspicion to Hal's accuser, the Alpha Lantern Kraken who was hosting the mind of Darkseid's crony Granny Goodness. When she took advantage of her location to try to seize the power of the Central Power Battery, Hal Jordan effected the miraculous turning of the tide that defines superhero comics.

Despite being the only person in the room who did not have the power of a Green Lantern ring, Hal broke apart his green-energy chains and ran across the room to charge the evil god with pure physical intimidation pitted against her power ring. With a head-butt and a left cross, he put the villain on the floor while a veritable squadron of Green Lanterns did little more than watch and defend themselves. For the record, the matchup of fists against Kraken's power ring was the same struggle Batman had lost three issues earlier.

With his own imprisonment suddenly cast off, Hal heard of the predicament of Earth, and the possible universe-destroying threat created by Darkseid's fall. Against the backdrop of the Justice League on the run and the Justice Society under siege -- with Batman and Wonder Woman trapped and Superman sidelined -- the news of Darkseid's conquest was received with awe even by the Guradians. This same threat prompted Hal merely to reach out and accept the most powerful weapon in the universe in his outstretched palm and give a cocked-head promise to kick Darkseid's ass. So the tide of the crisis turned, and in perfect born-without-fear style, Hal showed as much concern for the task of beating Darkseid as he might have shown for removing a raccoon from a garbage dumpster. Sealing the victory, a Guardian declared Hal innocent of all charges and announced that Jordan had 24 hours to save the universe. An interesting quirk of this scene, one I regard as virtually untoppable for its purity, was that it was released for free on the web as the preview for the issue.

Just one scene remains in this countdown, and the only hint I'll give is that it was penned by a writer who hasn't made the list so far.

Best of the Decade #9

Doctor Fate began as an almost disembodied entity, telling us early on that he'd always been Doctor Fate and had never lived as an ordinary mortal. That was soon retconned with one of the great origin scenes of the Golden Age, with the channeling of Egyptian magic into a young Kent Nelson, on the occasion of his father's death. Created in 1940, back in the day when superheroes always won, Doctor Fate lived long enough to die on the printed page, passing away with his wife Inza after a post-COIE career.


Brave and Bold v2 #30 revisits Kent Nelson's death, telling a story set entirely in flashbacks, retroactively explaining Nelson's death as a consequence of vanity, heroism, and fate. Green Lantern Hal Jordan
plays two roles in the story, both unusual for him -- one, as a victim to be saved, with Kent playing the savior; and the other, as a compassionate friend of Nelson (in original continuity, they met during JLA/JSA crossovers, but since COIE, they have always existed on the same Earth together). While the story skips about through time, showing, for example, the late Eighties Black Canary in cameo, the pivotal scene of the story features Hal begging Kent not to lend his assistance to Hal but to save himself. Things get philosophical, with the man of free will, who in Nelson's future knows of his eventual death, debating the man of fate. Nelson's adamant heroism and espousal of predestination make it no argument at all; Hal can't hope to convince his friend not to save him. And in an almost biblical moment, Nelson tells Hal to rejoice, for at that moment, they get to be together. Michael Straczynski's one-issue tale is deep and touching. It happens to be at the moment the most recent new comic I've read; my favorable opinion is no artifact of that recency -- it's poignant, builds on a rich history, and is a true story of heroism.


So far both of the scenes on my list have come from the same title; rest assured, that streak will not last. #8 is from another story that is long on talk and short on action, but this time between a hero and a villain.

Blackest Night: Quotes

Yesterday, I posted my guess as to who is the leader of the Black Lanterns. Because the San Diego Comic Con is ongoing, new information comes out by the day. In this post, I wanted to compile a humble collection of brief, but telling, quotations about where the series is going, particularly regarding the identity of the "big bad" -- or, if it's a more appropriate label, the big "dead". In addition, some facts from the comics that seem to point to that entity's identity:

Quotations from Comic Book Resources:

"Fans will learn a lot about the nature of the universe in Blackest Night as well as the big villain behind everything and much more."

Religion/deity based characters play a role? "The characters discuss it in #2. There's a very specific thing about the Black Rings that I don't want to reveal," Johns said. "You'll see something very interesting in issue 3."

Is there going to be an ultimate entity behind the rings? "You'll have to read and see, I know there's a lot of speculation but I think it's not what people are expecting."

Johns described the black energy as "not necessarily having a good component, but it's not necessarily evil."

Is a villain called Nekron involved in Blackest Night? Berganza: "Who's that?" Johns: "I can't talk about that."

Geoff Johns

"... I wanted to explore – why death is the way it is in the DC Universe. Or why it has been."

Facts from the comics:

The Anti-Monitor is spoken to by the villain and told to rise. Therefore, it seems very unlikely that the Anti-Monitor would be the villain.

Scar says upon Black Hand's death, apparently of the villain, "This pleases him", indicating that the villain is a male, and not her.

The modus operandi of the villain matches very well that of Nekron. But is this too obvious?

All sources of information regarding Blackest Night began with the entities on Ysmault. Qull and Atrocitus spread this information to others.