Comic Book Crossovers: A Retrospective

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

OPERATION: GALACTIC STORM (MARVEL, 1992)

Author: Various writers and artists on different titles (there was no central miniseries); based on a plot by Editor Mark Gruenwald

I was not completely sure if I was going to cover O:GS here, since it was an Avengers-centric crossover; that is, all the titles involved starred members of the Avengers, such as Captain America and Iron Man. Ultimately, I decided that, since the Avengers is an eclectic team, formed of a few classic heroes plus various minor new ones that come and go, O:GS counts as major crossover, while one involving only X-Men-related characters (for example) does not. For example, unless I’m mistaken, the “Thor” used in this story is actually Eric Masterson, a human who replaced Thor in his own title for a while, and who later developed his own identity as the superhero Thunderstrike. So, to him, this WAS his first major crossover with The Avengers.

Background: O:GS was inspired by two things. The title obviously is a reference to Operation: Desert Storm, AKA as the First Gulf War (which had taken place the previous year.) Today we might look at it badly, but at the time it was considered a great military operation.

However, the main inspiration for the crossover was actually “The Kree-Skrull War”, one of the Avengers’ major storylines from the 1970s. In that story, two alien empires- the Skrulls, green-skinned shapeshifters from the Andromeda galaxy (which they call the Skrull galaxy) and the Kree, a human-like race form the Kree Galaxy (actually the Greater Magellanic Globular Cluster, a mini-galaxy that orbits ours) who had long hated each other, came to blows in our solar system, because Earth happens to be situated near a major hyperspace nexus (that allows intergalactic travel). The Avengers were involved, as were major characters from both sides, most notably Captain Marvel (not to be confused with DC’s CM, whose name trademark Marvel swiped after the original character had been inactive for decades) and the Supreme Intelligence, a supercomputer made from the brains of the greatest Kree thinkers. Marvel was in fact a Kree, but he quit their militaristic culture and became an Earth superhero instead. At the time, Marvel had been linked to Rick Jones (who was sort of the Avengers’ mascot) so that only one of them could exist in this universe at a time (the other forced to live in the “Negative Zone” dimension until the one on Earth used his “Nega-bands” bracelets to switch places.) It was in fact Jones who stopped the war, when the latent evolutionary powers of the human race where activated within him by the Supreme Intelligence. Though only temporary, those powers were enough to stop the space armadas of both sides of the conflict on their tracks. The two empires were forced to declare Earth a neutral territory. (Secretly, the Intelligence had arranged the Marvel/Jones “merger” in an attempt to jumpstart the evolution of the Kree species, which had stalled for a million years (as had the Skrulls’s). It hoped Marvel would gain some of humanity’s evolutionary potential from Jones, but the plan came to nothing when Marvel died of cancer years later, apparently childless (though supposed children of his have appeared since then.)

Years after the K/S war, another major space empire, the birdlike Sh’iar (they look human, but have feathers instead of hair) from an unidentified galaxy, was introduced in the pages of X-Men. So now there was a three-way power balance in our sector of the universe. This changed, however, after Galactus the Planet-Eater devoured the Skrull throneworld, killing the Emperor and his family, and throwing the empire into civil war. This was further compounded when a mad Skrull unleashed a wave of radiation in his galaxy that robbed the Skrulls of their shapeshifting abilities, locking them into whatever form they had at the time (one unlike fellow was trapped in the form of a desk lamp. ) Both events happened in the pages of the Fantastic Four series. The one Skrull who retained his shape-shifting was the Super-Skrull, an agent who had been artificially granted the powers of the Fantastic Four to battle them (he was on Earth when the radiation wave was unleashed.) His genes were then used to return that ability to the other Skrulls, but that was a slow process; for now, for all practical purposes, the Skrulls were no longer a feared intergalactic power.

Synopsis: The story begins when hostilities start between the Sh’iar and the Kree, for uncertain reasons; part of the Sh’iar war plans involved placing a stargate in our solar system.Its presence started causing instability in the Sun, so Earth’s heroes were forced to become involved.

The Avengers came up with Operation: Galactic Storm to deal with the situation. Gathering together all their current members, they decided to split into three teams: one team, lead by Captain America, would go to the Kree galaxy to try to negotiate for peace; another, led by Iron Man, went to the Sh’iar galaxy; while a third, led by The Wasp, stayed on Earth to protect it.

Naturally, all of the teams run into trouble. The ones in space were attacked by each empire’s superpowered teams- The Sh’iar Imperial Guard (which is actually a rip-off of DC’s Legion of Superheroes!) and the Kree Starforce. Meanwhile, Rick Jones and the Nega-Bands were stolen from Earth. At first, it seemed as if the Skrulls were behind the war (it turned out that the right-hand man of Lilandra, Majestrix of the Sh’iar, was a Skrull agent) and they did indeed have a hand in it, but the real mastermind was the Supreme Intelligence. Marvel’s nega-bands were used to make a “nega-bomb” that would emit radiation across the Kree galaxy at faster-than-light speed (similar to the device that depowered the Skrulls.) This was meant as a way to reactivate the Kree’s evolution; the war was just a cover for the operation. One problem: the radiation would KILL 90% of all life in the Kree galaxy, but the Intelligence didn’t care; the descendants of the survivors would be “better” Kree.

The Avengers eventually figured this out, but they were too late to stop the “Nega-Bomb” from exploding. In perhaps their biggest failure ever, the Avengers could only watch helplessly as trillions of living beings were murdered. This caused Iron Man’s team to demand that they find and kill the Supreme Intelligence as punishment. Captain America’s team disagreed, but couldn’t stop them in time. In a shocking twist, it did seem as if the Avengers had executed the sinister living computer.

Afterwards, the Sh’iar annexed the Kree galaxy, claiming to do so in order to help the survivors. This may have been true, but it was also a fact that, with both the Kree and Skrull empires out of the way, the Sh’iar now reigned as the supreme intergalactic power.

The heroes returned to Earth, where the killing of the Intelligence would cause a lot of arguments among them for some time to come.

And unknown to anybody, the Intelligence HAD survived, having displaced its mind elsewhere before its body was killed…

Consequences: The Kree remained under Sh’iar control for a while. They didn’t take it well, however, and also blamed the Avengers for the catastrophe; they would later try to kill them for it. The Supreme Intelligence would show up again, in particular during the “Maximum Security” crossover, where the Kree would be reestablished as a major space power (I’ll of course cover this later.) The Skrulls too would eventually recover, and in fact Marvel’s current Epic, “Secret Invasion” involves the Skrulls infiltrating the Earth.

Another important consequence was the establishing of the fact that the Avengers would sometimes split between the leaderships of Captain America and Iron Man. This would happen again later, most notably in the Civil War crossover, which I will also cover.

My Opinion: This crossover made clever use of events that had affected the interstellar politics of the Marvel Universe. It made sense that the weakened Skrulls would try to cause a war between its two rivals; and after many years, the unresolved plotline regarding the Intelligence’s plans to jumpstart the Kree’s evolution also was tied up. The Avengers showed great organization here, but ultimately not only failed but were divided by moral issues as well. I usually don’t like downbeat endings, but this was a well-written story that had the superheroes acting like real people for a change. And how ironic was it that the Kree were slaughtered by the power-objects of their greatest hero? The only flaw I find is that the whole “Stargate” thing sounded contrived, but I guess some reason was needed to justify Earth’s intervention. By that same token, WHERE were the X-Men (longtime allies of the Sh’iar) in all of this? Heck, Professor Xavier is even MARRIED to Lilandra!! I guess they must have been out fighting Magneto for the 100th time or something.

My rating: Good

Next: It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman! No, wait, it’s a huge artificial planet coming to destroy us! You will understand why there was “Panic in the Sky!” in the DC Universe!

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

OK, after an unexpected hiatus due to health reasons and excessive work, we are back!!

PANIC IN THE SKY (DC, 1992)

Authors: The artists and writers of the Superman “family” of titles; Editor Mike Carlin

“Panic in the Sky” is another crossover that I wasn’t sure I should include here, since it ran only in Superman comics published at the time, and it focused almost entirely on Superman-related concepts. However, several other superheroes besides Superman were involved, including some rarely seen at the time (such as the Metal Men) so I’m narrowly going to include it here.

The Superman titles- Superman, Action Comics, Adventures of Superman and The Man of Steel- each came out in a different week, effectively making Superman a weekly-published character, except that each tended to run its own plotlines. However, “Panic in the Sky” WAS a story that ran in all four titles, effectively being a weekly crossover. The title of the story was taken from an old Superman TV episode, as well.

Background: PitS (heh) was actually the final iteration of a story concept that had been used in Superman stories for years: that of Warworld, the artificial weapon-planet originally used by the alien villain Mongul, except now it had fallen in Brainiac’s hands. A little background is therefore in order.

Warworld first appeared in a Pre-Crisis (as in, before Crisis on Infinite Earths) story. In it, Warworld had been created long ago by an ancient race. Mongul (who is DC’s version of Thanos- even created by the same artist, Jim Starlin; this was his first appearance) found it with Superman’s unwitting help, but Superman and Supergirl destroyed it. (OK, so Warworld is a Death Star rip-off. It’s still an interesting menace.)

Post-Crisis, Warworld was reintroduced again in the Superman comics. Except now, Mongul had already obtained it and used it to form his own space empire. (As it turned out, three aliens were secretly the ones who really controlled it, and they had simply allowed Mongul to rule the empire in their place.) Warworld was now inhabited, and Mongul kept its citizens entertained with gladiatorial games. Their local champion was an honorable warrior called Draaga. Superman, having exiled himself from Earth after suffering from mental problems (that had been secretly caused by Brainiac) flew into Mongul’s territory and was captured and forced to take part in the games. He defeated Draaga but refused to kill him, baffling the warrior. Mongul himself took part in the battle (to avoid looking weak to the Empire’s people after Superman challenged him.) Superman defeated himas well, and the alien trio made Draaga their new puppet-ruler. During this adventure Superman found a Kryptonian computer, The Eradicator, which fixed his mind, and he returned with it to Earth. (Note: This story, in a more simplified version, was adapted as a two-part episode in the Justice League cartoon.) Draaga soon abandoned Warworld to look for a rematch with Superman, but instead fell in love when he encountered the new Supergirl (who was actually Matrix, an android from a parallel universe.)

Synopsis: Brainiac (who at the time was a telepathic alien rather than the better known evil robot version) took over Warworld. (I don’t know what happened to its secret alien controllers; presumably Brainiac just stole Warworld away from them.) He also took mental control over Draaga and Supergirl, and captured Metron, of the good New Gods. When Orion and Lightray, also New Gods, came to look for Metron, he also captured them. Joining forces with Maxima (an alien superwoman and queen of her own space empire who had been spurned by Superman) Brainiac then began moving Warworld towards Earth’s solar system, and even sent Superman a warning that he was coming! (I guess he felt this time he just couldn’t lose.)

Superman, naturally, didn’t wait for this two-bit Death Star to come to Earth, but rather brought together an army of superheroes and went to intercept it in space. While the heroes battled Warworld’s armies, Supergirl and Draaga managed to throw off their brainwashing, and even Maxima eventually realized she was aiding the wrong side. Brainiac tried to mind control some of the heroes, but The Flash, Maxima and the Metal Men defeated him, leaving him comatose, although Draaga died in the battle. Warworld was destroyed, though its alien inhabitants escaped.

My Opinion: I was really expecting more from this story. Then again, there isn’t much you can actually do with a Death Star type weapon in a superhero comic because they were not going to just let it destroy Earth, or even most other planets. In the end this was a generic story that basically tied up a plotline left loose from an earlier Superman storyline. It also brought “Supergirl” back to Earth (by killing off her lover, Draaga) and Maxima stayed on Earth for a while as well. She even joined the Justice League for a time! (You can see Maxima in one of the Superman animated series episodes.)

My Rating: Average

Next: The heroes of Marvel face- their own evil selves!? It’s the first of the Infinity Gauntlet sequels: “The Infinity War!”

[numerrik]

So what do you think of the upcoming ‘War of the Independants’ comic mini-series coming up?

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

So what do you think of the upcoming ‘War of the Independants’ comic mini-series coming up?

Well, Indie comics have never appealed much to me, with a few exceptions. Besides, they do not form their own contiuous universe, so this is just basically a publicity stunt for non-Marvel/Dc comics. That said, there’s no reason it can’t be very good on its own; it all depends on how well written (and drawn) it is. I’ll keep an eye on it and let you people know what I think later…

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

THE INFINITY WAR (MARVEL, 1992; 6-part miniseries)

Authors: Jim Starlin (writer), Rom Lin (artist)

Background: Infinity war is the first of several sequels to the successful INFINITY GAUNTLET crossover. Obviously, Starlin still had ideas for his characters, and Marvel was hoping to milk the franchise further. None were quite as good as “Gauntlet”, however.

Like IG, IW focused on the ADAM WARLOCK characters. They were all back, with the addition of the one major character from Warlock’s 70’s series that was not used last time: Adam’s future Evil Self, the MAGUS!

The Magus had been created at some point in Warlock’s future where he was captured by the Cosmic Entity called the In-Betweener, who combines both Order and Chaos (sounds like a cool name, until you find out that in reality, an in-betweener is a type of animator. ) The I-B wanted to force Adam to be his agent, and tried to brainwash him. Adam went insane, and escaped from the I-B’s strange dimension only to find himself thousands of years in the past. Now evil, dark-skinned and sporting a huge white… afro (hey, it was the 70’s! ) Adam renamed himself The Magus, and created a religion (the Church of Universal Truth- a thinly-disguised parody of the Catholic Church) that worshipped him as a god, and that came to rule part of the galaxy. Knowing he was in the past, The Magus worked toward making sure his past self would become him. But thanks to help from Thanos (who saw the Magus as a rival) Adam was able to prevent that future from happening… by killing himself with the Soul Gem!! This caused the Magus to never have existed, though Adam and his friends were still stuck in the “paradise” within the Soul Gem, until the events of the Infinity Gauntlet years later.

However, as you might remember I mentioned, at the end of IG Warlock was left in possession of the Gauntlet, though he was eventually forced to separate the Infinity Gems. What you didn’t know was that, while under the effects of the Gauntlet, Adam’s came to the conclusion that to be a worthy wielder of such power, he had to rid himself of BOTH all the good and all the evil within his soul- and he did! And his excised Evil took form as- The Magus!! (Though technically speaking, this isn’t the SAME Magus from before, it had all his memories and considered himself the same. He still had the 'fro, as well, though now it was tied back into a sort of Samurai hairstyle.) INFINITY WAR is the story of how the Magus planned to avenge himself on Adam, Thanos, and oh yes, become All-Powerful in the process.

Synopsis: This is a complicated story, so I’m going to describe the events in chronological order rather than the way they were presented in the series (since the Magus’ full plan was kept a mystery for several issues). The Magus wanted the ultimate power, which as you might guess, meant the Infinity Gauntlet! But, as you may also recall, The Living Tribunal had dictated that the Infinity Gems would never work together again. So the Magus worked out a plan to get that restriction lifted.

First, he gathered several “Cosmic Containment Units” (better known to us as Cosmic Cubes, the wish-granting “Eggs” of Cosmic Entities, one of which became The Beyonder) from several different realities, and then used their combined power to put Eternity, The Spirit of the Universe (and the Cosmic Being who had asked the Living Tribunal to intervene with the Gauntlet) in a state of stasis. This was discovered by Galactus, the Planet Eater (the Silver Surfer’s former master) who decided to investigate what had happened to his “father” bringing along the Surfer, Nova (his new Herald, a woman with Fire powers) and the Surfer’s old friend, the sorcerer known as Doctor Strange (thus providing a plot thread to be followed in the Surfer and Dr. Strange comics). Meanwhile, The Magus allowed Thanos (who at the moment had retired from villainy!!) to discover that he was existing again (and what he had done to Eternity) knowing that Thanos would contact Warlock (and the Infinity Watch) for help, and that in turn, Adam would decide that only by reassembling the Gauntlet would they be able to beat him. Adam’s team eventually crossed paths with Galactus’, and the big G decided to ask the Tribunal (in the name of the catatonic Eternity) to lift the restriction put on the Gauntlet- though this took a while, since the “Tribunal” had three faces, and the three had to argue with each other before they could reach a decision.

“But where do the rest of Marvel’s heroes fit in here? This is a crossover, isn’t it?” you may ask. The Magus went and created “doppelgangers” of most of them- sort of evil duplicates, though few of them were as smart as the originals, being more like monster versions (the Spider-Man doppelganger had six arms, for example). The Doppelgangers DID have the power to absorb the originals within themselves if they beat them, which allowed them to better impersonate the heroes- and two of them (the Mister Fantastic and Iron Man ones) managed to indeed replace the originals, and almost killed the rest of Earth’s heroes by gathering them for an “emergency meeting” that was really a trap! (Incidentally, I believe it was in this crossover that Marvel’s newest supergroups, the New Warriors (who are sort of their version of the Teen Titans) and the new version of X-Factor (not the original X-Men, but a bunch of mutants they had laying around unused) first participated fully.) Most of the doppelgangers were just cannonfodder, mostly meant to keep the heroes busy while Magus worked his plans, though two or three of them actually developed minds of their own in the tie-ins. But more on those later.)

Anyway, just before the Tribunal revoked its previous decision, Warlock (and the Infinity Gems) was captured by the Magus, who assembled an (inoperative) Gauntlet and put it on, waiting for it to activate as soon as the unsuspecting Cosmic Judge gave the order. His plan ALMOST worked- if not for a couple of unexpected factors.

First, there was the space hero Quasar, who had been charged by Thanos to try to destroy Magus using the Ultimate Nullifier, Galactus’ greatest weapon (which was once used by Mr. Fantastic for force Galactus to swear he would never eat the Earth) since it possessed the ability to make anything CEASE TO EXIST- even the whole universe!! The catch? Whoever used the Nullifier got nullified too. Not that it would stop a REAL hero, mind you. But anyway, Quasar found that he couldn’t get the Nullifier to “fire” (because Magus had detected his presence near his base and was jamming the device). However, Magus was SO sure he had everything figured out, he had overlooked two intruders in his base… DOCTOR DOOM and KANG THE CONQUEROR, AKA as Marvel’s OTHER two great Mastermind villains (besides Magus and Thanos) who it turns out had joined forces to investigate what was going on since the start of the miniseries (of course, they planned on betraying each other the moment their got their hands on Magus’ power sources.) When they attacked, Warlock actually helped Magus, on the theory that it was better to fight an enemy he knew than two he didn’t. Thanos showed up as well, only to get locked in battle with his doppelganger. Magus tried to call upon the power of his Cosmic Cubes- only to find someone had already stolen them!!! During the battle, the device jamming the Ultimate Nullifier was also destroyed, but just as Quasar “fired” it-
-The Living Tribunal arrived at a decision, and allowed the Infinity Gems to work together again.
POOF! The Magus became all-powerful, negated the Nullifier’s effect on him- and poor Quasar ceased to exist for nothing. (Don’t worry- thanks to his own cosmic connections, he got recreated in the Dimension of Manifestations, where Cosmic Beings go get physical forms to “wear” in the physical universe- and incidentally, where Magus got the stuff he used to create the doppelgangers from; this happened in the Quasar IW tie-in, of course.)

But just when it seemed like Magus had won, a now-awakened Eternity (and his opposite number, the female entity Infinity, who btw is Quasar’s patron) suddenly popped up (presumably awakened when the Cosmic Cubes were stolen) and wouldn’t you know it- Magus was no match for the two of them combined, since the Infinity Gauntlet was NOT complete- the Reality Gem on it was a FAKE! (You might remember that the person Warlock had entrusted it to was- Thanos! Apparently he and/or Adam had guessed what Magus wanted all along, and had used a fake Reality Gem in the gauntlet to trick Magus. Not bad!)

So anyway, Magus ended up being imprisoned in the Soul Gem world- where he planned to take over all the other souls and escape, except it turned out that, since he was only PART of a soul, he could not be seen or heard by the other souls! He was, in effect, a ghost in a world of spirits. How have the mighty fallen!

As for the doppelgangers, presumably most of them were killed in battle or ceased to exist when the cubes disappeared. There were a few exceptions, however:
-The Thanos doppelganger (who was intelligent) was absorbed by the real Thanos, rather than the other way around.

• Moon Shade, the doppelganger of Moon Knight (a Batman rip-off character who had his own Marvel series at the time) also developed his own personality, and began absorbing his counterparts from various alternate realities to gain more power (all of whom where parodies of other Batmanlike characters, such as Space Ghost) but was defeated by the “real” Moon Knight, as he was conveniently armed with Adamantium weapons that Moon Shade had a weakness to.
  -Similarly, Malice –an evil identity that had once been created by the villain Psycho-Man on the Invisible Woman’s mind- also now existed independently thanks to Magus’ actions, but she too was handled by the Fantastic Four.
  -The monstrous Spider-Man doppelganger hung around for a while, eventually becoming part of Carnage’s “family.”
  -Daredevil’s doppelganger, named Hellspawn, also hung for a while, causing trouble in that hero’s series.

Adam Warlock and his allies went back to guarding the Infinity Gems (even though the prohibition to their working together was now in place again) and Thanos was again in a truce with them… though he now had to reconsider what his place in the universe would be: hero or villain?

“But Wil,” you may ask: “Who stole the Cosmic Cubes?”

Remember I said the Magus was recreated when Warlock expulsed ALL the Evil and Good he had inside? What do you think happened with the GOOD part of his soul?

That’s right, it formed a new being as well- a FEMALE one, too (!) And now it was SHE who had the Cosmic Cubes. What would she do with them? That, you’ll find out when we reach the NEXT Infinite Gauntlet sequel!

My Opinion: Infinity War wasn’t as good as Infinity Gauntlet- it wasn’t as original, it used the doppelgangers mainly to keep the superheroes busy, and focused mainly to the Magus/Thanos/Adam interplay. Still, it WAS a well-written story, with lots of small twists and turns (I particularly enjoyed seeing the flashbacks to some of Thanos’ past in some of the tie-ins.) The art by Lim was adequate but seemed to skimp in places, such as the backgrounds of some of the battles. I think they could have done more with the story –imagine if EVERY evil version of a Marvel hero ever (and there have been lots, trust me) had teamed with Magus? Still, it was an enjoyable story, and pretty well organized, as crossovers go.

My Rating: Above Average

Next: While the heroes of Marvel were fighting evil versions of themselves, the heroes of DC were fighting an evil WITHIN themselves, as an old DC villain gets reinvented in a MAJOR way in ECLIPSO: THE DARKNESS WITHIN!

[Leareth45]

Good to see you working on this again, Wil. I never did get to read the Infinity Gauntlet stories and the stories that came after it though, but thanks to you I now have a better look into what happened in them.

[Ultratech87]

This all actually makes for good reading, though some of it is pretty confusing (i.e. the Infinity War above). Keep going with this, Wil!

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

Glad to see you folks are enjoying my efforts. Feel free to post comments anytime. And I’m doing my damnedest to make these stories make sense (they don’t always) especially for people who are NOT familiar with Marvel or DC’s literal legions of characters. If you still don’t understand something, just ask. (Though of course, nothing beats reading the comics by yourself. Infinity War, btw, IS currently available in a full-color, softcover trade, that collects the six issues and adds a few cool Thanos sidestories. I just read it at Borders so you people should find it too. Recommended.)

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

ECLIPSO: THE DARKNESS WITHIN (DC, 1992; 2-part miniseries, crossed over with 18 DC comics annuals)

Authors: Robert Loren Fleming and Keith Giffen (main series); various other writers and artists (Annuals)

Background: Just like Infinity Gauntlet brought back characters from an old Marvel series, E: TDW was a way to bring back an old DC comics villain, AND reinvent him as a major menace.

Eclipso is noteworthy as one of the few villains who was not invented to be somebody’s nemesis, but rather to star in his own series! Created by writer Bob Haney in the series House of Secrets in 1963 (back when it was an anthology series and not a horror comic) Eclipso was, like many of Haney’s creations, a very unusual “gimmick” character: In his case, he was a good man, scientist Bruce Gordon, who had been cursed by a mysterious “black diamond” so that, every time he saw a solar eclipse, he would transform into the supervillain, Eclipso! Fortunately, any bright flash of light would cause him to change back. Eclipso was his own nemesis, since Gordon constantly looked for ways to prevent his transformation, or to ruin his evil half’s plans. (At one point, their relationship changed so they would split in two separate beings rather than just changing into each other. This allowed for more direct conflicts between them.)

Eclipso was an interesting concept, but a little too gimmicky for his own good; it’s kind of hard to fear a villain who only appears when there’s an eclipse, much less if he can be beat by a flash of light!

After his adventures in House of Secrets ended, Eclipso only appeared occasionally. Then, Fleming and Giffen apparently decided to (or where charged to) bring him back, and to reinvent him into something more fearsome. And boy, did they!

The Eclipso miniseries itself was a new format: a new version of the “Annual Crossover” that had been used before. There was a two-part miniseries that introduced the situation in the first issue, resolved it in the second, with all of the tie-ins being sandwiched in the middle. It was a format that would be used on other occasions as well.

Synopsis: According to the new series, Eclipso was not just Bruce Gordon’s evil half- he was an ancient “God of Vengeance” who had been imprisoned on Earth’s moon. However, a “black diamond” found in Africa was connected to him, so that anyone who touched it while angry would be possessed by Eclipso. This was the diamond that had cursed Gordon, except here it was revealed that it was but a piece of the original, which had been cut into a thousand in the 19th century. For some reason, Eclipso was just PRETENDING to have only one host, to depend on Eclipses, and to act like any common supervillain; perhaps to gather information on the new heroes of the World? In any case, when the Daxamite hero Valor (who is related to a Daxamite from the INVASION crossover, and was a new version of the old Superboy character, Mon-El) visited Earth’s moon and found the palace on its dark side, precipitating Eclipso’s new plan to possess Earth’s heroes. Because it turned out, he could possess multiple persons at the same time, OR cause their “evil selves” to manifest separately, as long as they touched one of the black diamonds in while angry, which Eclipso’s pawns started to arrange.

Each of the Annuals had the heroes either become possessed, or fighting against someone who had been. Soon most of Earth’s major heroes had been “eclipsed” (it was easily to tell this because their faces would have a shadow across them.) Then Eclipso brought them all to his Moon palace, where he was freed and merged all of them into a single being under his control! However, he was then attacked by several other heroes that had been gathered by Gordon, including several (such as the fourth Starman) who possessed Solar Energy powers, that Eclipso WAS really weak to (not simple sunlight or any light). Still, it took Starman’s sacrifice (he blew himself up) to defeat Eclipso and free the possessed heroes. But Eclipso escaped to Earth, and would in fact receive his own series again (while poor Starman was allowed to die because his own series had been cancelled due to low sales. Oh, the irony! He was, however, resurrected in the fifth Starman’s series, years later.)

My Opinion: I think they went too far when they reinvented Eclipso. Sure, he made more sense now, but they made him TOO vicious. In his own series, he took over a (fictional) South American country, and then killed a bunch of (low level) superheroes that went there to stop him! Even worse, it was later revealed that Eclipso was actually the ORIGINAL Angel of God’s Wrath, who had been replaced with DC’s ghostly hero, The Spectre, after Eclipso disobeyed God’s orders and tried to kill Noah during the Great Flood (!) Eclipso was eventually destroyed by the Spectre (at the end of his series) though he’s already back in the DC Universe (as we’ll discuss when we get to the Infinite Crisis crossover.) I really prefer it that the comics stay away from messing with actual religions, especially if they just use them to create vicious characters and then let them loose. Also, having some of Eclipso’s manifestations be “monster versions” of certain people came across as something of a rip-off of what was going on in Marvel’s Infinity War at the same time.

My Rating: Average

Next: THE comics event of the 90’s… The Death of Superman!!!

[GG_Crono]

Death of Superman I’ve actually read. So woohoo.

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN (DC, 1992-1993)

Authors: Mike Carlin (editor) Dan Jurgens, Roger Stern, Louise Simonson, Jerry Ordway, and Karl Kesel (writers)

Background: I originally wasn’t planning on covering this storyline here, since it only crossed over the Superman family of titles (Superman, The Man of Steel, Adventures of Superman and Action Comics) but, since it DID involve other superheroes partially (the Justice League in the beginning, and Green Lantern in the final part) I decided to do it.

The idea of killing off Superman was an old one when they came up with this storyline; he had died in at least one “imaginary story” (DC’s old term for out-of-continuity stories) and suffered false deaths in-continuity (in at least one Justice League story.) However, this was the first time the idea was considered seriously since the Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot, so technically, for the modern version of Supes, it WAS his first death.

Not that it fooled most of us comic book fans. We knew pretty well that DC wasn’t going to really kill off their major character. Like with many other “dead”characters, it was obvious Superman would only “die” for a while, only to be brought back later, and likely very soon (I gave it one year; I was wrong- he came back in nine months.) It was the general media, for once showing a hilarious amount of comics-related naiveté, who believed the story was meant seriously and ended up giving the crossover an unexpected ton of publicity, which in fact caused DC to extend the story further than originally planned to milk it out. Ironically, originally the storyline planned was to marry Superman and Lois Lane –they were already engaged, in fact. But DC’s owners, Warner Brothers, were already using the characters in the TV series “The Adventures of Lois and Clark”, and a wedding was planned there too. So they told DC to put their wedding on hold until the TV show reached that point. This forced DC’s Superman comics writing team to come up another major storyline, and they decided that the (fake) death was going to be it. Btw, technically speaking this is actually three story arcs (The Death of Superman, Funeral for a Friend, and the Reign of the Supermen) but they’re just parts of a single story, so I’m covering them together.

Synopsis: The crossover, which like Panic in the Sky was effectively a weekly story running from one Superman title to the next, began when an unknown (and new) monster, Doomsday, burst out from the ground somewhere in North America, and began destroying everything on his path, for no reason at all (and never saying anything but growls). At first its appearance was hidden by a “spacesuit” but it was soon tore open in battle, revealing a creature not unlike the Hulk, but with grey skin, sharp bony protrusions everywhere and long white hair. The Justice League came to deal with it only to be easily beaten, with some members incapacitated. (Guy Gardner, a Green Lantern, had a leg broken; while Blue Beetle and Booster Gold lost their equipment) Superman shows up only to get bloodied too!! When the monster arrives on Metropolis and also incapacitates Supergirl (who you’ll remember was actually an android at the time) Superman, apparently realizing there was no time for plans or for more help to arrive, decides to go all-out with his strength. After a mutual punch-out that shattered windows for blocks around, both fell down, dying. Supes lasted long enough to die in Lois’ arms after asking if he had succeeded in stopping the monster.

Despite the best attempts of paramedics, no vital signs could be detected and he did not respond to attempts to revive him. Superman was declared dead. Doomsday, as the media named him, was also dead. The creature was then carried off by Project Cadmus, a secret government genetic testing laboratory hidden near the city.

A public funeral was held for Superman in Metropolis, attended by Lois, the League, most heroes and even Lex Luthor! (Who at the time was still pretending to be an honest businessman; secretly he was furious HE didn’t get to kill him.) He was also at the time romancing Supergirl (who had been created by a Luthor from another world) although it took her a while to self-repair. Afterwards she decided to take over protecting metropolis.
Naturally, the people hit the hardest where the ones closest to him –Lois, Pa and Ma Kent- none of whom could publicly reveal their ties to the fallen hero (out of fear of revenge by his enemies.) Pa even suffered a heart attack and fell into a coma. (Hmm, I don’t recall how Clark Kent’s simultaneous disappearance was explained at the time. I think Lois (who yes, already knew his identity) said he was on a secret assignment overseas or something.

Superman was buried on a tomb in the Metropolis Park. (Now that I think of it, the League could have claimed the body and given it to the Kents… but maybe they felt this was more proper.) It didn’t stay there for long, though: Cadmus stole the body! They tried to study his DNA only to find that he was STILL invulnerable and they couldn’t even scrap his skin off (though they did confirm his invulnerability was due to a skintight force field. Yes, this is canonical!) Lois and Supergirl, working together, found the body and got it back, restoring it to the tomb. (You know, the fact that the corpse was STILL superpowered should have been a clue that, maaaaybe, he wasn’t THAT much dead…)

Afterwards, they actually “cancelled” the Superman titles, for three months!! (This part was probably to fool the still-gullible general public into thinking that they really were going to leave Superman dead… and to help sell the Superman related merchandise, like those black armbands with the “S” logo on it. While that surprised me, I STILL didn’t believe it. I KNEW they were going to bring him back. What I didn’t foresee was the way they actually extended the storyline even further:

By bringing in not one, not two, but FOUR Superman pretenders, at the same time!!
One was a mysterious cyborg, who claimed to be Superman rebuilt with futuristic technology, though he didn’t remember by whom; another was a teenage clone (who insisted on being called Superman, not Superboy) created by Cadmus; another was a total mystery, a ghostly Superman who cold-bloodedly killed criminals, and operated out of the Fortress of Solitude; and the last wasn’t really a pretender a all, but rather a hero inspired by Superman: Steel, sort of DC’s version of Iron Man. Each of them was actually given one of the Superman titles to star in for a while. Pretty clever!

With Superman’s body found to be again missing, the public began to wonder if maybe one of the newcomers was really him! Meanwhile, Pa Kent had a “near death” experience where he helped his son’s soul to escape from the demoness called Blaze (with a little help from the Phantom Stranger). Pa awoke, certain that his son was coming back.

The Cyborg Superman found Doomsday’s body, took it away from Cadmus and left it on an asteroid, with a chip on it that would notify him if the monster ever revived. The “Last Son of Krypton” met Lois Lane and insisted he had Superman’s memories, but obviously not his emotions. He also had to re-charge his powers from a “solar battery” regularly.

Things started going crazy, however, when the Cyborg Superman attacked and apparently killed the Kryptonian, and captured Superboy! It turns out that this “Superman” is actually Hank Henshaw, one of the new Superman villains- a scientist who had been transformed by radiation into a pure energy being with the power to “possess” machines. Having found the spaceship that brought Superman to Earth (which contained traces of his DNA) he reformed it into the false Superman body. It turns out he had allied with Mongul to conquer Earth and turn it into another Warworld! To do this, they had to destroy two American cities and replace them with city-sized engines. Metropolis was going to be one of them; the other was Coast City, home of Green Lantern Hal Jordan, who arrived from space too late to prevent the destruction of his hometown.

Fortunately, Superboy escapes the villains, looks up Steel, and both of them run into a huge Kryptonian battlesuit… that has the REAL Superman –alive- inside!! It turns out that HE was the “solar battery” the Kryptonian was using! The Kryptonian was actually the Eradicator, the Kryptonian computer Superman had found in space. Superman had destroyed it after it tried to take over his mind, but it had reformed- except now, because it had Supes’ memories, it was confused as to who it really was. It was him who had stolen Superman’s body, in hopes of healing him (which succeeded, because Superman had only been in a coma because he had been buried, preventing him from getting the sunlight his powers needed.) However by draining him of his energies to power himself, the confused "Last Son of Krypton” had revived Superman- without his powers!!

Naturally this was a hard story to swallow, but the other heroes had no time to ponder it. Joining forces, the Supermen –plus Supergirl and Green Lantern- attacked the villains. Lantern defeated Mongul, and the Super-Team prevented the Cyborg from destroying Metropolis. The Eradicator was left in coma, but not before passing his powers back to the real Superman. Then Superman destroyed the Cyborg’s body, though his essence escaped.

Afterward, the story was made public, and people welcomed back Superman (who, btw, now had long hair- it had grown while he was regenerating, and he kept the long-haired look for a few years; it didn’t really fit him, if you ask me.) Struck over his loss, Jordan left for space. Steel and Superboy continued their heroic careers with Superman’s blessing (in their own series.) Even Eradicator eventually came back, as a hero. Henshaw, however, would remain a super-menace. Oh, and Doomsday came back, too, years later. See what I mean about comic book death?

(Oh, and eventually, Doomsday’s origin was explained: it turns out, it was created on KRYPTON, thousand of years ago, as a mad experiment to create a lifeform that could return from the dead. The result was an insane monster who hated all living beings. It rampaged across the galaxy until an alien race managed to kill it, and buried it in a primitive planet… Earth!)

This story was adapted –in a much more condensed form- as the Superman: Doomsday animated movie. I don’t recommend it, though. Although impressive, it’s also much darker than the comics were.)

Oh btw, this story also had a profound effect on Hal Jordan: he went mad with grief, killed the Guardians of the Universe and stole their power, becoming the menace called Parallax. This was done to replace Jordan and the Corps with a single, new Green Lantern. A pretty bad idea that most fans hated, though the new Lantern did eventually grow on us. They still brought back Jordan and the Corps and the Guardians, anyway, though it took almost ten years. More on this later.)

My Opinion: As I said, I could tell that TDOS was a publicity stunt from the start; but, it was pretty well handed, with good storytelling, nice ideas (like the four Supermen) and pretty good art throughout. Using a made-up villain, especially a brutish, mute one, to kill Superman seemed a poor choice to me, but they later made Doomsday more interesting. And while I feel they stretched things waaaay too long, in general I feel this was a successful Superman crossover.

My Rating: Good

NEXT: Infinity Gauntlet Part Three: Warlock’s good side unleashed… in “The Infinity Crusade!”

[Ultratech87]

The Death of Superman was one of my favorites despite not being able to fully read it all. (Or comprehend it much until years later.) If I remember right, they even had a game about it on the SNES. And yeah, you’re right about the animated movie. It’s not really that good, and after watching the animated Superman series before, it kinda pisses me off with the difference in voices and look. (Though it’s one of the few DC movies I’ve watched where they’ve had people killed. Made it look pretty dark even though that’s reality.)

Also made me think Supes was a hypocrite because of the ending where he goes and kills his clone. I thought he wasn’t one to kill living beings. Sure didn’t have any qualms about getting rid of his clone…

[d_Galloway]

The Death of Superman was one of the first crossover titles I ever read, and even though I never managed to finish the damned thing, it was still pretty impressive for the time. And yes, I was a dumb enough kid to think they would really kill him off. (I was, what, seven? Give me a break!)

Actually, I remember reading something about the series a few days ago. If you look at the four replacement Supermen, they all embody different attributes of the horrific period known as the 1990s. The Cyborg Superman was a cold, detached half-man half-machine that was actually a villain. The Eradicator was a few degrees away from being a superpowered Punisher. Superboy was a punk teenager that acted out against the establishment. Steel was an actual hero in many ways, but still had no powers and used a big sledgehammer.

If put in that context, it’s almost like DC was flipping off everyone that claimed Superman was out of touch with the rest of comics, by showing how his powers and such would NOT work with any other type of character. Superman may be the “Blue Boy Scout,” but that’s not a bad thing. When you consider how the general media likes to make things as angst-ridden and depressing as possible, with morally ambiguous characters and disgusting heroes, it’s even more important to have even a fictional hero that actually stands up for his beliefs.

In short, Superman doesn’t need to be Batman to be relevant. And now, I will go to bed.

[Valkyrie_Esker]

The justice league animated series was what made me feel truly sympathetic to Superman. After all, in his own words, “Living on earth is like me living in a world made out of cardboard. I have to treat everything like the most fragile thing, to keep from breaking it./” And then, he let loose against Darkseid with all his powers, and it was awesome.

I really think people are too quick to defame or insult superman, jsut because they can;t really comprehend what it must be like to be him. Hell, maybe it’s because he IS so powerful, is the only reason he can be so good. After all, how many evils in this world are caused because someone who normally feels helpless, comes into the slightest bit of power?

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

Gallo: You’re right in that at least part of the purpose behind the Death of Superman was to show readers how Superman just wouldn’t work as the more modern type of hero that was gaining popularity back then. Only Steel was a worthwhile successor, and probably only because they felt that not all of the “Pretenders” had to be dicks. (On the other hand, he was African American- though it was not obvious because of his armor- so maybe they were being a little P.C. there. Not that I mind.)

V: Indeed, that fight scene in Justice League point out perfectly what it is like to be Superman from HIS POV. This has been explored in stories before, but it isn’t done enough these days; my favorite Superman stories are always the ones where he has to weight what he can do versus what he SHOULD so. It pisses me off that many writers today say “Superman is hard to write, because he can’t be hurt”. Talk about missing the point.

EXTRA STUFF: Some things I forgot to mention above:

-Superboy was not an ACTUAL clone of Superman; remember that they couldn’t even scrape his “dead” body’s skin for a DNA sample. What they did was modify somebody else’s clone (the Cadmus Director’s, as it later turned out) to LOOK like Superman and to have an approximation to his powers (he doesn’t have supervision, for example.) The plan was to use the clone to trick the public into thinking Superman had revived, but to secretly be under the Government’s control; but some of the other Cadmus clones freed him before he was finished growing, therefore being only a Superboy. Years later, however, they changed this, and claimed Superboy not only DID have Superman’s DNA, but it had been combined with- Lex Luthor’s!? I guess Superboy Has Two Daddies. I think that was a stupid, pointless reboot, not that it matters anymore since they killed him off when DC comics lost the trademark to the Superboy name. (More on this later.)

-Parts of this storyline had already been adapted for the Justice League cartoon before they made the animated movie. You can see Doomsday in the episode with the Justice Lords (there, it was created by Cadmus) (episodes: “A Better World” and “The Doomsday Sanction”) and you can see a funeral very similar to the comic’s held for Supes when they believed the Toyman had disintegrated him (episode: “Hereafter”.)

[GG_Crono]

As great as the Justice League cartoon was, my biggest beef with it was their version of Doomsday. What Doomsday is is destruction personified, as mindless, brutal and unstoppable as a force of nature. Having him not only talk but be (seemingly) somewhat intelligent seems to go against the spirit of the character.

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

THE INFINITY CRUSADE (MARVEL, 1993)

Author: Jim Starlin (writer), Ron Lim (artist)

Synopsis: As you recall, Infinity War ended whit the “Cosmic Containment Units” used by the Magus being stolen by Adam Warlock’s good side, which was female (!) Infinity Crusade shows us what we she was up to with them.

Calling herself “The Goddess” this (supposed) being of pure goodness (see my comments below) had one goal: to destroy ALL EVIL! This made sense for someone like her, especially when she had so much power. She had gone on to find more CCUs from various universes, until she had 30 (!) There was a problem, though: the Units were actually the “egg” forms of certain Cosmic Entities, and while their reality-changing power could be used by anyone who touched them, they still had certain self-imposed limits. However, it would be possible to overcome those limits if enough will was applied against them. But it would take the combined will of ALL beings in the universe to do so! Thus, the Goddess set out to obtain just that.

First, she eliminated a potential threat, by stealing Thanos’ Reality Gem (the Infinity Gem Warlock had given him for safekeeping) AND using it to trap him into a kind of “reality warp.” She also sent Warlock to another dimension.

Then she used the units to create “Paradise Omega” a planet located on Earth’s orbit but on the opposite side of the sun. (Note: this is the same location where, years before, the planet Counter-Earth had been created by the High Evolutionary. It had since been removed by Cosmic Beings who put it in a museum (!) Counter Earth had been the location of Warlock’s first adventures, which were suspiciously similar to the life of a certain Messiah. He was even crucified there! It makes sense that his god-complex side would create her base there.) Then she began luring Earth’s heroes –those who had religious beliefs- to her side, telling them her goal and convincing them to join her cause. Most accepted, apparently of their own free will. However, actually they were being influenced by an effect generated by the Goddess using the CCUs, that caused those with religious faith to become fanatically devoted to her. This same effect was causing people to become non-violent on Earth, and some villains actually surrendered to the authorities! (Apparently, how much you were affected depended on your personal strength of will; the Nazi villain Baron Strucker, for example, was able to resist.)

Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four) was able to detect this effect (using his inventions) and correctly deduced that it was the cause of two of the team’s members (Invisible Woman, who is a Christian, and The Thing, who is Jewish) joining the Crusade. By following the superheroine Aurora (of the Canadian superteam Alpha Flight) whose split personality as a nun was attracted to the Goddess, he was able to find Paradise Omega. Despite the planet’s heavy defenses, he was allowed to land there. He asked to join the Crusade, but the Goddess realized he did not really trust her and she transported him back to Earth. Reed then began organizing Earth’s heroes against the Goddess’.

The Goddess nominated Moondragon (of the Infinity Watch, who, along with Gamora, also of the Watch, had also “joined” the Goddess) to lead the heroes while she retreated into the Cosmic Egg (formed from the combined CCUs) to begin spreading its influence across the universe. Moondragon proved to be a fanatical leader; using her telepathic powers –greatly increased by the Mind Gem- to both spy on Earth’s heroes (She struck down Professor X when he tried to telepathically contact her, leaving him in a coma) and to force those members of the Goddess’ army who were staring to show doubts –such as Spider-Man- back in line.

Meanwhile, Warlock returned to the universe and sought out Thanos, rescuing him from the trap Goddess had put him in. They started to plan what to do, when the demon lord Mephisto –an old acquaintance of Thanos- showed up and offered to share the information he had on the Goddess’ plans with them IF they swore to give him one of the CCUs after the battle was done. Warlock disagreed but Thanos accepted. (You know, they could have pointed out that, since the Goddess was planning to destroy ALL evil, Mephisto had no choice but to help them, or his goose was cooked. Mephisto then revealed the part about the Goddess needing the combined will of all the universe’s thinking beings –which she was slowly getting by spreading her “good” effect across space- to force the CCUs to do her will. However, since evil is a result of free will (as is good) the only way to end it would be the END the choice- which the Goddess intended to do by DESTROYING ALL LIFE IN ALL UNIVERSES!! (Geez, talk about fanatical!) THAT was her ultimate plan, which of course she hadn’t told her anyone. Not that they were likely to believe Thanos and Adam, especially if they told the heroes they had found out from Mephisto.

Meanwhile, Earth’s “unconverted” heroes attacked Paradise Omega. With help from the Silver Surfer (who had been converted, but eventually managed to throw off the control) they broke past its defenses and battled the controlled heroes. Pip the Troll (of the Infinity Watch) using the Space Gem, teleported to the Cosmic Egg, and actually managed to use it to turn the Goddess into a pillar of salt! (How Biblical.) Unfortunately, he spent too much time thinking what he would do with his new near-infinite power, and the heroine Silhouette (of the New warriors) who can also teleport, sneaked on him and knocked him out, restoring the Goddess to normal.

Meanwhile, Thanos, using the comatose body of Professor X as a conduit, tried to attack the Goddess mentally, but she resisted the attack. However, Warlock had come up with a plan. Since one of the taboos of the Cosmic Units was that they would not directly affect souls, Warlock had given his Soul Gem to Thanos and told him to use it to absorb Adam’s soul with it (he did not tell Thanos his full plan, probably so that the Goddess or Moondragon would not find it out.) Within the Gem, Warlock encountered his evil side, the Magus, who you might recall was imprisoned there at the end of “Infinity War”. Warlock asked for his help but Magus just attacked him. Thanos later used the Gem to send Adam’s soul against the Goddess, since the CCU power would not stop it. However, it seemed too late- a Cosmic Flame came out of the Goddess, consuming EVERYTHING in all realities- (even, supposedly, the people reading the comic itself! ) BUT, it proved to be only an illusion, caused by Adam using the Cosmic Units, in order to reveal the Goddess’ plan to everyone. This shocked everybody back to normal. Warlock then fought with his “good” side in the Astral plane, defeated her, and imprisoned her within the gem as well (where she, like Magus, could not be seen or heard by the other spirits inside- except, ironically, Magus, though even he couldn’t touch her.)

Warlock’s spirit returned to his body, and everybody returned home (with the formerly converted heroes hugely disappointed, I imagine.) Thanos then used the CCUs to destroy Paradise Omega (and the units themselves). Oh, he DID keep one, to give it to Mephisto as promised. Naturally, the first thing the demon did with it was to wish Thanos dead, but nothing happened- the cube was drained of all power! “You did not specify you wanted a WORKING unit” Thanos mocked. Mephisto departed swearing vengeance, not that Thanos was intimidated at all.

My Opinion: I was partially let down by this story. The idea of an utterly-good being on a quest to rid ALL universes of evil was an interesting one. But it was obvious from the start that the Goddess was just played as a villain, from the way most of her thralls acted. Besides, in my opinion, Goddess could NOT possibly include all of Warlock’s good- if she did, not only she would never have considered destroying all Creation, but if Warlock had no good left within him, he wouldn’t have cared about anybody, either. That was obviously not the case. (Warlock did find out during the story that Goddess was actually insane, as a result of his repressing his feminine side all those years. Ouch.) Still, IC was good in that it helped us find out the religious beliefs of many of Marvel’s characters, some of which had not even been hinted at before. The individual tie-in issues also played with the story’s events fairly well, for example, in Iron Man, who had a back-from-the-dead experience once, which made him more spiritual, but ultimately he was too materialistic to follow Goddess. Of course, everybody just went back to their lives soon afterwards, as if nothing had happened. You’d think they would dedicate a few issues to dealing with this kind of deep spiritual disappointment -for some of the characters, this was The Rapture taking place- but then again, this kind of thing doesn’t really work well in superhero comics, who tend to resolve everything with force.

My Rating: Average, which, it being another Infinity Gauntlet spinoff, was disappointing.

Next: DC tries to create several new heroes AND introduce a (disgusting) new menace (think: Aliens) in the crossover series, “Bloodlines!”

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

BLOODLINES (DC, 1993; two-part miniseries)

Authors: Dan Raspler (writer), Chuck Wojtkiewicz and Sal Velluto (artists)

Background: Bloodlines was another All-Annuals crossover; this time, the story ran on the annuals first, and THEN concluded on a two-part miniseries titled “Bloodbath” (but Bloodlines was the official name of the whole crossover, as indicated by banners on the cover of every title involved.)

The point of the story was to create new heroes for the DC Universe in one sitting. It also apparently wanted to mine the popularity of the ALIENS movies, since the monsters used here are blatantly inspired by the Xenomorphs, right down to being buglike and feeding on their prey by using the “mouth-within-a-mouth” thing (ugh.) DC had already had crossovers with the (original) Aliens, such as (I kid you not) “Superman versus Aliens”. (Those stories are not, however, in-continuity, as DC doesn’t own the rights to the ALIENS characters; in fact it was a crossover done with Dark Horse comics, who at the time were publishing licensed ALIENS comics.)

Synopsis: The alien race in the story is never given a specific name, only referred to as “parasites” which is a misnomer, as (unlike the Aliens) they did not incubate inside humans; instead, they fed on their spinal fluid (gross!) killing them; this makes them predators, not parasites (but go argue correct science with comic book writers, huh?) However, if they bite a human with a latent metagene, the victim would survive and develop superpowers. The aliens DID have personal names, all of whom were gibberish so I don’t recall them. (Check Wikipedia.)

Anyway, these aliens come from another dimension, where supposedly they had already caused the extinction of the local humanoid race; the only survivor was Pax, a shaman type character. Somehow, they escaped to Earth (I didn’t see most of the Annuals involved, so I don’t know the full details; if anybody knows, corrections are welcome.) Pax follows them to warn our universe. However, the aliens (of whom there were seven- I’m not certain, but I read somewhere that they were supposed to be patterned after the seven sins eg. Lust, Greed, etc.) have the ability to assume a human form, so they infiltrated many Earth cities such as Metropolis and Gotham.

The story in each annual was pretty much the same: One of the aliens starts killing people, one of whom turns out to be a metahuman. A established DC hero arrives to fight it, is helped by the metahuman (who is now a new superhero) but the alien escapes in the end.

Finally, in the Bloodbath two-parter, the seven aliens get together- and merge into a single, giant monster, “The Taker”- this is apparently how they reproduce (making the Taker a stand-in for the Alien Queen.) Several DC heroes attack it only to be absorbed within its body! But they’re saved –of course- by the parasite-created heroes, who call themselves “New Bloods”. I missed the ending, but I heard that it turns out the New Bloods had a “special link” to each other and the Parasites, which they used to destroy The Taker. With the absorbed heroes none for the worse, of course. Pax then returned to his own universe.

Consequences: …Not many, honestly, and certainly not as many as DC wanted. Several of the New Bloods were given their own series (including a Team Book called “Bloodpack”) but all were soon cancelled (and with good reason- most of these characters were forgettable, even lame.) The only exception was Hitman, whose series lasted like 60 issues, but that was due to the fact it was mostly an irreverent series about a not-really-that-bad assassin who went around snarking on the DC universe and comics tropes in general (it was written by Garth Ennis of “Preacher” (in)fame, whose disdain of superheroes and their fans has never been hidden.) I found Hitman quite lame, but some comics fans like that kind of character. I hear they killed him off in the last issue, probably so nobody else could get to “play” with “Ennis’s” character (and risk making him a gasp REAL hero.)

Most of the other New Bloods are either forgotten or dead now; several were killed during the “Infinite Crisis” crossover as part of DC’s new “kill off useless characters while adding to the gruesome content” policy. More on THAT later…

As for the Parasites, they have never been used again (until recently, anyway.) One JLA story had astronauts possessed by more parasites from the same dimension, but these were another species, or at least a different stage of their growth (larvas?) Also a recent Outsiders story had a surviving Parasite being enslaved by criminals and “forced” to create metahumans for a prize (even if most of the ‘clients’ got killed in the process.) That story was interrupted by a current Batman crossover, so it’s unknown how it ended yet.

My Opinion: Well, it was nice of DC to try to come up with new characters. But for some reason, these “done all at a time” introductions never work; a similar failure happened in another DC annual crossover years later, where new heroes from other countries were introduced- most of whom have never been seen again. For better or worse, creating good characters is still a hit-or-miss thing.

Ripping off the Aliens franchise to such a degree didn’t help, either; it looked unoriginal, as if DC were desperate to mine into their popularity. The whole spine-sucking thing kept me from buying the crossover. And honestly, the Parasites weren’t that interesting anyway. Even the title of the series is a rip of sorts, since heroes and groups with the word “Blood” in their name were common in comic books in the 90’s.

My Rating: Mediocre story + unoriginal menace + lame new characters = Poor Story.

Next: When Marvel decided to make Venom a hero (!) they created Carnage to be the “New Venom”. What happens when this psychotic killer decides to get his own “family?” You get “Maximum Carnage!”

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

Sorry it’s taken me a while to continue this, I’ve been busy. Anyway, here’s my review of:

MAXIMUM CARNAGE (MARVEL, 1993; 14 parts)

Authors: The editor, writers and artists of all the Spider-Man titles (in 1993)

Background: This is another “only within the same character’s comics” crossover, like the Superman ones I reviewed above, so it almost DOESN’T count as a real crossover- except it DID feature several heroes that Spider-Man doesn’t always hang out with, so I decided to include it here. It is, in effect, the first "street level” major crossover Marvel ever did- despite the many heroes and villains involved, the world was not in danger, only New York City.

As mentioned above in the Secret Wars review, Spider-Man’s new costume, which he had obtained in another planet, turned out to be a blob-like alien symbiote; he ditched it when he found out, only for it to bound to, of all people, one Eddie Brock, a reporter who had issues with Peter Parker, creating the villain called Venom (despite not having any actual poison powers.) This is very well known now thanks to the third Spider-Man movie. Less well known is that Marvel decided to turn Venom into a HERO (well, anti-hero) apparently for no other reason than he was very popular (this was at the time when characters like the Punisher got their own series, for the same reason.) At least Punny never wanted to eat people’s brains. That I know of… (Note: for all his claims to want to do that, Venom never ate anybody. At least, not until recently, and it was actually another Spider-Man villain, The Scorpion, wearing the symbiote, who did it.)

Anyway: with Venom now a “hero” Marvel decided that they needed someone similar to replace him- that way, they could have their cake AND eat it. Thus, they created Carnage.

While Brock was in jail, his symbiote “spawned” an offspring- a blood-red symbiote. This one attached itself to another prisoner- Cletus Kasady, a serial killer, who became known as “Carnage". For some reason, Carnage was actually STRONGER than Venom or Spider-Man, forcing the two enemies to cooperate to bring him down. In the end, the new symbiote was destroyed and Kasady was captured.

Synopsis: There’s surprisingly little story here for a 14-part event. Basically, Kasady was imprisoned in Ravencroft, which is Marvel’s version of Arkham Asylum. It turns out, however, that Kasady had gained the power to recreate his symbiote at will (how convenient) and simply escaped later. He did, however, free some of the other criminally-insane patients as well: The Shriek, a woman with a supersonic scream; Demogoblin, a demonic version of The Hobgoblin (created during the Inferno! crossover), Doppelganger, a monstrous, six-armed version of Spider-Man created during the Infinity War; and Carrion, another Spider-Man foe who (originally) was an altered clone of the Jackal, but was later retconned into being somebody altered to THINK he was a clone (long story.) Not only did Carnage team-up with these villains to pursue their mutual enemies (Spider-Man and Venom) they also set out on a killing spree across NY City. And, for some reason, they decided to form a ‘family’ with Carnage as the “father”, Shriek as the “mother”, and the rest as the “kids”. (Well, ALL of them were crazy, to one degree or another.)

The two heroes would have been outnumbered, except other NY crimefighters happened to notice the chaos and joined them in the battle. These were: Captain America; martial artist Iron Fist; Black Cat (a Catwoman rip-off who once romanced Spidey; you may remember her from the Spider-Man cartoons); Cloak and Dagger (teenagers with the powers of Darkness and Light, respectively); Morbius the Living Vampire (yet ANOTHER ex-Spider-Man foe turned hero; he even had his own series for a while); Firestar (of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends fame- though in the comics she wasn’t associated with Spider-Man OR Iceman); Deathlock, a cyborg; and somebody called Nightwatch, who honestly I don’t recall at all (let’s check Wikipedia… oh, lookee here, he’s ANOTHER character who started in Spider-Man and got his own series, only to be cancelled (and killed off) later. I’m starting to see a pattern here… )

Despite having SO many heroes on their tail, the villains kept getting away, killing dozens of people. (You’d think that Firestar alone could have beaten them all, especially with the symbiote’s vulnerability to fire.) Admittedly, Cletus is a VERY clever villain, who knows how to “play” the heroes. He’s kinda like Marvel’s Joker (in fact, in a Spider-Man/Batman crossover, the villains were Joker and Carnage!) It didn’t help that the heroes had to deal with people like Venom and Morbius, neither of whom is very sociable. Fortunately, Carnage’s “family” started having problems as well, especially with Carrion, who started having a conflict between his real identity and his assumed one. Eventually the heroes DID catch up and beat the villains, though Cletus escaped by covering the body of one his dead victims with a symbiote, making it look like it was him. By the end, only Spider-Man, Venom and Carnage were left in the struggle, and Cletus was defeated and captured again.

My Opinion: Well, this was very much a “let’s gather several of the Hero’s friends and enemies for a big fight!” type of story; you see those in comics and anime often. The villains WERE pretty scary, though, and it was nice to see other street-level heroes join forces with Spider-Man for once (this rarely happens in such a big team). The characterization was better than you’d expect, especially the insane villains’.

It should be noted that similar Carnage-centric stories have happened elsewhere, for example in the 90’s Spider-Man cartoon. A video game was also based on the crossover.

Curious note: Marvel, known for coming up with good ideas and then BEATING THEM TO DEATH, has had plenty more symbiote-powered characters since then, which really takes away from the uniqueness of the concept. Oh, and Eddie Brock has powers AGAIN- now he calls himself “Anti-Venom”. Seriously.

My Rating: Average

Next: Umm, I’ll let you know once I do more research. Think of it as a surprise.

[GG_Crono]

All I know about the Maximum Carnage storyline was that it spawned a pretty cool (and really frikkin’ hard) beat-em-up for the SNES. So, I’d say that justifies its existence well enough.