Archive for Two-Face

Love, Superhero Style

We got another giant buttload of Convergence comics this week, and once again, I’m going to try to get all of these cleared out of the way quickly.

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Convergence: Nightwing and Oracle #2

The rotten-as-snot Flashpoint versions of Hawkman and Hawkgirl are in Gotham City, looking forward to killing Nightwing. But Dick Grayson isn’t all that easy to kill, and Barbara Gordon’s awfully, awfully smart. And they both have some really great friends. Can an acrobat and a paralyzed hacker beat up a couple maniacal winged fascists and still find true love?

The backup story is the first glimpse we get of the new “Midnighter” series.

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Convergence: Superman #2

While Superman battles the Flashpoint versions of Cyborg, Captain Thunder, and Abin Sur, the skinny Flashpoint Superman kidnaps the pregnant Lois Lane. He takes her to the Flashpoint Batman’s Batcave, hoping Dr. Thomas Wayne can help deliver her baby. Will Lois’s baby be delivered safely?

The backup story is the first glimpse we get of the new “Doomed” series.

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Convergence: The Question #2

Renee Montoya, along with the Huntress and Batwoman, are trying to find Two-Face. Harvey Dent desperately wants to die, and since he’s not able to commit suicide as long as his coin keeps coming up heads over and over, he’s decided to track down the Harvey Dent of another dimension and get him to commit murder on his behalf.

The backup story is the first glimpse we get of the new “Starfire” series.

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Convergence: Speed Force #2

Wally West has to battle the seriously psycho Flashpoint Wonder Woman and her Amazons, while Fastback, from the Amazing Zoo Crew, tries to defend Jai and Iris West. Can the Flash handle a foe who’s almost as fast as he is and a much more deadly combatant? And will the loveable cartoon turtle survive?!

The backup story is the first glimpse we get of the new “Green Arrow” series.

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Convergence: Batgirl #2

It’s Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain, and Tim Drake vs. the Flashpoint versions of Gorilla Grodd and Catman!

The backup story is the first glimpse we get of the new “Prez” series.

Verdicts: We had some good stuff and some bad stuff. Let’s unpack this thang.

First of all, the Batgirl story is the one I was looking forward to the most, and it was just not good. While I liked the fact that she solved the issue’s dilemma through brainpower, the rest of it was not worth the paper. Confusing, badly illustrated, not well written, poor characterization. Of all the characters here, Steph probably needed closure the least — the end of her regular series was actually very well done and emotionally affecting. I would’ve enjoyed this one more if we’d gone with a good ending for Cass, instead of a tacked-on romance between Steph and Tim.

The rest were much better. The Nightwing/Oracle story was probably the best, but it was written by Gail Simone about some of her favorite characters, so that was certainly to be expected. The romance subplot didn’t feel tacked-on — in fact, it was at least, if not more important than, the entire battle against the Hawks.

Superman’s story was fine, but it was stronger as a combination of a great Lois Lane story and a nice story about the more hard-edged Flashpoint Batman finding something he was willing to care about.

The Question’s story was great just because it’s wonderful to see Greg Rucka and Cully Hamner working on these characters again.

Flash’s story was alright, but not all that spectacular. I was just glad to see Flashback survived — I take it the Zoo Crew has been taking it on the chin in the other Convergence books.

Of the sneak-peeks we get of the new series… not a lot of them really appeal to me. I’d had high hopes for the Prez and Starfire series, and they just don’t look very interesting. The Doomed series looks somewhat interesting — I knew nothing about it before — but it still stinks like ’90s Image to me…

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So Much Convergence

So the first of the “Convergence” miniseries came out this week, and most of the stuff on my pull list all showed up at once. So hey, we’re gonna try to clear these outta here as quickly as we can.

We know the general premise, yes? A mysterious entity (Pssst! It is Brainiac!) had kidnapped many cities from old versions of the DC Universe or alternate universe variants. For the past year, they’ve all been held beneath domes, and the various superheroes under the domes have been deprived of their superpowers. Now the domes have been removed, everyone has their powers back, and the champions of each city must fight other champions, or their realities will be destroyed. And the first crop of books focuses on pre-Flashpoint characters, just before DC ruined everything with the Reboot.

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Convergence: Batgirl #1

We start off with Stephanie Brown as Batgirl, Cassandra Cain as the Black Bat, and Tim Drake as Red Robin. Stephanie has been designated Gotham’s champion, despite the fact that she hasn’t worn her Batgirl costume in a year — Cassandra and Tim would be much more capable than Steph would. They start training her but are all soon dragged off into the desert where they’re attacked by the Catman and Gorilla Grodd from the Flashpoint universe.

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Convergence: Superman #1

Superman has been without his powers for a year, but he’s been dressing up in a simple costume to fight crime Batman-style. Lois Lane has been assisting over a radio headset. Lois is also pregnant and due any day now. Once the dome is down and Supes has his powers back, he ends up tangling with Captain Thunder, Cyborg, and Abin Sur from Flashpoint, while the skinny teenaged Flashpoint Kal-El heads for Lois, believing her to be his Flashpoint benefactor.

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Convergence: The Question #1

Renee Montoya is trying to help keep things under control in Gotham, running around without her mask. Harvey Dent is running around with half a beard, beating up thieves — and his two-headed coin is only flipping good side up lately. The Huntress doesn’t really approve, but she’s not going to get in the way. And Renee is still going out nightly as the Question — and meeting up with Harvey, too. He wants to kill himself, but he can’t do it as long as the coin keeps flipping on the good side. But when the dome comes down, he decides to find a Two-Face in another city who’ll finally kill him.

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Convergence: Nightwing and Oracle #1

After the Flashpoint Hawkman and Hawkgirl kill off the Justice Riders‘ Earth, they get sent after our Gotham, where Oracle is giving Nightwing her cyber-assistance in crimefighting. Mr. Freeze has lost his edge from long imprisonment under the dome, and Nightwing is worried that he’s losing his edge, too. Dick Grayson asks Barbara Gordon to marry him, and she turns him down, just before the Hawks make their appearance and offer a bargain — if Barbara surrenders the city, the Hawks will take a dive — Gotham will live, the Hawks’ home will be destroyed, and the Hawks will take over Gotham. Nightwing plans to fight them, but Oracle has her own way to make war.

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Convergence: Speed Force #1

Wally West has been stuck powerless in Gotham with the rest of the Justice League, along with his children Iris and Jai. When the dome comes down and his powers return, he takes a high-speed tour of the other kidnapped cities. He gets to watch the Justice Riders’ home get atomized, then visits a bunch of other worlds, eventually picking up a new superspeed friend, Fastback, from the Zoo Crew! But they’ll all have to deal with the murderous Flashpoint Wonder Woman next.

Verdicts: Well, now, let’s add all this up.

First, I really hate the “We have to murder all these people to save our planet” plotline. It’s lazy. It’s not something that any legitimate superheroes would do, because it’s exactly the kind of scam that comic book superheroes prefer to find a way around, usually by beating up Brainiac instead of each other. And it’s short-sighted — is there any good reason to wipe out characters as awesome and fun as the Justice Riders? Only if you’re Dan DiDio, Geoff Johns, and Jim Lee, and you can’t stop thinking like a ’90s Image comic.

I liked getting to see Stephanie, Cassandra, and Tim again, but large chunks of the story bugged me bad. Steph had finally become an excellent superhero at the end of her series — now she’s struggling to do anything right, which is a severe backslide. We also don’t get to see her mother at all, and she was a great character. And I felt Cassandra and Tim were also a bit mis-handled.

Having said that, there are lots of good things here. Revisiting the pre-Reboot non-sucky DCU is a very good thing. Tom Grummett drawing the Flash and his kids is a good thing. Gail Simone writing Oracle is a good thing. Greg Rucka and Cully Hamner working on the Question again is a very good thing. Guest appearances from Two-Face, Starfire, Helena Bertinelli, and Fastback are all good things, too.

Altogether, I’ll give these a tentative thumbs up. I reserve the right to switch that to a thumbs down if DiDio is just going to kill everyone off but Flashpoint and the Reboot just to laugh at everyone’s tears.

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Two-Face ’66

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Batman ’66: The Lost Episode

One of the great missed opportunities on the 1966 Batman TV show is that they had plans to put Two-Face on their program but never followed through. And the coolest thing about the comic book revival of the series is that we can see how things would’ve gone if they’d actually made the show.

So dig this: A story by Len Wein with art by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, based on a story treatment by Harlan Ellison.

The story starts off with Two-Face staging a daring robbery at an auction house — but later returning the loot to the police. Batman explains that after District Attorney Harvey Dent was scarred by acid, he began committing crimes based on the flip of a coin — if the bad side comes up, he keeps his ill-gotten gains, but if the good side wins, he returns it all, often with interest. But the Dynamic Duo must find a way to capture Two-Face. Can Batman find a way out when the only choices Dent is willing to accept are bad and worse?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s not a highly original story, to be honest, but it’s not like the TV show didn’t often crib some storylines from old comics stories. The appeal here is obviously seeing how the TV show could’ve handled Two-Face, and all in all, it comes off as a pretty fun treatment. A big chunk of the appeal of this comic is the amazing art by Garcia-Lopez, who always turns out some of the best art in the biz. In fact, in addition to the regular story, we also get an encore presentation featuring just the artist’s pencil work, followed by the original treatment for the series written by Harlan Ellison himself. Both of these features are pretty awesome all by themselves, and combined with the story, make this a bit of a must-have for a wide variety of comics fans.

About the worst thing about this issue is the price tag. Ten dollars is pretty steep!

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Astro City #17

So periodically, Honor Guard gets treated to Red Cake Day. Someone sneaks into their HQ and leaves a big spread of delicious red cake, and no one knows who brought it. Until this year — a little purple alien appears, introduces himself as Eth, and reveals that his people have been bringing the cake as part of something they call Sorrowsday. He tells them a story about a terrible interdimensional conqueror called Krigari the Ironhanded, who his people accidentally dreamed into existence. Terrified that his unslakeable thirst for conquest would eventually lead him to destroy them all, they began to steer him to other, stronger dimensions, hoping they’d destroy Krigari for them. Eventually, this led to a long string of confrontations between Krigari and Earth’s superheroes. What caused Krigari’s final defeat, and what’s the connection to Sorrowsday?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a good story, with nice art by Tom Grummett. Krigari and Druin are both great villains, and Stormhawk is a great hero — so it is disappointing that we won’t get to see any of them again.

Today’s Cool Links:

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Face-Off

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Two-Face: Year One #1

We get a retelling of Harvey Dent/Two-Face’s origin story, with many elements taken from “The Long Halloween” by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. Most of the focus here is on Harvey — we don’t actually meet Two-Face until the last page.

Verdict: Thumbs up, but Two-Face is my favorite Batman villain, so I should be considered an easy mark.

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Madame Xanadu #2

Camelot has fallen, and Nimue has done nothing to help them. She takes petty revenge on some of Mordred’s soldiers, but her scorn for her evil sister Morgana is mostly ignored. She also encounters Etrigan the Demon before meeting the Phantom Stranger, who tells her that her lover Merlin summoned the demon and plans to use her to flee and gain immortality so he can continue to influence history to his own benefit. Nimue must repay Merlin’s betrayal with betrayal of her own, but can she escape a terrible fate?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A nicely chaotic bit of fun and intrigue. Matt Wagner knows his Arthurian legends, and his re-creation of Madame Xanadu’s origin remains very enjoyable.

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