Plot. Driven.
Firstly, I’m a big fat dope. Feel free to address me as such for a few days. Why is it I’m a dope? Glad you asked.
I’m a dope for getting roped into the SACRIFICE storyline that’s running through the SUPERMAN titles now (and really should have been the middle chapters of the OMAC miniseries, but who’s counting?) It all started innocently enough. I’m picking up ACTION COMICS, on the basis of Gail Simone’s writing (and John Byrne’s art is serving the story well enough, aside from the teeth-gritted cover of the first issue of their run). I get two months (one more or less complete story) into the run and things are looking good.
Then there’s this crossover dropped into all the SUPERMAN titles. My guess is that it’d solidify line-wide readership of the titles (ie, if you’re just getting one SUPERMAN book, why not get all three or four) and because there’s only so much time that the publishers had to get their big event off the ground (by making a crossover as convoluted as any they’ve ever published – and that’s the lead in, folks). However it happened, it happened.
And like a dope, I followed the storyline from one title to the next. The chapter in ACTION was pretty solid, a little on the gratuitous side, but you’re going to get that when Superman and Darkseid go mano a mano for all the marbles. Thing is, we find out that it wasn’t Darkseid who got his bell rung, it was Batman. But we don’t get the whole story.
Duh. Why would they want to put the whole story in one place?
So I reluctantly pick up the next chapter and not long after doing so, sorta regret it. Here come the spoilers, if you haven’t been following the storyline, so avert your eyes if you feel it necessary.
See, Superman has been mind-controlled. That’s what caused him to punch Batman into next week and into such a weakened state that even the Purple Healing Ray won’t save him. Well, not immediately. Then Superman goes berserk and unloads on the JLA, incapacitating most of the big players but for Wonder Woman. Again, it’s the mind-control.
Only it isn’t mind-control. It’s delusions that have been implanted into Superman’s head by Max Lord, used car-salesman. Okay, I made that last part up. So, it’s not really mind control. Superman is still in control of his actions, just that he’s delusional.
The line there is a pretty fine one. I’d argue that there isn’t really one. Max wants Superman to take the JLA out. Whether he does so by imposing his will on him or by tricking him into thinking that he’s defending his loved ones, it all boils down to mind control.
Have I mentioned that I’ve a pretty strong dislike of the whole device of mind-control? “Oh, I really didn’t do that. I was being mind-controlled by Magneto the whole time!” (That’s a paraphrase from the FANTASTIC FOUR ROAST, one of the classics of the genre). As a character motivation, it’s poor at best. Maybe it shows off how evil the people involved are, but that’s about it. You want to turn Superman against the rest of the JLA without turning them evil or turning him evil, I guess you don’t have many options.
Only they get to turn one of the JLA evil. Well, maybe not evil, but certainly not heroic. See, after a particularly brutal fight with the mind-controlled Superman, one that she barely survives, Wonder Woman is forced into an impossible choice. Either she kill Superman, champion to millions and the closest thing earth has to a saviour figure, or she kills Max Lord, manipulative scumbag. Easy choice, right?
Of course, it’s ironic that she even face this choice, given Greg Rucka’s disdain for heroes who kill, as noted earlier this year in his appearance at the Superman panel at Wizard World Long Beach. Now, I could be giving too narrow a reading to his words. Perhaps it’s simply disdain for heroes who casually kill, in which case I’ll have to cut him some slack.
The thing is, why is this choice even necessary? Max Lord is subdued, in the coiled Golden Lasso. Superman has been cut in the throat by Wonder Woman’s thrown tiara (guess that magic hurting Superman thing comes in handy) and if he were being written by Frank Miller, he’d be thinking something like “I’m only thinking about trying to keep my jugular from blowing like a two dollar hooker.” Superman’s not going anywhere, and Lord’s powerless to mind-control Wonder Woman. You’d think she had time to call for some sort of backup, huh? Or perhaps that’s only the last hope of the ten-year-old heart that still beats within my chest?
Sure, she made the pragmatic decision. It probably would have been a lot harder for her to fend Superman off should he miraculously heal from his wounds and still keep Lord Under wraps. Except that Superman was basically non-functional. Was it an act of convenience? I could probably make a persuasive argument for it. But you know what? The story calls for these things to happen, for the characters to act in perhaps uncharacteristic manners. This story is, fundamentally, about the destruction of the foundations of the DC Universe. It’s about Batman’s wariness and paranoia being turned against him. It’s about the uncorruptible Superman losing that status. It’s about Wonder Woman taking the easy and not the hard way out. It’s about a comic relief character turning into a puppetmaster and hitting heroes where it hurts most.
Much has been made about the internalization of the Crisis this go-round. The first Crisis (golly, but it’s a little silly capitalizing it, as if it had the weight of the Gettysburg Address) was all about external collapse, millions of worlds being folded into one. This one seems to be preoccupied with taking the Crisis inside, and knocking the characters’ motivations around like Mike Tyson going the full count with a skinny twelve-year-old. And as much as I’ve passionately argued for more examination of the internal lives of characters in the comics medium, there’s times that it seems to fall flat.
“But what about WATCHMEN?” you ask. “Here you are railing against this wave of darkness and gritty reality and you’ve championed that book as being masterful in both content and execution.” Damn straight I have. But WATCHMEN existed not only to bring superheroes to earth, not only to rub our noses in the failure of our icons. It was also a book filled with wonder of the capacity of humans to love in the face of hate, to forge on in the face of imminent death. It was a marvelous character study and a heartbreaking drama, driven by choices made by the people on the page, not by an arbitrary plot that required fulfiling.
I’m not seeing any wonder here. I’m seeing a fair bit of ugliness, though. I’m not seeing any heroes. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe they’ve all gotta be destroyed so they can be rebuilt. I can’t see the ending coming, but what I’ve seen hasn’t given me any measure of faith.
So, more of the same.
Which is why I’m a dope. I blame the little ten-year old. I swear, I'm gonna beat him within an inch of his little life one of these days.