Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Heroes in Crisis #1 Review and **SPOILERS**


There is no Sanctuary

Writer: Tom King 
Artist: Clay Mann 
Colors: Tomeu Morey 
Letters: Clayton Cowles 
Cover By: Clay Mann and Tomeu Morey 
Variant Covers By: J.G. Jones & Paul Mounts; Francesco Mattina, Mark Brooks, Ryan Sook 
Associate Editor: Brittany Holzherr 
Editor: Jamie S. Rich 
Cover Price: $3.99 
On Sale Date: September 26, 2018

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

Oh boy, there’s a Crisis afoot, and the skies aren’t even red…yet! It’s the Autumn--event? That we’ve all been waiting for, Heroes in Crisis! Let’s jump right into that ol’ number one issue and see what all the fuss is about.


Explain It!

All of ‘em are doing it. First responders, members of the military, social workers, reporters—heck, even therapists are all going to therapy. Each of us carries a burden of some kind, made of our experiences and what we’ve seen, and to share it would assuage us while burdening another. The transference of these horrors is a most human thing, the beginnings of what can establish a community. So it makes sense that Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman would set up a remote superhero sanitarium called Sanctuary that is run entirely by Kryptonian robots.
And not just Kryptonian robots, but robots made to look like Ma and Pa Kent, plus some other lady. You have all this hologram technology lying around, it gets used to tell Batman that supper’s ready but no one thinks that a holographic psychologist, one that can change form to suit the patient, might make more sense than a couple of throwbacks to Superman’s Silver Age android addiction. So the thing that happened here is that everyone that was at Sanctuary, including the robots, have been brutally murdered. That includes a bunch of people you don’t know, plus Wally West and Roy Harper. There’s your big spoiler reveal! The two of them are lying together in a pool of blood, and Superman confirms their deaths. I don’t feel too bent out of shape about it, though, because I’m not buying the permanence of anything that happens here.
The whole thing is framed around a meeting between Booster Gold, a resident of Sanctuary who fled as everyone was murdered, and Harley Quinn, who finds Booster Gold hanging out at a diner and endeavors to finish the job—or so we think, until the last page, when Harley claims that Booster is the one that did the slaying! It would be a shocking twist, if we had an inkling that Harley Quinn was even accused of those murders in the first place. As it is, both she and Booster just seem wildly out of character for the entire book, until the last page bombshell. For all that it mattered, you could have had Harley Quinn and Booster Gold just step out at the end and announce that ‘twas Booster that slaughtered the heroes.
In terms of storytelling, the issue develops a nice formula of nine-panel grid entrance interviews for Sanctuary, some back-and-forth between Harley and Booster, and the Trinity discovering the massacre at Sanctuary, simultaneously revealing its particulars to the reader. Clay Mann’s artwork seems to have reached a new plateau, the figures and faces look impeccable, and he makes great use of the nine-panel grids to show subtle differences in gesture and posture that work perfectly. But the dialogue for every known character seems off, and the stuff between Booster Gold and Quinn felt like violent filler instead of anything pertinent. We’ll see how wrong I am as this series continues.

Bits and Pieces:

We finally learn about that mysterious superhero brain spa, Sanctuary, just in time for it to go out of business. Heroes die, heroes live, and I'm left feeling that this is one of those Imaginary Stories from the 1950s and 60s that won't have any lasting repercussions. Maybe it's because familiar characters don't behave in the way that I'm used to? Probably.

7/10
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24 comments:

  1. Haven't read it yet, but your saying Booster Gold and Harley Quinn are out of character is hardly surprising, considering Tom King is the writer. Now that I realize King is up to his usual out of character shenanigans, I think I'll take a pass on this one. Thanks for the great review!

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  2. How in the bloody hell does a nobody with a powersuit takeout all these heroes at one time, plus have some stupid crazy bitch have practically a dragon ball z battle in the sky with him.The bodies where in groups as well, which means he killed them while they were teamed up. Lagoon boy and hotspot I can believe, but the moment you add Citizen Steel, Booster loses. Citizen Steel is superman strong, and superman durable with none of superman weaknesses. Roy didn't have his bow on him so I can see how he died but Wally...no. That's the fastest Flash on earth. Booster could not pull this off. This story is not just poorly written but is also unbelievable even in the perception of the dc universe. Roy and Wally deserved better than Booster
    FU5/10

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    1. Also Harley "saw" Booster kill all those heroes and ran away in fear but now she's going after him by herself! Yeah, that makes sense.

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  3. Tom King has never knowingly written a character in a way that is consistent with their previous stories, and really only ever writes about PTSD and trauma besides. None of these characters deserve this, but DC seems determined not to learn the lessons of Rebirth's popularity and head down the grim n' gritty cul-de-sac again.

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    1. It makes no sense and just makes me scratch their head over how blind they are

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  4. Either it's a fakeout since DC built the entirety of Rebirth on Wally's return, or this is an outright repudiation of everything Rebirth was about.

    Not that I care. King has lost me entirely.

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  5. Calling it here, this is all in Boosters head and he is still in the sanctuary having treatment from his time-travel mess up from Batman issues.

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  6. -9000/10. This book and deaths did not need to happen.

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  7. Great review. Tough but Fair. Just what I've come to expect from a Reggie penned review. Not attached to any of the characters that "died" so I'm not all that broken up. Slightly intrigued due to the bold and unique approach. However, every character ends up sounding like Tom King's voice. Not my favorite issue, but I'll be keeping up. Can't wait to hear what the other boys have to say. ;) xoxo-J.D.

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  8. I kinda wanna pick this up just for the art but this story soundslike crap

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    1. So i picked it up and it was total crap DC really doesn't learn do they their movies arebombing because of the dark and gritty so lets double down on that in the comics even though when they did the exact opposite with rebith they made massive bank and people loved it

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  9. I pre-ordered this first issue with trepidation, but after hearing more about the series (including its extension), I am not buying into this. Like several have already commented on, DC must have decided to squander all their good will from the positivity of Rebirth. Plus as much as I appreciated Tom King's Batman run before issue #50, King has lost his creative integrity by reverting to the same old shock comic tropes - spoiled weddings, shot sidekicks, and a big bad guy who suddenly capable of orchestrating everyone's lives. I could care less with how sad he makes all the heroes when they start killing each other.

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    1. I bet if you go back and read some of the stuff of King's that you loved, you will notice a lot of this stuff was always there. Remember, he changed Batman's origin by having young Bruce slice his wrists, pretty much did what he did in this issue to the New Gods in Mister Miracle (and again started it with an attempted suicide), set up the beginnings of the wedding with Selena wanted for mass murder, had her kill a horse and had a family massacred in a church. Everyone loves Kite Man, but he still had to have his son murdered for feels. Ace's new origin? Abused dog. Get's to write any kind of Superman story for the 100 page special...1 little girl kidnapped and another murdered!

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    2. how do I upvote this comment to the top so everyone can see it

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  10. How DARE you Tom King! It's bad enough that you've made me lose interest in Batman, keep your hands off Booster Gold!

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    1. Yep! And he hinted he will be doing a Blue and Gold books soon!

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    2. and we need to hear from you more!!!!

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