Girls Gone Geek

V. and I feel like proud parents with the posting of today’s guest essay from our fellow fangirl, Jenn. She’s the brains behind Dirty Blonde & Nerdy, where she writes about her adventures in geek. Jenn was also one of our earliest readers, and it warmed our jaded little hearts to learn that Girls Gone Geek had helped guide her as a newbie in the often overwhelming world of comic-book reading. Seriously; we had a moment. (Me to V: “Dude, she’s like our Padawan!”) Anyway, we enjoyed the heck out of her essay on DC’s throwback strategy, and we think you will, too. Take it away, Jenn!

WHYYYYYY!!???? Oh. Right. Darkseid.

There have been quite a few shake-ups in the DC comicverse in recent years. It’s been a pretty intimidating time for anyone to follow, especially for someone just diving into the fun. We had the Crisis siblings: Identity, Infinite, and Final; Bruce Wayne is now sleuthing up to his inevitable return after his supposed death, the Justice League has a new Big Three, if one at all, with a table full of new faces, and the big to-do with Blackest Night led directly to Brightest Day. And, of course, there is the new Wonder Woman run/temporary costume. DC has had its hands buried deep in the cradle of its characters and titles, and the editorial powers have been stirring things around for a while.

Let me make it clear that I have absolutely no problem with that. At all. I love nothing more than when someone takes the plunge and dares to do something different, outside the box, and makes people mad or excited about the idea. It garners plenty of attention, a necessity in any entertainment business. But an “A” for effort doesn’t really count. Success doesn’t ride on the back of good intentions and certainly not on the shoulders of half-assed executions.

Before anyone gets fired up about their own concern (or thinks I’m here to spit fire on everything) let me narrow the playing field to one development in particular that has me wondering what exactly is going through the heads of the officials: DC’s regression to older heroes, the step backwards from the supposed legacy appeal. I don’t get it. A legacy doesn’t work backwards; it’s a namesake passed down to the one who earned the title. For example: Wally West became The Flash after Barry Allen. Bart Allen became Kid Flash after he grew up a bit and left the name Impulse behind. The names became mantels. Now they don’t mean anything because they’ve been revoked, rearranged, removed, whatever.

This problem doesn’t touch just The Flash’s so-called legacy, and it doesn’t stop merely with old guys coming back and retaking their titles. For some, the bigger issue is that a bunch of old white guys are coming back to retake their titles.

Ryan Choi, we hardly knew ye.

The Atom. Ok, Ray Palmer is back, so they discard the replacement Ryan Choi by killing him off, which apparently is the quick and easy way to write off a character (which is also very lame). But, oh crap, that means they killed the guy with a different ethnicity to make room for a white guy.

Boom. Now you’ve got racial issues.

I think that’s ridiculous. If DC wants to revert back to the older heroes, then yeah, it’s gonna look like a whitewash because those characters were created in a long-ago age. Was it an intentional slam against the racially diverse characters added over the past few years? I don’t think so. I hope not. Maybe I’m being far too optimistic in my pessimism, but that result only sprang from the decision they made.

Adding to the confusion, we have Dick Grayson under the cowl when we know Bruce is due back in a few months. I know, I know. Someone needs to be Batman while Bruce was gone. Gotham still needs Batman. Bruce couldn’t ever really be dead because no one else is really Batman. Here the legacy doesn’t work. It can’t work, and it never will work no matter how many times someone else temporarily has their face behind that mask. Those boots — among others like Wonder Woman and Superman — are just too big to be properly filled permanently.

I suppose “half-assed executions” is a little harsh, but this is a nice hole that the folks at DC wrote themselves into. How can one character have a legacy when others who have interacted with that character never age? Retcon the Failsafe? (I think that could be a comic itself.) Change who worked with whom back in the good ol’ days to make sure the aging problem doesn’t interfere? That’s great. They’re probably going to do it sooner or later anyway.

You just can’t please everyone. This fact has proven itself tenfold since I’ve been in the DC fandom. Not everyone is going to approach a new direction with grace and a sensible sense of judgment rather than instantaneous maniacal fan-frothing. But it’s kind of strange that the new faces of DC Universe are taking us backwards instead of moving forwards.

By the absurdly slim margin of 51.7% over 48.3%, it has been decided that I should finish reading Crisis on Infinite Earths. Hooray for me.

For those who voted for me to move on, thanks for trying. I’ve got some juicy stuff waiting for me. Now it’s taunting me. Perhaps that will get me through the 200 and some odd pages remaining.

For those who voted for me to finish, I am a woman of my word. I will do it, however begrudgingly.  Once I am done, I will also write about it honestly. So, if by some slim chance I end up liking this bullshit, I will tell you that I liked it. BUT if it continues to suck, my review will contain as many four letter words as possible.

I do know one thing, Crisis will be the last time I tolerate the uncreative, plot-devouring, manga-robot mothafucka that is the Anti-Monitor. Brightest Day, consider yourself dropped from the pull-list.

It’s time to go rip this band-aid off.

I read a lot — so much that all my books are subject to the 100-page rule: If I don’t care what’s happening by the 100th page, then I’m done. Life is short, and I’d like to get to the good shit before my vision goes. Obviously, comic books make up a massive portion of my literary diet. To deepen my knowledge and beef up my continuity chops, I often read trade volumes of classic stories that my fellow geeks recommend.

Enter Crisis on Infinite Earths. I am on page 102, and I’m bored. I don’t give a damn what happens next, and I am certain I could find a WAY more amusing summation on somebody’s blog. But the Geek Posse has spoken. They say that I should plow through my apathy and finish the friggin’ book. Some think it’s a great story, but I don’t share their affinity for retro-fitted fan whoring.

Perhaps I just have general Crisis Fatigue, or maybe the story is so convoluted and shallow that my brain is insulted. The obsessive part of me wants to read it because I feel I should. As a fangirl who primarily reads DC comics and now writes about them, it’s like my duty or something. Maybe it would help me make sense of Grant Morrison’s reference rodeos. Frankly, that’s my only motivation to finish.

So here’s the question: Do I spend precious moments of my life on the next 250 pages of this classic book, or do I move on to one of the many other trades waiting for me?

Rating: PG-13
Directors: Lauren Montgomery, Sam Liu
Writer: Dwayne McDuffie
Starring: William Baldwin, Mark Harmon, Chris Noth, Gina Torres and James Woods

There’s an interesting premise at the core of the new DC animated movie “Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths:” Every choice we make results in an alternate reality, creating endless variations of ourselves that range from virtually identical to unrecognizable. “Crisis” isn’t nearly as complex a film as that idea suggests, but fortunately, seeing Justice League members take on their evil doubles never gets old.

Thanks to a (mostly) strong vocal cast and some wicked action scenes, “Crisis on Two Earths” is a perfectly respectable addition to DC’s recent lineup of direct-to-DVD films. (Spoilers ahead!) Seeking to defeat the mafia-like Crime Syndicate, Earth-2’s benevolent Lex Luthor — voiced by Chris Noth, who will always be Mr. Big to us — travels across dimensions to get the Justice League’s help. As usual, everyone’s in except Batman, who is inexplicably voiced by Billy Baldwin. Was Alec not available?

Aided by their stable of “made men,” the Crime Syndicate rules with an iron fist that has cowed even the U.S. President of Earth-2: Deathstroke! OK, he’s “President Slade Wilson” here, but it’s a hoot to see him re-imagined as the ultimate public servant. Superman’s Earth-2 counterpart, Ultraman, is a meathead who appears to be fond of guyliner, and Power Ring (evil Green Lantern) comes across as a young Paulie Walnuts in Spandex. In a nice twist on our BatWondy fantasy, Superwoman is coupled with none other than Owlman, whose dick-ish lines are delivered with expert menace by James Woods. When Superwoman slinks into his lair, Owlman greets her by saying, “I thought I told you to call first.”

It turns out that Owlman is less interested in conquering Earth than destroying it and all its alternate versions. As the Justice League and Good Lex race to stop him, we’re treated to some nifty cameos (Firestorm, Black Canary and Aquaman) and several choice moments. Batslut that I am, I got a kick out of watching the Dark Knight respond to Superwoman’s advances by biting her — and probably not the way she hoped he would. Wonder Woman has some of the movie’s best fight scenes, and the explanation of how she wound up with that invisible airplane is pretty clever.

“Crisis” also makes a convincing case for Martian Manhunter as a heartthrob. V. now has a crush on Mr. J’onzz, whose mind-reading skills and bodyguard services lead to a brief romance with Earth-2’s Rose Wilson. Let’s just say that the Martian way of showing affection makes kissing look about as erotic as a high-five.

“Crisis on Two Earths” doesn’t have the epic feel of “Justice League: The New Frontier,” but it’s a solidly entertaining DVD that’s worth seeing, especially with the inclusion of the chillingly retro “Spectre” special feature. Grade: B