The thing is, if you’re not familiar with DC storylines, this will be super confusing. If you’re moderately familiar, you’ll have read these stories before. So it’s a bit of a story without an audience.
This is Crisis 23254 in this Crisis of Infinite Storylines!
Crisis of Storyline 5656: I felt shades of Tom King in this, with the integration of the trolley problem and other things like that in the story. BUT they mostly didn’t feel fleshed out, they were kind of brought up and abandoned without all feeding into the same overall story or theme. I think that’s kind of the secret of what Tom King does, his stories have discrete sections that feed into a cohesive, larger theme.
Crisis of Storyline 89723: Superman was boring. Superman being boring is, I think, the challenge of writing Superman today. You have to make him not boring. OR, you can make him boring in a way that’s charming, that simplifies a complicated world and brings comfort, but having him just be boring is not my favorite.
Crisis of Storyline 4985: At the risk of sounding like I hated the politics at play, I was rolling my eyes at a lot of the, “Lois Lane has to work twice as hard at news BECAUSE SHE’S A WOMAN!” I don’t hate the idea, but it felt like…with so much going on in this book, it was an element that felt bolted on and didn’t serve the story. I think this could easily carry its own story, I also think it could have fed into the larger thematic narrative, but it just happens.
Crisis 09435: Bruce Wayne realizing he can do things as a billionaire is not the most original idea. In fact, at this point in my life, I would LOVE to read a story about Bruce Wayne attempting to get things done as a billionaire and struggling, meanwhile his Batman-ing is getting results. A story about a Bruce Wayne who doesn’t really want to do Batman shit but is finding that, despite what he would like, to be effective, would be a twist on the story we’re seeing a lot right now.
Crisis 409587: The ending, while clever and a twist, is one you couldn’t possibly see coming until it happens. The ending really comes into play in the final 10% or so of the book, and…this is hard to describe, but I like a surprise ending that FEELS like I should’ve been able to see it coming, or that had a lot of clues that would’ve, in theory, let me put it together. I never guess endings ahead of time, I just can’t or don’t think that way, but this ending holds out so long before ramping up that it doesn’t give the reader time to feel like they could have seen any portion of it coming.
I like a lot of Mark Russell’s work, I LOVE Mike Allred’s art and was really happy to see him take this on, and it makes me wish he would do a run on Swamp Thing.
This was just not a hit for me.