Final Crisis #5: 'Into Oblivion'

Final Crisis as a whole is a really curious event. Taken in the context of the DCU as a whole, it feels rather disconnected. I don’t even really read any DCU books other than Morrison’s, but just from the online chatter, you can tell that it isn’t as huge a deal as Secret Invasion was over at Marvel or previous Crises were, simply because it isn’t really a crossover. The story doesn’t sprawl out over the whole line, it’s very concise and focused to a specific set of books, and I think that set of books has been remarkably successful because most of them are a piece of Grant Morrison’s DCU. This book is his little corner of the world, full of heavy violence and Silver Age insanity living back to back, all infused with a glorious over the top energy. I still think the series lacks the emotional resonance of Grant’s best works, but it’s full of crackling energy and an epic good/evil quality that will hopefully make it a fitting capper to the many years of Grant’s work in the DCU.

I think the best way to enjoy the book is to look at it as very much a companion piece to Batman RIP, a cleansing ritual in which the DCU will reach its low ebb, then burst forth again in a new, better way, in the Fifth World. And, just as Batman RIP was about uniting the many different corners of the Batman mythos, this series is about exploring the DCU in all its strange and contradictory elements, focusing particularly on those which Grant has rehabilitated during his time there. We get appearances by three of the Seven Soldiers here, and in his treatment of characters like the Marvel Family, you can see what Grant’s been writing down in those fabled notebooks of possible character revamps.

This entire work feels a lot like the missing piece of Seven Soldiers, the actual invasion of the Sheeda. Seven Soldiers was notable because it let you see this awful threat obliquely, through what we picked up in the various miniseries, never connecting them all for the full on ‘war.’ Batman RIP/Last Rites, Superman Beyond and FC: Submit all function like the Seven Soldiers miniseries did, filling in the gaps of what happened around the big threat. I think Final Crisis is the only crossover that I wish had a lot more tie ins. I think it would have worked better if it was structured as a two month weekly series, where every book in the DCU told a story set in the world of the series, all overseen by Grant. There’s so many stories to be told in this world, and I’d love to see even more of what Grant had in mind with the story.

Anyway, on to the issue itself. This issue is largely about plunging everyone even deeper into darkness, even as the cracks in the plan begin to shine through. This is the battle to create a new and better world, even as Darkseid creates a populace with one mind to serve him in braindead oblivion.

I don’t love the opening bit of the issue. I never particularly liked the Green Lanterns, their powers are so vast, it seems hard to tell stories with the characters. Admittedly, I haven’t read Geoff Johns’ recent run, but even in JLA, Green Lantern often served as an all purpose deus ex machina. What the scene does set up is the way that Darkseid’s lieutenants have infiltrated all areas of the DCU. I like this concept, and I think it works well to pave the way for the fifth world. The Gods of old now wear mortals, if evil gods can do this, good gods could do this too. Way back when the series was first announced, there was speculation that Batman and other current heroes would replace the New Gods, and I think it would be incredible to see Batman channel the spirit of Orion and just tear apart Darkseid’s world.

This is the final battle of the Fourth World and it’s being played out on the DCU. When this war is over, there will be a new set of new gods, and the DCU will be a healthier, shinier place. But, for now it seems that the gods of New Genesis are dead, and the gods of Apokolips reign. It plays a lot like the fiction suit concept from The Invisibles. The gods are wearing the identities of people within ‘the game,’ and manipulating them to their own ends, only these aren’t the benevolent 4-D beings of The Invisibles, they’re using this possession to destroy the DCU.

The creepiest of these is Mary Marvel, who’s being worn by DeSaad. The crotch rub on Captain Marvel Jr. is already an infamous moment, and she seems like the pure embodiment of this wild youthful embrace of total evil. DeSaad is definitely getting a lot of joy out of being able to wear this girl, and use her body. Grant has talked a lot recently about the fact that the DCU is always going to revert to the status quo, so he might as well push it to extremes on the journey. That’s what this comic is about, taking the DCU to its nastiest, darkest place before soaring back into the light.

The thing that separates it from something like Identity Crisis or even Miracleman is that it’s not trying to bring the horrors of the real world into the superhero universe, it’s taking the evils within the DCU to their extreme. That’s why we’ve got a gang of tiger soldiers going out to hunt people, the concept is ridiculous, but Morrison makes it look badass. And, it’s answered by that fantastic two page spread of our heroes going into action.

I heard somebody call this issue the Silver Age taken to its darkest extreme, and I’d agree with that. It’s got the frantic storytelling pace of a Silver Age comic, and the total embrace of the craziness of a superhero world. Like Batman RIP, it’s about finding the psychological resonance inherent in these comic book characters.

I’ve been reading The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test recently, and it’s interesting to see all the acid heads of that era constantly referencing comic books. They saw themselves as superheroes, they saw that as the evolutionary path to move humanity forward. That’s the inherent power in the concept, the draw of reading about people who are better than us, people we can hope to be one day. This comic is about that evolution, the war that we all fight against oppression and single mindedness in our society.

We are fighting that war everyday, we’re fighting an army of corporate influences out to enslave our minds, out to make us forget that our lives can be more than just this. Wonder Woman and her furies are the people who’ve given up their dreams, given up on ever being happy and decided that it’s easier to just surrender to the routine and go along with what society wants them to be. But, we can be Hawkman too, fighting in the sky to save ourselves from Anti-Life. It’s easier to go through life without thinking. That’s what Hawkman reacts against when he proudly declares that “Life…is all struggle!”

I wish that more of the critical commentary on this work was about the way that it relates to our world and the political place we’re at right now. I hate when writers on entertainment blogs say that politics is off limits. The best works of fiction, even if they’re as seemingly removed from our world as this one, are all about the world in which they’re created. Grant’s an astute social critic, and his works always capture the zeitgeist of the moment in which they’re created. To read The Invisibles is to trip back to the mind space of the 90s, and you can tell a lot about the change in times by comparing his JLA to Final Crisis. This is a heavier time, but we’ve still got people fighting on the edge of perception to make the world better.

One of my favorite scenes in the issue is Mister Miracle’s call for action. Of course he’s not dead, we’ve already seen him rise up and miss death at the end of Seven Soldiers. If he can come out of the ground, surely he can survive a bullet. That does raise the question of Batman as the fifth world’s incarnation of Mister Miracle? Is he the host for Scott Free?

Anyway, the critical thing here is the Metron pattern. This is sigil, designed to channel the god Metron into the reality of the DCU. It’s the same kind of thing we saw in The Invisibles with King Mob channeling Lennon, only in this case, the gods of the Fifth World are able to literally visit them and influence the world. I really hope that the last issue involves an army of people united by the positive god, wearing the Metron symbol, and going out to battle the army of Apokolips.

Also notable in the scene is Shilo’s description of Darkseid’s fall, “A devil-god is dragging us down with him into a deep, dark hole in time.” This is exactly what happened to Shilo in his own Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle series, a mini that should be essential reading for understanding Final Crisis because it contains the entire series in micro. The DCU is now experiencing the plunge through awful permutations of reality that Shilo went through, and it will need to die before punching out the grave infused with a new fifth-world energy.

Along those lines we get the great scene where wheelchair bound Metron from the Mister Miracle series runs into Nix Uotan. Nix is at his lowest ebb, he’s lost faith that there’s anything more than this world. He remembers a life he used to have, a life of wonder and magic, but now it only comes out in dreams and drawings. He has lost his faith and seems on the verge of succumbing to Darkseid. The entire series is contained in his arc, the loss of the wonder, and in this scene, its glorious rebirth. I love the way the Rubik’s Cube becomes a motherbox and wipes out the guards so quickly. The hypercondensed storytelling works in this issue because it’s centered around this one struggle. Each side makes salvos at each other, and this time, good has won one.

But, things go bad again very quickly during the chilling Darkseid speech. We’ve all seen these sort of evil speeches before, but here, I was just overwhelmed by the amount of evil on display. This is the superhero comic taken to 11, an entire universe in peril to the point that even Lex Luthor is worried. Darkseid has command of the world, they are united and one behind him, a hivemind extension of the ultimate evil, and only a few heroes remain to do combat with it.

One of them is Nix Uotan, who has realized himself into some kind of fifth world superhero. Parituclarly notable here is the transition page where the heroes he drew from many worlds float in the air. His side of the story ties back to what was going on over in Superman Beyond. The core of it seems to be that it is our belief in the heroes that matters, the apperance of Metron reaffirms Nix’s faith in himself and lets him actualize as a hero again. In All Star Superman, Morrison posited the idea that Superman was actually the creator of our world, and his good qualities are an archetypal well from which humanity will always pull. Superman will always be there because we need him to save us, and if we believe in him enough, he’ll be there. Because that’s what heroes are, and the bigger the threat, the bigger the heroes.

I’m still loving this series, I wish it came out in a more timely fashion, but I think it’s going to be looked back on a lot more kindly than it’s being received now. It really is drawing on all Morrison’s DC work in a way that is virtually unprecedented. I love the fact that Batman RIP continues here because it ties everything together in a fascinating way. It feels a lot like Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, an acknowledgement of the fact that all these stories hail from the same mind, and an attempt to reconcile the contradictions and ideas within.

Final Crisis and the Fourth World

Today, DC released the first art and some new details on Grant Morrison’s upcoming Final Crisis. From what Didio says, the New Gods are going to have a big role to play in the series, something that makes me very happy. I’ve been reading through the Fourth World Omnibus books, and loving them. Kirby’s work is bursting with crazy ideas, and an overarching central narrative that’s rich with subtext and relevance to today’s world.

After Seven Soldiers, Grant was supposedly working on a big New Gods project. It seems to have been folded into Final Crisis, which has been widely speculated to feature the birth of the Fifth World, and the ascension of the current DC heroes to God status. This concept was introduced by Grant during his JLA run, when Metron said “We have shown you the shape of the world to come. Now you must find the way there.”

Now, the question that comes up is how final the Crisis is. The DCU is now a multiverse, so they could in theory end the stories on Earth 1, and spin stuff off to different worlds for the future. I would love to see Grant get the opportunity to write the end of the universe as we know it, to send the characters off to their final destiny and leave that as the testament for his recent DCU work. Every longform series Grant has written, except for JLA, has ended in such a way that you don’t really need more stories. Whedon’s X-Men feels like fanfic because it is continuing a story that didn’t really need to be continued. After Return of the Jedi, you don’t need more Star Wars, you could make some and it might be good, but the story is over. That’s how I feel about X-Men, Animal Man and Doom Patrol.

However, his larger DCU work remains largely incomplete. Seven Soldiers ended with one of the greatest single issues of all time, but I would still kill for more Zatanna or Mister Miracle. 52 also left me wanting to follow the characters’ exploits further. Final Crisis could be an opportunity to synthesize everything he’s done since JLA into one massive statement about the fictional universe, and the New Gods will likely be a major part of that.

But, the major question now is, what are Grant’s New Gods going to be like? In the current DCU, the New Gods are apparently getting killed. However, Didio makes it clear that death for gods is only temporary. I think it’s poor storytelling to undermine the narrative credibility of a story by saying that death doesn’t really matter and is obviously going to be undone. But, I don’t care about the DCU as a whole as much as I do about what Grant’s going to do with it. I’m assuming he’s aware of what’s up with the New Gods, and their death will fit into his story.

Grant’s most extended take on the New Gods was Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle, which took Shilo on a crazy journey through a world where the New Gods existed only as homeless people and crazy handicapped old men. Mister Miracle was my least favorite of the minis the first time from through because it was the most disconnected from the overall narrative, and virtually incomprehensible on the first read. However, on the reread, it really shone, and I’m looking forward to going back once I finish reading all of Kirby’s Fourth World stuff.

The central question of the work is whether any of it really happened, or if it was just a hallucination Shilo experienced while trapped in the black hole. It’s been a while, but as I recall, the myriad realities he passes through were hallucinations brought on by Darkseid. He was made to question his faith, his belief in the New Gods and the power of humanity to become something better. He confronted the anti-life equation and overcame it, coming out the other side an empowered being.

This would imply that the New Gods are in fact real, it was only in the alternate reality generated by the black hole that they weren’t. I’m hoping that Final Crisis will continue to explore what started in Seven Soldiers, this revisionist take on the New Gods and the power of light to overcome darkness. The series ended with Mister Miracle bursting forth from the grave, his power overwhelming the anti-life equation. Will we see the final destruction of anti-life and the birth of a new Golden Age? I don’t know, but either way, the shot of Metron has piqued my interest. Final Crisis is looking good so far, Morrison remixing Kirby concepts and hopefully bringing in stuff from his JLA and Seven Soldiers, all illustrated by JG Jones. That’s gold right there.

Seven Soldiers #1

Morrison's grandest storytelling experiment culminates with an issue that, much like the series itself, is rather obscure on the surface, but is absolutely packed with connection and content underneath. It's one of the most insular issues of all time, neglecting traditional narrative structure, instead exploring the issue of the nature of heroism, which has driven all the minis. I'm pretty satisfied with the resolution that all the main characters received, and I think everyone got their moment to shine.

The first thing that stood out to me on the first read through was the sheer amount of formal experimentation that Morrison and Williams engage in. I think this issue confirms J.H. Williams' status as the greatest artist in comics today, his work is aesthetically wonderful and he's able to move through so many different styles, it's absolutely awe inspiring. Here he's tasked with mimicking the style of the seven minis, and also doing newspaper stuff, storybook stuff and a retelling of ancient myth. He handles everything wonderfully, and the clarity of his art helps keep the issue comprehenisble. I wish he had been around for the end of The Invisibles, he could have made the final three issue arc into an unqualified masterpiece. He and Quitely are working on a whole different level than anyone else in comics.

Our setup is a narration by one of the Seven Unknown Men, speaking to Zor/Cyrus Gold/The Terrible Time Tailor. The identity of the Seven Unknown Men is never revealed, but with his bald head and control over the continuity of this universe, it's pretty clear this is an analogue for Morrison himself. I love the DC pin on his tie, and his knock to the audience on the first page. That said, I was pretty confused by a lot of the Seven Unknown Men stuff, and I could use another read of the issue to really suss it out. It's largely about the reinvention of heroism, GM establishing the paradigm for a new age of comics, much like in Flex Mentallo, erasing the conservative, darkness of someone like Zor with wonder and bright.

There's a lot of meta commentary here, but in the context of the story itself, we see Zor weave an awful future for the Newsboy Army and cause them to combust against each other. Then we see him attack Zatanna and try to remake her into the sadistic heroine, Zorina. However, she overcomes that darkness and reclaims her own identity. He is a virus in the universe, trying to push people into this highly sexualized darkness, while the Seven Unknown Men are trying to allow magic to prevail.

A critical component of Morrison's work within the DCU is the idea that the New Gods are the mythological ancestors of contemporary superheroes. They are the role model for people like Superman, and Auracles is the first hero, the model for all who will follow. In his line is the potential for world changing heroism that is so needed in this world. The New Gods give people the capacity to control the world around them, to understand the nature of the world and better it. In these panels, we can see Aurakles bright red hair, tying him in with Alix, who is apparently the end of the line for Aurakles.

At the end of the issue, Alix is told that she's free. The Sheeda are a force that will always come to raze worlds, reset progress and stop man from moving towards better things. Through this confluence of actions, the Sheeda are stopped and a more benevolent Sheeda ruler is put in place. This means that Aurakles' great failure is atoned for and his role of shepherding humanity to this place is fulfilled. Alix never wanted to be a hero, but unconsciously she has fulfilled her role as the spear that was never thrown. Her whole miniseries was about people trying to force her into the role of hero, a role she didn't want. Here, her basic desire to help people, even Sally Sonic who had attacked her, leads to her fulfilling her destiny and saving the world from Sheeda invasion, making it safe for humanity to move forward. That's something critical that's touched on in Bulleteer #3, her weakness is that she listens and cares about people, not just advancing her own career. However, that is a form of heroism in itself, and it winds up being her great contribution to the destruction of Gloriana.

From there, we move into the newspaper parts. I think this was an interesting device, and worked well to convey a lot of information, but it wasn't my favorite part of the issue. The crossword puzzle is the most interesting piece, I got the answers off Barbelith and they raise some interesting questions. Apparently Suzi did give birth, and her children are Ed's assistants at the Guardian. The toher cool one is six down, where he points out that Lance is a synonym for spear. Also, Grant establishes himself as one of the seven unknown men. Very cool. Ed gets to acheive his dream of having a super gang working for him, the wonder of the Newsboy Army is reclaimed. Also great is Shelly's letter, with the quintessential GM line "Every day is mythology when you use your X-Ray vision to really, really LOOK." And when people put on their 'hero costumes,' the line between herovestite and real hero disappears. That's one of the major themes from SS#0, and it recurs here, with Ed essentially saying that all it takes to be a hero is trying to be one and acting like it.

On this Barbelith thread, someone mentioned that the difference between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison is that Morrison is messier, but provides you with more FUCK YEAH! moments, and this issue is the perfect example of that. You may not always be sure what's going on, but I was constantly thrilled by what was going on. In experiencing fiction, what I'm looking for is those moments that just make my jaw drop from the sheer coolness of what's happening. This issue delivered those in spades.

One easy one was the return of Zatanna. I loved her mini so much, just getting a bit more GM Zatanna was cause for celebration. More than ever, Zatanna reads like Lorelai Gilmore as a magician, full of self deprecating humor and even dropping a Scissor Sisters reference. I love the page where Misty reclaims her position with the Sheeda. We finally see the meeting of Misty and Klarion, a family reunion I'd been looking forward to. Misty is someone who feels the weight of responsibility of her role with the Sheeda. She fears becoming Gloriana because she cannot see the third path. She thinks that becoming Sheeda queen means keeping the ways of the past.

However, Klarion is utterly rebellious, just enjoying things as he goes. So when he claims power, he does not take responsibility. He takes control of the ship, and presumably the Sheeda armies, but we have no reason to believe he will be malicious. Rather he will use his power to have fun and create chaos. He turned on the soldiers by joining the Sheeda, but he was only a hero when it was fun for him. He is too mischeivious to be a real hero. I love the final page with him juggling the dice, Sheeda slaves licking his boots. The blend of Bianchi style and Irving style is seamless.

Throughout the whole series, Zatanna has been, as she says, crippled with self doubt. She fears the consequences of using her powers and believes that she is unable to live up to the legacy of her father. However, empowered by her meeting with him at the end of Zatanna #4, she comes to terms with her past. A nice Ali Ka Zoom cameo prompts her to cast a spell to empower the Seven Soldiers. This page is arguably the greatest page of any comic ever. The art is so uniquely beautiful, images from the series spilling out on tarot cards, along with an invitation for the reader to fight alongside Zatanna. Much like her reach out to the reader in issue #4, this is a moment where she looks right at you and beckons you to join her in her magical act, "Let's save the world, you and me, together." Maybe she's talking to Misty, but the way it's presented, there's only one person she's looking at.

Gwydion's words prompt Zatanna to deliver a critical manifesto. The 'third path' was established back in SS#0, beyond the strict choice between good and evil, the near oppressive allegiance to one side, there is the ability to choose one's own way and trump destiny. For Misty, this means not becoming Sheeda Queen and instead continuing her work with Zatanna. This also ties into Alix, who rejects her destiny to be a certain kind of hero. Similarly, Shilo is able to reject death. This ties into the very end of The Invisibles, when Dane rejects questions of choice vs. free will, claiming that it's all the same, we're here and we have choices that create our reality. Zatanna rejects the limits that our roles place on us and invites to do the impossible, to wake the universe.

What does waking the universe mean? It likely ties in to Morrison's idea of the DCU as sentient entity. But, in the context of the story she is awakening the forces of good within reality and compelling them to help the heroes. Her spell is cast to the Unknown Men, to Morrison, to begin the phase of the story in which good happens. This is the turning point in defeating the Sheeda, and it's an astonishing moment. We don't see Zatanna again after this point, her work is done, she has set in motion everything that follows. That said, if I want to see Morrison writing any of these characters again, it would be Zatanna. Esaelp od a atanna dna ytsim seires.

Following this, we get a nice resolution for Guardian. His arc was basically done in his own series, it was only left for him to get Carla back. He does that here, and it's a great moment. Another fantastic Guardian tie in moment is the closeup on Ed, rebuking the Time Tailor. I feel like Guardian #4 affected me more than the rest of the issues combined, and I love the fact that we get a bit of resolution for that crew here. The flies around TTT here give the page such a nasty feel.

From there it's over to Ystina, who is totally resilient in battling Gloriana. She is unwilling to back down, even when it will mean her death, she proves herself to be a worthy knight of Camelot. She gets the most developed resolution in a scene that feels like Mathilda at the end of Leon. She is taken away from adventure and put into normal society. However, she is meant to be a knight and one day will take up the sword again.

It's a testament to the power of SS#0 that Spyder's shot at Gloriana feels so fulfilling. This guy was in one issue, but his prominence in the opening announced his importance in the narrative. I love the throwback to what prey would Gods hunt. His kissoff line to Gloriana is solid cool, as is Gloriana's techno eyepatch. That page features some of my favorite art in the issue, particularly the striking panel of Gloriana falling towards the apple.

Frankenstein doesn't get much to do this issue, largely because he already played his part in the final issue of his own miniseries. That crippled Gloriana's fleet and set her up for the finale here. I'm really happy with Gloriana's death, no standard battle could live up to it, and that makes the semi-ridiculous car crash the perfect way to destroy her. I really like the captions here, particularly "Prophecy moves in for the kill."

This leaves us with the most complex segment of the issue, the stuff with Mister Miracle. As I mentioned in my previous post on the series, that mini was all about a descent into absolute darkness as a way to discover the heroism within. His experience erased his fear and guilt, leaving him free to move on to a higher form of heroism. As we saw earlier, The New Gods are all about giving humanity the tools to move to the next stage of evolution, and his experience has left Shilo with the vision of another dimension of reality, as he says in an absoultely kickass moment "I come with God-Sight now." In his exchange with Dark Side, we simultaneously experience their actual speech and their God speech.

Apparently the guy who was called Omega in MM4 is actually Aurakles, the first hero imprisoned. He seems to have been tortured so much that he's lost touch with the heroism at his core. This ties into the whole purpose of Shilo's black hole experience. Metron told him that he was sent there because the New Gods were lost, they were training him for this moment, when he would sacrifice himself so that Aurakles could be freed and the powers of the New Gods could be recovered. Then, humanity can move on to the next stage of its evolution.

Shilo is the avatar of the life equation, freedom, choice, escape from the restrictions of human society. By killing him, Dark Side thinks that he will remove the rebellious streak from the human world and crush the spirit of heroism. His quick death takes you out of the superhero reality, villains aren't supposed to use guns like this, and there's no escape for Mister Miracle from the bullet. At the end, Dark Side believes that the triumph over the Sheeda is a hiccup against the progression of darkness.

However, his words are rendered utterly false in the final page, as Shilo bursts triumphantly out of his grave, infused with the power of The New Gods, he is the avatar of freedom and he returns triumphant. The return of this avatar fits in perfectly with the other theme of the third path. As Zatanna said, one of the critical issues in the series was the possibility of personal choice. For the characters here, fate is a jacket sewn by the Time Tailor, designed to hold them to a bad destiny. That is the essence of Dark Side, to trap. However, he did not count on the ultimate escape artist.

In the end, all the characters get what they want, the freedom to choose their own path. Alix was forced into the role of hero, but finds herself absolved and free to move on with her life. Klarion hated the restrictive world he lived in, but now finds himself free to rule over others. Zatanna was unable to live up to the memory of her father, but he liberated her from his legacy and gave her the courage to choose her own path. Jake overcame his malaise and found a way to be a hero and still be with Carla. Ystina found a way to overturn the fall of Camelot and rediscover heroism in the modern world. And Shilo overcame the hollowness of his life as a celebrity to become a God. And Frankenstein was liberated from the legacy of Melmoth by helping to defeat the evil that created him.

Some become heroes, but more importantly everyone gets what they want. And when Miracle rises out of the grave, he heralds a new age of heroism, the universal awakening that Zatanna summoned is beginning. He has moved beyond all the shackles of humanity, faced death and came out ahead. We can view Dark Side as an avatar of Zor, an outdated concept who is trying to lower the world to his level. However, the intervention of the Unknown Man puts Zor away, literally sealing his darkness out of the world and replacing it with the shiny, wonder that Shilo's rebirth promises. As Zatanna tells us, magic is about doing the impossible, bringing the ideal world we want to life by choosing the third path, our own path.

This issue is one of the densest works ever done in comics. On every page there's a crazy concept, and amongst all this is a generally satisfying resolution for all the characters. I'd have loved a few more pages, a glimpse of what's up with Frankenstein or Zatanna, but I came out very satisfied. Seven Soldiers is a distillation of so many different ideas and storytelling modes, it's astonishing to see them all collide here, and that collision underscores the basic themes that drive all the miniseries. This is Grant's second greatest work, behind only The Invisibles. In the same way that The Invisibles functions as a deconstruction of our own reality and offers the reader a way to discover the wonder within their own world, Seven Soldiers breaks down the DC universe and provides a model for its heroes to reclaim the magic within their lives. Flex Mentallo is an overture to this work, and though SS lacks Flex's tight cohesion, it makes up for it in stunning ambition and the sheer amount of dazzling moments. This issue had so many panels that made me smile, in a way that only Grant can do. He's working on an entirely different level than anyone else out there today and after 25 years in comics, he's still creating fresh, startlingly innovative works. This is one of those works that makes me priveleged just to have the chance to experience something so powerful and thought provoking. Thank you Grant and all your art team for creating such an ambitious, powerful project.

My Complete Seven Soldiers Post Index

Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle

Issue #1 is in house, and I'm almost through the reread, only two issues to go. I just finished reading Mister Miracle #4 and I wanted to discuss that series a bit. On the first read, I was very confused by it, and disappointed by the lack of connection to the rest of the series. It still feels a bit removed from the rest of the project, and might have been better received as a standalone piece. However, on this read I was able to understand what was going on a lot better, and I think I now get what Grant was doing with the series.

The work that Mister Miracle reminds me of most is David Lynch's Inland Empire. I won't go into too many specific spoilers for the film, but what both works do is basically take its hero on a harrowing journey through a variety of nightmare realities, bringing them to utter emotional collapse, before the reclamation of agency and a return to the world they left. It's difficult to follow Mister Miracle in pieces, partially because the nature of this project leads us to believe that the events must be 'real.' However, my reading of the series is that everything that occurs is a trial for Shilo, designed to help him overcome the loss of his brother and ascend to the role of hero. Metron sums this up when he says "The choice is simple. Free the bright ones or be slaves to the dark."

However, one cannot simply become a hero. In The Invisibles, Grant claimed that time is soil for us to grow in, and that we have to confront darkness because that's the only way that we can beocme stronger. If there is no dark, we would never evolve. Here, we see Shilo put through a series of increasingly awful realities, totally breaking him down so that he can finally overcome his guilt about his brother's death and become the hero the New Gods need him to be.

One thing that really helped me on this read was having the read the trade of Jack Kirby's New Gods run. So, I was familiar with all the basic concepts, this eternal struggle between light and dark. In the DCU, the New Gods serve as the spiritual ancestors of today's superheroes, and specially in Grant's JLA, they were role models, giving humanity a glimpse of what they could be. In reality, Shilo would likely be familiar with them, however in this alternate reality he's plunged into, he lacks knowledge of this heroic legacy. This is designed to show Shilo's complacency and uncertain position in the ongoing war between good and evil. He's a man who uses his power to acquire wealth and fame, he'd risk his life for money, but not to save people. He is not a hero.

All of the Seven Soldiers miniseries are about people who aren't heroes going through an emotional trial and are forced to choose between safety and heroism. In this respect, Mister Miracle fits in perfectly with the others, pushing the elements to the absolute extreme. Shilo is crippled, ages, and dies a number of times. This is a lot more than Zatanna's extistential angst or Guardian's separation from his girlfriend. That's because Shilo's story takes place in a purely mental existence. When he enters the black hole, he finds himself in an approximation of the life he's leading on the outside, then gradually slips into increasingly divergent realities.

All the events we see function as a trial, designed to break Shilo down to his essence, to overcome the restraints that are his life. The luxuries his fame afforded him no longer appeal, and he gradually loses all his real personal connections. His own belief in the New Gods, heroism, is tested when the homeless man won't respond as Metron. In issue three, he experiences all his greatest fears about his life, that someone will be a better escape artist than him, and this man will take his girlfriend and manager. This leaves Miracle alone and poor, facing the ultimate shame of buying some Depends.

Issue four presents more trials, all designed to wear Shilo down to his essence, to remove the guilt and pain he's carrying around with him. Omega is much like the guilt monster in Shining Knight, a physical manifestation of negative feeling. Omega's purpose is to hold Shilo back, to expose the hollowness of his life. However, Shilo turns this back on him and reveals the hollowness of Omega's own role. He owns his pain, and after that, he's ready to be a hero. Dezzard, Shilo's manifestation of his own negative feelings, is destroyed, and Metron effectively sums up the series' theme, "Forgive yourself and remove those chains you wear. Become what you were born to be." It's a message for all of us, that we can leave behind the negative emotions that hold us down, and once we relinquish those, we can ascend and be whatever we want to be.

As Shilo flies out of the black hole, Metron tells him to "Free the Gods. Free all of us." In this series, the New Gods are analagous with the capacity for heroism within all of humanity, they are the mythical incarnations of our best traits. So, Shilo is sent with the mission to hlep everyone escape their emotional shackles and evolve to the next level. It ties in nicely with Metron's message to the JLA at the end of World War III. And like other Morrison heroes, such as Dane, Shilo is given the mission of helping humanity evolve to the next level.

So, Mister Miracle has little narrative connection to the other miniseries, but it articulates the themes of the others perfectly. Those final words that Metron says apply to all the other soldiers, who are empowered with a mission to save humanity. And it's a classic Morrison theme, the idea that if we only move beyond human pettiness, we can evolve and become greater, more united beings.

The one issue that this interpretation raises is how to match the alternate reality nature of Mister Miracle with the series' crossover with Klarion's taxi. It's notable that in Klarison, we never actually see Shilo. Now, it's possible this was an art error, or Morrison just decided to put the Klarion taxi into Mister Miracle at some later point. However, I think that's evidence of the alternate reality. It was modeled on our own, right down to the random passersby, however, in the 'real' world, Klarion never saw Mister Miracle. And that would mean that yes, someone did pick up Jake's ring, and perhaps we'll find out who in issue #1.

I'm really excited to read that issue and I'll be on it later tonight. Look for a review then as well.

Seven Soldiers: The Flaws that Make Perfection

If I could be doing anything right now, it'd be reading the just released Seven Soldiers #1. Alas, I have no car and cannot get to a comic shop right now, so I'll have to wait for the issue to arrive in the mail. I've done a quick skim of the critical reaction and it sounds like Grant pulled off the near impossible task of providing satisfactory conclusion for seven characters in forty pages. I'm currently rereading the series, about halfway through, I just hit Zatanna #3. On the first read, I wrote up extensive thoughts on each issue, but I wanted to do a quick discussion of how the project feels on the second read.

Seven Soldiers is a work that feels very special. I'm always charged after reading an issue, caught up in this narrative web that Grant has created. What makes this more exciting than a standard story is the interconnected nature of the narrative. You experience one small piece of this massive world, and a lot of the joy of the project comes from situating what you've just read in the overall context of the meta-narrative. That's a lot easier to do on the second read. I was confused by a lot of things the first time through, but it's easier to keep track of the seemingly unrelated occurrences on the second go through.

In structuring the series, Grant promised that each miniseries and even every single issue would tell a standalone story. He claimed that you could pick up a random issue and enjoy it, and while I'd agree that you'd probably be entertained, it's not really comprehensible. Each issue is standalone, but that's used more a structuring principle. He's reducing the fluff inherent in ongoing comics, removing the setup and taking stories right to the action point.

Look at an issue like Guardian #3, the theme park comes out of nowhere, but we get the idea of it in one page, and then it's right into the action. Through the flashbacks, we understand Jake's emotional context, everything is woven into the single issue story, I don't think a slow build was needed to make Jake's marital problems more effective. Grant uses emotional shortcuts to create the desired effect.

I've heard people criticize Grant's work by claiming it always feels like you missed an issue, but I think that's largely the point of these issues. He cuts out the issue where you'd do a slow build set up of the theme park, and instead sums all that up in one page and gets to the meat of the story. It's the same in Klarion #3, Melmoth sums up what's going on with Klarion, then it's right into the new story. I think these jumps might be jarring if you read each mini seperately, but as it is now, it feels like an Altman film, where we drop in on people at their interesting moments, then move away. So, the exposition in Guardian is happening while we're over with Zatanna.

Rather than each issue standing alone in terms of plot, I feel like each issue is a satisfying standalone reading experience. This is in reaction to the drawn out for trade storylines so prevalent in today's comics, where you don't get any payoff until the sixth issue of the storyline. Here, each issue has its own arc and leaves you with a lot of new material to ponder. The amount of thematic and narrative development in a single issue of Seven Soldiers is equivalent to what you'd get from a whole trade of Ultimate Spider-Man or Y: The Last Man.

I'm liking Klarion a lot more on this read. Once you know that Klarion is part Sheeda, it's easier to understand what Melmoth's trying to do, and how Klarion's rebellion plays into the larger story. I'd still say it's the weakest of these initial four minis, but that's just because the others are so good.

My favorite is undoubtedly Zatanna. This book is just perfect, a seamless blend of magical concepts, supernatural intrigue and very relatable personal issues. I get such joy from seeing Zatanna exorcize the magic shop in issue two, her skill shining above her self deprecating remarks. She's the character who feels most real here, and one of Morrison's most vivid characterizations in all his books. More than anything, I'd love to see Morrison write more Zatanna.

I'm planning on picking up 52 once it comes out in trade, because it features a bunch of the Seven Soldiers crew. I love these people that Morrison has created and I want to spend more time with them. That's the sign of a great work. Hopefully I'll get Seven Soldiers #1 by the end of the week, in which case it'll be a binge read until I get through the previous issues and am able to read the finale.

Weekend Update

Seven Soldiers

This week, Grant Morrison's megaseries, Seven Soldiers, finally comes to its conclusion. I read all the books in June, and it's been a tough four month wait for the finale. I've started rereading the series and am loving it even more. Being familiar with the overall arc makes it easier to appreciate the progression of each series. On the first read, I was a detective, searching for connections. Now, I'm trying to sit back and take everything in. SS #0 stands up as one of the best things Morrison's ever written, as does the start of Zatanna. I'm only through four issues, so I'll have to speed up a bit, since I know once #1 is here, I'm not going to do anything else until I've finished the series.

More Morrison

This week also sees the debut of two new Morrison series, revamps of The Authority and Wildcats. Critical reaction isn't ecstatic, and I'll admit I'm not that thrilled to see Morrison taking on those two properties. I'd rather see him do some more creator owned work, hopefully his Vertigo series with J.H. Williams III will turn up soon. However, I don't think he could take on much more work now since he's got four ongoing series going right now. None of them have appeared in trade, so I haven't had a chance to read anything yet, but I'll certainly get them all eventually, and I'm especially looking forward to All Star Superman.

The U.S. Office

When the U.S. version of The Office first aired, I had just finished an incredible rewatch of its British counterpart. I watched the first two episodes, but it felt like a community theater group taking over for master actors. But, I keep hearing good things, so I decided to put my bias aside and take another look at it. I've seen those same first two episodes, and I was still not impressed. The thing that makes the British series work so well is its total realism. The characters and the actors playing them are indistinguishable, and the reality of the social situations is what makes the interactions so intensely awkward. I think the bulk of the people on the US show are pretty good, but Steve Carell just ruins it for me. Gervais as David Brent was not funny, but in a way you could laugh at. Carell is not funny in a way that's just annoying. Brent is a regular guy who tries too hard. Michael Scott's Hitler bit in the first episode is totally out of reality, he feels more like an actor playing a regular guy who's trying too hard. I'm going to watch some more, but so far, I'm not impressed. If you're going to be compared to a masterpiece, you've got to be better than alright.

Rescue Me

I wrapped up the first season of Rescue Me. I've mentioned before that I feel like today's TV world is like film in the 70s, and Rescue Me feels like one of those minor 70s classics. There's much better stuff out there, but this is totally reliable entertainment, hitting that balance of interpersonal drama played out against a larger canvas that's so popular for shows today. The supporting cast has gotten more fleshed out as the season progressed, and the addition of Laura to the firehouse did a great job of messing with the established dynamic. It's not quite gotten to greatness, but I was consistently entertained by every episode of the first year, and I've got the second on DVD, ready to watch.

New Film

On Friday, I start shooting on my senior thesis film. It's a twelve minute sci-fi piece about time travel, with a lot of crazy, Morrisonian stuff in there. It's the most planned out film I've done, and I'm hoping it will be the best. I'll hopefully have a trailer up online in a couple of weeks.

Weekend Update

Elysian Fields

I'm heading into the city tonight to see Elysian Fields. I saw them back in March and it was fantastic, I'll write it up after I return tonight.

Comic-Con

The biggest comic book event of the year is going on right now, the San Diego Comicon. The biggest news for me is about Grant Morrison's new projects. When I heard he was revamping The Authority I wasn't too excited. The concept feels a bit 2000 and I was never a huge fan of the characters. However, his new take is brilliant, the Authority go through a dimensional warp and wind up in our world. Then, they set about to change our world for the better, one person at a time. Morrison's usually all about Silver Age craziness, so it's interesting to hear him talking about doing a very realistic series, even incorporating some Soderbergh style. This concept seems to be taken from the end of JLA: Classified, in which the Ultramarines were sent into a world without superheroes. It'll probably be at least a year before it turns up in trade, but I'm still psyched.

Seven Soldiers #1

In other Morrison news, Seven Soldiers #1 has finally been scheduled for release, October 25. It's a long wait, but in the long run it's worth it. I wouldn't want another Igor Kordey on New X-Men job. I'll probably reread the whole series before the release of #1.

Clerks II

I haven't gotten a chance to see Clerks II yet, but I'm going to get there soon and I'll write it up when I do. I rewatched the original Clerks and was a bit underwhelmed. The acting is so awful at some points and a lot of the jokes are very obvious. Jeff Anderson and Jason Mewes save the film however. Mewes is clearly the most talented, natural performer in the film. He's always funny even in the otherwise really weak Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Smith has only made one really great movie and that's Chasing Amy, it's still in my all time top 20. The transition from extremely funny comedy to emotionally devestating drama is seamless.

A Scanner Darkly Revisit

I rewatched A Scanner Darkly a few days ago. I really liked the film, but it doesn't match up to the best of Linklater's work. I love the stuff in the house, but the scenes at the police station, with the scramble suits, are less satisfying. It's meant to show the way that these scramble suits remove any individuality, but they also make it very difficult to emotionally relate to the characters. However, the film does close on a wonderful note, Keanu's delivery of "A present for my friends, at Thanksgiving" makes it sound like he's just discovered the key to the universe. Here's my ranking of all Linklater's work:

Waking Life
Before Sunset
Before Sunrise
Dazed and Confused
School of Rock
A Scanner Darkly
Suburbia
Slacker
Tape
Bad News Bears
The Newton Boys

New Gods

I've been reading Jack Kirby's New Gods series. I got the trade because I wanted to better understand Morrison's Mister Miracle series. The book is full of crazy ideas and generally holds up. There's some goofiness, like the constant use of exclamation points and the exposition focused dialogue. Every issue it seemed that Victor Lanza would have to state his name and profession. "I'm Victor Lanza, insurance salesman." "Victor Lanza's the name, insurance salesman." "But I'm just a poor insurance salesman, Victor Lanza!" And so on. But, it's very cool to get the background on everything from the previous series. New Gods overwhelming assault of ideas and concepts was clearly a major influence on Morrison himself.

Music

This week I've been listening to the Scissor Sisters' first album a bunch. I'm regretting not going to Siren Festival last week, I would have loved to have seen them live. The album is a great dance-rock record and even the cover of 'Comfortably Numb' is growing on me.

The other album I've been loving is 'A Night on Earth' by Crazy P. Like Daft Punk, their stuff is a perfect fusion of 70s disco with contemporary house. The album is 75 minutes of great songs, but the highlight is the opening track, Lady T. Check out the video here. This video is fantastic as well, though the version of the song used is a remix, not the album version.

Upcoming Dates of Note
7/22 - Elysian Fields at Joe's Pub
7/28 - Miami Vice released
8/3 - New Pornographers at Summerstage
8/7 - Phoenix at Bowery Ballroom (Hopefully)
8/8 - Manderlay on DVD
8/15 - Veronica Mars Season 2 on DVD
8/17 - Gnarls Barkley at Summerstage
8/29 - Arrested Development Season 3 on DVD
9/22 - Science of Sleep Releated
9/24 - The Flaming Lips at Hammerstein
10/13 - The Fountain Released
10/20 - Marie Antoinette Released

Related Posts
A Scanner Darkly (7/6/2006)

Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein #4 and Wrap Up

So, it's on to the second to last issue of the Seven Soldiers project, the totally insane Frankenstein #4. I've always felt that the real fun of action sequences isn't in the scene itself, it's in the buildup, the moments where you know something's going to go down, but you're not quite sure what yet. This is issue is that buildup for Seven Soldiers #1, finally bringing us to direct conflict with the Sheeda.

The opening page of the issue has more of the fantastic pulpy narration that Morrison's employed throughout the series. The character is just so badass in this issue, starting with his battle with Neh-Buh-Loh. After appearing in most of the minis, Frank finally puts him down. I haven't read the JLA: Classified issue that serves as a prelude for Seven Soldiers but it appears that a death virus was injected into Neh-Buh-Loh, and this weakness is what causes him to spare Misty, a choice that may bring about the Sheeda's destruction. I love Neh-Buh-Loh's conflict here, it brings a lot of stuff we've seen together. Plus, Frankenstein downloading info from the internet is great.

Jumping locations, we pick up with Frankenstein targetting the Sheeda in Miracle Mile. I like the fact that they return here for the final confrontation, it gives nice symmetry to the minis, and leads me to believe that the characters from SS0 will play a role in the resolution in SS1.

The jump to One Billion Years Later is such a crazy moment. There's so much insane pop over the top stuff in this issue, a particular highlight is the caption: "All in a day's work...for Frankenstein!" You can practically hear an over the top narrator going crazy on that line.

What this issue confirms is that the Sheeda come from the future, and have been jumping back in time to raze human societies at various points in human history, trying to use the destruction of our culture as a way to re-energize their own. In the apple speech, Gloriana brings things back to the parent/child metaphor. She claims that what the Sheeda are just doing what humans have always done, they had to in order to survive for so long.

The apple scene is another fairy tale tie in, Gloriana is the wicked stepmother archetype, quite literally for Frankenstein, who is actually Melmoth's son. She offers Frankenstein power, but he's someone who's so utterly committed to his work that nothing could sway him. Each of the characters has a moment where they can choose to abandon their quest, or to keep doing good, and this is it for Frankenstein. The exploding ships on the next page provide a definitive answer, Frankenstein is not going to be swayed by Gloriana.

The end of the issue has such ridiculous momentum, everything's going crazy, building up to the final confrontation between Frankenstein and the Queen. I was hoping this issue wouldn't end, but alas, it did and we go into Seven Soldiers #1 with Gloriana about to go into the undying waters. Will she make it or will Frankenstein stop her?

There's a ton of stuff still to resolve in Seven Soldiers #1. The issue's been bumped up to 48 pages, but I'm assuming that a lot of plot threads will remain unresolved. Everyone except for Frankenstein is in New York, so I'm guessing that Gloriana will escape to New York, Frank will follow her and meet up with everyone else there. I know Grant has said that the seven soldiers would never meet, but I'm not sure if that applied only to the minis, or to issue 1 as well. I'm assuming that Bulleteer needs to meet up with someone to turn back to the hero's path. Though, it's possible she'll run into the Whip. The two are similar character types and having Shelly return would give the project a nice symmetry.

The overall story is actually pretty close to its end, so the major issue will be giving each character an appropriate sendoff. I think it's a great testament to Grant's writing that I would love to read an ongoing series for nearly all the characters, in particular I would love Grant to do more with Zatanna and Misty.

This project had a lot of Grant's classic themes, extradimensional beings, meta commentary on the nature of fiction and characters moving into dimensions of higher consciousness, it also brought in some major new themes with the exploration of sexuality and growing up. There's good growth and bad growth, the characters who find their own way are able to grow up well, but the characters who have adulthood or sexuality forced upon them all wind up messed up. This is what happens to the Newsboy Army, to Sally Sonic and even to Alix, who is ultimately unable to adjust to the life that Lance forced on her.

I loved this project so much because of the way it uses a variety of generic approaches to comment on the same themes. Most of the minis wouldn't quite hang together as a standalone read, but by reading them as part of the overall project, you get a better understanding of the thematic development. I think DC acknowledged that the project is not seven miniseries, it's one overall story in the way they traded it, intercutting the issues in publication order. It really is one big story.

And, just to wrap things up for now, here's my ranking of the minis and some final thoughts on each.

1. Zatanna - This was one of the best things Grant ever wrote, the first issue was full of inventive visual imagery and did a great job of introducing our heroine's dilemma, and by the time we reach the brilliant issue four, I had a complete picture of Zatanna and Misty's relationship. The last issue was the best issue in the entire project because it was mindblowing on a conceptual level and deeply affecting emotionally. Zatanna's reunion with her father is the strongest emotional moment in the entire project.

2. Manhattan Guardian - The first three issues were pretty good, but this high ranking is primarily due to the final issue, which creates an entire world and a vivid cast of characters then destroys it, all in 22 pages. Jake's arc is well done, and that last issue does provide some nice closure for him, despite barely featuring him.

3. Bulleteer - This one returns to the territory Morrison explored in one of his best projects, Flex Mentallo, but spins those concepts through the themes of Seven Soldiers. Issue 3 is the best, but the whole mini excels at depicting this world of b-list superheroes struggling to make it big.

4. Shining Knight - The art in this mini was an aesthetic wonder, and it has some of the most interesting stuff on the Sheeda themselves. Gloriana's emergence in issue 3 is fantastic, though I also love Justin claiming the role of hero in issue 2.

5. Frankenstein - This was another great mini, going so far over the top with its pulpy captions you can't help but enjoy it. The whole mini gives us fantastic action sequences and I love Frankenstein's parental conflict with Melmoth. That fit wonderfully into the thematics of the project as a whole.

6. Klarion the Witch Boy - Issue 2 was great, but this one never clicked for me. The art was great, but the main character was rather annoying. If one of the soldiers has to go, I would vote for Klarion.

7. Mister Miracle - This one might get bumped up on a reread, but on the first read, it felt too disconnected from the project as a whole and was tough to follow, making it difficult to emotionally relate to the character. Still, the last issue redeemed a lot of the issues and I think it could improve greatly on a reread.

And now, it's time to wait for Seven Soldiers #1 and the conclusion of this thing.

The Complete Seven Soldiers Post Index

Seven Soldiers #0

Shining Knight #1-2, Manhattan Guardian #1, Zatanna #1, Klarion #1

Manhattan Guardian #2-3, Zatanna #2, Shining Knight #3, Klarion #2-3

Shining Knight #4, Zatanna #3

Manhattan Guardian #4

Klarion #4, Mister Miracle #1, Bulleteer #1

Zatanna #4

Frankenstein #1, Mister Miracle #2, Bulleteer #2

Frankenstein #2, Mister Miracle #3 and Bulleteer #3

Frankenstein #3, Mister Miracle #4 and Bulleteer #4

Frankenstein #4 and Wrap Up

Seven Soldiers: The Flaws that Make Perfection

Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle

Seven Soldiers #1

Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein #3, Mister Miracle #4, Bulleteer #4

I'm now all caught up on the issues that have been released so far, and it's looking like a nasty wait until issue #1 turns up. I'm hoping it'll be out by September. I'm sure the art by J.H. Williams will be worth the wait, he's going to have quite the task, to wrap up all seven stories in a satisfactory way. There's a ton of stuff to cover, and everyone seems to have different favorite characters that they want to see followed up on.

But, on to the issues themselves. Frankenstein #3 continues the character's journey through a crazy pulp horror world. I love the narration in this mini, going incredibly over the top, I love this bit: "Swirling fog. Bizarre inhuman cries. A mystery for Frankenstein!" Great stuff, I would love to see an ongoing series following Frankenstein's bizarre adventures, but I've also said that about nearly every other mini so far.

This storyline seems to be a twisted version of We3, with its cute bunnies and birds infected by a demon water. The story itself is similar to the cruise ship story from The Filth and Manhattan Guardian #3, all show how one corrupting element from the outside can destroy a closed community. This issue has a very X-Files vibe, as the government organization turns up and razes the town.

But the real fun of the issue is seeing Frankenstein confronted with the modern world, in the form of his lost mate, The Bride. I love the way she's designed, the four arms is a great touch and the two of them make a great couple in the brilliant "And Frankenstein deals death!" page.

With her appearance, we're back to the conflict between old and new. Frankenstein's ways have become outdated, but he is unable to update. It's a lot of fun watching Frankenstein kill the mutant cows, but the issue only has tangential relevance to the piece as a whole. The most significant thing is the fact that Frankenstein clings to his very strict view of good and evil, he can't fit in with S.H.A.D.E who are totally cynical, willing to do whatever has to be done to get the job done. Frankenstein's is an older style of heroism, and it's unclear whether there's a place for it in the modern world.

Mister Miracle #4 is a perplexing issue for me. I really need to do a reread of this mini because I didn't get a lot of what's going on in it. One of my big issues is the way that it's totally unrelated from the rest of the piece in terms of story, there are some thematic connections, but unlike the other books, we could have easily done without Mister Miracle.

The way I read it, the entire miniseries took place while Shilo was in the black hole, he's confronted with the anti-life equation as an inoculation, a test, and is then thrown out of the black hole ready to free the New Gods. So, the stuff we saw last issue was just one manifestation of this anti-life equation, confronting Shilo with the loss of his individuality, through the imposter Mister Miracle, and the loss of everyone he loves, to the plastification process.

Here, he confronts another trauma, the death of his brother Aaron, which he feels responsible for. You could read the entire miniseries as a chronicle of Shilo's fears and insecurities, all of which stem from the death of his brother. That's why we haven't heard about it before, because it took a while to dig through the surface concerns and find his deepest traumas.

As the issue proceeds, Shilo moves through a variety of parallel universes, confronted with all his fears. I did really enjoy the issue as I was reading it, it's only trying to piece things together that becomes difficult. This is an issue that you really need to break down and analyze before you can enjoy it.

Shilo's confrontation with Oracle brings back the motif of the spear not thrown, which ties back to Alix's decision not to be the seventh soldier at Miracle Mesa. I like the way Shilo's work as an escape artist is tied into him fleeing from his responsibilities. Death becomes the ultimate escpae, and he could choose to give in rather than be thrown through this endless series of increasingly degraded parallel existences. So, Shilo ends up confronting the fundamental force of restriction, a brilliant classic Morrison idea. By liberating restriction itself, he's able to overcome the anti-life equation and pass the test that Metron gave him. Shilo returns to the world, and the last page implies that Shilo has come to terms with his brother's death. So, much like the end of Zatanna, Shilo overcomes the psychological issues that were holding him back and emerges ready to battle the Sheeda.

I'm not sure if the New Gods stuff will be present in Seven Soldiers #1, I'd assume not, but we'll probably get some hint of the Sheeda as a manifestation of Dark Side. I'm going to give this mini another read, now that I know the basic structure, it should be easier to follow, and it'll be easier to enjoy outside of the expectations of forwarding the overall Seven Soldiers story.

On to the conclusion of Bulleteer, my favorite of the second run of minis. I mentioned before that this mini is structured a lot like Manhattan Guardian, and this issue is another notable example of that, as we follow the secret sex history of a supporting character, in this case Sally Sonic. I don't think this issue is quite as strong as Manhattan Guardian #4, which stands as my second favorite issue in the entire project, but it's a great conclusion to the themes and narrative of this mini.

I think the critical thing in reading this issue is the way that Sally's story functions as a what if for Alix, this is the person that Alix could have become if she'd allowed Lance to enact his will on her.

However, the first few pages are all about naive Golden Age superheroics, fragments of life from an age that's gone. In the DCU, the past really was this magical place where you can fly around with your teddy bear sidekick. I like the way that parallels peoples' idealized versions of the past in our world. People ignore the darkness of the era when constructing our view of the 1950s nuclear family. It's tough watching Sally lose everyone she loves and then be unable to grow up. She's got the same dilemma as Li'l Hollywood and Baby Brain, an inability to grow beyond her childlike appearance. In the series, adulthood is generally seen as corrupting and dangerous, as in Klarion #3, but perpetual childhood is not an answer either. There's two kinds of growing up, one is to have adulthood forced upon you, as happened to the Newsboy Army with the time tailor, the other is a more gradual growth and claiming of adult responsibility. That's what Klarion and Justin's arcs are about, bringing them to the point where they make the conscious choice to grow up and fight evil. Sally is never given the opportunity to grow up, and that is what makes her go along with her own exploitation.

The major issue I have with this issue is that Sally doesn't actually look that young. She's got massive breasts, in her post whistle form, I don't think anyone's mistaking her for a child. I can understand that DC might be uneasy with having someone who really does look like a child engaged in these porn films, but the disconnect between image and narrative ends up hurting the issue.

Sally is someone who's extremely jealous of what she can't have, namely a normal life, someone to grow old with. So, she lashes out at stable relationships and destroys them, a behavior pattern detailed by Thumbelina last issue.

It's in her relationship with Dennis that we see how Alix and Sally have the same basic issues. Dennis is someone who wants to exploit Sally to forward his own ends. In this book, being a superhero is tied up in all kinds of sexual issues, which makes Dennis' claim that he's happy to meet "Someone who believes in goodness and decency and honor" deeply ironic, particularly when two panels later he's telling her "Let's fight crime, Luv. Together." This is another spin on the sexual "team-up" that Lucian proposes in issue 3. Unlike Alix, Sally goes along with Dennis and allows him to mold her into a pornographic parody of the hero that she once was.

The scene with Dennis telling Sally he can't fight crime because they don't have enough money is another great moment where superheroing is brought down to Earth. In a lot of ways, Seven Soldiers is the first significant statement on what it would really be like to be a superhero since Watchmen. Watchmen had some of this street level, insignificant hero stuff, but it was mostly about Batman or Superman analogues. Here, we see what it's like for the c-list hero, people who aren't even able to be heroes because they need to work the "secret identity job.

I love the idea of "evil serum," it's another spin on the anti-life equation or the guilt monster, a reduction of all that's bad in the universe to one substance. The panel where Sally is smoking the cigarette and we see her through a cloud of smoke is fantastic. The cigarette in holder is such a classic evil prop and the art has lost its Golden Age clarity and become a moodier, more real style. Paquette's shifting styles throughout the mini are very impresssive, and other than the issues with Sally Sonic, he's done a fantastic job.

Sally Sonic is who Alix would have become if she'd gone along with what Lance wanted her to do, and when she defeats Sally, she finally resolves the anger she had over her husband's infidelity. The woman he loved was pathetic and damaged, unlike Alix who is still whole.

The end of the mini was pretty shocking. Due to the Sheeda invasion and the hurricance glimpsed in Guardian #4, the hospital is unable to send an ambulance for Sally. But, before she can move Sally, Alix meets Greg, and at long last is given the opportunity to claim the role as the seventh soldier that she abandoned long ago. I'm unsure the significance of Alix being a descendant of Earth's first superhero, but one function is clearly to emphasize Alix's importance in the overall plan. When she didn't go to Miracle Mesa, all involved died and the Sheeda gained a foothold on Earth. And now that she refuses to fight once again, things are not looking good for humanity.

Alix rejects Greg's offer to fight, saying that she doesn't "want anything more to do with this twisted, horrible world." This mini was all about the dark underbelly of the superhero world, the twisted sexuality and darkness of those on the superhero fringe. Alix tried to help people, but the superheroes she encountered were more concerned with having sex and promoting themselves. Any sense of actually helping people was lost, and Alix is not going to be caught up in this dark world anymore. It's a logical move, but it's clearly going to cause problems in Seven Soldiers #1. Presumably that will be about how she comes to terms with her issues and rediscovers the possibilities of heroism.

Greg reminds me of Frankenstein, both are old testament style heroes who are able to return from the dead. They are heroes who are needed in the world, and do what they have to do, but don't necessarily get enjoyment from it. It is their duty. In that sense, they are the total opposite of Alix, who is emotionally engaged in her heroism and is able to make the conscious choice to not go ahead with it. Greg has been brought back from the dead and "saddled with the job" of recruiting her, presumably by the seven unknown men. I'm guessing there's something to the issue of the choice to be a hero versus the duty of being a hero. Alix cannot be forced into the role of hero, it's a choice she has to make. I'm guessing that her innate goodness will eventually allow her to overcome her issues with the superhero world and embrace the role of do gooder. I would love to see her meet up with the Guardian while she's going through Manhattan in issue 1. The two are clearly parallel characters, people who had the role of hero forced onto them, at great personal expense. It's in the final moment of choosing whether to embrace that role that they differ.

I'll cover Frankenstein #4 in my next post, and also do a runthrough the whole series to date, picking out themes and concepts that recur and also do a bit of speculation on what will occur in issue 1.

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Seven Soldiers: The Complete Post Index (6/28/2006)

Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein #2, Mister Miracle #3, Bulleteer #3

After trips to a bunch of comic stores I've finally got all the issues for the next chunk of Seven Soldiers. This second batch of books generally isn't quite up to the level of the masterful first batch, but, like with the first round, they're all becoming more interesting as the story progresses, and I'm becoming increasingly wary of waiting for the still unscheduled Seven Soldiers #1.

But, on to the issues themselves. Frankenstein appears to be taking the idea of each miniseries as a collection of four standalone stories a bit further than most of the other series. All the characters we saw last issue are absent other than the man himself who is now on Mars. The transition is a bit jarring, but it's something you just have to accept if you're going to enjoy the issue. The whole series takes place in a universe where weird stuff like this happens, in the DC Universe it's quite possible to take a jaunt over to Mars ande be back in time for the next issue.

Throughout the series, there have been some books that have a lot of crossover, like Zatanna and Shining Knight, and with this issue, it becomes clear that this issue is the brother series of Klarion, with this issue picking up a bunch of plot points left over from the destruction at the end of Klarion #4. The highlight of the issue is Melmoth's return and the way his appearance here unites a lot of disparate strands of the project. He's alienated from his wife, Gloriana, and the end of the issue leaves him as a wild card in the whole project. He's definitely of questionable morality, but he also seems to hold out the best hope of defeating the Sheeda.

Frankenstein is someone who's not ready to work with moral ammbiguity. He's on a mission to destroy Melmoth and will stop at nothing to do so, ignroing the fact that Melmoth could be an ally. Of course, we're not sure how Frankenstein feels about saving humanity, he's a character who's more about destroying evil than saving good. He might be happy to just let humanity destroy itself entirely. The fact that Frankenstein is in a sense Melmoth's son ties him into the conflict between children and the adult world that's been a consistent theme in the series. Frankenstein is the ultimate teenage rebel, someone who's always trying to show up his parent. Until he defeats Melmoth, he won't be able to grow up and move beyond this adolescent quest for vengeance. He too rejects the prospect of sexuality when he abandons the potential 'Girl Frankenstein' in issue 1.

As the issue ends, Melmoth is ground into shit, but you've got to assume he'll be back. He's too big a player in the overall story to be killed so simply, and the blood of the eternal cauldron still runs through his veins. The idea of immortality has been a consistent theme, it ties into the whole never grow up theme, with permanent youth being seen as both an ideal and a curse. More on that in Bulleteer #3. But for now, we're done with the Mars adventure and I'm assuming we'll see something entirely different next issue. Of the three new series, Frankenstein easily has the best and most appropriate art. It's wonderfully nasty and I love Mahnke's design of the reborn Melmoth.

So far, Mister Miracle has been my least favorite of all seven series. This issue is an improvement, but the series suffers from both its near total disconnection from the rest of the project and its difficulty to follow due to my lack of familiarity with the New Gods mythos. This issue gives you a better sense of the main character, and throws out a whole bunch of crazy concepts, but still doesn't quite come together.

The basic conflict here is between Shilo and the anti-life equation. The anti-life equation represents everything negative about society, and it manifests in the plastic people who now walk the streets. This anti-life equation consumes everything he loves, but he stubbornly maintains his individuality. The issue features some further exploration of illicit superhero sexuality, the plastic woman wielding the whip has a strong similarity to the three prostitutes that Shilo encounters in issue one.

Shilo's breakdown with the anti-life equation recalls Justin's encounter with the guilt monster in Shining Knight #2, though things go worse for him. I love the moment where he buys the Depends, that's hitting bottom. Though, it looks like he'll be able to bounce back next issue. On the whole, there's a lot of good stuff here, but it doesn't quite gel. I'ts more like someone else trying to write a Morrison comic than the man himself's writing. I think the series could have been more entertaining, if not actually better, if there was more connection with the overall mythos. There's some nice cameos by Klarion and Jake here, but other than that there's been no connection to the overall story. We'll see what happens in issue 4, there's got to be some kind of tie in.

Bulleteer is easily the best title of the second run, picking up on a lot of themes from Flex Mentallo, and continuing the plot threads of Seven Soldiers #0, which still stands as one of the most impressive issues out of this project. What that issue did was explore the world of the DCU from the perspective of low level superheroes. There's a lot of meta commentary on the comics industry itself, as well as an exploration of the nature of heroism. After its first issue, Bulleteer has backed off the exploration of Alix as an extremely sexualized heroine and is focusing more on Alix's introduction into the larger world of superheroics.

The revelation of I, Spyder is one of two fantastic "Holy shit" moments in the issue. Ever since his reappearance in Shining Knight I've been wondering what's up with him and it's great to see him back.

The relation between Stellamaris and her son is another example of parental conflict, the theme that is present in pretty much every aspect of the series. The continued focus on this issue would indicate that Misty could play a major role in defeating her mother, Gloriana. In Zatanna, Klarion and now Frankenstein, each character is haunted in some way by their parents, and, for Klarion and Zatanna, the series ends with our hero coming to terms with parental expectation and being set free to pursue his/her own agenda. I'm hoping Misty has a big role in the finale, but Klarion and Frank, as her half brothers, could be equally important in overthrowing their own tyrannical parental regime.

We don't know anything about Alix's parents, but the generational conflict is present in her discussion with the original Bulletgirl. In Klarion, the close mindedness of the older generation was a critical theme and we see that here, with Susan, a very close minded traditional person, telling Alix she looks like a hooker and is trading on the name that she worked hard to make good. So, once again, we see Alix being judged solely by her appearance not by her legitimate desire to do good.

Alix's miniseries is reminiscent of Manhattan Guardian in the sense that she's someone who's forced into being a superhero and goes along as an observer rather than participator in the world. She hasn't yet acheived that moment where she loses her self consciousness and transcends the line between "crazy fetish person" and superhero. If the series stays true to form, next issue will see her confront Sally and claim the mantle of hero for herself.

This issue picks up concepts from the first issue about the sexualization of female superheroes, their world's version of the madonna/whore dichotomy summed up in the title of the panel: "Sweethearts and Supervixens." The whole convention is clearly modeled on actual comic book conventions, with b-list heroes subbing in for b-list celebrities. In this kind of world, you'd clearly have a fan culture built around superheroes, and having been to a couple of cons, this issue perfectly captures the awkward desperation of b-list celebrities simultaneously happy to be adored and ashamed that they're not doing better.

This panel features the first modern day appearance of Li'l Hollywood, last seen in Manhattan Guardian #4. I love the fact that Li'l refers to Vincenzo as "Vinnie." Like her fellow members of the Newsboy Army, Li'l is trapped in a permanent youth, though she seems to have consciously chosen to do so, as her relationship with Lucian makes clear, she's trying to maintain her youth even as she is actually getting older and older. She is less overtly messed up than her fellow Newsboy members, but she does have a lot of issues. I love the page where she and her friends are talking about Jackie, it's the combination of mundane conversation and the ridiculous costumes everyone's wearing.

Thumbelina is a character right out of the superhero orgy in Flex Mentallo, someone who's using the superhero image without any actual belief in heroism. She's just using her powers for monetary gain, quite literally prostitutiing herself. She offers Alix this path, but Alix is still unwilling to function as just a sexual object. She wants to help people.

This dichotomy is brought up again in the next scene where Lucian propositions her with a "team-up" that's actually a sexual relationship. For people like Lucian, hoping to make it big as superheroes, there is no line between work and personal life. However, in the end, Alix turns his sexual attraction to her into an opportunity to build a heroic partnership that could end up helping people. That's what the whole series has been about, Alix is constantly perceived as a sexual object, but she refuses to conform to that image, she takes people's expectations and turns them around by being a hero.

Now, the other holy shit moment in the issue is the return of Greg. I love this moment, it confirms his role as the Clint Eastwood archetype in the series, and promises the continuation of drama from issue 0. Will we see the return of The Whip? Who knows, perhaps Seven Soldiers #1 will see a meeting between the original team and our soldiers from the minis. This new development has me very intrigued, and it's a great testament to Morrison's writing in SS0 that so many issue later, those characters still have me wanting more.

The final pages of the issue seem to throw Alix into yet another classic female superhero situation, the catfight. If the series continues along its thematic path, Alix will triumph over this woman who defines herself solely by her sexuality by continuing her commitment to heroism despite any personal issues she's got. Alix has taken the 'hooker' image that her husband gave her and is turning it into a legitimate heroic image.

So, four issues left to go, reviews will be up as I read them. Things are definitely picking up now, and hopefully the issue 4s will bring more of the threads together in preparation for the series' conclusion.

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Seven Soldiers: The Complete Post Index (6/28/2006)

Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein #1, Mister Miracle #2, Bulleteer #2

Frankenstein has one of the odder openings for a Seven Soldiers series, focusing not so much on the title character as on a town possessed by the Sheeda. We do get a nice action scene to open things, showing us a different, more human incarnation of Melmoth. I'm not sure what makes this Melmoth appear more human, while the one from Klarion looked very Sheeda, it may be just an art issue, or it could be that Melmoth is able to change his appearance. I suppose dying and being reborn could result in the change.

The tale of Uglyhead reminds me of 'Earshot' from Buffy, in which Buffy got the ability to read everyone's minds and discovered that they're all deeply insecure, even the seemingly most popular people. The idea that Uglyhead sees their thoughts as cartoon bubbles above their heads recalls the Max Thunderstone Buddhismo issue of The Filth. I think the thought balloon is something that was abused so horribly by comics in the past that it's easy to forget the fact that it can be used in interesting ways, and we get some good stuff here. The thought balloon brings comics closer to books and away from cinema, which isn't necessarily a good thing, but can be used to ones advantage.

This story is definitely treading in territory I've seen before, but there's a couple of things that keep it from falling into cliche. One is the fact that this Uglyhead is a nasty guy, rather than being the misunderstood sensitive guy, he's a totally corrupted person and the story embraces his depravity. We look at things from a Sheeda perspective, watching this ugly, bad humans in an awful world. There's not much worth keeping here.

The emergence of Frankenstein himself is great and it's satisfying to watch him raze this corrupted school. Frankenstein has a much darker view of things than our other heroes. All the others are relatively young, new heroes with a high degree of uncertainty. Frankenstein is someone who's seen it all and knows what he has to do to defeat the Sheeda. He is driven by vengeance, he's acting against bad rather than for good. And notably, he leaves behind his potential new "Girl Frankenstein" sidekick to walk alone.

This series seems a lot darker than the others we've seen so far, the art has a very dirty feel, which works perfectly with the story content. The first four books all had art that fit perfectly with the story, this is the only book of the second volume where there's that same perfect match between style and content. Of the second batch of books, this is my favorite so far.

However, I'm still not too keen on Mister Miracle. The major issue is that it's drawing on a lot of Jack Kirby's New Gods material, and I'm not particularly familiar with that stuff. So, I'm feeling out of depth in the characters' world. The opening does have a nice throwback to the Blind Chessman of the Invisibles, and this issue gives you a better sense of an ordinary guy caught in a situation where he's totally out of depth. He's a celebrity, which makes it even more difficult for him to be taken seriously when he's talking about this larger world that he's become caught up in.

The core of the series seems to be that the New Gods have fallen and have now become a group of insane people on the streets. This ties back to stuff from Manhattan Guardian #4, the newsboy army that splintered and fell into an awful, dark state. And now, there's apparently some big conspiracy going on with the doctor and the guy who's watching the homeless people, seeking to take the Mother Box and presumably use its powers to serve Dark Seid. I think the psychiatrist's interrogation fo teh blond woman is fantastic, but it's just difficult to keep track of what's going on, and that means that it's hard to emotionally engage with the series. Plus, we don't have much of a sense of how this fits into the series as a whole, I'm hoping we get to see the Sheeda soon.

Bulleteer #2 goes in a very different direction from the previous issue, picking up FBI Agent Helligan, last seen in Shining Knight #3, bitten by the Sheeda Queen. Apparently she's recovered and is now investigating the incident at Miracle Mesa.

Prior to this, Seven Soldiers #0 functioned primarily as a thematic prelude, with a few small references throughout the other books. However, with this issue it moves to the fore and we begin to get a better sense of what happened back there. I love the reference to Tom's appearance change, his rebuilding by the Seven Unknown Men. SS0 is such a strong issue, it's still chilling to see the people who died there, particularly their rapid descent from triumph to death. We see here for the first time the actual death of Greg and Shelly as well as the conversion of Tom Dalt into a Sheeda Servant.

I like Helligan's line about post modern superheroes. Clearly, in this world that would be the way to stand out, if everyone else is wearing a costume and fighting crime, go the minimalist and fight crime in regular cltohes. At this point, Alix is someone who's still not quite made the jump to hero, Helligan brings her as a visual prop,not for her actual powers. In that sense, she's still be used, defined by her appearance, in the same way that she was by her husband. However, the central irony of the series is still present, she's there for her strength, but at the same time is scared to go into the prison wearing her costume. The character is all about the fusion of traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine attributes.

There always seems to be someone who summons the Sheeda and betrays the Seven. Going over SS0, you can easily see where Boy Blue betrays the team, a lot of where this issue is successful is not so much on its own terms, but redefining the way we view SS0. I'm not sure if this is the final coda for those characters or if more of them will return later. Certainly Spyder is still out there, working for Glorianna, but the rest of them seem to be definitively dead.

The finale serves as a meta commentary on the nature of superhero, tying into themes from Watchmen. There, Hollis' book addressed the idea that it looked ridiculous if only one person came to the crime scene dressed up, but if the villain was dressed up too, it made sense. So, Alix still feels vaguely ridiculous, "it's not like being a superhero at all." However, the threat of the new nemesis who is apparently within her mist could be just the thing to help Alix definitively claim her role as hero.

In the long term, this issue deals more with ideas of heroism, particularly the American cowboy. For Ramon, Saunders is just a racist, but in cultural terms he's venerated as a hero, though certainly an outmoded one by this point. The other major thing at issue is the Sheeda themselves, Helligan says that they're from the future. That would explain why Neh-buh-loh says he got a brain from a 31st century person to give to the Queen instead of Misty. It's possible that his one lapse into emotion, the decision to spare Misty, will be what ultimately brings about the Sheeda downfall. I really hope that Misty turns up in one of these upcoming books.

Looking to the future, I'm going to grab the rest of what's available in singles, and catch up before Seven Soldiers #1 comes out, which is now looking like it will be in September. I'm hoping it's longer than the originally solicited 32 pages, there's too much story to fit in that small a book.

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Seven Soldiers #0 (5/17/2006)
Seven Soldiers: Klaron #4, Mister Miracle #1, Bulleteer #1 (6/15/2006)
Zatanna #4 (6/15/2006)

Seven Soldiers: Klarion #4, Mister Miracle #1, Bulleteer #1

First, just a quick followup on Zatanna. One of the things I love most about Seven Soldiers is the way that it's forced Morrison out of his comfort zones. In the case of Zatanna, that meant a return to a relatively realistic setting and everyday emotional struggles. In this respect, it has a lot in common with one of his best works, Kill Your Boyfriend. If KYB was required reading in high schools, we'd have a lot more people falling in love with comics.

Anyway, on the conclusion of the first wave of minis. Klarion has been the only one of the first four that didn't really click for me. Issue 2 was great, but other than that it's just felt a lot less emotionally urgent than the others. I never got a strong sense of Klarion as a character because he's defined entirely in relation to the society he comes from.

It turns out that Klarion and all the Kroatoans are Sheeda hybrids, fathered by Mister Melmoth. Melmoth is another incarnation of the devil archetype we've seen from Zatanna. I love Melmoth gloating about having sex with the Puritan girls, his freedom here is so far removed from the repressed culture Klarion comes from. If they are victims of complete repression and withdraw from the material world, Melmoth is someone who goes too far in indulging in its vices.

This ties us back into one of the primary issues of the series, the difficult transition from childhood to sexually mature adulthood. Melmoth represents the potentially deviant violent expression of sexuality. He's the charismatic center of the book, a lot more fun than Klarion himself.

While I didn't love this issue, it is a satisfying final fight. Teekl seems to be an avatar of Klarion's aggression, and here we see them literally fuse into some kind of new form. We find out that Melmoth has bathed in the cauldron of rebirth, implying that he's meant up with Gloriana at some point between Shining Knight #4 and this issue.

So, we end with Klarion having safeguarded his village going off to battle the sheeda aboveground. This is a neat resolution of his character arc, first he runs away from his village, shamed, and wanders above ground without purpose. But, by the end he's gained the respect of the village, saved it from outside intruders and now returns above ground to save the world he's just seen. It was a pretty good series, but I just didn't dig the Puritan setting that much, and the art, while aesthetically fantastic, wasn't as emotionally enveloping as that of the other series.

It's a bit jarring to all of a sudden plunge into new stories after getting used to our first four soldiers. True to form to the other series, the first issues of Mister Miracle and Bulleteer are generally removed from the overall Sheeda story, though presumably we'll see connections emerging as we forge ahead.

Mister Miracle is based on Jack Kirby's New Gods characters, and I'm not sure if it's that I haven't read that, or just the issue itself, but I was rather confused and a bit overwhelmed by this. It makes sense, but it's a lot to take in, and unlike the other soldiers, we don't really get a sense of Shilo as a character.

I do like the opening sequence, where Shilo slips through into another dimension, though I'm not sure how Metron ties into the Seven Unknown Men. If we're proceeding from the assumption that the higher beings appear in a form suited to the world of the protagonist, it makes sense that Miracle would meet this diety dressed as a superhero.

The basic issue for Shilo is that he stumbles into this higher realm and finds it difficult to return to his old lifestyle as a celebrity daredevil. His life feels insignificant in light of this massive "war in heaven" that's going on all around him. It makes him need more from his life than just the perks of celebrity. Later in the issue, the twisted demon prostitutes tie into the theme of sexuality as deviant destructive force that's running through the whole series.

This leads us into the most sexually driven series of all that we've seen so far, Bulleteer, a character and series that have all kinds of issues with sexuality going on. In Manhattan Guardian #4, we saw sexuality as something that destroyed the utopian existence of our childhood heroes, the inevitable encroach of age and maturity into childhood. Aging is played as a destructive force in Klarion, and the major issue with Zatanna is how her guilt causes her quest for the "man of her dreams" to go awry. She's the only soldier who seems to have reconciled her issues, everyone is left broken by the approach of adulthood.

Alix is the opposite of what we saw in MG4, she's someone who's totally defined by her sexuality and is threatened by aging, not because it will take away her childhood, but because it will take away her sexual assets. This is a series that's sort of like those movies that tell an incredibly violent story as a way of examining the nature of violence itself. You're forced to simultaneously engage with the material on a surface appeal level and as a comment on that appeal. Reading the series, it's almost ridiculous how much Alix's breasts are emphasized, and as the reader, we are inclined to treat her as just a body, rather than a fully formed character. So, we're put in the same position as her husband, focused just on her body and not on the actual person.

I think the character design sufficiently emphasizes her assets that some of the outfits and poses are a bit excessive, but it's also understandable considering Morrison's point is to examine the nature of the gaze directed at Alix.

This issue is a return to form after the muddled introduction of Mister Miracle. We're quickly aware of who Alix is, and also who her husband is. I was surprised by just how much is in this issue, both thematically and in terms of story progress. I particularly like the way that Morrison intercuts the operating room with quick snippets of Alix and Lance's past, letting us know in just a couple of pages everything we need to know about them. These are beautiful, successful people, and Lance is worried that's not going to last.

Lance, like the Newsboy Army, is desperately frightened of aging. He has a dream that Alix is dead, and despite being only 27, he's aware that before they know it, they'll both be old. So, it's fitting that he would be attracted to online porn with Sexy Sally the Eternal Superteen. Sally was last seen in Zatanna #1, incredibly angry at the fact that she couldn't age. Yet, for Lance, her gift is everything he wants for both him and his wife.

The other element Lance is fixated on is being a superhero. In this world, superheroes are the celebrities, better than your average person and the center of attention. He's clearly someone who's always wanted to be famous, and as he's getting older, he sees the chances of that slipping away. For him, being famous and adored by the public is equal to being loved. He doesn't even recognize that he's losing touch with the woman who actually does love him.

With his metallic compound, Lance would solve both his problems, freezing the aging process and propelling him and his wife into the superhero world. Speaking about the original Bulletman, he says the brilliant line: "Everybody loved them. Except Hitler and the Nazis."

This leads us to the idea of this community of people seeking to become superheroes, putting their lives at risk to do so. This was an idea first addressed in SS0, and it's an idea that I love. In the world of the DCU, people like Superman and Batman are like gods, and if there's the possibility that by putting on a costume and fighting crime you could be like them, then someone who's dissatisfied with their life would likely put everything at risk to reach that status. It's about the search for purpose, that transcendent moment where you cease to be a "crazy fetish person" and become a superhero. For me, that line from SS0 contains the basic essence of the entire series, it's all about people seeking to find their purpose and get lost in the possibilities of fighting for good.

However as Zatanna makes clear in Z4 to become a superhero is all about selflessness, it's about making the choice to fight for the good of others while putting yourself at risk. So, people like Lance who see superheroing as a way to bring fame and fortune to themselves are completely misguided, if the minis prior to this have shown us anything it's that fighting for good is the hardest thing to do.

The idea of superhero porn ties back to Morrison's own Flex Mentallo, which featured an issue with an orgy of superheroes. Here, we see a more realistic view, people dressing up and playing superhero for online porn sites. This again ties back to the central line about the border between being a crazy fetish person and being a superhero, for Lance indulging in the pornographic fantasy is not enough, he pushes further, trying to make it real, and ends up getting destroyed by his desire.

There's so much conflicting symbolism in Alix's Bulleteer get up. This is a woman who heretofore has been defined by her beautiful looks and now she finds that she's not even able to work at her job anymore because the kids are scared of her. Her greatest asset has become her greatest liability, she's got a gorgeous body, but it's perpetually encased in a metallic sheath. So, she can never actually touch anyone.

Alix is left with no choice but to bea a superhero, and she takes on the mantle her husband intended for her, Bulleteer. Now, she's become this fusion of phallic object and decidedly feminine body, all the while actually cut off from sexuality. So, she's acheived the dream of the Newsboy Army, she's frozen in time in this one spot, totally sexualized, but at the same time completely removed from sexuality.

This first issue has a lot of great stuff, and I'm interested to see what happens to Alix from here. I've got no idea what kind of adventures she'll have, but I suppose we'll find out soon enough.

So, not too much of the overall story to ponder here. Presumably, the Sheeda will turn up again pretty soon, though we've still got one more first issue to go, Frankenstein.

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