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teachinsci's review
3.0
Really more of a 2.5. I very much wanted to like this book. It brought together the consequences of the Infinity Crisis (DC's attempt to streamline their comic universe) and the Identity Crisis (which I thought was one of the more thought provoking and well written comic series).
The essence of this story is thus: The main heroes of DC Universe (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) have become distrustful of one another. Because of recent events, Batman does not trust other heroes to do the right thing (creating a computer satellite to monitor all superhuman activity)... Superman has taken a step back from the rest of the world and no longer inspires as he once did... and Wonder Woman has just killed a villain in cold blood (which was broadcast to the world). Three heroes from alternate timelines who managed to survive the Infinity Crisis have seen the dark turn that heroes in this reality have taken and decide to attempt to return Earth to what they see as a better world. Chaos ensues.
The story is, at heart, decent and the stakes are high enough that it makes sense all of Earth's heroes become involved. The small insights into the true humanity of some of the characters is nice to see and their sacrifice adds a bit to the story as well.
HOWEVER... There are just too damn many characters. Honestly, every character in the DC universe and some who I believe never made it out of brainstorming meetings are in this book. As someone who has not read even a significant portion of the comic offerings out there, I was almost overwhelmed by the sheer volume of characters, the descriptions of their powers (many seemed very similar), and the occasional thumbnail sketches of their backstories. Sometimes, there were so many, they were presented merely as a list. There were times when I had to reread pages to understand who was saying what dialogue as character after character was introduced and casually threw out their ideas and thoughts. This likely made more sense in the pages of comics, but made reading it more difficult than the subject matter warranted.
Long story short, if like DC superheroes, AND you don't mind forgetting/not caring about a large number of super-powered entities losing their lives and can follow stories with a fair number of perspective jumps and ill-explained disappearances and reappearances, go ahead and read this.
The essence of this story is thus: The main heroes of DC Universe (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) have become distrustful of one another. Because of recent events, Batman does not trust other heroes to do the right thing (creating a computer satellite to monitor all superhuman activity)... Superman has taken a step back from the rest of the world and no longer inspires as he once did... and Wonder Woman has just killed a villain in cold blood (which was broadcast to the world). Three heroes from alternate timelines who managed to survive the Infinity Crisis have seen the dark turn that heroes in this reality have taken and decide to attempt to return Earth to what they see as a better world. Chaos ensues.
The story is, at heart, decent and the stakes are high enough that it makes sense all of Earth's heroes become involved. The small insights into the true humanity of some of the characters is nice to see and their sacrifice adds a bit to the story as well.
HOWEVER... There are just too damn many characters. Honestly, every character in the DC universe and some who I believe never made it out of brainstorming meetings are in this book. As someone who has not read even a significant portion of the comic offerings out there, I was almost overwhelmed by the sheer volume of characters, the descriptions of their powers (many seemed very similar), and the occasional thumbnail sketches of their backstories. Sometimes, there were so many, they were presented merely as a list. There were times when I had to reread pages to understand who was saying what dialogue as character after character was introduced and casually threw out their ideas and thoughts. This likely made more sense in the pages of comics, but made reading it more difficult than the subject matter warranted.
Long story short, if like DC superheroes, AND you don't mind forgetting/not caring about a large number of super-powered entities losing their lives and can follow stories with a fair number of perspective jumps and ill-explained disappearances and reappearances, go ahead and read this.
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