Dark Crisis #3 is written by Joshua Williamson, penciled by Daniel Sampere, inked by Sampere, Daniel Henriques and Danny Miki, colored by Alejandro Sanchez and lettered by Tom Napolitano
Half of whatâs wrong with this comic can be summed up by this panel. Who the fuck is Lian? No, seriously. Who is she? Has she ever been mentioned prior to this issue in this story? Is she supposed to be someone whoâs important to this story? If so, why hasnât she been mentioned prior to this panel. For that matter, who the hell are these two? They have never once been mentioned, discussed, or even appeared in Dark Crisis before we got to this point, and yet theyâre given an entire panel dedicated to the two of them. Thereâs not even a âHereâs the tie-in you need to read in order to get the thread that this panel is alluding toâ caption box. Itâs just a contextless panel that exists on this page.
This is a problem if you are interested in Dark Crisis as a story. If youâre just here as a loyal DC lifer, you know that these two are Roy Harper and Jason Todd, two also-ran sidekicks who are most assuredly heterosexual. You also know that Lian is Royâs daughter and that she has been appearing in the pages of Ram Vâs Catwoman being an actual character as opposed to a four year old whose sole characterisation is that sheâs four. Sheâs considered a fan favorite due to a 90s Titans comic that had the editor of Justice League International suggest replacing everyone with a bunch of kids from a lab. No one ever asks why such a thing would be considered, let alone what it says about that Titans comic.
The point, ultimately, is that the assumption regarding the imagined reader is that they inherently care about the various ins and outs of the DC Universe. They care about the Titans, the Bat-Family, the Marvels, the Supermen, The JSA and all the other parts of continuity. The book doesnât need to earn the readerâs attention, the readerâs interest, or the readerâs care because itâs an event comic. The only people who need to care already have an investment in DC Comics as a brand. Creators donât need to sell that this matters. They just need to hit the right beats, invoke the right comics, disavow the wrong ones, and the fans will eat it up.
Even its attempts at moral dilemmas with the chestnut of âShould Heroes Killâ is delivered with the heart and soul of a machine. It asks us to be invested in the argument about whether Supercops should kill or if they should just stick to enhanced interrogation techniques that leave all their bones broken, but still capable of healing so they can escape to do more crime because serialized fiction prefers recurring baddies.
Thereâs not even a cogent debate provided. Itâs just Black Adam going, âARE YOU A CHILD, SUPERMAN? BE A MAN AND KILL! ALL ADULTS KILL! IN THE REAL WORLD, YOU HAVE TO KILL OR YOUâRE A CHILD! HOPE IS NOTHING IN THE FACE OF THE REAL WORLD! I AM A SERIOUS ADULT AND SO IâM GOING TO KILL THIS MAN TO PROVE THAT WE MEAN BUSINESS BECAUSE I AM AN ADULT!â while everyone else just stands by and watches him scream at Superman.
The argument against it is nothing more than just âsuperheroes donât kill.â Thereâs no moral weight to either of these arguments. No thoughts about the ethics of extrajudicial murder. Thereâs just empty signifiers like hope or doom or darkness or light. Because Dark Crisis simply doesnât care about those sorts of things. It doesnât even care about being a story. Only the vague outline of fiction remains.
Note the scene where the Justice League decides to quit. Thereâs no real impetus for the League quitting here. No reason to do so. The only reason they quit is because this is the moment in the story where the heroes split up due to feeling like thereâs nothing they can do. And then the big damn heroes come and inspire the world to stand up and have hopeâ˘!
And Josh Williamson, to his credit, does a competent job at hitting these beats. Itâs just that⌠is that really all we want out of fiction? Mere competency? A story that hits the beats you expect it to, but never risks anything? That reminds you of all your favorite characters, but doesnât care to introduce them to anyone else. Because comics like this arenât for anyone else save the people who would care that the comic is now called Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths. Like that changes anything.
Dark Crisis is just a twiddling of thumbs while the next event is prepared for. And the next. And the next. And so on and so forth ad infinitum. Its competence lays the machine bare for us to see. But thatâs all it is: a machine. A formula to tell the perfect event comic without the care needed to make it actually be about anything. Thereâs barely anything here to review. Itâs nothing.
Stray Thoughts
- OH MY GOD, THEY WENT WITH THE MEME FONT!
- What in seven fucks is this bullshit?
- The Justice Societyâs presence in this book proves that no one here actually gives two shits about the future. Theyâre a superhero team defined by the fact that theyâre old has-beens who quit after it became too tough for them to deal with the issues of the world. Every year they get older, every historical moment they ignore before returning in the modern day highlights their failure. And before you say that they arenât a political team, Iâd like to note that they formed to fight in World War II, an explicitly political event. Where were they when people were being murdered in Vietnam, Iraq or the Peopleâs Park? Twiddling their thumbs? And to top it all off, theyâre extremely patronizing here, with Wildcat explicitly saying âThese kids shouldâve called us from the start.â Because the future must always bend a knee to the past.
