This isn't the 'New age' I've seen.

In my review of the JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRISIS ON TWO EARTHS DVD I told everyone not to get the two disk edition because the second disk is worthless. I stand by that statement because it only contains a couple of JL cartoons and a documentary about the current 'age' of comics from the perspective of those in DC Comics who have shaped a lot of what has gone on. You're probably thinking to yourself, that this could be interesting and perhaps worth a view. Well, it is if you want to see some guys who seem to be completely missing the point.

The main point of discussion was the state of DC Comics from pretty much IDENTITY CRISIS to FINAL CRISIS. For those who don't follow DC this includes IDENTITY CRISIS, the comics leading up to INFINITE CRISIS, INFINITE CRISIS itself, 52, COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS, and finally FINAL CRISIS. This is years of comics here. A lot was focused on IDENTITY CRISIS, so lets start there.

Sales of comics were down around the year 2000. This isn't a surprising thing as the books had disappeared from the newsstands. You had to go into a comic book shop, know the secret handshake and then be ready to pony up at least two dollars for a comic. It's funny in the interview that Paul Levitz mentions sales being down in 2000, but also recounts how the first comics he ever bought were off a newsstand. Fanboys say that comics have grown up. Well they kind of have to when kids can't get their hands on them and can't squeeze a few dollars out of their parents for them when they do find them. Seriously, when I was getting JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA off that spinning rack at the 7-11 to go with my Slurpee it wasn't too hard to get my folks to pony up an extra sixty cents.

2000 came and went, bringing us to 2001 and a terrible tragedy: Dan DiDio's rise to power. DiDio was brought in pretty much right after the attacks on September 11th. He stated that he got a "feeling of dread" seeing the armed security around the Port Authority and he wanted to apply this to Superheroes. Poorly worded, but it later becomes clear that he wanted to convey a sense that superheroes were indeed mortal (in most cases I guess) and there are risks that came with that. He referenced the first responders that went into harm's way and wanted readers to know that there is risk that goes along with being a hero and that risk is still there when it comes to superheroes. The feeling was that readers needed to know that these characters could be hurt and that they could indeed die. This brought us to IDENTITY CRISIS.

I'm going to sidetrack for a little bit here, because that entire mindset both at that time and in retrospect is so ludicrous that my brain actually hurt while I was watching that documentary. This is what they were thinking in 2000? Really? Fresh out of the 90s and THAT was what they thought the readers needed to know? The previous decade saw the death of Superman, Batman getting his back broken, Aquaman's hand getting eaten off by piranha, Green Arrow dying and Coast City getting destroyed leading to Hal Jordan going off the deep end and eventually dying. I think the readers understood that the heroes could be hurt. In retrospect its monumentally hypocritical because we've seen in recent years the return of Oliver Queen, Hal Jordan, Barry Allen and Jason Todd to the land of the living. Death where is thine sting?

Back to IDENTITY CRISIS. This was written by Brad Meltzer, and I want it to be clear that I am a fan of his work. When his novels come out I snatch them up. He was just coming off of a run on GREEN ARROW which was pretty good and he wanted to do a Justice league story. His idea grew into becoming IDENTITY CRISIS. Meltzer excels at writing mysteries and this was a good mystery. It certainly caught my attention, but not in the way Meltzer had intended. I was looking for the other shoe to drop. I was sure that this was just the beginning of of something major, but what I was thinking was a bit further off from what the powers that be were planning. IDENTITY CRISIS was a lot of genre and character deconstruction, which I don't really care for. I got my fill of it with WATCHMEN. Still the stage was set for the heroes to become the victims. That little germ got started in JLA #101 and was spreading. DiDio claims "IDENTITY CRISIS will stand the test of time." Wioth apologies to Meltzer, I don't see that as a good thing.

The stage began to be set for INFINITE CRISIS. This was pretty much all done by DiDio, Geoff Johns, Judd Winick and Greg Rucka. The idea was to hit the heroes really hard to see what is brought out of them as characters. The series itself was written by Johns and was to be the sequel to CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS by Marv Wolfman and George Perez. It wasn't a bad story, but really it did pretty much crap all over the original series. The Flash had to 'die' because it was Crisis. Then there was a new Flash, whose series didn't sell worth crap and he got killed off, but he's back again. Superboy got killed, but he's back again. Four fondly remembered characters were brought back so two of them could die, one could be a prick and die, and the last could just be a complete bastard who everyone would like to just strangle. But there were good things to come out of it. The concept of the 'Multiverse' was reintroduced and that's a fun time. Also Batman began to cease being a complete prick, and was set up to go sit in a cave for a while which did him a world of good.

FINAL CRISIS was mentioned only briefly in the documentary and there was no mention at all of 52 or COUNTDOWN. I can't say as I blame them much for not wanting to talk about COUNTDOWN. If I had spent a year putting out a comic every week that had people laughing at it (not in a good way) and people who actually follow these things wanting to bounce their heads off of brick walls, I wouldn't want to talk about it either. On FINAL CRISIS DiDio said, "FINAL CRISIS is about being a hero in the face of a loss." That's such a gross oversimplification of the work that it borders on out and out falsehood.

Y'see, while DiDio was rolling through with his little "heroes can be victims" paradigm, something else was afoot. Its not talked about at all in the documentary. Heroes were doing some pretty wild stuff. They want to discuss comics in the 'Aughts' but they don't mention SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY? They don't talk about 52, which saw Mark Waid, Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka and Grant Morrison absolutely knocking it out of the park week after week for an entire year?

Dan DiDio wants it clear that superheroes can die. The genre answered him.



They didn't spend much time talking about FINAL CRISIS. That's understandable since most of the documentary was based on the concept of these heroes still being human. These heroes can die. And death is supposedly final, even if you couldn't tell from looking at the DCU nowadays. But FINAL CRISIS had it's say about things being final.



Yeah, that's pretty much everything you never wanted to know about the documentary on that disk none of you should purchase. Since you all were kind enough to read through all of this, you do deserve a little laugh, so here it is:Dan DiDio on getting his job in editorial at DC: "The first thing you had to do is you had had to shake out the fanboy in you."

Who says he doesn't have a sense of humor?

The DC Universe as a Living Metafictional Entity

Grant Morrison stated that he intended to prove with his series FINAL CRISIS that the DCU is a living thing. He also said he intended to have sex with it, but that's besides the point. So, was Morrison serious about the DCU being a living thing or was it mad ramblings meant to sell books? I believe it's the former. So let's examine the DCU and through it the super hero genre.

The Super hero genre and the DCU in Three Dimensions

Now, it is said of super heroes that the two ends of the spectrum are Superman and Batman and every else is somewhere in between.

Superman<---------all heroes------------="" other="" the="">Batman

There's a bit of a problem here. It's flat. Nobody likes flat fiction. That's its own problem. It's a problem relating to this subject in that nothing exists two-dimensionally. We need a three-dimensional model for this thing to exist properly.

Through this necessity we can examine the super hero genre and the parts that comprise it. The DCU offers prime examples of these three dimensions and through them some insight into the genre.

This diagram is simplistic of course, but it makes for a decent base to move from. Let's go through these dimensions briefly.

Superman represents the science, or more aptly science fiction, in this equation. A being from another planet, and a futuristic one at that. He is also considered one of the most powerful characters in comics. His nickname "The Man of Tomorrow" invokes the image of hero performing fantastic deeds in a world we can barely image, but is getting closer every day.

Wonder Woman is a direct link to mythology with her origins and powers stemming from Greek Myths. This is magic. This is the unexplainable. This it the pool from which the genre sprang from. Superman was not the first super hero. Odysseus, Gilgamesh, Arthur Pendragon, the Monkey King and many other preceded him by centuries. Wonder Woman is the representative of the past.

Batman is the best of humanity. He has taken personal tragedy and used it as a catalyst to transform himself into an ideal. His skills are vast and varied, encompassing multiple physical and academic disciplines. He has taken the lessons of his past, applied them to his constant preparation for the future and thus made himself incredibly formidable in the present.

So we have out three dimensional construct. Time to put it into motion.

Applying the Fourth Dimension

The Fourth Dimension is time. Nothing stays static. We are all moving forward on the timeline. When we are discussing movement in relation to super heroes, there's only one character that exemplifies this:

The Flash moves the genre. We have had the Golden Age, Silver Age and the modern Age of comics. The Flash has been key to each transition. The creation of Barry Allen marked the beginning of the Silver Age. Barry Allen meeting his Golden Age predecessor Jay Garrick introduced the concept of the "Multiverse". The concept of the Multiverse was shelved during the 1985-86 series "Crisis on Infinite Earths" which included the death of Barry Allen. This series also transitioned the genre out of the Silver Age.

With Barry's death, we saw Wally West take up the role. This was the first time a "sidekick" has moved on to permanently graduate up. Wally West as a character was also at the center of DCU moving past the 90s grim and gritty trend. Writer Mark Waid spent the 90s taking Wally West, who was a well written and very unlikable character, and turning him into a model of character development. This was the beginning of a mini Renaissance for the genre which led to Waid and Morrison launching JLA. The exploits of the heroes took on a scope that was usually reserved for major "events", and this was due to amazing writers pushing their way to the forefront. This was made easier by The Flash, courtesy of Mark Waid, paving the road with a red blur and lightning strike.

The Imagination of the Imaginary

Grant Morrison wrote in "Batman R.I.P." that the Fifth Dimension was Imagination. This brings us to a character that can create anything he imagines.

Green Lantern like the Flash has had different characters taking the name. The common element to these characters is that each had a ring that could manifest anything they imagine. What is fun to note here is that the three main characters to take one the role of Green Lantern also represent each of the three dimensions I wrote of earlier. The Golden Age character was Alan Scott, and his ring was powered by magic. In the Silver Age, Hal Jordan received his ring from an alien race. Kyle Rayner took up the role and although he received his ring from the same aliens he brought out a different aspect to the character in that he was an artist. It was his humanity that set him apart from the others.

So, could the Green lantern Rings have a connection to the Fifth Dimension that is home to the likes of Mister Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite? Well, that's speculation for another time, but the possibility is there. It's fairly evident in the mechanics of the Rings. Previously, when charged, the rings could create nearly anything for twenty-four hours. Currently, it is usage to depletes the charge. Perhaps the rings tap 5th dimensional energy and the process and mechanics of tapping the source has changed.

Speaking of Mxysptlk and Mat-Mite, since the Fifth Dimension is imagination, were they created by characters within the DCU? Did Superman creat Mxyzptlk? Time to move on.

Identify the Vampiric Space God in the line-up, Please.

FINAL CRISIS crystalized the concept of something outside the genre preying upon the genre. The Multiverse changed them and then they changed the Multiverse. The Fouth Wall was broken and we were introduced to the Fifth Wall. We are shown a mechanism containing 52 universes, each containing stories. These stories influenced the Moniters, which in turn had influence in the 52.

The Multiverse or 52 is the in comic representation of the superhero genre. It is something created, which has taken on it's own life and now influences the culture. It nourishes young minds and imaginations, only to have some of those minds grow up to contribute new stories to it. It's a symbiotic relationship. The genre has a will of it's own. It has a voice speaking to us in the gutters of the comic page. It has reached out beyond it's original medium to capture new minds and imaginations.

It grows. It consumes. Yes, it even poops.

The DC Universe is at the heart of the super hero genre, and the DC Universe is alive.