DCU Comic Book Reviews

INFINITE CRISIS #7

Finale

June 2006

Written by Geoff Johns

Pencils by Phil Jimenez, Joe Bennett, George Pérez, & Ivan Reis

Inks by Andy Lanning, Jerry Ordway, Sean Parsons, George Pérez, Ivan Reis, & Art Thibert

Covers by Jim Lee & Sandra Hope and George Pérez & Alex Sinclair

Synopsis

While they gather around the dead body of Conner Kent (aka Superboy), news comes that the villains have declared war and are marching on Metropolis.  Alexander Luthor tells Superboy-Prime that if he can’t replace Earth, then he will take the new Earth.  Superboy-Prime does not like that idea.  He does not want anything the “imposter” had, including Wonder Girl.  At that moment, Bart Allen grabs Superboy-Prime and starts beating on him.  Superboy-Prime escapes and decides to fly through the center of Oa to create a new universe.  All of the heroes that can fly follow while Green Lanterns all over the universe create the Thin Green Line to stop him. Meanwhile, on Earth, Batman seeks out Alexander Luthor, knocking him to the ground with one punch.  he then picks up a gun to shoot him.  Wonder Woman appears and throws down her sword.  She tells him that Alex is not worth killing.  Batman agrees and tosses aside the gun.  A moment later, a building collapses on Alex.  In space, the two Supermen grab Superboy-Prime and fly him through the debris of Krypton and then through the center of the red sun.  All of their powers are gone.  Both Superman fight with Superboy-Prime until the Green Lanterns arrive to capture him.  With them is Power Girl, who is there just as Earth-2 Superman’s dies in her arms.  Later, as Earth recovers from the villains attack, Bart Allen gives up being Flash.  In Gotham City, Alexander Luthor decides to try again for the perfect Earth, but in his first plan he forgot about the Joker, which Lex Luthor explains to him moments before Joker shoots and kills Alexander.  Elsewhere in Gotham City, Bruce Wayne (aka Batman) tells and Diana (aka Wonder Woman) and Clark Kent (aka Superman) that he is going to take time off to become a better Batman and he is taking Dick Grayson and Tim Drake with him.  Diana, in the meantime, is going to take some time find out who she is.  And without his power, Clark Kent is going to spend time with his wife.  Locked inside a junior red-sun eater, Superboy-Prime says he has been in worse places and he has gotten out...

Review

“What do we do?”

“Look up in the sky, kid.”

“It’s not about where you were born.  Or what powers you have.  Or what you wear on your chest.  It’s about what you do...it’s about action.”

"You made a lot of mistakes. You underestimated Superman. Superboy. Me. But the biggest one? You didn’t let the Joker play. Now who’s stupid?”

This was a fantastic ending to a fantastic series.  After I closed the issue, I flipped it around and read it again.  The second time I stopped at the final two-page spread of the super heroes and skipped the last page, which I did not think was needed.  The perfect ending was those two pages.  Everything up to those final two pages was pure gold and I loved every minute of it.  Some of the scenes I really enjoyed was the return of Bart Allen, the green lantern rings searching for replacements, the nice drawing at the bottom of the page when Earth-2 Superman dies, and the return of the Joker.  man, did I love that scene with the Joker.  Killer.  Literally. 

There are some negatives and that is mostly centered around the art.  There were 4 pencillers and twice as many inkers on this issue that the level of consistency that they did manage is amazing.  But it is also obvious that a lot this was rushed.  Just take a look at pages 2 and 3.  Where, I ask you, is the background.  The other negative is that at 7 issues, this series was waaaay too short.  All of the issues in this series feel compressed and rushed. Damn good, but there are many, many moments which could have been flushed out.  For this issue, more of the fight in Metropolis would have been helpful. 

My only other complaint is that not all of the mini-series that cam before the Crisis series were represented in the finale.  OMAC project was completely finished with the special leading into Checkmate, so I did not expect anything there.  Villains United led directly in to the finale, so that was cool.  But what about Day of Vengeance?  The last appearance for magic was the by the Spectre killing someone and poof the series is gone.  It is even mocked in the pages of the finale.  But no true resolution or suggestion the magic users were doing anything.  The same could be said for Donna Troy and her gang.  Last we saw they were battling Alexander Luthor’s fingers with the space anomaly.  Since Alexander is done with that, shouldn’t they have been helping the Green Lanterns in some way?  Does this mean Donna Troy came back to simply put a cosmic twist to Alex’s pinky?  And now what does DC do with Donna?

My Batman freak of a brother-in-law and I had a slight disagreement regarding one small aspect and that was what Batman tried to do with the gun.  When I first read it, I though the chak indicated he had tried to fire, but it didn’t work (ie, no bullets).  My brother-in-law thought he had just pulled back the hammer.  I can’t really find evidence to support assumption (although if he was firing, Alexander Luthor was awfully calm about it, I mean, shouldn’t he flinch or something).  If he did pull back the hammer, then the drawing where he pulls up the gun should show the hammer cocked back.  But if he did fire and it didn’t work why would he still have the gun pointed at Alex’s head.  Looking back at it, I have to agree with my brother-in-law. 

Batman picking up a gun, much less attempting to fire, is just too strange.  Actually, thinking about it a little bit, it makes sense, if you extrapolate what is on the written page.  Remember, Batman recently had to deal with Jason Todd’s return and Jason’s assertion that if Batman had just killed Joker, Jason would have never died.  So, in IC#7, Batman sees another Robin (in this case Dick Grayson) die.  Combine that with all of the events recently, Batman has been pushed to the edge and he picks up the gun.  I think, however, that this scenario, while making some sense, shows how compressed Infinite Crisis became and how some scenes became lost by the rushed feeling. 

A little nitpick:  wouldn’t Batman when he saw Nightwing get blasted by Alexander Luthor call him by his real name of Dick?  To me, at least, Nightwing seems impersonal and given the personal tragedy, the more personal usage of a name rather than an alias would be used. 

One final thing.  There is some really bad use of language, such as:  “Wonder Woman helped found the Justice League of America once again.”  Why, was it lost?  The word they are looking for (and I found) was establish.  Then there is Martian Manhunter:  “I have read this Superboy’s mind.  So now you have too.”  That is a mouthful.  And I love how Martian Manhunter reads Prime’s mind to reveal his plot when Prime had spoken his intentions out loud just a panel before.  Couldn’t Hal Jordan, who was right there, tell everyone what had happened?  Combine this with the really bad typo (sepllcasters) on page 3 (somehow I missed it but my Batman freak of brother-in-law caught), I‘ve got to wonder how rushed this thing was to get it out the door.  This just goes to show you, no matter how much you plan in advance, the ending will catch up to you sooner than you think.  Deadlines are a bitch.  I know from experience.  -- MRB

ïPREVIOUS		NEXTð

Home ●  Blog ● Who Are We? ● Site News
Alive and Well since April 16, 2006

 DC Universe Reviews.  All Rights Reserved
  Characters, trademarks, brands are property of DC Comics

For problems or questions regarding this website, please contact our kindly webmaster.
Last updated: 08/06/11.