When I heard King’s premise for this series, I was intrigued. Because while the idea of superhero PTSD has been hinted at in different arcs/titles, to my knowledge, it has never been fully explored. So I’ve been eagerly awaiting King’s treatment.
Which is why issue #1 is such a letdown for me. Everything was going great until I hit the panel with Roy and Wally’s corpses. That completely threw me out of the story.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not mad that two characters I care about are dead. To give a series like this weight, you need to lose characters the audience has a connection to. If the panel had included Roy and another character I care about, I would’ve been shocked and angry and sad but fully in the moment with Superman.
The problem is, the minute I saw Wally, I thought “Is this the third or fourth time they’ve killed Wally since Rebirth? Third, right? Yeah, this is the third. Wow, Wally just can’t catch a break. Why do they hate Wally?” My reaction had nothing to do with the story, but the wider timeline since Rebirth began.
That’s not all on King. He’s only killed Wally once, but I wish he’d chosen any other hero. Maybe once I reread I’ll be able to stay in the narrative and really judge the issue on the story itself; it’s just a shame I couldn’t do that the first time.
It’s entirely possible this will all be undone by time travel. Permanency isn’t my problem. It’s the overkill of killing one character three times in two years.
HEROES IN CRISIS #1 came out today and it launches DC’s latest event. It’s no secret that I’m a Tom King fan … so going in, it is highly likely that I am going to enjoy this piece of work.
Yes, I did. I found issue #1 to be well-made, impactful, elegant and … emotionally riveting comics.
There is a tragic event. Characters are killed, including two major ones and several minor ones.
The minor ones are given resonance based on 9-panel pages which are video interviews where they position their psychological problems
The psychological problems resonate and feel authentic both on a ‘real life’ and a ‘superhero trope’ level
Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are the foundational characters/first responders and King writes them iconically and insightfully
The bulk of the issue is an unfolding mystery interplay between Harley Quinn and Booster Gold, well-written and well-developed
Finally … a characterization of Harley Quinn that makes sense to me
I found the art by Clay Mann to be impressive – given that King writes with visual layouts and timing in mind – still well-rendered and expressive, especially the 9-panel interviews
Huhn … upon a re-read I paid particular attention to the scenes of carnage which purposely are from a far away perspective or only show a focused amount of detail. I noticed under the cape of the airborne, hovering Superman a dim, but unmistakeable Green Lantern symbol presumably on one of the corpses.
There are a lot more corpses than identified victims (21 by my count + 3 robots), so I’m staying tuned for issue #2!
I have to agree with you on the “Death of Wally”, not a big fan of this. We get him back from limbo, and all they want to do is kill the guy.
I will continue buying the book to see how it gets resolved.
As someone who struggles with PTSD I am hoping they are not going to use this as an excuse for the murders PTSD usually doesn’t cause people to go crazy I am in non-military related victim a PTSD and not sure I like where this is going