Batman Beyond

The more I thought about it, the more pleased I was that DC will be publishing an ongoing Batman Beyond book. Sure, the series ended over eight years ago; and sure, the episode of “Justice League Unlimited” which served as an epilogue (helpfully called “Epilogue”) is also fading into the mists of history.

To me, though, a new commitment to Terry McGinniss’ alternate future signals — whether DC realizes it or not — a renewed commitment to the Multiverse. Remember, the “Beyond” future (or something remarkably similar) was officially made part of the post-52 Multiverse as Earth-12, and barring a radical departure from DC, Earth-12 is where I expect Terry’s adventures to remain. Put simply, the BB mythology is based on the continuity of DC’s various animated series, from “Batman” through “Justice League Unlimited”; and while that continuity isn’t radically different from the comics’, it’s different enough. Bruce Wayne’s caped career ends rather ignominiously, for one thing. (Also, no Jason Todd; maybe no Golden Age superheroes; and the histories of the Flash, Earth’s Green Lanterns, Hawkgirl and Hawkman, and Wonder Woman each diverge in significant ways.) Besides, if DC really wants to drop hints about how its modern-day characters ended up, it can always use the farther future of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Of course, like any good parallel universe, Earth-12 can offer its own set of cautionary tales to the main-line superheroes. I look forward to the inevitable crossover, the interactions it will inspire, and the questions it may answer (whatever happened to Nightwing Beyond, anyway?). Like the old Earth-Two, where a middle-aged Robin and eager young Huntress never really became a Dynamic Duo, Earth-12 offers a future where the traditional Batman is gone, so the legacy must adapt to endure.

I know I’ve said this a lot, but that opportunity for radical experimentation is a big part of what I like about a Multiverse. It allows DC (or whoever) to preserve its main-line characters on one Earth, while using the others to go nuts. Now, this can be taken to ridiculous extremes — you don’t want Regular Batman running through a Rolodex of alternate selves every time he lands in not-quite-familiar surroundings — but one or two (again, like the old Earth-Two and Earth-Three) are fine, and a few are probably manageable. The 2008 Justice Society Annual has already explored the new Earth-2, with its familiar Robin and Huntress, so Earth-12 may be a good complement.

But see, I am looking at this from the narrow perspective of main-line DC-Earth, much like I viewed the old Multiverse from the Silver/Bronze Age perspective of Earth-One. Already I am impliedly discounting Batman Beyond’s independent storytelling possibilities in favor of what can it do for the regulars? A Multiverse is a versatile narrative tool, but very easily it can descend into merely a curiosity farm. The infamous Countdown: Arena miniseries, a four-issue cage match for alt-history superheroes, is evidence enough of that. Even if the major parallel universes start off separate but equal, one always threatens to become more equal than the others.

Such a perspective has been hard-wired into the current Multiverse, pruned like a topiary so that only one version of its original, endlessly-replicated timeline remains. Thus, DC’s main superhero line isn’t just unique, it’s the model for the rest of the 52. From there it follows that what happens on the main DC-Earth matters — and what happens somewhere else … well, maybe not so much.

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Conventional wisdom holds that the old Multiverse of DC’s “infinite Earths” was destroyed twenty-five years ago because it was too confusing for new readers. That has always seemed like a pretty thin rationale, but I don’t think DC was being disingenuous at the time. These days, though, DC has no incentive to do Elseworlds, or other such “alternate” standalone stories, because by definition they don’t matter. Where, for example, is the market for a Green Arrow Elseworlds which finds him on the run after killing a supervillain? Better instead to make that its own mini-event, running through Green Arrow and Justice League, thereby maximizing the shock values. Maim Roy Harper and kill Roy’s daughter on a parallel Earth, and the readers might not notice … but do the same on the “real” DC-Earth, and there are consequences.

Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters #1

I don’t mean to be snide or flip about this kind of thing. I was present at the introduction of Lian Harper in the pages of New Teen Titans, and the goofy sweater Roy wore as he held her still sticks in my memory. Still, I won’t try to put a value on her worth as a character. To me she existed mostly to show Roy’s domestication — “responsible single dad” naturally plays better than “ex-junkie” — but now, who knows what might have been done with her? I will also not attempt to place Lian’s death on some continuum of tastelessness (compared with, say, the Cylon No. 6 killing that child in the “Battlestar Galactica” pilot), because that strikes me as a futile exercise. I go back and forth about whether I think Lian’s death was gratuitous (although I’m inclined to say yes); but ultimately, as I argued a couple of weeks ago, what’s important is the story itself.

One could argue (and I haven’t read this week’s Green Arrow, so I don’t know if the argument has already been made) that the events of Cry For Justice #7 have a precedent in Green Arrow’s “urban avenger” phase of the mid-to-late 1980s. Basically, in the Longbow Hunters miniseries (and subsequent ongoing series), Mike Grell had Ollie ditch all the trick arrows in favor of the old-school pointy kind, mostly because they hurt a lot more. So this could just be the last gasp of that phase before Ollie goes back to his more happy-go-lucky, chili-cooking, unreconstructed-hippie self. (It could also mean there’s some movement on that SuperMax movie which supposedly sends him to supervillain prison, and DC is trying to get us used to the idea, but I kinda doubt that.)

The story, though, seems to me to be what would it take for Green Arrow to kill a guy? (Again, Longbow Hunters postulated that it would take Black Canary being tortured and probably raped, but that was a while back.) Okay, so now we have Cry For Justice, and for the next few years or so we will be dealing with the fallout from Green Arrow killing Prometheus. Never mind that we were finally putting behind us the fact that Wonder Woman killed a guy, and she even did it on TV. Now the story has become what happens after Green Arrow kills a guy? Well, I imagine there are two distinct outcomes. Either he goes to jail (or is otherwise punished), and Warners sees how well that SuperMax movie might be received, or he doesn’t. Personally, I don’t think Prometheus is dead, mostly because CFJ writer James Robinson was so effusive about the character that I can’t believe he’d say goodbye after one miniseries.

Anyway, Green Arrow’s 70th anniversary (November 2011) will be here before you know it, and I don’t expect DC will celebrate it with Ollie in the clink. One day, sooner rather than later, readers will look back on Ollie’s history and say “remember when he killed that guy?” By then it may be an integral part of his character — heck, it might even be reconciled with his political views — but it might also be so incidental that it could well have happened on another planet.

And that unsubtle transition brings us back to the Multiverse, where these kinds of questions can be asked and answered with more freedom than the main-line Earth can offer — and, not incidentally, can have consequences which last longer than an editorial whim. Maybe on Earth-41 Oliver Queen turned himself in, retired from crimefighting, and helped Roy rehabilitate his own superhero career. Maybe he went to jail for life. Maybe the real Prometheus ended up killing him, and Roy became Dark Arrow.

It feels transient and it seems like a cop-out, but a Multiverse can really put the focus on stories, because once you make those kind of definitive, fundamental choices, odds are you’ll have to live with them. After all, the point of a Multiverse is to make just those kinds of choices. This false conception of “what matters” is short-sighted and self-serving. Only the stories matter, and regardless of continuity, good stories endure. I suspect that’s why Batman Beyond is coming back, and why “The Fall Of Green Arrow” has its work cut out for it.

Grumpy Old Fan

By the time this post goes live, you may be quite sick of hearing about Justice League: Cry For Justice #1. Back on Sunday, I said I didn’t hate it; and I suspect mine was one of the more positive comments. Yes, the script has many questionable moments, including an apparent lack of irony where Hal Jordan and Ray Palmer are concerned. I complained more about the staging of the first scene, which I felt sacrificed common sense for capital-D Drama!. And yes, the idea behind this series was a bit tired fifteen years ago when it was called Extreme Justice.

And yet … it’s movement, you know? It’s light at the end of the tunnel — the hope that almost three years into Justice League of America Volume 2, the book will at last gain its own direction and its own identity, free from crossover intrusions and editorial dictates….

… well, as free as any corporate superhero title could be; especially one designed specifically to use characters who already appear in other books.  To me, writing Justice League is sort of like competing on “Iron Chef” — you don’t have total control over all the ingredients; and more likely than not you’ll have to bring new life to old standbys like salmon or Hawkgirl. Accordingly, as Rich Johnston pointed out last week, this has produced a particular cycle of retooling and rebuilding, such that it takes just the right combination of characters and circumstances to keep the League stable.

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Of course, “stability” has historically been a hallmark of the title. Writer Gardner Fox, penciller Mike Sekowsky, and editor Julius Schwartz were together from the team’s debut in The Brave and the Bold #28 (February-March 1960) to Sekowsky’s last issue, June 1968′s Justice League of America #63; and Fox only stayed two more issues after that. Sekowsky’s successor Dick Dillin then penciled the book for the next twelve years until his death in 1980. (His last issue was October 1980′s #183.) Gerry Conway was one of several writers who worked on the title in the early 1970s, but once he got the regular gig with February 1978′s #151, he too stayed for several years, through September 1986′s #254. (He contributed only a plot to #255.)

Subsequent Justice League titles enjoyed their own streaks. Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis became a brand unto themselves over the course of five years of Justice League International antics. Gerard Jones started scripting Giffen’s Justice League Europe plots with May 1990′s #14, became JLE‘s solo writer when Giffen left, and didn’t leave the franchise until August 1996′s Justice League America #113. After that, the Grant Morrison Era of JLA lasted some forty-one issues (give or take a few guest-shots from Mark Waid and Mark Millar), and the Joe Kelly/Doug Mahnke Era lasted thirty-one.

Regardless, for a while the League couldn’t go two years without some tinkering.  Late in 1988, by way of celebrating its first two years of success, Justice League International split into two books.  About two years after that came the anthology Justice League Quarterly. Another regular title, JL Task Force, was added in 1992 as part of the line-wide revamp which followed Giffen and DeMatteis’ departure. The line was overhauled again in 1994, shuffling creative teams and mission statements in part to accommodate the new “proactive” Extreme Justice. That too only lasted a couple of years; and all three books were canceled in the summer of 1996 in favor of a single League title, Grant Morrison and Howard Porter’s JLA.

At that point, things calmed down, and JLA enjoyed just three writers (Morrison, Waid, and Kelly) over its first ninety issues. However, the book then spent its last three years under a series of different, disconnected creative teams, essentially telling the sort of inventory stories which would wind up in the anthology book JLA Classified. (Kurt Busiek and Ron Garney’s “Syndicate Rules” is probably the exception here, since Busiek and Garney were announced as the book’s regular creative team but only produced the one arc.) The last couple of arcs fed into Infinite Crisis, and as such set up the current series.

Since then, Justice League of America vol. 2 has become notorious either for continuing to facilitate other titles’ stories at the expense of its own, and for focusing to an unhealthy degree on Red Tornado when it could tell its own stories. (For what it’s worth, I did like the Vixen-changes-history arc, and I am enjoying the present “Cap’s Kooky Kwartet” phase while it lasts.) Cry For Justice now looks like the latest in a long history of reinventions going back at least to the Detroit League, and including Giffen and DeMatteis’ swan song “Breakdowns,” the “Judgment Day” crossover which killed Ice and led to Extreme Justice, and JLA‘s “Crisis Of Conscience.” I’m not going to say that stability has become boring, but every few years it seems like DC loses its handle on the Justice League.

I have argued before that the JLA is a deceptively simple concept — a marketing strategy disguised as a group of all-stars — and one which makes sense only in relation to the rest of DC’s superhero line. Accordingly, in its purest form it is neither a soap opera nor a platform for Gardner-Fox-style formula. Instead, as Giffen and DeMatteis demonstrated so nimbly, it is about relationships: how Green Lantern complements Wonder Woman; what police scientist Barry Allen can teach the World’s Greatest Detective; why a team of powerhouses needs (relatively) lesser lights like the Atom and the Elongated Man.

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And that brings us back to Cry For Justice, which admittedly begins with what looks like a clash of dominant personalities. However, I think Green Lantern’s argument about the meaning of “justice” comes less from his heart of hearts than from writer James Robinson’s need to get the plot going. Sure, we all know that Hal is channeling that part of himself which was open to the Parallax bug, but when he starts parsing the team’s name, it tells me that he doesn’t have much beyond emotion in the way of argument. (By the way, I still can’t get over the stiffness of the figures in that first sequence, never mind the random arrangements in which they’re placed.) In any event, it’s not a debate, just two sides talking at each other, with Ollie as Greek chorus and eventual defector. Maybe we’ll see the main League in these pages again, maybe not.

Regardless, we know already (from, among other things, Robinson’s text pages in CFJ #1 and this week’s editorial from Dan DiDio) that at least some of the CFJ team will be folded into the regular JLA when Robinson takes over the main book sometime down the road. Since I can’t imagine that DC wants the League to be “proactive” on an ongoing basis, the CFJ team must eventually be reconciled with the regular JLA. In the meantime, I expect CFJ to feature a rag-tag group of superheroes tracking down Prometheus (and, if the covers for issue #1 are any indication, most of the Legion of Doom) before realizing ultimately that what they’re doing isn’t the Way We Do Things. Certainly I think someone will throw Parallax and Identity Crisis in Hal’s and Ray’s faces at a dramatically-appropriate moment. (Parallax even got a mention in this week’s World Of New Krypton, co-written by Robinson.) It might sound cathartic at first, but all that crying for justice! just tends to make you hoarse.

If in fact this happens, and the two teams become one happy League, does that make CFJ irrelevant?  I’m not sure.  However, I don’t think the League benefits from the sort of singular viewpoint that all those “yeah … justice!” panels indicate.  The JLA was created out of characters from diverse genres (even if their dialogue all tended to sound the same), and part of the fun of the book was watching those different genre-avatars interact.  It works first on that macro-level, before you start sorting out powers and personalities.  Titles like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Planetary play with this conceit directly, so why shouldn’t the JLA?  Why not emphasize how the pulp-hero Congorilla plays off science-heroes like Green Lantern and the Atom?  In this way the “cries for justice” only bring these characters together.  I suspect that if CFJ were still an ongoing title, the “proactive” angle (or at least its vengeful aspect) wouldn’t have lasted much past the first story arc.

There is still the possibility that, as per the rumor Rich Johnston reported at the above-referenced link, there will soon be two Justice League books anyway:  Robinson’s (presumably with art from Mark Bagley), and a new Justice League of America (vol. 3) written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Jim Lee.  The latter would focus on Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, and the former would spotlight lesser-known DC heroes like Vixen.  Again, I don’t think such compartmentalization is good for the League.  The title needs a good mix of characters with their own features and characters whose only home is with the team, just as it needs a good representation of superhero genres and personalities.  In any event, I’m not holding my breath for the Johns/Lee book, in large part because it would probably have to wait until Superman is back on Earth and Batman is back from prehistory.

So, once the posturing and self-importance are through, I will continue to hope that the James Robinson I’ve enjoyed these many years will show up again on Justice League of America.  I’d like to think he can find a way to balance the Leaguers’ interactions with big-ticket adventures worthy of the team.  Otherwise, the next revamp may be closer than we think….