Nihilist's Profile

The healthy approach to a comic book would be to have your expectations for it completely neutral, and your mind open. Obviously we're incapable of that, since we're only humans - driven by our prejudices, preferences and emotions. I was skeptical about this entire event, and I still am, but I'm willing to give it a fair chance instead of preemprively calling it a gimmicky publicy stunt. Even if i it kinda fits the description.
Point is, Dark Crisis seems like a competently told and drawn event and while I would not call it life changing and universe shattering, it may end up being a pretty entertaining blockbuster adventure. I'm glad I didn't have any expectations for it, for better or worse, because it managed to surprise me a bit and make a generally positive impression on me. So I say - give it a chance and see where it goes. It may implode halfway through, it may be quickly forgotten and retconned afterwards, it may be a beginning of a new era of DC Comics (again - for better or worse), or it may be just an entertaining popcorn spectacle and nothing more. We'll see. For now it was a pretty enjoyable read.more

This was a pretty good issue. I think a lot of the issue suffers from playing catch up. For those of us that had read Infinite Frontier and Justice League Incarnate, there's not much going on here that we didn't already know about. This issue promises the Death of the Justice League and... it delivers, and that's pretty much it. I wish there was more meat to this issue, as it's basically a glorifi ed recap with deaths at the end of it that we knew were coming because it's in the solicitation and it's plastered on the cover. The only thing that keeps me from giving this a lower score is that I thought the art was nice and I am somewhat interested in where things go from here. Also, I'm slightly concerned this spoils how Action Comics wraps up its Warworld saga, but that's besides the point. Still better than anything Bendis could have done with a final issue.more

Remember Greta Van Fleet? Talented kids, for sure, but it's not the band itself I'd like to compare this comic to, but rather remind us all of one quote regarding their debut album, which was labeled "boomer fetishism". Whether it was an accurate criticism, or just a journalist hackery, I'll leave for personal interpretation, but either way it got stuck in my mind, and came back when I was reading this book. You know why? Because I felt like it actually commits similar "crime", but instead of fetishizing boomerisms, it fetishizes Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Now, there's nothing wrong with referencing classic comics nor trying to take what's there and tell your own continuation. But if you decide to do so, you should focus on YOUR story first and foremost, and there's very little of it to be found here. Granted, it's just the prologue to a bigger event, so I can't be too critical of it, but when I think about it, there's nothing outside the Dark Army itself that seems like something new. And even then, it's not something that would feel... inspiring and complelling, you know? Oldest trick in the book - when enemies get strong enough you can't think of anyone stronger, just make them unite and strike the heroes together. Dark Nights Metal worked, because it gave us good antagonists, even though most of them ended up being wasted. Crisis on Infinite Earths got a big memorable baddie too. Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night? You bet there was something more than just armies of endless cannon fodder.

But that's not really the worst part. What hurts me the most here is that I felt little to nothing while reading this book. Characters die, and that's it. It's not as terrible executed as, let's say, Superman's laughable death in Batman v Superman dumpsterfi... movie, I mean, but still, I cynically smirk thinking that they're going to come back to us very soon. It's comics, after all. We've seen Death of Superman, so no publicity stunt like this will work again, I guess. And even if they're dead for good in the main continuity, there's countless elseworlds that sales-wise perform better than main-line DC series.

Finally, considering the scale and "stakes" of this event, I dare to say its art left me pretty disappointed. Sandoval is a good artist, but he clearly needed more time to properly detail all the panels here, because overall, they look pretty rushed. Surely, glory days of DC's big events with Perez or Reis really doing some insanely intricate work are over.

Overall a meh/10. Nothing that would blow my mind either story or art-wise. It works as a semi decent prologue and its value will be measured once the story unravels properly. For now, there's not much of it other than obsessive fascination with Crisis on Infinite Earths.more

Truth is, hardly anything matters in comics. Every now and then publishers reset continuities either because they became convoluted, messy and often self contradictory, or sales dropped alongside readers' interest. DC'a last big official reboot was Flashpoint, which sadly opened a new universe of grimness, boredom, poor writing, edginess and straight up butchery of beloved characters (Lobo, Harley , Wonder Woman and Mr. Freeze all send their regards!). Flashpoint itself, though, was pretty fun and I still like it all these years later. Sure, it may not be the best event of all time, and its collected edition consisting only of the main 5 issues, ignoring all the tie-ins may be a straight up insult, but I can't deny that its dark and hopeless universe and characters had potential. Seems DC's editorial had the same thought, because they brought back Thomas Wayne's Flashpoint Batman in Tom King's oh-so-awful Batman series and now he landed his own series. Good for him, I guess, but is the comic any good?

First two thing that striked me after opening it, was how much baggage its story carries, forcing you to read Flashpoint (preferably with at least Batman's tie-ins), King's Rebirth Batman series (including The Button event, which sucks no less), Doomsday Clock and Justice League Incarnate to actually understand everything. I get it, Geoff Johns likes to use references, easter eggs and throwbacks, but hot damn does it make it hard for you to get into this particular plot itself.
Plot that isn't even particularly compelling, if I have to be brutally honest. Granted, mystery is there, as well as some weird omniversal shenanigans (because multiverse is not enough for DC these days), but I can't say I'm hooked. Maybe next issue, the actual #1 will be better, but for now I... yeah, I'm not excited about this project.

Art-wise the comic is below mediocre. Eduardo Risso illustrated Flashpoint: Batman Knight of Vengeance miniseries back in the day, so on paper he was a good pick to do this one as well, but his panels lack details, dynamism and often look just empty. It could be passable if only it had some unique quality to it, artistic identity, but nope, it's pretty generic and uninspired. Best panels here look okay, worst like they were drawn by a 16 year old in their bedroom. Maybe it's a matter of taste, like with Tim Sale whose art I'm not very fond of personally. Or maybe it's a relatively low effort book made this way to avoid delays that plagued Doomsday Clock's run, and ultimately the end result didn't feel worth it to a solid portion of the fanbase? Don't look at me - I liked it a lot, actually, but can't deny that it was a pretty irrelevant event in the large scale of things.more

Solid start. As always with Murphy the art is the star and this is a beautiful showcase. It's dark and his use of space in the darkness especially his shadows on the walls is amazing. The opening isn't much to write home about other than seeing Terry don the suit. I'll agree with those who have mentioned that it could have been written better there. The only other example I could find was the most egregious example of expository dialogue I have seen in a while during Bruce's conversation with Duke. Bruce and Jason interacting is everything I could ask for, main continuity or not and this take on the mythos is a fun reimagining.more

Main continuity DC comics may have not been enough to awaken me from post Future State slumber, and I sure still feel more than burned out with comics because of it, but more White Knight? Hell yeah I'm gonna read and review it, you betcha.

The series starts on a rather lower note compared to previous two stories. Remember the opening scene from the original White Knight, so reminiscent of The Killing Joke? Or a completely detached flashback from Curse we've got to wait to fully understand? Here we meet Terry, who in a true deus ex machina fashion finds the Beyond batsuit prototype, because no one ever found it before him, apparently. This could, and should have been written differently, no joke.

Good thing is, the comic gets better from this point on. We meet Bruce and Harley, see how their lives look like now, and their personal character arcs are set up. Jason, whom we've first seen on the last page of Curse, serves to dump some necessary exposition and establish his relationship with Bruce. He's not your typical Red Hood, mind you, and I welcome that. Murphy, so far, knew how to take beloved characters and give them unconventional little spins, keeping them familiar and recognizable, but also fresh and unpredictable. Less angsty Jason Todd may end up being a very fun elseworld reinvention.

What are my overall impressions after reading this issue? Good, but I'm not blown away. Hopefully Murphy will accomplish that in the next chapter, but for now I'm willing to give this comic an 8/10 - it's fun, it's promising, it's touching in certain moments, and I absolutely can't wait to read more. Pick it up if you've read its predecessors, and if not, then what are you waiting for? Get yourself a TP of White Knight ASAP!more

After Tom Taylor's fantastic series last year, this one feels like a return to the tired old thematic status quo, and I think it is a huge step backwards.
It's not a bad comic - in fact it looks and feels like a high quality product, but if you've been following the pre Future State Suicide Squad affairs, yeah, you're most likely going to be let down by this. If you haven't... well, I'd say t ry out Taylor's #1 first, and return to this one once you finish with his story.more

When you think about it, the concept of Superman's descendants going through superpowered family struggles is pretty dope. There are good apples, there are bad apples, family drama in mainstream media generally has tons of potential. The Borgias, Sopranos, Corleones and Lannisters among many others have proven that time and time again. So it's somewhat surprising comics didn't necesarily pick up t his idea and run with it, spicing everything up with superpowers and capes.

So, in theory it's all good. In practice the concept derails significantly, because one comic is hardly enough to introduce several new characters and establish them. Yes, we learn their names and some of them seem to have little problems with others... but I can't say I feel invested and immersed in all of this. Maybe it's the result of so many characters appearing for the first time all at once, and each requiring few minutes in the spotlight? Or maybe it's the result of a bigger conflict and a villain I don't know yet? What danger does he pose? What can he do? Is he completely bad, or just misguided/misunderstood/has some redeeming qualities?
So many questions, and so little pages to address even 1/10th of them. Heck, it's not even enough to properly introduce the main cast.

For now I'm skeptical and personally will approach the next issue with some caution. It may end up being a pretty solid and refreshing read, but it also can collapse under its own weight, because yeah, that's how much this book actually contains.more

You know what annoys me? The fact that Tamaki wasted the entirety of issue #1 of this series, leaving us with only 3 to tell a story that clearly needed more time to unravel and offer us a satisfying conclusion. Funnily enough every Dark Detective comic dragged at times and featured overwhelming amount of stagnant filler. Even this one, which makes its ending even worse than it actually is, becaus e if it wasn't for the nauseating amount of exposition and filler, maybe it could have dealt with actual consequences of Bruce's actions throughout the series. Where did it all lead? To one big bang, and that's it?
Imagine A New Hope ending with Death Star blowing up. That's it. One gigantic explosion and nothing more. No conclusions to main character arcs, no (temporary) happy end, no feeling of relief, because the galaxy is (temporarily) safe once more.
That's how I feel about this short run. Complete and utter waste of time which had potential, but ultimately was wasted due to writer choosing exposition over much needed content.

As for Red Hood's additional story, I can't say I cared about its first half, and I certainly couldn't care less about this half either. While it's not the worst comic I've ever read, it just feels... cheap, like w low budget indie title made to promote a TV sitcom or something. Both art and script wise.more

Please. No more Legion by Bendis. Let this be the end.

What could have been a decent start for the series turned out to look and feel like a typical cliche infiltration segment in a blockbuster movie, featuring several super popular tropes like hiding in a side corridor while guards run through the main one looking only ahead. Digital first comics more often than not have rather cheap feeling to them, and Second Son is not an exception from the rule, sadly. While DC tried to market The Next Batman as a premium comic, they apparently forgot to give this one the same treatment, resulting in a very "meh" work that doesn't give me much confidence in them strengthening the brand of The Next Batman, establishing it as a quality, premium elseworld line. Like what DC managed to accomplish with Batman White Knight or DCEASED.

I'm very underwhelmed with this one, and honestly, I think I'd skip it for now and wait for a full trade paperback version of it.more

White Knight Harley may have lost some of her initial momentum, but the book still is an entertaining and immersive read worth picking up. The main plot thickens every issue, and focuses only more on the theme of maternity, serving us more than few parallels between the main characters involved in the story. There is this triangle of mothers, each impacting their children in a different way. On to p of it, Collins brings in the concept of masks we all wear depending on situation, which makes me think of Ferdydurke, except contary to it, it's written in a way accessible enough not to require a shot of LSD to make something out of it.

Overall I enjoy this comic. At this point it's pretty clear what and how it is. If you didn't like the previous issues, or maybe even the entirety of Murphy's worldbuilding to date, this book won't change your mind. But if you're a fan of the Murphyverse, sit down, grab a cup of tea and enjoy the ride, because it is exactly what you expect it to be. No more, no less.more

With this Future State -nonsense DC has been releasing these past months, this book is currently the only one I'm really invested in. While I really liked this one, I'm a bit annoyed hopw miss-leading the cover is. As a huge Red Hood fan, it's a bit disappointing to see Jason here when they aren't really doing anything with him. That seems to change in the next issue.

And the biggest an noyance is that due to Murphyverse being so different, I'm really interested to see Jason's backstory.

But that problem aside, it's still a really strong series. Collins writes Harley so well and this version is so much better than the one we have in the main universe. more

I keep asking myself was there any point in shoehorning Legion into Future State to begin with. After all, the series tells stories with pretty much countless protagonists - some returning, others being merely one-offs. It is kinda baffling to me that such a giant ensemble comic ended up with 2 issue long micro story. And one that I think fails on every possible level, at that. The script is borin g and since it's written by Brian Michael Bendis, it's way overtalked. It also lacks depth, direction, tension and purpose, due to its length. Meanwhile its art is, to put it simple, repulsive, although feel free to disagree with me here - our perception of beauty in art is purely subjective. Me, personally, truly dislike Rossmo's style, and think it does not fit the tone of this comic. On second thought, I can't think of a comic where it would fit in, but that's just a little digression.more

Politics are a very tough subject to write about. Not only because they're so complex, dirty and interconnected, but also because most people are completey ignorant about them and prefer easy answers to questions that can't be answered easily. Think of any big political crisis, and ask yourself is there a simple explanation to it. What caused Brexit? And the 2008 Great Recession? Or 9/11? Or both world wars? It is impossible to simplify these subjects enough to explain them in one, or even few sentences. They require extensive explaining which may explain one thing, but will spark a dozen of new questions and uncertainties. And sufficed to say, average people don't like that. They prefer easy answers. Hey, it's the Russians, or Chinese, that's all there is to a problem, no convoluted professorial explanations needed.

Now, obviously, it's not hard to write such simple fictional narrative. Isn't that what western comics have been all about for decades? Good vs. evil, all day all night. Superman is good, Lex Luthor is bad, no extra layers of depth and complexity needed, because they'd confuse readers who are used to not thinking at all. That was the Silver Age mentality. And then came the Bronze Age with writers like Alan Moore, the man behind Watchmen and V for Vendetta - tho incredibly deep political comics, ones that actually provide us compelling narratives with super complex backgrounds. Take Adam Susan, for example - the fascist ruler and the main antagonist of V for Vendetta. He is a monster commiting monstrous acts... but he's also a human with believable psyche and decisionmaking we can understand.

Compare that to Luthor here, who turns 180 degrees in the span of one panel. We've got a chance to understand the typical totalitarian way of brainwashing the masses and controlling them through fear, poverty and desperation, but instead Mark Russell abandons the deep and mature storytelling this comic could have featured for a simple good vs. evil fight, ending with a cartoonishly silly twist which fits the tone of the rest of the book as much as Tom King's Looney Tunes references fit Batman comics.

And look - there is some decent lessons and point made here - take the concept of ruling, according to Lex, saying it's not about giving people what they need but rather what they want. As a cynic, I'd say in reality it's convincing them they want something you claim to be for, and then convincing them you're the only one who can give it to them, just to get elected and not do anything. But hey, politics is a complex bitch, as I already said, and anything related to it can be continuously explained further and further. Russel, contrary to Moore, doesn't delve deep enough, BUT the little depths he reaches still contain something worth remembering and understanding, even if ultimately it's kind of a two dimensional wasted potential.more

I don't get how people get to claim that "Superman is in good hands" when this is the third story from PKJ when SUPERMAN IS BARELY IN IT. How can he be in good hands when he's not in the story? It looks like PKJ got a note from Bendis and he's applying the same system: doesn't care about Superman at all, he just tries to build other characters that maybe will pay off one day and he'll get the mone y for it.more

And so Future State officially ends. Well, there's still going to be few related releases next month, but the hectic two month long event finally reaches the finish line, and I couldn't be happier because after 8 weeks of reading (and reviewing) every single comic from it, I feel drained and exhausted. It's been a very rough and uneven ride, with some good comics, some terrible ones as well, with their quality shifting faster than time signature in a Dream Theater song.

This comic is my last to review. Why this one? Dunno, honestly. If I was to make a punchline regarding this event, I could have chosen a better fitting title, but by sheer accident this one's the last, and there's no real big analogy concluding Future State. Because it is a consistently decent comic. There's no big shake-ups, there's no revolutions, it's just a fun little escapist read. Gene Luen Yang plays very safe, giving us a pretty good mystery, albeit predictable (which I really can't criticize him for - after all it'd be near impossible to write something truly surprising AND 2 issues long), and setting up the reason why fascist controlled Future State Gotham City is on its own.

And probably that reason is what left me with somewhat bitter taste in my mouth. It's just... a rather forced, won't you agree? Yeah, I get it, it was necessary and all, but the explanation and Bruce's reasoning are pretty off. I can't say I enjoyed this sudden and radical turn of events. I believe this could have been handled better.

Overall not a bad comic - probably one of the safer and most digestible entries from this horrendously uneven event. more

Creating a good mystery is one thing. Leading the narrative slowly unraveling it is something entirely different. Suicide Squad's bigger purpose revealed at the very end is a pretty solid twist, problem is path leading to it. It's a bumpy one, constantly switching POVs and trying to surprise us with typical "ha! I knew what you'd do so I did this!" twists. Such precise chess-like game can work if done right, but it is very easy to under or overdo it. Look at Death Note if you don't believe me - incredibly solid start followed by constant drops in quality due to the aforementioned chess-like twists, and ultimately it turned into a parody of itself. Waller's convoluted reasoning covered in this book works similarly, and is equally dysfunctional.

As far as the additional Black Adam story goes, it's a non-entity to me. One that feels like an afterthought, something that is here just to add a little bit of volume to the book. And honestly it could use some more content. In form of better developed and longer titular story.

Not the worst book from Future State, but one you could confidently skip, since even if you read it, I guarantee you you'll forget it in a week.more

Aquaman ends on a high note. Maybe not as high as #1, due to one legged plot twist we've never seen coming which made everyone talk about the comic, but it still is a very, very entertaining issue I would recommend to anybody AND would like to see being continued, actually. Out of all new faces introduced or established in Future State, Andy is definitely one of the S tier ones I'd love to see aga in in the foreseeable future. Jackson too, but it's Andy who runs the show and gave this short story personality and emotional drama.

Another thing worth commenting and praising is most definitely Daniel Sampere's art - it's consistently stellar and fits the tone perfectly. It's an amazing book through and through - worth reading, worth looking at.

Solid recommendation from me.more