Broken Frontier

Hello, everyone! This is William Gatevackes, taking a look at the new releases due in stores the 29th of March.

Blue Beetle #1 hits tomorrow and features a new take on the character by Keith Giffen, John Rogers and Cully Hamner.  The character has already made its debut in the pages of Infinite Crisis , and this series details the adventures of the hero one year into his career.

The death of Ted Kord, the previous Blue Beetle, caused a lot of controversy in the fan community. There is a lot of cynicism over using the death of the previous version of the character to create a new version of the character. But in the history of the character, Ted Kord was actually the second person to be known as Blue Beetle, and he too took over the mantle when the last version died.

The first Blue Beetle was named Dan Garrett and was a college professor of Ted Kord’s. As the story goes, Garrett died while stopping Kord’s uncle from trying to take over the world. Ted was so inspired by Garrett’s sacrifice that he became the new Blue Beetle to honor his memory.

So having this character die to make way for a new one is nothing new in the story's history. Of course, the Garrett Blue Beetle died in action and had a connection with his progeny. Ted Kord had a less heroic death and never met the new Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes. But there is a similarity between the two passings of the torch.

Whether long-time fans who were upset by the way Ted Kord was killed will be willing to give the new title a chance remains to be seen. But the fact that he died shouldn’t be the only thing stopping them.

Green Lantern #10 comes out tomorrow, and the title doesn’t seem all that different than before the OYL break. Of course, the comic book is a result of a major overhaul of the Green Lantern mythos, so another shake-up of the status quo so soon after might seem like overkill.

If you think DC angered fans by killing the Ted Kord Blue Beetle, that was nothing compared to the fan reaction regarding what they did to the Hal Jordan Green Lantern. When DC decided to make one of their most beloved and popular heroes into a megalomaniacal villain and replace him with a younger character as Green Lantern, outrage was too tame a term to apply to what happened as a result.

The fans of the Hal Jordan Green Lantern rose up as one to oppose this change of direction. They even formed an organization called H.E.A.T.  (Hal’s Emerald Advancement Team), with a mission statement “to encourage and advocate the return and exoneration of Hal Jordan as Green Lantern, the restoration of the Green Lantern legend, and the revival of the honorable Green Lantern Corps.”

The organization seemed foolish at the time, but look where we are today. Hal Jordan is back to being Green Lantern, the Green Lantern Corps are back in existence, and the legendary status of Green Lantern has indeed been restored.

Of course, the cause was helped by having a popular creator such as Geoff Johns believe the same thing and be willing to implement the changes the organization was suggesting. Whether Johns was directly inspired by H.E.A.T. or not is unknown, but the actions of the group must have had some effect in the changes DC made. This should be an example to all comic fans that if comic companies do something that you don’t like, unite and let them know you are angry. Perhaps you may make them change their mind.

Action Comics #837 continues the Busiek/Johns storyline which began in Superman #650. It appears that DC’s big three—Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman—have been missing in action during the one-year gap. And from reading Superman #650, it seems the reason Supes was laying low was because he was powerless.

When you are dealing with an icon like Superman, there is no such thing as a permanent change. He has been dead, received new powers and costume, and now he is powerless. The two previous changes only lasted a short while before he was returned to normal. It probably won’t be long until he receives his powers back.

The only way to make a permanent change to Superman’s status quo is through his relations to his supporting cast. When Clark Kent married Lois Lane, that changed the entire dynamic of the characters. This is why I hope one of the rumors concerning this arc is true. There has been speculation that it will be revealed that Lois is in the family way.

Every person is changed by the addition of a child, and Superman would be no exception. I hope that DC has the courage to go through with this, because it could lead to very interesting storylines in the future.

Another OYL book that came out last week but wasn’t listed on Diamond’s shipping list was Robin #148. This issue finds Robin wanted for murder after the one-year break. Problem is, in Detective Comics #817, which came several weeks ago, Robin is with Batman when they meet with the Gotham Police. Isn’t it strange that, if he was wanted for murder, he was able to walk away from the meeting a free man?

Infinite Crisis has explained any prior continuity errors away as a result of Superboy banging on the wall of his prison. That series isn’t even over and continuity gliches are starting all over again. I mean, all the books are supposed to have been restarted at the same time, right? Robin is a One Year Later book, not a One And A Half Year later book, isn’t it?

I haven’t read this issue yet, so I don’t know how they address this conundrum. Perhaps future issues of the Batman book will feature a Robin wanted for murder. But if this isn’t explained, then they should make a note of this error for when the next mini-series with “crisis” and “infinite” in the title hits, which should be in twenty years.

I know a lot of fans don’t let continuity get in the way of a good story. But how hard is it to keep things straight? After all, the “Robin is a murderer” storyline is the main plot of the OYL revamp for the title. How can you overlook it to have him get all chummy with cops in another comic the same month? That is just sloppy work by DC.

Fantastic Four #536 begins a storyline which should mark the return of one of Marvel’s longest running characters, Thor. He was last seen around the time of the “Avengers Dissassembled” event, where he appeared to have died. But any character with even a modicum of popularity will not stay dead long.

Marvel had tried to play coy with the details of this issue, but internet-savvy fans knew from the solicitation alone that this issue would mark the return of Thor. The blurb the company used in its advertising for the issue matched up a little too well with the rumored concept Neil Gaiman and J. Michael Straczynski came up with for the return of the character that ran in gossip columns months earlier. The fact that Straczynski is the current writer of Fantastic Four added more fuel to the fire. So Thor’s hammer being featured so prominently on this issue’s cover came as no surprise to these people.

Comic companies have a hard time marketing their wares in today’s information age. The conventional wisdom was that the less you reveal about a storyline, the more appealing it will be to audiences. Let the mystery draw them in. But it has become harder and harder to keep a mystery alive when the words “Spoiler Warning” are plastered all over most websites devoted to comic books.

Rumors about story content haven’t affected sales much if at all. Sales of two of the most gossiped about comics on the internet, Infinite Crisis and House of M , weren’t adversely affected by all the spoilers floating around. If anything, the talk about these issues raised interest and made more people want to check them out.

New Avengers: The Illuminati tells the story behind the secret group, composed of Marvel’s power brokers such Reed Richards and Professor X, that made its first appearance in Brian Michael Bendis’ New Avengers . Even though they only recently appeared in comic form, this issue purports to interweave the team throughout established Marvel history.

There has been a recent trend in comic books of writing stories set in the past that nestle in between previous established continuity. Stories such as “Sins of the Past” in Amazing Spider-Man, which details a sexual relationship between Gwen Stacy and Norman Osborn, Identity Crisis, which turned Dr. Light into a rapist and the JLA into a group of mind-altering thugs, and the current X-Men: Deadly Genesis , which reveals that there was another group of X-Men Professor Xavier sacrificed to Krakoa before he sent in the “New” X-Men.

These new stories usually cast characters in a more negative light, irritating many long-time fans. Followers of Gwen Stacy or the JLA do not like the way these tales have tainted the memories they had of them. Gwen is no longer so pure and innocent and Hawkman, Zatanna, and the rest are less noble.

One could say that these are just drawings on pieces of paper. But comic readers make an emotional investment in these illustrations. Modern creators who are inspired by stories these characters appear in should also pay some respect to the devotion the fans have for them. We’ll see how The Illuminati treats these icons.

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William Gatevackes is married and lives in Mamaroneck, NY with his lovely wife Jennifer. He writes the periodic comic review for  PopMatters .