Broken Frontier

Welcome to Part 2 of Broken Frontier’s weekly issue by issue roundup of events from every corner of the DC Universe. For Part 1 click here. This is where to come to catch up on what’s been happening with your favorite DC characters and how events in their books affect the DCU’s recent "Bigger Picture". We also point out any interesting continuity tidbits, link to suggested background reading and examine any pertinent questions raised by events in the week’s releases.

Spoiler Warning: Read no further if you’ve not had your DC fix this week and don’t want to hear about key story elements.

Doom Patrol #1

The Doom Patrol’s mission to Buena Suerte to stop ex-Oolong Island scientist Amanda Beckett from creating human/botfly hybrids goes horribly wrong when teen member Nudge is killed during their escape. After a whistle stop tour of the team’s new Oolong Island HQ we are introduced to some of the new support team for the Patrol and the current status of members like Bumblebee and the newly-named Elasti-Woman is revealed. All just in time for their next operation – to deal with a sentient black hole!

Metal Men co-feature: Super-hero sitcom silliness ensues as the Metal Men encounter Zummazumma the Living Doll in Brazil, Doc Magnus meets the neighbours, Platinum won’t take "No" for an answer and Copper provides Giffen and DeMatteis with their first running gag for this series...

The Bigger Picture: The DP’s new counsellor Father Leslie Davis is Rocky Davis from the original incarnation of the Challengers of the Unknown. Rocky’s new spiritual role was established in DC Universe: Last Will and Testament #1 when, on the eve of the Final Crisis, he took the confessions of Grace of the Outsiders and Geo-Force.

The Doom Patrol’s greatest enemy General Immortus also appears this week, in much reduced circumstances, in the pages of Final Crisis Aftermath: Run! #4.

The Doom Patrol have moved from their castle HQ from The Brave and the Bold #8 to Oolong Island, the former haven of the DCU’s mad scientists as seen in the weekly 52 series.

Metal Men co-feature: The Metal Men’s last solo outing was in the recent Metal Men 8-issue limited series from Duncan Roleau, based on concepts by Grant Morrison. The trade paperback of that run is also out this week.

Continuity Corner: Nudge and Grunt were members of the DP created by John Byrne in his 2004 debuting Doom Patrol series. Teen members of the Doom Patrol rarely have a long life expectancy – Scott Fischer, for example, died in Invasion! #2 (Feb 1989), Karma was shot dead in Suicide Squad #58 (Oct 1991) and Fever was recently murdered in the Dark Side Club arena in Terror Titans #1 (Dec 2008). And let's not even mention poor old Dorothy Spinner...

The team are seen on the front cover ripping through the cover of Doom Patrol #109 (Feb 1967).

Questions: How has the DP’s new, almost military, status quo been set up? Just what is the manipulative Niles Caulder up to this time and how sinister were his real intentions in sending the DP to Buena Suerte (just check out what the Chief’s laptop implies on page 17!!)? With Rebis, Negative Woman (until her hasty death in Final Crisis) and Negative Man all extant in the DCU at the same time how could the Negative energy being be in three places at once? What is Rocky’s current status with the Challengers of the Unknown? What is Grunt’s final fate? And just what is the relationship of some of the missing DP-ers this issue to the rest of the team – are Mento, Beast Boy and Vox still on speaking terms with the rest?

Justice League: Cry for Justice #2

As the various heroes seek their loved ones’ killers they begin to realise that all trails lead to Prometheus and his small army of super-villains. Prometheus has been raiding locations with "fantastic technology", causing a number of deaths as collateral damage. Starman and "Congorilla" clash on Blackhawk Island, Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen get a tip-off from Jason Bard in Gotham and Ray Palmer and Jay Garrick investigate more stolen technology at the Flash Museum. With the assorted super-heroes’ quests for vengeance starting to converge the Atom, Freddy Freeman and Supergirl join Green Lantern and Green Arrow in mopping up a crew of Prometheus’s lackeys…

The Bigger Picture: When talking about Jean Loring with Jay Garrick this issue Ray Palmer references Jean’s murderous behavior in Identity Crisis and his discovery of her multiversal counterpart on Earth-51, the world first depicted in Countdown to Final Crisis #19.

Continuity Corner: Featured minor league baddie Javelin, one of the villain gang taken out in Gotham, has now died twice on missions with the Suicide Squad and then got remarkably better again. He debuted in Green Lantern #173 (Feb 1984) with possibly the worst Lewis Carroll-inspired semi-pun imaginable on the issue's cover and was first killed in War of the Gods #3 (Nov 1991) when Circe impaled him with his own weapon. His unlikely survival was revealed in Power Company #5 (Aug 2002) but he subsequently died again in Checkmate #7 (Dec 2006). That death was also fairly explicit so either this is a new guy in the costume which, given his lack of German accent here, is a definite possibility or a continuity error.

The Atom and Freddy Freeman (when he was Captain Marvel, Jr.) were team-mates back in the Dan Jurgens incarnation of Teen Titans which lasted 24 issues between 1996-98. This was at a point when Ray had been de-aged to his teen years.

Questions: What is Prometheus’s ultimate plan? What does he intend to use the technology for? How did Javelin survive yet another certain death? And, perhaps pedantically, just why is Green Lantern so cold on that rooftop scene when it’s long been established that his power ring looks after his body temperature in all climates?

Secret Six #12

The Secret Six’s current assignment on Devil’s Island continues to rapidly unravel as the split in their ranks as to whether they should honor their contract with employer Mr. Smyth or rescue his captive Artemis escalates. With Wonder Woman now part of the conflict, Secret Sixer Jeanette is finally provoked into revealing her true Banshee form which proves too much for Diana to deal with. Artemis proves to have been more hardy than we thought last issue and with the Six factionalised, the remaining members loyal to Smyth are introduced to his prize asset – the "devil" chained up in his underground prison...

The Bigger Picture: Jeanette first revealed she was a Banshee in what seemed a throwaway line in Secret Six #6 and Artemis referred to her as the same in #11. The original Silver Banshee has been quite active in the DCU of late in appearances including Supergirl #34, Superman #682 and the arc in Superman/Batman #s 53-55.

Wonder Woman refuses to be called an Amazon indicating this story takes place after she renounced her ties to her sisters as a result of Zeus’s behavior in the "Rise of the Olympian" story arc. The recent Wonder Woman #33 is the pivotal issue there.

Continuity Corner: It would appear from this issue that all Banshees in the DCU have a similar look. Jeanette’s Banshee form is the same as the Silver Banshee’s, a supernatural villainess created by John Byrne during his 1980s Superman revamp. The Silver Banshee first appeared in Action Comics #595 (Dec 1987).

Questions: Could the "devil" Smyth has chained up be Grendel from the "Ends of the Earth" storyline from Wonder Woman #s 20-23? Just how many "Banshees" are out there in the DCU? Why is there such enmity between the Amazons and the Banshees? What next for the sundered Six? Or is this division in the ranks another tactical ploy?

Strange Adventures #6

Because the power-saturated Weird is now a threat to the future of the entire universe, Comet and Adam Strange traverse his fractured psyche on the mental plane, hoping to appeal to his central intellect. Within the Weird’s mind they encounter all those bonded to his consciousness, including his one-time host personalities the original Captain Comet and a version of Synnar himself.

On the physical plane the "real" Synnar attempts to seduce Eye and Starman to his cause while elsewhere Lady Styx’s continues her attempts to disrupt Synnar’s plans for the Aberrant Six by setting her agent Megaldon-7 on potential member Bizarro...

The Bigger Picture: The Aberrant Six’s lineup, a plot begun in last year’s Hawkman Special #1, has been revealed as Comet, Adam Strange, Prince Gavyn/Starman, Eye, Bizarro and The Weird. Synnar’s aim is to replace the DCU’s ultimate being and transcend to godhood so presumably the Six fit into this agenda somehow.

Comet and The Weird first came into contact in the 2006-7 Mystery In Space limited series which brought both dead heroes back to life in reborn forms. As such they have been linked ever since, explaining the original Captain Comet’s existence as one of the parts of The Weird’s consciousness.

Another form of Synnar is present in The Weird’s mind. This is logical given that the two characters exchanged bodies at the climax of their conflict in Rann-Thanagar Holy War #8.

Continuity Corner: Walter Langley whose personality also appears in the Weird’s mindscape was the human whose corpse he first bonded with in the 1988 The Weird miniseries. That story saw The Weird and the Justice League repel the Macrolatt invasion of Earth before that incarnation of the character was apparently destroyed.

Questions: What is the bold new future of fulfilment that Synnar offers Starman Prince Gavyn? Who was Eye really before she ended up in the asylum on Hardcore Station? What is the true nature of Synnar the Demiurge’s existence? What is the exact chronology between Bizarro’s many disparate appearances across the DC line of late?

Rounding up... the Human Flame makes his escape from General Immortus and Professor Milo’s clutches in Final Crisis Aftermath: Run! #4. In the ensuing chaos, however, Immortus’s underlings Mr. Polka Dot, the latest Sportsmaster, Miss Army Knife, Brown Recluse, Phoney Baloney and the Condiment King all meet rather grisly ends...

The "Codename: Patriot" crossover begins in Superman: World of New Krypton #6 where we learn that General Zod has survived the assassination attempt but his would-be killer Ral-Dar makes his escape to Earth... And Batman Confidential #32 chronicles the second part of the Dark Knight’s encounter with the Russian mob...

Fanboy Moment of the Week

The tie this week has to be between two key contenders: Firstly, almost sending the cool-o-meter into overload is Gail Simone pitting expert marksman Deadshot up against Wonder Woman in the ultimate "bullets and bracelets" moment in Secret Six #12. Secondly, how can we not mention the reunion of the late ‘80s Giffen-DeMatteis-Maguire JLI team on the hugely amusing Metal Men co-feature in Doom Patrol #1? There’s no way I can decide between the two!

I also had a more trivial fanboy moment when reading Strange Adventures #6. In that issue Comet remarks that the last time he really spent any time on Earth was back in the 1980s and he hated it! Almost certainly a throwaway remark but, then again, if one of the few times you made an appearance in the ‘80s was in the rather rambling, meandering (albeit well-intentioned) mess that was 1985-86’s DC Challenge then perhaps you’d feel the same way about that decade...

And on that note we’ll be back again at the weekend. Add your comments below and thanks for reading!