 |
| Who said romance was dead? |
Showing posts with label Mongul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mongul. Show all posts
Tuesday, 17 September 2013
Monday, 30 July 2012
Who Was Who Is Who #31
MR. TERRIFIC - the Michael Holt version of the character is definitely in place, despite his series getting cancelled so that alone puts him in the in place column. A few months back (at least from the time of writing in mid-March) DC released some teaser designs and there was a different Mr Terrific featured, so it seems likely we'll see an Earth-2 version at some point as well.
Monday, 8 November 2010
Better Off Dead?
A few weeks ago, the DCU Source blog gave notice that they were redoing the origin of Ice, one of the sweetest and innocent superheroes out there. That Judd Winick was behind it made a lot of people very nervous but what also ticked off a lot of people was the announcement from Justice League: Generation Lost's editor, Brian Cunningham:
Either he and/or Winick had totally confused two separate characters - Ice and Icemaiden and which I blogged about at some length here. I finished that post by saying: "I dread to think what this "credible and tragic origin" is that Winick's come up with."
Well, issue #12 of Justice League: Generation Lost landed and, it seems, my dread was well deserved.
Back in the old days of the Giffen / DeMatteis Justice League America, Ice was a mostly quiet, shy hero who somehow managed to see the good in Guy Gardner way before the rest of us and became his girlfriend, though to be honest it was a mostly on-off relationship.
Towards the end of their run on the League titles, Giffen and DeMatteis (along with Gerard Jones who was scripting the Justice League Europe title with Giffen plotting) threw together a somewhat patchy crossover between the titles called Breakdowns. Basically both teams get torn apart by a number of means, including the dreaded red tape of bureaucracy. Undergoing an efficiency review, poor old Ice ends up getting fired but not before admitting that she is "a Scandinavian ice goddess."
The story continues and various League members end up fighting against the powers that be in Bialya and it's during this fight that the inter-League title crossover meets the other DC crossover that was running at that time: the War of The Gods.
War... was a Wonder Woman-centric crossover which had various deities from mythologies world wide suddenly announcing themselves and attempting to take over the world. Needless to say, the Norse gods were no exception and we were treated to the DC versions of Loki, Thor and Baldur as they tried to conquer the Scandinavian countries. Being a goddess herself, Ice senses all this and leaves the Bialyan fight to save her people.
The actual fight with the Norse gods is all over fairly quick and the Justice League titles get back to the Breakdowns story, such as it is. The reason I mention this is that first Fire, then the rest of the League followed Ice to her homeland, fought against the gods and were told by Ice that her people were safe:
All of that tied in with her back story as given in Secret Origins #33 (which I detailed in the post linked above).
Several issues later, after the Dan Jurgens run on Justice League America and the Death of Superman storyline, new writer Dan Vado had Ice leave the League and return to the mountains and her people. It's fairly obvious from the artwork that she's entering a fantastical place:
Here she meets up with her family once more - her mother and father whom we met briefly in Secret Origins. Her mother's glad to have her back, particularly as her father's aged terribly - he's weak and feeble and, while Ice had been living in the outside world, he's moved closer to death.
We also meet for the first time Ice's brother Ewald who turns out to be something of a black sheep. As their father has weakened, Ewald has all but taken control of the ice kingdom and put out a story that Ice had died some years before.
All this takes place as a sub-plot scattered throughout issues of Justice League America while the rest of the League deal with alien fugitives and a doppleganger Guy Gardner.
With Ice's return, her father seems to rally a little and manages to face up to Ewald for the first time in years, telling him that perhaps, as his eldest child, Ice should inherit the kingdom and not Ewald.
Not surprisingly, this doesn't go over well:
Yes, he even does the whole shaking his fist thing!
Ice's mother thinks it's a great idea and attempts to convince Ice that she should stay and rule the country. Those plans are scuppered by Ewald who, while he doesn't flat out admit it, appears to have killed their father during the night and thus before he could officially name Ice as his successor.
Ewald proves he's a bad guy by imprisoning Ice and working with his secret, mysterious benefactor to turn the people's hearts and minds against his sister. The benefactor turns out to be the Overmaster who would - several issues hence - kill Ice.
Before that happens, Ice has her mother leave the ice kingdom and head outside with her JLA communicator which, when activated, results in a visit from Green Lantern and Power Girl. At the time, Power Girl was still under the impression that she was the grand-daughter of Arion of Atlantis and seemed to be changing her costume every other month, hence the blue and white outfit. Hal Jordan's arm, by the way, had very recently been broken by Mongul during the Reign of the Supermen storyline which brought Superman back from the dead.
It's not long before a message gets back to the JLA that Ice needs help and, like all good team do, they come running to help one of their own:
No one, I'm sure, will be surprised to hear that the meeting between the League and Ewald's army (which is really half a dozen magically created giants) ends up in a big fight. Ice is rescued and recovers enough to confront her wicked brother, defeating him and, again, being asked by her mother to remain and rule the kingdom:
Though she's tempted, she heads back with the League and, as mentioned above, in five or six issues time ends up being killed by the Overmaster.
So why have I just summarised a couple of years worth of stories featuring Ice? Well, it's obviously connected with the hideous ret-con of her origin that Winick has provided in Justice League: Generation Lost #12.
For those of you fortunate enough to have missed it, Ice's new origin is that she was a gypsy child in Norway, one born with power over ice and snow. The entire clan her family belong to are thieves though Ice's father is, of course, a noble sort and is planning to take them away from it all:
So that his father, Ice's grand-father, doesn't discover Ice's powers, he spends year after year telling Ice that she has to remain calm and in control. Of course, the grand-father finds out about her powers years later, after they've run away, and when he comes to take her back, Ice's father tells her to cut loose and freeze everything. This ends up with Ice causing the deaths of her grand-father, his gang of half a dozen thugs and, inadvertently, her own father who, with his dying words tells her "Always be careful. Be quiet. Be . . . be . . . calm."
Most of Justice League: Generation Lost #12 is a fight between Fire and Ice until, at the end, Ice regains some sense of self and suddenly realises what's been happening all her life:
Yep, the whole thing about being an ice goddess was a lie. She made it up to repress the memory of causing the death of her own father. That's the "credible and tragic origin" that Judd Winick has come up with, the one which, according to editor Brian Cunningham:
Seriously, what do we gain by having this new origin for Ice? As I said in the earlier post, being an ice goddess from a mythical race of ice people is no more ridiculous than being an Amazonian princess moulded from clay and being granted life by the Greek gods. These are comics, for Cthulhu's sake - why do we need a "credible and tragic origin" for a character who was, as stated in the Source blog article, a "pensive, shy flower" something which made her pretty much unique in the DCU?
All it's done is turn her into another angst ridden, angry superhero.
Utterly pointless. My only vague, tiny hope is that this'll all turn out to be a Max Lord-induced false memory so we can simply ignore this car crash of a ret-con.
Oh, and as a little post-script - when I read the issue and came across the page where Ice remembers everything, it triggered something in my own memory:
The whole causing the death of a loved one and repressing the memory thing? Winick's done that before: John Stewart in Green Lantern #147 was shown to have repressed a memory of causing not his father's but his sister's death.
It's like he's not even trying.
"For those of us that read the Super Friends series in the 1970s where Ice was originally introduced as Ice Maiden, we all know how absurd her origin was. With Gen Lost #12, writer Judd Winick provides Ice with a credible and tragic origin that does not negate what we already know."
Well, issue #12 of Justice League: Generation Lost landed and, it seems, my dread was well deserved.
Back in the old days of the Giffen / DeMatteis Justice League America, Ice was a mostly quiet, shy hero who somehow managed to see the good in Guy Gardner way before the rest of us and became his girlfriend, though to be honest it was a mostly on-off relationship.
Towards the end of their run on the League titles, Giffen and DeMatteis (along with Gerard Jones who was scripting the Justice League Europe title with Giffen plotting) threw together a somewhat patchy crossover between the titles called Breakdowns. Basically both teams get torn apart by a number of means, including the dreaded red tape of bureaucracy. Undergoing an efficiency review, poor old Ice ends up getting fired but not before admitting that she is "a Scandinavian ice goddess."
War... was a Wonder Woman-centric crossover which had various deities from mythologies world wide suddenly announcing themselves and attempting to take over the world. Needless to say, the Norse gods were no exception and we were treated to the DC versions of Loki, Thor and Baldur as they tried to conquer the Scandinavian countries. Being a goddess herself, Ice senses all this and leaves the Bialyan fight to save her people.
The actual fight with the Norse gods is all over fairly quick and the Justice League titles get back to the Breakdowns story, such as it is. The reason I mention this is that first Fire, then the rest of the League followed Ice to her homeland, fought against the gods and were told by Ice that her people were safe:
All of that tied in with her back story as given in Secret Origins #33 (which I detailed in the post linked above).
Several issues later, after the Dan Jurgens run on Justice League America and the Death of Superman storyline, new writer Dan Vado had Ice leave the League and return to the mountains and her people. It's fairly obvious from the artwork that she's entering a fantastical place:
Here she meets up with her family once more - her mother and father whom we met briefly in Secret Origins. Her mother's glad to have her back, particularly as her father's aged terribly - he's weak and feeble and, while Ice had been living in the outside world, he's moved closer to death.
All this takes place as a sub-plot scattered throughout issues of Justice League America while the rest of the League deal with alien fugitives and a doppleganger Guy Gardner.
With Ice's return, her father seems to rally a little and manages to face up to Ewald for the first time in years, telling him that perhaps, as his eldest child, Ice should inherit the kingdom and not Ewald.
Not surprisingly, this doesn't go over well:
Yes, he even does the whole shaking his fist thing!
Ewald proves he's a bad guy by imprisoning Ice and working with his secret, mysterious benefactor to turn the people's hearts and minds against his sister. The benefactor turns out to be the Overmaster who would - several issues hence - kill Ice.
Before that happens, Ice has her mother leave the ice kingdom and head outside with her JLA communicator which, when activated, results in a visit from Green Lantern and Power Girl. At the time, Power Girl was still under the impression that she was the grand-daughter of Arion of Atlantis and seemed to be changing her costume every other month, hence the blue and white outfit. Hal Jordan's arm, by the way, had very recently been broken by Mongul during the Reign of the Supermen storyline which brought Superman back from the dead.
It's not long before a message gets back to the JLA that Ice needs help and, like all good team do, they come running to help one of their own:
No one, I'm sure, will be surprised to hear that the meeting between the League and Ewald's army (which is really half a dozen magically created giants) ends up in a big fight. Ice is rescued and recovers enough to confront her wicked brother, defeating him and, again, being asked by her mother to remain and rule the kingdom:
Though she's tempted, she heads back with the League and, as mentioned above, in five or six issues time ends up being killed by the Overmaster.
So why have I just summarised a couple of years worth of stories featuring Ice? Well, it's obviously connected with the hideous ret-con of her origin that Winick has provided in Justice League: Generation Lost #12.
For those of you fortunate enough to have missed it, Ice's new origin is that she was a gypsy child in Norway, one born with power over ice and snow. The entire clan her family belong to are thieves though Ice's father is, of course, a noble sort and is planning to take them away from it all:
So that his father, Ice's grand-father, doesn't discover Ice's powers, he spends year after year telling Ice that she has to remain calm and in control. Of course, the grand-father finds out about her powers years later, after they've run away, and when he comes to take her back, Ice's father tells her to cut loose and freeze everything. This ends up with Ice causing the deaths of her grand-father, his gang of half a dozen thugs and, inadvertently, her own father who, with his dying words tells her "Always be careful. Be quiet. Be . . . be . . . calm."
Most of Justice League: Generation Lost #12 is a fight between Fire and Ice until, at the end, Ice regains some sense of self and suddenly realises what's been happening all her life:
Yep, the whole thing about being an ice goddess was a lie. She made it up to repress the memory of causing the death of her own father. That's the "credible and tragic origin" that Judd Winick has come up with, the one which, according to editor Brian Cunningham:
"does not negate what we already know."How exactly are the Justice League's interactions with Ice and her family not negated by this ret-con? If Ice made the whole thing up then the ice kingdom never existed and a big chunk of the JLA's history is completely . . . errr . . . negated!
Seriously, what do we gain by having this new origin for Ice? As I said in the earlier post, being an ice goddess from a mythical race of ice people is no more ridiculous than being an Amazonian princess moulded from clay and being granted life by the Greek gods. These are comics, for Cthulhu's sake - why do we need a "credible and tragic origin" for a character who was, as stated in the Source blog article, a "pensive, shy flower" something which made her pretty much unique in the DCU?
All it's done is turn her into another angst ridden, angry superhero.
Utterly pointless. My only vague, tiny hope is that this'll all turn out to be a Max Lord-induced false memory so we can simply ignore this car crash of a ret-con.
Oh, and as a little post-script - when I read the issue and came across the page where Ice remembers everything, it triggered something in my own memory:
The whole causing the death of a loved one and repressing the memory thing? Winick's done that before: John Stewart in Green Lantern #147 was shown to have repressed a memory of causing not his father's but his sister's death.
It's like he's not even trying.
Friday, 23 April 2010
Friday Night Fight - Cutting Jordan Some Slack
It's Friday, so that means another Friday Night Fight hosted by Spacebooger.
Over the last few weeks, I've shown Green Lantern Hal Jordan being smacked around by some of the lamest villains I could find but you know what? I still have a fondness for the guy and a while back his books were top of my reading list.
So, just for the hell of it, and to show I don't hate Jordan completely, here he is back in 1993:
That's Mongul kicking him around (literally) shortly after Jordan had discovered the mess Mongul had made of Coast City. This was during the Reign of the Supermen storyline and Jordan had just returned from space to find his home town utterly destroyed. Obviously, he's a bit peeved.
With some ring-constructed armour and the hammer of Steel (who had appeared earlier) Jordan's ready to do this:
Love him or hate him, Jordan used to be a force to be reckoned with so while it might cost me some votes in the poll over at Spacebooger, I'm still happy to use this.
Now remember:
This hammer-in-the-face blow first appeared in Green Lantern #46 cover dated October 1993, written by Gerard Jones, with gorgeous art by M.D. Bright and Romeo Tanghal.
Over the last few weeks, I've shown Green Lantern Hal Jordan being smacked around by some of the lamest villains I could find but you know what? I still have a fondness for the guy and a while back his books were top of my reading list.
So, just for the hell of it, and to show I don't hate Jordan completely, here he is back in 1993:
That's Mongul kicking him around (literally) shortly after Jordan had discovered the mess Mongul had made of Coast City. This was during the Reign of the Supermen storyline and Jordan had just returned from space to find his home town utterly destroyed. Obviously, he's a bit peeved.
With some ring-constructed armour and the hammer of Steel (who had appeared earlier) Jordan's ready to do this:
Love him or hate him, Jordan used to be a force to be reckoned with so while it might cost me some votes in the poll over at Spacebooger, I'm still happy to use this.
Now remember:
This hammer-in-the-face blow first appeared in Green Lantern #46 cover dated October 1993, written by Gerard Jones, with gorgeous art by M.D. Bright and Romeo Tanghal.
Sunday, 4 October 2009
Who'd Like A Cocktail #56
A bumper haul this week so let's get on with it:
Green Arrow cheerfully facing down Ra's Al Ghul from Justice League of America 80 Page Giant #1
- Amazons Attack! trade paperback - yeah, I heard it was a bit pants but what the heck, it's a corner of the DCU I wouldn't normally visit. It was okay, I guess - I like Pete Woods' work if nothing else.
- Blackest Night: Titans #2 - dead ex-husband and child or not, I can't help thinking Donna was a little too accepting of the Black Lanterns; the Hawks vs Dove battle heats up; and Titans Tower takes a tumble. This is good!
- The Boys: Herogasm #5 - oh The Homelander's plans get derailed and he's not happy about it; and the Boys themselves look to be in trouble.
- The Dark Tower: Fall of Gilead #5 - things are pretty dire right now as the tale approaches its end.
- Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink #5 - we get Tattooed Man's origin and this series begins to pick up again after a lull in the last couple of issues.
- Green Lantern #46 - Hal finally finds Carol's joined the Star Sapphires; old enemies team up; and Sinestro beats the snot out of Mongul. Cracking issue!
- Justice League of America 80 Page Giant #1 - I love the 80 Page Giants and really wish there were more of them. Sure the framing story here isn't exactly original - members of the JLA get thrown across time leading to crossovers with various DC heroes from yesteryear - but the majority of the stories are good fun (particularly the Green Arrow/Firestorm story)and it was nice to see Snapper Carr and Cheetah's fling from Final Crisis: Resist picked up on.
- Justice Society of America #31 - the lines are drawn more clearly for the forthcoming split and the villains attempt to reorganise. And that last page - anyone think that's for real? Cause I sure as hell hope not.
- The Last Days of Animal Man #5 - seeing Ellen supporting Buddy and helping him get back in the game makes me want to see a real Animal Man series up and running again.
- Teen Titans #75 - wait, what? Changeling's back?
- Ravager co feature - nice, taut story, nice art work, an interesting (and pissed off) lead character. And they say she can't carry a regular series?
Sunday, 16 August 2009
Who'd Like A Cocktail? #50
They were a bit infrequent for a while after I started them as both the single issue review and then a paragraph about every comic just took too much time to work through. Since I started the weekly bulletted lists back in March with #27, I've not missed a single one . . . even when, like this one, I'm not actually here!
When this gets posted, I shall be visiting my in-laws with my lovely wife, so it's just as well I can post this now, on Friday, after having picked up my comics early. So what did I get this week?
- Blackest Night #2 - damn, this is getting good! "Worlds have died. Worlds will rise." Oooooh, creepy!
- Blackest Night: Batman #1 - the Black Lantern Corps isn't fussy: they'll take any old dead second stringer (though I loved the Ventriloquist's ring-constructed Scarface!)
- Booster Gold #23 - c'mon, Dan - I know you want to keep the mystery villain hidden but in a room that well lit, how comes only his head is in shadow?
- Blue Beetle co-feature - thank you, DC, for the co-features and specifically for allowing Blue Beetle to continue; and thank you, Matt Sturges, for writing such a consistently fun tale.
- Chronicles of Wormwood: The Last Battle preview - more wonderfully irreligious escapades from Ennis; can't wait for the full series.
- Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape #4 - what's that? Was that the hint of a plot line? After two thirds of the mini-series is done they finally discover a plot line?!
- Green Arrow/Black Canary #23 - anyone tell me why Norton and Rubinstein are on the back-up story? Hey, least I'm not ragging on Kreisberg's writing for one issue of this title.
- Green Lantern Corps #39 - would have made a little more sense for this to be out with Blackest Night #1, I think, but still damned good. And glad to see Mongul's finally decided to rename his army.
- JSA vs Kobra #3 - not quite as effective as the first two issues, perhaps because of the tension between Power Girl and Mr. Terrific, but still a damn good issue.
- Wednesday Comics #6 - still plenty more hits than misses but Kamandi and the Flash top the list this week I think.
So there you go, a bumper crop for this week's Cocktail post. Here's to #100 round about this time next year!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
LinkWithin
