During the week, we introduced you to the first registrants in the Infinite Wars Fantasy League! If you have not yet signed up then you should do so immediately! The Fantasy League provides a simple platform of interaction with the Infinite Wars by using the results catalogued in our many reviews! By following submission guidelines you're on your way to adopting a team!
The Fantasy League offers us a great opportunity to acknowledge sponsor websites from across the web. Rokk's Comic Book Revolution does something pretty common on the internet, but it's something I wish I could be doing: reviewing new releases each week.
What sets the Revolution apart from other sites is a phenomenal nigh unparalleled dedication from Rokk to thoroughly discuss and disclose the contents of these issues. I've found it a great resource for gauging interest in projects I might not have been sure about, like the recent review of Mighty Avengers #10, which became a must-read after seeing scans on the site.
Today we take a look at some of the back catalogue featuring members of The People's Team! Remember, you too can become a part of the fun by enlisting in the Infinite Wars Fantasy League! Blogger membership is not required, and readers new and old are encouraged to join in and promote their corner of the internet. This week's team features saw a good spread of points to some of the already registered members, but there's still plenty of time before we crown our first monthly winner in the race to the end of the year! Stay tuned!
Legends #1 (November 1986)"Once Upon a Time...!" Ostrander/Wein/Byrne
We spoke quite recently about the generational relevance of the Flash, who has been prevelant in different incarnations throughout DC's entire history. Like Green Lantern the mantle has been successfully inhereted by several iterations, and though we recently saw Bart Allen attempt to inheret the role, it remains Wally West's for the time being.
Wally West was canonized as the Flash in the pages of series just like Legends. After the legendary sacrifice of Barry Allen in the Crisis of Infinite Earths, West enjoyed one of the more memorable transitions in recent comics history. Few heroes have been so readily accepted in a capacity familiar to another character. It might be the similarities of the West Flash that made this possible, but I rather think it's the fifty-year history of the character and the organic passing of the torch of the scarlet speedster - one of the most iconic heroes in superhero publishing.
Identity Crisis #3 (October 2004)"Serial Killer" Meltzer/Morales
I'm not much of a Teen Titans fan, so for Deathstroke to have grown over the past few decades into a larger presence in the DC Universe is a joy to behold. Deathstroke (the Terminator) is the quintessential assassin character, as deadly as he is varied in his capacity for attack.
It's fitting that the character has moved from his deranged pursuit of teenagers to rival characters like Batman and Green Arrow, who in their own way, each make a far more resonant foil for this adversary. He's a supreme fighter, master tactician, and crackshot that rivals the best of them, and with greater brain capacity than the average human, his skills seem endless, if not ill defined. We haven't had as much Deathstroke as you might expect from a superhero fight blog, and while I hope that can change, I take some sollace in the solid start made with one of the most requested battles in site history: the one-man dismantling of the Justice League!
Superman/Batman #15 (February 2005)"What Price is Freedom...?" Loeb/Pacheco
She's one of the most intantly recognisable female characters in popular culture, but somehow Wonder Woman continues to flounder in the modern era of publishing. A monumentous contract demands that DC maintain a monthly publishing schedule for the heroine, which has all but assured her continued presence in DC comics, even if this lynchpin of the fabled DC Trinity doesn't always hold up.
One of my favourite qualities of the character comes from more modern interpretations, where Wonder Woman's Amazonian heritage has burst forth from the timid Wartime hero who found herself engaged in acts of bondage as much as battles for truth and justice!
Difficult, is it, to imagine the modern woman reduced to incapacity at the hands of a mere rope. No, Wonder Woman has become a true warrior, and that is a brutal honesty I appreciate in this legendary icon.
Infinite Crisis #6 (May 2006)"Touchdown" Johns/Reis
For the twentieth anniversary of one of comics' biggest events, DC unveiled a complimentary redux of the threat of cosmic destruction, this time at the hands of survivors of the very first Crisis.
Amongst the group that had lived in the solitude of a pocket of unreality: the Superboy of Earth-Prime. His origins were not unlike our own Superman, different only in the fact that his father, Jor-El, transported him instantly to the Earth of another universe, rather than one that would require a rocketship journey through space.
Superman-Prime has become one of the premiere villains in the DCU, menacing heroes both terrestrial and cosmic in nature. Here we go back to where it all fell apart for the first time; when a dark hero broke his allegiance to step up and pledge the destruction of this boy gone mad, destined to grow into a man of sinister design.
Batman #663 (April 2007)"The Clown at Midnight" Morrison/Van Fleet/Klein
It was a pretty risky experiment for such a prominent title, but some might say that's pretty typical of Grant Morrison. The Scot flung his best efforts into the core Bat-title with a pulpy tale starring the Joker, the big difference? CG artwork complimenting an all prose tale!
As an effort to squeeze a maximum return of story for page rate, it was a resounding success, but to this day, Morrison's redefining run on the character has been coloured for some, good or bad, by this very issue. It tells a tale vaguely reminiscent of what we should expect from the upcoming Heath Ledger Joker in The Dark Knight! Morrison's spooky story is one of a grand plot all designed to lure the Batman to the unveiling of a brand new murderous Joker personality. His permanent grin healed, the Joker returns to scar himself and wreak a terrible terror on the hospital charged with his care, and on the Batman and Harley Quinn, too.
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