Amph DC: Infinite Crisis

The more I think about it, the more I wish that it were just the Joker and Alex. Having Lex there makes the Joker unnecessary. Luthor let the Joker do his thing, but he?d have done it himself if the Joker wasn?t there. It really should have been a little more drawn out in my opinion, with the Joker doing it all by his lonesome self, and Lex coming well after the fact or at most watching from great distance. Yes, it meant that Lex got to deliver some nasty lines. But he could have done them watching from a distance or just to Alex?s corpse. Really, I wish the Joker got one or two more scenes in the piece. Yes, he appeared back in issue #2 or so, wondering why he wasn?t part of the club. But it needed to be played up a bit in my opinion.

The Joker is quite possibly the greatest fictional villain ever created, and while he wasn?t necessarily misused in Infinite Crisis, he certainly could have been better used.

 

One thing I was wondering about. Did Alex effective alude to Batman Begins and Smallville being part of continuty now?

 

I doubt it. I know that post-Crisis, Birthright is now continuity, so that probably means that Smallville isn't.

 

Are you sure it was empty? I took that as him either pulling back the hammer, or putting it back in its original position (I'm not a gun guy, just know what I see in movies haha)

 

He doesn't pull the trigger. I'm looking at it right now, and no trigger is pulled.

 

What is a Batman story where his parent's killer was arrested?

It wasn't that way in earth-2 was it?

I could think of various other things other then Smallville that he could be talking about but I couldn't think anything other then BB he could of been talking about.

 

There were pre-COIE stories in which Batman found his parents killer (Joe Chill) and later the man who directed Joe Chill to kill his parents. After COIE, it was decided to remove Joe Chill from continuity, and to make the killer of Thomas and Martha Wayne annonymous again. With IC, things have possibly reverted to the pre-COIE continuity, or possibly it's just a story waiting to be told.

 

Right, there were lots of stories where they found Chill but from what I remember they always end up killing him in one way or another. "Caught" to me implies he's sitting in jail some where. Part of it is they're rebooting the character again and moving away from the "dark" in dark knight. I think there is more to the story though as it doesn't just sound to me like its pre-crisis.

 

Both Earth-1 and Earth-2 versions of Batman found his parents killer, IIRC. Their adventures were too similar, so this is probably right. Unlike Superman, who changed a lot, the early stories for Batman could count as continuity for both men.

The Superboy situation has nothing to do with Smallville, since Smallville is loosely based off the Post Crisis origin of Superman. From "Man Of Steel" on, Clark was never Superboy. Odds are they're doing this because of Legion Of Super-Heroes continuity, which needed Superboy as the catalyist for their origin. How this will be rectified has yet to be told. Smallville will not have Clark put on the suit, until the series finale. And even then, we might not see it onscreen.

 

Man, the end of Infinite Crisis certainly packed a punch. Then again, anything with the Joker promises something potentially special. Even without him it would have been pretty good, though.

 

There is some debate about whether

Spoiler

Batman pulled the trigger or just pulled the hammer back.

As to the Joker, he was kept on the sidelines because DC is wanting to give him a break as he's been overused in some fans opinions. At the start of the "Batman & Son" arc under Morrison and Kubert,

Spoiler

the Joker thinks that he has beaten Batman, when he pulls a gun and shoots at him. But the real Batman, it seems, shows up and hits the other one. The gun goes off, but the bullet appears to graze off the top of Joker's head. The Batman who arrived picks up Joker and takes him down to the street level. Then tosses him in the trashed. This is the preview in Wizard 176.

Paul Dini does say that he has plans for the Joker in his run, but he'll be more of the showman style. I think the reason Lex let Joker at Alex, has to do with the fact that he rarely likes to get his hands dirty when it comes to killing people. The last time he did, it got him into all kinds of trouble. It doesn't mean that he won't kill, it just means that he has to be discrete.

 

Don't really understand why the Joker shotting Alex was a big deal, kinda didn't make sense to me.

Then again, don't have as much experience as I would like with the DC universe.

 

There is some debate about whether

Spoiler

Batman pulled the trigger or just pulled the hammer back.

What part are you refering to?

 

Whether or not Batman pulled the trigger or just pulled back the hammer. That is the debate. It's not really clear.

As to why it's a big deal for the Joker, he always prides himself on getting involved in these big events. And because Alex didn't get him involved, he got mad. A new Secret Society of Super Villians and the Joker isn't invited. As he said, "That's not funny." The Joker was invited to Lex Luthor's first Injustice Gang. He was offered a place with Neron's master plan to corrupt Captian Marvel. When the original Crisis happened, he was involved. When Bane made his bid to take over Gotham, the Joker was freed and allowed to cause mayham.

The Joker is a showman. If he isn't there, then he will crash the party.

 

Whether or not Batman pulled the trigger or just pulled back the hammer. That is the debate. It's not really clear.

Oh, I see now. I was thinking to myself, "Batman never had a hammer in the story!"

I don't believe that he shot it. Looking at it now I'm not sure where you're getting that from. One panel shos him pointing the gun at Alek and it goes "chak" but no bullet fire so I thought hit was obvious he was pulling back the trigger.

 

Yeah, part of the debate is wether or not the "chak" was him pulling the trigger and nothing happening, or him pulling back the hammer of the gun and preparing to shoot, then throwing the gun aside... it would have made a bigger statement if he had pulled back the hammer, THEN thrown down the gun, rather than pulling the trigger... then, his journey to re-explore who Batman is at the end would have shown that he still had some self control but he was still beating himself up over even considering firing the gun...

I'm not really up on guns, but I know that whenever I see a hand gun on TV or in movies that doesn't have ammo, the top part is slid back and that little cylinder where the bullet comes out is protruding a bit more... may not be standard, but I feel like if it was empty, it would have looked like that...

 

Handguns that rely on cartridges look different, depending on the gun type. The baretta and the glock have different appearences when they click on empty. That is true. I'm not sure what type of gun it was since so many look alike.

 

i just read it....awesome...i like it...i just wish the joker/alex scene was a little longer....it seemed that alex went out like a punk...but oh well...joker is cool

 

So, it's over now. Been over for two weeks. I think that it's been long enough that we're over the initial "wow, it's over!" and can start looking at it objectively.

So, was it all worth it?

 

a lot of deaths....from the begining of identity crisis what is the list of deaths??? is anyone man/woman enough to make a list???

 

It was totally worth it to me... It was enough to get me into the DC universe, and I don't know of anyone who was truly disappointed by the series.

 

There were a ton of deaths and only one that really mattered. Lets leave it at that.


In my opinion, the Infinite Crisis was worth doing, there are some nice results from it, but the second half of the Crisis itself felt like it ran out of gas. Things were going great, but in the end, it just didn't mesh well enough. The urgency didn't seem to be there. It started out as a great story, it ended as a good one. The later issues weren't bad, the last issue was great in a lot of ways, but it didn't live up to its full promise.

 

Sue Dibny (from Identity Crisis), Superboy, Earth Two Lois Lane and Kal-L Superman makes four for me? I'd call all four very meaningful deaths, for very different reasons each.

 

blue beetle, max lord,

 

D'oh! I knew I was forgetting a couple, thanks for the assist. Just goes to show though that there were plenty of meaningful deaths that occured in the buildup and occurance of IC.