If I was confused last issue, I'm even more confused after this one.
That said, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Johns again seems to want us to be as confused as the characters are as they deal with the aftermath of Darkseid's (alleged) death. If I'm guessing correctly, Johns is hinting that Darkseid's power(s) are dispersing, as several Leaguers becoming New Gods: Batman becomes the God of Knowledge, Flash the God of Death, Shazam the God of Gods, and Superman the God of Strength. Most interestingly, Lex becomes the God of Apokolips. Superman left Lex to die on the surface of Apokolips earlier in the issue, and a tribe of escaped human slaves stumbled upon him. They seemed to believe that he was a prophesied Superman (based on their description of the prophesy) that would change the world, and Lex let them believe that. Unfortunately for him at the time, it meant that they strapped him into a machine to receive the Omega Energy returning to Apokolips from Darkseid's corpse. Lex survives the infusion, raising the possibility that the prophesy really was about him.
My main question from these revelations is why Darkseid had all this power (if it was indeed his power). Had he previously killed the New Gods with these powers, meaning that their portfolios were now divided as they used to be? If not, what about Darkseid's death caused these new New Gods to be created?
But, the new New Gods isn't the only side effect of Darkseid's death. The parademons are now leaderless, and they're racing to the brightest light in the Universe: Oa. (Needless to say, Green Lantern is en route.) Moreover, Anti-Monitor is -- for reasons that are unclear to me -- reverting to Mobius, and this transformation is something that Grail wants to happen for her to get what she wants. Of all the parts of this issue, it's this one that left me the most confused, mainly because I'm still confused about the nature of the Anti-Monitor. Batman says that he became who he is because he touched the Anti-Life Equation, but what does that mean? Plus, what can Mobius do for Grail that the Anti-Monitor couldn't? Didn't he achieve her goal of killing Darkseid?
Again, I'm happy to be as confused as the characters are, but my patience isn't infinite. Although we got some background on the Black Racer here (Johns informs us that it was an aspect of Death that Darkseid captured and that needs a human host), I'm really going to need a lot of exposition about DC's mythology next issue to stay engaged. (Hopefully it doesn't involve too many speech bubbles.) In the meantime, Fabok definitely earns this issue a third star.
*** (three of five stars)
No comments:
Post a Comment