Justice League: Generation Lost #2

[sailorlibra]

Four scans from the second issue of Generation Lost, as things get worse for our heroes.



In the last issue, Max managed to wipe any information about himself from the brains of everyone. (And it seems like we're talking everyone everywhere, not just on earth.) This issue reveals that his mind control also extends to images when the group shows Superman a picture of Diana snapping Max's neck that he sees as her holding a sword.

Undeterred, they find more superheroes to try to convince.





Say it with me guys/girls: "oh my fuuuuck."



The "Ice-attacking-Guy" thing isn't just a rumor. Guy really believes that she tried to kill him and, as an extention, so does the whole Green Lantern corps. The reason why? Well, you probably guessed it.



They theorize that the reason he hasn't done anything to Booster's reputation is because it already sucks. They set out to investigate some more and end up running into an old friend (sorta).

recommended tags - char: booster gold/michael jon carter, char: ice/tora olafsdotter, char: batman/dick grayson, char: fire/beatriz da costa, char: captain atom/nathaniel adam, title: justice league: generation lost, publisher: dc comics, creator: judd winick, creator: keith giffen, creator: joe bennet

Comments

[thokstar]

Lex Luthor knowing every single cape's identity, powers and favorite flavor of toothpaste and not acting on that knowledge does not make sense.

I assumed that when Dick said "Lex Luthor", he really meant "That alternate universe Lex Luthor who attacked everybody during Infinite Crisis but was killed by Joker and the real Lex Luthor, but that's too long to say and too confusing so we'll jsut call his Lex Luthor."

[bluefall]

He'd be Alex, wouldn't he? IDK I do my best to not think about ICk.

Regardless, Dick and Babs would know that Bruce was taking down the Penguin or whatever the night Max put the JLI together, that Bruce would never be responsible for the illegal scamming and sketchy shit that Max started his Leaguewith. Babs would know that Ted wasn't suicidal (and Babs especially would know that her memories don't match up, since she's got perfect recall and there's no way Max could build a perfect lie). They're living in a world where everything that Max did, happened, and all the consequences of those actions trace back logically through cause-and-effect to Max and no one else. If someone else had done those things, or if they hadn't been done at all, the fallout would be different, and that discrepancy's going to be obvious to them.

It's like Speilberg going back and swapping all the guns for radios in the ET rerelase - yeah, the guns are gone from the film, but the actors are all still in poses like they're holding guns, the plot still unfolds as though there's direct physical danger to the heroes, and it's jarring. You can tell something's off. Retconning the cause without retconning the effect causes inconsistencies, things that don't fit right and don't match up. And noticing that things don't fit right and vigorously pursuing those inconsistencies until you figure out why not is like 110% of exactly what being a Bat is about.

It's not quite as egregious as Diana because Max never almost destroyed everything Babs and Dick are or stand for, and they don't have an "auto-dispell mind control" effect built into their daily powerset (if Bruce were around we'd have a real problem). But I still don't find it particularly plausible that Babs can actively investigate the JLI's claims, some of which are quite personal to her as well, without noticing one single crack in Max's (clearly incautiously constructed) fiction, or that Dick can be a dick to Booster and not wonder twenty minutes later "waitaminute, why did I act like that?"

[thokstar]

there's no way Max could build a perfect lie

That's not quite true. He'd need time and a lot of computer power (and by a lot, I mean ridiculous by comic book standards.)

I suspect for this to work, they'll need Max to reveal that he developed this plan even before he was killed. Pre-death he had Brother Eye+ Checkmate+ a couple years to develop this. (Yes, all of that stuff was dismantled, but Max could then have redundant back up systems. Yes, this demands the question of why Max didn't try it before his death, but you know, he doesn't particularly like getting the world's worst nosebleed either if he can avoid it.)

And to be fair, I like this story more that I mind the "but several dozen characters shouldn't act like that" issue.

[jlbarnett]

I think in the Booster Gold issue with the alternate timeline they identified him as an alternate Lex Luthor so some may do that. As for the OMACs... well if you're getting paranoid then consoliadating all this insanely important info isn't smart and that really wasn't what made the OMACs dangerous so maybe they no longer remember Brother Eye had that info.

Dick actually seems like the most decent acting person to the JLI. Of course if they're assembling that entire team then Batman was on it, so Dick may end up accompanying them to check out their claims.

They definately should have said "Ted had a heart attack" or something like that. Since there's no body it's not like they can investigate.