Crime Syndicate (2021) #1 of 6

[shakalooloo]

From the ashes of Death Metal, a new Multiverse was forged with new worlds born and reborn... This is one such world. A world where everything we know is turned upside down! Where the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. Where Benedict Arnold was a Founding Father of Amerika and tyranny reigns. A world where good does not always triumph in the end. Welcome... to the NEW Earth-3.

The premise of this series is that the Syndicate has not yet formed, and the story is more or less how the band got together. The identities of the members are not necessarily the same as they were in previous Earth-3 stories...






































Yeah, it's Starro! What better factor to draw together a super-team?

The back-up this first issue is the origin of Ultraman:















Writer: Andy Schmidt, Penciller: Kieran McKeown, Inker: Dexter Vines, Colorist: Steve Oliff

Backup art by Bryan Hitch

Comments

[thanekos]

Earth-3 stories aren't bad, but they tend to rely too much on " It's like the ' good ' universe, but inverted! "

More ideally, they'd just take the inversions as given and go from there - less " Here's why the Crime Syndicate exists " and more " OK, so Luthor's the good guy and Ultraman's the bully, here's a story from that. "

(And maybe we don't do " evil always wins on Earth-3 " - maybe we just do " the Crime Syndicate is a major power, but far from secure in that ", because that actually creates conflict instead of leaning on " hey, ' good always wins ' is inverted! ")

[shakalooloo]

I think in this case DC was throwing out a mini-series, with the intent of maybe making an ongoing if it was popular. Unfortunately, given that they went for doing an origin rather than, as you suggested, something more original and interesting, it didn't really take off.

[zylly]

Yeah, they pretty much all rely on a much deeper moral inversion that is called for. The original Earth Three stories all went with a much simpler “there are no super heroes and the super beings who do exist are criminal versions of familiar characters.” We don’t need a full on “everything about this earth is just awful” kind of twist.

Especially since a lot of creators have used it to indulge in some really “edgy” scenes.