Justice League #27 Preview - Death and Destruction as per usual

[icon_uk]

From thenerdist.com, a preview for Justice League #27

aka Geoff Johns continuing his rather weird habit of killing off juvenile heroes in his crossover events. In this case, members of a team that hasn’t even debuted in the New 52 yet; The Doom Patrol.







Click on the link at the top to actually see the (highly probable) death scene because it would depress me to post it.

Karma and Scott Fischer (Who was going to take on the name Blaze rather than Scorch IIRC) were members of the cadet team of the Doom Patrol title that was launched in the 1980’s along with adult members including Tempest (not Garth), Negative Woman, Robotman and Celsius. They lasted for several fairly inoffensive issues before being a victim of low sales and the Invasion event and being relaunched as Grant Morrison’s remarkable take on the team.

Scott (who had been accidentally exposed to radioactive waste as a child) developed superpowers, but also leukaemia (Which was probably a more likely outcome), and though he recovered, he eventually died as a result of the gene bomb in “Invasion”.

Karma (Who was a remarkably unlikeable character, being a self serving asshole whose powers had caused at least one death) survived for long enough to become a short lived member of the Suicide Squad, with the emphasis on the "short" part.

Not sure that reintroducing such minor characters just to kill them off (I assume they did) helps much. Those who remember them will be slightly irked at their treatment, those who don’t it won’t have any emotional impact on at all.

Comments

[razsolo]

I'm just impressed Johns wrote 3 whole pages without a single arm or head being taken off...even Negative Woman's death was off-panel, that's My Little a Pony by Johns' standards...!

[cainofdreaming]

The bandages are there for a reason, Mr Quick. And it hasn't got anything to do with modesty.

If that's supposed to be the Nu52 Valentina then Johnny and Atomica are in for a lesson in radiation poisoning, yes?

[icon_uk]

That would be my guess.

[skemono]

Yes, Atomica, launch yourself at someone who's on fire. That sounds smart.

[dewinged]

This is part of why modern comics turn me away. There's a lot of kid-character death, and the big 2 companies seem to have a jones for it. It's triggering for me.

[nomore]

Same here, like gosh, what's so wrong with just being young and any kind of hero, I really don't like the added 'you're threatening the adults just by your presence' ageist vibe going with all of it on top. It's not like any of them deserve death by simply being / trying to do good in the world.

[chrisdv]

Did... They just say they killed Tempest?

[icon_uk]

Yup, the Joshua Clay version at a guess, since he was on the Doom Patrol with Celsius, Negative Woman and those seen here.

[chrisdv]

Oh, I was unaware there was more than one Tempest. I just assumed it was always Garth.

[icon_uk]

I must post some examples of the 80's Doom Patrol, pre and post Morrison...

[randyripoff]

Ooh, some Rachel Pollak?

[psylynce]

Ugh, I should have listened to you and skipped the death scene. This is needlessly depressing. Or maybe there is some grand plot design I'm missing. I hope so.

[icon_uk]

You might be right, after all, they're not the DoomED Patrol....

[psylynce]

That one sure was! Bah dum bum.

I'll show myself out. ;)

[thezmage]

And there's a Scribblenauts variant cover, too. Awesome.

[shingi70]

Count me as one of the new people who doesn't have any emotional revernace to the Doom Patrol. I just saw it as an entertaining end to battle that took place off screen.

My biggest complaint so far is the CSA is brought up as an unstoppable force and no hero can stand against them. Seems like every hero has turned tail and is in hiding or being killed off to the point that for the most part the cross over has us rooting for

The buddy cop duo of Stargirl and Martian Manhunter
The Rouges
Amanda Waller and her team of merry killers
Steve Trevor and what's left of Argus
Somehow Bane
Justice League Dark

With that said Forever Evil and all its tie ins have been entertaining, but I wish the CSA and the SS wasn't so unstoppable.

[benuben]

Neither do I but I still think it's pretty awful writing.

[randyripoff]

Waow teh krime sindicut iz sooooo baadazz dey sliser diser ballz nazty

Bleah...this is why I don't like Geoff Johns' writing. Remember when villains used to be bad ass because the cops couldn't touch them and the hero couldn't beat them the first time around?

[cypherfdp]

Haha, oh man, that exposition is delivered with the subtlety of a a bulldozer. What's the point in introducing them if they die in like, 4 pages? Literally any Original Character could replace them with no harm done.

You can tell that these villains are tough because they kill these other guys the reader has never even heard of.

[junipepper]

That was my reaction - very impressed with the subtle exposition there. That's some smooth, professional writing, for sure...

[vspope]

Man, if they're bringing back old Doom Patrol characters I can't wait to see the New 52 Codpiece.

[arbre_rieur]

My guess? Johns or someone else has plans for a classic Doom Patrol line-up (Cliff, Rita, etc.) whose origins involve a previous incarnation of team that died tragically, making the new team a group of underdog replacements, and this is setting that up.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, saying that DC is gonna bring back Silver Age relics is like saying the sun will rise in the morning these days.

[big_daddy_d]

Hmm eh not as bothered here. Based on your description, not seeing much of a reason to care for the particular characters save for Robotman, but he can be rebuilt...can't he? Well that depends on if he's here or not. But sounds like these particular characters made little impact and no one cares for them. I could be wrong. I mean there's the expression "Every character is someone's favorite" for a reason and hey, I often admit to being a big Roy Harper fan.

[beyondthefringe]

I'd have to say that the Celsius-led incarnation of the Doom Patrol seen here was maybe my second least favorite iteration (depending on how I feel about the Rachel Pollack version with the bandage people, and the John Byrne reboot...and the one that gave us Negative Man 2 and Fever and um... those others)

Okay, so the team that lasted for 19 issues pre-Grant Morrison isn't my favorite. They were kind of sad, but not horrible. Even so, I feel bad that their first appearance here leads to their immediate demise. I guess it's their fate (or their Karma? Heh heh) to die in crossover events. Invasion, War of the Gods, Forever Evil...

[jaybee3]

Someone can correct me but isn't this per usual Geoff Johns M.O. to kill off characters we've barely seen or mentioned in years. He did it in Infinite Crisis with some of the Teen Titans (to make Superboy-Prime look uber-powerful), he did it in Blackest Night (Damage and Capt Boomerang Jr, we hardly know ye), and he did it in JSA several times (though there he was usually doing it to character he created like Nemesis or Alex/Eclipso II).

I assume killing off the C-team Doom Patrollers is part of getting the original Doom Patrol in the DCnU (they haven't show up yet have they?). It was Johns who also rebooted the old Doom Patrol in the pages of Justice League after Infinite Crisis.

[captainbellman]

Anyone else notice that Johnny and Atomica seem to be the only happy couple in the entire Nu52, apart from Superman and Wonder Woman's sorta-thing?

What exactly does that say, that one of the very few couples who haven't got any issues and plainly love each other are also sadistic murdering scumbags?

[q99]

Question: If you're going to kill supers who have literally no story role besides death, why don't you *make up new ones*?

As in, show there are minor heroes aside from the known ones making the world bigger, and piss off no-one by killing off a favorite at the same time. Heck, if you have wacky character designs that would never work as a lasting character? Now's the time to use them.

[q99]

Oh, and for an example of this, in Adam Warren's Empowered there's heavy casualties during a "Flood the Zone" attack against a major villain. While a few of the ones who die had been seen before, for specific plot purposes, some were introduced for the story. And the deaths of those just-introduced characters still had more impact on me than this!

[mrstatham]

Thing is, Warren's actually a good writer and Willy Pete had actually been built up as a threat prior to the Superhomeys going after him - they just didn't give a shit about hunting him down. Plus he had Emp and Mindf**k conveying the severity of these characters deaths and how horrific it was; It wasn't just Johns' habit of going 'LOOK HOW GREAT THIS VILLAIN IS, EVERYONE GOIN' DIE NOW' and then pulling an implausible defeat out of his ass.

Although it's hilarious how Warren, working largely by himself, has managed to create a more cohesive, compelling universe than a supposed team of visionaries behind the DC reboot, and in a book that could be misconstrued as smut.

[q99]

One thing I hold is that, for all the complaining about 'continuity,' all you really need to do to make a mostly-cohesive world is to care, and not be lazy about it. Single-writer worlds, by default, tend to. DC, and to a lesser extent Marvel, has a lot of creators who go, "Eh, whatever," and it tends to hurt things, long-run.

[alan_smithee]

I don't get the "why not kill some new ones" comments - they all made-up and none of them stay dead, so what does it really matter?

[cainofdreaming]

Then why kill anyone, since it doesn't matter? Can't be for dramatic effect since they do not stay dead.

[q99]

The minor ones certainly stay dead, but if you make up new ones, then you don't have to bring anyone back, thus short-circuiting that cycle and help minimize that complaint.


If you don't break your toys, you don't have to spend extra effort to fix them if you decide you want to play with them again.

[his_spiffynesss]

If the best role the team can get is getting jobbed before they even appear in the New52, the Doom Patrol definitely should have stayed in Vertigo.

[drexer]

I would just like to point out that hose were five, FIVE(5) pages which contributed nothing whatsoever to the story. Even if the other guy survived and provides a crucial elemnt to the resolution(which I doubt), that was at the very least 3 pages too much than what was needed to introduce two characters, generally explain their powersets and motivations(in a way that would need to be far better than the horrible exposition we see above) and setup the 'power' of the villains(I put 'power' instead of power because the villains capabilities have allready been well established before, the only extra bit of information transmitted here is Quick's intelligence in attacking indirectly.

And this is in a twenty-something page comic that belongs to an event that has been stretching itself for how many months? Even if I already didn't avoid those books due to their art issues, the storytelling is hardly doing anything to push them along better paths.

Joshua Clay/Tempest

[synnerman]

When I was young, the Joshua Clay tempest was one of my favorite characters. His powers were basic, but I liked his background, and maybe there was a lot of imprinting on a black male character that stood out from the athletes and strongmen.

Probably one of the reasons I am jaundiced about the Morrison run is Tempest's throw away death. One of my friends at the times was gleeful, because he did not mind death and Tempest was "boring."

Tempest did not have to be boring. He wasn't in my head. And since he was fictional, there was no reason he couldn't have been made as crazy as everyone else... but no... the black guy died... again.

The trope may have been subverted in the 21st Century, but back then, it was a running joke. I am not ascribing any untoward motivations to Morrion. He was just telling his story.

I am saying that I did not like it when the lone male comics character I really liked died for shits and grins. Now... well... I find that I should not care, but I can't shake that bad memory.

EDIT: And I really did not care for the way Arani Caulder was treated before she died in the Invasion. It was not like there were that many Indian superheroes. She could have gone back to her monastery.

[espanolbot]

And the countdown to other characters DC considers surplus to requirements begins.

Leading to Squire and the other former members of Batman Inc running for the hills.

[icon_uk]

If it's any consolation, Batman Inc is alive and well and was last seen in the last issue of "Talon", where Talon joins their ranks

[featheredserpent]

Still don't care. Wake me when the crossover is over.

[nomore]

Skipped the death scene and it still irks me on so many levels.

Villains needing to kill off children to show how macho they are suck.

[benuben]

I haven't been reading this but from what I've seen, this seems as a showcase of Geoff Johns best and worst qualities as a writer. Sadly, GJ worst is way bigger than his best IMO. It's entertaining but full of one over the top ridiculous thing after another while taking itself way too seriously and being full of gross violence and childish attempts at being "mature" that kill any sort of enjoyment of that silliness, with brief character moments that despite being refreshing and being something those characters definitely need more of, often end up being cheesy and childish in their execution especially given how seriously the story takes itself.

[superfangirl1]

I am really hoping these two villains get some Comeuppance soon.