Salvation Run #7

[history79]

10 pages of 30

Comments

[captainbellman]

When you get your fingers covered in blood just right

[tcampbell1000]

+1.

Man, everybody was killing J'Onn for a while there, weren't they.

[captainbellman]

Typical attitude of DC editorial. "Oh, you don't like his awkward-looking new costume and head? That indicates the character must not be really popular. Fuck it, let's kill 'im."

[icon_uk]

Or, perhaps a little less cynically; "Look, we've tried everything we can think of to make the character popular, we've given him multiple shots and iterations, but nothing has worked. Let's at least get some drama out of not using him for a while. It's not like we can't revive him if we need to"

[q99]

Did he die again?

[tcampbell1000]

I'm glad the series didn't end without some kind of revolution from the designated Savagettes, but that plot has the side effect of making Savage look really, really stupid. "Ah, see, now I have united you four against me! But you can't kill me, so eventually you'll give up and unite under me instead, rather than inflict any sort of non-lethal punishment I would consider more than mildly uncomfortable! THIS IS WHY I COULD CONQUER THE WORLD AT ANY TIME, TAKING THE LONG VIEW."

Although the big problem with Vandal Savage is always "If you've been around forever and are so great at conquering, how come nobody's ever heard of you until now?" so I guess that's one way to explain it.

As for Luthor... (shrug)... he's at least true to himself in the "I'm the hero" scene, though the reflection "I prefer 'anti-heroes'" kind of undercuts that.

[captainbellman]

As in his appearance in "Multiversity: Society of Superheroes", Vandal's primary motivation seems to be comforting himself that he always wins no matter what the situation, even up to and including being stabbed in the chest with a weapon that kills immortals.

[bizarrohulk]

"Although the big problem with Vandal Savage is always "If you've been around forever and are so great at conquering, how come nobody's ever heard of you until now?" so I guess that's one way to explain it."

Hasn't it been implied - or even outright stated - that in the DCU several major historical figures were actually Vandal Savage under an assumed name?

[q99]

I think so

[tcampbell1000]

In some versions, and that's one way around it, but it can cause more problems than it solves. I mean, it asks us to believe that Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan were all one immortal conqueror, AND that Vandal Savage willingly relinquished the power he gained in those aliases shortly after attaining it so that their successors still came to power. How exactly did he fake his death on the steps of the Roman Senate?

No, the only way I can think of that this MIGHT work is if Savage has been content to live more or less off the grid most of his life, but, seeing that becoming impossible and disenchanted with our modern age, he is ready to use millennia of experience to bring the world to heel NOW.

[silicondream]

I mean, it asks us to believe that Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan were all one immortal conqueror, AND that Vandal Savage willingly relinquished the power he gained in those aliases shortly after attaining it so that their successors still came to power.

Not willingly, necessarily. In some continuities, weren't the Immortal Man and/or Resurrection Man feuding with him throughout history? Maybe they kept deposing him. Though I've no idea how they'd manage to defeat him in such a way that he survived but couldn't go right back to his old position of power....

[tcampbell1000]

Yeah. Besides which, we have a very clear historical record of what Caesar looked like, acted like, wrote like, etc. There are contemporary busts of him in Rome. Alexander is also portrayed as a very young man (and Aristotle's youthful student), which hardly gibes with Savage's "Fools, I have been around for centuries" schtick. Genghis Khan is the least problematic of the examples, because we know the least about him and his brutality and efficiency map closest to most portrayals of Savage, but it's hard to escape the feeling that someone just said, "Fuck it, just give Savage all the credit for any time anybody conquered a big chunk of the world, it's not like any of their estates are going to sue."

Supposedly he was also Vlad the Impaler, Jack the Ripper, Cain (yes, THAT Cain), Licinius, Blackbeard, Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler, which must have been interesting news to all the earlier writers of stories featuring superheroes battling Hitler. Jeez, why not just make him simultaneously Hitler and Stalin while you're at it? "Sneaking across the Russian border every week and wearing two different fake mustaches was inconvenient, but I knew that it would assure my ultimate victory."

The central idea of Vandal Savage is certainly interesting, but you have to write him with care if you're going to appeal to the lovers of the history that his biography allegedly invokes. More often than not, Savage's writers have treated history a little too casually for my tastes.

[liliaeth]

Honestly, the best solution for a character like Vandal Savage, is make him the power behind the throne. Say he was the king once upon a time, back when he was young and foolish, but as he grew older he realized that you get way more power by putting a figurehead on the throne, and stay anonymous. So whenever he loses one of his figureheads, or one of them starts thinking they can move on without him, he has them deposed and replaced.

That way he could have been in power for millennia, or at least be the power behind all those conquerors, without anyone knowing what he looks like, or realizing that he's been at it for so long.

[tcampbell1000]

Exactly.

[q99]

-"Ah, see, now I have united you four against me! But you can't kill me, so eventually you'll give up and unite under me instead, rather than inflict any sort of non-lethal punishment I would consider more than mildly uncomfortable! THIS IS WHY I COULD CONQUER THE WORLD AT ANY TIME, TAKING THE LONG VIEW."-

"And you *certainly* won't unite under the literal goddess among you who's more than capable of kicking my ass at any time and who at least one of you has worked under before!"

[janegray]

Ok, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks to me like Warp and the other prisoners are alive and relatively unharmed, if not exactly comfortable. And, by using their powers, Luthor may be able to bring everybody back. Or at least bring back enough people to get revenge on those who dropped them in the hellplanet, and possibly get help to rescue those left behind (especially since they still had J'onn, the heroes would definitely try to get to them).

Soooo... Why exactly did they have to be kidnapped? It seems to be like actually volunteering to help Luthor would have been fairly logical.

[qalchemist]

I'm guessing that -they- didn't get to come back to Earth.

[beyondthefringe]

They all got exploded and died. Though a few got better eventually as these things happen.
What a freaking mess. It's like the only reason Thunder and Lightning were there was to be cannon fodder.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Who got better? Neutron?

[janegray]

Yeah, but your choices are #1 refuse to help and get stuck on the hellplanet with no hope of rescue while the people who put you there live on happily ever after, or #2 agree to help with the hope that those who make it back warn the heroes and get them to come rescue you (especially if you can hold J'onn hostage) or at the very least get revenge on those who doomed you.

You are liked screwed either way, but #2 gives you a fighting chance and a shot at revenge. Sounds like the most logical course of action to me.

[tigerkaya]

So this series was just an excuse to kill off The Titans Rogues gallery. Kind of expected given DC.

[q99]

Yea, it kinda was.

I mean, let's see. Psimon, Warp, Mallah and The Brain, Thunder and Lightning.... *everyone* who died was a Titans character and no-one who wasn't a Titans character died, by the looks of it!

[tigerkaya]

Such waste, but at least The Batroc knockoff is dead.

[q99]

Which one's that?

[tigerkaya]

Hellhound I think

[icon_uk]

Who are the woman in white and the armoured guy who are powering Luthors teleportal thingie..

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Not entirely true. Neutron, Iron Cross, Hellhound and the woman in white above (Heat Monger) were all killed.

But yeah, all the villains anyone really cared about that died were Titan villains. Phobia was practically the last survivor of the Brotherhood.

[q99]

Those others are so obscure I only definitely know one of them ^^ (Hellhound)

[silicondream]

Not entirely sure why the voiceover's talking about the villains being "the only ones that are certain to survive," while the art reminds us of a dozen villains who didn't survive. Most of whom were killed by other villains. This story wasn't exactly a glorious testament to their survival skills.