Crisis on Infinite Earths #3

[history79]

8 pages of 25

Comments

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Oh no, Kid Psycho! He's dead!

...who is he again?

[agharta75]

Legion reservist. Super powerful psychic, but shortens his life span every time he uses his powers.

Calling him in shows this is a Great Big Huge Emergency.

[cygnia]

http://armagideontime.blogspot.com/2007/08/no-matter-how-hopeless-no-matter-how.html

[tcampbell1000]

I'm sure there was someone, somewhere, who was distressed over the loss of the Legionnaire actually named "Kid Psycho," whose psychokinetic powers shortened his life expectancy by a whole year every time he used them. He had last seen action about twenty years earlier, and was a reservist who didn't even qualify for the Legion of Substitute Heroes. Still, you'd think he might try, I don't know, actually using those powers on the collapsing rubble instead of letting it knock him out so he could die immediately, but he didn't get to where he was by making especially good life choices.

This installment is... weirdly sloppy, given the talent involved and how much importance DC was putting on this series. There is no explanation ever given for why Psimon's powers fail. Nor do we learn what happened to Solovar between this issue and the last one, when he was blithely kicking a shadow demon in the guts, completely uninjured, and not experiencing any precognitive flashes like the one he describes. The next time he shows up, the medics will be saying "his body was almost crushed!" which seems inconsistent with this appearance as well.

The last two panels are also inconsistent with the next issue (which does not actually feature the end of the multiverse). It would make sense if Harbinger was watching the Monitor on a TV somewhere, the way she does in the next issue, so presumably someone just forgot to put the "TV filter" on the Monitor here.

Glitches aside, the cowboy stuff was cute, and it really did hurt to see the Gofooeys and Nighthawk die. Not shown here: a largely enjoyable World War II sequence (though also marred by a couple of strange choices) and a lovely moment between Superman and Starfire, as they're both interstellar expats who lost their home worlds to violence and may lose this one too.