Crime Syndicate #2

[lordultimus]

Comments

[shakalooloo]

Nice to see a version of these characters where they aren't just evil for evil's sake, even if their justification is as flimsy as "well, my parents were killers..."

[icon_uk]

After all these years, I'm still not sure how much the moral inversion of Earth-Three is supposed to apply to all aspects of continuity.

Given all we know about this world, is the notion that Thomas and Martha Wayne HADN'T got their power and wealth by violence and corruption plausible? Wouldn't that be somthing young Thomas would be proud of, not shocked by?

Plus every time I see an Owlman, I keep coming back to my issue with the whole Court of Owls set up, which is that with them embedded as a citywide bogeyman for hundreds of years, with their Talon's as the monster under countless Gothamite beds, Bruce (who grew up In Gotham and so would HAVE to know the stories) and wanting to be a supernatural spirit of vengeance who would scare criminals shitless, NOT deciding to call himself Owlman (and his sidekick, Talon) seems weird.

It's a readymade urban legend to be exploited, and since he's also not aware the Court and the Talon's are real, there'd be no reason for him not to make use of it.

[donnblake]

I blame pesky time travelers hiding outside Stately Wayne Manor tossing oversized Chiropterans through the window every time it seemed Bruce was working up to a decision about his identity.

There had been quite a scuffle with the other gang of time travelers, who had brought an impressively sized and rather sedated owl along with them, and a brief skirmish with some folks from Timeline 22A who had a glowing skeleton in a sack and weren't of a mind to explain their reasoning.

[tinygaylaura]

"Skeletons frightened me as a boy

It's time my enemies shared my dread"

[donnblake]

Later, under Frank Miller's pen...

"I thought that I became a skeleton... to strike fear into the superstitious cowardly scum of the city.

I was wrong.

The skeleton was always inside me."

[tinygaylaura]

"it was always inside me

The skeleton

The skeleton was always inside me

It was inside me

The skeleton was inside me"

[donnblake]

Oh. Oh no. I just realized. We thought the Joker was obsessed with Bruce's boners before...

[tinygaylaura]

Don't chortle at the Joker's boner!

[mastermahan]

Gotham City will rue the day it mentioned the word boner!

[scorntx]

He'll show them how many boners the Joker can make!

[tinygaylaura]

Now we'll have to worry about the boner he's readying for us!

[cainofdreaming]

"Rue? If I had a 'rue' every time someone mentioned that ... I'd own Paris."

[victory_or_death]

I'm the goddamn Bonerman!

[thezmage]

Part man, part skeleton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBBya93-vWc

I don't know if I need to warn for this, but one of the singers in the linked ban hadn't come out as trans at the time of this recording.

[tinygaylaura]

"Wait which part's the skeleton part?"

"The skeleton...part..."

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I got that reference, and I'm not even sure I was supposed to.

[donnblake]

If it's the reference to the comic where Alfred riffs on other possible inspirations that might have struck Bruce, eventually evolving from things he might have seen outside the window to general free association of spooky-type night creatures, then you've got it!

If it's not, then you may have plumbed subtle depths of my silly post that even I was hitherto unaware of, whose intentionality, if any, must be merely cosmic.

[thezmage]

Derek Powers from Batman Beyond perhaps?

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Bingo.

[tinygaylaura]

For Terry McGinnis the day Derek Powers killed his father was the most important day of his life

But for him?

It was tuesday

[tinygaylaura]

Am I a bad person that I found that last panel hillarious?

And that my first thought was to sing "Dancing Through Life"?

Nothing matters but knowing nothing matters

It's just life

So keep dancing throooooouuuuggggghhhhhhhhhhh

[mastermahan]

I want to see Johnathan Crane start taking cues from Fiyero.

[tinygaylaura]

He's through accepting limits 'cause someone says there so

Like the limit the law says there is on the number of people you can kill with fear gas

[mastermahan]

The trouble with schools is they always try to teach you ethics,

Believe me, I've faced enough criminal charges to know.

They want you to become less evil, less unstable

But I say: why invite peace in?

Start causing strife

and learn to live the supervillain life

[tinygaylaura]

Frightening through life

Scaring and creeping

People are weeping

When you give them a scare

[trooper924]

Much like the previous issue, I do prefer this interpretation over the whole "Everyone on Earth 3 are total bastards" take that Grant Morrison introduced and Forever Evil took to it's most ridiculous extreme. Having Owlman be not all that different from Batman until he realized his crusade for justice was all for nothing is far more interesting and clever than just having Owlman be a murderous, evil jerkwad who murdered his parents as a kid like it was in Forever Evil.

[thezmage]

So this is appears to be inspired by the Justice League: Crisis on Two worlds movie's take on the character, and I like that. I'm a little curious as to how the whole team is going to get together when they're inspired by pretty divergent philosophies.

Also is there any word as to whether this is leading anywhere beyond just this one story? IIRC this isn't an ongoing, so after they set up this Crime Syndicate are they going to fight the Justice League or something?

[mastermahan]

Hopefully we'll see guys like Alexander Luthor, Jokester, Barbara Minerva - Lioness come together and form the the Courage Syndicate. Ideally with flashbacks about how they almost became villains but didn't.

[scorntx]

So long as we get Gentleman Grodd back...

[agent8]

Gentleman Grodd? At various times there was a Sir Solomon Grundy and a General Grodd among the CSA's foes, but I don't remember a Gentleman Grodd.

[scorntx]

Oh, nerts. Got 'em mixed up.
(Alright, I admit it. I'm not a real nerd, I've just been pretending and bluffing outrageously all this time!)

[tinygaylaura]

I like the idea of Gentleman Groddd

Science Gorilla and man about town

[mastermahan]

Ooh, I like Gentleman Grodd.

Manta Ray is a fun, swashbuckling pirate. Dextro wields the yellow Power Ring of courage to defend freedom and has Green Arrow facial hair.

[tinygaylaura]

That would be fun and cool to see happen

[deh_tommy]

Maybe then we can have a decent Duela Dent again...

[tinygaylaura]

That was the first thing I thought of as well, the nihilist version of Owlman from that movie