So why the hell did I do it? {briefly rationalizes before beginning tap-dance} It's true that I tend not to like Event comics, and I still believe that buying $4 comics sends a bad signal to the publishers. On the other hand, I have always been an advocate for buying whatever the hell you want, so long as you understand the consequences. I do. My signal is mixed, I guess. I'm telling Marvel and DC:
"I'll test drive one of your monstrous debacles of spectacle every few years just to see what's going on."
It's probably important to do that every now and again just to maintain some objective integrity. If all I ever do is rant about these Events and never read one of the damn things, I'm ranting from a position of ignorance. Which wouldn't be unprecedented, but is not ideal. So here we go!
Forever Evil # 1 (DC Comics)Script: Geoff Johns
Art: David Finch/Richard Friend
Boiled down to its essence, Forever Evil is the story of what happens when an evil Justice League from another dimension removes the real Justice League from the playing field, and it becomes the duty of Earth's villains to rise up and Take Care of Business.
This is actually not a bad hook, as hooks go. It's a very big story, and it offers ample opportunities for undeveloped ciphers to blossom into full-fledged complex people. So I like all that.
That platform contains a few inherent problems, however, and all of them manifest in this comic book. Big is good, and big is grand, but it's difficult to accomplish big in a few pages. Here's what happened from a plot perspective in this comic:
-Lex Luthor is a bad person, and discovers that someone has taken over global communications
-Nightwing gets captured while delivering Mr. Zsasz to Arkham Asylum
-Rogues receive a secret decoder coin inviting them to the Big Meeting At The Docks
-The Crime Syndicate announces that they have murdered the Justice League and will now be taking over planet Earth at the Big Meeting At The Docks
-Nightwing has a really bad day
-Ultraman pushes the goddamn moon in front of the sun because it's irritating him
Some significant things happen, sure. Most of them don't happen on the page, which is a bit striking. That bit about the dead Justice League? There isn't a sniff of that actually on the page in Forever Evil # 1. We're taking the Syndicate's word for all of it. The reader never really gets to see how any of this global takeover transpires. It's just baked into the plot via expository dialogue, which frankly feels weak and greatly reduces the drama.
This is not unique to Forever Evil, either. Bendis just did this with the Ultron thingy Marvel trotted out.
"Ultron has completely taken over everything!", says Bendis.
"Sounds cool", you say while recognizing that you're sort of bullshitting yourself about that, "how does it happen?"
"Well..." says Bendis, fumbling to come up with something but then realizing that he is indeed Brian Michael Bendis and therefore can do whatever he damn well pleases without editorial permission or peasant scrutiny "....he just did! See how all the buildings are knocked over? It totally happened! Now on with the rest of the show!"
It is possible to tell a good story that begins en media res, of course. You can get to the mysterious origins of the conflict later on out of sequence. This kind of fancy footwork is rarely worth the cost, in my opinion. You can even completely ignore the hows and whys of your giant conflicts, if you like. George RR Martin rarely shows the reader giant battles or military actions "on screen" in the Game of Thrones series. You usually get that sort of information second hand and days after via conversation between characters who weren't even primary witnesses.
It works in those books because of the intricate character work, and because it feels authentic to receive that kind of news in the same manner as the characters - second hand, out of date, and colored heavily by the messenger. It works because Martin understands that what counts are the people, and the succulent little details.
Most of the character work and details feel just a bit "off" in Forever Evil. Here's what I mean by that - take this early scene featuring Nightwing, in which he delivers a trussed up Mr. Zsasz to Arkham Asylum. Finch puts together a very nice action pose that would look fantastic framed on your wall.
Unfortunately, it just doesn't make a lick of sense. Listen, Dick Grayson does a lot of push-ups, so I can almost believe he could carry a grown man around like that for awhile. But not even the Hulk could swing around a city with a guy cradled in one of his arms, because it just takes two arms to do that. The entire premise is absurd.
This guy learned from the world's greatest detective, right? He should be pretty smart. How does he not know that it would be far easier and more efficient to just rent a Jeep Grand Cherokee and then ask Mr Zsasz if he smells chloroform on your rag?
Listen, I know it's comics. There must come some suspension of disbelief so you can roll with these things....but think about it - how much better would it be to read about a Nightwing/Zsasz road trip? Now there's a comic I would absolutely buy! It's like Midnight Run, and the two of them can learn some stuff about each other, and get into hijinx together, and now they have a relationship that you can build on the next time Zsasz does inevitably escape from Arkham.
But that's not the point of these events, and there's no time for anything really interesting to happen. Only two characters get explored in even trace amounts of depth in this issue - Ultraman and Lex Luthor, who shares a delightful little story about a cat that sheds some light on his motivations as a human being.
But this Nightwing thing? It's random, and it spits in the face of logic, and it draws attention to the hands of the puppeteers. Dick just happens to be there at the same time as Evil Wonder Woman, because the comic needs Something Dramatic To Happen To A Suitably Popular Character.
Here's a really bad example of something that might work:
Let's say Nightwing ended up crossing paths with a troubled little girl while fighting crime in Bludhaven, or Chicago, or wherever the hell he's headquartered now. Maybe she's got no father and he put her mother in prison, and he feels responsible. Maybe he goes through an arduous adoption process, and he agonizes over the decision because he worries about how much his second life might be putting the child in danger. But maybe he goes through that process, and the little girl is starting to buy into that process and starts accepting love and turning her life around.
If you set all that stuff up, then when Dick Grayson's identity is exposed, you actually feel it in your gut. It's something born out of character and story, and if you actually care about that little girl and her relationship with Dick, (man I wish I hadn't typed that) Forever Evil put that girl in dire jeopardy and it becomes something you might really anticipate on the rack each month. You might even remember that story six months down the road.
Why would the Crime Syndicate even bother with a single secret identity, by the way? To prove their reach or resolve? Why not publish the whole NOC list? But really, I would think bodies would communicate better. Producing Justice League corpses would achieve that end far more effectively than a B-Lister's name and address. Show me Superman's head and my balls will retreat into their natural orifice. How does outing Nightwing accomplish anything for the Syndicate? Inside the story, it really doesn't. Outside the fourth wall, that "news" will tend to make the regular comics sites, though, and that's what it's really about.
That's all I can see when I look at Forever Evil....puppet strings and puppeteer hands. I see DC trying to establish September as the Month That Big Doings Happen, so this book has to exist whether it needs to or not. I see a lot of villains gathered together in a room, hell, it took a four page splash just to fit them all in! It's a nice picture, it really is, I'm not just spinning bullshit about that.
But what does it mean? It means that random characters will utter stilted nonsense. Who is Cheetah, anyway? As a person, I mean. Would she ever really say "Nor I, Grodd, but give them a chance to speak." I guess I don't know if she would actually say that or not. But it sounds....wrong. Like a bad puppeteer got hold of her and started moving her mouth for her.
I know Black Manta doesn't like Aquaman, that's pretty standard. The Crime Syndicate just tosses out Aquaman's trident and Black Manta claims it like something important just hapened. How anti-climactic is that? Manta did nothing to achieve it, for all anybody really knows, it's not even real. That would be like criminals burning down the Baseball Hall of Fame, and then tossing Ernie Banks a World Series ring. He'd probably throw it back in the criminals faces...there's no catharsis in that, no achievement. In an actual story with actual human elements, Black Manta would likely resent whatever asshole took Aquaman down and spit on that trident, because it cheats him of his victory. He doesn't pick it up and do a touchdown dance. That's the opposite of a character moment, but it feels like it has the requisite weight to be "big", so there's your event book. It's 5,000 calories, but it actually tastes like crap and has absolutely no nutritional value.
Do I even comment on the absurdity of moving the moon in front of the sun? If you like logic or physics or yourself, you don't like that. But it's "big", I'll give it that.
To be honest, I don't hate Forever Evil. It almost salvages the Villains Month debacle for me. I still don't think it was worth the allocations and the retailer headaches, or completely derailing the narrative flow of the entire DC universe. Forever Evil establishes that the heroes are gone, and the villains must step up to protect our world. Villains Month is a way of saying "let's learn a little something about these unlikely caretakers, shall we?" The execution on most of those comics ranged from adequate to deplorable. But given the Forever Evil context, it nearly makes sense now that they did it.
So no, I don't hate Forever Evil. It does exactly what it sets out to do - declare that it is important in the most ostentatious and unconvincing manner possible. Whenever somebody feels compelled to announce to me how important they are, I know to quickly file that business card in the trash.
Mostly I just feel sorry for Forever Evil. It very much wishes it were a Valiant event, built on the natural confluence of rising story actions. But it's not. The calendar turned September, so everybody got together in one panel for a group photo, Nightwing got his ass kicked, and The Monocle got his head blown off and took one for the team. For the depressing, soulless team. Sad.
I'm done with Forever Evil, because it's not really a story. I would like to read a story, please. Maybe when I check back a few years from now, an Event might actually provide one. Hope springs eternal!
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