Heroes in Crisis #1-9

Heroes in Crisis #1-9

Originally released in 2018

Written by Tom King

Art by Clay Mann (#1-7, 9), Travis Moore (#2, 5, 8), Lee Weeks (#3), Mitch Gerads (#6-8)

I don't know if this series is considered bad, but the response that I've seen to it has been negative.  I've liked what I've read of Tom King's work, though (The Vision, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Mister Miracle, the Human Target, and a bit of his Wonder Woman), so I'm not sure if the quality dips to a massive extent compared to those stories or if there are any specific plot points that make people dislike it. One difference is that this book seems to be a broader ensemble piece as opposed to a story focused on one particular character, so maybe that makes a difference - I know that some writers are better at writing solo characters compared to group stories. (look at Jason Aaron's runs on Thor and the Avengers; his Thor run is well received, while his Avengers run is hated)

DC's heroes established a secret anonymous location for therapy, called the Sanctuary.  Here, heroes (and some anti-heroes such as Poison Ivy) could talk about their traumas openly and without fear of exposure - it's run by an artificial intelligence and the footage is deleted immediately.  However, many of the people staying at the Sanctuary have been murdered, including Ivy, Wally West, and Roy Harper.  Booster Gold and Harley Quinn believe that the other one is responsible, with the two of them having conflicting memories of the event.

Now Harley and Booster are on the run, trying to prove that the other one is responsible.  In addition, someone has sent Lois Lane footage from Sanctuary.  Batman claims that's impossible, but Batman also lies a lot.  The book's treatment of therapy is weird - on one hand, it shows it as something that superheroes need, just like many other people.  On the other hand, the fact that superheroes are getting therapy is treated as scary or suspicious by the general public, and it seems like neither the Sanctuary AI or the heroes know how therapy works. (Lagoon Boy's idea of therapy is being blasted by a fake laser over and over again, figuring that it will mean that he won't be scared if he's ever shot by a real laser - I'm guessing he either died or nearly died from a similar incident)

The book is occasionally broken up with footage of the heroes (and Harley and Ivy) talking things out with a camera, which occasionally gives some nice insight into their personalities and regrets. The mystery surrounding the Sanctuary massacre is built up well, and the issues go by at a good pace.

As for the writing of the two main suspects, I'm torn.  Harley is erratic and impulsive as always, but she's written as being extremely competent here to the point where she gets the better of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman at the same time.  It's hard to seriously believe that she's responsible for the murders when Ivy is one of the victims.

On the other hand, Booster is written as being dumber than normal here, or at least slightly below his usual average.  After telling Barry Allen about the massacre and getting beaten up and arrested for doing so, his master plan is to wait until Barry solves the mystery and then break into his lab and get ahold of the evidence proving who did it.

It doesn't seem like either one of them could have done it.  As Booster Gold tries to find the culprit with the help of Ted Lord, and Harley tries to find Booster, we get some good moments reframing older stories like the Killing Joke, where Barbara Gordon was shot and paralyzed.

We also see Superman and Wonder Woman dealing with the fallout of Sanctuary being revealed to the world.  Scenes like that gave me the impression that Tom King wanted this story to be his version of Watchmen, especially when the infamous "35 minutes ago" line from Alan Moore's work is referenced almost directly.

While trying to determine what happened, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold discover that Wally West's body is five days older than it should be.  Issue 7 reveals that Wally West is still alive... because issue 8 reveals that he is the killer.  He was under the impression that he's the only one suffering the way that he is, that everybody's fine while he's all alone - even with my lack of familiarity with a lot of the DC universe, it feels wrong for Wally to say something like this, though given that his family no longer exists, he at least has reason to believe that nobody else is going through the exact same problem that he is.

However, this is the point where things start to get stupid.  For some reason, Wally starts to believe that Sanctuary was made exclusively for him, and that the other heroes who are there aren't really there.  I thought this was going to lead to him believing that the other heroes at Sanctuary are robots and destroying them all in a split second before realizing the truth, but what happened was much dumber.

He uses the Speed Force to, somehow, piece together the deleted confessions and watches all of them to get proof that other people did come here.  Witnessing all of that trauma causes him to rush out of the facility, triggering an alarm that makes everyone come outside.  As the other heroes (and Ivy) go over to comfort Wally when he's clearly suffering, he loses control of the Speed Force and the energy shoots out of him, killing everyone. (Ivy is later revived from a rose)

It would be like if Marvel had the Thing go on a murderous rampage during an event comic.  Even if it's accidental, it seems nonsensical for DC to take one of its most popular heroes, arguably the definitive modern example of a legacy character surpassing their predecessor, and then making him a mass murderer in the main continuity.

The book's ultimately about forgiveness, with Wally closing the time loop with the help of 25th century technology and turning himself in (originally, his time-travelling past self killed his future self five days later, though Booster finds a solution that I can't believe Wally didn't think of), but the ending is handled in such a weird way. I get that it's taking the concept of someone being in a bad mental health state and transplanting it into a superhero context, but Wally's motivations don't make sense here, and it comes across as derailing his character.

Sanctuary is ultimately reopened, and it seems to be widely used, showing how useful therapy can be to any of us.  Heroes In Crisis was all right, but it just feels off somehow (like Tom King wasn't sure how to end it, so someone at DC editorial who was a huge fan of Barry Allen suggested that Wally did it so that he'd be out of the way and Barry would be the "main" Flash - this is baseless speculation on my part, but it wouldn't be the first time that it happened), and the last few issues were frustrating to read at times. I wouldn't say it's anywhere near as bad as the other books that I've read this week, and it has an important message (albeit one that's delivered in a strange way), but I can see why people disliked it.