DC Comics, $2.99, 32 pages
Released: June 25, 2014
Story Grade: B
Issue Score: 67.75*
MILDLY RECOMMENDED
"Planet of the Humans"
(20 pages / 82 panels / 1,681 words / 10:55 read time)
Writers: Keith Giffen, Dan Didio
Penciller: Keith Giffen
Inker: Scott Koblish
Inker: Scott Koblish
Colorist: Hi-Fi
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Joey Cavalieri
I blame Dan Didio for everything that's gone wrong in the DC Universe.
And not just the New 52. I blame him for every infinity-lasting, weekly countdowning, continuity screwing, pointless hero killing, Legion losing, late-shipping, overpriced, rape origin moment of the past 12 years. I even blame him for the stupid "DC peel" logo. Some or all of that may be unfair, but it's how I feel, so there you go. This being the case, you'd probably assume I hate this book.
But you'd be wrong.
I did not love Didio's Phantom Stranger, it's true. But I did enjoy his take on O.M.A.C., and even like this new effort well enough.
It's also worth noting that, despite what Didio has done to ruin the DCU (in may opinion), it's hard to hate the guy. In every video interview of him I've ever seen, Didio has an enthusiasm for DC characters that is simply infectious. I have to believe he believes everything done over the past several years has been for the best, and has truly created an improved product and finer reading experience. Of course, Jeffry Dahmner thought young boys were delicious, so thinking you're right doesn't necessarily make it so.
Now, as to this issue, there's not much here in the way of plot. Let me summarize it for you: The Forever People go to Earth. That's about it. When the issue opens, the Forever People are not on Earth. When it ends, they are. Ta-daaaaa.
Still, Didio fills in around the edges with enough character interplay that it feels like a lot more happens than actually does. And that interplay is enjoyable in a classic Lee & Kirby's Fantastic Four family bickering kind of way.
The premise behind this series is a little thin, though. The Forever People are three recent graduates, plus a sibling tagalong, from the New Gods' Academy of Higher Conscience who have been assigned to make Earth, which some of them seem never to have heard of, a better place. Think of it as Highfather's version of the Peace Corps. Although, as described, it would seem these graduates are tasked with not just helping the needy, but in taking an active part to recreate our world in their image. "Planetary health care is something we need to correct," says Big Bear. So, even the New Gods hate Obamacare, I guess. Maybe. But even so, the mission seems like a progressive's wet dream.
But really, how different is what the Forever People plan from Darkseid's designs? Oh, sure, you may want quality, accessible health care more than you want to be a dog soldier, but, essentially, both sides from on high have taken it upon themselves to decide how your planet should evolve based on their own moral values. It seems that while Darkseid hunts for the anti-life equation, the New Gods are now dedicated to a sort of anti-prime directive.
What's odd, however, is that while they seemingly plan to take an active role in transforming our society, they feel the need to hide out in a disguised singles apartment complex. I don't know what a "singles apartment" is, but it's described like some kind of yuppie crash pad. With New Gods living there, I guess it's meant to be Melrose Place from Space.
I think Big Bear refers to "Kirby," his majordomo of sorts — which seems on odd homage to the King, unless Vykin's mother box is named Stanley — as transforming just the apartment the New Gods will use, and not the entire complex, which is said to be transient housing for young humans. Sadly, the half-page panel of Kirby's handiwork doesn't tell us much. In it, we get waist-up, level shots of four characters with some multi-colored piping in the background that could be almost anything. As big reveals go, it's kind of a let down.
Giffen's art, however, is fun throughout the remainder of the book. Part of the joy of this series, as was true with O.M.A.C., is watching Giffen channel Jack Kirby — or at least latter-day Kirby, when his drawing hand was largely working off muscle memory.
And not just the New 52. I blame him for every infinity-lasting, weekly countdowning, continuity screwing, pointless hero killing, Legion losing, late-shipping, overpriced, rape origin moment of the past 12 years. I even blame him for the stupid "DC peel" logo. Some or all of that may be unfair, but it's how I feel, so there you go. This being the case, you'd probably assume I hate this book.
But you'd be wrong.
I did not love Didio's Phantom Stranger, it's true. But I did enjoy his take on O.M.A.C., and even like this new effort well enough.
It's also worth noting that, despite what Didio has done to ruin the DCU (in may opinion), it's hard to hate the guy. In every video interview of him I've ever seen, Didio has an enthusiasm for DC characters that is simply infectious. I have to believe he believes everything done over the past several years has been for the best, and has truly created an improved product and finer reading experience. Of course, Jeffry Dahmner thought young boys were delicious, so thinking you're right doesn't necessarily make it so.
Now, as to this issue, there's not much here in the way of plot. Let me summarize it for you: The Forever People go to Earth. That's about it. When the issue opens, the Forever People are not on Earth. When it ends, they are. Ta-daaaaa.
Still, Didio fills in around the edges with enough character interplay that it feels like a lot more happens than actually does. And that interplay is enjoyable in a classic Lee & Kirby's Fantastic Four family bickering kind of way.
The premise behind this series is a little thin, though. The Forever People are three recent graduates, plus a sibling tagalong, from the New Gods' Academy of Higher Conscience who have been assigned to make Earth, which some of them seem never to have heard of, a better place. Think of it as Highfather's version of the Peace Corps. Although, as described, it would seem these graduates are tasked with not just helping the needy, but in taking an active part to recreate our world in their image. "Planetary health care is something we need to correct," says Big Bear. So, even the New Gods hate Obamacare, I guess. Maybe. But even so, the mission seems like a progressive's wet dream.
But really, how different is what the Forever People plan from Darkseid's designs? Oh, sure, you may want quality, accessible health care more than you want to be a dog soldier, but, essentially, both sides from on high have taken it upon themselves to decide how your planet should evolve based on their own moral values. It seems that while Darkseid hunts for the anti-life equation, the New Gods are now dedicated to a sort of anti-prime directive.
What's odd, however, is that while they seemingly plan to take an active role in transforming our society, they feel the need to hide out in a disguised singles apartment complex. I don't know what a "singles apartment" is, but it's described like some kind of yuppie crash pad. With New Gods living there, I guess it's meant to be Melrose Place from Space.
I think Big Bear refers to "Kirby," his majordomo of sorts — which seems on odd homage to the King, unless Vykin's mother box is named Stanley — as transforming just the apartment the New Gods will use, and not the entire complex, which is said to be transient housing for young humans. Sadly, the half-page panel of Kirby's handiwork doesn't tell us much. In it, we get waist-up, level shots of four characters with some multi-colored piping in the background that could be almost anything. As big reveals go, it's kind of a let down.
Giffen's art, however, is fun throughout the remainder of the book. Part of the joy of this series, as was true with O.M.A.C., is watching Giffen channel Jack Kirby — or at least latter-day Kirby, when his drawing hand was largely working off muscle memory.
The conversation between the Headmaster and Big Bear about a check-in process would intimate that there are various teams of recent Academy graduates at work across the globe. With Serifan rebooted as Serafina the She-Black, it will be interesting to see what other changes, or new characters, Didio and Giffin come up with, should we ever meet these remaining sleeper agents. Hopefully, they'll make more sense than changing Beautiful Dreamer to Dreamer Beautiful, which for some reason annoys me, while the Serafina remake bothers me not at all.
Of course, there may be no other groups. There's a lot in the details of this issue, while the whole is fun, that don't make a lot of sense. Why just three graduates? Why is one of the graduates (Mark Moonrider) referred to as not being age-appropriate for another one (Serafina)? Why send these recruits, so young and untested that even after graduation they can't tell the east end of their floating city from the west end, with an unbonded Mother Box. I'm not familiar with a mother box needing to bond to someone. Still, J.K. Rowling, at least, had the good sense to teleport her youngsters alongside an adult who knew how to use a portkey. It doesn't make sense for Headmaster to give his students who've never driven a bus the keys to a bus, without so much as a, "Toodles, you'll figure it out from here." Of course, he was on scene during the wait for Serafina, although in a bit of bad layout work we don't see him, even in his disguise, until in one panel, poof, there he is. So, maybe ol' Headdy was just testing the kids. Maybe the Mother Box was keyed to bond with Serafina until her genetically-similar brother touched it first. Who knows?
A lot of reviewers have commented already on the lack of an Infinity Man in this issue, which seems odd in a book titled Infinity Man and the Forever People. True enough. And while he'll undoubtedly come along in time and the whole thing will read more naturally in the collected edition, it does lead to a little bit of a disappointing experience within this issue. Hell, if I had picked this book up off the stands because of the cover, which appears to show Infinity Man menacing the Forever People, I certainly would have felt cheated to only get Mantis, and only on the last page at that.
Of course, if you don't know who Infinity Man is, you might not have had any idea who that is on the cover, which, I have to say, is not the greatest design ever. To my mind, the promotional image previously used in Previews and in house ads, which shows the Peeps seemingly dropped out of a Boom Tube smack into the middle of Mantis' army — and which now looks like it might be the cover of Issue 2 — is much better. In fact, it alone was a big part of why I pulled the trigger and pre-ordered this book.
But while we're talking about Mantis, is the last-page splash panel reveal of him as next issue's protagonist an over-used comic book cliche? Oh, I dunno. Let's just say that of six super-hero comic books I bought this week, the technique was used in five of them.
The problem with this tension-creating trick is that it only works if the reader is fully, or at least previously, vested in the character. Let's say for a moment you're a casual reader. And by that I don't necessarily mean a person who has walked into a comic book store for the first time. I've been reading comics for more than 40 years, and I'm only passingly familiar with much of the New Gods mythos myself. So, say, like me, you don't have encyclopedic knowledge of all things Fourth World. You're reading about these young strangers in a strange land when all of a sudden their plot line is dropped as quickly as Big Bear disconnecting an interdimensional phone call, and we switch to something entirely different and seemingly unrelated. You suddenly get three pages of the Kent Family farm transplanted to the mid-east, where a couple of farm techs are murdered, and then Mantis shows up. You might be forgiven for wondering what the heck that has to do with anything and, if you don't already know who Mantis is, why you should care. High confusion breeds lower circulation.
It would have been better, I think, if instead of all the chatter about remaking the Earth as a better place, the mission of the Forever People had been given as observe and report operations, undertaken due to recent intel that Darkseid's Apokalypse might be preparing for a new invasion of Earth. A simple "Hail Darkseid," from one of Mantis' goons would then have served to connect the two plotlines of this issue in this issue, not when bound together with subsequent plot points in the collected edition.
An alternative might have been to have the Boom Tube malfunction under Vykin's inexpert use and drop the Peeps directly into Mantis' invasion force, which would have at least provided an excuse to use the most excellent promotional image as the cover for this issue. Of course, that also would have required that Big Bear be one of the Academy graduates and not an older God assigned to be the California reception committee. But that was an odd choice anyway as he and Vykin are now established as being separate add-ons to the Forever People and not really part of the core group, which changes the dynamic for the entire series.
Finally, I'll say that the invasion of the Kent Farm took four pages, when it really only needed two, I think. The extra space does help set up that two techs, Breman and Mills, have been lost. But that knowledge doesn't really connect when the last survivor yells at his pursuers, "My God, your faces. Breman. Mills." I think we're supposed to take it that Breman and Mills got somehow zombified and made part of Matnis' army, but it's not really clear. With the goons seen from behind, the farm tech could just as easily have been thinking of his friends and what they must have gone through as their ugly attackers now close in on him. Again, high confusion breeds lower circulation.
But, in the end, this was a decent if not great book that was fun, if not amazing. I'd stick with it for a few issues at least, but, as mentioned here, I've cut my DC buys down to almost nothing on my September pre-order. Many of those books will get re-added in October. Whether or not this title returns to my pull list will depend entirely on what else is solicited that month.
*[COVER: 5.75 — PLOT: 6.75 — SCRIPT: 8.50 — LAYOUT: 8.25 — ARTWORK: 8.0 — EDITING: 5.50 — COLORS/PRODUCTION: 7.0 — DOLLAR VALUE: 5.75 — COLLECTIBILITY: 6.25 —GOSH-WOW FACTOR: 6.0]
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