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helpfulsnowman's review
2.0
The mind-blowing thing about this collection, it's a perfect sample for the whole "everything old is new again" thing that happens in comics.
Can we talk about a few thing that happened in 1998?
1. Captain America V. Iron Man
Yes, Earth's Mightiest Heroes had a fistfight in 1998. Of course, it involved some weird bullshit and they weren't real enemies, but we still had the two exchanging blows.
2. Sam Wilson Captain America
Yep! In 1998, in this series, Sam Wilson took on the mantle of Captain America when it appeared that Cap had been killed. Now, this story was quite bizarre for a few reasons, but none more so than the involvement of a white power group trying to make it appear that Cap was a big fan, and the leader of this group not only tried to make a gas that killed black people while leaving white people unharmed, but also claimed that geneticists were refining sickle-cell anemia as a favor to this white power group. I guess what I found really confusing about this, other than all of it, was...why would a white power group bother trying to make it look like Cap was on their side if they were making a gas that killed all black people? Were they hedging their bets? "Well, if our black people killing gas doesn't work, a PR campaign is the next step down to racial dominance"? If this is their two-pronged plan for success, if one prong succeeds, it totally negates the need for the other prong. Also, with the sickle-cell thing? Did a portion of the company just run out of shit to do and they were like, "We have a murderous gas in the works. Maybe keep perfecting sickle-cell, eh?" To what end? Why are these people working on all these different projects that, if successful, make the other projects totally obsolete? Who is running this thing? These are not very smart white people.
3. Bucky's return (sort of)
Growing up, there were a few comic book people who died and DIDN'T come back to life.
There was Uncle Ben, who is still dead.
There was Gwen Stacy, who was cloned, and also had some secret babies, but was mostly kinda dead on Earth-616, but was alive on as Spider-Gwen on Earth-65, and on Earth-TRN565 there was a Gwenpool. I guess if you're going to make a hero an alternate version on another Earth, Stacy is where it's at. Also, I'm beginning to suspect that the numbers assigned to these planets are arbitrary. TRN565? That's a buncha bullshit.
There was Jason Todd, the Robin the Joker killed. If you're not a student of comics, interesting fact, Jason Todd replaced Dick Grayson as Robin, and DC set up a hotline people could call into in order to determine Todd's fate at the hands of the Joker. Would he live or die? The votes were pretty close in the end, after more than 10,000 people had called in. There is a rumor that some guy setup an auto dialer of some sort to call every 90 seconds for 8 hours in order to sway the vote, but this is unproven lore. And of course, Todd came back in 2005.
There was Bucky. Bucky stayed dead for a long time, until he didn't. Such is comics!
4. Nazis use the sunken city of Atlantis to mount an unexpected attack on the Allies
Okay, this hasn't ACTUALLY happened again that I know of, but of all the ideas here, I feel like this one's got legs. With flippers on it. It's got Nazis, it's got a legendary underwater city. It's got 1940's scuba helmets. It's got it all.
Can we talk about a few thing that happened in 1998?
1. Captain America V. Iron Man
Yes, Earth's Mightiest Heroes had a fistfight in 1998. Of course, it involved some weird bullshit and they weren't real enemies, but we still had the two exchanging blows.
2. Sam Wilson Captain America
Yep! In 1998, in this series, Sam Wilson took on the mantle of Captain America when it appeared that Cap had been killed. Now, this story was quite bizarre for a few reasons, but none more so than the involvement of a white power group trying to make it appear that Cap was a big fan, and the leader of this group not only tried to make a gas that killed black people while leaving white people unharmed, but also claimed that geneticists were refining sickle-cell anemia as a favor to this white power group. I guess what I found really confusing about this, other than all of it, was...why would a white power group bother trying to make it look like Cap was on their side if they were making a gas that killed all black people? Were they hedging their bets? "Well, if our black people killing gas doesn't work, a PR campaign is the next step down to racial dominance"? If this is their two-pronged plan for success, if one prong succeeds, it totally negates the need for the other prong. Also, with the sickle-cell thing? Did a portion of the company just run out of shit to do and they were like, "We have a murderous gas in the works. Maybe keep perfecting sickle-cell, eh?" To what end? Why are these people working on all these different projects that, if successful, make the other projects totally obsolete? Who is running this thing? These are not very smart white people.
3. Bucky's return (sort of)
Growing up, there were a few comic book people who died and DIDN'T come back to life.
There was Uncle Ben, who is still dead.
There was Gwen Stacy, who was cloned, and also had some secret babies, but was mostly kinda dead on Earth-616, but was alive on as Spider-Gwen on Earth-65, and on Earth-TRN565 there was a Gwenpool. I guess if you're going to make a hero an alternate version on another Earth, Stacy is where it's at. Also, I'm beginning to suspect that the numbers assigned to these planets are arbitrary. TRN565? That's a buncha bullshit.
There was Jason Todd, the Robin the Joker killed. If you're not a student of comics, interesting fact, Jason Todd replaced Dick Grayson as Robin, and DC set up a hotline people could call into in order to determine Todd's fate at the hands of the Joker. Would he live or die? The votes were pretty close in the end, after more than 10,000 people had called in. There is a rumor that some guy setup an auto dialer of some sort to call every 90 seconds for 8 hours in order to sway the vote, but this is unproven lore. And of course, Todd came back in 2005.
There was Bucky. Bucky stayed dead for a long time, until he didn't. Such is comics!
4. Nazis use the sunken city of Atlantis to mount an unexpected attack on the Allies
Okay, this hasn't ACTUALLY happened again that I know of, but of all the ideas here, I feel like this one's got legs. With flippers on it. It's got Nazis, it's got a legendary underwater city. It's got 1940's scuba helmets. It's got it all.
philipf's review
3.0
Great stories, which is usual for Waid, but I didn't care for the art. Very 90s.
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