Comic Book Resources

Brian, is this the first time anyone has really addressed the issue between Geo-Force and Deathstroke? If so, I’m surprised noone has attempted to do anything about it earlier…

Didn’t Terra die in “The Judas Contract” by Wolfman and Perez?

If memory serves me correctly, Deathstroke didn’t kill her in that one, I think she was crushed by falling rocks when she lost control of her sanity and powers.

it happens to be a good comic book.

I think maybe you’re suffering from lowered expectations Brian. A good Meltzer story is about as likely as Stephen Hawking winning the NBA dunk competition, it’s literally physically impossible.

Didn’t Black Adam kill Terra? I know she died in the Judas Contract and that there was a future version running around, but I thought the Terra that just died was GF sister.

Joe Kubert? Seriously?

Weird. I can’t believe I’m buying a Super Secret Final Invasion Editorially Mandated Stupidfest-o-rama tie-in!

Was that ever proved? I know there were hints that future Tara was ‘our’ Tara - GF did some type of DNA test, the original Tara’s coffin was empty - but they never came outright and said it…still, GF did end up having a close, brotherly relationship with FT as well. Maybe in 20 years someone will do a story about GF trying to get revenge on Black Adam…

Yes, the second Tara was the same as the first -don’t ask me how, it’s convoluted- and even if she never found out, Geo-Force did. You’d think he would be more obsessed over the second killer than the first. Not that I expect him to forgive Deathstroke, either - who by the way has beenused too much and too badly recently. I remember when he was an interesting villain, with something resembling honor. Now he’s just another ‘evil mastermind’ who kills for no reason. Why the superhero community hasn’t done something about him in a more organized way (”let Green Arrow handle him” doesn’t sound the best approach to take to me) is beyond me.

As for “Last Will and Testament”- sorry, Brian, but your review doesn’t really tell us anything about it. How is it metafictional? That alone would tend to drive me *away* from reading it. Or is that just your appreciation of it? Based on just your comments, I can hardly tell if it would be a good read. Sorry.

I’m not a fan of the way Deathstroke’s been used, either. The original Terra story was interesting because it made it clear — over and over and over — that Terra was a flat-out psychopath who had sought out Deathstroke, who was far more crazy than he was, and that she was completely beyond redeemption.

In the last five or so years, though, Deathstroke’s been written as though he manipulated Terra and turned her crazy. Now, granted, the character did have an inappropriate relationship with her…though lord knows it wasn’t the only creepy romantic involvement in Wolfman’s run. Terry Long, I’m looking at you.

In the current TEEN TITANS, you have Slade psychologically warping Rose into an assassing (”Like Terra!”) and in this story, you have him manipulating Geo-Force…again, supposedly like Terra. The depiction’s not even consistent WITHIN the different series. When he first reappeared in TEEN TITANS, it was explained that Jericho had possessed him and made him kill Wintergreen. This was later explained as Jericho being warped by the evil in Slade’s mind. Jericho was resurrected, but somehow let off the hook for his actions.

My feeling is that a lot of fans read the original “Judas Contract” story and interpreted it as Slade turning Terra into a villain. Like Beast Boy, they wanted to see the best in her and did not believe she had been crazy all along. Slade’s depiction in the comics recently has supported this, as does the retelling of “The Judas Contract” on the Titans animated series — obviously, you can’t do the romantic relationship, but they did depict Terra as a manipulated innocent, as opposed to bad all along.

The problem with all this is that it does a disservice to the complex, layered character Marv Wolfman and George Perez created. Wolfman repeatedly stated that Slade wasn’t all bad, and one of my favorite issues of the original run is the follow up to “The Judas Contract” where he and Beast Boy (then Changeling) have a confrontation…which turns into a simple conversation over coffee where Slade calmly explains himself, explains Terra, and even spares Beast Boy’s feelings when he asks if the two ever slept together. It was a simple story that explained he simply existed in a different world than the Titans, and helped set up the long-running ongoing series a few years later.

Despite having some layers at the beginning, the way they’ve written Slade the last few years has been as a sort of Mary Sue supervillain — the guy who has 15 plans to take out any hero. He’s portrayed as sadistic, mean-spirited, and absurdly lucky at getting away. He’s become like the Joker — there’s no logical reason why he’s still alive, but he keeps coming back for more. And he’s archenemies with Nightwing, Green Arrow and Geo-Force at this point. I think he has more “arches” than any other major villain, at this point…

There’s a few back doors they could use if they ever want to tone him down — say he’s still possessed by that demon who had grafted itself onto Jericho’s soul, for example — but I feel like they just want to go with the “World’s Greatest Mastermind” route, and that’s a shame.

Slade Wilson has always been a badass. But he used to be so much more.

This was absurdly long, sorry. It’s been building up for a while.

Regarding Terra’s death in The Judas Contract: Keep in mind that while Terra was a murderous psychopath who destroyed herself, the Titans told Geo-Force that she died a hero. Add that to the filters people tend to view departed loved ones with and it becomes easier to see Brion’s perspective in this book.

Greg — I agree with your statement. There was an issue of the Outsiders where Batman told Geo-Force about Terra’s true nature, which in turn led to him changing his costume to look less like hers. However, it’s logical that he would still hold some guilt over not being there for his sister, and tend to idealize her memory.

My problem isn’t so much with Brion’s perspective, which is indeed challenged a bit within the issue, but with the fact that Slade is often portrayed as being CONSISTENT with that perception, and that the character’s other layers are often ignored.

Geo-Force also serves as a (perhaps unintentional?) metaphor for the fans (like Meltzer) who convinced themselves, right up to the end, that Terra was really good deep down and in the end she’d redeem herself and save the Titans. Which, y’know, she didn’t.

I just thought the whole thing was kind of garbage (fairly pretty art, though). I’ve never been a Geo-Force fan, but the idea that he would take the opportunity of the “last night on Earth” (or whatever; this doesn’t synch up with Final Crisis at all) to hunt down and kill the man who was responsible for his sister’s death YEARS ago…it’s just silly. That’s the only word I have for it. Earth’s heroes are marshaling their forces to take on the Great Evil, and he’s preoccupied with getting revenge for something that happened years ago. Add in their ridiculous confrontation in the alley, and it skyrocketed past silly and into the “totally cheesy” zone.

I also didn’t appreciate that what is essentially a Geo-Force vs. Deathstroke story — a story I never, in a million years, would have picked up — was dressed up as “The Last Will & Testament of the DC Universe.” The brief interstitials featuring characters I actually care about were either entirely too brief (one panel each for the Justice Society members?) or completely useless (the whole Robin/Nightwing/Batman scene). Misleading cover, stupid story, totally melodramatic execution — gah. I thought it was dreadful.

As for “Last Will and Testament”- sorry, Brian, but your review doesn’t really tell us anything about it. How is it metafictional?

“The main thrust of the comic is essentially a re-do of Countdown to Infinite Crisis #1, only if Blue Beetle doesn’t get his head blown off at the end.”

Oh my gods, the Joe Kubert art in this is glorious.
It just makes me jump up and down and get all squealy to see someone who’s able to produce great sequentials like this.
I’m'a gonna go look at it again!

Joe Kubert’s pages were nice, but man, what an awful, awful comic book. First time I’ve picked something up on Cronin’s recommendation and didn’t like it (which leaves him with a pretty good track record overall, of course).

Hmmm…you know what, Rohan, that’s a fair complaint.

Honestly, I was going to go with a slight not recommended at first, but I think I was just caught up in the whole “look what he’s trying to do here! This is admirable!” thing, but it never really felt right saying recommended - so screw it, back to slightly not recommended!

Ha! It’s all good, Brian. And Kubert’s pages really are nice. I just didn’t see anything redeeming in the script, but then, I avoided Identity Crisis and CTIC, so the improvements in Meltzer’s writing wouldn’t jump out at me.

The dialogue Slade and Brion have is basically a stand-in for the treatment of characters like Brion since Identity Crisis, where they are used as cannon fodder to make the big name characters react to their deaths.

Here, though, Brion was able to achieve a victory over Slade - doing what Ted Kord was not given the chance to do - actually stop the big bad guy himself.

I think it was a nice testament to the strengths of a vast universe of characters, to say that any one of them could be an engaging and important figure, not just as people we use to make Superman and Batman look REALLY good.

So I definitely think I reacted so warmly to that approach by Meltzer that I probably did overlook a lot of overwrought plot and dialogue (and an artist in Adam Kubert who did not fit the style of story at all).

Brian, I had a different interpretation of the confrontation between Geo-Force and Deathstroke — I didn’t see it as a victory.

Essentially, Geo-Force tries to commit suicide rather than go on living and eventually succumb to Deathstroke’s manipulation. Deathstroke sees this and expresses frustration — which in turn gives Geo-Force a chance to do what he set out to do — kill Deathstroke.

The scene with Black Lightning, I thought, was supposed to play as ironic. His dialogue indicates that he thinks Deathstroke slit Brion’s throat and Brion got a self-defense blow in. The look on Brion’s face isn’t very happy, and Black Lightning’s dialogue betrays a certain naivete about what actually happened.

And when you think about it, Geo-Force didn’t really have a victory. He not only failed to kill himself (and thus avoid becoming a threat later on), but Slade’s still alive as well. He hasn’t necessarily stopped Slade from turning him to the dark side, he just put it off. And he really did become a murderer (albeit an unsuccesful one) — his blow against Deathstroke was clearly intended to kill.

I think the scene has multiple interpretations, and I agree yours has some validity. However, I interpret it as, at best, an ambiguous victory. Overall, yes, Geo-Force does stop Deathstroke in this fight. But he doesn’t get the closure he’d hoped for, and in the end he truly hasn’t stopped Deathstroke’s threat — or his own.

I agree with Zack’s reading, this wasn’t a happy ending (I expect many moons from now, Meltzer will have Deathstroke follow up on his “promise” to Brion).

This reminded me a lot of Identity Crisis, and even his run on JLA. Like in those previous stories, Meltzer sets it all up quite well, but tries to get too tricksy with the ending and ultimately fails.

Oh yeah, Zack (and Anthony, I suppose), the ending is certainly not, like, rainbows and kittens or anything like that, Meltzer is definitely giving it a bit more of an edge to it, and I think he’s definitely having some fun with no one knowing the truth about what Brion did to himself.

However, look at this dialogue:

Deathstroke - “You’re just like her, so much to prove but so damn weak. I can help you be strong.”

Geo-Force - “I am Prince Brion Markov! There is nothing that will change that!”

DS - “Actually, you’re no different from the dead Blue Beetle or Elongated Man or your whore sister. You’re a C-lister. And in this day and age…in all this darkness…you don’t have a chance.”

And then Geo-Force manages to do what he thinks is the only way to defeat Slade, which is to kill himself (we even get flashbacks about how honorable it is to do that) and when he DOES do so, we get the following reaction from Slade…

(Eyes open wide in shock - small letters) “No.”

DS - “This is my victory! You know how much I invested! You don’t get to take that from me! This is mine, not yours!”

And then when he comes close to Brion, Brion stabs him in the chest with Slade’s own sword.

Black Lightning, of course, repeats TWICE with amazement that Brion beat Deathstroke.

While sure, there is an edge to it all, I think Meltzer is definitely intending this to be a happy ending. A bookend to Identity Crisis.

Where Meltzer and I would differ is that he likely looks at this as a bookend of a good story while I see it as finally some sort of pseudo-apology for the earlier story (even if, as I note - there is no way Meltzer is actually sorry about Identity Crisis).

Given his power set, there’s really no reason Geo-Force is a C-Lister other than he isn’t popular, and is a knock off of another character (possibly the only male knock-off of a female character, IIRC). He’s taken down Superman, after all.

“There was an issue of the Outsiders where Batman told Geo-Force about Terra’s true nature, which in turn led to him changing his costume to look less like hers.”

Well, technically he had nothing to do with the costume change - he was given it as a gift by Helo, IIRC.

(AKA “I’ve read the Showcase BATO recently, but not THAT recently”)

And as I’ve noted before, Meltzer doesn’t really need to apologise for Identity Crisis in my mind; sure, the ending was weak, but mysteries that have to keep the ending open generally are. The bigger point of the series was that “the league can endure death, but it probably won’t be able to endure such a large ethical conflict amongst its members”, and Meltzer pulled that off very nicely - the murders, and the murderer, weren’t as important as what the murders brought to light (although if you can’t get past the murders - the second of which even I think was a colossal mistake - and the rape, I can understand why you don’t like the series). Johns (and editorial, if it was an editorial mandate) needs to apologise for turning the followup into a meaningless excuse to revisit Crisis, rather than what everything was building to (the Batman / Superman / Wonder Woman conflict and the united supervillains making a push in the face of a broken JLA) before it went flying off the rails at the end of Identity Crisis #1.

This wouldn’t be Geo-Force’s first kill. I distinctly remember an Outsiders issue (near the end of the Baxter series, I believe) where threw a disc of some sort (shield, garbage can lid) and cut a bad guy’s head off.

However, look at this dialogue:

Good Lord, Brian, I so wish I didn’t. That was HORRIBLE.

Man, that was some good Joe Kubert. God dang.

So now that I bought it, is the rest of this comic worth reading for free?

So, is Deathstroke dead? If he is, shouldn’t Black Lightning suspect that Brion didn’t beat Deathstroke so much as murder him?

I need to re-read this.
I’m leaning on the side of saying it was a good book that will get better upon further review.
The decision to focus on Geo Force struck me as very … odd. I’ve never read any Titans or Outsiders books and am mostly familiar with the character from Meltzer’s Justice League run.
On the one hand the choice is wayyyyyyyyy too insider-ish. But as Meltzer showed in his Justice League run, he has an affection for the character and apparently is seeking any avenue possible to write about him.
And frankly the notion of a hero using what could be the eve of the end of the world to exact revenge on a villain is a good hook to build the story around. Whether Geo Force was the best choice can be debated, the the concept I think is great.
I also liked the scenes of characters throughout, from Wonder Woman and Donna Troy to the Batman Family.
As is typical of Meltzer’s work for DC, the book sometimes goes a little too far in making the superhero community a true “family” of colleagues who all know each other and name drop.
What I’ve found about Meltzer’s work is there are times when it just seems about ready to go off the rails, but he ultimately sells me on his concepts for these characters. The notion of “taking confession” in Challengers Mountain on the one hand just seems so absurd, and yet Meltzer sells me on it with the scenes and dialogue.
And that is sometimes his strength - He uses characters in ways that you might never think of, and yet when he does it, something just seems kind of “right” about the idea.
Also I frankly thought the final few pages were fantastic. The book is kind of solemn and then we wind up with a nervous Wally West seeking a morale boost from Hal Jordan, who in the DCU kind of best symbolizes the character who has fought the good fight, gone bad, died, and returned.
Within that one page Meltzer encapsulates the whole idea that the DC heroes have survived other Crises and they’ll make it out of this one, too.
But it’s just such a “joyful” ending to a bleak book, that alone made the issue worth buying and reading.

To clear up some Terra confusions: As I understand it, the second Terra was originally from the future, and had been implanted with a DNA virus to make her identical to the original Terra, and had been brainwashed into believing that she was the original Terra. However, she was not.

At one point, I think during Zero Hour, the Time Trapper revealed that she was actually from the past. But I think it’s time for selective continuity: if we change just that one word, “past,” to “future,” then everything still works out. She’s still the victim of a scheme from the future, a plant in the Titans. And later, when Geo-Force’s genetic testing reveals her to be his half-sister, but he still tells her that she is not his half-sister, we know it’s because a genetic test is not enough to be proof positive.

If we don’t use selective continuity, than she was from the future, except she was from the past FIRST, used as a pawn by two completely different people with two completely different agendas (possibly even three, I’m not even sure), and WAS the original Terra, which leads one to ask the question: why did she turn hero the second time around? And furthermore, why, as several people have already noted, isn’t Geo-Force mad at Black Adam the way he’s mad at Deathstroke?

I prefer the first version for those reasons.

This comic book was a bizarre, disjointed, ultimately mundane experience.

Just one example.
Geo-force is impaled in both legs, bruised from falling out of the sky, sliced himself in the throat,

And still he has the strength to draw a bigass longsword and drive it quickly through Deathstroke’s chainmail, both in front and behind, and through whatever’s in between?

“Johns (and editorial, if it was an editorial mandate) needs to apologise for turning the followup into a meaningless excuse to revisit Crisis, rather than what everything was building to (the Batman / Superman / Wonder Woman conflict and the united supervillains making a push in the face of a broken JLA) before it went flying off the rails at the end of Identity Crisis #1.”

That would have been so much better than what followed.

I’d have liked Geo Force to show a bit more of the royal hauteur that saw Projectra execute Nemesis Kid without a second thought in the Baxter Legion. Here’s my take on the book:

http://dangermart.blogspot.com/