Another month gives us another attempt at accruing support for DC’s latest computer title, Infinite Crisis: Fight for the Multiverse. In an attempt to match up with the likes of Dota 2 and League of Legends, DC decided to take creative iterations of heroes and make them battle to the death. Following Dan Abnett’s multi-universal story, this series has definitely had a rocky first arc and has suffered from the regularly awful artwork. This issue, we’re given the basis for the next arc and the new artifact our heroes will be battling over.
Chapter Twenty-Eight: With a new arc comes a need to introduce new characters, and this chapter serves as little more than a slugfest and a chance to bring new heroes into the fold. Last issue we got a glimpse of the politics of Gaslight Earth, and how Lex Luthor has been using some kind of mind-control or hypnosis to direct the planet’s governing bodies. Among those is Gaslight Hawkgirl, who makes her debut amid a Superman/Batman/Luthor/Mercy Graves melee. Taking place on Luthor’s airship, we get a few quick one-liners and brief snippets of action, but nothing that would set this particular scrimmage apart from the mass of other fights we’ve seen before. Superman and Batman track Luthor down when Hawkgirl makes her appearance. Also, the word “Damn” and its variances were used five times in like ten pages. That became noticeable real quick. SCORE: 4/10
Chapter Twenty-Nine: We get our first real look at Gaslight Hawkgirl, and boy does she look awesome! The best part of this book is seeing all the different versions of familiar heroes, and the work done by Eduardo Francisco on Shayera is far and above the best when compared to the otherwise poor character models that have plagued this series. Luthor disarms his suit while Batman and Superman retell the events of the last few issues to Shayera. Apparently, Selina had been spying on Luthor since their return to Earth-19 and how he has been using the stolen alien plans to design new technology. Luthor reveals that what he has been designing is the Earth Engine that was found on Atomic Earth. They are based off of Luthor’s mind-control device, and could control the thoughts and emotions of an entire planet. Batman does the logical thing of getting the team back together, only to leave us with the image of Arcane Green Lantern defeated at the hands of HK-47…I, mean…Mecha Deathstroke (Come on, he calls Hal a “meatbag.” KOTOR fans? Anyone?) SCORE: 7/10
Chapter Thirty: I’m conflicted about the blatant Knights of the Old Republic rip-off. Positively, HK-47 is one of, if not the best, robotic secondary character in all of video game history. Negatively, there’s no KOTOR 3 coming anytime soon, and that makes me sad. Hopefully Battlefront 3 can hold us over until then, especially since Disney scrapped Star Wars 1313. Did you see how awesome that trailer was? Can we just talk about Star Wars video games? My favorite were KOTOR 1 & 2, Star Wars Starfighter 1 & 2, Star Wars: Obi-wan, Battlefront 1 & 2, Super Star Wars, Republic Commando, Jedi Knight 2 & 3, and of course Star Wars: X-Wing and TIE-Fighter. Also, the reunited squad teams up to investigate the locations of each Earth Engine. I laughed out loud when Captain Boomerang threatened Superman, Atomic Wonder Woman, and Arcane Green Lantern. And the appearance of Nightmare Batman was fantastic! SCORE: 8/10 MEATBAGS
I don’t think I understand the rules of the Gaslight World. It would seem that everything is powered by steam or coal in the style of our world’s 19th century. Hell, we saw in this series that the only person who has been capable of harnessing something as simple as electricity (simple in relation to things like modern nuclear power and the crazy science of comic books) has been Lex Luthor. I don’t think that gives him the ability to create a suit capable of not only withstanding a number of Superman’s punches but also inventing rockets that could go as fast as Supes as well as weapons that could potential harm him. Most villains of our technologically advanced world and alien races with superior technology are usually ineffective at harming Clark. It felt like a cheap way of weakening Superman and making Luthor seem like a far more brilliant inventor than he probably is. If you can’t figure out how to mass-produce jet-planes, I don’t think you’re capable of creating rockets that could cross “a continent and an ocean.” Even with his newfound plans, comic logic is comic logic.
Favorite Quote: “Will you hold him while I hit him, or shall we commence the other way around?” – Shayera Thol
Recommended If…
- You’re a fan of Hawkgirl.
- You realized that this game has been in Beta until just now.
- You still get the e-mails promising new champions.
Overall: This is fun and all, but I see a rapidly-declining audience for a decent story with substandard artwork. I’m be genuinely interested about the digital and paper numbers for these issues. At my local shop, they only get a handful of these each month, so I can’t imagine it’s doing too well.
SCORE: 7.5/10
