Written by Tony Bedard and Marv Wolfman
Illustrated by Howard Porter and LivesayThe DC event of the year begins, coinciding with the release of the wildly anticipated DCU MMO! Get ready for the ride of a lifetime with this immense, 26-issue biweekly series!
In issue #1, Lex Luthor’s obsession with destroying Superman reaches fever pitch when he cuts the ultimate Devil’s deal with Brainiac…but with the shake of a hand, has Luthor consigned humanity to genocide?
Comic book legend Marv Wolfman joins fan-favorite writer Tony Bedard and artist Howard Porter to tell the ultimate DC Universe Super Hero tale of good versus evil!
I have not actually played DCU Online yet. I’d like to pretend that it’s because I’m not into online games, but really it’s because I still haven’t beaten Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood due to lack of time to truly dedicate to playing videogames. It’s with that in mind that DCUO Legends is basically my only entrance into the world of DCU Online until perhaps the summer, at the earliest. But is it worth it?
Take a look behind the cut for my thoughts
The book pretty much supposes right off the bat that you’ve seen the trailer/introduction for the game as it picks up right as Lex Luthor delivers the final blow to Superman using the same dialogue used in the game’s cinematic. As we are supposed to know, the inherent plot for the game is that Luthor teamed up with Braniac in order to finally rid the world of Superman and the other heroes, and as the world falls and Luthor stands victorious, Braniac inevitably betrays Luthor in order to take the world and it’s history for his own. On paper, this is an absolutely awesome plot, and the video made for DCU Online is quite awesome. In execution of the comic book, however, we lose a lot.
I’m going to go ahead and assume here that the comic book will essentially outline future Luthor as he fights against Braniac, inevitably finding his way into the past to “save” the future (or whatever his true ultimate goal is). However, while the introduction to the comic is really quite good (picking up right where the animatic leaves off), the rest of the book generally falls flat. The plot is initially interesting because we don’t know what happens in the future. This is what makes the game great (at least, on paper): you help shape the future yourself. That’s the whole point. Eventually Braniac will come along and things will get bad, but in the mean time you can help to effect change. With this, we’re simply following Luthor on a desperate flight to survive, and it’s not exactly that interesting from an objective standpoint. Luthor is the reason that the future is ruined, so you’d assume that this would play a part in the story, but it seems like here Luthor is simply a selfish figure who has no care for anyone he can’t use (as is evidenced by the Black Adam sequence). On the one hand, it speaks true to forms of the character, but on the other hand DC is currently publishing a title that stars Lex Luthor as a fully three-dimensional anti-hero, and you’d be hard pressed to find someone who would rather follow this over Action Comics.
Besides, it’s kind of hard to ignore the fact that I’ve already seen the recent video put online for the February update, which I suppose is a pretty epic spoiler for the game/comic/general story.
Bedard and Wolfman are both talented writers, as Wolfman is one of the most celebrated writers at DC and Bedard is a bourgening talent who honestly deservese more recognition (at least for the consistently entertaining REBELS title). However, here none of their talents really shine. Wolfman is great at largescale plots, but at the moment the story is really pigeonholed to the scene by scene manuevering of Lex Luthor, and it doesn’t seem to fit with what Wolfman is good at. Wolfman helped co-create the plot of the game in general, so you can feel the elements of his contribution there (especially with how grandiose the story feels), but the execution of the comic tie-in doesn’t really fly. Meanwhile, Bedard has proven that he is good at writing anti-hero characters and big fight sequences, but neither really excell here. For someone that has been kicking ass writing villains in Green Lantern Corps and REBELS, you’d think the story might feel a tad bit more natural, and the end of the book where everyone decides to team-up with Luthor despite all the bad that he’s done seems a bit quick. The art for the book by Howard Porter and Livesay looks good, and the introduction to the book that matches the cinematic with an unshaven Superman still looks great, but as the title moves forward the quality of the art does have somewhat of a downturn. Not to a truly disappointing standpoint as there are some nice visual moments (I point again to the Black Adam scene)
Continued belowThe general problem the book has is that Luthor doesn’t really ever feel like Luthor, and while this is an “alternate future” Luthor that obviously has room to waver on interpretation, it kind of feels like you’re reading a book starring a child that doesn’t belong. While I understand the element of the plot that of course Braniac betrays Luthor, part of you has to sit back and think… well, of course Braniac betrays Luthor. The book attempts to rationalize the betrayal, but when you read the reasons that Luthor was ultimately suckered in, it seems quite odd that in years worth of continuity of comics, Bedard and Wolfman didn’t think that Luthor would’ve given himself an out. Look at the Last Stand of New Krypton from last year, when Braniac violently tore of Lex Luthor’s head. Oops! It was a robot decoy. With the cinematic not having a “definitive” end between Luthor traveling back in time and being betrayed, you can assume his way out was to go back in time and “fix” things, but with the story dragged out now and us actually being shown it takes away from this story element.
Ultimately, the idea of Lex Luthor in a post-apocalyptic future trying to fight his way back to the past seems like an entertaining idea, but it just doesn’t fly. video game tie-ins don’t have to be bad, and this comic actually feels like it makes sense for the game. On one level it’s a love it/hate it read, but you also have to consider the following two things: 1) You have two bi-weekly books at the moment, both of which are already better, and 2) Watching the original trailer/intro cinematic as well as the recently provided cinematic for the February update are honestly a lot better, storywise and visually. DcUO Legends #1 is ultimately a pilot issue that’s supposed to draw you in, and it ostensibly fails to do so due to the already existing media for the game.
Final Verdict: 4.9 – Pass
