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Mild Mannered Reviews - DC Universe

DC Universe Online Legends #24

DC Universe Online Legends #24

Scheduled to arrive in stores: February 29, 2012

Cover date: Late April 2012

"Collateral Damage"

Writer: Marv Wolfman
Penciller: Howard Porter
Inker: Livesay

Jeffrey Taylor Reviewed by: Jeffrey Taylor

Click to enlarge


After last issue's battle with the villains, many of the heroes lay injured in the hospital under the medical expertise of Dr. Midnight, but they're overwhelmed. Some, like Starfire are in critical condition while others are already dead. With the help of Zatanna and Zatara, Dr. Fate is able to save her life, but Kory remains in a coma.

Batman, Firestorm, Wonder Woman and Red Arrow discuss getting back to the battle since Brainiac himself has descended to join the villains. Roy points out that they still don't have a clue where Superman has disappeared to and they will need his help.

At that, Luthor turns around and declares that he's coming up with a strategy. He claims that they can't defeat Brainiac the way they're fighting now and they're going to need some enhancements. He provides everyone with special armor that will help protect them in the next battle. Batman complains that it's very heavy, but Luthor assures him that it will respond properly and protect him instead of getting in the way.

With that, the fight begins and it's remarkably similar to the opening video to the DC Universe Online video game, the ending of which became the beginning of this comic series. While the villains jump into battle, Deathstroke questions Brainiac's motivations, which impresses him because Deathstroke has so little power compared to some of his compatriots.

Brainiac waves his hands and takes over Luthor's armor, forcing him to help stop the heroes. Batman has Cyborg concentrate fire on Luthor while somehow contacting Superman, who is indeed in space, just like in the video. Circe takes down Wonder Woman while Lex drops Red Tornado.

Superman lands yelling to Lex, "You don't deserve to live." He throws Luthor aside when he sees Wonder Woman has fallen, but she has Kryptonite in her mouth, which slows Superman down in time for Lex to spear him in the back. Batman is injured, but yells out, so Lex steps on his head. Now that Luthor has done Brainiac's business, he lets Lex free from his control.

Brainiac leaves all the villains there and beams back up to his ship. They wonder why he's not taking them with him as promised, but Deathstroke immediately realizes what's happening and tells everyone to run. Brainiac shoots him from his ship and fires a wide beam to take out all the other villains.

Lex turns to the fallen Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman saying, "He played his hand. It's time for us to play ours!" To Brainiac's surprise, they all get up, very much still alive. Lex yells out "We lied too."

To be continued...

4Story - 4: I really enjoyed the similarity to the opening video from the game. This is a sort of redo of that, but with most of the heroes surviving. It changes much of the story because the past in this story always seemed to be leading to the future with that scene. It was clearly not the same continuity as the game itself because that one involved the future Lex Luthor going back to the past to inform Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman of the future with Brainiac, then releasing the exobytes that would create the player characters in the game.

The first clue that this would play out differently was several issues ago when The Atom was killed in the space battle. He was in the future scenes from this comic series, so killing him either would have been an oversight, or this was never that future. Clearly we can now say for sure that it was the latter. There are still other dissimilarities between the last battle, so it was hard to tell that it would even be going in that direction until Superman was contacted in space.

It's strange that Firestorm is still alive. In the last issue, Black Adam appeared to have broken his neck, but he's still here. It would be fine if there were some sort of explanation. Plus the battle armor that Lex handed out to the heroes was a bit silly. The only reason I expect he did it was so the designs would match up with the video in the game. The moment when Lex was hitting on Wonder Woman was more than a little creepy.

3Art - 3: As much as I've tended to dislike this art style for this story, it's either begun to grow on me or it feels more fitting this time around. Parts of the battle were excellent, especially once Superman came into the fray. As silly as the battle armor was in the story, it looked good on some of the characters. Then again, it was hard to tell that others even had any on.

1Cover Art - 1: This was one of the weakest covers of the series. Besides not caring for the character design, it's simply not dynamic, even compared to some of the other covers I haven't cared for. More than anything, I don't like the way Lex and Batman are drawn, even though the action shot is fine. The colors lack definition and the background is bland. This is one cover that would have benefited from having more characters. The heroes were actually fighting the villains this time, so there was no need to set the cover on Brainiac's ship fighting his robots.

Mild Mannered Reviews

2012

Note: Month dates are from the issue covers, not the actual date when the comic went on sale.

January 2012

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