Not everything that happens three times is terrible, but...

Everything is circling the drain as I write this, sure; but you would be appalled at the litany of profanity I let out the other day, when I found I had three of this issue, and by rule if I buy the same damn comic three times, I have to blog it. From 2019, Heroes in Crisis #6, "Who is Saved?" Written by Tom King, art by Clay Mann and Mitch Gerads. 

 

I didn't read this when it first came out, since opinion seemed pretty divided; and because DC burned me once with Identity Crisis. Short form: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman have set up Sanctuary, a facility for heroes (and possibly villains) to recover from post-traumatic stress and other psychological problems. I'm not sure it's seen before this series, but doesn't matter, as it's wrecked here, and several heroes are murdered. The victims range from C-listers like Blue Jay or Commander Steel, up to Arsenal and Wally West. Booster Gold and Harley Quinn are the only survivors, or one might be the murderer; and someone has leaked the story to the press. 

 

This issue follows Wally, Harley, and old Teen Titans member/unfrozen cave guy Gnarrk through their therapeutic journeys. That's not really Gnarrk's origin, at least pre-Crisis (on Infinite Earths!) but close enough; and in fact Gnarrk mentions being frozen as he reminisces about life back in the Stone Age, but with a surprising amount of philosophy. (Seriously, Gnarrk's journey is interesting! "In old day, death always there. So Gnarrk worry about death. New day, life always there. So now, Gnarrk worry about life.") Harley wasn't supposed to be there, but had snuck in to be with Poison Ivy; and was maybe making some progress in dealing with Joker-related trauma. And Wally West...after various continuity resets, he was back, but without his wife and kids. All the other heroes, Barry, his friends in the Titans, were overjoyed to see him again; but nobody seemed to notice how much he missed them. (Or at least that's how it seems to Wally in those scenes. Wally's continuity was just a disaster; there were a couple of them for a while, too.)

This issue, by itself? Maybe not bad. But, spoilery discussion after the break.

  OK, you probably already know, and an earlier issue had Booster point out a clue: the murderer was Wally West. He didn't believe the other heroes there were 'real,' or really had problems; it had to just be him, right? He cracks the security on Sanctuary's systems and watches everyone's files, and all of that on top of his existing trauma breaks him. He accidentally kills everyone (except Booster and Harley) at super-speed, then when he realizes what he had done, he stages the crime scene, uses virtual reality to convince Booster and Harley that the other had been the murderer, leaks the documents and leaves the clues and makes arrangements for his past self to kill his future self? Not unlike Identity Crisis, Occam's razor goes right out the window here. 

All of this was seen by a lotta fans as character assassination of Wally; and yeah, probably: King does a good job setting up Wally's distress, not as good a job on the murders/coverup. And because comics, all of it would be walked back, pretty much exactly like Hal Jordan's breakdown was blamed on Parallax: Wally's breakdown would be the fault of Savitar.

While Poison Ivy would be regrown from a rose she gave Harley, all the other heroes killed would be saved later, in Flash #796. (Good, because if my boy Nemesis stayed dead, I would be pissed.) Wally would get his wife and kids back somewhere, too. Which undermines what King had maybe been trying to say about trauma: sometimes, things don't come back. But maybe a superhero comic isn't the best place to say that...or maybe not in that way? Like, superheroes would absolutely have trauma; but how they would have to deal with it would be almost completely unrelated to how regular people have to. Maybe. 

I didn't love the rest of the series, but there are moments? King writes Booster as just dumber than a box of rocks, but he and Beetle are great together. I feel like Harley was there because she was popular, but if you make too much headway towards wellness with her, she's not as Harley as people like, so she gets stuck. Thematically, both Wally and Booster seem like they're trying to keep up a brave face, even in therapy; because they can't seem to articulate "things are messed up and I'm not okay with it" and they think that's what heroes are supposed to do. The confessional style panels are interesting, but some of them just become jokes, like the various Robins wondering where they fit in, or they might be more about what King thinks of the character and other writers or continuity might disagree. It also feels telling that Wonder Woman, Black Canary, and Catwoman are all seen as largely blowing off that style of help. Tom King frustrates me: some moments shine, but the overall experience doesn't. I liked his Omega Men series, but am hesitant to re-read it, since I think it's "here's a bunch of terrible things happening, when they're over no one is helped or better for the experience, now live with it." Admittedly, that feels like the mindset of the moment, but still. 

BTW, I accidentally bought this three times--getting both covers, which doesn't happen every time--but still paid less than cover price.