DEATH IS THE PRIZE: Meanwhile in 1943,

Ordinarily, "Meanwhile in 1943" is exactly the kind of panel caption phrase I'd make fun of (and certain not use). BUT... Geoff Johns, in his craziest-boldest reinvention in a career full of almost nothing but crazy-bold reinventions, has asserted as canon, repeatedly and with zero ambiguity that Ollie "Green Arrow" Queen, as we now know him, WENT BACK IN TIME WITH ROY HARPER AND LIVED as Green Arrow. Not Some Other Multiverse version of him. The one in comics right now.

Who is currently ... hopping through the Timescape so as to prevent The Great Disaster.  You know; Green Arrow stuff.

And his son, who I didn't know still existed, seems to be in the Legion, which I didn't know still existed.  But if it DOES, then Section 3.1b of the Legion Constitution should still be in force:
"a member must have at least one genuine super-power not activated, assisted, or powered by extrinsic means and not possessed by the contemporary Terran population; and further, such super-power must be distinct from the super-power(s) possessed by any active member other than Superboy[.]"

I could not be happier about this (the backwards time-jumping, not the forward one) for several reasons. 

1. It makes Green Arrow even MORE ridiculous, when I thought that was impossible ("That's Our Geoff!") 

2. It shows that underneath it all and left to his own devices, Ollie is totally That '40s Guy with goofy gimmicks, in his element fighting alongside Gadget Gal.

Gadget Gal and Green Arrow would definitely have been *ahem* "pals" and would have been having lots of non-not-having-polio-related "fun".

3. ALL GOLDEN AGE GREEN ARROW IS NOW FAIR GAME.  It's not some quaint "Earth-2" version of Ollie; IT'S OLLIE, in all his glorious stupidity and incompetence.

THIS scene especially.

Now, #3 IS slightly ambiguous. The JSA exist both as the JLA's predecessors on Earth-1 AND in the Golden Age carnations as the main heroes on Earth-2, now. Really, it's true and an amusingly simple solution that allows writers (and us) to have our cake and eat it, too.

So, although we know that Earth-1 Ollie (and Roy) went to the '40s and fought crime there, we cannot say for CERTAIN that ALL the adventures we read in Golden Age Green Arrow stories are THEIRS and not, say, those of the Golden Age Green Arrow on Earth-2. 

But it's still fair game. So let's all pick up our copies of World's Finest #9....

Yeah, no, not that one.

Oh, yeah; that's the ticket.

....and try to read:

Let's see: Deadshot. Roy. Gadget Gal. And Prock, of course.

Seriously.  Have you seen what he can do with a slingshot? Even WITH a broken arm? Season 1 finale, people.

The captioner for Aquaman seems to have been moonlighting here.

Out of... the fishing net? I've lost the metaphorical thread, I'm afraid. But if it's a contest the likes of which I have never heard before, that would be "one where Green Arrow is the winner."

So, Green Arrow and Roy DO win, then.

YES.

Let's keep reading; I want to see who gets maimed for taking second place...

I'll assume the image is a metaphor. Splash pages usually were.

The Most Ouroborotic Man Alive

Well, The Flash, history's longest-running live-action DC superhero show, 

Oh my god, he's IGNORING "Smallville"!

is wrapping itself up and at last we have finally seen "our" Barry save his younger self from Reverse-Flash the night his mother died.

He's up against Matt Letscher as the Reverse-Flash who, although he is the "real" Eobard Thawne (appearance-wise) and is more believably petty and obsessive than Tom Cavanagh (who was always hard to believe was wasting his time and talent fussing with goober Barry Allen), simply lacks MENACE.  He's more like some **** at the office who ate the last cruller, saying, "Oh, I'm sorry, did you want that? Somebody's havin' a bad day!" After nine years, it's still not possible to believe Letscher and Cavanagh are playing the same character (a problem that Zach Levi and Asher Angel don't appear to have solved in the big screen Shazam films, either).

I'm not entirely certain they weren't told they were doing a new '"Freaky Friday" series.

It was certainly satisfying and surprisingly well done, especially considering that much of this final season has left fans, ahem, underwhelmed, to say the least. Many have theorized that the beginning of the season was crappy precisely because the show-runners were focused on the wrap-up tetrology, but I'm not sure I subscribe to that zero-sum analysis of production quality.

It was, I suppose, how the show had to end. 

You're a closed circuit, Barry;
you're got the answers in the palm of your hand.

But it does highlight a problem with the show and with the Flash in general that I have discussed before. Specifically: the Flash is about...

itself.

Pardon me that tautology, which seems like a stupid statement of the obvious.  What I really mean is that Flash stories are inordinately inward-looking and their subject matter is the Flash mythos itself, rather than external threats and situations.  Batman, Superman, et al.--they deal with threats that arise outside of them and that threaten people and things other than them.  On average, they are not the cause of the problems they have to solve and the problems they have to solve are problems for OTHER people, not merely themselves.  

For example, most of the icons in Batman's rogues gallery (the Joker, the Penguin, Catwoman, Riddler, et al.) are presented as pre-existing, operating criminals whom Batman steps in to put a stop to.

Two-Face's origins are bit more...
complicated.

Similar lists of villains could be made for most heroes. Even Lex Luthor, a villain who is famously obsessed with enmity for Superman, didn't start that way.  He was just a classic mad scientist, whose schemes Superman kept foiling. His later obsession with Superman was rooted in a retcon in Superboy story, twenty years after his first appearance.

Adventure Comics, #271 (1960)
BTW, fire extinguishers were invented in 1819, Lex.

How often is it mentioned "How Great Lex Could Be If Only He Weren't Obsessed With Superman?"

Answer: very often.

This, I'll mention in passing, is why I always so disappointed (angry, really) when fans and writers try to apply this template to the Joker (of all people).  

Frank Miller is to blame for this.
And quite a lot of other things, truth be told.

As if the Joker would be so weak as to be obsessed with ANYONE other than THE JOKER.

The Joker #7 (1975)
I can't believe I'm saying this, but ELIOT S! MAGGIN shows here a more sophisticated and deeper understanding of the Joker and Lex Luthor than most modern, pretentious writers.

In fact, most of Flash history was written like all the other heroes.   His classic foes

Unimaginatively called "The Rogues"

follow the traditional model of "existing crooks whom the heroes intervenes against".  Their particular flair or gimmicks may be informed by the fact that they have to face a superhero, sure.  But that's not their GOAL. It's neither their origin nor their purpose.  They aren't ABOUT the Flash.

That's this guy's job.

That's the Reverse-Flash's literary function. He has NO other origin or purpose other than messing with Barry. It's right there in the name.  He was DESIGNED to be what Luthor evolved to be: a perfect "anti-fan", but one who is also a mirror version of the hero.  Luthor is very much NOT Superman.  

Usually.

Other heroes have such villains, of course.   Batman has a score of them, most obviously Catman.

Deadshot, with his mean-girl taunting action, will always be my favorite.

Just kidding! No one can EVER replace Killer Moth in my funny bone of funny bones.

But Eobard Thawne is way better than all of those poseurs, and there is a reason. The Reverse-Flash is the combination of FOUR separate concepts: the Hater (the character who was created to and exists to hate the hero); the Stan (the character obsessed with the hero); the Competitor (the character designed to be the hero's threatening competitor); and the Anti-Hero (the character designed to be the opposite of the hero).  It's like somebody made Superman a smoothie out of Lex Luthor, Jimmy Olsen, Vartox, and Ultra-Man. 

Which would still smell and taste 100% like Vartox, by the way.

Eobard Thawne's a triple-espresso with cane sugar and any character in any of those categories is going to pale in comparison; "Sure, but he's no Reverse-Flash!"

So, you can't fault the Flash Mythos for having one villain who is its hero's perfect counterpart and using him as such.  Flash may have more powerful villains but none can possibly be more symbolically resonant.

The Reverse-Flash is where it started. But just as Eobard Thawne became increasingly obsessed with Barry Allen/the Flash, so too did Flash storylines. Over time they became more about Barry Allen and his twins and descendants and Iris and his supporting cast and persecution by Thawne and Iris's murder and Barry's trial for his murder of Thawne (with its own absurd outcome, absurd even by Flash standards).  When Wally became the Flash, it was really more of the same because, naturally, Wally was... another obsessed Flash fan, worried about his legacy and THEN... the SPEED FORCE concept hit, and ...

Well, since THAT, it's been a runaway train to see how far and how fast and how frequently the Flash can shove his head up his own mythos.  

Often an impressive feat.

Everything is about a problem WITH or FROM the Speed Force, or a threat to IT or the Flash (or his supporting cast).  Almost to a point where an objective observer would step back and say "you are not the solution, you are the problem; if the Flash and everything associated with him went it away, everyone else would not only be fine but much better off" (which is really not a situation you want your hero to be in).  Unsurprisingly, the show wound up having the same problem the comics did.

I'm fond of many things about Geoff Johns' approach to mythic consolidation, but his retcon of Barry Allen's origin contributed enormously to this problem.  In case you don't already know, "Reverse Flash killed Barry's mother and framed his father who went to jail which is why Barry became a CSI and thereafter the Flash" is a wholecloth invention of Geoff John's Flash Rebirth.  It has zero pre-Crisis precedent.  Pre-Crisis Barry needed no tragic backstory.  He was on the police force and got superheroes, so of course he fought crime; what ELSE would you do with a superpower?!  The only hero who needed a tragic backstory was Batman, because it gave him a reason to develop his "powers".

But Johns's retcon turned the Flash mythos inward-looking tendencies and now set the baseline at "fetidly inbred".  Reverse-Flash and the Flash created each other.

Where on earth did a young Geoff get such a ridiculous idea?

I mean, yeah, if there is any two characters for whom it's in character it's Flash and the Reverse-Flash but... that's the problem.  It's an ouroborotic mess that makes for a lovely sci-fi short-story, but as the basis for a superhero mythos it's constricting.

"Ouroborotic" is a Classicist polite way of saying "self-fellating".

There are various interpretations of What the Myths of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, et al. symbolize. I've discussed many such theories myself.  But none of them have been "two comic books fans pissed off at each other about which one has their favorite hero right" which is pretty much what Barry (fan of Golden Age Flash) versus Eobard (fan of Silver Age Flash) is about.

Now every time I try to check in on what's going in Flash comics it's an impenetrable wall of Speed Force / Flash Legacy /Speedster Character jargon that I shut down.  

Nobody writes comics like THAT any more.

I still remember that issue of the Flash, even though I read it 30 years ago.  How many of the comics you've read lately (Flash or otherwise) will you be able to say that about...?

The Man Who Replaced Batman (Part 5): The Vector of the Gun

So, I'm going to skip over the part of the story where: 

• Batman eavesdrops on a Deadshot phone call by hiding in a closet and putting a (I kid you not) wet-rimmed glass to a wall;
• hears Deadshot's giving some crook the all-clear for a heist;
• strong-arms Gordon into a stakeout for said heist, which never happens, thus reaffirming Gordon's dismissal of Batman's concerns about Deadshot as mere jealousy,
• while Deadshot, who set the whole thing up knowing that Batman would tumble to it, laughs at Batman for being a sucker.

Actually, you deserve to see that last part:

Because Batman's vertigo of cognitive dissonance is a thing of beauty.
"But.. but.. I'm... Batman?"

I simply love the fact that, although criminals have been shooting at Batman every night since May of 1939, this time it's just accepted as fact that: Deadshot has a gun and he's going to shoot Batman dead and get away it.  Even though Batman could kidnap Lawton (and Stevens) and sell them into slavery in the Transvaal, or just drop them off in Antarctica without, you know, ACTUALLY killing them.  Or could announce to the public "Deadshot is a criminal who has vowed to kill me so if he shoots me it was on purpose".  No, the crux of the issue has been that Daddy Gordon now believes DEADSHOT, who is his new favorite, over Batman. So fixing that and that ALONE is the only way out.

But first Deadshot gets to shoot Batman.

"It's a perfect night.... FOR MURDER!"

Then Batman turns the tables by back-sassing Deadshot:

"Have you ever killed a man, Floyd?  Ever hear of a man named 'Jabah'?
Yeah; neither has anyone else..."

I know Batman is a master of criminal psychology (you should read his thesis!), but this is still a baller move.  

Batman seldom unleashes the full power of his most lethal weapon: smack talk.

Batman probably spends too much time with the Joker.

Batman definitely spends too much time with the Joker.

Have ever quaked so badly from self-doubt in the face of existential terror that your domino mask falls off? It makes an already bad situation that much more embarrassing. Spirit gum can't hold together a shattered soul.

What would have been really awesome would have been for Deadshot to shoot himself in the head right then and there.  But this is 1950, not 1940, and it's not the style.  

"By telling him I'd rented a white stretch limo to take you to prom and that you'd promised me third base!"

Batman (the modern Odysseus), it turns out, has won again by his usual method: cheating.

Batman's faith in the mathematics of parallax is unparalleled.

Clearly this is unrealistic because a marksman like Deadshot would almost immediately realize that his sights had been altered and adjust accordingly. But what matters is the thematic come-uppance. Deadshot struck at Batman's confidence in himself and Gordon's confidence in Batman.  But Deadshot was vulnerable because his confidence was externally placed -- in his guns-- rather than internally rooted in himself.  

It's the same way Batman defeats Jean-Paul "Azrael/Batman" Valley in 1994.  

It's why the Dark Knight Returns Batman tells his new troops they don't use guns. 

It's the tactical reason Batman doesn't use them himself. Not because he's 'afraid' of using them; but because he's afraid of becoming reliant on such a tool.  Batman's explanation for how he can do things is not "because I have a gun/utility belt/vast fortune"; it's 

The Man Who Replaced Batman (Part 4): A Fight at the Opera

You'd think that once Batman knows Deadshot's real identity, the jig would be up, and the story would be over.  But, no; that would make too much sense. Nothing is ever direct or straightforward in a Golden Age story.  The plots are always off-center enough and roundabout that the outcome will (it is hoped) be a surprise.  Why, it's the literary equivalent of one of Deadshot's trick shots!

It explains the popularity of Golden Age Green Arrow;
it came as surprise every time he survived to the end of the story.

Now knowing Deadshot's 411, Batman does the Batman-thing and skulks about the shadows around Floyd's house, looking for more dirt on him--which Floyd presently provides:

Well, who could have seen that coming?

Turns out Floyd's not only a liar, he's a crook. Floyd is another-- nay, perhaps the first -- in the breed of Anti-Batmans that comic writers have thrown at us for decades.  Which ignores the fact that you can't sensibly invert the concept of Batman. Bruce Wayne was able to become a crimefighter because he happened to be rich.  But people don't become criminals because they happen to be rich; they become criminals IN ORDER to become rich.  

This same nonsensical inverted Batman concept would be used again only eight months later when Cameron "Killer Moth" Van Cleer is introduced.  

Except even Killer Moth wasn't dumb enough to rely on mere guns to defeat Batman.  He wielded the power of cross-media branding.

What on earth does a millionaire gun hobbyist like Floyd Lawton have to gain by becoming a crime lord? What's that going to get him, better seats at the opera? It's just like the Kim Possible villain, Señor Senior, Sr., who became a supervillain as a hobby because he was bored with just being rich.  

GOD, I love that guy: "World-class villains are defined by disproportionate revenge."

This discovery makes Batman & Robin angry enough to take a run at the fourth wall, to no avail.

Pictured: a direct frontal attack.

So, rather than going to Commissioner Gordon (or the press!), Batman confronts Deadshot directly. Where? At the opera, of course.  

I told you they needed an Operatic Crimes Division, but you didn't believe me, did you?

You have to love the erudition of Gotham City's underworld. In what other city, real or fictional, would an escaped convict make a beeline for the operahouse?  "Massenet's Grisélidis may not be performed again in my lifetime, and even if means I am caught and get the chair, at least I shall not have died uncultured! Haw!"  It's like an entire demimonde of Sideshow Bobs.

Deadshot, to his credit, calls Batman's bluff with one of literature's most glorious "SO WHAT?"s.  

DeGrassi: The Gotham Years

That's some pretty serious 'tec-blocking by Deadshot.  Poor Batman detected his little butt off, only to be undone by a haughty 'nyah, nyah-nyah, nyah nyah' from Floyd.  I must confess, it's delightfully refreshing.

So, far, this has all been just a verbal slapfight between Batman and Deadshot, like two teen debs fighting over who gets to take dreamy debate team captain Jimmy Gordon to Homecoming.  

And who can blame them?!

But now it gets SERIOUS. 

"Yes, sir; Operatic Crimes Division;
we're here about the incident you reported.  Did your wall have any enemies?"

Deadshot is a criminal genius; I guess no one's ever thought of just SHOOTING Batman before.  Although since he's Batman's competition and a crackshot, I should rather imagine that EVERYONE would suspect.  Besides, Deadshot already had his 'one miss' when he stupidly shot a hole in his own pocket.

Setting aside Deadshot's sudden extreme threat, let's consider his sudden eXXXtreme shooting.  It's important to note (as we have not before) that, even though it's 1950 not 1850, Deadshot uses REVOLVERS, not automatics.  As a practical matter, this makes no sense at all, of course; one can only assume that's just what 'a gun' looks like in the artist's mind.  

Now, it takes about 16 seconds (maybe as much as 19, if you are being particularly dramatic) to say the words Deadshot is saying in that panel.  During which he shoots approximately 135 bullets into the wall, which (given the need to reload his six-shooter while wearing opera gloves) would take, oh, 8 minutes, minimum.  

Trust me on this.

I bet that made for a pretty awkward 7 minutes or so, where Batman just stood there having to wait for Deadshot to finish his little LiteBrite project.  

Deadshot would have been a great Green Arrow foe.  For the one story it would take for him to kill Ollie. Because 135 bullets beat 35 arrows.

Batman, stymied by Deadshot's "so what" of existential invalidation, vows to stalk Deadshot as if his life depended on it, because it does.

Note again: fear of being supplanted in the affection of others.

Now it gets REALLY weird...