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DEATH OF THE NEW GODS #1 by Jim Starlin (2007)-Review

DC has been on a binge of world-shaking crossover events for a while now. You've seen this if you've dared delve into any of their comics in the last two years, and noticed that nobody is recognizable, those few that are have become utterly unlikeable, and, most importantly, everybody dies. Then they create another parallel universe, bring those characters back to life, because otherwise how could you kill them again? Why sell one earthshaking catastrophe in the lives of beloved characters when you could repeat that every month? It certainly saves you from having to generate many new ideas, which explains how Geoff Johns seems to be writing almost everything at DC these days(certainly any random DC comic I seem to pick up), which is good given that they've stopped accepting submissions, except as portfolio glance-throughs at conventions.

The bringing back of multiple earths in INFINITE CRISIS, 52 and COUNTDOWN, the very commercial brutalizing of characters in all three, not to mention the reprehensible IDENTITY CRISIS, which began all this, were reportedly pitched to DC as, well, infinite marketing opportunities, a chance to have as many versions of their characters as TV, toys, movies and video games can allow. And so began Permanent Crisis, yet another stage of DC eating itself. DC has looked back at the success of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS without remembering that, without the damage and confusion it had wrought upon almost every comic they had(which is what drove so many to Vertigo in the 90s), there wouldn't have been any need to "fix" anything anyway. CRISIS is a relic of the 80s, a profoundly anti-nostalgic time hell-bent on being as artificial and"now" as possible, which can be seen reflected in John Byrne's now-silly changes to Superman, which proved that you cannot remove the corn from that character; he is pure corn, and that's why people read Superman comics in the first place. For what John Byrne was providing, anyone who'd care already had MOONLIGHTING. Like all other times the majors have hitched themselves to a single horse, eventually it will be dehydrated and run headfirst into the ground, taking all wagons down with it.

But in the meantime, Dan Didio thirsts for blood, and if characters need whacking, who better to bring to the job than Jim Starlin? Starlin is best known to all comics readers for two things: being to comics style and subject matter what Kansas is to rock, and killing off

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