Final Crisis Aftermath – Dance #1

I see it’s time for the next fiendishly clever, super-funny, massively high-concept Joe Casey book that no one will buy.  So in case you’ve gotten sick of your worn-out copies of Automatic Kafka, Wildcats 3.0, and The Intimates, Here’s your new dose.  This time out, Casey gets to play with one of Morrison’s more amusing ideas from FC, Super Young Team.  The team are a bunch well-meaning but narcissistic kids who have grown up on WiFi, Facebook, and manga.  They’re set up as big media superstars, but it remains to be seen whether they’ll acclimate to the vacuous soundbite culture surrounding them.

Unlike the other FC aftermath dreck we’ve seen so far, this book has plenty of interesting features to recommend it.  There’s the rebelliousness of youth, of course.  Everyone likes that.  But complicating that, we see quickly that Superbat is not the kind of guy who wants to just bask in empty glory, even though that’s obviously what he’s expected to do.  The team would all like to chafe against authority, but at present they’re just too busy being young and looking good.  The side dishes are also pretty spectacular: we have unrequited love, a monster, big parties, a glimpse of the incredible pace at which Japanese pop culture seems to move, and a heavy layer of self-aware sarcasm. Top it off with a scolding from an aging old school hero and a sprinkling of evil-corporation scheming, and you’ve got a great little brew.

One thing I do wonder: +1 for the ongoing twitter stream in this book, but -2 to Casey, or his editors, or whoever, for not realizing that Superbat is @ing himself, highly odd behavior on twitter.

~ by The Comics Dad on May 24, 2009.