Crisis Of Conscience

By Joshua ‘Sentinel of the Spaceways’ Reding

Disclaimer: Because this is a review this article will contain numerous minor spoilers, but I will try not to completely tell you the story, just give a brief taste.

Crisis of conscience is the follow-up to Identity Crisis and was an interesting book, and extremely enjoying read with just a couple gripes. The art was excellent however and I want to applaud the entire art team. Everything is clean and the colorist David Baron did a wonderful job on the sheer vibrance of the colors. The story was interesting, but not really noteworthy if just because I thought that the reveal of who was giving the villains back their memories was kind of weak. The fallout however from the events of Identity Crisis did pose some very interesting questions that Geoff Johns addressed in this book, the biggest of these being Catwoman. Anyone who has been following Catwoman in any capacity in the last few years knows that she has been playing the hero in Gotham for a while. This book however calls into question whether or not it she made this switch of her own free will or if it was forced upon her by Zatanna in an event to ‘clean her up’ a la the Top in Flash (Secret of Barry Allen). This also serves as yet another reason for Batman leaving the League in addition to his own experiences with mind wipes. The biggest problem I have with this book is the return to the status quo of the book from the beginning. Let me explain.

The villains from the original society that discovered the JLA’s secret identities way back (The Wizard, Chronos, Star Sapphire, Felix Faust, Floronic Man, and Matter Master) return with a vengeance and their newly returned memories. With this newfound knowledge they head out after the loved ones of the heroes and they start at the top. Lois Lane. This really ticks off Superman who is furious that they would target his wife in such a manor. It is a cool touch that almost whenever the villains address the superheroes they call them by their first names. While the Society attacks the Daily Planet they discuss whom they should go after first and some familiar names are thrown out such as Carol Ferris, Barbara Gordon, and Iris Allen. The heroes defeat the villains of course but once again, the matter is put to a vote about whether they should mind wipe them again. The vote of course becomes a tie and Zatanna is the deciding vote. Johns throws us a curveball though and Zatanna leaves saying that she refuses to do it no matter what the outcome of the vote is which I really liked. Zatanna eventually does decide to take action after a hiatus on Paradise Island discussing things over with Wonder Woman. She decides that they pretty much deserve what they are getting and mind wipe them again. Is she not just creating the same exact problem all over again? I also would think that the League would wonder why these villains who were spouting off their civilian identities in public and threatening to off their loved ones would suddenly back down. It is kind of minor but it would have been interesting to see the reaction.

The only other problem with this book, yet another minor gripe was that when Martian Manhunter returns to the Watchtower right before the smack down at the Daily Planet he destroys the Watchtower in his fight with the big baddy of the book whose name I won’t spoil. But later after the JLA defeats said villain and disbands because of the general feeling of mistrust among the heroes, and J’onn returns to the Watchtower it is in perfect shape. I was skeptical about this. The story ends with the cliff hanger of an unidentified being whom J’onn mistakes for Superman blowing the Watchtower up yet again. Dang, how many times can that thing get blown up? Seriously. All in all, this was a good book that questioned the exact number of villains and possibly heroes whose minds have been altered in the DCU and also leads us directly into Infinite Crisis with the last couple pages.

Joshua