INFINITE CRISIS: SECRET FILES AND ORIGINS #1

By: Kurt Amacker
Review Date: Friday, March 17, 2006

Often, the SECRET FILES AND ORIGINS one-shots do little more than catch readers up on the characters in questions and offer a couple of short stories that you can usually skip, all for a hefty price tag. Come on back in the day, you could get a graphic novel for $5.99. However, Marv Wolfman created something intelligent and provocative that stands apart from its ilk. When I spoke to Wolfman at Crescent City Con last summer, I asked him if he would work on anymore comics, or just focus on novels and television. He said he would, but couldn't say what. I believe we have the answer.

After CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, Earth 2's Superman and Lois, Earth 3's Alexander Luthor, and Earth Prime's Superboy were relegated to a safe haven where they escaped the destructive continuity realignment that folded the multiple DC Earths into one. While the end of CoIE suggested they were in an indescribably peaceful place one beyond time and death -- INFINITE CRISIS and Marv Wolfman have revealed otherwise. True, the four found paradise, but they also couldn't leave. Able to manipulate the very reality of their prison, Superman builds a model Metropolis and newspaper office for Lois, while Superboy watches images of his childhood. The four also watch as the new Earth's heroes degenerate into violence and wrath, all the while fighting boredom and outrage. Then, Lois falls ill. Superboy's rage consumes him. As he punches the walls of the prison, Alexander Luthor realizes that his blows subtly alter the reality of the new Earth resurrecting Jason Todd, for instance. He realizes that not only can they escape, they can forcibly save Earth from itself. In his drive to cure Lois, Superman agrees to assist in the breakout, leading into the events of INFINITE CRISIS.

Wolfman has crafted a personal, human story one vaguely similar to Jean Paul Sartre's existentialist drama NO EXIT. In that play, Hell is a waiting room where sinners must tolerate each other for eternity. While the exit remains open, none of them can muster the courage to leave and they remain trapped by their own consent. In Wolfman's tale, our heroes find themselves confined in an ageless realm one admittedly more pleasant where, though they do not suffer, they cannot affect true change. Until Superboy slams the walls, Superman finds himself powerless to help Lois and Luthor grows angry watching the DC heroes blur the line between themselves and the villains they fight. Effectively, DC and Wolfman have acknowledged and commented upon the evolution of their characters since CoIE with a novel self-awareness that rarely seems ironic or smug. Like some readers, the old heroes can't abide by the "grim and gritty" turn taken since Frank Miller created THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS.

What could've served as a quick buck for DC turned out as a touching, human story of heroes powerless to affect change in paradise, but suffering nonetheless. Buy this right now.

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