The Real Power Cosmic

I have to thank Ryan (Hulk Smash) over on the boards for mentioning the little gem of a miniseries called Cosmic Odyssey. I had never heard of this DC miniseries from 1988 til recently and I have to tell you I'm glad I found it because its fantastic. If you are enjoying all of the headscratching New Gods references in Final Crisis pick up this trade because its relevant.

Cosmic Odyssey collects a four issue miniseries in which a team of DC heroes join up with the New Gods and Darkseid to prevent an aspect of the Anti-Life equation from destroying the universe through targeted explosions on the planets Earth, Xanshi, Rann and Thanagar. The basic plot premise is that the threat of the Anti-Life equation is so great Darkseid actually joins up with Highfather and Orion and Lightray to recruit the superheroes in helping to stop the coming apocalypse (pun intended). Similar to the earliest days of superhero team ups the heroes are divided into teams. Superman teams with Orion on Thanagar, Starfire with Lightray on Rann, Batman with Forager on Earth, and J'onn J'onnz and John Stewart on Xanshi. You also get a great and crucial appearnce by the Demon Etrigan. Jim Starlin is the writer here and Pencils are by Mike Mignola.

What can I say. This is a fantastic miniseries that reinforces comics as the modern version of Greek myths. This is far better (but oddly less famous) than Starlins Infinity Trilogy over at Marvel. One reason is its an epic but with a relatively small cast. Instead of the normal how do we get 75 heroes in one place framing problem the team here is assembled rather quickly. The central plot is a little confusing but it doesn't really matter. The dialogue is tight and shows how the modern age was emphasizing character focused dialogue rather than copious exposition. Starlin ang Mignola work very well here. This is a character study. The Batman Forager pairing reveals a lesson about sterotyping and prejudice and the John Stewart/J'onn J'onnz pairing provides a tragic lesson in arrogance that would be explored later in Green Lantern.

All in all this is an enjoyable read that DC fanboys (especially Kirby DC) will love but it is not so continuity heavy that a new reader would be lost. On the contrary this is an ideal introduction to some of DC's cosmic characters and a good space epic. I hope DC gives this a new release editionespecially since this its twentieth anniversary because it more than deserves it.

Later

Kevin