Heroes in Crisis starting in September (2018)

DC REVEALS TOM KING AND CLAY MANN’S TOP SECRET PROJECT, SANCTUARY, AS “HEROES IN CRISIS”
By Official Press Release -- Wednesday, June 13th, 2018
Seven-Issue September Miniseries Offers King’s Unprecedented Vision of the DC Universe
Introduces Sanctuary, A Crisis Center for DC Super Heroes That Combines Superman’s Kryptonian Technology, Wonder Woman’s Amazonian Mysticism and Is Powered by Batman’s Financial Empire

(June 13, 2018 – Burbank, CA) There’s a crisis headed toward DC’s greatest heroes, but it isn’t coming from outer space or another dimension—this time, the threat is homegrown. DC proudly presents a new seven-issue miniseries debuting in September by Tom King and his BATMAN collaborator/artist Clay Mann, titled HEROES IN CRISIS.
A former counterterrorism operations officer with the CIA, King’s bestselling, critically acclaimed comics—including THE SHERIFF OF BABYLON, THE OMEGA MEN, BATMAN, MISTER MIRACLE—have often grappled with war and conflict, and a hero’s struggle to put their war and their trauma behind them. This new series will explore similar themes against the backdrop of a murder mystery involving Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, Booster Gold, and the rest of the World’s Greatest Super Heroes.
“I feel like I’m part of a rolling generation of people who spent their twenties overseas fighting terrorism,” explained King. “Millions of people cycle through that machine and come home to America. And I think that sort of experience of violence is shaping who we are as a culture, and as a country. And I want to talk about that. I want to talk about that experience, the experience of what violence can do to a person, to a community, to a nation, to a world.”
These pressures and internal conflicts can impact superheroes just as hard, if not more. To that end, King created a sanctuary within the pages of the comics he’s writing—a crisis center for superheroes who spend their lives fighting villainy and protecting others.
HEROES IN CRISIS is not a tale of universes colliding and dying. Instead this is a story centering on the humans and superhumans under the mask; this is about what allows them to get up and fight when it appears they can’t ever get up and fight again. When it’s too much, and it’s often too much, heroes go to Sanctuary—created by Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman—to find a moment of safety before returning to a universe of violence. HEROES IN CRISIS is also about what happens when Sanctuary fails, resulting in catastrophic consequences for the DCU.
“If I could do anything to the DCU,” concluded King, “it would be to bring a sense of community of superheroes and people. I feel a duty to talk about what violence does to a society through the comics I’m creating.”
The premiere issue of HEROES IN CRISIS, written by Tom King with art by Clay Mann and Tomeu Morey, lettered by Clayton Cowles, and edited by Jamie S. Rich and Brittany Holzherr, will reach comic book stores and be available digitally on September 26.

MajorHoy wrote:I'm really not feeling this . . . is anybody going to give it a try?

Mbast1 wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:I'm really not feeling this . . . is anybody going to give it a try?

No, and not just because of my DC ban. There really are, to me, just some things superheroes can't do. Realistic takes on violence is one of them. At that point, they lose all charm. Watchmen, to my mind, along with Miracleman pretty much made it clear that superheroes need to stay in their lane.

tony ingram wrote:

Mbast1 wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:I'm really not feeling this . . . is anybody going to give it a try?

No, and not just because of my DC ban. There really are, to me, just some things superheroes can't do. Realistic takes on violence is one of them. At that point, they lose all charm. Watchmen, to my mind, along with Miracleman pretty much made it clear that superheroes need to stay in their lane.

Really? To me, those two titles were among the best comics ever written, and evidence that superheroes can be used to tell more serious stories rather than just simplistic good guys vs bad guys stuff. This project actually sounds quite intriguing to me.

MajorHoy wrote:“I feel like I’m part of a rolling generation of people who spent their twenties overseas fighting terrorism,” explained King.

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:

Mbast1 wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:I'm really not feeling this . . . is anybody going to give it a try?

No, and not just because of my DC ban. There really are, to me, just some things superheroes can't do. Realistic takes on violence is one of them. At that point, they lose all charm. Watchmen, to my mind, along with Miracleman pretty much made it clear that superheroes need to stay in their lane.

Really? To me, those two titles were among the best comics ever written, and evidence that superheroes can be used to tell more serious stories rather than just simplistic good guys vs bad guys stuff. This project actually sounds quite intriguing to me.

They may have been good, well-written comic books, but do you want ALL your DC superheroes to be that way?
I really have not liked what little I've read of King's writing on Batman; we won't even go in to how ludicrous I thought his story arc where Catwoman was suspected of killing off all the members of a world-wide terrorist group, only to have it revealed that her old friend Holly actually did all that (  ).
And this coming limited-series sounds like it could fall into the same territory as Identity Crisis and Justice League: Cry for Justice (both of which, I admit, I have never actually read from beginning to end; other people's comments and my own glancing through copies of TPB collections did nothing to encourage me to actually spend money on them).

tony ingram wrote: . . . And I seem to remember quite liking that Catwoman story...

tony ingram wrote:I don't recall the incident you refer to, but then Oklahoma is probably not really on my radar. I suspect I'm just used to assuming that this sort of thing happens a lot in America. It's kind of the impression a lot of us have over here, I think.

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:I don't recall the incident you refer to, but then Oklahoma is probably not really on my radar. I suspect I'm just used to assuming that this sort of thing happens a lot in America. It's kind of the impression a lot of us have over here, I think.

Those things don't happen regularly over here, especially not on that massive scale (nearly 300 deaths).
And, again, even in the fictional world of DC, this was in The Goddamn Batman's own home city, at a place named for his parents!!!
You would have thought there would have been more done to break the terrorist group than have one lone person unaffiliated with any secret agency quietly go after every single member without any competition / interference.

tony ingram wrote:I've just kind of been raised to believe there's a lot of violence in America on a scale we don't see, and of course, this is Gotham anyway and that has always been depicted as a bit of a hellhole, so it wouldn't really have occurred to me.

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:I've just kind of been raised to believe there's a lot of violence in America on a scale we don't see, and of course, this is Gotham anyway and that has always been depicted as a bit of a hellhole, so it wouldn't really have occurred to me.

And don't forget the US population is maybe about five times larger than Great Britain's, and the area comparisons are (according to a quick Google search):
* Great Britain = 80,823 mi² / 209,331 km²
* United States = approx. 3,800,000 mi² / 9,841,955 km²

More people and more area unfortunately means more possibilities for violence.

tony ingram wrote:I find it difficult to think of distances on that scale, TBH. To me, the distance from where I currently am to where my family are is a distressingly long journey, and it's *only* 225 miles or thereabouts.

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:I find it difficult to think of distances on that scale, TBH. To me, the distance from where I currently am to where my family are is a distressingly long journey, and it's *only* 225 miles or thereabouts.

But distance also depends on how easily its traveled.
If it's on major highways that aren't always clogged with traffic, it's easier to deal with. When I was back in college, it was maybe around 225-250 miles (362-402 km) away and I could typically drive that in 4-5 hours (as long as it wasn't on a holiday weekend or in the middle of a snow/ice storm).
[Of course, I was a lot younger back then, too.]
Oh, and that was only involving two states: New Jersey (where I lived) and driving half-way across Pennsylvania.

tony ingram wrote:

MajorHoy wrote: . . . When I was back in college, it was maybe around 225-250 miles (362-402 km) away and I could typically drive that in 4-5 hours (as long as it wasn't on a holiday weekend or in the middle of a snow/ice storm).
[Of course, I was a lot younger back then, too.]
Oh, and that was only involving two states: New Jersey (where I lived) and driving half-way across Pennsylvania.

Yeah, see, I don't drive. Never have. So for me, it's about six and a half hours by train even if there are no delays. And there are always delays.

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:

MajorHoy wrote: . . . When I was back in college, it was maybe around 225-250 miles (362-402 km) away and I could typically drive that in 4-5 hours (as long as it wasn't on a holiday weekend or in the middle of a snow/ice storm).
[Of course, I was a lot younger back then, too.]
Oh, and that was only involving two states: New Jersey (where I lived) and driving half-way across Pennsylvania.

Yeah, see, I don't drive. Never have. So for me, it's about six and a half hours by train even if there are no delays. And there are always delays.

I'm so use to driving, I get very frustrated when I can't.
When I went to college, the only options to get there were to drive or take a bus, and that would have been a ride of 8-or-more hours out of New York City (plus however long it took to get into the city to get the bus) since there wasn't any train service or major airport serving that area (and it wasn't exactly a small college I went to).
In the town where I live now, there are no public busses; taxi cabs are about the only option if you don't drive. (The town does offer a ride-share service where you can get picked up at your home and go to things like doctor's appointments, but you have to arrange that more than 24 hours in advance and hope it's available.)

tony ingram wrote:No public transport? Is that normal over there?

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:No public transport? Is that normal over there?

Depends on where you are.
There is public transportation in other, neighboring towns, but the town I'm in (Weston) has a small population (maybe around 10,000 people?) and doesn't have much of a "town" to it. (There are several storefronts around a parking lot for all the local shopping.) Most people typically would have their own transportation, and the town was zoned for two acres of land per a house. (No apartment buildings in the town that I'm aware of, either.)
The only reason I live here is because this is where my parents moved to back in '83, and I moved back in with my Mom in late 2007 because of health issues (mine at the time).

tony ingram wrote:10, 000 people is a "small population". Two acres per house. That's...wow...

Until recently, I lived in a village in Suffolk. It was one of the largest communities in the area. The population was 2,370, or thereabouts. Most of them with considerably less than two acres of land per household. And if the local authority had cut off local bus services, there'd have been a public outcry, and justifiably so, since half the population do not drive and would be completely screwed as there are next to no local amenities.

tony ingram wrote:Really? To me, those two titles were among the best comics ever written, and evidence that superheroes can be used to tell more serious stories rather than just simplistic good guys vs bad guys stuff. This project actually sounds quite intriguing to me.

Mbast1 wrote:

tony ingram wrote:Really? To me, those two titles were among the best comics ever written, and evidence that superheroes can be used to tell more serious stories rather than just simplistic good guys vs bad guys stuff. This project actually sounds quite intriguing to me.

I agree about how well done they were, and that was why I used them as examples. I think both of them show just how scary and inhuman someone with actual powers would be. And that kills superheroes for me. I really think they only work within certain boundaries, and the more "realistic" they are the creepier they look.

tony ingram wrote:I see. I think you basically want superheroes to be more like the old Silver Age model: larger than life characters in a slightly unrealistic setting, with strongly defined moral boundaries.

Mbast1 wrote:

tony ingram wrote:I see. I think you basically want superheroes to be more like the old Silver Age model: larger than life characters in a slightly unrealistic setting, with strongly defined moral boundaries.

I really think that's the only way they work. Anything else leads to Watchmen, Irredeemable and Miracleman. Mixing in the muddled morality of real life robs you of what most superhero readers take for granted, the certainty that the heroes are the good guys. I am only a bit older than you, and so grew up in the same era, so I read all that stuff. I also have read (and enjoyed) a lot of the deconstructionist stuff (like Veitch's work) and it takes this stuff apart in a way that shows that superheroes are, in realistic settings, either mentally ill people in costumes or dangerously inhuman. Nothing wrong with those stories, they just really are no longer "superhero" stories IMO.

tony ingram wrote:I disagree. They are superhero stories, they just don't treat superheroes as paragons of virtue.

tony ingram wrote:Characters who are 100% heroic are just too unbelievable to be interesting, I think.

Mbast1 wrote:

tony ingram wrote:I disagree. They are superhero stories, they just don't treat superheroes as paragons of virtue.

That's my point. Without that, they're no longer "heroes", they're just powered. And then they get dangerous, fast.

tony ingram wrote:Characters who are 100% heroic are just too unbelievable to be interesting, I think.

In terms of fiction, I don't agree. I want people who are morally better. If they're like real people I DO NOT want them to have powers. People tend to be awful.

tony ingram wrote:I don't think we're ever going to agree on this one.

tony ingram wrote:I don't think most people tend to be awful.

tony ingram wrote:And how is it possible to enjoy a story if none of the characters in it can be identified with?

Mbast1 wrote:
That's the thing, why do they have to be like me for me to identify with them? Plenty of people have been given fictional characters not at all like them, and have been asked to still identify with them and enjoy their stories.
When I was little I read about Pippi Longstocking, and I wasn't a girl. I read about Superman, and I wasn't an alien. I've seen movies and tv, and read books, watched plays, operas and ballets about black people (I'm white), gay people (I'm straight), people from other times, cultures, lifestyles and so on. Plenty of them are morally worse than I think I am (and that's not saying much sometimes), why would it be hard to identify with someone just because they were more moral than me? That is something I've heard people say, but I've never gotten it.

Ah, well, to each their own.

tony ingram wrote:OK, first off: no way is at least one of those characters really dead. It would make no sense for DC to do that right now.

Spoiler:

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:OK, first off: no way is at least one of those characters really dead. It would make no sense for DC to do that right now.

If you're talking about

Spoiler:

there has been talk that character is not really dead but that the eventual fate of that character may be . . . worse than death (at least to some).

tony ingram wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:OK, first off: no way is at least one of those characters really dead. It would make no sense for DC to do that right now.

If you're talking about

Spoiler:

there has been talk that character is not really dead but that the eventual fate of that character may be . . . worse than death (at least to some).

"Worse than death"!!!?

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

tony ingram wrote:A couple of things of note in the most recent issue of HIC: one, Wally West's corpse is found by Booster and Beetle to be five days older than it should be, raising the intriguing possibility that this was a Wally West from the future, meaning his death may still be preventable. And two, though one of the other bodies appeared to be the original Commander Steel, this issues flashback reveals that, the costume aside, it swas actually Hank Heywood III of Justice League Detroit, who remembers his entire pre-Flashpoint history including his original death and his resurrection as a Black Lantern! What is going on here?

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:A couple of things of note in the most recent issue of HIC: one, Wally West's corpse is found by Booster and Beetle to be five days older than it should be, raising the intriguing possibility that this was a Wally West from the future, meaning his death may still be preventable. And two, though one of the other bodies appeared to be the original Commander Steel, this issues flashback reveals that, the costume aside, it swas actually Hank Heywood III of Justice League Detroit, who remembers his entire pre-Flashpoint history including his original death and his resurrection as a Black Lantern! What is going on here?

Tom King?

Sam_Vimes wrote:I feel like Tom King was created in a lab specifically to annoy me. Heroes in Crisis has done nothing to reduce this feeling.

Sam_Vimes wrote:Tom King, on the other hand, just keeps getting worse. You guys see this crap about who the Sanctuary killer is yet? I don't often get angey at comic books, but this time I am most definitely angry. Extremely angry. Ridiculously angry. There aren't enough adverbs in the world to accentuate just how angry I am.

tony ingram wrote:

Sam_Vimes wrote:Tom King, on the other hand, just keeps getting worse. You guys see this crap about who the Sanctuary killer is yet? I don't often get angey at comic books, but this time I am most definitely angry. Extremely angry. Ridiculously angry. There aren't enough adverbs in the world to accentuate just how angry I am.

So, what I'm getting from this, if I'm not misreading you, is...you're angry?

tony ingram wrote:I'm just looking at it as an ongoing story that still has a chance of being turned around by the end. I really doubt they're going to just throw away a character as significant as Wally has become.

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:I'm just looking at it as an ongoing story that still has a chance of being turned around by the end. I really doubt they're going to just throw away a character as significant as Wally has become.

Well considering how "significant" a role Wally played throughout the New52 (and even prior to that after Barry Allen was brought back as The Flash, . . . )

tony ingram wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:I'm just looking at it as an ongoing story that still has a chance of being turned around by the end. I really doubt they're going to just throw away a character as significant as Wally has become.

Well considering how "significant" a role Wally played throughout the New52 (and even prior to that after Barry Allen was brought back as The Flash, . . . )

Yes, but  he has been very significant since Rebirth, hasn't he? The New 52 was over more than two years ago.

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:I'm just looking at it as an ongoing story that still has a chance of being turned around by the end. I really doubt they're going to just throw away a character as significant as Wally has become.

Well considering how "significant" a role Wally played throughout the New52 (and even prior to that after Barry Allen was brought back as The Flash, . . . )

Yes, but  he has been very significant since Rebirth, hasn't he? The New 52 was over more than two years ago.

I thought his "significance" since the DC Universe: Rebirth one-shot was suppose to be questionable, especially with how he was treated in Titans. (Wasn't there a bit where Damian Wayne installed a pacemaker for his heart or something?)

Spoiler:

tony ingram wrote:Well, HIC has concluded, and as expected, Wally is

Spoiler:

. But as to what happens next, I've no idea. I'm kind of hoping for a new monhly series...