Heroes in Crisis #1 Review

Writer: Tom King / Artist: Clay Mann / DC Comics I’m Just Warming Up We expect our heroes to be above it all, both in the literal and figurative sense. In the DC canon, we expect Superman to be patrolling the skies as the Watchtower orbits the earth. We expect our heroes to be stalwart, unwavering, and unshakeable. Even with all their power, however, these characters are still ostensibly human. They are capable of being hurt, and hurting. That is to say, they can be traumatized. They can have histories of domestic abuse, substance abuse, anxiety, or PTSD. Tom King posits two simple question: 1) Where do those heroes go? 2) What happens when all those heroes are in one place? Heroes in Crisis is the latest crossover event, although it’s certainly a very different beast than Final Crisis or Infinite Crisis. This is not a story with ‘a vast multiversal reach that will forever rewrite the histories of the DC pages’. It is a self-contained story about a small group of heroes in the Midwest, and how our perceptions of hero work will be changed forever. It’s a much simpler premise that cuts significantly deeper due to the content.

Bits and pieces of the story have been scattered throughout the universe. You may have seen references to the enigmatic Sanctuary in Batman, Green Arrow, Red Hood and the Outlaws, or even in Mister Miracle. There are probably a dozen more nods to the pending events in other comics, but the set up is as follows: for heroes that need help, there is a place…