Thursday, May 21, 2009

"Deathtrap" Conclusion


Marv promised a "very controversial ending" to "Deathtrap" and he wasn't kidding. From Marv Wolfman's blog:

I wanted to remind everyone that Vigilante #6 is on sale next Wednesday. Vig 6 is the final part of the Deathtrap crossover with the Titans, and I can promise you it will have a very controversial ending. When the guys at DC told me what they had planned, even my gasted was flabbered. The ending is shocking, yes, but it's also a logical one and will be built on in the future.


The last two pages below.

I dunno... I'm not really seeing the point in bringing back Jericho from the dead, to have him become evil, then redeemed, then evil again. And now, completely insane and... maimed. Also, is it ANY surprise that this move was editorially-driven? Who is steering the ship here? Thoughts?




I'm at a loss for words here.

I wish poor Joey just stayed dead. His Titans Hunt death was poignant and gave Slade some good, angsty daddy grief.

posted by Mr Saturday Morning @ 10:05 PM  

18 Comments:

  • At 11:18 PM, Blogger B.G. Christensen said…

    I thought the ending was the only part of the story that made sense. I too was annoyed by the whole back from the dead, evil, good, evil, insane thing, but accepting that all that had happened, having Vigilante cut his eyes out was the best way to end the story--it's a logical way to stop him, illustrates Vig's character, and prevents (hopefully) future stories about Joe on a murderous rampage. I had to wonder, though, how Marv felt about writing this character who was so entirely (and nonsensically) different from the one he and George created twenty-five years ago. The fact that he did speaks well of Marv's professionalism, but not so well of the editors themselves.

     

  • At 12:38 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    It was a fail.

     

  • At 5:44 AM, Blogger Titã said…

    Frustrating...

     

  • At 6:07 AM, Blogger MetFanMac said…

    Made of Fail all the way through.

     

  • At 6:11 AM, Blogger Kevin G. Summers said…

    This story, and the way Jericho has been handled since his return, has been an enormous letdown for me. He was always one of my favorite characters (his first in-costume appearance was in the very first comic I ever bought) and to see him brought back from the dead only to have this happen... I wish they would have just left him on that disk. Why waste a perfectly good character like this? If Rose is the most popular character on the Teen Titans, isn't there something they could have done with Jericho in the Titans book?

     

  • At 7:11 AM, Blogger Thomas said…

    On one hand, I should be glad that my original belief as to the ending I had called (Vigilante kills Joey, who is in Eddie's body) didn't come to pass...

    But isn't this just a variation on the resolution to the introduction of Rose-as-Ravager back in the early days of Johns' run?

    It seems what I joked about when talking about the latest TITANS ANNUAL is true--the present regime HAS no new idea, and is intent on recycling the same four or five Titans concepts over and over again.

     

  • At 7:13 AM, Blogger Unknown said…

    Jericho was himself for like 3 pages of one issue after the 6 month storyarch to bring him back. It doesnt make any sense at all. He's back for a couple pages, takes over Match, gets ignored for the better part of a year after that and then is suddenly a psychopathic murderer.

    Is there ANY editorial direction going on here?

     

  • At 1:32 PM, Anonymous Diane Brendan said…

    I thought the ending was unexpected, better written than much of the story, and even a little creepy. But Deathtrap itself? It was just not a very good story to begin with. The ending and a few scattered Titans interactions were about the only good things in the entire arc.

    I too wish Jericho had just stayed dead after Titans Hunt. It was like when they introduced Terra 2, it totally destroyed what was a moving, heart-wrenching moment in Titans history. I suppose I can hope that Jericho now shuffles off into limbo for a few years, but judging by Marv's words, it doesn't seem likely. Blah.

     

  • At 3:48 PM, Anonymous USS_Titans said…

    Oh I can see it now....Year from now Jericho will be back with a new set of eyes thanks to the modern age of DNA cell regeneration technology. And He will be evil again.....And so the rehash story continued....BLAH, blah, blah.
    Typical DC.

     

  • At 6:05 PM, Anonymous Redbird03 said…

    After this whole plot with Jericho, I've honestly seen no point for them to even bring him back. Jericho was evil once. Okay, fine. He died. Okay, that sucks. He gets resurrected and the evil is removed at the same time. Great!

    Then he's evil again, a traitor again, and now maimed again. What was the point of bringing him back, if all they were going to do was mutilate the character back to how he was before he died?

    The Titans lack any originality. Every other storyline there's a betrayal plot. Terra, Indigo, Superboy, Ravanger, Meltdown, Jericho, Raven, Beast Boy.... Get a new idea.

    And also stop trying to make everyone so 'dark' and 'angsty'. I miss the stories where the characters occassionally had GOOD days and won battles without there being all this painful drama.

     

  • At 7:43 AM, Anonymous lancer said…

    jericho's powers came from within, not necessarily his eyes. Maybe he can grow his eyes back who knows. Shame though how it had to end. even worse what was done to the character after geoff brought him back.

     

  • At 12:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    It never ceases to amaze me how many fans still pooh pooh Terra 2 and praise Judas Contract, failing to realize that that "poignant, moving story" is how we got into this mess in the first place.

    It was Judas Contract that set the precedent, that started us down this path. Terror of Trigon and then Titans Hunt reinforced it, and now it just doesn't stop.

    And it never will, until we turn our back on the mistake of Terra 1 and the shocking cheap twist.

    Till then, Didio and his successors will continue to laugh at us.

     

  • At 3:43 PM, Blogger Avi Green said…

    Let's not forget that Geoff Johns has to shoulder some blame for the problems that have since cropped up with Joey. After all, he was the writer who brought him back when he first launched this now useless volume, AND he was the writer who depicted Joey talking after all the years it had been established that Joey was mute, thanks in part to his father Slade's stupidity. Believe me, it's high time already that we wrote off Geoff Johns as just another in a whole bunch of overrated writers that have been turning up since the turn of the century. Don't waste your money on any more of his books.

     

  • At 9:41 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I don't understand the criticism of Judas Contract. Terra's betrayal was: (1) carefully established over time; and (2) completely original. It was not done for cheap shock. One of the great things about Joey was that he was joining the Teen Titans in the face of Terra's betrayal so he not only had to overcome being Deathstroke's son, but also the Titan's general mistrust of anyone new. That was why I was always terribly disappointed with Joey being corrupted in Titan's Hunt. It just seemed to betray something completely fundamental about the character -- and that time, it felt like a cheap stunt.

    Add me to those who are deeply disappointed by Deathtrap and the treatment of Jericho since his return. I understand that the mute character is hard to write, but it would have been better to just leave him dead or having him say "thanks, but no thanks, i'm going to go to an island and paint" than send the character through this nonsensical and OOC series of stories.

     

  • At 9:44 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I know it was "carefully established over time". That doesn't make it a good idea. And it *was* done to shock the fans, that was the whole point, to pull the rug out from under everyone who was sure she would be redeemed in the 11th hour. That's where the "cheap" part comes in. As for being "original", so was the first Crisis. The "original" idea is repeated and repeated and repeated ad nausaeum ad infinitum. And that's where we are now. Cause and effect. In order to stop the effect we need to cut off the cause.

     

  • At 10:40 AM, Anonymous Diane Brendan said…

    Sorry, but that sounds a lot like putting the genie back into the bottle; can't be done except by wishing it so.

    Judas Contract, Terror of Trigon, and Titans Hunt are what they are, and it would be silly to foist all of today's problems on them. What we haven't had lately is any kind of a vision for these teams, and so all DC has been left with is trying to recycle the old and hope it becomes new again.

    I still believe Geoff Johns had the best feel for the Titans since Wolfman (who, incidentally, had more than his share of crap runs with them) He did it by establishing long term plots that kept readers going coupled with engaging character writing. At first DC gave him a much freer hand to mold his team, and that I think made all the difference in how it was received. But since about Infinite Crisis, the series has been fine-tuned to death, because DC can't stop interferring with them. And its shown.

    I don't mind bringing back old villains or plots, so long as the end product is a good read. I don't even mind Trigon coming back, because I think of him like Batman fans think of the Joker or Penguin. But the hackneyed issues they've been coming out for the last two or three years? No focus, no direction, and increasingly, no reader interest.

     

  • At 1:30 PM, Blogger Thomas said…

    It's the fact that Wolfman never gives us the slightest hope of a redemption, makes it clear that Terra is very screwed up, yet we still hold out for some last minute save that makes "The Judas Contract" such a masterful story.

    (And incidentally, the retcon in Final Crisis: Last Will And Testament that has Deathstroke claiming he poisoned Tara from the start is a prime example of invalidating the point of one character to build up the 'bad-assery' of another)

    And I give Johns a lot of credit for winning me over. I was highly resistant to the revamp post-Graduation Day, even more so after Rose maimed herself...but he built the team up to a point where I came back and was happy reading the book again.

    And now, after Infinite Crisis, we've got the same three or four ideas being raked over again and again and again....and right now, after this silly 'Deathtrap' nonsense and the implication that we're getting another 'traitor/Titans under seige/Titans falling apart' storyline after, I fear I may be done.

    Can't we once--just ONCE--have a storyline where the Titans do something, you know, heroic instead of fighting for their lives 24/7?

     

  • At 12:32 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    How it is done, Diane, is turning our back on that kind of story, and on the mistake of praising that kind of story, for good.

    Otherwise, the lessons we fail to learn from history we are doomed to repeat, and all that.

     

Post a Comment

<< Home