All right, enough of Vicki Vale's ass. Let's talk about something really important. Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew.
I was pretty excited when I learned that Geoff Johns was planning to bring these characters back in the pages of Teen Titans. It's a goofy cult book, sure, but it's one I loved when I was growing up, awful puns and all. For the uninitiated, CCAHAZC took place on Earth-C, a world populated by anthropomorphic animals, some of them the former stars of DC's children's line. The Zoo Crew were the superheroes of this world, and they had your basic wacky adventures, packed to bursting with awful, awful puns. A book for kids, in fact, and being a kid at the time, I loved it. (Between this and All-Star Squadron, Roy Thomas owned my soul in the 80s.)
My excitement has gone down quite a bit now that I've actually read the story. Spoilers, then, for Teen Titans #30-31.
The conceit is that Kevin Bloom, aka Kid Devil--Blue Devil's old sidekick--is reading a Captain Carrot comic, and pages from that comic are intercut with the regular Teen Titans story, a la the pirate comics in Watchmen. (Yes, I did just reference Watchmen in a post about Captain Carrot.)
Johns has crafted a dark, Identity Crisis-esque story, one in which superheroes are outlawed (that old gag), and Little Cheese, a former Zoo Crew member, has been murdered. Captain Carrot is a drunken lush, and Yankee Poodle is on the run from the law, accused of attempting to assassinate President Mallard Fillmore.
I am trying to reread that paragraph, and my eyes don't want to focus on it.
The Zoo Crew is reunited when American Eagle, a Grim and Gritty hero, shakes Captain Carrot out of his doldrums and gets the Crew back together. The mystery is solved, off-panel, when we learn that Alley-Kat-Abra is the killer of Little Cheese, and she's been a speciesist hatemonger all along. The Zoo Crew moves on to other adventures, getting over the fact that one of their founding members is an insane murderer very quickly.
So. What in the hell was Geoff Johns thinking? Why write something like this? I have several theories.
1. Self-parody. And, perhaps, a reality check for the DC fanbase. After all, Johns is one of Those Bastards Who Murdered Blue Beetle, and as such is responsible for all things sick and evil, right down to those news cinnamon pizzas Papa John's is selling. By showing a Dark and Horrible Story happening to a bunch of characters nobody's touched in at least a decade, he shows how silly it is to be upset by the Blue Beetle thing. However, the problem with this is that you can't do something awful to prove how bad awful things are. There are people who loved that book when they were kids, and they're annoyed to pissed that this story shat all over their memories. It's like PETA doing an ad in which they club a baby seal to death in order to prove that clubbing baby seals is bad.
2. He's trying to show how daaaaark the DC Universe has become. Which makes a little more sense. After all, this story is being read by ol' Kev, resident of the DC Universe. "See? Even the funny animal comics are grim and gritty! How will we survive? Save us, Earth-2 Superman, and put things right!" It's not a bad idea, but it's overkill...especially if you're reading Infinite Crisis, a series that seems to hate DC Comics more than Joe Quesada.
3. He's had this story in mind since he was 12 and now, at last, his chance has come. Perhaps the most frightening possibility of all. You may laugh, but I know that somebody had a story like this in mind, and probably even darker. And with yiffing.
4. He's goofing on Avengers Disassembled. If this is true, the man's a genius. (Well, Alley-Kat-Abra was the Scarlet Witch of the Zoo Crew...)
I've yet to read the second half of this, but the first half, at least, wasn't Identity-Crisis-esque; it was decidedly Watchmenesque. Didn'tya notice the Watchmen Cover parodies opening each segment?
Actually, just to pick nits, the former Kid Devil is only the first person to read it. Several others are shown doing so over the course of the first part, although the conceit is dropped in the second part.
Anyway, on the one hand, it's probably the only real exposure Earth-C will get in Infinite Crisis. On the other...did they really need to get their own Identity Crisis (yes, it's more Watchmen-based, but in terms of the whole IC thing it fills the niche of IDC).
I haven't read any of it, but from the summary it sounds most like Theory #1. While Johns can come across as fairly single-minded, some of the things he writes are pretty self-aware. A JSA from last year had Per Degaton talking about "forces reshaping continuity," and Johns' new Professor Zoom was intent on tormenting Wally West in the interest of making him a better hero. Now the Earth-2 Superman seems to be Johns' surrogate, but again he's the antagonist. It's just interesting to me that Johns seems, consciously or not, to cast himself as the villain.
I guess it doesn't surprise me that Johns would write a grim 'n' gritty Zoo Crew story, especially with the help of their creator Scott Shaw!, as a parody of the kinds of stories upon which his current reputation has been built.
I don't mean to pick nits, but those cinnamon pizzas are really pretty tasty.
Geoff Johns is the undisputed master of trying to have his cake and eat it too, decrying the "darkening" of the DC universe even as he fills it with gratuitous violence and depravity. David Welsh pretty much nailed it over a year ago, and Infinite Crisis is the poster child for his case.
Making Mallard Fillmore the evil, Nixonesque president of Earth-C America is pretty goddamn funny, though.
I'd go with #1, if only because I laughed out loud when Alley-Cat-Abra explained her motive.
It was the highlight of the issue.
"It's like PETA doing an ad in which they club a baby seal to death in order to prove that clubbing baby seals is bad."
Except not nearly as funny.
I'm with you 100% on point #2. It's like Britney putting out a concept album about how assembly-line pop crap is ruining music. Okay, obviously, but are you really the one to be telling me this? Are you going to give all that money back?
Someone _please_ make fun of this:
http://www.dirtybaka.com/Maturation/
One of the dumbest fan ideas imaginable, outside of David Gonterman.
I can't even visit that site long enough to make fun of it.
Good Lord that's in bad taste.