Art By: Miguel Sepulveda, Scott Hanna, Jonboy Meyers, Robson Rocha, Oclair Albert
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: November 26, 2014
Ssssshhhhh! It's A Secret
It's another month and another Secret Origin coming at us and like so many times before it........ Well it's not so secret. We'll be looking at the Flash's origin just in case you haven't seen it since the New 52 started and the TV show became popular. We've got Huntress spilling the beans on what made her all heroic in a world that was not her own and finally we've got Superboy, who has already been given a ton of different origins and each one is more confusing than the last. Hopefully we don't have one more thrown our way. So let's dive into this series that I just hate looking at because..... Well because I hate reruns. Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
Our story begins with a really popular origin lately, where Barry Allan is talking on the phone to someone about what made him into the hero he is today. So you get the standard story about how he loved his mother, but when he came home from school one day; he found her murdered. Barry's father took the wrap for the murder and Barry swore to himself that he would get the tools necessary to find out who actually killed his mother and get his father released from prison. Barry studies his ass off and after all the hard work he's done, he realizes that at graduation he doesn't have anyone to celebrate with and even someone like me who isn't a huge fan of retelling origin stories felt bad for Barry at that moment. Okay, Barry becomes a forensic scientist and continues to hunt for clues to his mother's killer, when he's struck by lightning and knocked into a bunch of chemicals that tap our dude into the Speed Force. Finally Barry talks about becoming a hero and about all his major villains and what it takes to actually be a hero and we find out that the person he's talking to is his father. The phone he's talking through is one of those prison phones with the security glass between them and I don't have any experience in talking to people like this, but is it really wise for Barry to be spilling his guts in a place that they might be monitoring the prisoner's conversations? Even if they aren't monitoring the phone, I know that there's a guard hanging around and tomorrows headline is going to be "FLASH IDENTITY REVEALED!" Barry promises to find his mother's killer and have his father released. Let the good times roll.
Next we're onto Huntress and while the majority of this story is Worlds' Finest's greatest hits, it does show us a bit of new stuff from when Helena was a young girl on Earth 2. We see that being the daughter of Catwoman and Batman wasn't always the greatest time in the world, but Helena loved being in family business. We actually begin this issue with a very young Helena jump roping in the Batcave and her mother shooting bullets at her to see how fast she can react............ Do they have social services in Earth 2? So training began early and after a tiring day, her favorite book to fall asleep to was Robin Hood, so of course when it came time for her to join her parents in the fight against crime, she chose her favorite hero's identity, but her mother told her to drop the hood because it was bad for visibility. Now comes the greatest hits portion of the story, where we see Catwoman being killed, Batman sacrificing himself in the Apokolips War, Helena and Karen getting transported to Earth and Helena making a new identity for herself as Huntress. Even though we've seen a lot of this before, the bits when Helena was a young girl really does make this worth having. It was just a lot of fun and might be the best story that Paul Levitz has written for the Worlds' Finest character.
For our last story we look at Superboy, who seems fresh out of teaming up with a more passive John Lane Kent against the earlier version of John Lane Kent......... Yeah, it's a confusing story. Kon heads over to STAR Labs where it looks like they're going to run some tests on him to find out who he really is, even though we just spent the entirety of his series doing just that and after a bunch of differing origins I thought we finally got the answer, but I guess I was wrong. As a scientist is taking blood from Kon, our hero tells his tale and when he's all done he realizes that he doesn't need to know who he really is because he's Superboy and that's enough............... Really? We were about to actually be given a Secret Origin and the main character just said "Meh" and walked out? WTF?! But as Kon walks out the scientist sees the results of the blood test and we find out that Kon is 45% Kryptonian, 45% Human and 10% Unknown, then a whole bunch of ERRORS that you know can't be good. So that's it. No real answers to Superboy except that he's Superboy and he's okay with that and I think I might be too. I spent a lot of time trying to understand his series, but if we're just going with "he's Superboy"....... So be it. I might bitch here, but really I just love Superboy and I'm happy as hell to at least see him get some panel time, but giving him another new origin makes me want to pull my damn hair out.
That's it for Secret Origins and at least I can say that it wasn't the worst issue. I just don't like that this comic is the equivalent to a clip show episode because nobody likes those. Most folks know Flash's origin so there's nothing new here, but we did get some fun stuff from Huntress and maybe Superboy's story is actually a blessing for those out there that have been struggling to figure out what the hell his series was about. I love the character but his series was a mess and maybe now we have a definitive story for Kon....... That is if they don't go and give him another origin now. The art for Flash was alright, but I found myself missing Brett Booth's style, but Miguel Sepulvita did a fine job standing in with the Scarlet Speedster. The highlight for me was Jonboy Meyers on the Huntress story. I really love Jonboy's style and wish I'd see him on more books. He has a quality to his style that reminds me of Joe Madureira's Uncanny X-Men of the 90's and man I couldn't stop looking at those books back then. Robson Rocha was on the final story of Superboy and while the artwork is fine, I just wasn't into how he was making our Boy of Steel look. The flashback sections was okay, but when we'd get back to him telling the story in STAR Labs and there was just a quality to the character that I didn't like. That's just me nitpicking though and I'm sure the rest of you will like it just fine. Make sure you're back here next month when Jim tackles the next issue of Secret Origins where we might find out what's so secret about Grayson, Animal Man and Katana. See you then.
Bits and Pieces:
This wasn't a bad issue of Secret Origins, I just wish it hadn't involved the Flash because his origin is so well known that it seems kind of pointless here.......... Just an A-list character to slap on the cover to sell the book I guess, but Huntress and Superboy's stories were actually alright. I was a little afraid that we'd get a whole new origin for our Boy of Steel........ and we actually might of, but it's neither here nor there yet. Huntress is the main attraction for me though, we get some more insights on her life on Earth 2 prior to the war and it's a lot of fun accompanied by great artwork by Jonboy Meyers. So if you don't have enough Huntress in your life, make sure to pick this up because it actually might be the best story that Paul Levitz has ever written for the character.
7/10
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