Heroes in Crisis #5: They Will Forever Endure

Let me start by saying this: I’ve been rough on this series since issue #1. I’m unapologetic about that. I wouldn’t call this issue a redeeming issue for the series but it was the first issue of the series where I walked away satisfied and feeling like there is a glimmer of hope. PTS is a serious problem and deserves to be treated as such. Up to this point, I have felt like it has been caricatured in its portrayal, be it Lagoon Boy’s self-harm seemingly reduced to a gag or the strange Wonder Woman sequence that seemed to address nothing at all. Here, we start to feel the lingering issues — the scars– of PTS. The nightmares. The phantom pains. The disassociation. Kudos to King for finally hitting those notes, albeit more than halfway through a nine-part series.

We also see actual development for the mystery in this issue, however slight, which is a welcome inclusion after several issues on a treadmill. Booster has discovered that the deceased Wally is five days too old, indicating some sort of a bait-and-switch scenario. Sticking to my guns on Sanctuary being the actual killer (through use of the various technologies used to create Sanctuary), I would expect to see a Cosmic Treadmill sometime in the next few issues.

As per usual, the pages done by Mann are beautifully drawn and his ability to manipulate space is becoming more and more apparent the more of his work I see. The title page was a clever bit of spacing and construction (dd you see it?).

On to a few critiques. The lengthy speech by Clark (he said it was going to be short!) was done in a similar style to the infamous Batman #50 where the exposition was placed over disconnected images. Along the way, we see a number of heroes who are seemingly completely detached from this series, including Blue Devil, Swamp Thing, Zatanna, Shining Knight, Atom, Adam Strange and more. Unless these characters somehow eventually factor into the narrative, I can’t see a good reason for why this layout was done as it was.

And lastly, King continues to prove that he has complete and utter disregard for established character voice. Case in point:

None of this dialogue seems suitable for any of the characters involved. The prosecution rests.