Commanders In Crisis #11 // Review
Empathy is still dead, and cosmic sepsis has started to set in. The multiverse is dying, and the whole thing seems to be going to hellish oblivion. Times such as these require heroes. Thankfully there's a group taking charge called Crisis Command. They might need a little bit of help in Commanders in Crisis #11. Writer Steve Orlando does a pretty good job of juggling all the factors in a story with a lot of moving pieces that are put to the page by artist Davide Tinto. Having waded through a hell of a lot of pre-apocalyptic superhero crisis tropes, Orlando manages to land on a sort of fascinating moment at chapter's end.
Weird bird men are attacking the US President in the oval office. Crisis Command would be there to help defend him, but they've got their hands full with a group of villains known as the Extinction Society. There are heroes all over the world who are handling similar threats. The fighting isn't really getting anyone anywhere. Something needs to change. One of the single most powerful members of Crisis Command makes a decision. It's a big risk for Sumara, but can she really afford NOT to with the situation being as dire as it is?
The world is always falling apart on the pages of a comic book. The challenge with any issue is to make the current crisis seem appealing enough to the reader to want to invest some emotional energy. With a large cast of characters going through a great many issues in Commanders in Crisis, Orlando hasn't done a terribly good job of focussing the problems in a way that feels incredibly compelling. Orlando closes this issue with a big moment that somehow miraculously manages to harness the epic feeling of a moment that he hadn't done an outstanding job of defining throughout the past ten issues. Sumara's act at issue's end actually feels really, really refreshing and optimistic...and it works. It's challenging to figure out WHY, though.
The narrative has been all over the place. Tinto hasn't really been allowed to really get into any mood for a terribly long time. That ends at the end of this issue, but there's a hell of a lot of mess leading up to it. Action needs to bleed from one wide-ranging location to another from panel to panel without any kind of a natural flow to the action. Perez managed to do something coherent with this type of format decades ago in an entirely different Crisis, but it's a challenge for any artist. Tinto is allowed to really embellish a brilliantly crafted mood in the last seven pages of Commanders in Crisis #11...and Tinto's work finally looks like the breath of fresh air it should have been all along.
It's all been one big mess of a story with way too many characters. This probably would have been okay had it just been one big compelling mess of a story for the better part of 11 issues. As it is, there's a tremendous amount of potential in every single character in Orlando's colossal ensemble. It could be argued that the series hasn't really found its unique superhero voice until the last seven pages of issue #11...and that's largely because it's one character at the center of those seven pages... Sumara's a fascinating person. It's nice to finally sort of meet her.
