My argument with "suspension of disbelief" is always this: every universe has rules. Ill believe whatever rules you lay down for this universe. Your rules allow for people who can run super fast and shoot lasers from their eyes? Fine! Ill buy it! But your rules have to be cONSISTANT. If you break YOUR OWN rules, that breaks my suspension of disbelief!
I'm ok with it not being consistant (what with long running comic and new writers who wants to mix things up) as long as it goes somewhere with it. Like new family relative even though your planet was blown up years ago fine you want new kryptonians Have Manhunter stripped of his power even though it's more his biology is fine too but have him react like someone just got disabled not oh it's normal I'm human even though I'm not
8:24 "We have lost our powers, yes - but so have many of the world's supervillains. Our ability to respond to disasters has been harmed, but so has their ability to cause it." SERIOUSLY WRITERS. IT'S NOT THAT HARD TO COME UP WITH REASONS FOR A CHARACTER TO SAY A THING!!!
But you see, if the VILLAINS lost their powers, we couldn't have gotten to see that Batman is a FAR more effective superhero than anyone else in the JLA, who should all, in fact, bow down to Batman as a God.
Seriously. I'm shocked they didn't have Clayface turn back into a human. Heck they showed Aquaman drowning. Why not have Killer Croc turn back to normal. Followed by him struggling to get back to dry land?
@@Rabbitlord108that could even be a sweet moment in the book, all the supervillains who wished they could remove their powers or get rid of what they look like, but of course no
Fun fact there is a Marvel version (a What If) of this story. It goes that Scarlet Witch, at the end of House of M, instead of saying no more mutants, says no more powers instead. Everyone is de-powered, most heroes are happy about this (such as Black Bolt, now being able to speak, and Spider-Man, glad he has no responsibility anymore.), and Iron Man being the only one left. Red Skull then takes the opportunity to try and take over, using the Cosmic cube. After killing at the male members of the F4, Red Skull, while wearing Doctor Doom's outfit, declares the Fourth Reich in effect. Then different groups of heroes try to stop him, Iron Man leading an all armored Avengers, X-men led by Scott just using Alien tech, and many others. All but Iron man are absorbed into the cube, but then Peter, just in street clothes and his web shooters, gets the cube away from Skull, crushes the cube, then he inspires all of the normal people to rally against the villain. It skips to the future, Tony and Peter talking about what happened. Peter thinks that it was a natural course, powers only being needed when they were actually needed, and if people like them are ever needed again, they'll resurface. It ends with Peter's granddaughter showing powers. It's a good read, and makes more sense than the DC version. It's more of an explained event, since Scarlet Witch did it, it makes more sense that heroes would be glad to not have powers, since the Marvel Universe is not as good to its heroes as DC is, and doesn't try to make up bullshit to keep it going, and characters are acting as they should.
+munromister777 My one question is the 'Iron-man being the only one left' thing. There are many heroes who technically don't have powers in Marvel. Hawkeye, Black Widow, Black Panther. Ant-Man and Vision both use tech. Even Daredevil could technically continue without his radar.
shadowspider9 The story doesn't go over those heroes a ton (Most likely since they weren't important in House of M, and Hawkeye was still kind of bordering dead, so was Ant-Man), but most heroes either retired (like Spider-Man, the X-men, etc) or something bad happened (Wolverine can't move, Cap rapidly aged). Shield still exists, but Iron Man was the only one doing any super heroing until he recruited people to join him in suits against Red Skull. It does say tech based villains were still around, so I'd assume the tech heroes could still work, most probably just retired.
Wanna know a bigger plothole? According too Wonder Woman's own Origins (In some Canon atleast) she was not born, but created by magic. She should, for all intents and purposes, stop existing.
Something I noticed, if Aquaman lost his ability to breathe underwater then logically all the citizens of Atlantis ALSO lost their ability to breathe underwater which means they all died from asphyxiation or the intense water pressure. That's probably why they're never mentioned again...
+Webshooters1 Maybe, but that also doesn't make sense. The Atlantians aren't human either. Their ability to breath underwater is a part of their species's natural biology.
LupineShadowOmega You expect a comic that has people losing abilities that are normal and natural for their species to make sense? Aquaman loses his ability to breathe underwater and that's natural to his race so logically one assumes the same happened to ALL Atlantians and given they live on the ocean floor where the pressure can crush a human body, they ether died of lack of oxygen or the pressure turned their insides into jelly. Much like how Superman lost his powers even though it's natural for his race as a Krytonian to develop powers when exposed to a yellow sun which implies the Black Light Event as Linkara said, REWROTE Superman and Aquaman's DNA to that of a human. Ether way it's a dark moment.
@117557590063911912627 I'm not sure what I expect at all from this thing. Especially because people losing natural parts of their biology just doesn't make bloody sense at all. XD Well DNA or not, it also must have re-written the hero's brains too, because why ever would Martian Manhunter think that his natural appearance is strange looking? He could have said strange to humans, sure, but he's moaning on about his own appearance which makes zero sense... Also how could it have a basic human level of physicality when that isn't his race's basic level either and even if it was, it still wouldn't make sense. The Human body has the limits it does because of our muscular, skeletal, etc. structures, so a being that physically isn't human in any fashion than being bipedal isn't going to have a very human physicality despite DNA rewriting.
The writer clearly was not thinking about all that. Or, in a worst-case scenario he just didn't know how all these other characters and their abilities worked. Rather than taking away the superpowers of everyone, it's more like everyone is just changed into a baseline human.
Actually, from the Starfire comic I read, she says they came from the Gordanians experimenting on her or something. She definitely states that they were not things she could do before she got traded off Tamaran. Although that probably doesn't apply to the whole kissing=language thing.
@@gaminggoof1542 Looking it up again, she immediately admits that while she can do it through just touch, not necessarily kissing, she used it as an excuse to kiss ol' Boy Wonder on the mouth.
@@gaminggoof1542 I'm guessing they either didn't remember that line (goodness knows I had to look it up because I remembered something being different about it) or they just made the kissing thing mandatory on purpose. They don't really explain it in the episode "Go" and in that situation it wouldn't make any sense for her to be using it as an excuse to kiss Robin since she was still pretty hostile at the time. So it seems the animated version does require "lip contact", while the original comics version doesn't.
Yeah Superman is grossly out of character here. First of all just because he lost his powers he wouldn't give up, in the Batman Beyond comics, he's depicted as a firefighter in his new civilian identity and despite no longer being fireproof, I still imagine it'd be something he'd consider if he lost his job at the Planet and all his powers. Secondly, ok alien tech is somehow rendered useless, but not even a visit to the fortress of solitude to confirm this? I mean if he's wrong, ok it's just a long ride on the batwing. If he's right, he has access to all kinds of alien tech and can keep on going. And who's to say he hasn't confiscated some of Luthor's and Toyman's tech? Thirdly what people forget or don't know about Superman is he's a competent fighter, its been revealed that he does train with Batman on the off chance he ever has to enter the Phantom Zone where his powers would be neutralized. Granted I don't think he'd be up to Batman's skill level or as active, but Hell, he'd still most likely help people in trouble.
To add to that in the DCAU Superman was teleported to the future where all life on Earth was destroyed by Vandal Savage. Due to the destruction the Sun became a Red Sun. Neutralizing Superman's powers and forcing him to fight on the hostile Earth with regular Human strength. He did quite well for himself in that situation. So it stinks in this comic storyline Superman just gives up
Superman still had his powers in beyond. But then again it still dosent make sense. Because the first thing most people do is depower superman. How would he drop down into anything like this.
Well, I mean, yeah, people who keep bringing up They are competent fighters, but doesn't mean they would instantly be able to adapt Superman's powers have literally been within since day one
@@plantainsame2049 but it's happened to Superman before and he admitted Batman trained him to be able to fight without them because of how many times he had to enter the Phantom Zone. Even then again he didn't even have to fight crime, I imagine like in Batman Beyond he'd become a firefighter or something. He wouldn't mope, he'd find another way to help people
+laz kar I would say Cry for Justice is only worse via technicality, because it's canon. Act of God is at least not canon, meaning it truly can be written off as a horrible fanfiction.
let me tell you a tale about an evil interdimensional villain who pulled captain marvel into his realm, impregnated her, sent her back with no memories, made her give birth to his own avatar, then made her fall in love with said avatar (ie her fully grown son) and leave the avengers. And all of the avengers celebrate it. And it wasn't an elseworld story.
Oddly enough, it seems totally random sometimes. Like, sometimes they'll take the ring off/it stops working, and the costume stays, or sometimes it does end up disappearing. The better question is, if they're wearing pretty baggy clothes under there, wouldn't it get uncomfortable, with all the fabric squished up against them, making wrinkles and everything, by the GL costume?
It seems like the ring interfaces and "projects" itself onto somebody's normal clothing, which would actually normally transform it into the Green Lantern normal costume on a normal person, but (given that the ring can interface with somebody's mind) instead of creating on somebody who was wearing something that they saw as iconic (such as a pre-existing costume), the ring would instead transform it to display aspects of the Green Lantern costume, creating a costume that's relatively recognizable as as being a derivative of the original costume already on the wearer. Though this is probably just explaining away something the writers never put so much thought into, it's probably along the lines of what happens.
***** I think the writer doesnt know nothing exept from what is from Batman. i think Atlantean is treat as both mystic and meta but kind depends on the character.
how to make Act of God better: 1. the geniuses of the group THEORISE (or hypothesize I suppose) that the Black Light event somehow changed the sun's radiation so that Superman can't absorb it to give him powers. 2. J'on CAN still shapeshift, but it takes longer or hurts (or both), so he doesn't want to, and he can still communicate telepathically, but only with other Martians or other telepaths (depending on how generous the writer is feeling). 3. ALL technology goes on the fritz, but it works better the closer it gets to modern Earth technology, so a Green Lantern ring wouldn't work, Boster Gold's tech would work on rare occasion, and the Batmobile would MALFUNCTION rarely. 4. IT'S ACTUALLY A PLOT BY DARKSIED TO STRIP EARTH OF ITS HEROES!...oh, and writing the characters correctly would also help
***** thanks. I like to go about things in two ways. 1: if it's good, find the bad (like Cinema Sins, kinda). 2: if it's bad, find the good and try to improve it.
+Brandon Roberts Why does everyone call something they dislike "fanfic" when I've read tons of good fanfics, such as Year of Darkness, which is about the supporting cast of Harry Potter during the seventh year while Harry, Ron and Hermoine search for the horcruxes.
***** well, in this case, it's kinda accurate. 1: it's not set in the main DC universe, making it not cannon. In general, anything not cannon is "fan fiction." And 2: he qualified that this fanfic was lame, not ALL fanfics.
In an alternate universe, the Justice League is active in all these combats and heroics. Superman is flying towards a dam that is about to be struck by a meteorite. However, he sees a wall of black light coming over the horizon, quickly enveloping the dam and the meteorite. Superman slows down cautiously, which is lucky because if he'd been going at max speed he'd have been road pizza, as he falls out of the air and catches a branch. The branch breaks off, and he tumbles down the pine tree. Stunned and confused, he barely recovers in time to hug the tree as the water from the broken dam floods the forest. Dizzy and sore and losing blood, he peels off the superman costume and drags himself to the town as Clark Kent. There, he sees a group of people struggling with a log and goes to help them. Even without powers, covered in wounds, he climbs on a truck with some other volunteers to help out. Once the EMTs arrive and the town is safe, Clark passes out due to his wounds. Waking up in the hospital, he is greeted by Diana Prince (Wonder Woman), Bruce Wayne (Batman), Arthur Curry (Aquaman), and John Jones (Martian Manhunter's human alias). Jones admonishes Clark for doing all that work with as many broken bones as he had, but Diana points out that all of the JLA would have done the same. They share what they experienced and tell Clark that he's going to be transferred to the watchtower so that all of the league can be present for the upcoming meeting. At the watchtower, Clark is one of many people stuck in the sickbay. Apparently a bunch of heroes kept going without their powers and got seriously hurt. During the meeting, it's revealed that not only has everyone's superpowers vanished, but the alien and magical team members have been turned human, and all alien and future tech has vanished. John Jones' human form is not a shapechange, he's fully human. At the same time the blacklight event was erasing and changing everyone, a new video file had been uploaded to the watchtower. While Jones and Wayne have looked at it, they feel everyone in the JLA need to see it together. The video shows a group of older versions of themselves, many of the JLA members missing. They say that the extreme amount of superpowers on Earth had caused "an imbalance that tips the scales of probability at a very dangerous time", and that within twenty years, that imbalance will result in an increased amount of disasters and coincidences, and it seems the universe itself is trying to destroy the earth. In their timeline, it began with sunspots on the rise. Then random asteroids. Villains find themselves in the right place at the right time, and superheroes faced more and more bad luck. By the time another ten years had passed, the earth was completely uninhabitable due to random solar flares. To stop this, the surviving JLA members sent back a device that would temporarily stop superpowers and advanced tech, and hopefully this device would repress the powers long enough that the "dangerous time" would pass before their powers returned. Cut to five years later. Clark Kent has become a war photographer, risking his life to make sure people see the crimes of warlords and terrorists. Returning to the daily planet with his wife Lois, he reads some news about the New Justice League. In the five years, Bruce Wayne has been working with Lex Luthor to train ex-superheroes with unpowered combat and provide new tech suits, to function as a planetary defense force and emergency responders. At home, they are visited by Diana, who is working as an EMT after she saw them helping save lives after the blacklight event, and John Jones, who has stayed with the Justice League as a coordinator. Clark notices John smoking a cigarette, and glances over to Lois meaningfully. John apologizes and puts it out, asking how far along it is. Lois remarks that it's about 6 months, and Clark asks when John started smoking. John smiles and pulls out his lighter, flicking it on, mentioning how he feels safe and normal and not having to be wary of fire. Clark agrees; while he is frustrated with his powerlessness, and he's always felt like he belonged, he admits that it's nice to feel like a normal human and not just pretend to be normal. He laughs that he goes to the gym now, which gets a laugh from everyone. However, the peaceful evening is interrupted by the sky turning red, and there are loud booms erupting outside. The four of them share a look and head to the window, looking at the omega symbol in the clouds. John's phone rings, and Bruce Wayne asks for the three of them. Clark asks what the Justice League needs from a photographer, but Bruce says "Powers or not, you're still Superman." Clark shares a look with Lois, and they pull a box with the Superman suit from under the bed. Taking a minute to change, Clark jokes that he's used to changing in a phone booth. When he comes out, Lois says it looks right to see him wearing it. She kisses him for luck and the three depart. They arrive at the roof where the Batplane is waiting, and they barely escape when parademons begin swooping in. Once in the air, Batman explains that he's been working in secret, making suits for every single League Member, trying to develop technology to replicate the powers they were comfortable with. Clark pulls out a mech suit that looks a lot like the Superman outfit. Diana also has one, which includes a tiara and her sword, and a promethium whip. Armoring up, Batman warns them that they have super strength, flight, speed, etc, but without the genetics to compensate for impacts, it's going to hurt. A lot. Superman punches his hands together, a shockwave bursting out. Superman grits his teeth and his hands are bleeding, but he says that it doesn't hurt enough to stop him from protecting his unborn kid. The three begin combing the streets, rescuing citizens and taking out parademons. They meet up with other members. With John Jones back on the watchtower working with his team to coordinate league members across the world, they systematically fight back the parademons, nearly securing victory until Darkseid arrives in person. Superman wonders how has alien tech and superpowers, and Batman hypothesizes it was because the blacklight event only affected earth and the technology on it at the time. Superman grits his teeth and starts flying in. Batman warns him that he's already seriously hurt from the fight so far, throwing punches without restraint. Clark admits that his arms feel like fire, and the shockwaves and g-forces have already blinded him in one eye. Batman says that armor or not, he's still just human, and he won't be able to survive a fight with Darkseid. Clark reminds him that "Powers or not, I'm still Superman." Superman flies to the makeshift camp that Darkseid has built, finding the dark god sitting on a throne on a pyramid of human skulls, still bloody. The furies move to attack, but Darkseid waves them off, claiming a powerless Kal-El is no threat to a god. In response, Superman grabs a fury by the arm and hurls her at Darkseid demanding he stand and fight him. Darkseid calmly disintegrates the Fury before she hits him, the ash landing gently on the throne at his feet. Darkseid stands and walks leisurely to the ground, commenting how pathetic Kal-el is with his tin suit. Superman jumps at him and lands a direct hit, but Darkseid laments how weak Kal-el has become, how light his punches are when it's just a hydrolics. Darkseid manhandles Superman, making an example of him in front of his troops and the entire world. He punctuates the exposition by crushing Superman's leg in his fist, dangling the bloody body in front of him and to the camera sent around the world. He talks about earth's last hope, a powerless little human all alone relying on nothing but tin toys to oppose a god. To emphasize this, he peels the armor off Clark Kent and tosses him aside, tumbling to the dirt. The world is silent as it seems like evil has won. After all this, Clark laughs. Darkseid turns, wondering aloud if the despair has broken the mind with the body. But Clark merely comments how wrong Darkseid is. Darkseid is not a god. Pushing himself to standing he said "Powers or not, Clark Kent is still Superman. And I'm not alone." At that moment, all of Earth's heroes converge on the camp, the bloodred sky darkened with their power-suited forms, an homage to the Crisis sky full of shadow demons. Superman knew that if he kept Darkseid and the command structure pre-occupied, the rest of the heroes could handle the foot soldiers. Granny Goodness and Desaad look troubled, but Darkseid is dismissive. One tin insect or one thousand, it makes no difference. But Clark continues. Darkseid had called him Earth's one hope, but Earth's real hope was a crazy billionaire with a real poker face. Darkseid looks confused before taking a step back, dizzy and falling to one knee. Superman stands over him and tells him "Last but not least, it's not tin." Darkseid looks down at the armor, now torn open, and sees the small veins of purple metal lining the knuckles of the hands, and looks at his shoulder where Superman punched him, the poison spreading past the armor and now visible. Darkseid destroys the radion-infused armor with his omega beams and stands up. He applauds the attempt, but one punch, through armor, is not enough to take down Darkseid, and with the Radion destroyed, there's no hope left. This time Batman chimes in over the radio, saying that while radion is too rare to infuse every suit, there's another suit of armor out there with the deadly material. Superman looks up at Darkseid, "One thousand insects out there, and any one of them could have that deadly bite." Darkseid glares at Superman for a moment before signalling his troops. A boom tube opens and Darkseid assures them that Earth will fall to Darkseid. Maybe not today, but it will happen.
Clark Kent collapses, in relief and exhaustion. As Kyle Rayner and Diana carry him to the medical ship, Kyle wonders who had the other radion suit. Batman responds that there wasn't another one. Carter Hall wonders how radion even existed on earth, since alien metals like the green lantern and the Nth metal disappeared during the blacklight event. Batman reveals that he knew that the device sent back in time would have radion in it, since the JLA of the future would likely have seen this kind of event coming. The device removed all alien metals around it, but not INSIDE it. Clark merely chuckles as he passes out. A crazy billionaire with a real poker face. Clark wakes up in the hospital, covered in casts and with an eyepatch. Bruce Wayne is in the hospital with him, and Lois is asleep in a chair in the corner. Clark sighs in relief and winces at the pain he gets from the slight movement. Wayne is holding his charts and says he isn't surprised it hurts, "It'd be easier to list what bones AREN'T broken." Clark laughs gently and winces. Sobering up, Bruce apologizes for putting so much responsibility onto Clark, calling him to be Superman again. Clark mentions that he's going to be a father, and he had the power to protect his family thanks to Bruce. The two think about their fathers' sacrifices, and Clark wonders if Bruce is ever going to take on that kind of responsibility. Bruce casually remarks that with his and Selina Kyle's genes, the kid would be more troublesome than Darkseid. Clark sobers up again, "He'll be back, you know." Bruce Wayne merely smiles and pulls a small box out of his pocket. "We'll be ready." A few minutes later, there's an audible boom confirming that Bruce Wayne managed to steal a motherbox. The boom wakes up Lois, and the two embrace.
@@Metrion77 Could you do a sequel to this story, please it's good/great 👍😃 I am to assume that the mother box somehow restored everyone's powers or something What/where did the mother box do, what location did Bruce Wayne put into the mother box.
Wait a second. The supergirl shown here is matrix... a shapeshifter whose natural form is some weird, gray, goopy lookin thing. If J'onn got reverted to his natural form why didn't she!?!?
+Garrett Knisley Because Supergirl in 2000, when this happened, was a human named Linda Danvers, and she had Matrix bonded to her as a symbiote. Matrix died, and she became just plain Linda.
If it was supposed to be Linda Danvers Supergirl, though, then she should be wearing Linda Danvers' costume and not Matrix Supergirl's costume, which is what she is drawn as wearing in this comic.
This is really the EASIEST one to explain. Matrix/Earthborn Angel disappeared with the magic users, but the human Linda Danvers she was inhabiting remained. She retained her merged memories/personality, which is kind of what happened eventually in the actual comic.
Out of all of the bad comics Linkara has reviewed this ranks pretty high on my worst comics ever list. Mainly because it's horrible miss-characterization and preachy message flat out insults the people who enjoy superheroes. This for me is right up there with the No More Day speech about how people read comics because they are dissatisfied with their lifes.
Doesn't help that this book is another example of Batman favoritism with the whole "Batman is awesome for not having super powers" thing. And people wonder why I tend to give Bats a hard time compared to other super heroes.
You could argue that the "superman, why didn't you save us" could've been out of shock that he failed. That may be giving the writer too much credit, but who knows.
My nitpick among the heroes is the android hourman who can not only time travel, but has knowledge of how to make miraclo if he had both then why didn’t he see this coming why not travel forward in time and why didn’t he use miraclo to make an entire league of hourmen(or to a lesser degree a legion of super-birds)?
I like how Spidergirl handled this same situation. After losing her powers because she punched a huge electric current, and she just got a Goblin Glider, some Pumpkin Bombs, and kept the Web Shooters, and then just being a superhero with all that stuff.
Also, isn't Wonder Woman exceptionally skilled warrior as well? Just let her pick up a shield and baton or something and I'm pretty sure she can pull her weight. Didn't she also lost her power in 80's and got around it with some Myagi knock off or something?
WW was depowered in the Early 70s actually, but she was a kung-fu superspy (with a Chinese martial artist mentor) instead of a (mystical) warrior princess. It was loosely inspired on The Avengers (the 1960s ITV Spy-Fi show).
I think they should have had it where the magic people are kidnapped and used to do the stuff, that way it explains aliens losing powers even though its their natural abilities
@@JaelinBezel that or imply Mr. Mxyzptlk did this. i mean, basically reality being warped so superman's DNA is basically 100% human now would be easy for a reality warper like MXY.
This Flash is Wally who also had to live without superspeed for years after his powers went crazy and almost killed him only being fixed after crisis on infinate earths, why is he bitching about loosing his powers here. Yah it sucks but he knows he can live without them and can still help people since he does work for the police and probably has better combat training then your average cop even without his powers. That is another example of an out of character person in this story
I mean based on the timing of this story Kyle Rayner only had the ring for a couple of years it's not like he was more used to being a GL than to being a regular human being.
This story takes my favourite superheroes and turns them into a bunch of immature jackasses. I mean for the love of Zod, Billy Batson is the only one acting like a grown up and he's A FREAKING KID! Are you seriously telling me that a child is acting more mature than Superman about this scenario? That is a such a steaming pile of unadulterated bullshit!
There was an "What if?" edition in which Scarlet Witch said "no more powers" instead of "no more mutants" at the end of House of M. This caused any kind of power to disappear, including Doctor Strange's magic and the Skrulls's inate hability of shape-shifting. Wanda is such a powerfull character that it isn't too far fetched to conclude that her actions could carry consequences in universes and/or realities other that her own. Since the writers of JLA:AoG didn't bother themselves with giving any better explanation, I choose to believe that the Black Light was a side-effect of Wanda's actions in her alternate reality.
Oh see now you just gave an idea for a sequel crossover for Act of God that can connect this Elseworlds story to a What If storyline that relate to Act of God. Now I want Marvel & DC to make a sequel to that What If storyline to Act of God.
The way I think of it, if one character would have a breakdown over losing his powers, it was Wally West. I absolutely love Wally, but of all the heroes, this was his dream. He idolized Barry and loved being a superhero. Of course, he'd already dealt with this before, so he probably wouldn't break down, but he's the one where the loss would probably hit on a far more personal level.
I think this is an early demonstration of what years of event comics will eventually teach us. To get that many people with such a wide array of specific talents together in one place it has to be an idiot plot or they'll solve everything in two seconds.
Wait... I get superpowers not working, but does that mean GILLS stop working, too, if Aquaman starts drowning? Okay, he technically doesn't have any gills, but his breathing underwater is still a part of his biology, right? Does that mean everyone in Atlantis drowns, too?
Shouldn't Superman/Girl/Boy still have powers since their powers are derived from the sun, which clearly isn't gone or anything. Shouldn't Kyle's ring work fine since it's space science and not a true super power? Shouldn't Steel be just fine since I'm pretty sure he's just in a massive steel suit (though I could be wrong about that) Shouldn't Martian Manhunter be fine since he's just an alien and all his powers come natural? Likewise for Starfire? Shouldn't the Flash still have his powers since it's just a mixture of chemicals and lightning, which is technically speaking science based? There are a lot of "shouldn't so and so still have powers?" when talking about this comic. It's why the setup kind of fails and makes me scratch my head a bit, though I could suspend my disbelief over a good majority of these people losing their powers in an "act of god." Really, a more interesting way to do this is just have all of the big players of the DCU vanish and watch the people lower than them cope, oh wait that's just Young Justice season 2.
And Wonder Woman was created by the gods themselves to make the ultimate Amazon warrior. Her gods actually exist in real forms and provided her with powers.
It's less so that powers stopped working, and more so that everyone was turned into a baseline human. So if they didn't have trained skills, they'd be worthless. Which is basically just a way to make Batman look better while making everyone else suck.
In fairness, Steel IS actually fine. His suit failing was because of that global technology crash mentioned. Afterwards, he and the suit are shown to be just fine.
I like how Batman doesn't give two shits that there are no more superpowers to help him. Must have completely forgotten that you need them if planet gets invaded Darkseid or Brainiac
Funny thing, there was a time in the main DC Universe where the Justice League voluntarily ALLOWED the Spectre to remove their powers so they could save an entire city from Starro without falling under it's control, not knowing if the Spectre could return them or not...just sayin. :)
Came back here because someone got mad at me making fun of the Batman Vs. Superman quote where Superman says "No one stays good in this world." and told them that's not Superman and he doesn't do that in the comics, then they replied with a panel from this fucking comic 🤣
This is the first AT4w review I ever watched, and to this day, it's still one of my favorites. I picked a great jumping on for these reviews, because you demonstrate so well how *wildly* out of character everyone is
I get what Doug set out to do. He wanted to tell us a moral about how we can still be heroes even without the powers. He, most likely, wanted to character study what he believed who these people are without their abilities and used Bataman as a way to do it. The problem comes from the fact that 1) most of these guys HAVE gone without powers before, and won. 2) In order to bring this out, he had to discard 75% of the DCU in order to make it work. It doesn't work, but that is what happened when you have only a quater of an universe to deal with and 3) he had to make it so everyone was out of character to do it. The jettsoning of the DCU is interesting to me. Mainly because, if you look at the mystic side of the DCU, you would see that there are quite a few characters that are connected to God himself. Not to mention that leacign out the other freaking pantheons leave a lot of questions. A good story should not have this many questions and plot holes to begin with. It doesn't make it interesting and all I am left with is aquestion mark.
Signs that a DC comic is going to suck: Batman's glorified as the ultimate warrior god of superheroes, and Superman and Wonder Woman are shoved into a pairing. JLA Act of God has both. Lord have mercy on us poor mortals that read it.
+Gratuitous Lurking Sadly she is. The Batman related stuff HAS been good, but then again it's Grant Morrison, Gail Simone, and I have heard that Grayson has been good, but this is all word of mouth and nt personal experience. But other than that, it's been VERY hit or miss with a lot more of the latter than the former sadly.
+doomrider7 I have issues with Grayson. Mainly in the idea of Dick betraying the trust everyone he cares about by not telling them he is still alive. It's a bit out of character for him.
+shadowspider9 Depends on how it's framed. If it's a sort of, "They can't know because it would endanger them" then it makes sense and would be in character. Other than that, yeah it's a bit iffy then.
Oh, Moench! You've made the silliest Elseworld stores ever. It's funny, but when Busiek was writing Superman, he had him and a buch of different heroes abducted and their powers robbed. He (rightly) theorized that there's no way anybody could have a device that would so arbitrarily take away powers of such different origin, so that they all THOUGHT they had their powers taken away, but really were the same. If that isn't a dive at this and other similarly stupid stories..
There was actually an even earlier example during the Byrne Superman run. It was a villain pair that was "taking away" his powers one at a time and did the same to other heroes. He realized that one of the villains was telepathic and when he'd use them would block Superman's conscious and subconcious ability to access them. He went and got a force field belt and kicked their asses as Clark Kent. Both of these stories show something Act of God doesn't have a clue about. There heroes are heroes with or without powers and aren't going to lose their shit over it. They'll assess the problem, try to solve, and come up with contingency plans. It also ignores that EVERY HERO HAS GONE THROUGH THIS BEFORE. Even 52 wasn't unique. The Earth Two Superman got hypnotized to forget he was Superman. Clark Kent became a crusading reporter and won the heart of Lois Lane. On their honeymoon, she discovered he used to be Superman and helped restore his memory. She was willing to walk away from the marriage so the world could have Superman back, but he was smart enough to tell her that while selfless, she was being ridiculous. That's how the Earth Two Superman and Lois got together. He's smart and brave without being Superman.
How i'll would fix is that Darkseid somehow able to trick Bat-Mite and Mr. Mxyzptlk to cause the Black Light event and the two imps realize their mistake and were both taken by Darkseid as he attempt of using them to alternate each of the heroes' personalities where the remaining heroes must figure a way of how to stop it and return everything back to normal where they also made an uneasy alliance with the villains.
Yep. As with the Superman and Martian Manhunter examples he gives, Aquaman's abilities are all natural abilities wielded by his people, so he shouldn't have lost his powers or should have lost his Amphibiousness leaving him stuck to living underwater if one were trying to write this consistently.
Wait, isn’t a green lantern’s costume a projection of their ring?! This event genuinely doesn’t have even the slightest clue about the internal logic of the DCU!
Thank you for this. This perspective of this series has always struck me as...wrong. So have the characterizations, especially Kyle Rayner, who hasn't been a superhero for all that long, and was an accidental Green Lantern in the first place.
"No one should have powers above and beyond the rest of humanity." Except me. Because I'm an alien and not part of humanity to begin with. How about no one should have powers above and beyond the rest of humanity, martian-kind or kryptonian?
You guys want something to make this even worse? If Aquaman loses his ability to breath underwater. Than logically, the same would happen to everyone else in Atlantis. Effectively drowning thousands, if not millions of people!
+MegaManDBZX That and they'd lose the physiology that allows them to exist at the bottom of the ocean under pressures that'd crunch a human body like a soda can.
I have a better idea. Every single super powered individual disappears. And everyone who’s left goes after every lead that could show where they went and then they find out Darkseid has kidnapped them in order to better invade earth along with the Crime Syndicate and all the other super villains. Boom a better set up than this pile of garbage.
9:18 Yes, because a doctor is really helpful when battling Thanos. Good god. Martian Manhunter is like the opposite of Commissioner Gordon from the 60's Batman series. CG calls on Batman and Robin for every crime, regardless of how minor, while Martian Manhunter is like "F**ck all heroes. Let the people do everything." Yes, and when Lex Luthor comes in with a giant robot suit, and General Zod comes in with a giant, planet destroying laser, let's let all those police officers, firefighters, and nurses go in to stop them. SCREW. YOU.
This is something I just remembered always bugged me while rewatching (that you bring up, but it bears repeating). Why are some of the tech heroes "powers" not working? The Green Lantern rings for instance isn't magic, it's advanced alien technology. It's scientifically-based energy projection that manipulates light into a physical form. We basically do that already with stuff like fiberoptic cables- yes it's not the same thing, blah blah blah, but still it's using light to transfer data. I could go on to other heroes, but my point is made. It's almost like Dougie Munch, sorry not sorry, bad writers don't get my respect to pronounce their names right, it's almost like the dork didn't really think this all through before preparing to write this Batman fan-fiction.
This might work in the verse of My Hero Academia - just extend Eraserhead's quirk to everyone, since in that verse all superpowers work the same way (except kinda sorta OFA).
Yeah. There may be a reason why Moench writes everything like Batman. He has done a lot of Batman writing, most notably Knightfall. He also wrote Batman 497, the issue where Bane broke Batman's back. Didn't create Bane though, that was Chuck Dixon.
It's weird that they use humans as the baseline for what's "normal" in a universe in which many different types of people and cultures exist. It's even weirder that this humanocentric thinking is coming from Martian Manhunter of all people.
Here’s my big question; why has GL lost his abilities? His abilities are technologically based. Booster and Blue Battle still have their powers, so what’s going on here?
@19:23-19:30 Continuity Alarm: AHHN AHHN AHHN AHHN! Linkara: oh what NOW you decide to pipe up? Continuity Alarm(You Switched me off before the Review, I'm Back Baby!): AHHN AHHN AHHN AHHN!
i like to imagine a parody where the magic heroes are STILL THERE, the light just brainwashes eveyone else into idiots and is making them ignore them. then spectre forces himself back into their reality to finish a conversation he was having and deliver a message from his boss "not me". then the fortress of solitude robots show up, having detected the disturbance, and offer help but the light makes everyone whine and moan instead of accept it. then the new gods show up and offer to help but eventually just fix it while everyone else is being an idiot, at which point everyone starts acting like themselves again.
Maybe if everyone nonhuman had been turned physically human that would make more sense and later we find out anyone on another planet has been changed to match the dominant species there too, like in Apokolypse Darkseid and his slaves are now equally powerful.
Honestly, I get Aquaman taking the loss of his powers the hardest, because he's the King of Atlantis. If he can't breathe underwater in order to travel to Atlantis...
This kinda reminds me of an SCP tale called Quiet Days www.scp-wiki.net/quiet-days Where all of a sudden, every anomalous, mystical, dangerous or paranormal entity or item in the world (called SCPs in the context of the universe) disappears or is loses their anomalous properties. It's a pretty good read, I recommend it.
When I saw Stupid Mario Brothers: Operation Blind Storm and they lost their powers in that one I immediately thought to myself: "Oh, dear God, please tell me Rich Alvarez didn't read JLA Act of God and thought it was good." and it feels as if he did because like JLA: Act of God, he had a good premise but awful execution about it.
Since they talked about police officers, firefighters, medics, and the like, let's use that as a metaphor. What if there was a black light that robbed trained professionals of the ability to use the skills they had learned in training? They couldn't properly carry victims to safety, give first aid, use their protective gear or medical equipment, shoot a weapon, examine forensic evidence, etc. Could you imagine them saying, "Well, civilians have done great things and helped people too, so maybe our training was wrong. Maybe it was wrong for us to have those abilities to help people."? If that scenario is stupid, then so is the scenario Martian Manhunter was suggesting.
This story only exists if you have literally no idea of DC works. In the DC universe, Gods exist. Not just "God" like Superman of the New Gods- all gods, including the Abrahamic God. So I bring that up because this story doesn't even work within the context of a "Elseworlds" story. The idea behind THE God in DC isn't a "what if"- it's an actuality. Where the wiggle room is, is how involved in His creation he gets and how religious he is (meaning is he the Abrahamic God or just the ultimate being that exists). There are stories where He gets more involved, here and there, but the point is... this story IMMEDIATELY doesn't work because it takes place in a universe where an Act of God wouldn't be this. This is more of a Marvel story. Because Marvel, as far as I understand it, doesn't even have Gods. They have "celestials", which are usually just magicians and advanced technology. Even "Hell" in Marvel comics isn't the metaphysical Hell but a physical location you can travel to lol
This story feels like it was written by somebody who had an extremely surface level understanding of the DC Universe and its characters. Even as somebody who's never read a single story with Kyle Renner in it, even I can tell that it just feels super off for him to be having a mental breakdown over this. Aren't these guys supposed to be symbols of hope who will always try and work to find the best solution to a problem, no matter how impossible it may seem?
Probably one of those people who loves deconstructing superheroes, thinks the MCU is the best depiction of superheroes and thinks their defenders of the status quo.
Personally I maintained the premise for JLA act of god could’ve have worked but unfortunately the execution of the version that we got is a complete and utter trainwreck
DC really needs to fire its editorial staff and hire some new ones that aren't convinced comics are for middle aged men. Writers who understand and care about the characters would also help.
The writer revealed his hand a little early here, with J'onn listing the clergy among those who save lives without powers. I'm sure there are members of the clergy who have saved lives. I'm sure there are those who do it on a regular basis. But the function of the clergy as a group is NOT to "save lives", except in an abstract religious sense that needs you to buy into the specific religion in the first place to accept it. So there we have it, the underlying subtext of the comic. Religion (or at least one particular religion, though we all know which one it's meant to be, really) is right. God exists and he should be worshipped, and superheroes were stripped of their powers because they became too close to him. So people having the ability to alleviate too much suffering and save too many people at once is bad because it makes God jealous. And this is not even commented on, just accepted blindly. I have a feeling that whoever wrote this believes in the same God the Westboro Baptist Church do.
It also ignores that Christian God exists in the DCU. He is actively a power in the world and generally freaking loves heroes, because they do the thing you are supposed to do as a Christian and love others/ do for others as you'd have them do for you. Heck, the Specter is literally billed as his wrath given form and even there, tons of other beings magical or otherwise often point out that Specter is often wrong, because he is just wrath and not the stuff that should be governing it.
This story, is exactly what happens when DC makes crappy stories. They hire writers who don’t get jack squat about any of the characters at all and be heavily reliant on Batman. Not only we get stories like JLA Act of God, we also get stories similar to this like JLA Cry For Justice, Countdown, Identity Crisis, Heroes in Crisis, any Justice League story in the New 52, where they just act like they trying to be like Marvel’s characters. No. Big, BIG no. When doing a character in DC Comics, especially Marvel’s, you need to do some research on said characters in order to get the picture of what these characters are supposed to stand for and what makes them great characters. But now we get terrible DC stories where it is just nothing but Batman this, Batman that, BATMAN, BATMAN, BATMAN! For goodness sake as much as I do like Batman, but this is exactly why I don’t like it when writers pull off a wrong move with Batman and many people like me are getting so sick and tired of freaking Batman. Not only just Batman but his enemy, the Joker. They are so reliant on them and it begins to spread everywhere like a plague, to the point where it’s getting absolutely ridiculous and really stupid. You know what I want to on Batman? I want a Batman who needs help when he really needs it, a Batman who is capable of being overwhelmed, a Batman who sometimes second guessing himself cause he needs some reassurance from his friends and colleagues. Not the know it all antisocial demigod who finishes everyone’s sentences for them and thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. You know what else I want to see on DC’s characters? I want to see them being them. I want them to be seen done right. Not be like Batman or Marvel’s characters.
I'm with you Linkara, I think whoever wrote this didn't really know much about the other heroes and didn't care, focused only on knocking all superheroes that dare to be more powerful than Batman down a few pegs for their "arrogance". As if the DC universe were stacked to the brim with Smug Supers; if that were the case, this might be kinda cathartic but no one would be following a world like that in the first place, thus no one would care.
I feel like the scene with Martian manhunter could have worked if he brought up the point that if superpowers disappear then there also wouldn't be any super villains. That would give the super powered heroes a dilemma, without super villains the biggest threats are mostly eliminated and the smaller threats could still be handled by tech heroes like Batman.
This has an interesting idea, if it were implemented well. Like if a God had imposed “reality” that is our reality. No speed force or super breath. Would be an interesting meta commentary on how the universe works.
The way I see it, the writer didn't care about the logic of who loses what power. It was more of 'heroes on Earth should have their powers taken away' because they deserved it... I guess? The writer wasn't interested in the characters themselves. He just wanted to preach about how the Justice League with super powers had god complexes. Crappy writing.
The writer of this ridiculous story basically defines anything as a "superpower" as anything a baseline human is incapable of. And yes, the Cosmic Rod is technology.
I have a idea for an else world story, I call it Übermeinch and it centers around a timeline where Clark Kent is found by the german royal family in 1887 as when Brainiac attacks krypton supermans pod is repelled so quickly that it enter the speed force and revert back to 1887, with it still being sent to earth. By the age of fifteen Clark or as he is referred to in this else world story Hoffman Zimmer discovers his powers dawns a suit similar to the main world superman except in the colours of the flag of the german empire, and at the age of 23 is drafted into the first world war under the name Übermeinch and used by the german army as a mere weapon, and just a few months in Germany wins the war and becomes the sole superpower. Later on in this timeline Alf Landon wins the presidency as Woodrow Wilson never runs for office and because he can't run as a republican Theodore Roosevelt runs for office and as such postpones the great depression until Alf Landon's ascent to the whitehouse two years to be exact on May 11th 1938, however with no second world war the depression doesn't stop till the late 1950's. Causing a series of populist on both side of both parties to become president. Meanwhile in Germany because of the death of Kaiser Whilhelm the II Superman or Übermeinch seeps into a constant state of depression until he picks up on a voice coming from the UK thanks to his super hearing. He discovers a young Bruce Wayne then working for the CIA, as he sees both Bruce and another character talk about a green rock with unknown qualities and as Übermeinch comes down he can see that they're directly in front of this rock and as he sees it he falls to the ground and both Bruce and his partner are shocked to see Übermeinch who had became the stuff of myth ever since WW1 and in shock they see that he seems to become weaker and weaker to thes substance, Bruce asks if he wants him to get him out of the site of the strange orb, as by then Hoffman Zimmer had grown depressed and suicidal he tells both men to leave as he dies peacefully. If anyone wants to critique feel free to do so and if we hit 200 likes on this comment I will continue this story!!
It always pisses me off in situations like this when someone will say 'but there are doctors, police officers, firemen, these people are heroes without the use of superpowers' Well I'm sorry, but I don't think a police officer could outrun a bullet. The realm of superheroes is one where those officials cannot help. No fireman could have stopped that damn from breaking, but Superman could.
I agree. People like doctors, police officers, and firefighters save countless lives in our world, but I don't think your average GCPD officer would be of much use when Darkseid strolls into town.
The second I heard 'Load the spaceship with the rocket fuel' I lost it. That was awesome. I'd love to see Ultimate Warrior and Batman having a conversation?
If Steel's suit failed, why does Booster's stuff, and the Watchtower teleporter, still work? I see "Supergirl" - if J'onn reverted to his natural form, why didn't Matrix revert to a blob? For that matter, why is the clay statue still blessed with the gifts of Hestia and Aphrodite? Oh, and life.
***** Pretty much. I don't get why some writers can't read up on the histories when they're gonna do stories that involve so many character. Doesn't matter if this is an Elseworlds, you still need that foundation.
+Lynn Green It's said in the comic that technology was cut out for about a minute before it came back on. Still doesn't explain everything else, but yeah...
I am not well versed in all the variations on the Green Lantern, but wasn't the uniform generated by the ring in at least some versions? Was Kyle's a definite costume or a ring construct? If the latter, shouldn't it vanish? (Also, why would Aquaman lose the ability to breathe underwater? Wasn't water breathing as much a part of Atlantean DNA as Superman or Martian Manhunter's powers? Or Starfire's?)
My argument with "suspension of disbelief" is always this: every universe has rules. Ill believe whatever rules you lay down for this universe. Your rules allow for people who can run super fast and shoot lasers from their eyes? Fine! Ill buy it! But your rules have to be cONSISTANT. If you break YOUR OWN rules, that breaks my suspension of disbelief!
I'm ok with it not being consistant (what with long running comic and new writers who wants to mix things up) as long as it goes somewhere with it.
Like new family relative even though your planet was blown up years ago fine you want new kryptonians
Have Manhunter stripped of his power even though it's more his biology is fine too but have him react like someone just got disabled not oh it's normal I'm human even though I'm not
Ahem!
Batman consistantly ruins suspension of disbelief thanks to his writers and fanboys
This.
It's the difference between realism and verisimilitude
8:24 "We have lost our powers, yes - but so have many of the world's supervillains. Our ability to respond to disasters has been harmed, but so has their ability to cause it."
SERIOUSLY WRITERS. IT'S NOT THAT HARD TO COME UP WITH REASONS FOR A CHARACTER TO SAY A THING!!!
But you see, if the VILLAINS lost their powers, we couldn't have gotten to see that Batman is a FAR more effective superhero than anyone else in the JLA, who should all, in fact, bow down to Batman as a God.
Seriously. I'm shocked they didn't have Clayface turn back into a human. Heck they showed Aquaman drowning. Why not have Killer Croc turn back to normal. Followed by him struggling to get back to dry land?
@@Rabbitlord108that could even be a sweet moment in the book, all the supervillains who wished they could remove their powers or get rid of what they look like, but of course no
@@onionninja5554 wait also there is MR FREEZE
Fun fact there is a Marvel version (a What If) of this story. It goes that Scarlet Witch, at the end of House of M, instead of saying no more mutants, says no more powers instead. Everyone is de-powered, most heroes are happy about this (such as Black Bolt, now being able to speak, and Spider-Man, glad he has no responsibility anymore.), and Iron Man being the only one left. Red Skull then takes the opportunity to try and take over, using the Cosmic cube. After killing at the male members of the F4, Red Skull, while wearing Doctor Doom's outfit, declares the Fourth Reich in effect. Then different groups of heroes try to stop him, Iron Man leading an all armored Avengers, X-men led by Scott just using Alien tech, and many others. All but Iron man are absorbed into the cube, but then Peter, just in street clothes and his web shooters, gets the cube away from Skull, crushes the cube, then he inspires all of the normal people to rally against the villain. It skips to the future, Tony and Peter talking about what happened. Peter thinks that it was a natural course, powers only being needed when they were actually needed, and if people like them are ever needed again, they'll resurface. It ends with Peter's granddaughter showing powers. It's a good read, and makes more sense than the DC version. It's more of an explained event, since Scarlet Witch did it, it makes more sense that heroes would be glad to not have powers, since the Marvel Universe is not as good to its heroes as DC is, and doesn't try to make up bullshit to keep it going, and characters are acting as they should.
Are married!
What If? House of M #1
No problem!
+munromister777 My one question is the 'Iron-man being the only one left' thing. There are many heroes who technically don't have powers in Marvel. Hawkeye, Black Widow, Black Panther. Ant-Man and Vision both use tech. Even Daredevil could technically continue without his radar.
shadowspider9 The story doesn't go over those heroes a ton (Most likely since they weren't important in House of M, and Hawkeye was still kind of bordering dead, so was Ant-Man), but most heroes either retired (like Spider-Man, the X-men, etc) or something bad happened (Wolverine can't move, Cap rapidly aged). Shield still exists, but Iron Man was the only one doing any super heroing until he recruited people to join him in suits against Red Skull. It does say tech based villains were still around, so I'd assume the tech heroes could still work, most probably just retired.
Wanna know a bigger plothole? According too Wonder Woman's own Origins (In some Canon atleast) she was not born, but created by magic. She should, for all intents and purposes, stop existing.
Something I noticed, if Aquaman lost his ability to breathe underwater then logically all the citizens of Atlantis ALSO lost their ability to breathe underwater which means they all died from asphyxiation or the intense water pressure.
That's probably why they're never mentioned again...
+Webshooters1 Maybe, but that also doesn't make sense. The Atlantians aren't human either. Their ability to breath underwater is a part of their species's natural biology.
LupineShadowOmega You expect a comic that has people losing abilities that are normal and natural for their species to make sense?
Aquaman loses his ability to breathe underwater and that's natural to his race so logically one assumes the same happened to ALL Atlantians and given they live on the ocean floor where the pressure can crush a human body, they ether died of lack of oxygen or the pressure turned their insides into jelly. Much like how Superman lost his powers even though it's natural for his race as a Krytonian to develop powers when exposed to a yellow sun which implies the Black Light Event as Linkara said, REWROTE Superman and Aquaman's DNA to that of a human.
Ether way it's a dark moment.
@117557590063911912627 I'm not sure what I expect at all from this thing. Especially because people losing natural parts of their biology just doesn't make bloody sense at all. XD
Well DNA or not, it also must have re-written the hero's brains too, because why ever would Martian Manhunter think that his natural appearance is strange looking? He could have said strange to humans, sure, but he's moaning on about his own appearance which makes zero sense...
Also how could it have a basic human level of physicality when that isn't his race's basic level either and even if it was, it still wouldn't make sense. The Human body has the limits it does because of our muscular, skeletal, etc. structures, so a being that physically isn't human in any fashion than being bipedal isn't going to have a very human physicality despite DNA rewriting.
The writer clearly was not thinking about all that. Or, in a worst-case scenario he just didn't know how all these other characters and their abilities worked. Rather than taking away the superpowers of everyone, it's more like everyone is just changed into a baseline human.
@@Webshooters1 4 yrs late to the party but something you forget and maybe why this would only affect aquaman.....
Aquaman is also part human.
Starfire was also an alien. Her powers are innate.
I pointed that out on my review on act of God
Actually, from the Starfire comic I read, she says they came from the Gordanians experimenting on her or something. She definitely states that they were not things she could do before she got traded off Tamaran. Although that probably doesn't apply to the whole kissing=language thing.
@@gaminggoof1542 I think her original version from the New Teen Titans did that, yes.
@@gaminggoof1542 Looking it up again, she immediately admits that while she can do it through just touch, not necessarily kissing, she used it as an excuse to kiss ol' Boy Wonder on the mouth.
@@gaminggoof1542 I'm guessing they either didn't remember that line (goodness knows I had to look it up because I remembered something being different about it) or they just made the kissing thing mandatory on purpose. They don't really explain it in the episode "Go" and in that situation it wouldn't make any sense for her to be using it as an excuse to kiss Robin since she was still pretty hostile at the time. So it seems the animated version does require "lip contact", while the original comics version doesn't.
Yeah Superman is grossly out of character here. First of all just because he lost his powers he wouldn't give up, in the Batman Beyond comics, he's depicted as a firefighter in his new civilian identity and despite no longer being fireproof, I still imagine it'd be something he'd consider if he lost his job at the Planet and all his powers.
Secondly, ok alien tech is somehow rendered useless, but not even a visit to the fortress of solitude to confirm this? I mean if he's wrong, ok it's just a long ride on the batwing. If he's right, he has access to all kinds of alien tech and can keep on going. And who's to say he hasn't confiscated some of Luthor's and Toyman's tech?
Thirdly what people forget or don't know about Superman is he's a competent fighter, its been revealed that he does train with Batman on the off chance he ever has to enter the Phantom Zone where his powers would be neutralized. Granted I don't think he'd be up to Batman's skill level or as active, but Hell, he'd still most likely help people in trouble.
To be fair, the Foretress of Solitude has a key heavy enough only Superman could lift it. It may be that no one can access it.
To add to that in the DCAU Superman was teleported to the future where all life on Earth was destroyed by Vandal Savage. Due to the destruction the Sun became a Red Sun. Neutralizing Superman's powers and forcing him to fight on the hostile Earth with regular Human strength. He did quite well for himself in that situation.
So it stinks in this comic storyline Superman just gives up
Superman still had his powers in beyond. But then again it still dosent make sense. Because the first thing most people do is depower superman. How would he drop down into anything like this.
Well, I mean, yeah, people who keep bringing up They are competent fighters, but doesn't mean they would instantly be able to adapt Superman's powers have literally been within since day one
@@plantainsame2049 but it's happened to Superman before and he admitted Batman trained him to be able to fight without them because of how many times he had to enter the Phantom Zone. Even then again he didn't even have to fight crime, I imagine like in Batman Beyond he'd become a firefighter or something. He wouldn't mope, he'd find another way to help people
This really is the absolute baseline for "How bad was this comic?" "Well, it wasn't QUITE as bad as Act of God..."
Cry for Justice, as bad as it was...wasn't QUITE as bad as Act of God.
I'd say that Act of God is at least as mean-spirited and insulting to the reader's intelligence as CFJ.
+laz kar I would say Cry for Justice is only worse via technicality, because it's canon. Act of God is at least not canon, meaning it truly can be written off as a horrible fanfiction.
let me tell you a tale about an evil interdimensional villain who pulled captain marvel into his realm, impregnated her, sent her back with no memories, made her give birth to his own avatar, then made her fall in love with said avatar (ie her fully grown son) and leave the avengers. And all of the avengers celebrate it. And it wasn't an elseworld story.
@@Technodreamer together we can be unpowered justice
Wait... isn't the Green Lantern's outfit actually made from the ring?
Wouldn't Kyle Reyner's suit disappear if the ring stopped working?
Ssssssshhhhhhhh... They didn't care.... But it's ok now.. It's ok now.... They just didn't care....
I was thinking the exact same thing actually
Oddly enough, it seems totally random sometimes. Like, sometimes they'll take the ring off/it stops working, and the costume stays, or sometimes it does end up disappearing. The better question is, if they're wearing pretty baggy clothes under there, wouldn't it get uncomfortable, with all the fabric squished up against them, making wrinkles and everything, by the GL costume?
GreatAwesomeReviewers | StarDust Studios The ring has Elsa clothing powers.
It seems like the ring interfaces and "projects" itself onto somebody's normal clothing, which would actually normally transform it into the Green Lantern normal costume on a normal person, but (given that the ring can interface with somebody's mind) instead of creating on somebody who was wearing something that they saw as iconic (such as a pre-existing costume), the ring would instead transform it to display aspects of the Green Lantern costume, creating a costume that's relatively recognizable as as being a derivative of the original costume already on the wearer. Though this is probably just explaining away something the writers never put so much thought into, it's probably along the lines of what happens.
Considering Aquaman is an Atlantean, wouldn't him losing his powers be as nonsensical as the Martian Manhunter's?
Most of origins are that they are magical beings or base on magic.
***** I think the writer doesnt know nothing exept from what is from Batman. i think Atlantean is treat as both mystic and meta but kind depends on the character.
how to make Act of God better: 1. the geniuses of the group THEORISE (or hypothesize I suppose) that the Black Light event somehow changed the sun's radiation so that Superman can't absorb it to give him powers. 2. J'on CAN still shapeshift, but it takes longer or hurts (or both), so he doesn't want to, and he can still communicate telepathically, but only with other Martians or other telepaths (depending on how generous the writer is feeling). 3. ALL technology goes on the fritz, but it works better the closer it gets to modern Earth technology, so a Green Lantern ring wouldn't work, Boster Gold's tech would work on rare occasion, and the Batmobile would MALFUNCTION rarely. 4. IT'S ACTUALLY A PLOT BY DARKSIED TO STRIP EARTH OF ITS HEROES!...oh, and writing the characters correctly would also help
+David Spring Sounds great.
***** thanks. I like to go about things in two ways. 1: if it's good, find the bad (like Cinema Sins, kinda). 2: if it's bad, find the good and try to improve it.
+Brandon Roberts Why does everyone call something they dislike "fanfic" when I've read tons of good fanfics, such as Year of Darkness, which is about the supporting cast of Harry Potter during the seventh year while Harry, Ron and Hermoine search for the horcruxes.
***** well, in this case, it's kinda accurate. 1: it's not set in the main DC universe, making it not cannon. In general, anything not cannon is "fan fiction." And 2: he qualified that this fanfic was lame, not ALL fanfics.
David Spring
I see. I just wish that stereotype would stop.
In an alternate universe, the Justice League is active in all these combats and heroics. Superman is flying towards a dam that is about to be struck by a meteorite. However, he sees a wall of black light coming over the horizon, quickly enveloping the dam and the meteorite. Superman slows down cautiously, which is lucky because if he'd been going at max speed he'd have been road pizza, as he falls out of the air and catches a branch. The branch breaks off, and he tumbles down the pine tree. Stunned and confused, he barely recovers in time to hug the tree as the water from the broken dam floods the forest. Dizzy and sore and losing blood, he peels off the superman costume and drags himself to the town as Clark Kent. There, he sees a group of people struggling with a log and goes to help them. Even without powers, covered in wounds, he climbs on a truck with some other volunteers to help out. Once the EMTs arrive and the town is safe, Clark passes out due to his wounds.
Waking up in the hospital, he is greeted by Diana Prince (Wonder Woman), Bruce Wayne (Batman), Arthur Curry (Aquaman), and John Jones (Martian Manhunter's human alias). Jones admonishes Clark for doing all that work with as many broken bones as he had, but Diana points out that all of the JLA would have done the same. They share what they experienced and tell Clark that he's going to be transferred to the watchtower so that all of the league can be present for the upcoming meeting.
At the watchtower, Clark is one of many people stuck in the sickbay. Apparently a bunch of heroes kept going without their powers and got seriously hurt. During the meeting, it's revealed that not only has everyone's superpowers vanished, but the alien and magical team members have been turned human, and all alien and future tech has vanished. John Jones' human form is not a shapechange, he's fully human. At the same time the blacklight event was erasing and changing everyone, a new video file had been uploaded to the watchtower. While Jones and Wayne have looked at it, they feel everyone in the JLA need to see it together.
The video shows a group of older versions of themselves, many of the JLA members missing. They say that the extreme amount of superpowers on Earth had caused "an imbalance that tips the scales of probability at a very dangerous time", and that within twenty years, that imbalance will result in an increased amount of disasters and coincidences, and it seems the universe itself is trying to destroy the earth. In their timeline, it began with sunspots on the rise. Then random asteroids. Villains find themselves in the right place at the right time, and superheroes faced more and more bad luck. By the time another ten years had passed, the earth was completely uninhabitable due to random solar flares. To stop this, the surviving JLA members sent back a device that would temporarily stop superpowers and advanced tech, and hopefully this device would repress the powers long enough that the "dangerous time" would pass before their powers returned.
Cut to five years later. Clark Kent has become a war photographer, risking his life to make sure people see the crimes of warlords and terrorists. Returning to the daily planet with his wife Lois, he reads some news about the New Justice League. In the five years, Bruce Wayne has been working with Lex Luthor to train ex-superheroes with unpowered combat and provide new tech suits, to function as a planetary defense force and emergency responders. At home, they are visited by Diana, who is working as an EMT after she saw them helping save lives after the blacklight event, and John Jones, who has stayed with the Justice League as a coordinator. Clark notices John smoking a cigarette, and glances over to Lois meaningfully. John apologizes and puts it out, asking how far along it is. Lois remarks that it's about 6 months, and Clark asks when John started smoking. John smiles and pulls out his lighter, flicking it on, mentioning how he feels safe and normal and not having to be wary of fire. Clark agrees; while he is frustrated with his powerlessness, and he's always felt like he belonged, he admits that it's nice to feel like a normal human and not just pretend to be normal. He laughs that he goes to the gym now, which gets a laugh from everyone.
However, the peaceful evening is interrupted by the sky turning red, and there are loud booms erupting outside. The four of them share a look and head to the window, looking at the omega symbol in the clouds. John's phone rings, and Bruce Wayne asks for the three of them. Clark asks what the Justice League needs from a photographer, but Bruce says "Powers or not, you're still Superman." Clark shares a look with Lois, and they pull a box with the Superman suit from under the bed. Taking a minute to change, Clark jokes that he's used to changing in a phone booth. When he comes out, Lois says it looks right to see him wearing it. She kisses him for luck and the three depart. They arrive at the roof where the Batplane is waiting, and they barely escape when parademons begin swooping in.
Once in the air, Batman explains that he's been working in secret, making suits for every single League Member, trying to develop technology to replicate the powers they were comfortable with. Clark pulls out a mech suit that looks a lot like the Superman outfit. Diana also has one, which includes a tiara and her sword, and a promethium whip. Armoring up, Batman warns them that they have super strength, flight, speed, etc, but without the genetics to compensate for impacts, it's going to hurt. A lot. Superman punches his hands together, a shockwave bursting out. Superman grits his teeth and his hands are bleeding, but he says that it doesn't hurt enough to stop him from protecting his unborn kid.
The three begin combing the streets, rescuing citizens and taking out parademons. They meet up with other members. With John Jones back on the watchtower working with his team to coordinate league members across the world, they systematically fight back the parademons, nearly securing victory until Darkseid arrives in person. Superman wonders how has alien tech and superpowers, and Batman hypothesizes it was because the blacklight event only affected earth and the technology on it at the time.
Superman grits his teeth and starts flying in. Batman warns him that he's already seriously hurt from the fight so far, throwing punches without restraint. Clark admits that his arms feel like fire, and the shockwaves and g-forces have already blinded him in one eye. Batman says that armor or not, he's still just human, and he won't be able to survive a fight with Darkseid. Clark reminds him that "Powers or not, I'm still Superman."
Superman flies to the makeshift camp that Darkseid has built, finding the dark god sitting on a throne on a pyramid of human skulls, still bloody. The furies move to attack, but Darkseid waves them off, claiming a powerless Kal-El is no threat to a god. In response, Superman grabs a fury by the arm and hurls her at Darkseid demanding he stand and fight him. Darkseid calmly disintegrates the Fury before she hits him, the ash landing gently on the throne at his feet. Darkseid stands and walks leisurely to the ground, commenting how pathetic Kal-el is with his tin suit. Superman jumps at him and lands a direct hit, but Darkseid laments how weak Kal-el has become, how light his punches are when it's just a hydrolics. Darkseid manhandles Superman, making an example of him in front of his troops and the entire world. He punctuates the exposition by crushing Superman's leg in his fist, dangling the bloody body in front of him and to the camera sent around the world. He talks about earth's last hope, a powerless little human all alone relying on nothing but tin toys to oppose a god. To emphasize this, he peels the armor off Clark Kent and tosses him aside, tumbling to the dirt. The world is silent as it seems like evil has won.
After all this, Clark laughs. Darkseid turns, wondering aloud if the despair has broken the mind with the body. But Clark merely comments how wrong Darkseid is. Darkseid is not a god. Pushing himself to standing he said "Powers or not, Clark Kent is still Superman. And I'm not alone."
At that moment, all of Earth's heroes converge on the camp, the bloodred sky darkened with their power-suited forms, an homage to the Crisis sky full of shadow demons. Superman knew that if he kept Darkseid and the command structure pre-occupied, the rest of the heroes could handle the foot soldiers. Granny Goodness and Desaad look troubled, but Darkseid is dismissive. One tin insect or one thousand, it makes no difference.
But Clark continues. Darkseid had called him Earth's one hope, but Earth's real hope was a crazy billionaire with a real poker face. Darkseid looks confused before taking a step back, dizzy and falling to one knee. Superman stands over him and tells him "Last but not least, it's not tin." Darkseid looks down at the armor, now torn open, and sees the small veins of purple metal lining the knuckles of the hands, and looks at his shoulder where Superman punched him, the poison spreading past the armor and now visible.
Darkseid destroys the radion-infused armor with his omega beams and stands up. He applauds the attempt, but one punch, through armor, is not enough to take down Darkseid, and with the Radion destroyed, there's no hope left. This time Batman chimes in over the radio, saying that while radion is too rare to infuse every suit, there's another suit of armor out there with the deadly material. Superman looks up at Darkseid, "One thousand insects out there, and any one of them could have that deadly bite."
Darkseid glares at Superman for a moment before signalling his troops. A boom tube opens and Darkseid assures them that Earth will fall to Darkseid. Maybe not today, but it will happen.
Clark Kent collapses, in relief and exhaustion. As Kyle Rayner and Diana carry him to the medical ship, Kyle wonders who had the other radion suit. Batman responds that there wasn't another one. Carter Hall wonders how radion even existed on earth, since alien metals like the green lantern and the Nth metal disappeared during the blacklight event. Batman reveals that he knew that the device sent back in time would have radion in it, since the JLA of the future would likely have seen this kind of event coming. The device removed all alien metals around it, but not INSIDE it. Clark merely chuckles as he passes out. A crazy billionaire with a real poker face.
Clark wakes up in the hospital, covered in casts and with an eyepatch. Bruce Wayne is in the hospital with him, and Lois is asleep in a chair in the corner. Clark sighs in relief and winces at the pain he gets from the slight movement. Wayne is holding his charts and says he isn't surprised it hurts, "It'd be easier to list what bones AREN'T broken." Clark laughs gently and winces. Sobering up, Bruce apologizes for putting so much responsibility onto Clark, calling him to be Superman again. Clark mentions that he's going to be a father, and he had the power to protect his family thanks to Bruce. The two think about their fathers' sacrifices, and Clark wonders if Bruce is ever going to take on that kind of responsibility. Bruce casually remarks that with his and Selina Kyle's genes, the kid would be more troublesome than Darkseid. Clark sobers up again, "He'll be back, you know." Bruce Wayne merely smiles and pulls a small box out of his pocket. "We'll be ready." A few minutes later, there's an audible boom confirming that Bruce Wayne managed to steal a motherbox. The boom wakes up Lois, and the two embrace.
@@Metrion77 And this is infinitely better than the comic, in every way.
@@Metrion77 I know this comment is old but wow that's a good story
@@breawycker Thank you! Glad you liked it!
@@Metrion77
Could you do a sequel to this story, please it's good/great 👍😃
I am to assume that the mother box somehow restored everyone's powers or something
What/where did the mother box do, what location did Bruce Wayne put into the mother box.
Wait a second. The supergirl shown here is matrix... a shapeshifter whose natural form is some weird, gray, goopy lookin thing. If J'onn got reverted to his natural form why didn't she!?!?
Garrett Knisley Because SHUT UP, MY STORY IS TOTALLY NOT STUPID - Author
+Garrett Knisley Because Supergirl in 2000, when this happened, was a human named Linda Danvers, and she had Matrix bonded to her as a symbiote. Matrix died, and she became just plain Linda.
If it was supposed to be Linda Danvers Supergirl, though, then she should be wearing Linda Danvers' costume and not Matrix Supergirl's costume, which is what she is drawn as wearing in this comic.
This is really the EASIEST one to explain. Matrix/Earthborn Angel disappeared with the magic users, but the human Linda Danvers she was inhabiting remained. She retained her merged memories/personality, which is kind of what happened eventually in the actual comic.
There's a simple explantion for that...
Out of all of the bad comics Linkara has reviewed this ranks pretty high on my worst comics ever list. Mainly because it's horrible miss-characterization and preachy message flat out insults the people who enjoy superheroes.
This for me is right up there with the No More Day speech about how people read comics because they are dissatisfied with their lifes.
.
Doesn't help that this book is another example of Batman favoritism with the whole "Batman is awesome for not having super powers" thing. And people wonder why I tend to give Bats a hard time compared to other super heroes.
@@HubPie3 Especially since other power-less heroes like Guardian, Wildcat, and Mr. Terrific don't get similar praise.
ALSO! Kyle made his costume with his ring, if his ring was inoperative his suit would dissipate and he would revert to his normal clothes
It's a bad sign when the only person written in character is Lex Luthor? But they forgot his obsession with Jolly Ranchers!
Just be glad that this predates the pee jar.
No your talking about his castrated long lost cousin
You could argue that the "superman, why didn't you save us" could've been out of shock that he failed. That may be giving the writer too much credit, but who knows.
Plot twist Green Latrens battery was just dead!
Hunter Quinn holy crap that actually makes some iota of sense. But that still doesn’t explain why his costume is still present.
It would be hilarious if GL just lost his power battery and that's why he's so pissy
Plot twist it was a bad dream of batman made by scarecrow
Technically, shouldn't this be "Act of Batman" since the writer is basically Mary-Suing the hell out of Batman?
Technically Gary Stuing, but yes.
Another nitpick: The ring generates the GL costume, if it's not working then the costume should be gone too.
+Joseph Santi Not only that, but it should also still be functional as it's based off of alien technology, not magic.
My nitpick among the heroes is the android hourman who can not only time travel, but has knowledge of how to make miraclo if he had both then why didn’t he see this coming why not travel forward in time and why didn’t he use miraclo to make an entire league of hourmen(or to a lesser degree a legion of super-birds)?
To be fair, that's ALWAYS be portrayed inconsistently.
I like how Spidergirl handled this same situation. After losing her powers because she punched a huge electric current, and she just got a Goblin Glider, some Pumpkin Bombs, and kept the Web Shooters, and then just being a superhero with all that stuff.
Oh. So basically she became a female equivalent to the Heroic Green Goblin.
That's because Spider-Girl is cool
Also, isn't Wonder Woman exceptionally skilled warrior as well? Just let her pick up a shield and baton or something and I'm pretty sure she can pull her weight. Didn't she also lost her power in 80's and got around it with some Myagi knock off or something?
You’re speaking an alien language called ‘logic’, which this comic clearly does not understand
WW was depowered in the Early 70s actually, but she was a kung-fu superspy (with a Chinese martial artist mentor) instead of a (mystical) warrior princess. It was loosely inspired on The Avengers (the 1960s ITV Spy-Fi show).
@@carlosalmonacid8958 So answer is basically yes :D
I think they should have had it where the magic people are kidnapped and used to do the stuff, that way it explains aliens losing powers even though its their natural abilities
But that' a good idea.
thats the thing , that is honestly a well thought out idea....the author of this comic hates those
Do you mean people like Zatanna, Princess Amethyst, Raven, Zatara, Constantine, Dr. Fate, Traci 13, and the wizard Shazam?
@@JaelinBezel that or imply Mr. Mxyzptlk did this. i mean, basically reality being warped so superman's DNA is basically 100% human now would be easy for a reality warper like MXY.
@@ianr.navahuber2195 Hell. He's DONE that to Supes in the past.
People : But it was an act of god!
Vegeta : But I didnt do anything.
+Shiirow Perfect.
Shiirow Do you really belive your own hype that much!!!
@@dannyfenlon2476 Vegeta: I am the hype!
@@Skull1Hunter goku: stop best buddy!
@@sonicsucks20 vegeta: (from far away) NOOOOOO
This Flash is Wally who also had to live without superspeed for years after his powers went crazy and almost killed him only being fixed after crisis on infinate earths, why is he bitching about loosing his powers here. Yah it sucks but he knows he can live without them and can still help people since he does work for the police and probably has better combat training then your average cop even without his powers. That is another example of an out of character person in this story
As a Wally West fan, I'm in 100% agreement
I mean based on the timing of this story Kyle Rayner only had the ring for a couple of years it's not like he was more used to being a GL than to being a regular human being.
This story takes my favourite superheroes and turns them into a bunch of immature jackasses. I mean for the love of Zod, Billy Batson is the only one acting like a grown up and he's A FREAKING KID! Are you seriously telling me that a child is acting more mature than Superman about this scenario? That is a such a steaming pile of unadulterated bullshit!
There was an "What if?" edition in which Scarlet Witch said "no more powers" instead of "no more mutants" at the end of House of M. This caused any kind of power to disappear, including Doctor Strange's magic and the Skrulls's inate hability of shape-shifting. Wanda is such a powerfull character that it isn't too far fetched to conclude that her actions could carry consequences in universes and/or realities other that her own. Since the writers of JLA:AoG didn't bother themselves with giving any better explanation, I choose to believe that the Black Light was a side-effect of Wanda's actions in her alternate reality.
Oh see now you just gave an idea for a sequel crossover for Act of God that can connect this Elseworlds story to a What If storyline that relate to Act of God. Now I want Marvel & DC to make a sequel to that What If storyline to Act of God.
The way I think of it, if one character would have a breakdown over losing his powers, it was Wally West. I absolutely love Wally, but of all the heroes, this was his dream. He idolized Barry and loved being a superhero. Of course, he'd already dealt with this before, so he probably wouldn't break down, but he's the one where the loss would probably hit on a far more personal level.
I think this is an early demonstration of what years of event comics will eventually teach us. To get that many people with such a wide array of specific talents together in one place it has to be an idiot plot or they'll solve everything in two seconds.
@j.b.5422 that's what TV Tropes calls Conservation of Ninjitsu.
For some reason, I love Supergirl's expression at 9:09. She just looks so FREAKED OUT.
Lois is constantly seen sticking with Clark even if he loses his powers. This whole thing is just a bastardization.
17:03 not only was kyle given the ring, he's been willing to give it up to people he thinks deserve it more than him before
God: I'm taking away everyone's powers
The Specter: WTF, I thought we were friends.
Wait... I get superpowers not working, but does that mean GILLS stop working, too, if Aquaman starts drowning? Okay, he technically doesn't have any gills, but his breathing underwater is still a part of his biology, right? Does that mean everyone in Atlantis drowns, too?
yes
Shouldn't Superman/Girl/Boy still have powers since their powers are derived from the sun, which clearly isn't gone or anything.
Shouldn't Kyle's ring work fine since it's space science and not a true super power?
Shouldn't Steel be just fine since I'm pretty sure he's just in a massive steel suit (though I could be wrong about that)
Shouldn't Martian Manhunter be fine since he's just an alien and all his powers come natural? Likewise for Starfire?
Shouldn't the Flash still have his powers since it's just a mixture of chemicals and lightning, which is technically speaking science based?
There are a lot of "shouldn't so and so still have powers?" when talking about this comic. It's why the setup kind of fails and makes me scratch my head a bit, though I could suspend my disbelief over a good majority of these people losing their powers in an "act of god."
Really, a more interesting way to do this is just have all of the big players of the DCU vanish and watch the people lower than them cope, oh wait that's just Young Justice season 2.
And Wonder Woman was created by the gods themselves to make the ultimate Amazon warrior. Her gods actually exist in real forms and provided her with powers.
It's less so that powers stopped working, and more so that everyone was turned into a baseline human. So if they didn't have trained skills, they'd be worthless. Which is basically just a way to make Batman look better while making everyone else suck.
In fairness, Steel IS actually fine. His suit failing was because of that global technology crash mentioned. Afterwards, he and the suit are shown to be just fine.
I like how Batman doesn't give two shits that there are no more superpowers to help him. Must have completely forgotten that you need them if planet gets invaded Darkseid or Brainiac
That's because the majority of his rogues gallery would be unaffected. Pretty sure the only two this would effect are Clayface and Killer Croc.
Funny thing, there was a time in the main DC Universe where the Justice League voluntarily ALLOWED the Spectre to remove their powers so they could save an entire city from Starro without falling under it's control, not knowing if the Spectre could return them or not...just sayin. :)
"Even though you were raised as a human being, you are not one of them."
-Jor El to Clark, Superman The Movie (1978)
I meant the physiology thing, yeah I should have made that clearer.
Came back here because someone got mad at me making fun of the Batman Vs. Superman quote where Superman says "No one stays good in this world." and told them that's not Superman and he doesn't do that in the comics, then they replied with a panel from this fucking comic 🤣
This is the first AT4w review I ever watched, and to this day, it's still one of my favorites. I picked a great jumping on for these reviews, because you demonstrate so well how *wildly* out of character everyone is
Hey! Mine too!
I get what Doug set out to do. He wanted to tell us a moral about how we can still be heroes even without the powers. He, most likely, wanted to character study what he believed who these people are without their abilities and used Bataman as a way to do it.
The problem comes from the fact that 1) most of these guys HAVE gone without powers before, and won. 2) In order to bring this out, he had to discard 75% of the DCU in order to make it work. It doesn't work, but that is what happened when you have only a quater of an universe to deal with and 3) he had to make it so everyone was out of character to do it.
The jettsoning of the DCU is interesting to me. Mainly because, if you look at the mystic side of the DCU, you would see that there are quite a few characters that are connected to God himself. Not to mention that leacign out the other freaking pantheons leave a lot of questions.
A good story should not have this many questions and plot holes to begin with. It doesn't make it interesting and all I am left with is aquestion mark.
Signs that a DC comic is going to suck: Batman's glorified as the ultimate warrior god of superheroes, and Superman and Wonder Woman are shoved into a pairing.
JLA Act of God has both. Lord have mercy on us poor mortals that read it.
+Gratuitous Lurking Isn't that also whats kind of happening NOW, IN CANON?!
Irony's a bitch, ain't it.
+Gratuitous Lurking Sadly she is. The Batman related stuff HAS been good, but then again it's Grant Morrison, Gail Simone, and I have heard that Grayson has been good, but this is all word of mouth and nt personal experience. But other than that, it's been VERY hit or miss with a lot more of the latter than the former sadly.
+doomrider7 I have issues with Grayson. Mainly in the idea of Dick betraying the trust everyone he cares about by not telling them he is still alive. It's a bit out of character for him.
+shadowspider9 Depends on how it's framed. If it's a sort of, "They can't know because it would endanger them" then it makes sense and would be in character. Other than that, yeah it's a bit iffy then.
Oh, Moench! You've made the silliest Elseworld stores ever.
It's funny, but when Busiek was writing Superman, he had him and a buch of different heroes abducted and their powers robbed. He (rightly) theorized that there's no way anybody could have a device that would so arbitrarily take away powers of such different origin, so that they all THOUGHT they had their powers taken away, but really were the same.
If that isn't a dive at this and other similarly stupid stories..
There was actually an even earlier example during the Byrne Superman run. It was a villain pair that was "taking away" his powers one at a time and did the same to other heroes. He realized that one of the villains was telepathic and when he'd use them would block Superman's conscious and subconcious ability to access them. He went and got a force field belt and kicked their asses as Clark Kent.
Both of these stories show something Act of God doesn't have a clue about. There heroes are heroes with or without powers and aren't going to lose their shit over it. They'll assess the problem, try to solve, and come up with contingency plans. It also ignores that EVERY HERO HAS GONE THROUGH THIS BEFORE.
Even 52 wasn't unique. The Earth Two Superman got hypnotized to forget he was Superman. Clark Kent became a crusading reporter and won the heart of Lois Lane. On their honeymoon, she discovered he used to be Superman and helped restore his memory. She was willing to walk away from the marriage so the world could have Superman back, but he was smart enough to tell her that while selfless, she was being ridiculous. That's how the Earth Two Superman and Lois got together. He's smart and brave without being Superman.
How i'll would fix is that Darkseid somehow able to trick Bat-Mite and Mr. Mxyzptlk to cause the Black Light event and the two imps realize their mistake and were both taken by Darkseid as he attempt of using them to alternate each of the heroes' personalities where the remaining heroes must figure a way of how to stop it and return everything back to normal where they also made an uneasy alliance with the villains.
Or Darkseid uses a device created by the Anti-Monitor as a last resort which never got used.
Isn't Aquaman naturally able to breath because he is not human?
Yep. As with the Superman and Martian Manhunter examples he gives, Aquaman's abilities are all natural abilities wielded by his people, so he shouldn't have lost his powers or should have lost his Amphibiousness leaving him stuck to living underwater if one were trying to write this consistently.
Not only that, if they can take his ability to breath under water wouldn't it make sense for them to be able to take his ability to breath air too?
If they took away both we wouldn't have a scene where he strokes Batman.
So everyone in Atlantis died horribly from drowning or were crushed by the pressures of the deep ocean.
I thought Aquaman was half human?
Wait, isn’t a green lantern’s costume a projection of their ring?! This event genuinely doesn’t have even the slightest clue about the internal logic of the DCU!
This was the first atop the 4th wall I watched and it's what got me into checking out more comics
act of god is just a bad dream by superman after taking too much kryptonite in the face the end
"Interesting premise, incredibly horrible execution"
That a good way to describe...well almost everything.
Thank you for this. This perspective of this series has always struck me as...wrong. So have the characterizations, especially Kyle Rayner, who hasn't been a superhero for all that long, and was an accidental Green Lantern in the first place.
"No one should have powers above and beyond the rest of humanity."
Except me. Because I'm an alien and not part of humanity to begin with. How about no one should have powers above and beyond the rest of humanity, martian-kind or kryptonian?
And Tamaranian-kind, Thanagarian-kind, Atalantean-kind, Amazonian-kind, etc.
The woman he doesn't recognize next to Starfire is Star Sapphire, from the Green Lantern comics, but this is her old costume.
Anyone else think that cop the Flash failed to save looks like Phalous?
Matt Lipton maybe flash didn’t lose his powers and was just faking it so he could have phelous killed.
@@changvasejarik62 That's harsh.
GREAT CONTINUITY! :D
You guys want something to make this even worse? If Aquaman loses his ability to breath underwater. Than logically, the same would happen to everyone else in Atlantis. Effectively drowning thousands, if not millions of people!
+MegaManDBZX That and they'd lose the physiology that allows them to exist at the bottom of the ocean under pressures that'd crunch a human body like a soda can.
The story should have been called What if?: supermans powers were over their
I have a better idea. Every single super powered individual disappears. And everyone who’s left goes after every lead that could show where they went and then they find out Darkseid has kidnapped them in order to better invade earth along with the Crime Syndicate and all the other super villains. Boom a better set up than this pile of garbage.
9:18 Yes, because a doctor is really helpful when battling Thanos. Good god. Martian Manhunter is like the opposite of Commissioner Gordon from the 60's Batman series. CG calls on Batman and Robin for every crime, regardless of how minor, while Martian Manhunter is like "F**ck all heroes. Let the people do everything." Yes, and when Lex Luthor comes in with a giant robot suit, and General Zod comes in with a giant, planet destroying laser, let's let all those police officers, firefighters, and nurses go in to stop them. SCREW. YOU.
I didn't know Jack Chick wrote a mainstream comic.
This is something I just remembered always bugged me while rewatching (that you bring up, but it bears repeating). Why are some of the tech heroes "powers" not working? The Green Lantern rings for instance isn't magic, it's advanced alien technology. It's scientifically-based energy projection that manipulates light into a physical form. We basically do that already with stuff like fiberoptic cables- yes it's not the same thing, blah blah blah, but still it's using light to transfer data. I could go on to other heroes, but my point is made.
It's almost like Dougie Munch, sorry not sorry, bad writers don't get my respect to pronounce their names right, it's almost like the dork didn't really think this all through before preparing to write this Batman fan-fiction.
This might work in the verse of My Hero Academia - just extend Eraserhead's quirk to everyone, since in that verse all superpowers work the same way (except kinda sorta OFA).
Yeah. There may be a reason why Moench writes everything like Batman. He has done a lot of Batman writing, most notably Knightfall. He also wrote Batman 497, the issue where Bane broke Batman's back. Didn't create Bane though, that was Chuck Dixon.
It's weird that they use humans as the baseline for what's "normal" in a universe in which many different types of people and cultures exist. It's even weirder that this humanocentric thinking is coming from Martian Manhunter of all people.
Thumbnail got Linkara looking like "Why? What did I do to deserve this?"
Captain Marvel doesn’t disappear either. He literally has wizard powers!
Here’s my big question; why has GL lost his abilities? His abilities are technologically based. Booster and Blue Battle still have their powers, so what’s going on here?
I wonder if God was just screwing around with the super heroes out of boredom.
You mean like in Two of a Kind when he decided to destroy the earth cause he was bored?
FNGLHR Something like that yeah.
@19:23-19:30
Continuity Alarm: AHHN AHHN AHHN AHHN!
Linkara: oh what NOW you decide to pipe up?
Continuity Alarm(You Switched me off before the Review, I'm Back Baby!): AHHN AHHN AHHN AHHN!
I am no comic buff, but who exactly decided that Kyle Rayner's mask looked...good? That thing looks freaking horrible.
I've been saying that for years, it sure is.
Egh at least Monech got Black Canary right she doesn’t talk but we still see her among the hero’s still in action
i like to imagine a parody where the magic heroes are STILL THERE, the light just brainwashes eveyone else into idiots and is making them ignore them.
then spectre forces himself back into their reality to finish a conversation he was having and deliver a message from his boss "not me".
then the fortress of solitude robots show up, having detected the disturbance, and offer help but the light makes everyone whine and moan instead of accept it.
then the new gods show up and offer to help but eventually just fix it while everyone else is being an idiot, at which point everyone starts acting like themselves again.
Maybe if everyone nonhuman had been turned physically human that would make more sense and later we find out anyone on another planet has been changed to match the dominant species there too, like in Apokolypse Darkseid and his slaves are now equally powerful.
Honestly, I get Aquaman taking the loss of his powers the hardest, because he's the King of Atlantis. If he can't breathe underwater in order to travel to Atlantis...
This kinda reminds me of an SCP tale called Quiet Days
www.scp-wiki.net/quiet-days
Where all of a sudden, every anomalous, mystical, dangerous or paranormal entity or item in the world (called SCPs in the context of the universe) disappears or is loses their anomalous properties. It's a pretty good read, I recommend it.
It's an act of God!
Doctor Doom: Why, yes; this is an act...me.
When I saw Stupid Mario Brothers: Operation Blind Storm and they lost their powers in that one I immediately thought to myself: "Oh, dear God, please tell me Rich Alvarez didn't read JLA Act of God and thought it was good." and it feels as if he did because like JLA: Act of God, he had a good premise but awful execution about it.
Since they talked about police officers, firefighters, medics, and the like, let's use that as a metaphor. What if there was a black light that robbed trained professionals of the ability to use the skills they had learned in training? They couldn't properly carry victims to safety, give first aid, use their protective gear or medical equipment, shoot a weapon, examine forensic evidence, etc. Could you imagine them saying, "Well, civilians have done great things and helped people too, so maybe our training was wrong. Maybe it was wrong for us to have those abilities to help people."? If that scenario is stupid, then so is the scenario Martian Manhunter was suggesting.
Ten years ago of Batman act of god guest starring JLA
So Superman loses his powers, along with everyone else.
And he doesn't break open the Kryptonian armories why?
cause that would assume some level of thought, in which this comic lacks
This story only exists if you have literally no idea of DC works. In the DC universe, Gods exist. Not just "God" like Superman of the New Gods- all gods, including the Abrahamic God.
So I bring that up because this story doesn't even work within the context of a "Elseworlds" story. The idea behind THE God in DC isn't a "what if"- it's an actuality. Where the wiggle room is, is how involved in His creation he gets and how religious he is (meaning is he the Abrahamic God or just the ultimate being that exists). There are stories where He gets more involved, here and there, but the point is... this story IMMEDIATELY doesn't work because it takes place in a universe where an Act of God wouldn't be this.
This is more of a Marvel story. Because Marvel, as far as I understand it, doesn't even have Gods. They have "celestials", which are usually just magicians and advanced technology. Even "Hell" in Marvel comics isn't the metaphysical Hell but a physical location you can travel to lol
Well they have the one above all.
8:46 Why stop there? Maxi-extreme ultra super-duper Mega Cyber Radical Supreme Legendary Top-secret Normal. :)
This story feels like it was written by somebody who had an extremely surface level understanding of the DC Universe and its characters. Even as somebody who's never read a single story with Kyle Renner in it, even I can tell that it just feels super off for him to be having a mental breakdown over this. Aren't these guys supposed to be symbols of hope who will always try and work to find the best solution to a problem, no matter how impossible it may seem?
Probably one of those people who loves deconstructing superheroes, thinks the MCU is the best depiction of superheroes and thinks their defenders of the status quo.
So it's a story where I wrote Kyle Rayner that sounds like utter garbage
Personally I maintained the premise for JLA act of god could’ve have worked but unfortunately the execution of the version that we got is a complete and utter trainwreck
"Quick, somebody play Amazing Grace!"
That has a whole new meaning nowadays. First you need to play "Hey Apple!"
DC really needs to fire its editorial staff and hire some new ones that aren't convinced comics are for middle aged men. Writers who understand and care about the characters would also help.
The writer revealed his hand a little early here, with J'onn listing the clergy among those who save lives without powers. I'm sure there are members of the clergy who have saved lives. I'm sure there are those who do it on a regular basis. But the function of the clergy as a group is NOT to "save lives", except in an abstract religious sense that needs you to buy into the specific religion in the first place to accept it. So there we have it, the underlying subtext of the comic. Religion (or at least one particular religion, though we all know which one it's meant to be, really) is right. God exists and he should be worshipped, and superheroes were stripped of their powers because they became too close to him. So people having the ability to alleviate too much suffering and save too many people at once is bad because it makes God jealous. And this is not even commented on, just accepted blindly.
I have a feeling that whoever wrote this believes in the same God the Westboro Baptist Church do.
It also ignores that Christian God exists in the DCU. He is actively a power in the world and generally freaking loves heroes, because they do the thing you are supposed to do as a Christian and love others/ do for others as you'd have them do for you. Heck, the Specter is literally billed as his wrath given form and even there, tons of other beings magical or otherwise often point out that Specter is often wrong, because he is just wrath and not the stuff that should be governing it.
This story, is exactly what happens when DC makes crappy stories. They hire writers who don’t get jack squat about any of the characters at all and be heavily reliant on Batman. Not only we get stories like JLA Act of God, we also get stories similar to this like JLA Cry For Justice, Countdown, Identity Crisis, Heroes in Crisis, any Justice League story in the New 52, where they just act like they trying to be like Marvel’s characters. No. Big, BIG no. When doing a character in DC Comics, especially Marvel’s, you need to do some research on said characters in order to get the picture of what these characters are supposed to stand for and what makes them great characters.
But now we get terrible DC stories where it is just nothing but Batman this, Batman that, BATMAN, BATMAN, BATMAN! For goodness sake as much as I do like Batman, but this is exactly why I don’t like it when writers pull off a wrong move with Batman and many people like me are getting so sick and tired of freaking Batman. Not only just Batman but his enemy, the Joker. They are so reliant on them and it begins to spread everywhere like a plague, to the point where it’s getting absolutely ridiculous and really stupid.
You know what I want to on Batman? I want a Batman who needs help when he really needs it, a Batman who is capable of being overwhelmed, a Batman who sometimes second guessing himself cause he needs some reassurance from his friends and colleagues. Not the know it all antisocial demigod who finishes everyone’s sentences for them and thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room.
You know what else I want to see on DC’s characters? I want to see them being them. I want them to be seen done right. Not be like Batman or Marvel’s characters.
I'm with you Linkara, I think whoever wrote this didn't really know much about the other heroes and didn't care, focused only on knocking all superheroes that dare to be more powerful than Batman down a few pegs for their "arrogance". As if the DC universe were stacked to the brim with Smug Supers; if that were the case, this might be kinda cathartic but no one would be following a world like that in the first place, thus no one would care.
I feel like the scene with Martian manhunter could have worked if he brought up the point that if superpowers disappear then there also wouldn't be any super villains. That would give the super powered heroes a dilemma, without super villains the biggest threats are mostly eliminated and the smaller threats could still be handled by tech heroes like Batman.
Linkara" it's little green gun"
Fox:lol
This has an interesting idea, if it were implemented well. Like if a God had imposed “reality” that is our reality. No speed force or super breath. Would be an interesting meta commentary on how the universe works.
You'll never have a nightmare if you never dream.
Alex Drake stop smiling please...
Why does Kyle Rayner have his costume, isn't that an extension of his ring?
The way I see it, the writer didn't care about the logic of who loses what power. It was more of 'heroes on Earth should have their powers taken away' because they deserved it... I guess? The writer wasn't interested in the characters themselves. He just wanted to preach about how the Justice League with super powers had god complexes. Crappy writing.
I couldn't agree with you more. This comic became more annoying after issue 2.
Why was Aquaman drowning? Breathing underwater is not a superpower. He's an Atlantean. Also, isn't Stargirl's Cosmic Rod tech?
The writer of this ridiculous story basically defines anything as a "superpower" as anything a baseline human is incapable of. And yes, the Cosmic Rod is technology.
God acts in ludicrous ways.
So does the writers.
I have a idea for an else world story, I call it Übermeinch and it centers around a timeline where Clark Kent is found by the german royal family in 1887 as when Brainiac attacks krypton supermans pod is repelled so quickly that it enter the speed force and revert back to 1887, with it still being sent to earth. By the age of fifteen Clark or as he is referred to in this else world story Hoffman Zimmer discovers his powers dawns a suit similar to the main world superman except in the colours of the flag of the german empire, and at the age of 23 is drafted into the first world war under the name Übermeinch and used by the german army as a mere weapon, and just a few months in Germany wins the war and becomes the sole superpower. Later on in this timeline Alf Landon wins the presidency as Woodrow Wilson never runs for office and because he can't run as a republican Theodore Roosevelt runs for office and as such postpones the great depression until Alf Landon's ascent to the whitehouse two years to be exact on May 11th 1938, however with no second world war the depression doesn't stop till the late 1950's. Causing a series of populist on both side of both parties to become president. Meanwhile in Germany because of the death of Kaiser Whilhelm the II Superman or Übermeinch seeps into a constant state of depression until he picks up on a voice coming from the UK thanks to his super hearing. He discovers a young Bruce Wayne then working for the CIA, as he sees both Bruce and another character talk about a green rock with unknown qualities and as Übermeinch comes down he can see that they're directly in front of this rock and as he sees it he falls to the ground and both Bruce and his partner are shocked to see Übermeinch who had became the stuff of myth ever since WW1 and in shock they see that he seems to become weaker and weaker to thes substance, Bruce asks if he wants him to get him out of the site of the strange orb, as by then Hoffman Zimmer had grown depressed and suicidal he tells both men to leave as he dies peacefully. If anyone wants to critique feel free to do so and if we hit 200 likes on this comment I will continue this story!!
And if anyone wants to take this ideas feel free to do so.
Not a fan of a ending feels like we’re missing something like a message about the übermeich. And probably something similar like red son.
It always pisses me off in situations like this when someone will say 'but there are doctors, police officers, firemen, these people are heroes without the use of superpowers' Well I'm sorry, but I don't think a police officer could outrun a bullet. The realm of superheroes is one where those officials cannot help. No fireman could have stopped that damn from breaking, but Superman could.
I agree. People like doctors, police officers, and firefighters save countless lives in our world, but I don't think your average GCPD officer would be of much use when Darkseid strolls into town.
The second I heard 'Load the spaceship with the rocket fuel' I lost it. That was awesome. I'd love to see Ultimate Warrior and Batman having a conversation?
If Steel's suit failed, why does Booster's stuff, and the Watchtower teleporter, still work?
I see "Supergirl" - if J'onn reverted to his natural form, why didn't Matrix revert to a blob? For that matter, why is the clay statue still blessed with the gifts of Hestia and Aphrodite? Oh, and life.
Apparently the writer only had a token knowledge of heroes who weren't Batman.
Igarappappa
And was very intermittent in applying even that.
***** Pretty much. I don't get why some writers can't read up on the histories when they're gonna do stories that involve so many character. Doesn't matter if this is an Elseworlds, you still need that foundation.
+Lynn Green It's said in the comic that technology was cut out for about a minute before it came back on. Still doesn't explain everything else, but yeah...
Once his ring stopped working, shouldn't Kyle's costume have disappeared?
I am not well versed in all the variations on the Green Lantern, but wasn't the uniform generated by the ring in at least some versions? Was Kyle's a definite costume or a ring construct? If the latter, shouldn't it vanish? (Also, why would Aquaman lose the ability to breathe underwater? Wasn't water breathing as much a part of Atlantean DNA as Superman or Martian Manhunter's powers? Or Starfire's?)