History ComicBook / HeroesInCrisis

''Heroes in Crisis'' is [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths the]] [[ComicBook/ZeroHour latest]] [[ComicBook/IdentityCrisis entry]] [[ComicBook/IdentityCrisis in]] [[ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis a]] [[ComicBook/FinalCrisis long line]] of crisis crossovers with the word "crisis" in the title, but whereas most of those storylines were very cosmic and grandiose, [[SomethingCompletelyDifferent this one is more existential and personal]], inspired by a traumatic experience in King's life prior to the series.

** Ted Kord seems to remember his own death from ''Infinite Crisis'' for some reason, despite never making mention of it since his return via CosmicRetcon. If his death happened, then ''Infinite Crisis'' must've also happened, which it didn't post-Flashpoint; and if it did, how Ted is back isn't even slightly touched on.

*** The other reason for being him at Sanctuary is people not acknowledging his missing wife and kids and putting him up on a pedestal as a symbol of hope. Except several people ''have'' acknowledged Linda, Irey and Jai (more often than not, in fact), and the idea of Wally as embodying hope has never actually been claimed ''in-universe'' -- it's a statement from DC and the interpretation of many, many readers, but purely on a meta level.

* ContinuitySnarl: Many, if not most, of the reasons why certain heroes were at Sanctuary cause problems for the current DC continuity. The reason for so many snarls is likely the result of DC continuity, at the time of publication of this series, being an even bigger mess than it usually is. DC Rebirth allowed writers to pick and choose what continuity they wanted to use for the stories they were writing, but plenty of stuff from New 52 stayed in. It seems King took advantage of this in the series to allow him to have confessionals with versions of the characters that would be the most traumatized and interesting to explore, without much concern for how it would all fit in, such as Beast Boy after Terra's death, or Ted Kord after dying in Infinite Crisis. Attempting to justify most of it is probably not possible. Granted, some of these snarls, specifically the ones related to the series own tie-ins and lead-ins, is likely the result of poor editorial oversight or the writer not being overly concerned with continuity. In a few cases, such as Dove and Doctor Light II, it's likely the result of the writer not being overly familiar with the character and writing them based on limited knowledge. This is also the result of many, many characters appearing in this series, but only for a single page confessional that usually has them ''heavily'' reference their own history (which is always a great way to get snarls), while the actual cast of the book is much smaller.

** Superman mentions his struggle with his duality of being both Clark Kent and Superman, with Clark being clumsy and Superman being perfect. Except Clark Kent hasn't acted clumsy in a ''long'' time, so this would have to take place extremely early in Superman's career, which it makes no indication of (the rest clearly take place a while into everyone's careers and Superman was active earlier than most of them).
*** Superman's 'duality' is probably his best-known aspect that could be plumbed for examination, but Superman, as he exists now, does not have this issue, as stated above. This stands out because Superman's continuity is slightly less of a mess thanks to Superman Reborn than the rest of the DCU characters. Presumably, the writer just wanted to examine this idea and didn't worry about fitting it in.

** Ted Kord seems to remember his own death from ''Infinite Crisis'' for some reason, despite never making mention of it since his return via CosmicRetcon. If his death happened, then Infinite Crisis must've also happened, which it didn't post-Flashpoint; and if it did, how Ted is back isn't even slightly touched on.

** Beast Boy laments the death of Terra, his first love. Terra isn't dead as of the New 52.

** Superman asks Batman is he has kryptonite in his Bat-belt, and is later surprised when it turns out he does. Superman knows that Batman has contingencies for the League going rogue and specifically that Bruce has kryptonite reserved for ''him'', and post-Crisis and post-Flashpoint, ''he's the one who gave it to Bruce''.

* CluelessMystery: Of the entire mystery, almost all the clues are misdirects or irrelevant to the larger story. [[spoiler: Making things worse is that the "solution" involves a retcon that makes no sense to anyone familiar with the Flash lore.]]

*** Also, Wally's grief is clearly written as if Linda and the kids are lost forever. Not once does it come up that it's entirely possible he could get them back. This also contradicts "Flash War", which outright stated that Irey and Jai were alive somewhere, but Wally had no way to find them. Linda herself isn't even lost (though she hasn't been seen in quite a while, if you don't count the Sanctuary simulations), she just doesn't have her pre-Flashpoint memories, with the problem there is that Wally, for a reason that has never been adequately explained, can't restore her memories of their past life. This snarl is even worse when it's shown in ''Young Justice'' that Zatanna was able to restore Tim Drake's pre-Flashpoint memories of Young Justice, meaning there are other methods. And also, more connected to the Flash, Iris West regains ''her'' pre-Flashpoint memories as well. So...

** Booster Gold can tell from looking at a photograph that [[spoiler: Wally's]] corpse is five days older than everyone else's. How he does this is explained only by him being a time traveler.

* MoodWhiplash: The final issue suffers from this, both within the issue itself and arguably the rest of the series as a whole. Characters such as Booster Gold and Harley Quinn act weirdly comedic given what their objective is, and you'd think the whole ragtag group was just going on a little road trip as opposed to stopping [[spoiler: Wally from killing himself]]. Not to mention many of the final confessions seem to be jokes or gags rather than serious looks at characters' psyche, which is in stark contrast to most of the confessions in previous issues. Also, Harley Quinn's GroinAttack on [[spoiler:Wally]] seems rather out-of-place to do right after talking him down from [[spoiler: suicide]], deserved or not.

** [[spoiler:The thing that is triggering this CrisisCrossover is an attempt at defying ThereAreNoTherapists within the superhero community (and thus comics) GoneHorriblyWrong. It's difficult to say if this story actually does or doesn't do that. There are no actual therapists at Sanctuary and the ending has more heroes going to Sanctuary than ever before, despite most of the events in the series giving them every logical reason to not even consider it. Also still with no sign of any therapists.]]

*** Superman's 'duality' is probably his best-known aspect that could be plumbed for examination, but Superman as he exists now does not have this issue, as stated above. This stands out because Superman's continuity is slightly less of a mess thanks to Superman Reborn than the rest of the DCU characters. Presumably, the writer just wanted to examine this idea and didn't worry about fitting it in.

** Wally West says being imbued with the Speed Force means that the person must always work to keep it contained, and [[spoiler:apparently him not being able to do so is what caused the shockwave that killed everyone at Sanctuary]]. This is completely new and doesn't actually make sense: In "ComicBook/FlashWar", the story immediately preceding ''Heroes in Crisis'', Barry explicitly says that Wally is faster than him because he cuts loose. Not to mention Bart Allen has pretty much ''never'' had self control when it comes to using the Speed Force, and he's never [[spoiler: accidentally murdered anyone because of it]].

* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: A common criticism of the book has been that none of the looks into the characters' psychological problems matter, because they're almost all KilledOffscreen by the time the book starts.

** Wally West during the massacre seems to have forgotten how to vibrate through things as well as, well, how fast he is. The scene plays out like the murderer had time to kill everyone by the time Wally got to Roy Harper, but "Flash War" established Wally as the fastest speedster ''in existence'', yet Barry Allen is demonstrably faster than Wally is shown to be in this same story. [[spoiler:There is a very good reason for this]].
* FrameUp: [[spoiler:Wally West frames both Booster Gold and Harley Quinn for the Sanctuary massacre through the use of {{Gaslighting}}. Granted, it seems the frame up was never meant to actually have Harley Quinn or Booster Gold go down for the crime, as Wally's taped confession is what exonerates them and he seemingly always intended to confess, it was simply to keep the Trinity distracted for five days by having them chase Harley and Booster. But he did still frame them, and its entirely possible said chase could've ended with either of them getting killed accidentally or others being harmed in the hunt for them.]]

* GoMadFromTheRevelation: [[spoiler:What happened to Wally. He had believed that Sanctuary was made just for him, that there was no way that other heroes were suffering like he was. He learned that the confessions at Sanctuary were always deleted and took that as a challenge. He was able to recreate all of the confessions and it broke him to know that he wasn't alone in such suffering.]]
* GroinAttack: [[spoiler:When all is said is done, Harley knees Wally in the groin and curses him out for all of the grief he's put her and Ivy through]].

* HeroKiller: The culprit is specifically targeting supers. [[spoiler: Except it turns out no one is 'targeted' at all. The deaths are all the result of an accident, and its only supers that die because only supers were at Sanctuary.]]

* TonightSomeoneDies: [[http://insidepulse.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/DC-Nation-4.jpg The cover of September 2018's DC Nation magazine]] suggests one of the following characters --Arsenal, Harley Quinn, Tim Drake, Booster Gold, Cyborg, Kyle Rayner-- will die in the series. [[spoiler: So far, the one character out of those six to die is Arsenal.]]

** In Issue #7, Wally recites a poem he says Linda read at their wedding. Except she didn't. Wally and Linda's wedding occurred during Wally's solo series, and no poetry was involved -- the wedding explicitly contained nothing but the actual officiating of their marriage, because Wally rushed through the entire thing (MakeSenseInContext). And this can't be explained by ''Flashpoint'' or ''Rebirth'' creating an alternate version of the wedding (like could be claimed for Clark and Lois), because at present they aren't married, at least not in any way that's acknowledged in the current universe, so the only wedding they've had is the one depicted Pre-Flashpoint.

** In Issue #7, Wally recites a poem he says Linda read at their wedding. Except she didn't. Wally and Linda's wedding occurred during Wally's solo series, and no poetry was involved -- the wedding explicitly contained nothing but the actual officiating of their marriage, because Wally rushed through the entire thing. And this can't be explained by ''Flashpoint'' or ''Rebirth'' creating an alternate version of the wedding (like could be claimed for Clark and Lois), because at present they aren't married, at least not in any way that's acknowledged in the current universe, so the only wedding they've had is the one depicted Pre-Flashpoint.

''Heroes in Crisis'' is a 2018 {{crisis crossover}} published by Creator/DCComics, written by Creator/TomKing and drawn by Clay Mann.

* SpiritualSuccessor: The latest DC {{crisis crossover}} with the word "crisis" in the title, it also tackles a smaller scale threat concerning heroes' personal lives and a breech of their trust. It's basically the 2010s version of ''ComicBook/IdentityCrisis''.

** In Issue #7, Wally recites a poem he says Linda read at their wedding. Except she didn't. Wally and Linda's wedding occurred during Wally's solo series, and no poetry was involved. And this can't be explained by Flashpoint or Rebirth creating an alternate version of the wedding (like could be claimed for Clark and Lois), because at present they aren't married, at least not in any way that's acknowledged in the current universe, so the only wedding they've had is the one depicted Pre-Flashpoint.

*** It's possible this was a simple mistake by the artist to put in an easter egg without much thought, or so has been claimed. This is entirely possible, simply because ANY of the six Earth Green Lanterns dying would be a significant death on par or surpassing [[spoiler: Roy Harper]] and therefore they wouldn't have first shown it in an unclear throwaway panel. And it wouldn't make much sense for any of the other Green Lanterns to be at Sanctuary.

* ContinuityNod: When Wonder Woman points out Batman's tendencies to be CrazyPrepared, she specifically mentions his history of developing countermeasures against each member of the Justice League.

*** It's possible this was a simple mistake by the artist to put in an easter egg without much thought, or so has been claimed. This is entirely possible, simply because ANY of the six Earth Green Lanterns dying would be a significant death on par or surpassing [[spoiler: Roy Harper]] and therefore they wouldn't have first shown it in an unclear throwaway panel.

** [[spoiler: Unlike the other victims, Lagoon Boy's death is shown early on in the series; he's impaled by a spear, seemingly not at all by accident. That doesn't line up in any way with what we're ultimately told happened, and Tom King's attempt to blame it on his own 'poor writing' (his words) isn't that believable.]]

* Among the dead in the first issue is an unidentified Green Lantern. It is never explained who this is, but by the end of the issue, Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, John Stewart and Kyle Rayner are depicted as alive. This implies that it was meant to be Simon Baz or Jessica Cruz who died (probably more Simon as the subject seems male)... but it's never beought up and is treated like just another hero died and there's no mention of the ring seeking a replacement wielder.

** [[spoiler:The thing that is triggering this CrisisCrossover is an attempt at defying ThereAreNoTherapists within the superhero community (and thus comics) GoneHorriblyWrong. If the aftermath of this mess doesn't lead to more superheroes believing that TherapyIsForTheWeak, it'll be a miracle.]]

* IdiotBall: Batman and the Flash cannot agree on the results of an autopsy implicating Booster Gold or Harley Quinn. This, despite Gold using lasers and Quinn using a mallet. Neither Batman nor Flash even think it odd that they can't tell the difference in injuries. [[spoiler:It makes a little more sense when it's revealed that Wally deliberately staged the corpses to trick the two.]]

*** Also, Wally's grief is clearly written as if Linda and the kids are lost forever. Not once does it come up that it's entirely possible he could get them back. This also contradicts "Flash War", which outright stated that Irey and Jai were alive somewhere, but Wally had no way to find them. Linda herself isn't even at that level of lost, with the problem there being that Wally, for a reason that has never been explained, can't restore her memories of their past life. This snarl is even worse when it's shown in ''Young Justice'' that Zatanna was able to restore Tim Drake's pre-Flashpoint memories of Young Justice, meaning there are other methods.

* HeroKiller: The culprit is specifically targeting supers.

* CrisisCrossover: Involving all the characters of the DC Universe.

* ContinuitySnarl: Many, if not most, of the reasons why certain heroes were at Sanctuary cause problems for the current DC continuity. The reason for so many snarls is likely the result of DC continuity, at the time of publication of this series, being an even bigger mess than it usually is. DC Rebirth allowed writers to pick and choose what continuity they wanted to use for the stories they were writing, but plenty of stuff from New 52 stayed in. It seems King took advantage of this in the series to allow him to have confessionals with versions of the characters that would be the most traumatized and interesting to explore, without much concern for how it would all fit in, such as Beast Boy after Terra's death, or Ted Kord after dying in Infinite Crisis. Attempting to justify most of it is probably not possible. Granted, some of these snarls, specifically the ones related to the series own tie-ins and lead-ins, is likely the result of poor editorial oversight or the writer not being overly concerned with continuity. In a few cases, such as Dove and Doctor Light II, it's likely the result of the writer not being overly familiar with the character and writing them based on limited knowledge. This is also the result of many, many characters appearing in this series, but only for a single page confessional that usually has them heavily reference their own history, while the actual cast of the book is much smaller.