run to the hills.

The seventh and final issue of DC Comics "Salvation Run" mini-series came out this past Wednesday. I got around to reading it the other night and the only thing it made me think was how great the series could have been if it had been done right.


"Salvation Run" is all about the villians of the DCU. They have been captured and imprisoned on a far away planet, which also just so happens to be filled with monsters and creatures hell bent on destroying anything that steps foot on their world. We're talking basically every single DC rogue, everyone from the upper-echelon types like Lex Luthor and Two-Face to C-listers like Effigy and Skorpio. The early parts of this 7-issue run focuses on how this happened and latter issues deal with how the bad guys are going to get out of dodge.

Sounds like an awesome concept, I know. When this thing was announced, I was all sorts of excited. I really dug "Villians United" and the "Secret Six" mini-series and figured this would build on those stories a bit more than it actually did. I hoped to see a bit more of the focus on some of the lesser-known baddies those stories made me like to much. The original creative team of Bill Willingham and Sean Chen didn't last long, as Willingham had to take a leave due to an illness. Matthew Sturges took over the writing duties and sadly, the momentum of the series really slowed down. As much as it sucks to say it, the delays really hampered this book in the long run.

By the time this series wrapped up, "Final Crisis" had already begun. The Martian Manhunter was killed, yet at the end of "Salvation Run" we see him trapped on the prison planet. It kind of makes it hard to feel bad for good ol' J'onn when you already know he is going to get back to Earth somehow, only to be killed by Libra in the beginning of Grant Morrison's "Final Crisis." You knew going into the last issue that somehow the villians would get back to Earth and everything would be peachy keen, mainly because we had seen some of them in other books already. The continuity conflicts definitely took something away from my enjoyment of this series.


I may be coming off more negatively than I really want to. The series had some really cool moments. Who hasn't been waiting to see The Joker vs. Lex Luthor? Vandal Savage was great, as he usually is. A handful of villians bit the dust, including Solomon Grundy once again. The reveals about who set the whole thing up were thought-provoking and the conclusion fit the story perfectly. "Salvation Run" wasn't a bad book at all, but it definitely would have been so much more. I may have to go back and read the whole thing over again sometime, perhaps that will improve my appreciation for what the folks at DC were trying to do.

Then again, maybe I'm just pissed that they killed Grundy, again.