The Book of Hsssh

Father Time was introduced by Morrison in Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein mini. Not much was revealed about him at the time and he was fleshed out mostly by other creators. Was anything interesting done by them? In my Freedom Fighters post  I mentioned that Father Time plays a role there. So what was it about? I guess basic idea is that in WW3 #1 Father Time gets injured by Black Adam. Due to these injuries he gets a new body. Now he is white guy and generic evil government guy. What? So anyway, at some point he turns black again and reveals that he was just pretending that he is generic evil government guy. Why? To achieve some complicated goals that didn't make much sense in the end. And there is also JSA Classified #25 that features white Father Time. So before New 52 there is not really much worth reading with Father Time after his introduction. Sure, he makes brief appearance in Final Crisis, but it is not like Morrison does much with him there either. But hey, here comes New 52.

Prometheus was one of the villains introduced in Morrison's JLA run. Basically evil Batman with a bit goofy gimmick of inserting discs into his helmet. Maybe discs becoming a bit of an obsolete technology is one of the reason why he had a rocky career. Or maybe writers just don't know what to do with him. To cut things short Prometheus became a bit of a joke and I have seen some people, who normally post okay opinions, say that well he was a joke in his first JLA story as well. After all his plan was absurd and in the end he was taken out by Huntress. But villains tend to have absurd plots and motivations in Morrison's work, that is normal. As for getting taken out by Huntress? Lets step back a little and look at what Morrison was doing at the time. When it comes to Justice League there is always a question on the purpose of various members because Superman is there. He is stronger, faster and smarter than most of the members so what can they really contribute to the team?

At the end of Morrison's run Ra's is shown to still have many Damian clones in his secret lair. What happened with these clones? After Damian died Bruce went on a quest to bring back his son. Naturally it lead to a conflict with Ra's that we saw in "Batman and Robin Vol. 6 - The Hunt for Robin" storyline. In Batman and Aquman #29 (or just Batman and Robin #29) we see Ra's trying to use those clones against Batman and Aquman. They obviously fail and Aquaman takes them under his own protection to Atlantis due to whole "nurtured by whales" thing. Eventually Damian came back and one of the things he did was visit Aquaman in Batman and Robin #39 to see how his clones are doing. He says they are his family and with Aquaman's help moves them to some remote island where they can live in peace. Last time we see them is Robin: Son of Batman #5. Damian during his adventures ends up on the same island, there is a battle and his clones end up sacrificing them

On paper idea of Convergence Brainiac is rather simple, if regular Brainiac collects cities from doomed worlds then maybe there is super Brainiac who collects cities from doomed realities? But according to Jeff King, the writer of Convergence, this idea came from Morrison during a conversation with DiDio and King. So what happened next? Entire thing started in Futures End weekly series. Brainiac was treated like the big bad until Brother Eye came out as the main bad guy. Nothing really wrong with that, problem was that we got multiple versions of Brainiac. One version is present in Frankenstein's story. Brainiac there isn't very unique or interesting. Key point I guess was that this is the real Brainiac while everyone else is just a shell, or something. It is a common trope with robotic or artificial beings - reveal that everyone you fought before wasn't the real deal. I liked Frankenstein's story and Brainiac played his role fine, but it wasn't something spectacula

Morrison's JLA run was a big deal back in the day. So it is not surprising that we got a number of spin-offs that were connected in some way to what Morrison was doing. Many of them were bad like JLA: Paradise Lost that focused on Zauriel. Even Aztek, despite Morrison's direct involvement, never really became a must-read for me. So I was not in a rush to try Hourman's ongoing when many shorter stories weren't any good. And on top of that it was written by this Peyer guy. What was my problem with Peyer? I tried his JLA: Tomorrow Woman and thought that it was terrible. He did write some DC One Million tie-ins and I wasn't impressed by them either. Then there was this interview about the time he was editing Morrison's Doom Patrol where he basically says that he didn't understand it. And he is going to write an ongoing using Morrison's character? Thanks, but no. On the other hand it was drawn by Rags Morales and some people with decent comics opinions kept

These days when writer wraps up his run toys are usually put back into the toybox so that the next writer could do what he wants instead of being forced to continue the previous run. But just as often not everything is wrapped up nicely. Some plot points, intentionally or not, are left open. One such plot point in Morrison's Batman run was Lord Death Man - last we saw him he was captured by Ra's with his blood being harvested for Lazarus pit. So whatever happened after that? While it never gets fully resolved we do get couple of follow ups that move things slightly forward. First there was such a thing as Talon ongoing. Court of Owls was a big hit so naturally we got some related titles out of it. Talon didn't last long and Tim Seeley wrote last two issues (#16-17) that wrapped up Talon's story and at the same time brought back Death Man. Anyway, main characters of Talon, for their personal reasons, invade Ra's secret base where Death Man is being kept and it just h