Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

[kellinator]

I just made the mistake of checking at the DC website to see what's coming up next in Gotham Central and saw the synopsis for #39. Jim Corrigan, the corrupt CSI tech, kills a hero in the line of duty... and judging by the fact that the cover features a shattered Renee Montoya being restrained by Driver and Josie Mac, you know what that means. RIP Crispus Allen. I tried to deny the evidence, but I'm just not that willfully ignorant.

My favorite partner pairing in Gotham Central, possibly my favorite cop pairing ever, is ending. This will only make sense to the Homicide fans, but Allen and Montoya are what Pembleton and Bayliss would have been if Frank hadn't been a dick and Tim hadn't been a wuss.

*inconsolable weeping*

I'm now working through the Kubler-Ross stages of grief...

Denial: "It CAN'T be Allen. Pleasepleaseplease don't let it be Allen. It just CAN'T be Allen."
Anger: "Didn't you hear me, Greg Rucka? It CAN'T be Allen!! How dare you!! YOU TOLD ME YOURSELF THAT HE'S PEMBLETON!!"
Bargaining: "You can't do this! If you do Gotham Central will be all about Driver and his shift and nobody gives a shit about them anyway! Kill one of them, nobody cares about them in the first place!"
Depression: "Dammit, if you do this I'll stop reading Gotham Central because like I said, nobody gives a a shit about the other shift. How can you do this to Cris? He's got a wife and kids! How can you do this to Renee? Is there any possible suck-ass event that hasn't happened to Renee during the run of this comic?!"
Acceptance: "This still sucks ass and you're going to regret it, but if it means that Cris Allen is going to be the new Spectre, well, I suppose we can suffer you to live. Don't be surprised when Gotham Central goes down the toilet though."

So anyway, here I am at my desk, not getting any work done because I'm Googling for any information I can find and literally blinking back the tears over a person who doesn't even exist. And that, my friends, is art. If you can make me cry over someone who doesn't even exist, you have done a rare and wonderful thing.

But I'm STILL pissed.

Comments

[stevietee.livejournal.com]

Is Gotham Central going to be part of the One Year Later... crap?

[scarcrest.livejournal.com]

I figure it will be, if it's still around and still has the same title -- there have been rumors the book will turn into something called "Streets of Gotham," which suggeests an anthology book. In that scenario, it might be one of two features each month or alternate story arcs with other characters...

[ariedana.livejournal.com]

Yay, now someone will understand my feelings of grief when Nate died on SFU.

[becket.livejournal.com]

Montoya is in the comics now?

That makes her and Starfire as the only 2 characters that I know of to make the leap from cartoons to comics. Or was she in the comics before the Dini/Timm series? I've never been much of a Batman reader...

[scarcrest.livejournal.com]

Starfire was around in the comics since about 1980, actually -- though over at Marvel, Firestar jumped from the "Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends" cartoon into the X-Men comics several years after her TV debut.

[rocketmelee.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was about to say that the first time I ever saw Starfire was in an early eighties Marvel/DC crossover... I was having one heck of a time trying to remember a late seventies/early eighties cartoon that she had been in... :)

[scarcrest.livejournal.com]

Starfire showed up in "DC Comics Presents" #26, which featured an eight-page preview of "New Teen Titans" #1 -- which came out a month or two later. She was one of the regulars in that series and its successor (which had the same name -- long story), which combined ran for probably 15 years.

"New Teen Titans" was one of the top-selling books of the 1980s, on par with the X-Men -- though its sales dropped after artist George Perez left the book, Marv Wolfman's writing took a progressively darker turn and Marvel started doing 17,000 X-Men books a month.

[rocketmelee.livejournal.com]

Hee, the crossover that I was talking about was Uncanny X-Men/New Teen Titans. It was fun. I kept waiting for Kitty Pryde to phase through Cyborg, but can't remember for sure if she did or not.

Poor Jean Grey. She may have gotten more "Dance, monkey, DANCE!!!" treatment than any other character in the Marvel universe...

But 17,000 X-Men books a month? That estimate seems a bit conservative.

[gladstone.livejournal.com]

Harley Quinn made the leap from cartoons to comics.

[dslartoo.livejournal.com]

Montoya was in Batman comics at least as far back as "Knightfall" (that was when I started picking the books up again after a long hiatus). That was back in 1992 or 1993.

cheers,
Phil

[scarcrest.livejournal.com]

I've seen that cover, too, and thought the same thing ... and the thought that Allen might become the next Spectre first hit me this morning. (I'm still expecting Blue Beetle to pick up that role, however.)

I'm wondering if Allen's being the victim might not be too obvious, because of that cover ... time will tell. It would make Montoya officially the most put-upon character in the DCU -- almost like Andy Sipowicz but without the hang-ups and bigotries of her own to overcome.

[jerel.livejournal.com]

Blue Beetle might make a little more sense. He's a bigger name. But the way Allen dies, if Kelly's spoilers are correct, would make sense that he comes back as the "avenging spirit."

[rocketmelee.livejournal.com]

Remember -- covers largely exist to confuse and mislead you. Maybe it's a fakeout. It looks like Allen is dead ... but he miraculously isn't, and then everyone maybe everyone is rejoicing and BOOM! someon gets shot or something out of nowhere. Sort of like that episode of Buffy where Tara dies (except there was no rejoicing element there, but that's really optional, anyway...).

[scarcrest.livejournal.com]

The solicitation talks about Renee's life spinning farther out of control -- which makes me wonder if something happens in her personal life, outside work, to put her on edge on the job. The cover could be a misdirection in that case...

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

I know there's some discussion of whether the person in danger might be Daria, but that doesn't make sense to me going by the information we have. It's a hero killed in the line of duty. I like Daria, but she doesn't fit that description.

If we're being baited and switched, however, I will forgive DC because I need my Allen fix just that much.

[scarcrest.livejournal.com]

Another detective, maybe? No one would pack the same punch as Allen, agreed, but still, I think they're giving it away way too far in advance if they are killing him.

(Rich Johnston, author of the comics rumor column "Lying in the Gutters," had originally reported that DC was going to kill off the current Flash, Wally West, during "Infinite Crisis," but now says they've backed off it.)