Heroes in Crisis No. 7 review: Finally, a return to form for the series

Batgirl, Harley Quinn, Booster Gold and the original Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, band together to find out the truth about Wally West in the latest issue of Heroes in Crisis.

Heroes in Crisis No. 7

Writer: Tom King

Artist: Clay Mann, Travis Moore, Jorge Fornes

Heroes in Crisis No. 7 cover by Mitch Gerads (Credit: DC Comics)

Wally West was seemingly killed during the massacre at Sanctuary in the first issue of Heroes in Crisis, but Booster Gold uncovered a disturbing detail – the dead Wally was five days too old. So, is the real Wally alive? If so, then where is he and what did he have to do with the massacre? Tom King tries to give readers a clearer picture in Heroes in Crisis No. 7.

While Batgirl tries to prevent Harley Quinn from killing Booster and scuppering their plan to uncover the truth about Wally, Batman and the Flash are still on the hunt for those they think are responsible for the murders – Harley and Booster. With all the heroes working at odds with each other, is anyone going to find Wally?

An Enthusiastic Injection of Life in this Issue

As someone who started off championing Heroes in Crisis, watching it devolve into a mess has been hard. We have been on cruise control for the past several issues and the writing has felt flat and uninspired. In this installment there’s finally an injection of life to the characters, the art and even the writing.

Far too often, it feels like King relies too heavily on literary allusions and quotes to tell his stories. One-off moments in a series is fine, but he incorporated that style too frequently in Heroes in Crisis. This installment starts in a similar vein, but there’s plenty of substance to actually fill out the story and the characters to go along with it.

It’s great to see Wally West as an actual person rather than as just the martyr figure he’s been written as so far. The interaction between Batgirl and Ted was a delight, while Harley and Booster’s final verbal salvos developed their characters immensely. There are two issues left in the series, hopefully we will get just as much characterization and energy for the remainder.

Sanctuary was Absolutely Useless

Wally West in Heroes in Crisis No. 7 (Credit: DC Comics)

What was the point of Sanctuary? It was set up as a facility to help the heroes and (some) villains of the DC Universe cope with their trauma, but its methods seem absolutely pointless. This becomes painfully obvious in this issue of Heroes in Crisis where we are privy to Wally West’s first few weeks in the program.

From the looks of it, Sanctuary was little more than a Holodeck program allowing the patients to replay whatever scenario they want, but there was no human interaction for the patients. With no one to talk to, to bounce ideas of off, how were the heroes expected to heal? Who thought that was a good idea? It was Batman, wasn’t it? No wonder everyone’s mad at him – the foundation of Sanctuary was wrong. People don’t heal in isolation, Bats!

Way Too Many Artistic Styles

Harley and Booster battle it out in Heroes in Crisis No. 7 (Credit: DC Comics)

On Heroes in Crisis, we are used to seeing a number of artists work on different sequences. So far, it hasn’t been too disorientating, but the balance may have been tipped in this issue. Clay Mann, Travis Moore, and Jorge Fornes all have distinct artistic styles which do not mesh in this issue.

Fornes’ panels featuring Batman and the Flash were completely out of sync with the rest of the panels – they almost had an ethereal feel to it which didn’t fit. While Mann and Moore’s styles are virtually interchangeable, the character sketches are wildly inconsistent in this installment. Tomeu Morey’s colors are the saving grace, attempting to bring cohesion to the pages. Unfortunately, there’s only so much a colorist can do to rectify the problem.

It has been a struggle to trudge through the recent issues of this series, though now that the denouement is in sight, the plot is picking up the pace again. Is Wally West a hero, a villain, or an innocent caught up in someone else’s war? It’s a long wait to find out, but maybe this time, the wait will be worth it.