Threshold #8 – Review

Keith Giffen (Writer), Tom Raney, Phil Winslade, Timothy Green II, Joseph Silver (Artists), Andrew Dalhouse, Hi-Fi (Colorists)

The Story: The Hunted is cancelled and most of the players have to deal with that, Caul included. In the backup, Star Hawkins discovers just who the first player is and why she’s still alive.

The Review: Well, this was different. With the way the story had been going on, I had no idea how Keith Giffen could actually conclude everything and how he would close this very title. I did not have much hope for this to be satisfying, yet there are actually some nice ideas in there that are actually fun.

Going meta-fictional in the very last issue, the show in which Jediah Caul and all the characters takes part is cancelled, which prompts a lot of meta-jokes from the cast and the book itself. Dealing with how the book tried very hard to put new stories and how it accommodated a lot of changes during its tenure, it’s hard not to chuckle a bit during some of the scenes of the book in which Giffen himself seems to admit that he cannot actually conclude this series on a high note and that some subplots will never be resolved. The Blue Beetle scene especially is hilarious, with the author explaining via his characters and the context of the cancelled show why he had been included to begin with.

However, as much as Giffen tries to combine the literal and figurative elements with a touch of metafiction, it does not make it a particularly satisfying ending. Those who had become invested in the actual conflict and the setting will not find a lot to like in this different portrayal found here. In the end, many of the characters developed and their situations don’t add up to much as the story instead focus on Caul and the ephemeral nature of entertainment and fiction.

Threshold #7 – Review

Keith Giffen (Writer), Phil Winslade, Tom Raney, Timothy Green II (Artists), Hi-Fi, Andrew Dalhouse (Colorists)

The Story: Jediah has to do his duty and tries to save the bottled city by getting it back to Tolerance as some of the players on the board make their move. In the backup, Star Hawkins get closer to the answer to the mystery of just who is the first player of ”The Hunted”.

The Review: I’m not exactly sure what to make of this comic. Is it a building story that unfortunately got cancelled and so need to rush things out? Was it just one with too many players in it, resulting in an unfocused story? Perhaps it merely was an experiment to see if Keith Giffen could revitalize the cosmic side of DC comics, diversifying from the Lantern focus it always had?

In a way, it seems like a little bit from all these options here, which is unfortunate, as there are several elements here that could very well be exploited in order to create something expansive and interesting. There are some characters that had some genuine growth during these seven issues, which had been due mostly to the fact that there was a spotlight on them. Jediah Caul is a perfect example of this, as he was first just some rogue trying to save his life, until we got some explanation why he was a Green Lantern, which made him immediately a much better character, as we had some more perspective on the character.

This makes it all the more unfortunate then that all those other characters just aren’t as interesting as Jediah. I have close to no idea why I should actually care about Stealth, Blue Beetle or Lonar, as we have only seen glimpses of them during all these issues. This feeds a bit the first theory written earlier that Threshold was supposed to be a longer ongoing, building on every issue in order to create familiarity with these characters in order for them to develop. Sure, we knew who Blue Beetle was and Captain K’Rot was mostly used as a comic relief, yet those characters never had an actual chance to shine and this issue is not different in any way. Basically, we are thrown a huge number of characters that we know close to nothing about, that each have their own plot going on with them, yet we can’t be sure if they will ever pass from the ”scenery decoration” state rather than become actually interesting characters with a past and proper motivations. Considering the fact that the next issue is the final one, it seems unlikely.

There is also another thing that is missing rather much and it would be the plot. Even though the exploration of the society living on Tolerance and how ”The Hunted” game compose their economy, the game itself never really connected itself to a coherent plot, merely serving as the setting. Sure, we had glimpses of some of the players trying to gather some of the key prisoners in order to forge a rebellion, yet like the cast itself, it never received enough of a focus to make it the main direction of the book.