TRANS-SCRIBE: Beast World Tour: Metropolis #1

I'm going to sound old when I say this, but I remember a time when the covers of comics gave you an idea of what you might be getting inside them. Just looking at the cover to Beast World Tour: Metropolis again to do this write up makes me somewhat annoyed. The issue contains three short stories, none of which are what you see on the cover. Yes, in one Jon and Dreamer team up to fight a lizard Livewire, but the beast Power Girl isn't in that story, and Supergirl isn't even in the book, unless you count her being on a computer screen in one panel. This book seems to be promising things it's not delivering, and it's honestly left me a little worried about what other false promises we've been given about this event.

The first story of the issue is 'Primal Pain' and is written by Steve Orlando and Nicole Maines, and focuses on Dreamer and her evolving powers since the events of Lszarus Planet. Dreamer was one of the handful of existing characters that went though a change following the event, and her prophetic powers have now begun to happen outside of her dreams. We see the result of this being that she keeps seeing things that haven't happened yet. Sometimes it's a second or two in the future, or it could be days. Either way, it'll happen.

Most of the story is her reacting to things that other people can't see, and it kind of results in the character coming across as slightly crazed, with most people thinking that she's either someone in costume having a joke, or that she's some weird new hero. When she sees a vision of A-Town in flames and ruin. With the help of Jon Kent, she manages to convince people that leaving for a short while is the best option. Luckily, this happens before Livewire arrives on the scene, infected with a Garro spore. She transforms into a lizard creature, and battles Dreamer whilst Jon gets people to safety.

In all honesty, this story didn't do a whole lot for me. Dreamer is nothing but reactive in this story, and because she's constantly dealing with either external threats or her own visions it felt like there was no time to do anything with her character; or to even let her character come through. She was more 'generic hero' here than Dreamer, and if this is someone's first experience with the character I can't imagine that it'd get them too interested in reading more about her. Another part of the story that seems slightly odd to me is that this is set after issue two of Titans: Beast World, and there seems to be no indication that anything is happening. The problem with this coming out before the issue it's set after means that we don't know the state of the world, but the end of Titans: Beast World seemed to imply that Garro spores were falling everywhere, yet people are sitting at coffee shops, hanging out in parks, and wandering around like there's no global threat. It feels very disconnected to the main story.

This segment has art by Fico Ossio, with colours by Luis Guerrero, and it's decent for the most part. There are some panels such as the full page splash of Dreamer transforming into her costume, that look fantastic, but as the story goes on the art feels slightly different, and it took me a while to figure out why it wasn't sitting right with me as much. The colours get darker. Things are a bit duller and more muted, and it just didn't work for me. Jon in particular looks way too dark in his costume, with his blue being almost black at times. These are personal gripes, and the art isn't bad by any stretch, I just didn't enjoy it as much as the story went on.

The second story, 'Turtle Boy' by Dan Jurgens feels even more divorced from the main event. It opens with the citizens of Metropolis fleeing in terror. Not of the Garro spores, or characters with new beastly treansformations. No, they're running from a familiar figure, Turtle Boy, the kaiju-like Jimmy Olsen. Through flashbacks we find out that Bibbo Bibowski, who was the only person running towards the monster Jimmy, was serving lunch in his bar for Emil Hamilton, when Jimmy comes in to take a break from trying to get a photo of the transformed Power Girl. He sits down for coffee, and accidentally swallows a Garro spore that snuck in on him and jumped into his cup.

This turns Jimmy into his Turtle Boy persona, and he begins a rampage. Luckily, Bibbo and Hamilton come up with a plan to stop him, making him sleepy with some gas, and tricking the spore into jumping out, going inside a summoned monster Power Girl instead. With the crisis averted the three of them head off, joking about the situation.

I just don't get what's supposed to be happening in this event now. The initial issue was superb, and it set up for a big global disaster spurred on by a huge cosmic horror monster and the 'death' of a hero. But here it seems like the whole thing is perhaps a mild inconvenience at best. People are going out to grab lunch, chatting about how one of their heroes is a bird monster now with a shrug and little care. Is this a potential apocalypse situation or not? The tone of this story just doesn't work for this event for me, and this isn't helped by Anthony Marques' art. The story is very simply drawn, big bold lines, little detail, and a cartoonish feel with bright bold colours by Pete Pantazis. It feels like a young readers book rather than a part of a big event. It makes me think of the Tiny Titans issue of Blackest Night for the kind of tone it has.

The final story actually feels like it might reflect the actual tone of the main event, though after the other two stories here it feels incredibly out of place. 'Don't Stop' is set after issue three of the main title (why has this book come out before issue two if all of these stories are set after?) it follows Lois Lane as she bunkers down in the Fortress of Solitude to protect her from the end of the world as Garros spores take over everyone they can. Maybe she should have stayed in Metropolis, as the other stories seem to show it's fine there.

She's communicating with Clark as he tries to get survivors to safety whilst killing any spores that he can. When the infected hordes close in on the Fortress, believing the energy signature is Superman, Lois and Kelex hold them off with alien rifles as Superman speeds to get there, ignoring the threat of the spore that want to take him over. He arrives on the scene and saves Lois, and is almost taken over when a mysterious nanbot under his skin fries them all. Kelex isn't sure where the tech came from, but the story ends with the reveal that Brainiac saved him.

Joshua Willamson seems to be the only writer in this issue has received the note that this is supposed to be a apocalypse, and writes this story as a desperate fight to survive. The hordes of animal people storming the Fortress whilst Lois and Kelex try to hold them back feels like something from a horror film, and Clark flying so fast to get there that it causes a huge sonic boom and blows the ocean out in all directions is a big, powerful moment. Perhaps because Williamson is currently writing Superman and the Brainiac inclusion makes this a part of the bigger story for the character next year, but this feels like the only story in this collection that's treating the assignment with seriousness, and is writing a tie-in rather than a tangentially connected story to showcase characters that have nothing to do with the main title.

The art on this segment, by Edwin Galmon, looks fantastic too, and absolutely fits with the kind of art that we've had on Superman. If the entire issue was like this then I'd have been really happy with that we've been given. As it is, it's a great story that's hampered by what comes before it. By the time I'd gotten to this point I'd almost given up on the book; and whilst I really liked what it did it didn't do enough to redeem the issue as a whole.