Raziel3025

He knew.

The bastard KNEW.

At least three inhabited planets reduced to rubble, a dozen galaxies placed under threat of annihilation, the Earth caught in the center of a battle that would be waged for the fate of all existence against a mad tyrant seeking to remake all of creation in his own vile image.

And President Lex Luthor knew about it. MONTHS in advance. And he kept it to himself to make himself look good. And then he lied about it. And he used a convicted fugitive TO lie about it. And then he tried to kill us all so he could reign over the ashes.

(A "war poster" created during Luthor's administration and the Imperiex War)

The Imperiex War as it has come to be known was an assault on the Earth that caused devastating damage to Topkea, Kansas, the island of Themyscira and half a dozen other locations and was instigated by the mad alien Imperiex. Seeking to undo the "imperfection" he sensed in the universe by destroying all of creation as we know it and resetting things with a new big bang. Which would, of course, kill all beings in THIS universe not counting all the sentient beings he killed in his regular military actions against planets that happened to be in his way. The death toll on Earth was upwards of 7 million, the death toll in the wider universe is beyond our ability to count.

And Lex Luthor knew about it nearly a year in advance.

Superman had gone off to fight one of Imperiex's probes during their FIRST planetary assault. Bringing back information about Imperiex's plans, his army, his tactics, everything we could possibly have needed to begin assembling defensive plans and marshalling resources for the arrival of the enemy's first wave.

Save that most of that defensive posture would probably have including a combined plan, using the Earth's superhuman defenders as the vanguard and spear point in any counterattack. And they'd get most of the credit, because they'd do most of the fighting and bleeding for Earth's future. As they most often do.

Instead he waiting until the attack arrived, catching world governments AND the superhero community flat footed so that he could make the "hard choices" of basing most of his defensive strategy around allying himself with Pokolistani dictator General Zod and literal space god of tyranny Darkseid. Also giving him the leeway in the midst of a global panic to "draft" superheroes outside the confines of the law (even Article X, which he never invoked despite this being the kind of situation it was made for), toss them out on hastily planned suicide missions so that eventually he would be the one making grand speeches and standing for the flag in the aftermath.

And we won. Barely. Because our heroes are the kind of people who can find the light in a situation like that and pull our fat out of the fire. After 7. Million. Deaths. And the devastation of a major American city that in many ways still hasn't recovered.

Lois Lane and Clark Kent of the Daily Planet, because they are VERY good at their jobs, uncovered a trail stating that President Luthor did intentionally sabotage Earth's defense for the sake of his own popularity. Using this information they got him to commit to testify about it under oath, using the psychic powers of the Martian Manhunter as an actually effective lie detector test. Backed into this legal corner Luthor then pardoned and began working with internationally convicted terrorist Manchester Black, using Black's mental abilities to shield and misdirect the Manhunter's scans. A bit of legal chicanery that temporary cost both Lane and Kent their jobs and their reputations.

It was only after Black turned on Luthor, shortly before Black's suicide that the truth began to come to light. A desperate Luthor once AGAIN keeping the existence of a massive Kryptonite meteor a secret for weeks in an attempt to either solve it himself OR shift blame to Superman and then finally settling on a Vault Tec style plan to ride out the crashing of the asteroid and reign over the Earth's ashes. He failed, again. And this time when he was caught on national television ranting like a madman in a public brawl with Superman wearing Apokoliptan war armor there was no pretense left to be had.

Commission for DCeased! Part 3, Laura Wins!

Part 1 / Part 2

Nude Variant

Dragon Age: Origins is a Dark Fantasy (specifically, Bioware described it originally as Dark Heroic Fantasy). It has its light-hearted moments, but almost every single main questline is steeped in horror, in injustice, in facing the fact that the world is cruel and full of oppression and injustices. There are glimmers of hope, and we are given the opportunity to right some of these wrongs, but the game is still - at the end of the day - interested in being a Dark Fantasy. This is why the world-building is the way that it is. Our elves aren't like other fantasy elves, they've lost their history and are oppressed by humans. Our mages aren't respected and revered like other fantasy magic users: they're discriminated against and put in glorified prisons. Our dwarves don't have a thriving society overflowing with wealth: they're dying out and are clinging to a caste system that leaves most of the population disenfranchised with no way out. The game does interesting things with all of these world-building points, but all of these choices are in service of the Dark Fantasy genre.

Dragon Age 2, for all its faults, continues this trend. Hawke's story is a tragedy. They lose potentially both their siblings and their mother, and they are ultimately helpless to save Kirkwall. They are surrounded by persecution and oppression that they are exempt from in Act 2 onward due to their privilege as a wealthy human, and there is nothing they can do to utilize that privilege to aid the people around them. The elves still suffer. The mages are tortured and oppressed. Dragon Age 2 very much still lives in Dark Fantasy.

And then Dragon Age: Inquisition rolled around, and it felt...different. Markedly different. Suddenly the game wasn't interested in being Dark Fantasy anymore: it's a power trip. You're the leader of a powerful, militant religious organization and you get to command armies and conquer lands in the name of the Inquisition. The oppression is still there, but the game is much less interested in examining it in a meaningful way. Whereas in Origins your background allowed you new perspectives to the world, Inquisition's various backgrounds changed little other than what people called you. Yes, the Inquisitor can be discriminated against at the Winter Palace and can experience micro-aggression from various NPCs, but that's...it. There's no hard look at the Alienages, no further examining of the caste system in Orzammar, and the mages's struggles are swept aside in favor of "both sides"ing the argument with the Templars. Because in this game, we are now the institutional corruption. But the game can't examine that, not really, because it is no longer interested in being Dark Fantasy. Inquisition is closer to High Fantasy: it's about building your army, about fighting cool dragons, about feeling powerful and heroic and fighting the Evil Wizard Magister. It's about courtly intrigue, about showing up and looking cool, about getting to mess in another country's politics with zero repercussions, because we're the Inquisition. Our villains are no longer pillars of corrupt institutions, but extremist outliers.

And then, ten years later, we get Veilguard, which is not interested in being Dark Fantasy at all. It's all about building your team, about being scrappy heroes against impossible odds (though at least this time we're not forced to be the figurehead of an imperialist religious organization). There are some moments of horror, but the overall tone of the game is not Dark Fantasy. Which is why there is no real engagement with Tevinter's institutional corruption, with its long-held practice of slavery. This is why the game rips the Antaam away from the Qun and pretends like they were the only problematic aspect of it. This is why there's no true examination of how elves are oppressed or of the caste system in Orzammar.

And here is where the issue lies, not just with Veilguard, but with the series as a whole. Because these institutional evils that Origins initially placed before us were never meant to be challenged, not really. The Warden can make things better for their community if they so choose, but the level of influence they can have over the institutions in play is very small. But that's fine, they had an Archdemon to kill. But as the games progress, as we start to move further and further away from the Dark Fantasy genre, we also start to move away from seriously examining the corrupt institutions at play.

It takes the Flashes a LOT of tricks to go toe to toe with Superman.

Tricks a two bit Z lister like you DOES NOT have.

But I've been catching up on his comics, and to my surprise, they actually answer this question in Spider-Man Noir: Eyes Without a Face, a four issue comic that I truly believe is one of the best Spider-Man stories we've had in these many, many, many spinoffs of Earth-616. I highly recommend this comic in general because it's well written and has great art, but I also wanted to drop some panels of that in here for anyone who wants proof and to gush about how good this is.