I know Geoff Johns must have written a bad comic at some point, but if he has I haven’t read it yet. This issue was excellent just like everything he’s ever written.
Warning: there be spoilers in this review.
Action Comics #865: The Terrible Toyman gives us a glimpse inside the Toyman’s psychotic mind as he captures Jimmy Olsen to tell the “real” story of his origin. The Toyman claims he never killed Cat Grant’s son, and that the crime was instead committed by one of his life-like robots.
Although this is a basic origin retelling and continuity change (cringe!), Geoff Johns was able to keep me entertained and managed to make everything feel OK. He has a wonderful ability to give each character he writes a unique voice, something that is very important for convincing characters, and for convincing story lines.
Unfortunately there is one glaring flaw I could not get my mind around while reading this issue. If one of the Toyman’s robots had actually killed Adam Grant, Superman would not have been fooled by this. We are talking about a man who is able to see through flesh and bone, and to hear pulses. I am unconvinced that anyone, no matter what their level of genius, would be able to create a robot that would fool Superman in to thinking it was an actual human being.
Other than that flaw, this was a well written comic… plus it was hilarious to see the Toyman mistake Olsen for a 16 year old boy!
2 responses to “Action Comics #865 The Terrible Toyman”
I have recently been playing a lot of second life and have decided to rp as Toyman in the Gotham rp realm. So I have found myself ‘diving’ the net rather then surfing, for as much Toyman info as I can find. I came across this article and it stuck in my mind. I kept thinking this couldnt be a fatal flaw, super man is kinda dumb he doesnt always scan with his eyes and use his super hearing he has to turn them on most of the time. But you would think when fighting Toyman he would think to have them on. Anyhow while searching for any Toyman references I could find I stumbled upon an episode of Static Shock where Toyman molecularly copies a human being and puts a robot conscienceness into it. Towards the end static shock has to tell which the real McCoy, luckily superman is there, he scans them and it shows a bone skeleton on both. Superman literally rubs his chin and says in a shrugging motion “Toyman was able to duplicate the real daisy right down to her DNA, even I can’t tell the difference.” he then sheepishly rubs the back of his neck. Toyman explains “HA!”, so as you can see you can rest assures that Toyman or any of the android toyman creates is good enough to outsmart superman as well as build a seperate robot to outsmart him aswell as clone a human to confuse him. Heck was I ever surprised! Cheers, comics rule.
here is the link on youtube to the video its toys in the hood of static shock.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwQOL5MfzdY&NR=1
Really the toyman in this comic has a very different character that one could imagine. It really has a special impact.