Jack of Spades wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 3:44 pm
I have a theory that the Elongated Man is the litmus test for whether your version of the DC Universe will succeed. If you can gracefully accomodate Ralph Dibney, the World Famous Elongated Man, your version will thrive. While the Arrowverse seems to be on its last legs now, it did well while Ralph was in play. JLU didn't shun the Elongated Man. But the Snyderverse could never handle the Stretchable Sleuth, and that's why I think it continues to struggle.
I’m not saying the Dibneys need to be major figures. But if they’re just inconceivable, your version of the DCU is going to vanish up its own backside.
Elongated Man, Bouncing Boy, Matter-Eater Lad, the Wonder Twins, there are a ton of kind of silly Silver Age characters that lean into the wonder and innocence of that era. Those kinds of characters are always going to be hard to adapt to gritty dark 'realistic' or 'grounded' stories, and, for at least some of us, that's a feature, not a bug.
That said, it can go too far, even for me. Captain Carrot, Beppo the Super-Monkey and Ambush Bug is that line too far, for me.
And yeah, the actor got himself into some bantha doodoo, IIRC, but I enjoyed the Arrowverse version of Ralph Dibney, even if he was fairly different than the comic book character.
-Coldcast is the only person to be on both forms of The Elite- he's led by Manchester Black at first, then his sister Vera. His bio is ridiculously short and just says he has Electro-Magnetism. Seriously- Barrage, the f*cking guy with no hands from the Dark Riders has a bio 20 times this size. He can blow stuff up real good, but his most dangerous ability is the power to slow people's electrons down- an attack that nearly brought down SUPERMAN.
-Naif is the token "Black Ops Guy", the human operative- a Saudi espionage expert who oversees the whole JLE operation. He also acts as a liaison between them and world governments (... all of them?), and since he dislikes superhumans, he's meant to keep the team "honest" and on the level. Disliking what the team has turned into, he disbands them at the end of the Limited Series. Standard PL 8 Elite Soldier build, here.
-This gang is a deliberately-silly addition to the JLA mythos, as a bunch of loser villains form their own Injustice League in a desperate attempt at credibility- Major Disaster, Big Sir, Multi-Man, The Cluemaster and The Clock King. They are general nuisances, but gain no cred, and are made to look like idiots. Funny characters, but idiots. In the end, they try to reform, forming Jusice League Antarctica in the process, where they instead become HEROIC Jobbers instead of standard-issue Jobbers. Maxwell Lord sends them off to Antarctica to get rid of them, and their base is destroyed by mutant penguins. Naturally, Keith Giffen was writing.
-Alas, once their time is done, the team is formed into a Suicide Squad, in which most of the characters are slaughtered.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Tue Jun 07, 2022 12:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
MULTI-MAN (Duncan Pramble)
Created By: Gardner Fox & Carmine Infantino First Appearance: The Challengers of the Unknown #14 (June 1960) Role: Minor Villain Group Affiliations: Justice League Antarctica, The Injustice League, Suicide Squad, The League of Challenger-Haters PL 9 (148)
STRENGTH 0 STAMINA 0 AGILITY 1 FIGHTING 6 DEXTERITY 2 INTELLIGENCE 5 AWARENESS 0 PRESENCE 0
Complications:
Prejudice (Obvious Superhuman)- Multi-Man has a big head and comparatively-small body.
Enemy (The Challengers of the Unknown)- Multi-Man is one of their longest-term enemies.
Disabled (Bipolar Disorder)
-This goof is an enemy of The Challengers of the Unknown, a guy who consumed "liquid light" and gained the power to raise himself from the dead, and get a new power-set each time. He'd often become Energy Beings or Monsters. Once the Challengers' concept grew tired and the group faded away, he was turned into an obvious Joke Villain (not sure how obvious it was in the kiddier '60s) and an idiot on the JL Antarctica, usually failing to reform. He was later goaded by an evil entity into killing hundreds of innocents (and a couple Challengers), an act he wished to make up for- doing so by sacrificing his life to stop another bomb. This is meant to cap off the character (it was a Challengers one-shot), and ended with a tiny mention of what happened in a Daily Planet column, including only his death and not his heroic end. So it was a bit of a Shaggy Dog Story.
-He of course appeared later without explanation (but since his literal superpower is resurrecting himself, it's not really surprising) as a generic background crook. He joins Suicide Squad, but is shot in the head in his first mission against a mad scientist. He reappeared during Joker's Last Laugh (oh God, THAT story), and it's a gag about Joker and then some prison guards killing him hundreds of times until he resurrects with the exact power they need.
-A bit of a Joke Character, Multi-Man's apparently smart enough to build a mechanical Multi-Woman, and can manifest just about any power, I'm guessing around PL 9 levels.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Tue Jun 07, 2022 7:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
Multi-Man died in the final issue of the 8 part Challengers series by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. My head canon is that some time before CotU #1, he got the power to create a duplicate, and that was the one that was in the Injustice League and the JL Antarctica.
Also, the League that Sue Dibny was shown to be working with was the JL Europe/International one.
Always ask before you use someone's Original Character.
Never ever use them without permission. Only Villains do that.
Complications:
Prejudice (Mental Retardation)- Big Sir is prone to using excessive force by accident, mourns the injuries he causes to small animals, and isn't taken seriously by others.
Vulnerable (Mind Control)- Big Sir's suit leaves him extra-vulnerable to telepathic attacks.
-Wow, I know that being the parents of a child with severe mental retardation is tough, but why name him DUFUS? Big Sir was born with low intelligence but great size, and was given a high-tech suit of armor by The Monitor (back when his schtick was giving super-villains powerful gear in order to gather info about the heroes who fight them) after being abducted by the Rogues. He was sent against The Flash, and even badly hurt him. Barry was healed by King Solovar in Gorilla City, then subdued Big Sir, having the Gorillas fix his mental deficiencies and making him a near-genius.
-Naturally, his next appearances ignored this, and he was stupid again- he joined the wacky Injustice League. His team fought flesh-eating penguins and other threats, and he was killed along with many of his friends as part of Suicide Squad, holding a bomb shaped like a child.
Complications:
Enemy (G'nort)- The Skier hates the incompetent Green Lantern at first, but soon comes to befriend him on Earth.
Motivation (Quitting His Job)- The Skier is the herald for Mr. Nebula, but doesn't wish to be.
-A flat-out Joke Character/Parody of the Silver Surfer, The Scarlet Skier is the Herald for Mr. Nebula, a Cosmic Being. He wishes to leave Nebula's employ, but the entity is too naiive to understand the Skier's wishes. He ends up trapped on a prison planet by L.E.G.I.O.N., but is let go when Vril Dox realizes that he was only being used- he then moves to Earth to attack the Green Lantern who imprisoned him- G'nort. Instead, they become friends, and he briefly joins the reformed villains in Justice League Antarctica. In the end, he's constantly finding himself back in Mr. Nebula's employ. I have no idea how powerful he's supposed to be, but as a Joke Villain, he's probably not more than PL 6.
THE CLOCK KING I (William Tockman)
Created By: France Herron & Lee Elias First Appearance: World's Finest Comics #111 (Aug. 1960) Role: Silver Age Villain, Forgotten Villain Group Affiliations: Justice League Antarctica, The Injustice League, Suicide Squad, The Time Foes PL 7 (87)
STRENGTH 2 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 3 FIGHTING 5 DEXTERITY 4 INTELLIGENCE 4 AWARENESS 0 PRESENCE 1
Complications:
Enemy (Green Arrow)- Tockman hated GA for arresting him, which resulted in a prison sentence that saw Tockman unable to care for his invalid sister, who died.
-There was a Golden Age Batman villain named The Clock, but he didn't get up to much. The Clock King is actually a GREEN ARROW villain given a pretty tragic backstory. He takes care of his invalid sister, but discovers that he himself only has six months to live. He plots a bank heist (using careful timing) in order to provide for her, but he is captured by GA, and his sister dies without him. He THEN discovers that he wasn't actually doomed to die at all (I'm betting he proved popular/worth revisiting, and so they wrote out that the doctor made a mistake in his diagnosis), and so breaks out of jail to fight Green Arrow again. He pretty much vanishes from the recordbooks until he joins the joke Injustice League, and tries to reform with the rest of them. He is killed with the rest of them on the new Suicide Squad.
-The Clock King is probably best-known for the kick-ass turn he got in Batman: The Animated Series, as a time-obsessed guy out to kill Mayor Hill, who is able to hold his own in a fight with BATMAN just by his mastery of watching video tapes of Bats fighting, and timing all of his moves. Temple Fugate is effectively created from whole cloth just for the show, and does not exist in the comics.
-This Clock King is a gadgeteer guy with some variable stuff. Total goof, though.
I always thought that Clock King would be a great movie villain for Batman, someone determined to make an inefficient city run at peak efficiency, no matter how many lives it costs in train, plane, and car crashes, and who perfectly times everything, from how long it takes Batman to arrive at the Bat-Signal, to how fast his car can accelerate, to when buses, automated machinery, traffic lights, and other automated systems are active.
Reading more of the Crisis on Two Earths trade that I have (I read and reviewed some on RA- not sure if any other than this one survived).
* Dr. T.O. Morrow has the worst super-villain design ever. He's just a fat dude with a labcoat and pencil-thin moustache. Looks like frickin' Poirot, right here.
* Patented Silver Age goofiness like Mind Controlled Heroes, everyone having one token girl (Snapper Carr apparently dated some girl named Midge), everyone using Superdickery (okay, so Red Tornado is inexperienced- but everyone treats him like he's a gigantic useless idiot who's a complete liability, rather than offering him training).
* Magic is apparently "more deadly to me than KRYPTONITE!" according to Superman. So even back then it was still a thing.
* Wow, something rare- a full-on BRAWL between the Supermen of Earth-One & Earth-Two! And they advertise the issue that way! They're evenly-matched, too, going against some thoughts that the Silver Age version was the ultimate.
* LOL at the one issue advertising a kid with super-powers as the main storyline on the cover (a particularly sketchily-drawn Joe Kubert cover- actually looks awful), and only having that show up for a couple pages at the start. A fan even writes in and bitches them out for false-advertising (they print the Letters Columns they used to get in here- some guy named Gerry Conway used to write in a bit).
* It's the late '60s, and already Magic as a super-power has come to mean "Can do everything, ever". Though Dr. Fate isn't alone- Green Lantern Rings are basically the same deal.
* Superman sure does get his ass kicked a lot in these, compared to what we're used to hearing about his invulnerability. Could you imagine his fans reacting to this kind of stuff today? With every issue featuring him getting housed by some Cosmic Menace? Sure it's usually Magic or Kryptonite (he's attacked by a dragon with Kryptonite TEETH), but it's still funny.
* The JSA/JLA brawl is entertaining- Flash & Atom have to gang up on Dr. Fate to beat him, and his errant blast takes out Wonder Woman I. Batman easily defeats Dr. Mid-Nite, whose main advantage (the Black-Out Bomb) does nothing to a guy with Infrared Goggles. Alan Scott's Power Ring has already run out of juice, so he's easily dealt with, and Green Arrow easily takes out Black Canary with a new goop-arrow. But her husband Larry Lance (after KOing Arrow), recovers when he sees her in danger, and takes a Cosmic Bolt meant for her, saving the day.
* Then there's than infamous panel used on Superdickery where he made fun of two Supermen being on the same panel, only to have TONS of fans write in and swear at him, explaining the concept of Multiple Earths. Then he printed those letters, making the fans look silly for going so over-the-top in their corrections. Of biggest note to me is BATMAN crying. This dude didn't even cry at SUPERMAN's funeral, yet LARRY LANCE (a man he's never even met) brings him to tears? The DICK.
* And in the culmination of the story, Alan Scott and Hal Jordan MURDER their Cosmic Foe. Seriously, they lure him into an antimatter field they KNOW will kill him, and set him up to die. It's completely deliberate. How often do you see THAT? Puts in perspective the way everyone treated Atom-Smasher when HE killed a bad guy, don't it?
* In the last story, Red Tornado is STILL whining about his lot in life (cripes, no WONDER The Vision ended up becoming way more popular with the same schtick), then the Earths begin to merge and stuff happens.
* Curiously, it's the 1970s now, yet the JSA still look basically the same age as they would have in the '40s. All the men have furrowed brows, but that's just the art style, because so do Hal & Superman II.
* One year prior, Green Arrow was a standard-issue blond guy in a generic Robin Hood outfit with red gloves. Now all of a sudden, he's sporting a Van Dyke, his currently-recognizable outfit and a HUGE chip on his shoulder, acting like an asshole to people. Rapid-onset character changes, daddi-o! The Thunderbolt actually calls Dr. Fate "Dude!", then is revealed to be a mere "Grade-Three Sorceror", and beneath Fate's level. The Spectre DIES as a result of trying to keep the Earths apart for his "ultimate peace", which I know was reversed later on.
"JSA: Thy Kingdom Come, Part Three" (JSA #)- written by Geoff Johns, Peter Tomasi & Alex Ross, art by Dale Eaglesham, Alex Ross, Jerry Ordway & Fernando Pasarin
JSA line-up: Green Lantern I, Flash I, Wildcat I, Hawkman II, Dr. Mid-Nite III, Mr. Terrific II, Power Girl, Jakeem Thunder, Stargirl, Sandman II (not present), Hourman II, Liberty Belle II, Obsidian (security system), Cyclone, Damage, Starman VIII, Wildcat III, Citizen Steel, Judomaster II, Amazing Man III, Lightning II, Mr. America III, Magog, KC Superman (ally)
-And we're back, with the final part of Johns' uber-arc on the book! The Michael Holt of Earth-2 is still with Power Girl of our Earth, where he dishes out his own story- basically just like Mr. Terrific's, but his wife survived, so he now believes in God & the Bible and all that. And on our Earth, they discuss the new Magog, their own teammate David Reid. "Bad guys don't feed monkeys, do they?" Oh, CYCLONE~~!! How I love you. And for the power geeks out there, Magog's power is roughly similar to KC-Superman & Alan Scott.
-Hints of Black Adam & Isis' return, as he sees her flowers appear in a "Shazam Lightning Bolt" symbol!
-More dissention in the ranks, as all the newbs (plus Hawkman) talk about how great he is, but the old timers fear his changes and think he's gonna turn bad. But that would be WAY too simple, wouldn't it? They'd never do something so black & white in this book, right? It's still bugging me how Hawkman's all "no, killing people is okay" after Black Reign. Of course, Hawkman has a point in the whole "police & soldiers do it", but really, they're using rules & guns against guys with guns, not freaking god-like powers in a vigilante effect.
-And now it's a FIGHT! The old guys versus the young guys! But Courtney of course is on the old guys' team because she's good and pure, and Cyclone is on there as much because she follows the old guard & Court blindly, and she's way too much of a sweetie to be pro-killing. The fighting is rather tepid, as Jay & Alan are a league beyond Carter at his best, and everyone else is fighting with kid gloves on rather than a real, decisive brawl. Magog blasts Superman, but they all fall into the JSA HQ, and right then, Power Girl comes flying in via Starman, with the JSA Infinity in tow! So it's ANOTHER hero (vs) hero brawl!
-Panel-to-panel shifting as Jerry Ordway draws a bunch along with Dale Eaglesham, which is pretty weird. A brief pause as everyone meets dead teammates (the death toll of the Infinity Inc team is still pretty staggering) ends when Power Girl II blasts KC Superman, thinking he's another fake Superman. Boy, even in parallel Earths she's kind of a bitchpie.
-AWWWWW look at Maxine! All standing with her feet pointing towards each other while helping Superman up, not fighting, but instead screaming in rapid-fashion about how everyone's acting crazy. So kyooot!! And before any other major fighting can take place (Dale really draws people too big and beefy to do mass fight scenes properly I've noticed), they teleport a bunch of people to Earth-2, and the Michael Holts meet.
-The Michaels converse about how they travel between worlds, while the real interesting stuff is all how the team's reaction to the different Earths. Alan's messed up over seeing his daughter alive, and then MICHAEL meets his dead wife, though he doesn't mention anything. See, a big problem here is despite the whole "drag this plotline out" thing, we're still moving too fast to dwell on what could EASILY be an issue-length plot over Terrific dealing with seeing his late wife all alive and shit. Courtney's "Worried face" is SUPER-cute here, as she just won't stop being the adorable little sister.
-To the Batcave, where Robin, Huntress & PG torture our Power Girl with Kryptonite for information. Our Karen breaks free and beats up the other one, but the JSI puts her down (stupid telepathic Brainwave and his uber-might in a non-TP-based world). Then OUR JSA shows up again, and Starman (remember, he's sane now) explains that he's got the Map of the Multiverse for a costume. A mini-explanation of the Crisis & 52 in a two-page spread follows (could someone unfamiliar with either even HOPE to keep up at this point?).
-All that parallel Earth crap gets settled quickly after that, and our JSA leaves, and PG's a bit happier. But then Alan comes to Michael with the question as to whether or not they should ask Gog to resurrect Jade & Paula, going back on their teammates!
-Now for something completely different- it's three one-shot issues to showcase different aspects of the KC-era JSA team. First up is "Superman". And it's by Alex Ross! As in, front to back (with a modified stylistic choice of inking instead of just paint), and written by him too! OMG and we get to see real-live painted Cyclone!! And it's... well, Ross is no spank-bank producer by any means. His "Nightstar" was pretty hot, but Maxine here looks like a deathly-pale cancer patient with dead, chapped lips for some reason. Apparently when he head that she was supposed to be gawky & geeky, he decided to make her look like an actual teenager instead of the uber-beautiful type that every other artist in comics draws. Her hair keeps flipping up and around in those 'subtle Alex Ross' things he always does (where nobody comments on it, but you can see it happening all the time) as well, which is a weird way of showing her powers. Maxine doesn't talk QUITE as much or as fast here, but it's still there.
-Then some green gas attack on the Daily Planet occurs, reflecting exactly how KC Supes' Lois Lane died. He flies in, finds other guys (including one in the same armour as a Kingdom Come background guy) instead of the Joker, cracks a smile over being attacked by Kryptonite (since he's immune and all), and kicks some ass, but accidentally punches out regular Superman because he's blinded and enraged. KC Supes seems to be cracking up again, showing why nobody in the world seems to trust him entirely.
-Supes, reacting to something Cyclone has said, decides to track down the Norman McCay of Earth-1, and they just have some minor, regular conversation about being happy and all that, but it seems to have no purpose other than to showcase Norman McCay and get more Kingdom Come stuff out there. Back to the HQ (where we see Cyclone in full-body form, with a dress slit going all the way past her ass- artists can never meet up on where that slit is- some never draw one, and others do it very low down). Then we get the full story of Lois Lane-22's death (because apparently we really need one), and it's all sad and junk (Lois & Maxine have the same 'photo model' oddly enough, despite looking nothing alike- guess that proves why Ross is a master).
-Next up, "Magog", by Peter Tomasi. The Newbies & Hawkman dick around in Africa, helping people out and stopping people who seem to have no purpose other than to be evil. Well, it IS in Africa, one of the few places where that can be totally believable storytelling. Then we get some of his past (asthmatic farmboy turned patriot after 9/11, which apparently happened in the DCU despite all those heroes). And all his old army crew gets killed in Africa (apparently sending five military guys into a warzone of hundreds of people is a bad idea). Since Tomasi's the guy who did that Black Adam mini-series, this is BLOODY AS HELL in parts, so those of you who get jonesing off of that and missed the latest "Invincible", check this one out.
-"The Kingdom", more of a generic JSA issue, is next, and I wonder what the point of that is. The Gog Gang is near Kahndaq the Living Hellhole of the World now, and the Feitherans show up since they're the ultimate jobbers and all that. And holy crap, it's THE SANDMAN. They realized he's still alive! He can no longer help children and pedophile-victims now because of his lack of dreams, another 'crack' in the "Gifts" Gog has given to the heroes. See, now that's kinda subtle and neat, and they should've kept it that way for a while. At least they're pointing out he has the dreams now, because they totally ignored that in JSA after a point back in the day.
-Meanwhile, Damage becomes the HUGEST TOOL IN THE UNIVERSE, preaching the glories of Gog by showing off his handsome new face and going on & on about how beautful he is. "I look good from ALL angles", hah, what a gigantic ass. Johns seems to have FUN with just how unpleasant Grant Emerson is. And cute widdle Maxine is with her girl-buddies in her room, moping about how hot he is, but how he likes Judomaster and also she smells like a monkey... every panel with her is gold in terms of dialogue & art, I tells ya. Jeez, her pose when Stargirl gets up to 'go get someone who can talke some sense into this JERK' looks pretty sexual, too. Ass all up in the air with her leg showing through her dress slit. Artists sure have fun drawing her.
-Stargirl finally comes up to talk some sense into Grant, bitching him out, but he merely thinks she's trying to boink him. The guy's like school in the summertime. Courtney being all sassy and bitchy is always hilarious. But then.. oh my Goddess... then ATOM SMASHER SHOWS UP!!! Oh HELL YES!! Twenty goddamn issues of waiting ("Hey, shouldn't he be on the team now that they voted him back in and he's out of jail?") and now he's HERE! SPURT!! Stargirl came to get him (She knows where he lives! OMG!) because she knows Al can help out. So after Grant the Giant Dick blasts off against Courtney, Al comes in and royally hands him his ass. Jesus, Pasarin draws a REALLY badass Al Rothstein- this guy should've totally taken over the book when Dale went off.
-Now we're at Al Pratt's house, which Atom Smasher either lives in currently, or keeps up like a maid or some shit. He lectures Damage again, perhaps using the term "Vanity Smurf" in a serious conversation for the first time in human history, but Grant gets all cranky and blows up the house! Then Al gets in ANOTHER bad-ass set of lines ("You think I'm like JAY GARRICK and ALAN SCOTT!? You think I'm going to HOLD YOUR HAND and tell you to BEHAVE?!?"), and is about to smash the kid like a bug then and there, but the JSA shows up to prevent further any further one-sided ass-kicking. And that's it for Al Rothstein in this trade.
-And now it's back to Africa, where Gog shows his true colours... by making everyone WORSHIP HIM. And now they reveal the true nature of Gog's plan- he wants to bond to the Earth, so that Earth will die if he ever leaves. ARE YOU KIDDING ME- they set up this big giant moral question of killing/no killing and a new God on Earth, but OH NO, he's totally evil because he demands worship and he's going to blow up the planet if he doesn't get it, so the old-school guys were right all along. No big moral standing here, no siree. So now it's a giant fight between everyone & Gog, and they surprisingly do MUCH better than they do against every OTHER God-like being they've encountered, who usually only go down to some insane plan or stroke of luck. Here, they just punch him lots. Oh, and the bird-people are thrown out of it again (those poor damn bird-people), but we see Northwind in a single panel before he's written out AGAIN with no explanation.
-Gog dicks it up EVEN MORE, taking back all of his gifts (so Damage gets re-uglied, Starman's insane again, Mid-Nite's re-blinded, etc.). This finally makes Magog wake up and defy him, so HE GETS BLOWN UP. But not really. Much like Galactus & the Silver Surfer, he gets to keep his powers, I guess. Damage puts out a MAJOR blast that causes some cracking on Gog's armour, and now Citizen Steel comes in with a mega-punch, knocking him OVER. Okay, he's just made out of f*cking steel, how is he stronger than Superman?
-Gog's down, so Magog casually cuts off his head like nothing, and Superman flies off with it, sending into the Source Wall alongside Starman (why don't they just do that to EVERY villain? Apparently it's more humane than turning them into trees?)- with a final parting gift for sweetie-pie Cyclone ("Don't ever quit."), and he goes back to his Kingdom Come Universe.
-We wrap things up a bit. We see a bunch of the final bits of "Kingdom Come", while the JSA recovers. Judomaster apparently still loves Uggo-Damage. Stargirl comforts Steel, etc. But then we get a NEW ending to Kingdom Come, featuring the death of Batman, a family of Super-kids, and lives for another 1,000 years at least, watching the Legion of Super-Heroes take off. Sniff.
Review: Um... huh. What a let-down. THREE FREAKING TRADES, a giant moral question, the team divided, and Power Girl going to a parallel Earth, and the end result is THAT? The Earth-2 story is shuffled out super-quick, the team hooks back up right away, and Gog turns out to be really bad after all, so nobody actually has to ask ANY hard questions. Guh, how disappointing; it would've been much better to simply focus on how all these 'gifts' weren't the right thing after all, but no, it had to be something simple. And it still makes ZERO SENSE that Hawkman is all pro-Gog and pro-killing when he led the team against Kahndaq in their bloodiest battle in HISTORY over that very thing.
And the "Kingdom Come" link... totally unnecessary in my mind. Why did KC Superman have to be in there? Just to say more things about KC that weren't already said? I guess they were doing the huge KC build-up from day one with Cyclone, Lightning & Co., but REALLY? We needed Magog, KC Superman and constant throwbacks to KC as well? What's most bizarre is that series is a *JUSTICE LEAGUE* story, not a JSA one! It just feels out of place and tacked on with this group that had little to do with the original story (hell, Alan & Jay didn't even SAY anything in KC- it was all Supes/WW/Bats). Magog was supposed to be Gog's servant all along? And then he just gets to stick around anyways? Argh.
All the usual flaws with the JSA series were showcased here, with poor Lightning getting about three things to say, Sand showing up ONLY to sleep, fail to save a boy, and then find God attaching himself to the Earth, Mid-Nite does nothing, etc. And hell, Atom Smasher showed up to kick some ass, say some bad-ass things, and then vanish again! The hell?
The fights seemed disappointing as well. At least THREE major free-for-alls between divided teams are set up (Old/Young, JSA/JSI, Old/Young Again), but every single one ends with almost nothing concrete being done aside from some random grabbing (Wildcat grabs his son's neck), and almost nobody throws any major shots or decent hits. Part of it's Eaglesham's fault, as he's the big artist, but he draws giant, muscle-bound people like Ed McGuinness, so there's not as much room to show movement or fighting. But really, each of these major battles only plays a tiny bit of a role in each book. They'd have been far better off going a Perez-route with smaller figures and more action, or going a "Contest of Champions"-like route and showing one full issue of fighting and then glossing over the rest. This just seemed disjointed and weird.
"Disjointed" is a good one-word review for this whole collection anyhow. The JSA collects their newbies. They find KC Superman & fight Magog. Then Magog dies. Then ANOTHER Magog is created. Then Gog turns the young guys & Hawkman against the Old Guard. There's some fighting, and Power Girl does a HUGE arc on Earth-2 that ultimately goes nowhere (is Superman I from Earth-2? If not, where is he?). Then she comes back, and it's more fighting. Gog's gifts go badly for everyone. They find out he's really evil, and beat him up. Superman goes home, The End. I mean, HUH? Did I miss how this was supposed to all fit the same theme? It's just a bunch of stuff all randomly thrown together, not making much sense, and the wrong parts being focused on.
Best Moment: Atom Smasher proving himself mancrush-worthy by being the guy to knock some sense into Grant Emerson, especially with some awesome lines, drawn perfectly by Fernando Pasarin, and one-sidedly beating the shit out of him.
DESPERO (aka L-Ron)
Created By: Gardner Fox & Mike Sekowsky First Appearance: Justice League of America #1 (Oct. 1960) Role: Big Bad Villain, Mind-Controller Group Affiliations: The Justice League of America (as L-Ron), The Injustice League, The Secret Society of Super-Villains PL 14 (275)
STRENGTH 3/18 STAMINA 4/18 AGILITY 3 FIGHTING 10 DEXTERITY 2 INTELLIGENCE 5 AWARENESS 4 PRESENCE 3
Offense:
Unarmed +10 (+3 Damage, DC 18)
Flame-Bred Strength +10 (+18 Damage, DC 33)
Mind-Reading -- (+14, DC 24)
Mind Control -- (+14 Perception-Ranged Affliction, DC 24)
Initiative +3
Complications:
Motivation (Power)- Despero often rules the planet of Kalanor, and wishes to conquer the Universe.
Enemy (The Justice League)- Despero nearly always exclusively fights the Justice League- he despises the heroes, and carries a massive grudge for having been beaten time and time again.
-Despero is the first big supervillain the newly-formed Justice League of America fought, and would become a recurring threat, with appearances every few years or so (1960, '64, '76, '80, '86, '90- almost like clockwork). He's the tyrannical ruler of Kalanor (classic 1960s planetary name, right there), but is defeated by a rebellion in alliance with the JLA and Snapper Carr. His "Third Eye", the source of his hypnotic powers, is removed, but eventually grows back, and he faces the League again and again- he gains incredible power from the "Flame of Py'tar" and completely destroys the JLA's Satellite, ending an era of the book, but the Flame is extinguished by Vibe and he's beaten again. His Big Reveal as a villain in the Giffen/DeMatteis League was a moment of seriousness for the book, provoking a dramatic battle after he murders Gypsy's parents. He is finally beaten when J'onn J'onzz shows him his ideal future- killing the League and ruling the world. He reverts to fetal form and is traded to the villainous Manga Khan for a helper robot named L-Ron (named after L. Ron Hubbard, founder of $cientology).
-Desperto eventually ages up and escapes- his time, he is chased by Lobo (hired by Manga Khan to get him back), and fights the JLA, JL Europe & Lobo in Times Square, and his mind is switched to L-Ron's at the last second by Kilowog & L-Ron, defeating him. He takes incorporeal form at times, as L-Ron's body has been destroyed, and Young Justice beats him when he possesses the Martian Manhunter. He finally returns, allying with Johnny Sorrow, a JSA foe, and they form a team that becomes the major focus of JLA/JSA: Virtue and Vice, a great one-shot story that features the Seven Deadly Sins being unleashed onto various superheroes (naturally, Power Girl got "Lust"). Despero even takes over the body of Lex Luthor (then President of the United States)! Despero is beaten when the heroes target Sorrow's deadly "stare" attack on him. After this (his first storyline in a LONG while- he's sat out most of the 1990s, owing to its rejection of the Silver Age), he becomes a recurring villain, generally doing World Conquering schemes.
-Despero initially looked pretty silly- just a pink dude with a funny head and a third eye, and one of those classic goofy "regular word +o" Silver Agey names that sound rather silly these days. However, his Carlos Pacheco-drawn upgrade was BAD-ASS, making him look like this dominating physical threat. A much better look that gives him instant credibility. One time, Vril Dox manipulated him into fighting Starro the Conqueror (he lost, but regenerated). He got a good turn in the Justice League cartoon, owing largely to a power upgrade and KEITH FRIGGIN' DAVID using his "Evil Villain Voice" to great effect.
-Despero is INCREDIBLY-powerful, able to bring down high-level superheroes with little effort- he can match the Man of Steel or Captain Marvel in a pinch, and uses dreaded things like PL 14 Mind Control and high-end Regeneration and Immortality, meaning keeping him down is nearly-impossible. In Virtue and Vice, he tanks the combined attacks of Supes, Marvel, Wonder Woman & Power Girl- SIMULTANEOUSLY. Which is like a PL 16-17-level feat.
So with Despero, we've finally reached the END of this set! I was going to leave him off, then was like "F it" and I forget why I decided to include him, aside from having the build already done.
So thus ends what's like three months of Justice Society, Justice League and assorted DC builds. Again, I'm not usually a fan of GIGANTIC sets like that- it kind of leaves things very "same-y", and the issues of statting up DC characters always spring up. By the end I'm just ready to be DONE with it and move on entirely. The most fun bit here might actually be digging through the list of forgotten, dumb Quality Comics golden age characters.
Looking through the front page, you can see a few guys who are missing- this would be future names to pull for the "Superman" set- primarily Superman and the New Gods, but also including Power Girl and a couple others. This would have been a BIT sooner, but... I'm pretty much wiped out on doing DCU builds for the moment. Part of my issue is that since I didn't grow up with the characters, nor did I read ANY of their stuff in until the 2000s... none of it lands with me. I can note a character's history, and even find some of it interesting, but I have very little interest in characters I've never read about, and DC's "LOL only the Big Seven matter" attitude means that I never read any of Firestorm, Blue Devil, Ted Kord, etc., because those guys were just dumped like garbage once their shit stopped selling and DC never tried again, in favor of the 187th mulligan at a Wonder Woman book.
And I can tell, like... DC's side characters don't get a lot of love, even from DC fans. People seemed to dig Ted on here, but Ralph Dibney got only a couple remarks, then Animal Man went with ZERO. And that's a dude who had a well-respected, really long run or two!
Which provides an interesting contrast, as I found that the Teen Titans and Legion of Super-Heroes both drew a lot of fan love on here. Probably because those two books have extremely popular, beloved runs during key eras, where the Justice League sucked during that same time span and has been hot & cold ever since, as DC has pretty much been stepping on its own dick since the Crisis on Infinite Earths happened. so like... doofuses like Risk and Baby Wildebeest can get more attention than guys who had their own friggin' books!
For the Next Couple of Months on My Thread:
-With this MASSIVE set finally completed, I can finally move on to some of the smaller bits I wanted to do! I'll finish another Guilty Gear character, then hammer off some of the forgotten Marvel characters who ended up on the Stranger's "Laboratory World". Then it's a short run of SNK's fighting games Savage Reign and Neo*Geo Battle Coliseum! Then it's Sonic the Hedgehog builds for about a week! And then finally the stuff from the poll I just ran- first up is Big Swinging Knocker-- I mean Dead Or Alive! Followed immediately by what's probably my last big MARVEL set- Iron Man builds!
