the Captain’s Justice League blog!
Resurrection League
Snark Free Corner at Comics Should Be Good has an interesting challenge:
With a limit of seven team members, make up your Justice League of only characters who died and came back!
That ones depends on what you mean by “died and came back”. Most heroes will at sometime or another have been clinically dead or believed dead for no more than a single story, e.g. Batman and arguably Superman. Then there are those heroes that have been dead to stay dead, e.g. Ollie Queen and Barry Allen. I’ll stick with Dead to be Dead as it makes it a little bit more interesting:
Blue Devil
Green Arrow (Ollie)
Green Lantern (Hal)
Hawkman I
Metamorpho
Red Tornado II
Robotman II
And having searched the web for inspiration I came across a rock band called Dead Superhero Orchestra. It’s a fantastic name.
Teen Titans — The Second Season DVD Review
I watched the first season of Teen Titans when it came on Cartoon Network, but I never got around to watching the second season. Fortunately for me its just been released on DVD (released 9/12/06, “Own it Now” as they say). If you’ve never see the cartoon or comic book before the set up for the Teen Titans is relatively simple: 5 teenage superheroes (Robin, Raven, Starfire, Beast Boy and Cyborg) who live together in a giant letter T and defend their “City” from a mysterious terrorist called Slade. There are no mentors and its no accident that the only reoccurring adult in the series is the villain Slade.
If you’ve only see the Teen Titans comic book then you’re going to be in for something of a shock. Gone are the now grown-up twenty something former sidekicks and instead we have a pseudo-anime version of the Marv Wolfman and Geroge Perez 1980s Teen Titans. Each of the characters is very identifiable and surprisingly they haven’t changed that much between the comic book and the cartoon. The biggest change is probably for the main villain, Slade. In the comics he’s a mercenary called Slade Wilson who goes by the professional name Deathstroke (alias the Terminator). His cartoon version is arguably more enigmatic than the comic book version, but he also loses some of the moral ambiguity that surrounded his later adventures.
This season follows two thematic strands - the first one is an adaptation of the Terra story arc (albeit heavily rewritten for a younger audience). She’s introduced in “Terra” as a potential Titan, but doesn’t join the team proper until “Titan Rising”. Despite being made a Titan she only appears once in a non-plot arc episode and that’s only as a non-speaking cameo. The major turning point for her character’s development is the episode “Betrayal” which sets ups the drama for “Aftershock”, the two part season finale. Her arc described in the WB synopsis as:
Dangerous enemy or lifelong friend? That’s the question of Season 2 when Terra, a free-spirited teen with awesome earth-manipulating powers, rolls into town. As a skilled fighter, she makes a powerful addition to the Titans’ fight against crime, and as a fun-loving, no-holds-barred hero, she jives instantly with their team chemistry. But the Titans aren’t the only ones interested in recruiting the new girl. Robin’s archnemesis Slade is on the prowl for an apprentice, and the combination of Terra’s volatile powers and personal vulnerability make her a perfect target for his twisted plans. Trusting this newcomer could prove to be a fatal mistake for the Teen Titans!
The second strand is a recurrent theme of isolation. This manifests itself in a series of standalone episodes where each of the Titans’ fears is spotlighted — Raven’s fear of her powers is explored in “Fear Itself”, Cyborg’s fear for his humanity in “Only Human”, Robin’s fear of failure in “Fractured”, Starfire’s fear of her body’s changes in “Transformation”, and Beast Boy’s fear of being alone in “Every Dog Has His Day”. Even Terra has to explore her fears in the season finale. You get the feeling these kids really need each other’s support and companionship.
The Terra and isolation arcs deliver some fantastic sequences and episodes throughout the season, but for me the three-exemplar episodes are those that aren’t part of those arcs. “How Long is Forever”, which, as well as sounding like a classic Star Trek episode title, also plays with the classic science fiction device of the alternative future. “Date With Destiny” has Robin being blackmailed into date a supervillain’s daughter — complete with Starfire’s jealous reactions. “And Winner Takes” it all is an all out action episode with an excuse for many Titan cameos.
The individual episodes:
- First up is this season is How Long Is Forever? I noted the classic science fiction device of the alternative future previous, but in this case it’s the future that comes to pass when Starfire isn’t there to bond the Titans together. The biggest fan payoff in this episode is the appearance of the future Robin as an oh’so cool Nightwing (complete with Batman TAS/Beyond bat-computer and Robin costume in the tube).
- The second episode, Every Dog Has His Day, is superficially lighter in tone with Beast Boy being mistakenly kidnapped by a dumb alien who thinks he’s his green doggy. The visual inventiveness of character design is fantastic as Beast Boy shifts between numerous forms, but I found the alien to be a little unsettling if ruminated too long. All the controls of his spaceship are duplicated from baby toys, he wears a baby grow, and its quite clear from his emotional state that he’s just a toddler, yet the Teen Titans are still made to look cool by beating him up.
- Terra, will be familiar to any reader of the Teen Titan’s comics, and her connection to Slade is nicely foreshadowed by the tendency of her fringe to overhang her eye in a manner that apes Slade’s mask. I liked her first appearance best, but she was never a character I took too. Don’t get me wrong her story arc is brilliantly played out, but it’s best that you know nothing of her or of her original form from the comics.
- The Cyborg episode, Only Human, is a by-the-numbers “you don’t know your limitations” / “don’t underestimate yourself” episode, but its nicely done. We get a tiny bit of back-story when Cyborg mentions his time as an athlete. The guest badguy, Atlas, is fairly undeveloped and could have lifted the episode if he’d been more interesting. Only Human and Every Dog Has His Day nicely demonstrate the sense of isolation that Beast Boy and Cyborg share and underlines the common ground between these friends.
- Fear Itself is an interesting spin on the haunted house / horror movie conventions. The entire episode keeps you off kilter with the subdued music and he horror movie pacing. The opening sequence with Control Freak made me nostalgic for the Real Ghostbusters and I’m rather shocked that Beast Boy never changed into a great dane, but maybe that would have broken the mood of the episode. I wasn’t quite sure about the animation on this episode, it seemed to fit, but I wasn’t sure if it is off kilter feeling was deliberate or not.
- One of my favourite episodes this season was Date With Destiny. Killer Moth is normally a lame villain at the best of times, but the Teen Titan spin almost makes him cool. As a Brit I’ve always found the torture US kids grow through at school rather inexplicable and I’ve sometimes wondered how all those Proms that aren’t part of a TV shows survive the mandatory monster attack. One of the light touches that I liked in this episode was Robin’s hair momentarily copying Jason Todd’s hair (further reinforcing my pet theory that this Robin is Todd).
- Another of my favourite episodes is Transformation. It’s another nice little morality story, this time about appearances and how people look. The puberty subtext is fairly strong, but it doesn’t get too preachy. The one bit I did find slightly odd was their choice of Plasmas for the stock monster as in the cartoon continuity he’s a Jeckle and Hyde character who uncontrollable transforms into a rampaging monster and, in that aspect, mirrors Starfire’s transformation. The pacing in this episode seems perfect with the biggest laugh probably had at Beast Boys bathroom problem — does the T-Tower seriously only have one bathroom?
- The return of Terra in Titan Rising makes for one of the more dramatic episodes thus far this season. I did find the Raven/Terra feud to be a little overplayed, but the initial volleyball match was great. Giant Mechanical Worms ™ reminded me of an old Superman comic (first one I remember reading actually), but they’re a great foe for any superhero. And Beast Boy’s crush on Terra is too cute for words.
- Winner Takes All is an outstanding twist on the hero versus hero battle. Our heroes are pulled into a faux version of Streetfighter, a “Content of Champions,” to find the best teen hero. Part of you just wants a Teen Titans beat-em-up video game so you can replicate this episode. The cameos by Joto (Hotspot) and Wildebeest are nice and Speedy’s use as a Robin parallel works well. This episode is written by Dwayne McDuffie and there is a nice reference to Green Arrow’s first Justice League Unlimited appearance in Speedy’s flashback/intro (in the comics Speedy is Green Arrow’s sidekick).
- Betrayal is the pivotal episode in the evolution of Terra’s character, but it’s also a great episode. I thought it would have been nice to see more of Terra as a regular Teen Titan, but I guess that’d confuse the ordering of the repeat episodes. Most of this episodes switches between two great sequences - the Titans unleashing against an army of Slade’s robots and the Terra/Beast Boy date. I also loved the face off between Beast Boy and Slade, it’s not very often that we get to see Beast Boy prove that he’s actually one of the most versatile and dangerous of the Titans.
- After the darkness of Betrayal’s ending it feels as if Fractured is carrying on the same tone, but the altered title sequence quickly dispels you of that notion. This episode features comedic first appearance of Larry The Titan, a version of Robin from somewhere near the Fifth Dimension (think of a Robin version of Batmite). This also completes the isolation/fear arc with Robin’s feeling of being just a kid despite him being the coolest and most adult of the titans. You’ll either love or hate Larry, he’s that sort of character.
- The two part season finale is Aftershock and features the final confrontation between the heroes and their traitor. It is a fine example of how the stylistic freedoms of this show’s format excellently allow the writers to switch between outlandish comedy and uber-dark drama. There are some very slick moments in the second episode with the Titans operating from the concealment of a fog, but I was always left wanting to know more about why Slade wants to destroy the city.
The two-disc DVD set is well put together, but there aren’t any extras or real special features. Okay, yes there is one, a music video style montage of clips from the first season, but you’ll find enough of those on Youtube. It would have been nice to of had a director’s commentary or even a commentary by Marv Wolfman, but then I’m the type of fan who digs that sort of stuff.
I liked this two-disc set. There were no duff episodes and even several classics. The Terra arc is something that’ll either grab you or it won’t. You aren’t left on baited breath for her next appearance, but she they do occur they’re enjoyably well done.
Average Episode Rating:
Season Rating (as a coherent whole):
DVD Presention:
DVD Extras:
- Teen Titans The Second Season (Buy from Amazon)
- Official Promotion Site
Heavy Persian Batman
According to Wikipedia a Batman was a ancient Persian measure of mass equal to about 2.97 kg or 6.5 pounds. That’d mean that Batman weights 32 batmans. The name was also used in parts of Russia for a unit equal to 16.4 metric tonnes. So you get 5500 Persian batmans or 172 Batmen to one Russan batman.
Book of Fate, Chapter One
Has anybody read the first chapter of The Book of Fate? No, not the Jared Stevens character, I mean the except from Brad Meltzer’s new book that was included at the end of the lastest issue of JLA. The blurb on Amazon lists the plot as:
Wes Holloway, a hotshot presidential aide, is wounded in an assassination attempt that kills the president’s close friend. Eight years later, the dead man reappears, disfigured but very much alive and apparently stalking the former president. Wes thinks he can figure out what’s going on, but to do so he must decipher a two-century-old code and penetrate the secrets of Masonic history.
The excerpt in JLA #1 pretty much covers the opening sentence of that quote. It’s an interesting read and if you read it back-to-back with the rest of comic book your very aware that both come from the same author. It’s written in the first person and some of the commentary could very easily appear in one of those colour coded thought boxes that are a signature of his comic book style.
I may have to see if my local library is getting this one in.
Justice League of America #1
Another week spent with my head in the sand. I was off on holiday last week so I wasn’t able to get to the local comics shop and it was an English Bank Holiday on Monday. It was a big week as well what with Wonder Woman and Batman both shipping, but of course it was the first issue proper of Justice League of America that I was really waiting for.
One thing that did surprise me was the number of Michael Turner varient covers left over in the local shop. It wasn’t that they weren’t selling, but there had been a mistake at Diamond resulting in a massive oversend of that one cover - around here its the Ed Benes covers that are the rare ones. If you’re still searching for one try contacting Comics Guru in Cardiff. Both artists have fairly similar styles althrough Benes isn’t quite as stylised as Turner, which I personally think is a good thing. Benes has recently set up an official English language website and he’s posted up scans of the pencil pages for this issue.
One thing that did strike me whilst reading this issue is that its very easy to tell that its written by the same writer as Identity Crisis. Brad Meltzer uses the same camera angles, monolog boxes, and rapid cutting between scenes that he used there. The only thing that seems to be missing is Rags Morales and Benes comes very close, either by accident or design, to emulating him at times. On his blog Meltzer reveals something of his forshadowing in Archer’s Quest and Identity Crisis, namily the early spotlighting of characters he’d later use for his League roster. He’s also interview by Brain Bendis at Wizard Universe with the following quote getting picked up by those who think that Vixen and Black Lighting are perfect examples of ego characters.
Bendis: How does it feel assembling a team like this, though? It’s kind of a cool feeling and kind of unique?
Meltzer: Oh, it’s definitely the ultimate fanboy dream. If someone came to you and said, “You can pick the team of The Avengers, you can pick the team of The Justice League–or if I went back in time and I told the two of us that that’s what we’d be doing–I would basically die right there, even though we’ve been doing it in our heads since we were 10 years old. But again, the hardest part for me was not wanting to just do what I think is cool, but what actually is bigger than me. I think that there is just a history–even in the JLA, even in The Avengers–where you saw what can only be called “The Ego Character.” It’s the character that’s like, “I’m being put on the team so everyone remembers me.” I hate that character. It’s in just about every run of every Justice League and it’s in just about every run of every Avengers. There’s always one character that’s the ego character. I really wanted to not be that guy–and listen, I’m sure I’ll get called on that whether it’s for Black Lightning or someone else–but to me Black Lightning has total business being in that book.
Tom Bondurant’s Grumpy Old Fan Column at the Newsarama blog also picks up the same quote and does a nice run through of the various vanity and ego characters in the history of the Justice League.
Over at Monitor Duty Hutch raises the issue of Traya’s age. The last appearance of the character I can remember was in Young Justice where she’s shown as attending the same private school as Wonder Girl, admittedly she was also shown as a kid genius who had been boosted up to the older kids classes, but she can’t have been much older than ten or twelve (I don’t buy the decompressed twenty year-plus timeline idea as it would put Superman and Batman in their late 40s). Yet, here she’s portrayed as not being much older than she was in her first appearance (issue #152, March 1978, of the old series) where she can’t have been much older than four years old. And is it my imagination or has Traya’s skin colour lightened since she was first introduced?
Brian Cronin’s review at Comics Should Be Good mirrored many reviews I’ve read. He channels the blogosphere by noting that:
The comic seemed ready to be a fun book, and it had quite a few nice character bits, but ultimately, for the debut issue of a major title, with thirty-eight pages to work with, the book had far too much sitting around and talking, and not nearly enough action.
Personally I didn’t mind the lack of action, but it fairly obvious that this relaunch is going to be a different beast from the “widescreen” instant action of the previous relaunch. (A Todd Nauck-esque Doctor Impossible? I didn’t stop it to start with, but now that it’s been mentioned.)
Updated 03 Sept 06: More on Doctor Impossible (From Wizard #180): “‘I love this guy,’ crows Meltzer. ‘Is he an evil Mr. Miracle? We’ll see. Even DC thought he was an old character from years past.’”
Flashpoint
The episode analysis and screen shots are up for Flashpoint. I’m holding off on an actual episode review until I’ve finished all four-parts of the story arc. I’ve also updated the episode guide page (it now lists writers and directors for indexed episodes) and I’ve added a fair few more issue credits to the JLA Comicbook Index.
Turner’s cover to JLA #1 leaked; line-up revealled
Michael Turner’s varient cover to JLA #1 has been leaked on the Comicbloc forums. Go here to see it.
Who I’d would like to see in the League.
So, no Justice League of America #1 this week. Bummer. That means we’ve got to wait another week to find out who’s going to make the new League, although it doesn’t stop us speculating…
First we need a few ground rules: The “Trinity” are in by default, you can’t use anybody from 52, and we’ll stick the historical upper limit of 10 members. Other than that members must currently be active in a DC superhero comic book and they must have some sort of characterisation/story potential. You can also have an eleventh member as a wildcard, but you can’t resurrect them or otherwise break continuity. (We’ll assume that the twelfth member is a new character made up by the writer and who will never be seen again after he leaves).
Personally I’d want a near even split between the different ages. I’d like to include the three archetypes of liberal, conservative, and mediator. The liberal is obvious - he’d have to be Green Arrow (Oliver), but I think I’d pass up on Hawkman and go for Guy Gardner as the conservative. His character has come a long way lately and I think he’d make an interesting foil for Ollie and Batman. The mediator is more problematic as Black Canary is no longer involved with Ollie, so I’ll fall back on Wonder Woman (who is already in as part of the Trinity) as the pease keeper.
We’ve got a Green Lantern, so we’ll need a Flash which mean’s that Bart’s in by default. He’s got his grandfather’s intellect so it’ll be interesting seeing him converse with the upgraded brain of Superman. We know that one of the Teen Titan’s is going to graduate. That could refer to Bart, but it could equally be one of the older Titans. The most interesting would be Cyborg as he really seems to have come into his own during the latest Teen Titans series. He’d still be a bit of a mentor for Bart and I think he’d side with GA in arguements. We also need somebody with wings. Hawkman’s with JSA, Zauriel doesn’t really fit, so we’re left with Hawkgirl by default. Not sure what a writer would do with her, but the more ladies for Ed Benes to draw the better.
The other younger characters are harder to choose from. We’ve currently got Firestorm, a new Atom, a new Blue Beetle. Of those I’d pick Blue Beetle as I think he’d get a free pass because of people’s guilt over Ted Kord and his suit’s effect of Guy’s ring would make for interesting tension in the group. I think the new Atom and Firestorm would be an interesting team-up, but it’d be too much, too soon, and with too many rookies you run the risk of Detroiting the League.
Cyborg cover the tech so we wouldn’t need Red Tornado, Blue Beetle is mystically powered so we could get away with not having a sorcerer. It’s been rumoured that Vixen is in the new team, so I won’t argue with that. Besides she seems to add more balance to time team gender-wise and geographically, but most importantly she’s a great character.
That just leaves one wildcard member. I’d love to see Kimiyo Hoshi (the good Dr Light) as I believe she and the League have got unfinished business with Arthur Light (the evil Dr Light) and that it’s a story that should be told in the JLA’s title.
- Batman (Bruce Wayne)
- Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes)
- Cyborg (Victor Stone)
- Doctor Light (Kimiyo Hoshi)
- Flash (Bart Allen)
- Green Arrow (Oliver Queen)
- Green Lantern (Guy Gardner)
- Hawkgirl (Kendra Saunders)
- Superman (Clark Kent)
- Vixen (Mari Jiwe McCabe)
- Wonder Woman (Diana)
There are other heroes I’d personally like to see in the League, but these feel like they’d tell the best stories.
Is Pluto a planet?
How many planets are there in our Solar System? Nine, you think. Yet, the body that regulates the naming and classification of astronomical objects, the IAU, is currently debating whether there should be more or less than nine. All this stems from the status of Pluto and how we differentiate a planet from the other space rock floating around the solar system.
The field of astronomy that I work in is called Star Formation and that’s closely related to the field of Planet Formation. The broad paradigm we’re currently working under is that the sun formed when a rotating cloud of gas collapsed along its axis of rotation to form a disc. The small proto-sun was at the centre of that disc and gas spiraling inwards from the disc was used feed its growth. After the Sun has finished forming the scattered rocky remnants of the disc started to bumb and stick together forming proto-planets. Some of those rocks become big enough to capture atmospheres from the remaining gas in the disc. This is a very violent era with proto-planets crashing into each other or being thrown out of the disc.
However, eventually things begin to settle down to a more recognisable state. Most of the mass is consolidated into eight major planets all orbiting in the what use to be the plane of the disc. There is still a fair amount of “builders rubble” left, but this is mainly left at the edge of the solar system in a massive extended shell of material called the Opik-Oort Cloud (which is where comets come from) and in a belt of larger objects called the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt. The largest object in the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt and the only one we were able to detect until recently is the object we call Pluto.
Pluto was discoverd in 1930 by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh and was added to the text books as the ninth planet. As we’ve come to understand Pluto’s place in the solar system there have been calls for it to be down graded from planet status and reclassified as just a Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt object. That has been constantly rejected by more historically minded astronomers. But it does create the problem that if Pluto is a planet then there are seveal other objects in the solar system which really should be considered as candidates for planet status.
Personally I think this is all a waste of time and man power. The latin root of the word Planet means “to wander” and that is pretty much the classical definition of a planet. They are objects in the night sky that appear to move, to wander, relative to the fixed pattern of background stars. Astronomy, like taxonomy, has always been a science fixated with the classification of things and we’ve constantly been searching for a more technical definition of a planet. However, we fail at every step and even if the IAU adopts the new scheme there will be legions of astronomers who will disagree or ignore it. And that’s side from the fact that American astronomers would never allow the only planet to be discovered by an American to be taken away from them
The solution isn’t to reclassify Pluto as that just confuses the public and vexes small children. Better to leave it where it is and use it as an excuse to teach people about the Kuiper Belt and the smaller members of our solar family.