Posted by Darren in Comics
For the Supporting Cast of Wonder Woman and Aquaman our examination will move heavily towards those outward forces that have influenced our heroes.
Wonder Woman is first and foremost a product of her character’s origins.
After all, it is the Greek Goddesses who create the Amazons, a race of women warriors so brutalized by men that they seek to live alone in peace and harmony away from the warring men.
The basic Greek pantheon includes the following Gods and Goddesses who show up from time to time to help and/or hinder Diana:
- Zeus – Father of the Gods, the Sky, and the Ruler of Olympus, Husband of Hera and the sire of many lesser Gods and heroes. His Symbols include the lightning bolt and the eagle.
- Hera – Mother of the Gods, Marriage, and Jealousy. Hera is constantly on guard for her husband’s dalliances and acts upon them with great vengeance. Her symbol is the peacock.
- Poseidon – The God of the Oceans. Poseidon rules over the seas, the creatures of the seas and earthquakes. He is also the patron god of sailors and those who travel by ocean. His symbol is the trident.
- Demeter – The Goddess of the Harvest. Demeter is the ruler over agriculture More >
Posted by Darren in Comics
We are gathered here today in this fine house to recognize the comic book union of this man and this Wonder Girl…
After all the Titans have gone through it was time for a bit of a rest and to enjoy a happy event. Donna Troy weds Terrence Long in their anniversary 50th issue which features some guest appearances from some surprise guests.
The groomsmen are all Terry’s family and friends, and his sons acting as ring bearers. Donna’s entourage include Sharon a former roommate and her newly found half-sisters, along with ex Titans Lilith Clay, current Titan Starfire, and Diana Prince, Wonder Woman.
Amongst the company we see Dick Grayson (Nightwing), who gave Donna away, Wally West (Kid Flash), Frances Kane, Garfield Logan (Changeling), Victor Stone (Cyborg), Garth & Tula (Aqualad and Aquagirl), Roy Harper (Speedy), Bette Kane (Bat-Girl), Joe Wilson (Jericho), Mal & Karen Beecher (Guardian & Bumblebee), and Duela Dent (Harlequin).
We discover that Mal & Karen have since retired from super-heroics and gotten married and Lilith’s old flame Gnarrk has died. Dick Grayson actually confronts Duela Dent who has gotten quite old and portly in the time between now and when the old Titans were together, he claims that she is far More >
Posted by Darren in Comics
That title looks pretty ominous doesn’t it? Well, it is.
The Justice League of America as a title had been struggling in sales, with other group books becoming more popular year after year like Marvel’s X-Men franchise and DC’s New Teen Titans and the Legion of Super-Heroes. The JLA formula had pretty much consisted of a formula where a bad thing would happen + one or more members would discover the problem independently + hero(es) realize they need help + call in the JLA + problem solved.
While this formula works for a 30 minute episode of Super Friends, as the comics audience matured, so did their need for more interaction in plots. However the writers of JLA have a unique problem, they cannot really do much to Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, etc.., as those heroes are appearing in their own books where they have major changes originate.
This leaves the JLA writer able to change those characters not appearing regularly or the “B characters” Green Arrow, Black Canary, Atom, Hawkman, Elongated Man, Red Tornado, and Zatanna. (Firestorm was still appearing in his own title while he was in JLA).
DC saw what comics readers were attracted to, a group of characters that were more intensely intertwined More >
Posted by Darren in Comics
The Justice League marches on from the shock of Black Canary’s new heritage and into a story that serves a few interesting purposes.
Hawkman and Hawkgirl, now Hawkwoman had been the stable married couple in the DCU prior to the Elongated Man and Sue Dibny on the scene, but a story in World’s Finest Comics which was an anthology at the time broke the couple up for a trial separation for a time with Hawkwoman leaving Earth and Hawkman staying behind.
While Hawkwoman was off taking some “me time”, Hawkman grew rather lonely and despondent. This JLA story reunites the two of them into the team again and resolves Hawkwoman’s feelings for Hawkman.
Firestorm also has a love subplot for he falls for one of the enemies who is a reluctant participant in the goings on, but mayhaps I am skipping ahead.
I’m sorry Reena, the role of Catwoman has already been taken in this Universe.
There is an arena where only the rich of the rich go for entertainment. Inside this arena, it smells heavy of animals and blood. Here men geared up like gladiators are forced to fight strange beasts. All under the guise of Rex Maximus.
Rex and his gang are the Animen. A group More >
Posted by Darren in Comics
In the history of the Justice League of America, since issue #21, the JLA has teamed up with the JSA for a team-up which would usually involve a “Crisis” (there’s that word again) and that Crisis would frequently involve one world’s issues bleeding into another.
However, DC also has a practical problem, one that plagues them today as well. Characters from the Golden Age of Heroism are still wandering around in your 1984 comics as if they are still 40 years old. Even if the original Flash or Green Lantern was 18 when they started their careers as heroes earlier in 1941, that would mean that they were born in 1923. It is now 1984. These characters are now 61 years old and still are functioning as heroes, which is fine on Earth-Two.
They had another problem too, only Wonder Woman was a popular female character and due to story reasons she has exited the Justice League. The League had become a “boys only” club, and there were no good female candidates to take Wonder Woman’s place who did not already duplicate other characters like Supergirl or Batgirl.
There was this ONE character though from the 1940s, the Black Canary, a beautiful judo expert who might fit in More >
Posted by Darren in Comics
In a continuity of almost fifty years at this time, some errors are going to occur and most readers understand this and let the minor things go.
Some flubs are too huge to let go however and they necessitate a fix if you will.
In early stories prior to the Teen Titans appearing, Wonder Girl, was actually Wonder Woman as a girl. So, Diana Prince had adventures as a teenager prior to leaving Paradise Island and becoming Wonder Woman. The stories of Superboy being so successful, this was a no brainer right?
Well, when the Teen Titans came along it was Robin, Aqualad, and Kid Flash at first and then Wonder Girl joined them. The problem with this? Wonder Woman was already active in the DCU and fighting alongside contemporaries like Superman and Batman, while this Wonder Girl was fairly new and is a member of the sidekick generation about the same age as Robin and the others.
The solution, a little sister named Donna Troy. Donna being close to Diana and Troy, one of the famed areas of Greek mythos and for a long time no one seemed to mind that Donna’s origin story was rather, well, unfleshed out.
Donna was discovered as a baby in a burning building along with More >
Heading back to Earth-Two for our next set of heroes, but as is the case in most of these situations we have to take 2 steps back to take a step forward and these steps back include two new members of the All-Star Squadron we haven’t discussed previously.
Say hello to Will Everett, Amazing-Man. Will was an Olympic athlete who competed in Berlin and showed up the Third Reich. His athletic fame faded quickly once he returned to still segregated America. Will wound up taking menial jobs and was working as a janitor when he was caught in an explosion that gave him his ability to touch matter and absorb the properties of that material. He would touch cement and become living cement, touch a wedding ring and he becomes gold, touch a tire and he gains the properties of galvanized rubber and so on.
When the All-Star Squadron confronts Will, he is working as a henchman for a villain called the Ultra-Humanite. Eventually, Will’s better nature took over and he betrayed the Ultra-Humanite and joined the All-Star Squadron.
Will becomes our first African-American hero in terms of history so much that future tales would show that Will would go on and become a strong supporter of the More >
Posted by Darren in Comics
Oh the hippie, dippy, trippy, late sixties gave way to the love, peace, flower child which traveled through the remainder of America’s struggling civil rights adolescence. While America had passed a civil rights bill, their first Catholic President was assassinated. While desegregation moved forward more violence against African Americans continued in the social holdouts of racism. When some college students followed the Hippie life and dropped out, they became icons of a social war as the younger generation told the older generation, stop sending us to die in your wars. Young men burned draft cards and ran to Canada to avoid the death machine that was Vietnam. A later President would soon be exposed to be criminally implicated in campaign tampering and would resign in disgrace. No one over 30 would ever be trusted again.
It is in this backdrop that the Teen Titans are created.
While Robin, Speedy, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, and Aqualad had existed for a while now, they had rarely teamed up. In fact, Wonder Girl’s admission is an editorial flub as when she first appeared she was a younger version of Wonder Woman, not a separate character. Eventually, to make the two characters completely distinguishable, Wonder Girl a.k.a. Donna More >
Posted by Darren in Comics
Now, we’re here on Earth-Two and the counterpart to the JLA is the JSA. Not only the counterpart, but also the predecessor of the JLA. Back when I started collecting comics characters used to be numbered by order in which they appeared, so the original Green Lantern was Green Lantern I but he was from Earth-2. I am not going to do that here.
If any hard core comic book fans are reading this, I probably just moved to the heretic column. Oh well, I’ve been called an abomination before, and it will happen again, so bring it.
What I am going to do is typically use the character’s name and their real name to distinguish which character that we are talking about.
For the five heroes that kept being published from the Golden Age through to the Silver Age…
- Superman
- Batman
- Wonder Woman
- Aquaman
- Green Arrow
Only three of them joined the JSA. Wonder Woman was the secretary and Superman and Batman were honorary members. Neither Aquaman nor Green Arrow joined the JSA. Additionally between the Golden Age to the Silver Age no significant changes were made in the character regarding name, origin, powers, m.o., etc.., While some of these may have evolved over time there was not a distinct change that occurred More >
Posted by Darren in Comics
So.. you’re thinking to yourself.
“The Royal Flush Gang? You have GOT to be kidding me.”
Nope. The Royal Flush Gang. Interesting premise and over the years the writers tend to get more inventive with them and because they are villains, they are more changeable than our heroes. They are a natural team in a world populated with Brainiac, Cheetahs, and Jokers.. well, could this card themed group really have been far behind?
The Royal Flush Gang employ weapons based on their card motifs. Spade shaped grenades, illusion scepters, lasers, hypnosis, and they ride flying cards. Come on, Flying Cards! It’s like surfing!
Aquaman and Firestorm open up our adventure on the open seas, where Aquaman is giving Firestorm a test. While Firestorm is a JLAer, he’s still the rookie and so the other Leaguers try to help him along a bit with his training. Unfortunately, the two JLAers are ambushed by people wearing outfits that look like playing cards and they are riding playing cards. Weird, huh?
Before long, many JLAers fall to the Royal Flush Gang. Superman. Wonder Woman. Green Arrow. All the JLAers who are zapped by the Royal Flush Gang’s weapons go into a sort of debilitating coma.
We eventually get to More >
