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Posts tagged Zatanna
And One Of Us Must Die!!!
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Roll Call: JLA: Green Arrow, Black Canary, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Flash, with Special Guest Star: Zatanna and Diana Prince, Wonder Woman. JSA: Johnny Thunder, Wildcat, and Red Tornado. Seven Soldiers of Victory: Vigilante, Star-Spangled Kid, and Speedy.
The Oracle opens up the issue wondering why it is that as a cosmic entity that it should care for the life of this one Earth, but care he does. The Oracle reminds us that he is bound not to interfere in the affairs of lesser beings..
We find Green Arrow, Black Canary, and Johnny Thunder in the past in the American Midwest. Before they even get their footing the two men are fighting over which one of them the Black Canary prefers. Canary rebuffs both of the overblown alpha males. The trio make it to the Native American village where they see Vigilante is being held prisoner. Arrow and Canary begin to stalk their way while Johnny says for them to wait and he calls the Thunderbolt, but the genie does not come. It is too late to regroup as a group of Indian scouts has ambushed the heroes and laid them low. The chief of the tribe awakens the intruders informing them that they will die tomorrow because the white man will steal their lands, to which Green Arrow responds “Gotta admit you’ve got a powerful argument.” Later the Chief is getting ready to execute Vigilante who is tied up in the midst of the village and the chief finds himself interrupted by a well timed arrow. In the midst of the rescue, a buffalo stampede commences and Thunderbolt finally shows up complaining that his master is off the beaten path and it took a while to find him. The Thunderbolt turns the herd into butterflies and once the four heroes are once again together the Oracle zaps them out of the area.
The scene moves to Aquaman, Wildcat, and Green Lantern who have landed back in the prehistoric days with cro-magnon men and the Star-Spangled Kid. Actually, its not really the Kid at this point that the cavemen are fighting. The kid has set up an illusion to keep the locals from invading the cave. When the heroes approach Green Lantern’s power constructs fail him due to the areas unnatural yellow fog. It is up to Wildcat to take on the tribe’s leader and get the heroes into the cave, which he does quite well. Aquaman is the first to find the Star-Spangled Kid who is suffering from a flu which is why he was trying to keep the natives away from him. A flood takes root in the caves as it pours outside and the Kid is knocked out. Aquaman and Green Lantern save the Kid and they all disappear.
The final stop on the journey of collecting the Seven Soldiers of Victory finds the Flash, Zatanna, and the Red Tornado in the realm of the villainness Circe. Here the Greek polymorpher has transformed Speedy into a centaur for her amusement. Circe comes across the three heroes who ask that she return Speedy to his original form, to which Circe agrees that the heroes will join Speedy and she enchants Speedy’s arrows so that if one hits the heroes they will turn into whatever animal they hate the most. Speedy’s arrow flies and as much as Flash dodges the arrow it eventually finds him and turns him into a slug. Zatanna fares no better as the arrow blasts through a conjured brick wall and transforms her into a hummingbird unable to speak. Red Tornado becomes a mole and under Circe’s magical direction begins to attack the Flash as Flash attacks back. Zatanna realizes in the whirlwinds being whipped up that her wings make noise and she uses the sound of her wings to duplicate her actual voice to create a magic spell to counteract Circe’s spell. The heroes then go to Circe and snatch her magic wand from her and Zatanna casts a paralyzing spell on the sorceress. With Circe out of commission, her charges revert back to the way they were originally and the heroes are zapped away and head back home.
With the full JLA and JSA assembled they count off the Seven Soldiers… Shining Knight, Star-Spangled Kid, Stripesy, Green Arrow, Speedy, Vigilante and Crimson Avenger. Everyone is here, so who is buried in the tomb? The answer:
The Unknown Soldier of Victory is my aide and companion— Wing! It was he who died to defeat the Nebula-Man and if there is any Justice in this world, he was buried where he fell— with honors!” —- Crimson Avenger
As everyone acknowledges Wing’s contribution to saving the world a voice comes out of the background, the Iron Hand who is holding Diana Prince hostage. Diana faints as the Iron Hand threatens to scatter her atoms to the winds if any of the heroes makes a move towards him. At this moment Diana turns and manages to karate chop the Iron Hand’s Iron Hand off of him rendering him fairly useless, even more so she whips him over her head and puts him in a hold and demands he reveal how to stop the Iron Hand enclosing on the Earth.
Iron Hand refuses to cooperate and so it is up to the Seven Soldiers to rebuild the weapon they used to destroy the Nebula Man. They do so but the Nebula Rod must be sent into the Iron Hand by hand which will cause whomever to deliver it to die. The heroes argue over who is going to take the Nebula Rod, but when they turn around the Nebula Rod is gone, taken by the Red Tornado
Red Tornado delivers the Nebula Rod and blows up in the process.
Wing and Red Tornado wave to the readers while they are in the sky.
Next Up: A Bit of A Sideways Step. A Wonder Woman Redux???
The Unknown Soldier of Victory
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Well here we are, Justice League of America #100. One hundred years issues prior to the day when I would pick up JLA #200 in a local market and start my comic book reading hobby that has become a rather significant part of my life today.
This book is the beginning of an expansion of the JLA/JSA team-up stories that include a third team which will be the theme moving forward for the next few stories we talk about leading up to the big Crisis story coming soon, so let’s get to it and meet our first group of guest stars, the Seven Soldiers of Victory.
We open our story as an alarm is going off at the JLA’s satellite, but no one is there to answer the phone. The JLA has decided to hold an anniversary party at their original cave headquarters and as Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Hawkman, and Aquaman are walking through musing about the old headquarters the phone rings in the abandoned headquarters and out pops the Atom.
The scene shifts rapidly to the remaining Justice Leaguers as Flash and his ally Elongated Man are wrapping up the Casino Gang. We see Martian Manhunter back on Mars rebuilding his home planet after a devastating war. Metamorpho flies away from the Stagg compound to be with his friends in the JLA while the recently duped Snapper Carr is unable to face the Leaguers following his unwitting betrayal. Adam Strange is on Rann and will be unable to join the JLA due to his Zeta beam radiation as Zatanna pops into the JLA headquarters to join the festivities. One by one the JLA show up with Batman and Diana Prince joining the group.
You’ll notice I said DIANA PRINCE there, not Wonder Woman…
Wonder Woman gets a new direction around this time and has since quit the Justice League prior to Black Canary’s entrance to the League as of JLA #75. Here, we see her billed as Diana Prince, not Wonder Woman and this change will be the catalyst for a lot of things coming down the pike very soon and we will deal with this change more in depth in a few postings.
When all the JLA and their allies have gathered they all get transported from Earth-One to Earth-Two by the mystic workings of Dr. Fate.
The assembled JSA members are Doctor Fate, Doctor Mid-Nite, Hourman, Johnny Thunder, Red Tornado, Sandman, Starman, Wonder Woman, and Wildcat.
The JSA explains that a gigantic hand is prepped to crush Earth-2 in it’s grip if the world does not surrender itself to it. The hand belongs to a villain called Iron Hand. In order to defeat the Iron Hand, the JSA attempted twice to defeat it being repelled both times. Dr. Fate then consulted his mystic crystal and it showed him a gravestone talking about the “Unknown Soldier of Victory who died so that his world would live.”
Dr. Fate was unable to divine the meaning behind the headstone but with the added might of Zatanna and Johnny Thunder’s Thunderbolt the three mystics work in tandem to achieve a greater working (this is something that will also become a recurring scenario much later in the Crisis stories).
The Oracle appears, apparently a cosmic creature that assists the heroes by telling them the tale of the Seven Soldiers of Victory.
The Seven Soldiers originated on Earth-2, but after fighting their last villain, the Nebula Man, were believed lost.
The Oracle reveals that the 7 Soldiers are lost in time in other dimensions and are no longer acting as themselves but as other entities and it is now the duty of the JLA and JSA to bring the 7 Soldiers back into this dimension to save Earth-2.
The teams are quickly picked in Justice League tradition the larger team breaks into smaller teams to solve the problem quicker. Diana Prince elects to stay behind to coordinate the effort at the JSA headquarters.
Team One: Atom, Doctor Fate, and Elongated Man
This team is taken to an existence where the Crimson Avenger has been transformed into the King of the Aztecs. While the heroes cautiously watch from a safe distance they sneak in and attempt to free the Crimson Avenger to find the Crimson Avenger is capable of zapping the heroes unconscious.
Doctor Fate and Elongated Man awaken to find themselves chained up, the Atom has managed to avoid this fate and once they are relatively alone with the Crimson Avenger the heroes free themselves with Atom and Dr. Fate taking on the Crimson Avenger and Elongated Man taking on the guards.
Elongated Man’s mystery sniffing nose keeps focusing on a glowing meteor that once Dr. Fate destroys the rock Crimson Avenger loses these new powers and comes to his senses and allies are joined.
In a small headquarters the Iron Hand, a villain of the Seven Soldiers of Victory waits as time ticks down to his deadline to take over the world.
Next Up: The Hand That Shook The World
The Wives Club
0Lets do a little examination of the romances of the Justice League.
Superman has Lois Lane.
Wonder Woman has Steve Trevor.
Aquaman has Mera.
Batman has.. well..
Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay, bad example.
Lets talk about the lady loves of the JLA.
Flash’s first wife Iris West is a reporter in the vein of Lois Lane and Flash is always there to help get her out of trouble in the nick of time. Iris is also the aunt of Wally West, who would become Kid Flash and the Flash’s sidekick.
Iris and Barry married, but one of Barry’s villains, Professor Zoom killed Iris leaving Barry to mourn his love. While brief romantic flings occured with Fiona Webb and a near disastrous pairing with Zatanna, Barry’s heart remained with Iris, who was revealed as not having been killed, but living in the future. At the end of The Trial of the Flash, where Barry was put on trial for killing Professor Zoom, Barry was exonerated and went into the future to live with Iris.. for a time.
For Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, love never seemed to be in the cards. He worked many jobs over the years but his most stable was as a test pilot for Ferris Aircraft and was instantly under the sway of the boss’ daughter, Miss Carol Ferris.
Carol and Hal flirted for ages, with that whole “co-workers don’t date” hanging over Hal’s head but Carol grew tired of Hal not being able to commit and when she was offered a violet power ring, she became the Star Sapphire, one of Hal’s biggest enemies.
Hal also had a best friend in Tom Kalmaku, nicknamed Pieface, the Inuit mechanic often covered for Hal when he was forced to leave on Green Lantern business.
When it comes to tiny problems, that was an understatement for The Atom and Jean Loring. Physicist Ray Palmer had a hard time juggling academia, super heroics, and his marriage. The marriage suffered and Jean being the good lawyer she is, divorced him and took most of his intellectual property with her. Ray became despondent and discovered a small tribe of humanoids 6″ tall and went to live with them for a bit.
After attempting reconciliation the two finally parted as amicable friends…
Martian Manhunter lost his wife and children on Mars in a fiery telepathic plague which leads him to being a truly lonely figure amongst the Justice League, but J’onn is also the JLA’s soul center.
For Elongated Man and Sue Dibny it was love at first sight, and the two became the Nick and Nora Charles of the DCUniverse. Always jetting off to solve crimes at the first twitch of Ralph’s nose.
And Sue Dibny only has eyes for the stretchable sleuth, Ralph Dibny. There’s is truly a charmed love affair.
While Green Arrow and Black Canary date and Hawkman and Hawkwoman are married, that leaves us with Red Tornado who met an employment case worker when he was trying to assimilate into human society, Ms. Kathy Sutton.
John Smith (Red Tornado) and Kathy Sutton befriend and adopt a little girl named Traya and all three of them form a wonderful little nuclear family which feeds into Red Tornado’s need to feel more human.
Zatanna flirted with the Flash briefly and she had a stage manager named Jeff for a bit that there appeared to be some.. familiarity with, and both she and Vixen briefly fought over the attentions of Mr. Dale Gunn in the Detroit JLA run, however the Mistress of Magic has yet to settle on a suitor.
For Firestorm, Danette Reilly, Firehawk seems the obvious choice for his love interest and she is for a bit, for a bit.
Next Up: I have been teasing this for a while, and now it is time. We begin discussing CRISIS talk starting with the JLA and JSA team up from Justice League of America #21 & 22. Put on your multiverse helmets, its going to get Ka-RAZY!!!!
Detroit Time
0In the Detroit JLA, our new heroes are confronted with a villainous judge known as The Overmaster who gives assorted individuals super powers in order to see exactly how the native species will react. Needless to say Overmaster has frequently destroyed less than satisfactorily performing species.
Giving a chance to give the Detroit JLA to stretch its legs and really break from the previous pattern of Justice League of America stories in which the formula was rather simple.. follow it with me.
- Trouble occurs.
- A Justice Leaguer is a witness or is called in by the local authorities.
- The assessment of the threat is such that the JLA member realizes that he/she/they cannot possibly defeat the menace themselves.
- They reach for the JLA Signal Device.
- The gathered heroes assemble at the location of the incident or their headquarters for a briefing.
- The heroes either then in mass or in teams take on the investigation.
- The heroes are either altogether or individually defeated.
- A key piece of information is discovered and/or backup is called.
- The JLA goes and kicks some ass.
- End scene.
Simple right?
The problem with this plot structure is not only monotony, but it left very little room for characterization or the advancement of the heroes. The main stumbling block to this issue was the fact that life changing events were not the territory of the JLA writer, instead, those decisions rested with the Superman Editorial team, the Batman Editorial team, the Wonder Woman Editorial team, and so on and so forth.
Of all the Justice Leaguers that were fairly popular at the time, Aquaman was the natural choice to lead the team. He has recognition factor and has been around almost as long as The Trinity has been. Martian Manhunter was another great choice taking the Superman role as he had done earlier in the Justice League’s run. There was no doubt that the JLA needs a strongman character and J’onn J’onzz brings that in spades.
The JLA also needed some comedy relief and a detective, both readily available in the Nick and Nora Charles pair of Elongated Man and Sue Dibny. The JLA also was in need of some more firepower, so add Zatanna to the mix for that magical punch and some more sex appeal.
For even more sex appeal we add in new JLA member Vixen, an African American fashion model, making her the first ethnic Justice Leaguer.
Steel was added for that All-American appeal, his costume sort of looks like Wonder Woman and maybe folks will pick the book up thinking its an All-Star Squadron tie-in, which it is in essence.
Vibe follows up our ethnic round up adding the first Latino voice to the JLA and then we have Gypsy the girl of mysterious origins.
Most of this line up fit the standard super-hero tropes at the time and put it in line with other really well selling books at the time regarding a diverse cast of characters like New Teen Titans and X-Men.
So, why is it that this run of the Justice League is practically universally panned?
Now, do not get me wrong, I personally have a fondness for the JLA Detroit era, but it was a pretty severe break from the past. Gone were the stiffs of the old times (Superman, Green Lantern, Flash, Wonder Woman) and now we had the new kids who were ready to go out there and kick some ass.
Some times however, just because a formula works in another book, does not mean it is going to work on another book and I think this break was too radical from what DC fans had known before. When you pick up a Justice League book you WANT Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman… not Vibe, Steel, or Gypsy.. at least not back then.
P.S. The Overmaster and his villainous Cadre (Crowbar, Fastball, Nightfall, Black Mass, Shrike, and Shatterfist were defeated).
Next Up: Here’s Looking at You Batman!
The Martians Are Coming
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From the cover you can tell things are ugly when heroes are battling a hero. The Martian Manhunter makes his first appearance since JLA #200 only to be able to barely warn the Justice League that the entire Martian fleet is coming to invade Earth in a territory grab set up by one of J’onn’s military bretheren.
The Justice League fights back, but again the big guns are missing. No one can contact Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, or Flash. The remaining Leaguers are horribly outmatched for an army of telepaths who have the same strength levels of Superman and Wonder Woman.
Yes, its a bad day for the JLA.
Martian Manhunter comes through in the end and the JLA defeat the menace, with Martian Manhunter exiled to Earth by his own people to keep the truce.
It is at the end of this story that the only active and present active member of the Justice League of America decides the JLA must change.
Aquaman announces this in the Justice League of America Annual #2
Citing the lack of strength of the current JLA, the League is disbanded and reformed immediately after by those heroes who can make a full time commitment to the Justice League.
Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Elongated Man, and Zatanna.
However four Justice Leaguers? Hardly a “League” is it?
That’s resolved when the Justice League is joined by Vixen, Mari McCabe with her animal mimicry abilities, Steel, Hank Heywood, a man with a steel skeleton; Vibe, Paco Ramone, a street tough breakdancer with vibration powers, and Gypsy, a mysterious girl with stealth powers.
The Detroit League: Zatanna, Aquaman, Elongated Man, Vixen, Martian Manhunter, Gypsy, Steel, and Vibe
The League’s Satellite era was over and a new era was beginning. The Justice League received a few new supporting cast members. Sue Dibny, Elongated Man’s wife joined the team in their bunker headquarters and Dale Gunn became their tech expert. Dale reported to Hank’s grandfather, the Earth-1 analogue of Commander Steel. Also, the locals of the Detroit neighborhood became important to the story, most notably, Mother Windom (a take on Wisdom), an elderly African American woman always willing to give sage advice to those in need.
Not only had the JLA been taken out of orbit, they had been grounded in one of the toughest neighborhoods in America. Living among people the League’s mission was to reconnect to help everyone on their level.
Next Up: Back to the Future and the Legion of Super-Heroes!
Ramping Up to the End of the Justice League…
0That 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 as a “family” team, and that is something that the JLA just did not afford at the time. Behind the scenes decisions were being made that would fundamentally change the JLA, in the meantime we get two stories.
Paragon, who could analyze someone’s super-powers, duplicate them, and was better at the original bearer of the powers. This made him a very difficult villain to beat, as was discovered when he managed to capture most of the Justice League.
At the end the JLA take advantage of the fact that it takes Paragon a split second to adapt to new powers, so taking advantage of the superspeed of Superman and Wonder Woman, the League manage to overwhelm Paragon. Black Canary finally walks up to him and judo kicks him in the face. This requires Wonder Woman to inform Canary, that this is not how the League operates. A bit of a nod to the fact that this is a “new” Black Canary (see the last post) and Canary’s response, “still it felt good.” a nod to the fact that times they were changing and our heroes could not remain squeaky clean and remain relevant in today’s world.
The next story was your standard “evil mystic cult tries to bring about armageddon”
After much conflict, three issues to be precise, the JLA wins against this mystic threat to the world. But something is amiss….
If you’ve been paying attention, you should be asking yourself a big question….
Where are the big seven?
A point that will be the crux of the end of the Satellite JLA era forever.
Next Up: The War of the Martians and A New League is Born!
Beasts and Hawks
0The 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 of capitalists that ran the company Repli-Tec, Rex Rogan being the CEO and a woman named Irene, his assistant and lover. Repli-Tech was going bust, they had to do something radical to sustain their power and that was one of Repli-Tech’s scientists devised a way to turn men into hybrid animal-men.
Seeing no other recourse the group were transformed into these animal/human hybrids, where they still retain some of their humanity but gain all the cunning, strength, and speed of their animal forms.
The games bring them money, but Rex craves power and increasingly dominance over his other Animen.
It is only a matter of time before Rex, who has transformed into a Lion man, begins to truly become King of the Urban Jungle.
However, his assistant Irena, now Reena, defects with the help of another Animan (who Rex dispatches later), and she runs to the Justice League for help.
Reena’s cry for help comes too late because Rex has dispatched Animen around the world to steal valuable equipment for further scientific experimentation. Hawkman is mortally wounded during the battle with the Scorpion Animan and this causes Hawkwoman to finally come to grips with her true feelings of love with her husband and the two happily reconcile by stories end. Flash himself is gored by the rhino Animen, but manages to avoid major injury through vibrating his body. Elongated Man gets pecked to unconsciousness by a flock of birds. It is not a good day to be a Leaguer.
When Rex learns of the victories against the Justice Leaguers, he challenges the League as he declares himself ruler of the world (perhaps this was a clue that he was beginning to lose what little grip of his humanity that was left). He has moved the Animen and his Arena to an island, evoking The Island of Dr. Moreau imagery.
Of course, the JLA defeat the Animen in the end, or they sort of do, with the assistance of Reena, the Panther Woman, Animan.
But for all the Animen, it is too late, their transformation continues past this hybrid stage and they each lose their remaining humanity and become completely animals by stories end.
The Justice League lets the animals go, as they are no longer a threat to humanity on the new island home. Firestorm stares off sadly into the distance knowing that Reena is lost to him forever, but the Hawks are reunited and Katar pulls through the surgeries to heal him from his injuries. Lets just suspend our disbelief on how Human doctors know how to operate on a Thanagarian… heh. Don’t you hate it when you inject real world logic in your comics?
Next Up: Paragon, Evil Cults, and the Martians are Coming!!!!
The True Origin of the Black Canary
1In 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 with the Justice League if they ramped her up a bit and gave her a super power, like a sonic cry to disable villains.
Black Canary was a problem however, in an earlier Crisis story, Black Canary’s husband was killed by a cosmic being called Aquarius. Stricken with grief, Black Canary migrated from Earth-2 to Earth-1 and joined the Justice League of America.
Almost immediately, the Black Canary began to date Green Arrow and the two have one of the longest running love affairs in comics today. (So much for a large mourning period, eh?)
The new Green Arrow however is a man in his early 30s, making the Canary logically, 20 years his senior, yet she looks younger than Green Arrow or at the very least, of the same age as Green Arrow.
This makes no sense and it causes writer Gerry Conway to suggest a solution.
This Black Canary, the one we have been reading in Justice League since her appearance as a Justice Leaguer, is actually the original’s daughter.
Superman of Earth-1 was carrying the original Black Canary from Earth-2 to Earth-1, Dinah Drake Lance began to experience pains. These pains were caused by the radiation that also killed her husband Larry. It is at this point that the original Black Canary asks Superman to take her to her daughter who has been kept in suspended animation for years.
Black Canary and Larry Drake had a child after the Canary retired from hero work thanks to the McCarthy era, but retirement of the heroes does not mean the retirement of their foes, and one of the most insidous of the Justice Society’s foes, The Wizard paid the Drake family a visit and cursed their new daughter. Giving her a cry that could shatter eardrums, Dinah, named for her mother, was put in suspended animation with the assistance of Johnny Thunder’s Thunderbolt.
The original Black Canary begs to be left in her place and for Superman to take her daughter to Earth-1 so she may live her life out and to assist her in controlling her powers. Before the original Canary dies, the Thunderbolt passes her memories onto her daughter, so the second Black Canary believes that she fought crime alongside the original JSA this entire time.
The JLA and JSA assembled for this story includes: Batman, Black Canary, Doctor Mid-Nite, Elongated Man, Firestorm, Flash – Jay Garrick, Flash – Barry Allen, Green Arrow, Green Lantern – Hal Jordan, Hourman, Huntress, Power Girl, Red Tornado, Superman – Kal-L, Superman Kal-El, Wonder Woman, and Zatanna.
In the midst of this origin story is also the inclusion of a new Injustice Society taking villains from both Earths and teaming them up against the heroes: Chronos, Doctor Alchemy, Felix Faust, Fiddler, Icicle, and the Wizard. Additionally, the evil Earth-1 version of Johnny Thunder has taken control of the original’s Thunderbolt and is using it as a weapon against the heroes.
Sargon the Sorcerer even lends a hand as an old ally of the JLA.
All in all, this is what one would call a “retcon” or a Retro-Continuity change. This is when you take a character’s story and reveal something that has happened that intrinsically changes the character from what you knew before. A retcon can be mild or completely changing. In this case, we now get two separate characters.
Black Canary, the mom and Black Canary, the daughter.
Get used to the concept of the retcon, we’re going to be seeing a lot of this shortly.
Next Up: The Animen and the reunion of the Hawks!
Welcome to the Wild West
0With the waning of super-hero popularity in the 50s with the end of the war, western themed heroes had found their way into America’s hearts. Comics were then as they are now a reflection of the popular trends of the time
So, from left to right in this Justice League story is Bat Lash, Cinnamon, Jonah Hex, and Scalphunter facing our modern day gunslingers, Flash, Zatanna, Green Lantern, and the Elongated Man.
Most of the Wild West characters have the same set of sensibilities. A matter-of-factness about them that modern sensibilities consider blunt or even rude. Most know how to use a gun, survive in the harsh climate of the West, ride horses, etc.
From there the skills get a little more diverse. Some are excellent trackers, while others are more educated and can do something we take for granted, read. Some are gamblers and others have had extremely hard lives and are not trusting of anyone near them making allies a very difficult prospect.
Bat Lash is a colorful character cut from the Mississippi riverboat card sharks. Always an eye for a profit or a pretty gal, Bat Lash is more a rogue than the typical white hats of the Wild West, but his heart is in the right place.
Cinnamon, the first female law in the Wild West, her father gunned down when she was a girl she swore to bring the bad men to justice. In addition to be a fine shot, Cinnamon uses a sheriff’s badge shuriken. She’s well aware she is attractive but she does not tend to play on that too much, preferring to be thought of as “one of the men” in a male dominated field.
Scalphunter is known as Kee-Woh-Noh-Tay or originally Brian Savage if you please. Brian who was kidnapped as a child by Kiowa indians was raised by them and learned their ways. An excellent tracker and woodsman Scalphunter is the mix of both worlds, the white man who is an Indian.
Jonah Hex, the most famous of the DC Wild West heroes. Jonah has led a cursed life. Born to an abusive father and abandoned by his mother who could no longer take the father’s abuses, Jonah’s dad eventually sold him to members of the Apache nation. Jonah learned the way of the Apache and excelled at tracking and hunting. Jonah won his “freedom” from the Apache tribe but had spent so much of his formative years with them he decided to stay.
His second family betrayed him when sent on a raiding party a fellow brave and romantic rival to the affections of the chief’s daughter knocked Jonah unconscious. Jonah awoke in the midst of another raiding party of white men and Jonah was shot. Saved by a trapper, Jonah joined a third family for a while until he finally enlisted in the confederate army.
As time moved on, Jonah realized that he could not stay true to the Confederate army as he too had been enslaved when he grew up. Leaving the Confederate army and turning himself in to Union forces, the Union soldiers held Jonah and used him to raid the rest of his regiment. Shortly thereafter, Hex was the instigator of the Fort Charlotte Massacre. The Union soldiers had planned to kill all the Confederates but they needed the Rebels to stage a breakout, which they forced by withholding food. All the Confederates were killed except for Jonah who managed to survive to kill the Union commander of the post.
Jonah eventually found his way back to the Apache settlement, only to discover the rival brave had since married the chief’s daughter. The chief, not knowing why Jonah was alive, since his son-in-law had told him Jonah had died, demanded the two fight in a duel. The dishonest brave again sabotaged Jonah and instead of using Native American weapons, Jonah had to use a knife, which killed the brave.
The chief was disgusted with Jonah and had the other braves hold Jonah down where he was branded with “the mark of the demon” giving Jonah his distinctive scarring.
Jonah then headed to the closest place he could with a bar, to drink himself into oblivion, he discovered a man outside assaulting a woman. Jonah flash-backed to his dad’s rage at Jonah’s mother, and instantly shot the man dead. The sheriff then brought Jonah some gold and told him he could make a lot of money chasing down bad men. And the most famous bounty hunter of the DCU was born.
Next up: We’ll finish up the Wild West heroes… Nighthawk! Johnny Thunder! Pow-Wow Smith, Madame .44, and El Diablo!
Three Key Figures
0Ahh, it is good to be back home. I had a great time on vacation and now it is time to dig into some plot points regarding our heroes in the Justice League of America.
When you regard continuity in a comic book universe, there are several ways to stage a story that does not fall chronologically into the greater continuity. The first is the “flashback” often referred to as the “untold” story or tale. Then there is the “What if?” genre, where you can tell stories about these characters, but that these particular stories are separate from the regular continuity of the characters, such as Clark Kent landing in Russia vs. the U.S.A., interesting concept, but it is not the way the origin plays out for the “real” version of the character.
When juggling the myriad characters in a team book, it is important to keep in mind that your “A” tier characters are going to bring in the money, but really the main changes to those characters should take place in their own books and let those changes later be reflected in the team book. For the “B” characters, changes can occur in the team book as there is no regular place that they appear outside of a scheduled mini-series, so there is not a lot of juggling to do when it comes to the “B” tier.
Well, for a period of time for JLA the writer at the time had to juggle a few things.
- In Green Lantern’s book, Hal Jordan had been exiled into outer space and so could not appear in JLA stories after #200 until that plot point was resolved around JLA #220 or so. Hal’s replacement John Stewart took over for him on Earth as the designated Green Lantern.
- The Atom had a new mini-series coming up called The Sword of the Atom which would rock the character and change his status quo for a while to come.
- The Flash was undergoing a murder trial, so could he really be involved in the JLA while that was going on? Can the JLA have a member under suspicion of murder?
- The Batman quits the League to go to another team book title.
So Mr. Conway did what many would do knowing the limitations. He wanted to tell a story with Green Lantern and Flash in it and he did so by using that “untold tale” tactic.
Notice we get a little Phantom Stranger action in this one as well. Sweet! This story is set prior to Zatanna joining the JLA, explaining her and Firestorm’s absence from such a big story. It turns out our heroes are forced by aliens to gather certain objects for aliens, but it turns out the aliens only want this one man who apparently has all the dna code of the world locked inside of him. Needless to say our heroes win all is saved. This carried our heroes through issue #210-212, leaving us time to go have some fun with the Atom in the microcosmos.
The Leaguers are attempting to find the Atom, which is like finding a needle in a haystack at the best of times. Batman, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Black Canary, and Red Tornado go after the wayward physicist and meet some crazy sword and sorcery societies which looked like a pilot episode for a new comic that did not materialize.
Unfortunately, the Flash is soon voted out of the Justice League.. notice that this takes place in Flash’s comic, not in JLA itself. Due to the fact that Flash is soon to be put on trial for killing a super villain named Professor Zoom, the JLA discover that he is a liability and since he has asked the JLA not to interfere, they have no choice but to expel him until his name is cleared.
Meanwhile, the tale of Atom in the Microverse may not have gone over very well, but Atom in a sword and sorcery sort of existence DID sell. Sword of the Atom is one of this Atom’s most popular incarnations. Take a Physics professor and add some native beings about 3³-6″ tall, and well, he becomes their default protector. Atom seems to not be as JLA involved after this direction pushes his character more towards Conan and less towards shiny sci-fi.
Next Time: Batman does it for himself!
