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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jan 6, 2016 21:34:10 GMT -5
That's a good point.
Although I'd be willing to chalk it up to the general sit-com-y tone of the book. Self Reflection doesn't make for good comedy.
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Post by shaxper on Jan 6, 2016 21:36:26 GMT -5
That's a good point. Although I'd be willing to chalk it up to the general sit-com-y tone of the book. Self Reflection doesn't make for good comedy. Definitely possible, except that the missions they keep getting matched up against are very very serious, and everyone involved takes them very seriously except for The League. They strut in and miss all the subtext that Giffen, Maguire, DeMatteis, and Gordon have worked so hard to deliver. When Warren Ellis tried this contrast with The Authority, it was usually done at the expense of those involved in the serious plot. "Haha, we don't care. We can kick your asses." But here, it seems that the joke is more on the League itself because they both don't understand what they are walking into AND they don't leave victorious. |
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Post by Action Ace on Jan 6, 2016 21:46:39 GMT -5
Keep this quote in mind as we go through this series.
"Why do you think I kept the League ineffectual for years?"
Max Lord
Countdown to Infinite Crisis (2005)
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Post by Action Ace on Jan 6, 2016 22:06:04 GMT -5
COMMENTS ON #6
Now we see why Captain Marvel is here, to make J'onn look good. J'onn is the only member of the team Batman doesn't have to nursemaid? I think Canary fails to get a seat at the adult table because of her new outfit.
Canary mentions Batman making a joke five years ago and he might be due for another. She must have not been in the Bug three issues back.
The Creeper maintains his perfect record of being an utter waste of ink.
My least favorite Bond movie ever is on the marquee.
Hal Jordan and Steve Dallas from Bloom County need a team up story.
I guess Dr. Fate needed to call in the team so the Gray Man could "overextend himself." Phantom Stranger probably had matters of greater import elsewhere (tickets to the new musical Les Miserables) and I think The Spectre and Jim Corrigan were filing for divorce at this point in time.
Helfer announces that Dr. Light is "out of the picture" in the letter column except for her Annual cameo. He also reveals that the original Bat/Guy fight went several pages before Giffen opted for "one punch."
COMMENT ON ANNUAL #1
Skip It.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 7, 2016 0:06:01 GMT -5
Couple of random thoughts/comments- Annuals-at that time annuals still came out in the summer because they sold more comics when school was out, so if there was going to be a JL annual that year it had to be early in the run because the series debuted in the spring. Otherwise it was wait until the second year of the run for an annual and they were trying to position the League in the new status quo and wanted more books out early. Willingham was ubiquitous in comics in the early 80s-he did the art for all those D&D cartoon ads that were in every book by both Marvel and DC, but did very little work for ether company-he was doing his own Elementals book for Comico though, and I think the annual was one of his earliest assignments for DC.  I'm just going to say I really enjoyed the Gray Man story when it first came out and it was my favorite of the early JL stories, but then I was a big fan of Dr. Fate and the whole mythos behind the Lords of Order and Chaos and I liked the concept of the Gray Man. As for the Spectre-this came out while it was still early in the Doug Moench series where Spectre was vastly depowered (he had been trapped in an urn after crisis and had only recently been found and freed by Madame Xanadu and Corrigan was a private eye and needing Xanadu's help because the Spectre was still recovering from the events of Crisis, so he wouldn't have been available, and Stranger at this time was portrayed as a pseudo-agent of the Lords of Order who if I recall were looking the other way where the Gray Man was concerend so they wouldn't have sent the Stranger to act here or allowed Fate to call on him is my guess. Most of the other DC myustics are tied up fighting Wotan in the SPectre issue released the same month as JL #6  so maybe Fate didn't have other options than the League. And there's a history of the JLA fighting mystical threats such as Felix Faust or the Demons 3, so it is not at all out of place for the new League to get involved in cases like that. -M |
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Post by JKCarrier on Jan 7, 2016 1:14:33 GMT -5
I don't think Giffen and DeMatteis thought their last minute solution through all that clearly.
That's the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League in a nutshell, IMHO: Beautiful artwork, some funny one-liners, and very little in the way of coherent plotting. The best issues are the ones where they don't even try to put in any "serious superhero" stuff, and just let it be the goofy sitcom it was clearly meant to be. |
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Post by tingramretro on Jan 7, 2016 2:20:14 GMT -5
I'm thinking some of this might be generational - You didn't grow up on '70s comics, right? Basically, from about 1971-1977 superheroes got their butts handed to them all the time. I never even noticed the in-effectualness of this version of the league because it was what I was used to - They weren't much less competent than, say, during Len Wein's run. (I suspect that the switchover to the more badass eighties version had to do with changing audience demographics - More adult readers required more powerful power fantasies!) I agree. And I've actually always found the heroes more boring the more unbeatable they become. |
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Post by dupersuper on Jan 7, 2016 3:32:51 GMT -5
Keep this quote in mind as we go through this series. "Why do you think I kept the League ineffectual for years?" Max Lord Countdown to Infinite Crisis (2005) Ah yes, the crossover for those who hate the JLI... |
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Post by shaxper on Jan 7, 2016 5:33:43 GMT -5
Now we see why Captain Marvel is here, to make J'onn look good. J'onn is the only member of the team Batman doesn't have to nursemaid? I think Canary fails to get a seat at the adult table because of her new outfit.  Yeah, I caught that too. He was only talking to Beetle at the time, so it's entirely possible she didn't hear. Spectre was down-powered at this point and functioning as a private eye. Probably wouldn't have been much help here, but he might have made a great addition to the team as a result. Well the original concept, at least. I did enjoy that insight of Giffen stopping mid-story to consider how things would really work out, as opposed to how he wanted them to work out. Might help to provide an alternative explanation for why the team never wins. He marches them into a scenario and then realizes they've got no hope of winning this thing. |
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Post by shaxper on Jan 7, 2016 5:43:52 GMT -5
Willingham was ubiquitous in comics in the early 80s-he did the art for all those D&D cartoon ads that were in every book by both Marvel and DC, but did very little work for ether company-he was doing his own Elementals book for Comico though, and I think the annual was one of his earliest assignments for DC. Had no idea that was Willingham. I used to love those! Maybe I'm spoiled, having approached this after reading DeMatteis' later Dr. Fate run, where the Lords of Chaos and Order mythos is better articulated. Of course, I think the bigger part of the problem I'm having is that this deep backstory about one man's eons of pain at the hands of amoral gods just doesn't seem to belong in this title. Good point about Phantom Stranger, and I was unaware of the events of Spectre #6. I still feel this could have all been explained in a brief sentence or two (Batman: Couldn't you call Spectre or the Phantom Stranger? Fate: They are...indisposed, editor's note: etc etc). Well for this League it would be, but no, that's a fair point. I guess it's just an extension of what we saw in the Annual, where Batman rushes them into a scenario that's way over their heads with no plan or strategy whatsoever and, given their existing track record, you just know they're going to be useless there. |
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Post by shaxper on Jan 7, 2016 5:47:35 GMT -5
I don't think Giffen and DeMatteis thought their last minute solution through all that clearly.
That's the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League in a nutshell, IMHO: Beautiful artwork, some funny one-liners, and very little in the way of coherent plotting. The best issues are the ones where they don't even try to put in any "serious superhero" stuff, and just let it be the goofy sitcom it was clearly meant to be. I really hope you're wrong, as I've only read up to the next issue previously, and that leaves a LOT of Giffen and DeMatteis stories still ahead of which I have only the foggiest impression. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 7, 2016 6:12:06 GMT -5
Had no idea that was Willingham. I used to love those! Willingham got his start doing art for the early 80s D&D manuals and then got the gig doing those ad strips. Those early manuals were my intro to D&D in 1981 after friends showed me the game, and I instantly took to Willingham's art as my favorite. Some early Willingham pieces...    and for one of their sci-fi games...  another vet of the TSR art department of the time who went on to do comic work was Jeff Dee, who also co-created the Villaiins and Vigilantes super-hero rpg. He did a lot of inking on titles like Badger, some pencilling for a few things, was featured in DC's New Talent Showcase, some Robotech comic stuff and the art on the V&V comic Eclipse did. -M |
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Post by shaxper on Jan 7, 2016 8:48:58 GMT -5
Keep this quote in mind as we go through this series. "Why do you think I kept the League ineffectual for years?" Max Lord Countdown to Infinite Crisis (2005) (sigh) It's going to break my heart to review that particular story. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jan 7, 2016 13:45:31 GMT -5
Your going to go all the way to Infinite Crisis? Damn, that'd be a pretty epic thread... like... 500 pages at least  As an aside, it's really sad that editors notes are a lost art... they were so very helpful (and useful) back in the day. |
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Post by shaxper on Jan 7, 2016 16:50:29 GMT -5
Your going to go all the way to Infinite Crisis? Damn, that'd be a pretty epic thread... like... 500 pages at least All of Justice League International, America, Europe, Quarterly, the annuals, Can't Believe it's Not the Justice League, Formerly Known as the Justice League, Countdown to Infinite Crisis, and Generation Lost. I think that should pretty much cover the basics. Roughly 100 reviews, maybe. I'm already more than 10% in. |
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