|
|
Post by Jeddak on Dec 9, 2018 18:56:03 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Dec 10, 2018 7:53:11 GMT -5
JLA/WildC.A.T.s “Crime Machine” (September 1997)
Creative Team: Written by Grant Morrison. Art by Val Semeiks, Kevin Conrad, and Ray Kryssing.  The Story: Using a chrono-cube, the JLA travel back in time to save Kid Flash (Wally West’s younger self) from being murdered by a time-traveling villain named Epoch, the Lord of Time. He blinks away, and the JLA are obliged to chase him through time and space to prevent him from assassinating their ancestors.  One of their time-jaunts takes the JLA sideways into the world of WildC.A.T.s. The two teams meet and have a series of one-on-one Misunderstanding Fights that consumes eleven pages. Then they build a science thingy and teleport back to the JLA’s Earth, which Epoch now rules with future tech. He has no defenses prepared against the WildC.A.T.s, so he is defeated and sent back in time in the chrono-cube. His ever-expanding knowledge of space and time causes him to explode when he reaches 65 million BC, causing a “dark nova” which is the event that killed the dinosaurs and charged him with energy in the first place.  My Two Cents: I knew zippo about WildC.A.T.s going into this issue, not even what company published them. So as an experiment, I avoided looking them up until I saw how the story handled them. (Having read this issue, I still don't know much about them.) Sure enough, they were Jim Lee’s first product for Image, and they seem like the sort of brainless X-Men clone against which Morrison was reacting with JLA. He exposits their powers clearly enough, and obviously Grifter is the standout, the Deadpool/Wolverine/Han Solo ruthless quipper. I wonder: Was this a team-up that Morrison requested, or that he grudgingly accepted, or that was going to happen regardless, so he asked to do it so that it would be “done right”?   Like the Demons Three, Epoch the Lord of Time first appeared in Justice League #10 and recurred regularly.  Epoch’s apotheosis features the “cosmic awareness” theme that Morrison loved so much in Starlin’s Captain Marvel work. I wonder why a villain who has all of spacetime to choose from would decide to make 1997 Metropolis the seat of his power. Me, I’d choose Disneyland. I first heard the term “Misunderstanding Fights” from the supermegamonkey web site. I don’t know where it originates, but I love its description of the trope that whenever two unfamiliar heroes meet, they feel obliged to battle until they figure out they are on the same side. Fans love these “Death Star vs Borg Cube” arguments anyway. Maybe villains do it too; we just don’t see their encounters as much. Would Hippolyta know who “Tom and Jerry” are? She talks as if she does.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2018 8:29:21 GMT -5
I commented about this thread on the CCF Facebook page.
Sometimes one just wants to sit/lie back and read a thread without contributing. I did re-read these issues about four months ago, and I am very happy this thread exists.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2018 10:09:18 GMT -5
The only two WildCATS that I liked were Grifter and Maul ... the rest of them including Mister Majestic weren't my cup of tea; even so Mister Majestic was a Superman Wannabe that I felt it was too far-out in terms of his power base and all. For me alone, Maul was a cool character enabling his body to grow insane heights and all that. This book was not liked very much at the LCS that I went at the time of this book was published; but it took almost a year when everyone started to embrace it and the reason for that is the characters of Grifter and Maul that everyone took notice and that when I tried my best to convince people to accept Mister Miracle, Maul, Zealot, Grifter, and Void.
Void is another character that I liked and worked well with the Flash at the time of this story was written. This is a great crossover at the time and I felt that this wasn't warmly received at first.
|
|
|
|
Post by chaykinstevens on Dec 10, 2018 12:58:07 GMT -5
This newspaper depicts a hapless “Bumble Bee Boy” who could be a super-teen but also perhaps intends to recall the dancing bee girl from Blind Melon’s “No Rain” music video and album cover.  It says here that the Bumble Bee Boy in the National Whisper may have been a reference to the editor Ruben Diaz, and the guy with world's largest forehead might be Howard Porter. |
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Dec 10, 2018 13:14:04 GMT -5
This newspaper depicts a hapless “Bumble Bee Boy” who could be a super-teen but also perhaps intends to recall the dancing bee girl from Blind Melon’s “No Rain” music video and album cover. It says here that the Bumble Bee Boy in the National Whisper may have been a reference to the editor Ruben Diaz, and the guy with world's largest forehead might be Howard Porter. That was quite educational! Now I am intimidated about continuing my own commentary... but I will press on, offering my own thoughts before checking that page for corrections. One correction for now: I didn't realize that Fastback the Turtle was a parody of Fastbak the New God. It makes more sense for Morrison to be homaging 70s Kirby than 80s Roy Thomas.  |
|
|
|
Post by Chris on Dec 10, 2018 15:48:32 GMT -5
whenever two unfamiliar heroes meet, they feel obliged to battle until they figure out they are on the same side. ... Maybe villains do it too; we just don’t see their encounters as much.Old Flash comics are rife with villain vs villain scenes. The Rogues all hated each other, but they constantly had to team up to fight Flash, or sometimes a greater villain. And if I ever get back to reviewing Trial of the Flash, you'll see some vicious villainous examples. One such scene already appeared on these two pages here and here. Would Hippolyta know who “Tom and Jerry” are? She talks as if she does. That's not Hippolyta, that's Diana. And apparently she liked television.  |
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Dec 10, 2018 15:56:46 GMT -5
Would Hippolyta know who “Tom and Jerry” are? She talks as if she does. That's not Hippolyta, that's Diana. And apparently she liked television. OK. It appears in my trade collection after issues in which Hippolyta has replaced Diana, but it may take place earlier than that. |
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Dec 11, 2018 7:49:12 GMT -5
JLA #10-11: “Rock of Ages” (September-October 1997) Part One
Issue #10 “Prologue: Genesis and Revelations”: A team of JLA near-doppelgangers viciously attacks Star City. They have purple skin, skulls festooning their costumes, and a murderous streak. We later learn they are made of hard light, and they came from the invisible satellite base of the Injustice Gang, headed up by Lex Luthor. Issue #11 “Hostile Takeover”: It’s the second issue of an arc, so it must be time for the JLA to split up and handle various threats in smaller teams. Green Lantern and Green Arrow deal with a bizarre flood in California, and Circe’s hateful tongue turns GA against his comrades. Superman and Martian Manhunter explore a trapped satellite. Aquaman, Flash, and Aztek get recruited by Metron to help find the Philosopher’s Stone before Darkseid does. McGuffin hunt! Always a popular story. My Two Cents: An argument between Green Lantern and a civilian resembling Ollie Queen recreates the famous “What about saving the brown people?” scene from Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76. By giving the joke almost a full page, Morrison shows that his anticipated audience is as familiar with old comics as he is.   Worlds within worlds motif: The combined powers of Dr. Light and Mirror Master allow the villains to create Hard Light objects with their thoughts; we see Joker sculpting a skull-headed satellite booby trap in this manner. Essentially, Superman and J’onn are inside Joker’s madhouse of a mind. Martian Manhunter is able to make sense of the madness by adapting his brain. Message: Crazy people only seem crazy until you can understand the way they think. See also my discussion of Joker as “hyper-sane” in the Arkham Asylum write-up. Morrison comes up with a good reason to include the volatile Joker on Luthor's villain team: Joker’s “hyper-sane” insanity makes his mind especially appropriate as a mental trap for the heroes.  More worlds within worlds in Metron’s explanation of the Philosopher’s Stone, which “reflects all of creation in miniature”:  Issue #11 opens with an extended monologue in which Lex Luthor explains to the rest of “his” Injustice Gang that Superman’s presence in the reconstituted JLA is the catalyst which has inspired his own equal and opposite reaction. This is a not-so-subtle dig at the ignoble collection that the JLA had become prior to Morrison, and it seems a bit unseemly for him to toot his own horn so about the accomplishment of reassembling an old team of heroes to fight an old team of villains rather than creating new characters. (Though Morrison does introduce several new characters as well.)  This same "Silver Age villainy" theme shows up when Luthor chastises Joker for wanting to kill innocents. This is a Silver Age Luthor: megalomaniacal but not sadistic. Note that Luthor is holding a glowing red rock, the “Rock of Ages” of the story’s title. Surprisingly, for Morrison, it is not Red Kryptonite.  In his introduction page, Plastic Man gets referred to by his Golden Age criminal name of “Eel O’Brien.” He’s speaking with “Matches” Malone, a gangster disguise which Batman regularly adopted in Denny O’Neil’s 1970s Batman stories. Morrison explains his rationale for recruiting Plastic Man to his JLA:  Aztek gets to stay around for the moment, on grounds that he is “champion of the meso-American god of light” according to issue #10. I suppose Green Arrow is stuck being Artemis since Apollo is already taken in the “archer” slot. Circe reading James Joyce’s Ulysses is a Greek myth pun.  Lex Luthor has taken Jemm, Son of Saturn, prisoner. Looks a lot like J’onn J’onzz, doesn’t he! Each member of the JLA has a counterpart on Luthor's team. He was supposed to be J’onn’s cousin, but DC nixed that, so creator Greg Potter dubbed him “Son of Saturn” instead but still gave him a backstory related to the Green Martians. This fits right in with Morrison’s astrological theme of “superheroes=gods=planets.”  
|
|
|
|
Post by badwolf on Dec 11, 2018 11:30:19 GMT -5
"Rock of Ages" Part 1 was the first issue of this series I picked up (I later went and got the back issues). I'm a sucker for villain teams. This became one of the books that brought me back into mainstream superheroes after a long hiatus (the other was Busiek's Avengers.)
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2018 11:48:10 GMT -5
Rock of Ages Series was in my mind was in my mind was kind of low in my opinion and I can echo badwolf point that this is first villain team-up against the JLA and yet the story was too creatively written that bothers me in a great deal that I had a hard time finishing these two issues. I almost threw out these two issues because I felt that Grant Morrison over-extended himself here (might not be the right words here) and it's took me awhile to embrace the Rock of Ages Storyline. Good Point rberman about the storyline of the "Purple Skins" here and that's shows that Morrison did some studying and trying to incorporate the past into the future (at this particular time) here in JLA #11.
|
|
|
|
Post by berkley on Dec 11, 2018 19:32:46 GMT -5
I don't know anything about the Wildcats - is the big green guy meant to be a Hulk-type character? - so I have no reason to care how they're written but the panels sampled here highlight something I always dislike no matter which individual characters are involved: boosting the title heroes by making their antagonists look kinda stupid, as in the scene with Batman stealing the other guy's gun.
I think it's a cheap device that too many superhero writers make use of but it's especially disappointing to see someone like Morrison, who I think should know better, take the easy way out.
Apropos of nothing, when I looked up Wildcats on wiki to see if I could figure out who was who in those panels above (didn't help, BTW), I accidentally found out that there have been four different Wildcats in DC comics, something I had no idea of until now. I only knew about the ex-heavyweight champion version.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2018 20:56:29 GMT -5
I don't know anything about the Wildcats - is the big green guy meant to be a Hulk-type character? - so I have no reason to care how they're written but the panels sampled here highlight something I always dislike no matter which individual characters are involved: boosting the title heroes by making their antagonists look kinda stupid, as in the scene with Batman stealing the other guy's gun. I think it's a cheap device that too many superhero writers make use of but it's especially disappointing to see someone like Morrison, who I think should know better, take the easy way out. Brandon Choi and Jim Lee ... Created Maul to be a Hulk-Like Character with a serious twist of mind; to me this character is far more cooler than the Hulk and the bigger he gets he loses a lot of his intelligence and that's where the Bruce Banner angle comes in. That's why Brandon and Jim had in mind to balance out strength and size. To my knowledge of WildCATS; Maul had a relationship with Voodoo; both Jeremy (Maul) Stone and Priscilla (Voodoo) Kitaen had a fallout and that's when Jeremy realize that being big is not the way to go and that's why he is very reluctant to do so in the JLA/WildCATS of where I believe that Green (Kyle Rayner) Lantern wanted Maul to take down a tower or something to give the combined teams an edge that he reminded Kyle about his intelligence and powers problems. Grant did a great job making Kyle to think ... that's something that Kyle didn't had back then.  Voodoo -WildCATS/Wildstorm And for Batman, removing the Grifter's Gun ... is a way to show that Grifter doesn't need a gun to fight crime. Batman is trying to re-educate Grifter and he did it in a such a way that fighting crime ... shows that he's doesn't need a gun. Batman is trying to do that for his own good ... a great way of restoring his pride and that's why Morrison did that in the first place. To me, the relationship of Grifter and Batman got better as the two teams worked together and that why Morrison carefully consider the two teams dynamics aren't shattered and that's why I liked this Crossover so much. I grew up reading WildCATS from Image Comics - and that's why Choi and Lee created this team. For my understanding Morrison took great pains to study Mister Majestic, Maul, Zealot, Void, and Grifter carefully to make sure that they can work with the five members of the JLA ... Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Batman and that's why this Crossover is a Morrison's Masterpiece and that's why members at my LCS did not watch the Cartoon back then. They did and they apologize to me for not having a better understanding of this team. 1st Cartoon of WildCATS. |
|
|
|
Post by chadwilliam on Dec 11, 2018 22:11:22 GMT -5
Morrison explains his rationale for recruiting Plastic Man to his JLA: Ugh. I had to drop the title due to Morrison's 'Jim Carey on acid' approach to Plastic Man - a character who I loved unabashedly before Morrison got his hands on him. I thought Morrison just really, really liked Ace Ventura, hence his turning Plastic Man - a sane man in a crazy world as envisioned by Jack Cole - into a mouthpiece for Morrison unleashing his inner imbecile whenever the mood struck him. That Plastic Man was meant to represent the God of Madness and Theatre however, just seems like such a waste of a once great character just so an unnecessary formula can be created. |
|
|
|
Post by Reptisaurus! on Dec 12, 2018 5:01:00 GMT -5
Yeah, I like this run of JLA a lot, but Jack Cole's Plastic Man is my favorite superhero strip of all time. And Morrison's interpretation was more painful than most. (But they're always painful. Shoulda retired Plas for good when Cole died.)
|
|
