Summer's Here, and The Time is Right

Pop Culture
Summer's Here, and The Time is Right
By Rev. O.J. FloW
June 29, 2003 - 13:28

Bear with me, I am a current Chicagoan (four years right now), so my first comments HAVE TO center around the controversy that Slammin' Sammy Sosa uncorked here in the Windy City this week. "What now?!?" was my first reaction. Yet another symptom of "The Curse" has reared its head in this town (with the frequency of the Sunday paper, the Tribune, of course, owners of the Chicago Cubs). My second thought was to see what came from the examination of 76 bats confiscated immediately after what felt like Sosa's first significant at-bat contact since Mark Grace was on the team (no juiced Louisville Sluggers, by the way). My third reaction was the same one-word summarization I had of the mess Bill Clinton got into some odd years ago that's all being rehashed in Sen. Hilary Clinton's brand new tome from the heart: "Dummy." The fourth reaction is what I think now, and I'm sticking with it. Baseball, love it or hate it, is a cheater's game. More than football, more than basketball, more than hockey, it's a sport that virtually thrives on misdirection and deceit. I mean, one of the most heralded records in baseball is Rickey Henderson's for STOLEN BASES. It's celebrated, encouraged, LEGAL, and utilized in every level of baseball. These days, bats AND balls are doctored and juiced, players notwithstanding. Signs are stolen about as often as the bases, and people are willing to trade in their mortal souls and first born to see admitted cheaters receive Hall of Fame induction. My current hometown harbored the only team to throw a World Series. I figure if respectable ambassadors to the game (Joe Morgan, Mike Schmidt) can see fit to reinstate Pete Rose, all can be forgiven with Sammy Sosa. Now if only we can get Sammy to pee in a cup...

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Speaking of Chicago, I've got a bone to pick with this region. In my thirty years here on this earth, I've taken up residence in all four major time zones. I've yet to live on the east coast, but living in Detroit in the 1970s technically put me in the Eastern Standard Time zone. I was raised in Colorado (Mountain), and spent a few years in Seattle (Pacific). I can safely say that Chicago has the worst year-round weather I've ever experienced. We didn't even get a friggin' spring for crying out loud. One day at 70 and the next four topping 55 doesn't count. First weekend of June, a few days ago, and we were lucky if the temperature broke 60 degrees (it didn't, to the dismay of Chicago-area blues fans attending the most wintry Blues Fest I've seen -- on TV, natch). Even now, folks haven't been given much reason to put their coats away. What compounds this is the fact that we'll all be moaning about the volcanic heat that we'll be getting in about five weeks that'll surely thin out the senior citizen population in a most unpleasant manner. I miss springtime. Can anyone tell me what they're like these days? I forgot.

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Hulkomaniacs, are ya wit' me??? And I'm NOT giving the shout out to the fans of the has-been WWF star. No, my raison d'etre this gamma-irradiated summer is coming June 20th. Naysayers, beware! This movie, The Hulk is going to be beautiful, mark my words. Some message board poster the other day made the stupid observation from a snippet of a 30-second commercial that the Hulk was flying and that he doesn't fly. Thanks for joining us, shi#-for-brains. As long as I've followed the Hulk's COMIC BOOK EXPLOITS, the big green galoot can practically jump from state to state. Looks like they captured that just fine in the trailers I've seen. And the CGI rendition of the Hulk looks pretty good to me. Premature talk about the Hulk looking like Gumby was just that, premature. I believe it's going to look as good as any Jurassic Park dinosaur, or even Godzilla from that movie six years ago (I know Godzilla sucked, but even though the monster's design was wrong, the CGI effects worked). I predict that this movie will get more love than The Matrix Reloaded.

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No comic book has earned my disappointment more than JLA right now. Back in 1996, when writer Grant Morrison along with newcomer Howard Porter re-established the idea that the Justice League of America should be made up of DC Comics' most powerful heroes, JLA was the best thing to happen to the comic book publisher since Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. I'm not narrow-minded enough to think that it was going to last forever. Shoot, these days, you're lucky if your favorite writer can stay on a title for more than a year, or that an artist can draw more than six consecutive issues of any given book. Morrison and Company put in about four years work into JLA before moving on to other things, and while League fans were richer for the four they gave us, who would've thought that the letdown since they left would be so long, laborious, maddening, and painful.

While there was a handful of issues that failed to capture the magic of JLA's first three years, and the transition to a new writing and art team was not perfectly smooth, it was thankfully brief. And when new writer Mark Waid came in, he was able to work with lame duck artist Howard Porter on the now-infamous "Tower of Babel" story. To those not familiar with the story, longtime Batman enemy Ra's al Ghul fought the Justice League in an attempt to take over the world (same old, same old, except that Ra's was more of an eco-terrorist who thought that most homo sapiens had run their course and now it was time to give Earth back to the animals). The coup de gras in Ra's surprisingly successful ability to take out the likes of Superman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, and Plastic Man was that all the ideas came from Batman. Seems that Batman not only distrusts super-criminals, but he also fears that the most powerful heroes on Earth can be there own worst enemies. Should Superman be taken over by an enemy presence, who is out there to stop him? Batman thought this out, and secretly came up with a way to incapacitate any superpowered being, should they go rogue. Ra's stole these files that Batman discretely created, and used them against the League to great effect. Of course good always has to triumph in the funny books, and Ra's al Ghul was defeated, but at the expense of the JLA's ability to trust one another, and it actually got Batman voted off the team.

"Tower of Babel" was released in 2000. This was possibly the last time JLA, in the grand scheme of comics, really mattered. Howard Porter made way for Bryan Hitch, an extraordinary penciller whose big claim to fame was a book for Wildstorm, The Authority (not surprisingly, The Authority was a re-imagining of the Justice League in a more 21st Century setting; very post-9/11 even before 9/11; the Authority was more shoot first, ask questions later, much like our current administration -- it's like the creators at Wildstorm KNEW BEFORE WE DID). Hitch, paired with writer Waid, was supposed to restore the JLA to the grandeur that was enjoyed in excess back in Grant Morrison's heyday (writing-wise, I always saw Morrison as Stephen Hawking to Waid's Bill Gates -- both visionary, but playing different games with the same toys). In theory, Waid & Hitch's run was big, but it was riddled with false starts and missed deadlines, mostly on the part of Hitch who, as an artist, is too talented for his own good. Drawing a monthly comic book title involves drawing 20-25 pages a month, something he's unable to do. After barely a year together, both creators moved on. Ironically, Hitch's next (and current) project is Marvel Comics' The Ultimates, a re-imagining of the Avengers, Marvel's answer to the JLA, in a more 21st Century setting, a la the Authority.

The last year or so has seen JLA with their third major creative team, writer Joe Kelly, and Doug Mahnke and Tom Nguyen handling the art. It started out okay early, but naysayers were quick to point out Kelly's tendencies toward deep characterization, something not necessarily appropriate for a book that puts DC's greatest heroes in a team setting. Most fans get into JLA for their use of the "Magnificent Seven": Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and the Flash (fans of the Cartoon Network series will note that Aquaman, in the series, has been replaced by Hawkgirl as a means of attracting female viewers -- totally cool in my book). Going back to the characterization, many have argued that in-depth character development is best employed in one's own individual series. With this I agree, but Kelly is a sharp, quirky writer with a respectable knack for pop culture, so one thing I didn't mind was the idea that Superman might say something in this gathering of heroes that you may not get from his own books. Another subplot still being worked out in JLA is some sexual tension between Batman and Wonder Woman. Some purists (or as I refer to them, tight-a$$ed Comic Book Guys) have cried foul, but even this was something I had no problem with because I knew it was an idea that could be better played out in the team book rather than the pages of Wonder Woman; never mind the fact that Bats is shagging Catwoman in his own book.

The message boards, which I frequent daily, started to get testy about six months ago when two things happened. One, a storyline that was designed to resurrect Aquaman from a year-long exile, "The Obsidian Age," was a convoluted mess that had fans scratching their heads after multiple readings, myself included. Anyone who can sufficiently summarize this story, beginning to end, in 100 words or less is welcome to chime in, please and thank you. The aftermath of "The Obsidian Age" led to rampant discontent when Kelly and Co. facilitated a significant change in the League's lineup. One move was predicated on DC owner AOL Time Warner's decision (DC, Cartoon Network, AOL Time Warner -- same company) to align the comic book with the cartoon, and that meant that African-American John Stewart (another noble attempt to give the cartoon series some much-needed diversity) replaced Kyle Rayner as the JLA's designated Green Lantern. What actually squashed reader goodwill was the news that the "Obsidian Age" saga was going to introduce some more new members into the fold. Most fans were initially excited since "The Obsidian Age" featured guest stars like former JLA members Zatanna, Green Arrow, and Hawkgirl. Even Batman's former partner, Nightwing, was a possibility. Bring in some old school classic characters, right?? Wrong. Kelly committed the cardinal sin of Justice League writers in the last twenty years: introducing your own characters into the team before they ever prove themselves as solid characters on their own merits. I call it the Poochie Syndrome. Kelly introduced Faith, a vanilla heroine who did not even exist a year ago; Manitou Raven, a native American shaman who is Kelly's admitted tribute to Super Friends veteran Apache Chief; and Major Disaster, a former villain whom Kelly himself reformed last year in the pages of Superman's Action Comics. DC went down this road before, back in 1984, introducing four new characters (Vibe, Steel, Gypsy, and Vixen) whose group entry did for the JLA what Ted McGinley has done for every TV series he's ever joined ( see Jump the Shark for details). Did I mention that this big "Obsidian" saga didn't even get us a new and improved Aquaman back on the team? Or that Martian Manhunter and Plastic Man quit the team afterward?? To be fair, the JLA, in keeping Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Flash, actually gained two more League veterans through all this with the Atom and Firestorm (though DC did a lousy job informing the fans of this). But even the relatively solid lineup couldn't combat the one thing that could keep all of these mighty heroes down: shi##y stories. Message board aggressors have claimed that the stories lately have been thinly veiled liberal propaganda pieces. Ha! I wish! Boring and heavy-handed with little of what made this series a hit in the first place is more like it. I wish I could say that the iffy lineup is JLA's biggest problem, but stories with stop and start pacing that have readers all too often wondering if they missed something is more like it. Sales figures should slowly indicate that this book needs a major resurgence in creative talent. Until then, I'm sticking with some other books.

Every month JSA, a book that presently uses the League's first-generation predecessors, the Justice Society of America, along with third-generation upstarts, gets way more props, and deservedly so. Every issue ends on a cliffhanger, not necessarily in the dangerous Indiana Jones sense (though the action and pacing is pretty break-neck), but in that you immediately want to grab the next issue to see what's going to happen. It's a surprise, thrill, and treat in every issue. JSA also satiates longtime DC fans by resurrecting long-dormant characters and putting new, exciting spins on them. The problem with JLA right now is that other DC books are doing what it used to do with great regularity, and to see it almost coast is what I think is causing a lot of readers, like myself, to drop the title until a new infusion of talent comes in. Not surprisingly, DC's most exciting superhero titles right now are JSA, Hawkman, and The Flash. All are written by Geoff Johns. On top of those books, Johns is about to revitalize the Teen Titans franchise (also making its way to Cartoon Network this summer) in a new series. With such a high slugging percentage for one guy, maybe this guy needs to pee in a cup...