Captain America's Leadership

I have talked about previously the difficulty in writing complex legal questions for comics.  The idea of applying laws and philosophical conundrums to a world of super powered beings can break down really quickly, if magic, super science, ancient myth, and Hell can all be demonstrated to exist and multiple handheld objects have the power to destroy the universe the idea of a superhero registry sound kind of silly.  See my blog about the issues I had with Marvel’s “Civil War” comic for more on that.  (I should get around to writing a review of the movie at some point, I liked it, but kind of have more to say.)

Right now, I want to talk about an issue I have with Captain America.  Not the inexplicable Nazism that is in the foreground of the comics, but the issue of Leadership.  Captain Rodger’s skill as a leader is an ability we as readers are often told about, but we are rarely shown this ability, and this is for the simple reason that it is hard to show someone being a leader.  It is hard for writers to show leadership beyond characters yelling for other characters to do obvious things.

They have solved this leadership chestnut in the movies by-the-by, Cap has plans, he leads by example, and he is able to have mature forthright discussions with his friends, allies, protégés, and normal people in such a way that feels natural and reassuring.  The sort of thing you would want from a leader that is both from a bygone era (WWII) and yet still possess youthful energy and takes an outsider perspective on things (he was frozen).

My issue with Cap in the comics (and other leadership characters) can be summed up in this image.

I don't know who wrote this comic.
I do not know who made this inspirational poster.
I would link them if I did.  Even though I am calling them shit.

In this image, Captain America is telling Thor, the 1,000-year-old warrior prince, mightiest warrior from an interstellar race of warriors, champion and veteran of 1,000's of fights and battles to put out a fire using his most notorious ability as a storm god.  Captain America is pointless here and this does not show leadership, it shows him as a micromanager of his colleges.

Leadership is not telling people the bloody obvious in an authoritative tone.

Leadership is not having a striking profile.

This is not Charisma.

This is Lame.

The problem I have with that is that it short shifts the others on the team.  Iron Man has led his own team, so does Thor, so has Hawkeye, so has Widow, Wasp, Black Panther.  And they all have their own style.

Tony has a sit down with people and discusses issues, like management of a business would.  Widow mostly keeps her teammates in the dark about her thought process and instead internalizes their behaviors so that she knows how they will react when she acts.  Wasp is personable and coaxes people’s best out of them via encouragement and friendship.  Leadership is a complex concept.  Let me show you an instance of Captain America being a charismatic leader.

 

Click to enlarge.  Make a small effort to infer what is going on from context.

In this scene, he has been physically dominated by the deranged super soldier codenamed: Nuke (he is a character in the “Jessica Jones” Netflix series, but without the face tattoo).  Captain America appeals to the deeper philosophical underpinnings that define both he and Nuke’s roles in the world.  He identifies the illogical break from the nobler intentions that has led Nuke astray, and explains to him why he has been duped and why he should calm down and rethink his course.

It is not a perfect scene.  I actually wanted to juxtapose this with Wonder Woman being a great teacher/leader that I saw elsewhere but since her movie is out googling that character results in nothing but a torrent of inspirational stills from the movie coupled with people saying some variation of “best thing ever” which is fucking meaningless for this discussion.

My point is, being a leader has less to do with Captain America’s tactical acumen.  The scene in “Avengers” where he orders the police to better positions to fight off the alien invasion is cute, but a better illustration of who he is and what he does can be found in “Captain America: Civil War” when he talks to Scarlet Witch after Crossbones suicide bombs innocent people and they inexplicably blame her for it.  It is cool, reassuring, and touches on what she needs to hear at that moment.  Much like Hawkeye’s mini speech in “Avengers: Age of Ultron” or Yondu saying nearly anything in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2”.

I don’t know what else to say.  Maybe this, don’t write leader characters as the guy who just tells everyone else what to do.  Write leaders as people who get the best out of those they work with.

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My Review of "Kingsman: The Secret Service"

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Score: 8/10 (I wrote this back when I was fonder of giving numerical scores)

 

The movie's advertising was not very good and almost stopped me from watching it.

This was the first great movie I saw in 2015.  A well-paced action movie with lots of humor and some underlying themes that gave it some impact.  It was colorful and took itself as seriously as it needed to, and with only a few hiccups here and there that kept it from being a classic.

I feel that this movie was a true shot in the arm for the spy genre and provided another example of how Rated-R movies are financially viable when not released against a cluttered field. (This was a rather soft R in my opinion, no nudity, very little blood, it could have gone a lot further.)

Let me talk about one issue that stood out for me that I imagine most people would not have even noticed, the dog scene.  There will be spoilers for this, and since I am recommending the movie to anyone who likes rougher action comedies, stop reading here and go see the movie, that way I can complain about a minor point without you having it niggle at you while watching.

The tone can be a bit all over the place.
They really needed to settle on a level of nudity and lewdness and stick to it thru the movie.
Having an anal sex joke to punctuate the movie is a bit strange.

 SPOILERS: during the movie there is a sizable training portion to locate a new agent for the Kingsman and the recruits are required to pick a dog to raise… and you know where this is going, a classic “kill the puppy” part of the training.  Here is the issue, the test does not make sense in the context of the movie and the character traits they are looking for.  And for that matter the idea of secret agents at all.

Our hero, Eggsy is told to murder his pet with a provided firearm and chooses not to do so, it is then revealed that the gun was loaded with blanks, the test was to see if Eggsy could follow orders.  They tell Eggsy that the Kingsman never take a life without reason… But Eggsy did not know that.  The test should be whether a recruit would refuse a bad order given to them, “take a life without reason”, and the blanks would be to avoid killing the dog should the recruit follow the order which would be taking the wrong position.

The obvious right answer is, "No, I will not kill an innocent animal for no reason.

Want to know why that bothers me so much?  Because I went to a police academy and during one training exercise we are told to shoot a cut out of a person, that person is holding a coke can and is no threat.  I and 1 other person, out of a 20+ class were the only people to not shoot the harmless civilian.  YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO SHOOT.

What is more the movie proving that to be the correct response, Eggsy does not follow bad orders and that allows him to thwart the bad guys.  So the test is shit.  I would mind less, but it is a plot fulcrum, there is no reason this backwards way of thinking should still be in the movie.

END SPOILERS.

Batman, Wonder Woman, and Identity Politics

I thought about this a while back when people were complaining about the casting of Scarlett Johansson as a traditionally Japanese character in the upcoming "Ghost in the Shell" movie and flashing back to Idris Elba being cast as Heimdall in "Thor".

That the Norse gods should be a definitively thought of as a white group of characters, seeing as the Vikings were in fact white.  This argument ignores that the Vikings also traveled the world as sailors and discovered many different races and could have acknowledged this diversity in their myths.  This also ignores the fact that the myths were collected 200 years after they stopped being actively practiced, this collecting was done by a white person in a predominantly white world and... the "races" of the gods become a little more fluid as the original iconography of Vikings in the pre-Christian academic world is not very clear.

Heindall as he might have once been perceived.

And as the fictional character is now perceived.

I would also see online people asking, "What about a white/Caucasian Luke Cage? Or Black Panther?" saying that you could color blind cast in both directions.  Ignoring for a second that taking one of the few recognizable minority characters and casting them with a white actor is in no way equivalent to casting a minority into one of the many-many roles that has been traditionally considered white, my response was that being black is a big part of those character's identities.

Luke Cage is blacker than the ace of clubs and Black Panther was designed to be a distinctly Black character, with a mythology that is all about being a mysterious and powerful head of an African nation that itself is cloaked in mystery.  Most (if not all) white heroes of the Gold and Silver Ages of comics are white because that was the default at the time they were created.  The books were marketed to white children and teens and the characters were white "role models".  Race as it informs or relates to their characters is nil and the number of times the subject is approached it is very lightly touched and then moved away from (mostly because of an industry wide “mums the word” policy of not discussing social issues).

So I asked myself what character would be the definitive WHITE character because you could easily see how their position in their world is informed by and tied to their being white.

Mr. Sunshine and Happy Times himself.

It's Batman.

Bruce Wayne is old money New England elite.  His family has a crest, they have an estate, and they have been part of Gotham (New York) high society for decades or centuries and can trace themselves back further.  The KNIGHT part of Dark Knight seems to very much infer the idea of old time very wealthy royalty using their money and means to protect the people of their Barony/County/Kingdom.  Bruce is the Prince of Gotham and Batman is his suit of armor both literally and figuratively.

Now other cultures have crests and shields.  They have totems that can be utilized to strike fear into the hearts of their foes.  They have family lines... BUT! We live in a culture in which the idea of a wealthy landed elite family THAT WAS BLACK did not, and still for the most part does not exist.  If Thomas and Martha Wayne were seen as upper crust high society people descended from well to do old money and they managed to navigate the racial politics of their day to plant Bruce as the wealthy playboy and Inquirer target… well, that just doesn’t exist in Americana.  It would ring false to the audience.  So, with that in mind, Batman is very "white".

In fact, we already know what you would have to alter and tweak to make a black Batman work, I have already mentioned him.  Black Panther is basically Black Batman.  The totem, the royal trappings, the legacy of wealth, and being the best as a service to one’s city/nation.  Also the reliance on gadgets and martial arts but also having frequent elements of mysticism present in the background.  That is how you would have to change the character to make the premise work, by so fundamentally changing the setting that the idea of changing the race becomes a non-issue.

"I don't see the resemblance." -Moron.

Superman could be any race (you can tell because they have made 10,000 knock-offs of the character and many of them are of different skin tones).  Martian Man Hunter frequently is multiple races and different authors have expressed the Martian race as being gender fluid as well, because of their shapeshifting (and I personally see that as the better interpretation, that when “he” refers to his “wife” who died on Mars, “he” is using terminology that makes the most sense to those “he” is talking to).

Wonder Woman, Flash, the various Green Lanterns (though they really need more women from earth to be considered diverse to audiences), and nearly everyone else on the Justice League could be a different race. Mr. Terrific was a white guy in the Golden Age of comics and Michael Holt, the character that carries the mantel now is a black guy (and atheist which is its own sort of minority in the Comics industry).

The NEXT person to hold a particular mantel (including that of Batman) could be any race without question, and many characters do have minority characters taking on the role of following the legacy of a character (Rhodes served as Iron Man, Sam Wilson is currently a Captain America, Miles Morales is a Spider-Man… Notice how much of this is taking place under the MARVEL header?  They are better at this).  BUT, Bruce Wayne-Batman makes the most sense in the context of Americana as a White person.

Let me take this a step further with discussion of another character that I imagine people would insist is “white” or “Mediterranean” depending on how particular you are of ethnic and racial identity.  You know, Wonder Woman really doesn't have to be Greek.

I think I might be the only person who thinks that the trailer to her upcoming movie looks awful too.

Like the Vikings, the Greeks were sea fairing and were aware of lots of races and cultures outside of their own. They would have seen black people.

The idea that Wonder Woman’s homeland of Themyscira is some extra dimensional utopia that is nothing but white women is also really fucking racist.  Like on its face.  Writing tip, if you ever make a Utopian society in fiction and go out of your way to point out that everybody is the same racial group, it is explicitly racist.  Having Themyscira be a multi-ethnic/racial matriarchal utopia that follows the principles and religious guidance of a very modern interpretation of the Greek Gods... not racist.  It is still SEXIST, no question there, but that is kind of the whole point/conflict of the character of Wonder Woman when she acts as a liaison between Themyscira and Earth.

I would also draw comparisons to Asgard and Marvel’s mythical Asian city of K'un-L'un (a popular destination for the superhero Iron Fist).  Certain earth cultures saw advanced and mythical civilizations and chose to emulate them creating the distorted myths that we know today in our world.  So, rather than the Marvel comics being inspired by the myths and everyone in real life bitching about how the comics and movies do not follow the myths, instead the myths were inspired by the Marvel civilization.  In that case Wonder Woman, Thor, or any other mythical figure could look however the comic artist wanted to draw them (African, Chinese, Hindi, Samoan, or European) and the "real" myths and history could be seen as the white washed versions.

Essentially in the DC universe Greek civilization emulated the Amazons (who are actually very diverse and “wise” … though still somewhat big into misandry) rather than the Amazons following and emulating Greek society. When the Greeks copied the history and myths of the Amazons they just made everyone Greek, and made Hercules the good guy of the story and played up the "masculinity = Good" angle (in the Wonder Woman comics Hercules was a villain).  You could even see this as a form of… It is white washing, but it is also male-ifying things… Penis-Washing?

Not to mention all the typical weird stuff going on in comics from the era of her creation that got thrown in right along side the strange sexual imagery.

This sort of Greek re-writing of Amazon myth would explain the disdain Themyscira has for Earth, and why the Amazons did not interact with "Man World" for thousands of years.  The Amazons did not like being taken out of their own stories and having their worldview coopted and corrupted to a Patriarchal and Misogynistic Greek culture which saw women as inferior.

“Women are the weaker sex… being born a woman is a divine punishment, since a woman is halfway between a man and an animal.” -Socrates

“The Male is by Nature superior and the female inferior and one rules and the other is ruled… This inequality is permanent because the woman’s deliberative faculty is without authority, like a child’s.” -Aristotle

Nothing going on here.

            It is easy to see how the Amazons might have interacted with Ancient Greece, taught them some things about the gods, art, and their history, and then left because they saw it getting appropriated.

            Of course this is all the diegetic explanation of things.  All of this is fiction.  Made by people to sell books and toys to children.  Batman was not made to push an Alt-Right dream of a world protected by its white betters, but I would point out that Wonder Woman was specifically designed to be a female icon in the genre and is rife with text of female empowerment, and subtext of bondage and sexual politics.

All of this is up to the authors and readers to decide what they want.  But the idea that a fictional character must be a certain way should be looked at in the context of what that character is and where they exist in their world.  Whether race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or politics makes sense for that character should inform and be informed by who and what the character is.  Otherwise it is all just weird.

There is a great big multiverse out there, waiting to grow with weirdness though.  So whose to stop us?

______________________________

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Let's make some Justice Leagues, part 8

(Continued from part 7)

            When it comes to superhero work there are many opportunities to interact with dangerous technology.  Shrink rays, robots, hacking computer terminals because people think that hacking involves a lot of fast typing rather than just looking up a person's facebook profile and using their personal information to brute force password possibilities in hopes that one of them sticks... I digress.
            The point is you need and want someone on the team who knows technology, not in the goofy weird science sort of way (Atom) and not in the vaguely believable sort of way (Batman), but it a very shiny tech kind of way.  Unfortunately there seems to be some sort of trend I have noticed in DC comics and I feel the need to point it out cause I find it to be a strange coincidence.

7) The Tech Savvy

            I do not know how this became a thing, but it is a thing.  Cyborg, Steel, and Mr. Terrific, three of the most prominent black characters in DC (mostly thru their involvement with the "Justice League Unlimited" and "Teen Titans" cartoons) are all very technology oriented, and all in very different ways.  They are not the only black characters, I have pointed out Jon Stewart and Icon in these blogs, but they are (to my knowledge) the 3 most prominent black characters in the current New 52 DC universe, and they are all based around very slick chrome technology that is actually a rather distinct appearance.

            I haven't seen any other superheroes with that sort of distinct look (maybe the Rocket Reds, Russian super cops who use power armor that looks deliberately cheesy, and while Adam Strange deals with alien technology, he's an archaeologist and is not tech savvy at all).  And when I went look for alternative characters to fill the more tech oriented roll for the group I only came across Hardware an obscure hero from the 90's publisher Milestone, invented by one of my favorite creators, Dwayne McDuffie... Hardware is a black man with a distinctly chrome technology appearance.  So this will be the first category I put in whose entire pool of candidates is African American... I guess that just stands out to me because all the prior categories I felt like I had to stretch a bit to not just have a bunch of white guys.

            The first candidate is Cyborg, or as he used to be known, Victor Stone.  Victor was harmed in an accident and his father used strange technology as a prosthesis to save Victor's life.  Cyborg is a genius in his own right who previously liked playing football, now he focuses on becoming the ultimate living machine and helping other heroes who use technology like his to become more powerful and effective.

BOOYAH!

            Steel, or John Henry Irons uses power armor.  Designed to emulate the powers of Superman so that he could follow in that heroic tradition after Superman had ostensibly been killed in the 90's (Superman was once dead, and that was considered a big deal) Steel is one of the most stalwart and heroic figures in comics, actually standing in contrast to Iron Man his closest counterpoint in Marvel.
            I also love him because of his involvement in my favorite "52" in which he fights off a plan by Lex Luthor to create an army of superheroes who suck at being superheroes and keep getting killed in action.  There is actually another Steel, John's niece, Natasha Irons who is a more headstrong and youthful character.  She is also a tech genius but more rash and impulsive, she tends to take on the mantel of Steel when John is too busy working on his company.

John Henry was a Steel driving man.

Unfortunately Nat has some notoriously bad power armor designs.  This is the best.

            Mr. Terrific, aka Michael Holt is a super genius who uses gadgets and his wealth to be more Batman than Batman.  His family died in a car accident and overcome with grief he nearly committed suicide before discovering and taking on the legacy of the original Mr. Terrific (a white guy with no gadgets).  He actually had his own title at the launch of the New 52 and it quickly tanked, but I still love the character because he was the thinker/leader of the Justice Society of America comic from the late 90's and early 2000's that I really got into.

He also got one of the worst costumes of the New 52.  Put him on the League for no other reason than he can get a new suit.

            Hardware I think should also be considered, though I do not think he should get the seat at the table, mostly because he has not appeared in a cartoon or other media for the last 20 years.  Curtis Metcalf was a child prodigy who grew up to use his fantastic intelligence and the backing of a business icon to fight against organized crime... Only to find out the person running organized crime was his financier.  While I do think that he is an interesting character, he does not have the presence to be on a Justice League, I would hope that they would give him his own series to try and grab some audience and if he proves to be well liked then have him join a team, but as of right now he is so obscure that even I had to look him up.

His costume is part of 90's comics commitment to pure insanity and his modern look is still rather silly.

            Mr. Terrific, Cyborg, and either Natasha or John would be great additions to a Justice League.  They are all are fun, interesting, and flawed in their own ways and are far more than their race, even though their inclusion in much of the work they appear in always itched me as a form of tokenism (for instance, in the early 2000's when Steel decided to leave the League, Plastic Man out-n-out states, "the one black guy can't quit", which bothered me then and it bothers me now even though it was a joke).  I would really like to include each of them because I like all of them and want them to continue to be cool characters beyond the demographic appeal.

(Continued in part 9)

Let's make some Justice Leagues, part 7

(Continued from part 6)

            The Justice League also tends to showcase lesser known heroes with zany powers/premises because that strangeness adds many options to adventuring possibilities.  You want someone whose whole deal is to make people go, "Wait, they do what?"

 6) Goofy Mad "Science"

            This is where the Flash comes in for the typical team, Barry "CSI" Allen is the one in circulation currently (even though he died in 1985... Geoff Johns can't let anyone stay dead and keeps using fanboy necromancy to bring them back).  Barry is also the star of the current FlashTV show and is present for most of the sheer madness that the Flash is known for, like a time traveling treadmill.  He is a boring nice guy who is also boring, a strange combination, at least Wally West (the Flash that followed Barry) was not as smart but much funnier.

Gotta Go Fast.  Gotta Go Fast.  Gotta Go Faster.  Faster.  Faster.  Faster, Faster, Faster!
Wait, I am thinking of someone else.

            Flash is paired off with Vibe on the current Canadian Justice League.  And I have no trouble with Vibe taking the second slot.  Vibe started out in the 80's as an attempt to make the DC universe more diverse, he was mostly known for break dancing and talking in a hilariously racist accent.  The way they altered Vibe's persona and abilities is pretty cool, originally he could just create vibrations to cause earthquakes, now he vibrates in strange frequencies that lets him disrupt electrical equipment or attack, and rather than being a racial stereotype who is arrogant but not competent, instead he is a cool rookie character, eager to learn and proud to be a part of the team.  Geoff Johns took a stupid racial character that bordered on minstrel show and turned him into a cool guy with unique powers... one of the few wins I will give to the New-52 universe.

Baby I'm just gonna Shake, Shake, Shake... Shake it off!
No, wait, wrong person again.

            BUT, who is number 3?  There are some potential candidates easily filling the role of the Flash... or there would have been in the old DC, New 52 though... Not so much.  No Jesse Quick, no Wally West, and no Max Mercury.

Seriously.  WHERE DID ALL OF THESE CHARACTERS GO?!

            So now (as the inclusion of Vibe indicates) this role is more about having weird powers that are sort of super science-ish?  And maybe just emphasize how different they are.  Not all leagues will have their own guy with super speed to work with, but each will have a bit of a wild card, in this instance I think it should be The Atom, Ryan Choi.  His powers are about size changing.  Choi was killed unceremoniously in the old DC continuity, and undoing that was another big win for the New 52, being an Asian character that has nothing to do with kung fu already puts him into a unique position in the universe, and he is a legacy character (carrying on the role of Atom from Ray Palmer) in the New 52, legacy characters have become much rarer because they regressed the universe, so Ryan is set apart.

Particle Man.  Parti--  Wait, that song if definitely unrelated.

            Vibe is about vibrations, Flash is about speed, and Atom is about being really tiny.  They all have there own thing that fits into zany powers derived from mad "science".

(Continued in part 8)

Let's make some Justice Leagues, part 6

(Continued from part 5)

            The Justice League is a gathering of the top skills in the DC Universe, brought together to face things ranging from psychos out of Gotham City, Giant Robots from Metropolis, Mythic creatures like Cyclopes and Minotaurs, and Aliens with complex politics and strange ways.  But sometimes stuff gets really weird and suddenly you need access to a witch, wizard, warlock, demon, or angel to help plug up the gate to hell that has just opened.  Who are the best candidates for this roll?  I am going to introduce a lot of characters I imagine most people have never heard of.  Welcome to the world of the mystic.

5) The Mystic

            This character exists to hit on the occult side of magic.  While a character like Wonder Woman fights gods and monsters from mythology these guys fight demons, witches, vampires, and the like.  While there are dozens of these types of characters (though which ones exist in the 52 universe is anyone's guess), I think the obvious candidates would be Jason Blood, Zatanna, Zauriel, Raven, and Doctor Fate.

            Jason Blood was a knight of the Round Table (this is his origin story told during the cold open of an episode of "Justice League") and betrayed King Arthur for the love of a demonic woman who then killed him with a venomous kiss.  The Wizard Merlin was so hurt by the betrayal that he decided death was too good for the treacherous twit and bound Jason's soul to Etrigan the Rhyming Demon (though his rhyming is rarely played up outside of comics, it's hard to fit the rhythm of it into a fight scene, when it works though it really works).  This binding brought Jason back to life and made him immortal, he also has the unfortunate moral question of having to turn into the demon in order to try and fight greater evils, but since Etrigan is hard to control this is a gamble.  He is a frequent ally of Batman and has been on a Justice League before under the leadership of Nightwing.  "Gone, Gone, The Form of Man, Rise the Demon, Etrigan!"

Etrigan has tried and failed to conquer hell before.

            Zatanna is on the current Justice League Dark and has a long standing history of being in the Justice League, appearing as part of Batman's various love interests, and generally being a cool character.  Her gimmick, that she says words backwards in order to cast a spell really only works in a comic book, as reading the backwards speak can allow you to decipher what it is she is saying, "srewolf otni nrut snug" becomes "guns turn into flowers", but in my opinion it doesn't work in cartoons or audio because you could literally put any gibberish in there, and there would be no way to check the work.  Either way she is a strong character to be in there.  (She was also featured as a main character in the "Young Justice" Cartoon).

Much Like Power Girl, Zatanna's costume is sexy to the point of overshadowing her as a character,
but she is a good character.

            Zauriel is an angel that fell to Earth in order to date a woman he fell in love with, he also helped the Justice League stop an invasion of Earth by a legion of rogue angels who were preparing to pull a coup de tat on God.  Those angels failed to defeat the Justice League and Zauriel joined the team specifically to be the team's adviser in occult matters.  And when atomic war threatened to end Earth he called on the army of angels in heaven to stop the annihilation of human kind.  Zauriel has some things on his side, aside from being a romantic noble character with a an interesting look and a sort of distinct place in DC as the most Christian of all the characters.  He also has the distinction of being invented by my favorite comic writer, Grant Morrison.

He looks like the cover of an 80's rock album.

            Raven, being one of the core members of the "Teen Titans" hardly needs an introduction.  she is the half demon daughter of Trigon, one of the biggest bads in the DC universe.  Her powers manifest as a telekinetic shadow that she can shape like a Green Lantern construct, use to enter the neither world, or teleport around terra firma.  Her powers are controlled by emotion so she is constantly using meditation to keep them in check against her thinly veiled demonic rage which could crack the world.  She is a great kill-joy character and adds a unique character trait to a group she is on: sullen-for-a-good-reason. "Azarath Metrion...ZINTHOS!"

Also a character made famous by a well done cartoon, "Teen Titans".

            Then there is Doctor Fate, a character I both love and hate.  What and who he is varies based on what version of DC you are in, sometimes he is a spirit that lives in a helmet and takes over the mind of whomever dons the helmet, in other continuities the helmet is merely a tool that can be worn by any magic user of capable enough skill and allows them to access the knowledge and spell casting power of all those who have worn it.  Either way works for story reasons and since the helmet is more the character than anything else you could give it to a new character, hell finding a new Doctor Fate could be the first mission for the team allowing them to fight the numerous bad guys who want the helmet for their own use (or to put in a concrete box somewhere so they won't have to deal with Fate ever again).

I also think this is one of those slots that should be filled by a minority woman.
Cause there are not a lot of them doing stuff in DC.

            There is another guy, John Constantine.  He has appeared in live action mainstream TV and could be considered one of the most prominent characters in circulation, like Green Arrow and Flash.  In my opinion I was shocked they brought him into this universe.  His stories are more dialogue focused and I could more easily see him and Swamp Thing teaming up to call Neil Gainman's Dream an emo.  Rather than be on or lead a team with superheroes.  Then again, Justice League Dark never appealed to me, maybe his could be great, but I think that everything he does can be done by Jason Blood  who I am also not picking.

A guy who references felching shouldn't be in mainstream comics (IMHO).

            If I were to make a final decision, Zatanna, Raven, and a new Doctor Fate would be who I would go for.

(Continued in part 7)

Let's make some Justice Leagues, part 5

(Continued from part 4)

            Now that I have talked about the big three of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, I will continue into the other typical slots for the Justice League, and one of the big traditional parts of the group has been the inclusion of a Green Lantern, a space cop with a magic ring that can create green force fields in the shape of anything the wearer can think of.  They are chosen for their great willpower (courage) and are pretty cool in their own right, because rings of power are awesome.  Especially when colorful and worn to fight evil aliens.

In brightest day, in blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship evil's might,
Beware my power, Green Lantern's light!!!

4) The Lanterns

            This is pretty easy, Earth has 5 Green Lanterns just pick 3 of them.  And let me bring up this gripe: Can we get a girl in this category?  Why is there no female Green Lantern?  And Aliens do not count.  Whatever.

            I find the latest addition to the ranks, Simon Baz to be 'meh'.  I have yet to really dive into his stories having heard that he was some kind framed for a crime and is now trying to clear his name... Which I would just show everyone that I have a Green Lantern ring and say something to the effect of, "I am gonna go play Captain Kirk, you all can stew in your Earthly bullshit while I bang beautiful blue skinned women out among the stars while kicking space pirates in the teeth with a magic force field.  PEACE."  But since Simon is a dipshit he decides to hang out on Earth for... Reasons.  His mask looks really stupid, and the fact that he carries a handgun is also stupid.  That being said he should probably be on team just to give him some time and space to develop in relation to other heroes.  I want to give him a fair shake, and a chance to not wear a stupid mask and carry a gun that would be meaningless to the sorts of alien monsters he fights with his magic ring.

I actually cited this guy's design as one of the big issues I take with New 52.  That being said, maybe he can be fixed.

            An obvious pick is Jon Stewart, who is popular from the "Justice League" cartoon that was on thru the 2000's.  I would go so far as to say that more people know of him as the Green Lantern than any of the others because of his involvement with the series.  While the comic iteration is very different and responsible for some of the worst decisions any superhero has ever made including the complete destruction of a planet (on two occasions) he shows remorse and aspires to be a better person.  Jon illustrates one of the harsher personality types that get Green Lantern rings: a will to do good, but also hard headed and prone to catastrophic failure when that hard headedness picks the wrong plan to go forward with.  John has his own fan base, and is a good pick to be an icon of the DC Universe.

He is also a Marine, making him one of the very few superheroes with a military background.

            Now to pick between the other three: Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner, and Guy Gardener.  Kyle, being my favorite should be the shoe in, as he is a young artistic character that started at the bottom of the hero latter, getting recruited in a back alley while his buddy was 10 feet away puking.  Kyle attained godhood and then used that power to remake the Green Lanterns and then joined back up as a rank and file member designated "Torchbearer" to mark his importance to the rest for his service... unfortunately DC turned Kyle into some kind of rainbow god, like he just unlocked the Elements of Harmony, so even though he was the last and greatest Lantern of the universe for decades, and was the only Lantern for a generation of readers (myself included) he is now kind of out of play for being too epic.

He actually had several uniforms while in service, aside from the wide mask his costume is most in flux.

Kyle is most known for his elaborate constructs.  The character was an artist and that allowed the writers and creators of the comic to justify massive and elaborate things from giant gorillas, to teddy bears, sumo wrestlers, power armor... it made the stories a lot of fun to read, and I imagine very fun to work on.  To see some examples, follow this link.

            On the other end of the scale is Guy, a hard drinking, thick skulled, and comically dickish character that is a hell ton of fun to have on any team because he adds to the dynamic, rather than filling a role.  He countermands orders, he questions authority, and he gets shit DONE.  He was a big wheel in the last season of "Batman: Brave and the Bold" and is mostly seen as the dirty cop who does the jobs no one else will take by the Guardians (the leaders of the Lantern Corp) so it tickles me to think of guy getting stuck on Earth while the other choice, Hal Jordan (one of the most boring characters in DC) is off in space trying to do... stuff, mostly politics involving the various other Lanterns, the Reach, and other space crap that no casual reader could ever hope to keep up with.

He especially doesn't get along with... Everyone...

            So we have Jon Stewart, Simon Baz, and Guy Gardener (who I like to think was sent to Earth by the Guardians with a note saying, "We hope he doesn't fuck anything up too much"). 

 

But Batman even more especially.

(Continued in part 6).

Let's make some Justice Leagues, part 4

(Continued from part 3)

            As discussed before there will be 3 teams, based around the "Truth, Justice, and the American Way (Liberty)" tagline used for Superman (and by extension the DC universe as a whole).  Since Wonder Woman has a lasso of Truth, she will lead the Truth Team.  Batman is always banging on about Justice, so he will lead the Justice Team.  Superman will be taking Liberty Team, because that is actually what fits him the best.  So each will lead their own team, but will need members to fill in for the others, Batman might need a flying super strong alien or a hero familiar with the magic of the Greek gods for instance, and Wonder Woman might need a ninja detective.  So we will need to grab characters that can fill these heroes roles and work well with others.  Today is the role of Wonder Woman.

I am actually not the biggest fan of this character, but I know that she is an important part of the mythos, and has a lot of appeal to a very wide audience.

3) The Wonder Women (Leader of Team Truth)

            This one I actually feel is less about the "Woman" part and more about the connection to mythic aspects, you know, the "Wonder".  To that end I think that Billy and Mary Batson, or as they are known Captain Marvel and his sister Mary Marvel should fill the role of super strong magical person who has access to Greek gods.  (I wrote a long blog explaining who the character was a couple years ago before he underwent a make-over for New 52.  There is also a video by internet personality, Moviebob on the topic).

He is probably the best metaphor for superheroes in existence.

            For those who do not know, Billy Batson was an orphan who was summon to the mythical Rock of Eternity by the Wizard SHAZAM, and given the ability to transform into the mightiest of mortals whenever he cried out the name of the wizard.  He later discovered his long lost sister Mary and she too managed to gain the power of the wizard (along with a whole cast of characters).  He is most notable for at one time being the best selling super hero in the world to the point his company was sued by DC because he looked too much like Superman (I even listed him as a Superman knock off above).  But really he is not all that like Superman in my opinion aside from design, and to be clear, cape and tights was pretty common at the time, and flight and super strength are so common that it is a running joke in the comic "PS238" (I consider "PS 238" to be a must read, the characters are rich and fun to read, almost all of it is online and hard bound versions are available for the collector, please do read it).

Mary is consistently one of the most fun characters around, and when she and the rest of the Marvel Family (a pantheon of Children and Teens) appeared in costume in the New 52 it was one of the coolest turns a story has taken so far in New 52.

            The Marvels connection to a broader mythic universe much like the Island of the Amazons for Wonder Woman is what matters.  There is another possibility if you wanted to play up the Woman aspect of this category, Power Girl, but she is not mythic, and does not exist in New 52 in the same way she did in the old universe, having replaced her keen scientific and business skills with... using her sexuality to seduce Mr. Terrific to steal tech from him; which is probably the most damn argument against the New 52 as they turned a fun and sexy super heroine into one that was more conservatively dressed, but acted like a floozy.

Shockingly, in spite of her costume being far more conservative, her character is much thinner and shit.

This iteration from the 2000's is a fantastic character.  Smart, funny, and with the wisdom of a leader.  Her comic was full of fun and adventure and strange space age concepts.  I am sad that she no longer exists.

            There is also Donna Troy, who used to be Wonder Girl and became a super heroine in her own right, she has Wonder Woman's powers, with a magic lasso that gives her mind control rather than truth powers.  Unfortunately like Power Girl her place in the New 52 is uncertain, she is alluded to but has made no appearance, even though she would have worked a lot better in some recent stories than other characters.

Goodbye other cool character.  I am sorry that the world seems to not long for your type.

(Continued in Part 5)

Let's make some Justice Leagues, part 3

(Continued from part 2)

            As discussed before there will be 3 teams, based around the "Truth, Justice, and the American Way (Liberty)" tagline used for Superman (and by extension the DC universe as a whole).  Since Wonder Woman has a lasso of Truth, she will lead the Truth Team.  Batman is always banging on about Justice, so he will lead the Justice Team.  Superman will be taking Liberty Team, because that is actually what fits him the best.  So each will lead their own team, but will need members to fill in for the others, Batman might need a flying super strong alien or a hero familiar with the magic of the Greek gods for instance, and Wonder Woman might need a ninja detective.  So we will need to grab characters that can fill these heroes roles and work well with others.  Today is the role of Batman.

You all know who this is.

2) The Batmen (Leader of Team Justice)

            Batman actually has dozens of Batmen operating all over the world as part of his private security company "Batman Inc" and most would be worthy candidates, but I think there are two that are ahead of the pack for becoming members of the Justice League alongside Bruce Wayne.  Nightwing, the original Robin who is arguably the coolest and most fun character in DC (and aside from Gambit is considered to be one of the most attractive comic book characters to straight females and gay men), the other is Batwoman, who I am partial to because of her involvement in "52" my favorite comic ever, and that she does well sustaining her own comic line just like Nightwing.

If there is an abdominal workout, I am sure he has mastered it.

Why they both have red outfits currently is anyone's guess.

            This is an easier category to solve.  The only objection people might have is that Batwoman is not Batgirl, Barbara Gordon.  Why did I leave out the most iconic woman to ever dress like Batman?  Because until the start of New 52 Barbara was a different hero, Oracle and was in a wheelchair.  Barbara was one of the few superheroes in DC comics that had a significant disability but still used her skills and knowledge to help people.  Oracle was a member of the Justice League in the late 90's and early 2000' and operated her own super team called the Birds of Prey; most notably she appeared in the Arkham video games.  In my opinion, Oracle is her most iconic role in the DC universe.  This regression is one of the bigger issues I had with the New 52 universe.  I don't want her to be Batgirl, So I am not going to put her on a Justice League.

Yes, I was shot in the spine by the Joker.  Now I manage my own superhero team.

Her being returned to active duty smacks again of Geoff Johns'-esc rebooting for no good reason.

(Continued in Part 4)