Who Should We Have Demonstrate the Periscope....

 Oh, I know...

THE BLIND GUY.

Jeff Lemire, stop wasting my time; if you want me to go to the movies, take me to one.

I have certainly made fun of the Justice Society's Golden Age adventures; they have many features one can deride! But that is not at all my purpose today.

Here we have the first page (not counting the splash page) of a randomly chosen Golden Age JSA story (All-Star Comics #57, 1951, "The Mystery of the Vanishing Detectives").

On this page, we are introduced to four famous detectives (model on fictional detectives from real-world crime novels) as the arrive in Civic City for a convention where they will meet up with their pals, the JSA, who, will present them with a mock mystery to solve (something they have also done at previous meetings) and Wonder Woman prepares them by blindfolding them as the mock crime is about to be acted out on stage in front of the audience. 

That's just the first page.  From which we can already deduce that they will be unraveling this mystery; they will, we can assume, EACH contribute some deductions to the process, so that all appeared learned and able.  We can also deduce that at some point after that, the detectives themselves will vanishing, result in a mystery that the JSA will have to solve. As usual, they will probably each make a unique contribution to searching for the missing detectives.

If we DO take a look at the splash page, 

it becomes clear that the disappearance of the detectiveS is just part of a larger, worldwide scheme being perpetrated by the super-villainous The Key (who you probably thought was just a JLA villain).  

So, that's quite a lot we have learned from the splash page and first page of this JSA story.

Now.

Here's the opening "splash panel" and first page of this month's issue of Justice Society:

"Is this the end?"
Well, it sure doesn't look like the start of much.

Is anyone detective enough to deduce what point I'm trying to make...?

One Undone

Now that our long national nightmare is over and Chip Zdarsky is no longer writing Batman, I thought I'd check back in again on the title, now that Matt Fraction, a writer I have good impressions of, is writing it.

I have read that his team's immediate intent to do to "one and dones" (or,  as we used to call them, "stories") rather than The Next Arc That Will Push Batman To His Limits And Change Him Forever And Everything You Think You Know About Him And Gotham City.  Of that, I certainly wholeheartedly approve and this first issues is exactly that. Bully.

However, I am less approving of the execution of the idea.

Some of the problem lies with the stupid situations bequeathed by Zdarsky: Alfred is still dead, Jim Gordon has been busted to beat cop, and Vandal Savage has taken over both Bruce Wayne's and Jim Gordon's lives because he's now living in Wayne Manor and serving as Gotham City's Police commissioner.  These developments that feel like lunchtime schoolyard improvisations ("Yeah, well, now MY villain is the police commissioner, so there!") and wouldn't pass the Laugh Test on the Batman '66 television show.

It's substantially LESS credible than the Commissioner Nora Clavicle story, which really says a lot.

It has zero basis in Vandal Savage as a character.  Granted,  he's always been a sonic screwdriver; not a 'real character' with his own motivations (there is no way you don't get over your emotional need to Rule The World after 50,000 years), but a simple plot device to create very specific challenges. 

You know how you can tell Frankenstein's Monster isn't a "real" person?  Because you can see the stitches. So, too, Zdarsky's use of Savage is so transparently ad hoc as to be uncanny (in the bad way).  "I want ONE villain who can cause BOTH Batman and Jim Gordon to suffer peripety. Can't be a bat-villain; can't be too strongly associated with another hero's rogues gallery; needs to be one of those powerful, generic, schemers. Ah! Vandal Savage! No one will get upset about misusing Vandal Savage because no one cares about him!"

You'd think DC might have jumped at the change to retcon away Zdarky's silliness with renumbering of Batman at #1; alas.  I wouldn't expect Fraction himself to reboot all this nonsense away overnight, and I think it likely he has plans to undo it all at some point. Meanwhile...

Fraction's commitment to one-and-done seems to have boxed him into an unfortunate need to have Batman undergo a character arc within one issue.  To do so, however, has him mischaracterizing Batman on each end of the story.

Batman starts as a cynical ****, which is absurd considering how many criminal reformations he has personally bankrolled.

Apparently Batman is one of those absolutists who never recovered from reading Aristotle.

By the end, he's unmasked and is chilling with a newly neotonized Killer Croc.  
Am I the only person who misses when "Killer Croc" was just a gangster with a skin condition?  

Anyway, these extremes of characterization are, well, too extreme.  Batman as Bipolarman has already worn out its welcome.

Speaking of Batman being crazy, he seems to have created an AI version of Alfred who follows him around acting as a virtual sounding board that only he can see and hear.

Except for butterflies, 'cuz they're magical.

No, AI-fred. You asked Batman a literal question ("where are we going") and he replied not with a literal answer ("to the vivarium") but with a figurative one ("playing a hunch").  That's the exact opposite of being "literal", which, I suppose is also exactly the kind of mistake you'd expect an AI to make (but certainly not an accomplished writer like Matt Fraction!).

This is too ludicrous for Fraction to have introduced without comment, so I can only assume that it's a Zdarskyism.  It sure is wacky, but I guess it gives Batman someone to talk to without Robin by his side.

An AI assistant for Batman;
what could possibly go wrong?

Fraction is committed to helping us understand what Batman is doing and how.

TOO committed.

The story is littered with these tech-splanation boxes that remind me of "The Batwave" from "The Batman" cartoon.

 I never DID figure out what the Batwave was.

To me, they seem more interruptive than helpful.  But maybe because I'm such a studied expert on Batman Stuff, that when I see Batman issue commands into a communicator and then the Batmobile obeys the commands, I am brilliant enough to deduce that he's using a voice-command connection to control the Batmobile.

Or maybe I just have four Brother AIs in my house.

It doesn't help that Fraction uses these to explain obvious tech we've seen before while ignoring the techn-ephant in the living room:

"Please state the nature of the butlering emergency..."

I will forgive Fraction's heavy-handed use of THE BUTTERFLY as a metaphor for change, because comics, after all, are not generally a subtle medium.  What I will not forgive however is the lazy use of television news to delivery exposition:

Looks like someone never recovered from reading Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.

Well, as long as the overt Millerisms end there it should--

Balls nasty. Licken Chegs in danger.

Ouch. Yeah, I don't know whether that's a knowing parody or an unknowing pastiche, but what I DO know is that I don't want to see any more of it. 

Miller did ONE thing that was wholly positive which everyone does and should imitate (even though almost no one remembers that Miller is the writer who did it):
MILLER made Alfred a dead-pan snarker, thus completely revitalizing the character.

So, there are definitely some hiccups in the #1 of this new "Batman" character. But I am still optimistic that Fraction will do the character more justice than his predecessor.  Am I wrong to think so...?

Jive Turkeys of America

I want to talk about how, 

well, how STUPID

the Golden Age Justice Society of America stories were.

Sadly, this is one of the LESS stupid ones. Be glad I didn't pick the one where they fight King Bee.

But, honestly, even READING them is wearying, let alone writing about them.  They are exactly the comics that made people think "comics are stupid and just for kids" because they WERE stupid and just for kids.

I will however share ONE sequence from the JSA story ("Food for Starving Patriots", All-Star Comics #11)  that broke me:

People always wonder why Johnny Thunder was in the JSA, especially when he basically never uses the Thunderbolt, which constitutes his superpower.
Well, his OTHER superpower was being so stupid that he never questioned the insane and/or asinine things the real heroes did, like any sensible character would.

It's not clear where these culinary miracles (which are expanded to regular size with a Special Solutiion) come from. Did Hawkman (an archeologist) invent these shrunken meals himself?! How did he do this? Where did he acquire them and how can he have them in nearly unlimited quantities?  

This certainly seems to imply that he invented and makes them.
Where did he GET the thousands of turkey dinners to begin with?
From Shayera, I assume, slaving away in the Hawk-kitchen, putting little paper crowns on the ankles of each individual roasted turkey.

You are not told.  All you needed to know, apparently, was that he had them, because Our Allies in Europe were starving during the war, and this was the excuse for eight or so sub-stories about each of the JSA members being assigned to deliver them.

Because it's just not a JSA story without ASSIGNMENTS.

And if you are wondering, "Wouldn't eight stories in a row with, essentially, the same plot get rather tedious? ", then, congratulations, you are quite correct. But here's one representative scene from each that are sure to keep you from clamoring for more!

Doc M was the party animal of the original JSA.  He was made for the night.

Yep. This is the story that comes from.

I--I'm sure he means "English P.O.W. Camp". Pretty sure, at least.

I would make fun of Atom for being a Bossy Little Top but...
Bossy Little Tops are hot.

Always one for the personal touch, the Spectre takes the time to drop two Nazis off on Pluto. Just two, though.  Don't want to hog the whole war to yourself, you know.

Johnny puts the "slow" in Czechoslovakia.

Don't you think you might have left that joke for the Sandman, Doc F?

Ah, yes, Wesley Dodds, the mysterious, haunted chemist
and all-around laugh riot.

And, once you have finished your assignment, always remember you have to turn in a written report. Yes, really.

You just know that was all Sec. Woman's idea. She's so persnickety.

The Mixed-Up Martian Powers!

In our recent visit to the 1940s Star City, we had reason to mention Apex Studios, which is, naturally enough, in Apex City, where all businesses are named after the town, the Floridian home of 

J'onn visited Apex Studios at least once in Detective 268's memorable tale of

In which, once again, J'onn's powers cause more problems than they solve.

Martian-halitosis is darned inconvenient when one of your favorite powers is Marshalation.

Car 45, where are you? "Just around the corner"; of course.  
Apex City contains many wonders, yet is really dense.
Much like J'onn himself.

What IS it in the Apex City gene pool that DOES that to their chins?

It's a riddle with no answer.

J'onn makes a sound tactical decision that also allows lets him go solo, so he can use his panoply of Martian powers unobserved, because Ares forbid that Detective Jones should just take out his service revolver and shoot some thief in the leg.

And to get out of the car as soon as possible. Even J'onn's afraid of Slade's driving.

He changes into his Martian form, because I think at this point in his evolution, he couldn't do any Martian tricks while in human form.

I mean, any tricks EXCEPT shift back to his Martian form.

Then, the most natural thing in the world happens.

A flaming meteor from space lands at J'onn's feet.

J'onn is focused on the anomalous aspect of the meteor's flames not harming him, rather than the bizarre coincidence of a flaming meteor from space landing right next to him because flaming meteors from space fall on Apex City daily.

But how on earth can that be?

I see; thank you, Explanatory Floating Head of Wonder Woman.

Weird crap happens to J'onn constantly; if he actually stopped to deal with it, he'd never get anything done, so he presses on.

I think the meteor is a remnant of the planet Rastafaria. Just like "The Brother from Another Planet". 

NOW it gets more interesting than just random meteor strikes!

The metaphor of Detective Jones as a closeted Martian is always tantalizingly JUST out of reach for me.

Tee hee, J'onn's become the Bizarro Manhunter. This'll be good.

Yes. I can imagine that easily. Something ALWAYS goes wrong,
badly wrong for J'onn.  
He's the Charlie Brown of alien super-heroes.

I KNEW the internet would not fail to provide me with the image I needed.

Sure enough, it goes even more wrong for J'onn as some workers notice him, report him to the House Committee of UnTerrestrial Activities, and he's burned at the stake like a witch.

 "I don't care what they do in the privacy of their own homes and alien bars, but do they have to GLOW in PUBLIC?"

It's little scenes like this that really hammer home the fact that the DCU, well, wasn't much of a "U" at all back in the day.  Each hero operated not merely in a vacuum, but in their own little world.  Which is terrible for J'onn, since he can't use his Marshalation in a vacuum.  It's also terrible because it means he can't simply say: "Hi, I'm an alien superhero, just like Superman, except green. One with a ridiculous allergy,  but that's not important right now."

Fortunately for J'onn, he is in the ONE PLACE where he can get away with this glowing alien bit.

At APEX MOVIE STUDIOS.

Imagine; J'onn looks exactly like a 1950s B-movie writer's idea of what an alien looks like! So, undaunted, 

Don't worry; he gets daunted pretty soon.

J'onn decides to phase through a nearby wall 

Payroll. It's always payroll.

and instead just smashes his face into it

Oops. Or, being an super-strong and indestructible alien lummox, crashes THROUGH it like he's Kool-Aid Man.

"YOU BLOCKHEAD!" shouts the director.  Actually, he blames it on the WALL, because everything on movie sets is fake and flimsy.

"AND DON'T CALL ME 'CHIEF'!"

Two power fails in a row is a pattern, so JJ decides to test his treasured lung power (Marshalation).

You probably don't floss enough, J'onn.

Just how DOES Apex Studio store its junked ships VERTICALLY?  Like J'onn, Apex City is special.

Being a detective, J'onn quickly deduces (with a little help from some starlets), that the meteor and/or its fire is the cause of his Mixed-Up Powers.

It's a Red Kryptonite story, in other words.

This presents J'onn with his WORST-CASE SCENARIO:

That is, an ORDINARY EARTH DETECTIVE who can casually crash through cement walls like he's Kool-Aid Man.

Oh, dear; the struggle is real.  Fortunately for J'onn, British comedic character actor Maurice Dallimore is on hand to steer him in the right direction.

"It is the considered opinion of Her Majesty's government that you must pursue the thief at all costs."

Sigh. J'onn.  Just turn BACK into your Earth guise as Detective Jones, take out your service revolver and SHOOT THE THIEF IN THE LEG.  Detective Jones could handle almost every situation you ever find yourself in, JJ, because your real problem is your ridiculous panoply of powers, mixed up or not.

Oh, no. A fire has broken out. In Apex City, American's Most Flammable Vacation Spot. Imagine.

Upon beginning his rescue, he immediately abandons the idea of doing it as An Ordinary Earth Detective and uses his Martian vision.

What will happen? Take a wild guess.

Oxygen-eating Vision. 
Sure, J'onn. Whatever.

Naturally, J'onn's mixed-up powers have given him exactly the ability he needs to rescue the men. At this point, just rename him Nemesis Kid or let him swallow the H Dial, why don't you.

With truly Charlie Brown levels of insecurity, J'onn notes that his colleague Slade now has the situation in hand, and concludes that he himself will be on no more use to the police and will have to quit.

"All I have is the powers of an ordinary Earth detective and the ability to walk casually through cement walls; I'm useless a police officer!"  Get some therapy, J'onn.

I'd love to just SLAP J'onn when he gets like this, but I'd only break my hand.  Besides, now that the universe has (again) brought JJ to the point of tears because he's a blockhead, it relents and gives him his powers back.

"As the Martian Manhunter reaches the wall..."
Were ya just gonna... crash through that wall, JJ, like the Kool-Aid Man again?  
Is that what you were going for?  smh

Sometimes the internet will NOT provide you just the image you need.

The Red K effect of the meteor ended once its flames died out.  Because Martian Manhunter stories always treat fire as if it's some sort of tangible, radioactive element, rather than just the result of a chemical combustion process.

Harrumph. Okay, maybe the mix-up left him unable to shapeshift back into Detective Jones. But his over-reliance on his 47 powers is still the root of his problems. 

Now, Batman would have that meteor encased in lucite, labelled, and displayed in the Hall of Trophies overnight and Superman would assign a team of robots at the Fortress of Solitude analyzing it to determine what caused the effect and whether it could be of any danger to him in the future.  The Martian Manhunter...?

To him, it was a Tuesday.