Green Lantern Filmation 3: Angry Birds!

When we last left Green Lantern, he’d fallen for the bait set by Sirena, Evil Empress ™, who’d kidnapped some pilot and Hal Jordan’s “Venusian helper”, Kairo, as part of plot to neutralize GL so she can invade Oa.

"Um... you do realize you have no hands, right?"

"Okay. Forget I said anything."

Sirena sends her All-Male Horde of Identical Freakish Yellow Bat-Creatures to attack GL. Meanwhile, Hal and Kairo prepare for battle by girding their loins…

with each other.

Whoa. Um… can I get a “Venusian helper”, please?

You know, this seems vaguely familiar; where have I seen this scene before?

Oh, yes; now, I remember:

Yes, thanks to me (and my good pal and faithful reader, Noah Van Google), you now know that the Ambiguously Gay Duo’s characteristic “flight pattern” is taken from Hal and Kairo fighting the Bat-Creatures of Planetoid Sargasso. You’re welcome. And when that wins you a Trivial Pursuit game, I expect you to thank me publicly.

But it’s okay. I mean, it’s not as if Hal could use his power ring to whip up any number of contraptions that he and Kairo could travel in, or as if he could just, you know, leave Kairo where he was. He has absolutely no choice but to have Kairo snugly ride his butt like that. I guess Sally’s right; GL butts are something special, after all.

Anyway, it turns out that the Identical Freakish Yellow Bat-Creatures can shoot frickin’ zappy beams from their horns; yikes! Score another one for Cartoon Evolution and its proclivity to generate unlikely beings after spending the afternoon at the airfield bar with Hal Jordan. PLUS, the dang things are YELLOW, meaning Hal’s power ring is powerless to affect them. Right?

WRONG! Because this is Filmation, baby; welcome to Earth-F.

Hal decides to show off for the Venusian helper riding his butt (because drunk people love being clever and because Kairo has long beautiful eyelashes), slurring “Wash me t*turn thayruh own beams againsht ‘um!”, and simply bends the freakish bat-creature’s horns back at them.

You just know that young Hal used grab Jim Jordan’s arm and make him punch himself in the face, repeating, “Why do you keep hitting yourself? Why do you keep hitting yourself?” Jerk.

Her freakish horde stymied, Sirena decides to deal with Green Lantern herself, shouting imperiously, “I’ll deal with Green Lantern myself!”. So she activates a miniature magnowave that tunes in on Hal’s brainwaves.

Honestly, that’s impressive enough; just being able to build a device that can detect Hal Jordan’s brainwaves should get her a Nobel Prize, 'cuz that's harder than finding FTL neutrinos.

But then, it gets even better. While Hal stands around smugly preening for his Venusian helper...

“Didja see how I handled those Freakish Bat-Creature? Pretty cool, huh?”

...she takes an outré tack by launching an Angry Bird ™ at him.

...and...

"Stop that pigeon, NOW!"

Thud.

Make sure you watch the actual video; the sound effect alone is worth it. You need to know what the sound of a space owl hitting Hal Jordan in the head is.

You know, all of the millions of times Hal’s been hit in the head? This is pretty much at the top of that list. It doesn’t get better than watching Hal Jordan get hit in the head by an Angry Bird ™. In fact, I’d love to have that little sequence as a GIF that I could use in my sidebar, or in my online forum signatures, or as an image on my digital flicker ring. It would soothe my soul in times of crisis.

Also, props to Sirena for having the presence of mind to develop a radar-guided space-owl cannon for just such an occasion. Ordinarily, I’m a foe of surrealism in superhero media, but nothing provides the element of surprise like a radar-guided space-owl cannon. This is the kind of stuff Grant Morrison has been doing drugs for decades trying to write; back in the day, thin-tied Manhattanites like George Kashdan used to bang this stuff out every day before noon, before they'd even had their fourth martini of the day. Score at halftime: George Kashdan 8, Grant Morrison 0.

With Hal characteristically unconscious…

Dude! I was so wasted last night. I don’t remember a thing we did…!

Sirena’s Freakish Yellow Bat-Minions swoop in and remove his ring.

Without hands.

Somehow.

“Without his ring, he’s powerless!” Sirena exults.

Oh, silly Sirena! Sure, he’s superpowerless…

EXCEPT FROM THE WAIST DOWN.

Never forget that.

NEXT UP: Kairo and the Angry Bird ™ versus Sargassonian architecture!

Green Lantern Filmation 2: SIRENA!

When last we left Green Lantern, he was in a Filmation cartoon, in which a young space pilot and Hal Jordan's "Venusian helper", Kairo, have been sucked down to the Planetoid Sargasso by a bacon-flavored tractor beam.

Hal states (out loud, to no one) that he hasn't got time to charge his power ring. Then, naturally, he goes right outside and changes to Green Lantern in broad daylight at his workplace. Because, as mentioned last time, Hal's an idiot.

"No t*time to re-sharge my-ee bower rig; godda ged t'them FASHT!"

Stupid, stupid, Hal.

Hal's in a big rush so he immediately flies off to save them....
LATER THAT NIGHT.

Obviously Hal decided to spend a couple hours at the airfield bar, fortifying his willpower, while he waited to leave Earth under cover of darkness. That explains why, as mentioned last time, Green Lantern sounds hilariously drunk every time he speaks.

Hal lands on Sargasso where he immediately runs into Kairo. It's a small planetoid.

The best way to keep from injuring yourself before strenuous heroics is thorough stretching.

"What th'--? I though' I wash head'd t' Orion? What the hell'r' you doin here, Kh*kairo? Where rrr the guhreen aylee-en babes? My head hurtsh..."

Only $39.99, Hal is composed of a realistic-feeling silicone compound
for your deep and lasting enjoyment.

Kairo explains to GL that the bacon-flavor tractor beam is being generated by a giant electromagnetic sombrero....

Yeah, it kinda hurts my head, too, Kairo.

which GL melts with "a bath in green heat". When you drink enough, you to start to talk like that all the time.

For fun, print this pic out on a box-framed canvas and give it to a relative for Christmas. Make sure you have your camera ready when they open it.


This now badly damaged sombrero is in fact "an electronomagnawave apparatus" owned by the ruler of Planetoid Sargasso, who is...

Society can never repay the debt it owes George Kashdan.

SIRENA EMPRESS OF EVIL!

Only $39.99, Sirena is composed of a realistic-feeling silicone compound
for your deep and lasting enjoyment.

Here seen giving the captured space pilot his annual review, Sirena, like most Filmation villians, has a large all-male posse of identical freakish minions with no possible genetic connection to her or anything else that Evolution could devise, even if Evolution spent the entire afternoon with Hal Jordan at the airfield bar.

They. Have. No. Hands.
How did they put on those cobalt unis with matching legwarmers?
And a cinch belt, no less?

We discover that luring Green Lantern to Planetoid Sargasso is not a problem for Sirena; in fact, it's what she's been trying to do. Because once she's captured Hal Jordan, the Guardians will be helpless without his protection and she will be able to attack Oa and have all its sweet avant-garde architecture for herself. Yep; the Guardians would be totally helpless without good ole' Hal Jordan to protect them.

Anyway, when her electronomagnawave apparatus is destroyed, she knows that she has succeeded because "only Green Lantern could destroy my electronomagnawave apparatus". Yep, only Green Lantern with his power ring could do that. Or any one of over a hundred space-capable superheroes, including Ultraa, Beppo the Supermonkey, or Space Cabbie.

Overwhelmed by happiness at the idea that Hal Jordan, rather than Space Cabbie, has come to kick her ass, she breaks out into a celebratory vogue:

Well! I know what I'm wearing next Halloween!
Just have to find yellow bat-creature costumes in Chris and Josh's size.

NEXT UP: Sirena attacks Hal; three guesses who wins.

Green Lantern Filmation!

Before there was Young Justice, and Batman: Brave and the Bold, and Teen Titans, Batman and Superman the Animated Series, and The Batman, and Justice League (limited and unlimited)—even before the frickin’ SuperFriends—there was… Filmation.

Which doesn’t get enough love, in my estimation. When Filmation got the gig to make cartoons (that’s what people used to call “animated series”) of Batman, Superman, and Aquaman, Filmation was four years old, had about 12 bucks per episode to work with, didn’t hire warehouses of artists in some foreign company working for pennies, had a mannequin for a receptionist, and used about five voice actors, including Master of a Thousand Shrieking Alien Despot Voices, Ted Knight.

In fact, they had to bluff Elliot S! Maggin with some shenanigans to get the job. Of course, "bluffing Elliot S! Maggin" is pretty much in the same box as surprising your infant by magically 'reappearing' when you play peekaboo. They probably just told him that villainous cats banished by Krypto into the Phantom Zone were whispering story ideas into their ears at night and he was sold.

What they lacked in ability and resources, they made up for with ingenuity (like making up the story about the Phantom Zone cats). For example, Filmation’s animation was certainly not sophisticated, but (as previously mentioned), they understood how to make Aquaman cool. Heck, they never let Aqualad leave his side, and even Mr Bean looks cool in comparison when standing with Aqualad.

But in addition to their work on Batman, Superman, and Aquaman, they did a smaller number of “Side B” cartoons of other DC heroes, including the Teen Titans, the Atom, Hawkman, the Flash, the Justice League, and one of the Absorbascon’s favorite whipping boys, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan).

Let’s watch one of the GL Filmation cartoons together, shall we? You can currently watch the whole thing here, but I’m going to use screen caps below anyway.

“BY THE POWER OF THE MYSTIC GUARDIANS OF THE UNIVERSE….”

Filmation often had little oopsies in their coloring department for a few frames, but this next frame isn’t one of them. For some reason, they decided not to make the Guardians blue. It kind of robs them of their Alien Dignity. When not colored blue, the Guardians just look like some old guy who gives the counterman at the corner deli a hard time.

“You call this fresh?”

The visuals may not be helping the Guardians’ credibility, but the audio does; nobody but nobody in animation could generate awesome majesty and sincerity with his voice alone than Ted Knight (whom most remember only as “Ted Baxter”, the pompous and moronic newscaster on the Mary Tyler Moore Show). Ted Knight was an orator; he didn’t just say his lines, he practically SANG them. If Ted Knight says Mr Scheinmann up there is one of the “Miss Tick GAHHR dee ahns uvthuh YOO nee verse”, then you will damn well believe it and bow down accordingly.

Why, the voice of Ted Knight even makes you take Hal Jordan seriously.

Stupid, stupid Hal Jordan.

At least, until Hal starts talking. More on that later.

Smug, smirking Hal Jordan. Lap it up, ladies and Geoff Johns.

So the Mystic Guardians of the Universe live on...

...a giant glowball. Jeez, Jor-El would have a conniption.

Actually, they live on Oa, with its awesome but impractical architecture.

Little known fact: on February 4, 1989, the day after all the Filmation animators were fired by L’Oreal, they were all hired by an architecture firm in Dubai.

The story starts with Hal Jordan sitting on his phat ass at home, long-distance coaching some sucker who’s taking some experimental flight into space, sidekicked for no apparent reason by “Kairo”, Green Lantern’s Venusian Man Friday.

"Hey, Kairo; let's see what's on the Bacon Channel. Mmmmm...bacon."

I’ve never heard an explanation why Filmation decided to recast/replace Tom “Pie-Face” Kalmaku, Hal’s Eskimo mechanic, with some blue kid from Venus named after an Egyptian cafe. Probably because Green Lantern needed a “space-oriented” sidekick and an Aleutian simply wasn’t exotic enough. Or perhaps it’s the Conservation of Blue theory; if the Guardians weren’t going to blue, somebody in the cast had to be.

"Hear me, MetroCity! You WILL bow down to Megamind!!!"

Regardless, the use of Kairo accomplished one important thing: it let Ted Knight use a Venusian accent, which … well, you’ll just have to hear it for yourself. It’s kind of what you’d get if Squiggy from Laverne & Shirley had a son with Pebbles Flintstone and raised him in the Philippines.

This is also the point where Hal Jordan starts talking, losing all the credibility that announcer Ted “Voice of Awesome” Knight had build up for him. Hal sounds exactly like the drunk at the bar in every other episode of Bewitched. “I wan’ choo to shteer offfff, Thom, yer too closhe t’ the Shargasho pl*hic*planneetoid.”

Guardians bless brilliant B-movie actor Gerald Mohr, the "King of Cool", for his work as the voice of Green Lantern. Hal Jordan’s voice falls about halfway between Dean Martin and Foster Brooks, and it is priceless. Once you hearit, suddenly the whole “Hal gets arrested for DWI” thing falls into place for you. All the while you thought Hal was just an idiot. Now you know better; he’s a drunken idiot. No wonder he’s benched at home driving flight simulators while somebody goes out to drive the spacecraft.

Naturally, coached by Hal, they shteer—sorry—steer the spacecraft right toward the evil and odiferous Sargasso Planetoid, whose stinkyon emanations overwhelm them.

"Can't resist... smell of... bacon!"

So Hal Jordan does what any sensible, subtle hero would do: steps outside in the middle of the airfield where he works and changes into Green Lantern in public.

Stupid, stupid Hal.

NEXT UP: We meet our villain!

The Secret Sanctuary

In the Silver Age, when the Justice League was created, creators and artists were not focused on extraneous details. If it wasn't necessary to the plot, it didn't get in (and that included characterization).

In its first stories, the Justice League simply... existed. There was no long, drawn out story of Who It Was and How It Came To Be. Later, someone threw together a typically wacky tale of how the League was informed, involving the absurd Ersatzians, er, I mean Appellaxians and their attempt to take over Earth as a side-effect of their electoral process.

So, too, the JLA's HQ was introduced without ceremony or elaboration. They had a "secret sanctuary". It was deep within a hollowed out mountain.

Later on we learned that the Secret Sanctuary was, for no fathomable reason at all, in Rhode Island, by the ocean. Are there mountains sitting by the sea in Rhode Island? I don't think so. That's probably why the writers picked Rhode Island; chances are, most of their reader had never been there and hadn't the slightest idea what it was like.

The JLA holed up in the Secret Sanctuary for the entire Silver Age. Their tenure there--and indeed the Silver Age itself--came to an end when Snapper Carr betrayed the Justice League to the Joker, and the JLA modern to a very non-secret sanctuary "in geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles above the earth" (as we were reminded in every story).

In later years, the Sanctuary would be used by Justice League successors, like the Detroit League, Young Justice and (briefly) the Justice Society. Those stays gave us several artistic interpretations of the Sanctuary, made possible by the fact that, as originally presented the Sanctuary was a tiny and unprepossessing place.

See those two empty chairs? Batman and Superman's.
They seldom hung out with the JLA during the Silver Age.
Too busy walking their dogs in capes, I suppose.

That was it. An open-face garage for Diana's plane, a meeting table in a cramped lounge, and some funky stairs up to a library and communication center. That was it; the HQ for the world's most astonishing and powerful superteam was little more than a carriage house.

Even later, when it started to be implied that the Sanctuary might be larger, we had no idea what that meant. For the longest time, so much of whatever non-action scenes the plot required in JLA stories took place while they all sat around that damned table trying to figure out what the heck Snapper was saying, so there were few visual clues as to anything else in the Sanctuary.

Eventually, various inconsistent cutaway plans were drafted (see link above). But I only used what I saw in the stories themselves when I made...

The Secret Sanctuary Map!

A custom Heroclix map of the Justice League of America's original headquarters!

I started with a few ideas. "The Conference Table" had to be in the middle of a big, cavernous space. Each of the original Leaguers should have their own quarters in the Sanctuary (even though they were never seen in the stories, it simply made sense as a practical matter), plus a guest room. There had to be a "library level". There had to be a waterway to Aquaman's room, and there had to be exits to the hangar and to the harbor.

I threw in some trophies as hindering terrain (since in JLA: Year One, the League was shown to keep trophies in their main hall rather than in a separate Trophy Room). I added a Teleportation Pad, since that figures so prominently in the Young Justice cartoon, and few suitable items of ostentation like the world rug and the "justice for all" inscription.

The map is fairly straightforward with the exception of Aquaman's uniquely amphibian living quarters, whose "dry room" has a hatch that leads to a pipeway that connects Arthur's bedroom directly with the underground stream that leads to the harbor.

If you print this map (PosterBrain will do a fine job for you; tell Poppy that Scipio sent you!), have fun by having each of the Leaguers start in their own bedroom and the attackers come in from the harbor and teleportation pad. Battle will probably take place in the main hall, with some maneuvering on the library level and the balcony of the quarters level. Let Aquaman take full advantage of the underground stream to sneak up behind his foes. If you field Batman make sure he hugs the walls where the trophies are, otherwise he'll be a sitting duck.

Some day I may try to compose a map that hews much more closely to the original, smaller design of the Secret Sanctuary, rather than being inspired by elements added later. But for now, enjoy this map and the individual touches that each hero brought to his or her living quarters.

Veteran's Day

Today is the Marine Corps Birthday (for those who don’t know) and tomorrow is Veterans’ Day, which is why tonight you’ll probably be able to find me face down on the floor at the NoVa Irish Brogue and tomorrow at an elementary school lecturing children about the importance of supporting our troops. Wait, change that: face UP. I learned my lesson last year.

Given the prevalence of the military in society, it’s interesting how few DC comic heroes have any military background. Captain Atom is Air Force, of course, but other than that it’s slim pickings. Remember, this whole “Hal Jordan was in the Air Force” thing is a retcon (by Mark Waid, I think, in JLA: Year One); before that, Hal was “just” a commercial test pilot (and one who almost never flew a plane, I might add). So, too, the “John Stewart was in the Marines” thing (an invention of the Justice League animated series). Before her reboot after Crisis, in fact, the only big DC hero with any military background was Wonder Wonder. She was a Lieutenant (and eventually rose to Major). And then, as I recall, she did what a lot of former Army Majors do: became a UN attache and opened a mod dress shop. Diana’s a hard woman to understand.

DC used to have lots of war comics, and I’m glad to see them attempting to revive the tradition in the New 52 with Men of War. While they are at, I would like to see them bring back (in some form), one of favorites here at the Absorbascon: Capt. Storm.

Now, I’ve had a lot of fun at Capt. Storm’s expense, but conceptually he’s one of DC’s greatest heroes: a military man, injured in battle, who struggles to return to fighting strength so he can continue to defend his country. Plus, there’s the whole “hot Hawaiian nurse” thing. I think it’s great that Sgt. Rock/Easy Company’s legacy continue, but, given how many Wounded Warriors the US has as a result of years of conflict in the middle east, we need a “wounded warrior hero” more than ever. And I’m not talking about “I lost my hand, but now I have one made out of energy/water/indestructible alien metal that can turn into a machine gun”. I’m talking about, “my artificial leg is not as good as my real one but I’m going to overcome that”.

Because that’s a type of heroism I think comics could use a little more of.

Cool and Unusual

Riddle me this, dear readers! What is harder to become the harder you try to become it?

Answer: Cool.

“Cool” as a label is fairly new when compared to more venerable terms of praise like “nice”, “excellent”, or “great”. “Cool” as a slang for “fashionable”, “in style”, or “exemplary in its good qualities” began in about 1933, in large part due to its usage by jazz saxophonist Lester Young.

Lester Young would have sweated "cool", if he ever sweated.

But the term found broader exposure in the beatnik culture of the 1950s and the term really came into its own, I’d say, by about 1953 when the term “uncool” became common. Nothing so firmly cements a concept that being able to label all things either “X” or “un-X”.

A beatnik One who was so cool, he was also smokin' hot. Woof.

A comparative newcomer in the world of Webster, perhaps, among “slang” words no term has had great longevity than “cool”. Most of its contemporary fellows from the 1930s have aged and withered. Seldom do you hear current teenager describe an option as “jake”, condemn someone as a “whanger”, or dismiss the unlikely as “bushwa”. Yet “cool” remains.

Perhaps it is because the concept it represents is so useful. Even-temperedness, unconscious superiority, effortlessness, indifference to the judgments of others—all the things that teenagers in particular long for so earnestly and (generally) find so difficult to attain are what defines “cool”.

The adolescent within us is always concerned with what is “cool”. As adults we may label it slightly differently (“This character has a richness, charm, and depth that both instantly engages the reader and enables the writer to convey subtle but cogent satire” is really just critic-speak for “I like this character; he’s cool.”), but we are still often concerned with what is cool.

For example…. the essential conflict between Batman fans and Superman fans? It’s not “human” versus “superhuman”. It’s about coolness; Batman is “cool”; Superman is not “cool” (as some people define it).

Batman inspires fear and awe.

As does Superman... in his own way.

At least, that’s the traditional view of the characters. If you consider them as people, however, it’s easy to make the opposite case. Batman is less cool than Superman, as a person, because Batman strives to impress others and Superman does not. Such is the quixotic difficulty of pinning down what is “cool”.

But, as in the riddle above, one thing that is generally agreed upon is that “being cool” can never be the result of a conscious effort to “be cool”. The same can be said of any “cool” substitute, such as “edgy”,“bizarre”, or “outre”. We all know people who try to be “cool” and therefore are not. So, too, there are those striving desperately to be unique, or eccentric. The person striving to be “cool” is seeking admiration or popularity among his peers; the person striving to be “unusual” is seeking individuation from his peers. But the idea is the same.

Which leads me to my real point: Why So Many Modern Villains Suck. They suck because the writers are striving too hard to make them cool or unusual. They don’t happen to be eccentric, which lends them interest; their purpose is to be eccentric, which is not really interesting at all.

Take yer classic villains from Batman’s rogues gallery (or even Flash’s or Superman’s). Are they bizarre and eccentric? Of course. But that’s HOW they do things, now WHAT they do. WHAT they do is being professional criminals: in short, they steal things and kill people as part of the process. They are trying to be successful criminals, they aren’t trying to be bizarre; they simple ARE bizarre.

“Professor Pyg”? “The Dollmaker”? Mr Szasz? Deathstroke? Bane? Doomsday? Sorry, modern writers; you are obviously trying too hard to create characters whose very purpose is to be bizarre or bad-ass. As in the Batman/Superman example above, I make the distinction between the purpose of the character and the purpose of the “person”. Because, sure, when a writer creates a villain, he wants him to be a credible threat and be unique in some way. Nothing wrong with that, I’m not saying there is. But when being bizarre seems to be the only purpose of the “person” the character is… well, that’s just some writer trying too hard to cool. And failing.

Ask yourself which of those the Joker currently is the next time a writer uses him…