JLA HQ FORTNIGHT: A Tornado is a disaster, by the way

So, it’s the Silver Age, and the Justice League of America has a sweet “modernistically outfitted” cavern headquarters, a host of one-shot, ugly, and incompetent foes, and a sidekick so moronic that even Green Lantern and Green Arrow look smart standing beside him. Their stories make absolutely zero sense; in fact, some of them are not merely nonsensical but actively anti-sensical, like a collaboration between Grant Morrison and Willy Wonka, as produced by the Brothers Krofft. But it doesn’t matter because they are the Justice League of America, and if they shat delicious Fruit Pies, readers would eat them up.

I think it's the antennae that really make this panel.

Nothing could possibly touch them….

UNTIL…!

Many are the world’s natural disasters; fire, flood, pestilence, famine, earthquake, Jean Loring, hurricanes, and slowly advancing glaciation. And the JLA was equal to them all. So it took an un-natural disaster to begin their eventual doom. I speak, of course, of…

THE RED TORNADO.

Kill it, Barry; kill it NOW, while you can.

The well-schooled among you will already know that the original, Golden Age Red Tornado was a comedy character. Burly grocery owner Abigail “Ma” Hunkel was inspired by her children’s love of Green Lantern comics to cobble together an impromptu costume and clean up her neighborhood as the gender-blurred crimefighter, the Red Tornado. Originally a throwaway concept, the Red Tornado, as one of the earlier superhero parodies, gained immediate popularity and wound up engulfing her home strip/book “Scribbly the Boy Cartoonist”.

In the Golden Age this is what we meant by being a pot-head.

As part of the bizarre meta-miscegenation of publishers in the Golden Age, the Red Tornado migrated from American Publishing to DC Comics just long enough to pop her (potted) head in at the first meeting of the Justice Society of America. It’s odd. Somewhat less odd when you remember that Sheldon Mayer created both the Red Tornado and the JSA. But it’s still odd.

The Red Tornado: A Legacy of Dignity

Oh, but the Red Tornado’s revenge for not being invited to join the JSA would come later. Some 25 years later, the Silver Age decided to do with the Red Tornado what it did best: out-weird the Golden Age.

The Red Tornado was re-imagined as an android weapon designed by T.O. Morrow to kill the Justice Society and the Justice League. Which he did.

Don’t cry, kids; they died, but got better later.

See, Barry? You NEVER listen to me.

Essentially, the Silver Age Red Tornado was designed to f*** things up. He was, as his name implied, a walking disaster. He was a fumbling Frankenstein monster who ruined everything he touched. Don’t believe me? Fine; then believe the JLA members themselves:

Okay, we all know Superman's a dick, but when Wonder Woman tells you you're an incompetent boob, you better believe her. Because Wonder Woman knows boobs.

Anyone wanna guess how this turns out...?

Well, not a walking disaster, exactly; more of a twirling one, really. Speaking of twirling disasters, with the arrival of Red Tornado, the twirl-tastic Mars-halationing Martian Manhunter became even more redundant in the JLA .

I mean, nobody else could do that like J’onn. Except Superman. And the Flash. And Red Tornado. Or Wonder Woman twirling her lasso really fast. Or Green Lantern with a fan-construct. Or Batman using a Bat-bee-fan from his utility belt.

Plus, the devastating Tornado cleared a path for another ex-pat Earth-Two-er, Black Canary, to join the JLA and soften it up with all her tears.

Blah blah tragedy blah blah blah Black Canary blah blah suffering

But Martian Manhunter and Black Canary are the stars of the next two segments of the Demise of the Silver Age Justice League of America, part of what drives them off the Earth into the Bronze Age and the satellite 22,300 miles away. Stay tuned!

JLA HQ: GA + BC = S-S!

Tomorrow we'll look at the arrival of that clanking catastrophe, Red Tornado, and his fellow Earth-2 reject, the weeping widow, Black Canary. For now, enjoy this teaser: the first time Green Arrow meets Black Canary.

He shoots her with.... his stickum-shaft.

Um... no, Ollie; no, it's not.

Somehow I can't help but think there's some sort of subtle symbolism going on here, but I can't quite put my finger on it....

JLA HQ: The Origin of Happy Harbor

So when the Justice League of America originally formed, narrative efficiency demanded that they have a common place where they could meet together, in private: a Justice League of America headquarters.

The solution was, of course, a cave. Why? Because this is not Marvel, people. DC heroes do not hang out like commoners in shiny, public (and highly ostentatious) skyscrapers. Dignity forbids. Therefore, like decent people, the Justice League naturally hung out together in a large cavern (like the Batcave, the Fortress of Solitude, the *snicker* Arrowcave, the Aquacave, the Martian Manhunter's mountain getaway, or Barry Allen's absurdly large laboratory in his Central City apartment).

Their "Secret Sanctuary" is presented in their first story (Brave & the Bold #28, where they fight Starro, 'natch) as a fait accompli, no backstory provided. This is the Silver Age, people; information is dispensed to the readers on a need-to-know basis. It was simply a "modernistically outfitted cavern" (circa 1960, that is) that was... somewhere.

So, who do you think got stuck with cutting that chartreuse carpet so it fit flush with the jagged wall of rock on the left? I'm thinking Barry.

You are objecting right now: "But, the Secret Sanctuary was in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island." Well, read the original story more carefully; at no point does it state that the Secret Sanctuary is in Happy Harbor. Starro (or his surrogates--don't ask) attack in three different locations: in the air near an unspecific mountain range, at "Science City", and in Happy Harbor (where that ridiculous dork, Snapper Carr, lives).

In fact, in their second story, where they combat the inept Xotar the Weapons Master, it is specifically stated that the closest town is.... Middledale. We know only that Middledale is somewhere on the East Coast and has mountains nearby (one of which houses the Secret Sanctuary).

Yes, Snapper Carr is seen in the cavern... but after being brought there by Justice Leaguers. Which almost implies that he's NOT nearby. It isn't until the JLA's sixth story ("The Slave Ship of Space!", Justice League of America #3, 1961) that it's shown that Snapper lives close enough to drive to the Sanctuary. Again, another narrative convenience. I contend that the Secret Sanctuary was not originally supposed to be thought of as being in Happy Harbor; you weren't supposed to think of it as being anywhere in particular at all (other than, you know, a cave in a mountain, which is where decent people meet). DC comics are famous for this kind of geographic vagueness; if you want to see an A1 sissy fight, just walk into a roomful of comic book geeks and innocently ask, "So, where in the U.S is Metropolis, any how?"



But the ugly "necessity" of having that babbling moron, Snapper Carr, in nearly every story increasingly pinned the Secret Sanctuary to his hometown of Happy Harbor, which is of course a ludicrous place for it to be. For one thing: it's in Rhode Island, which is pretty much a ludicrous place for anything to be, let alone the headquarters of the most famous superheroes in the DCU. Second, Rhode Island isn't exactly centrally located for either the U.S., hotspots of supervillainous trouble, or the heroes themselves (all of whose cities lie, to some degree, south or west of Rhode Island). Plus, Rhode Island's not easy to get to (unless, like Snapper, you already live there) and its main plus in that respect is that, being on the sea, Aquaman can get there without bumming a ride from Green Lantern or Wonder Woman.

In fact, Happy Harbor is so ludicrously unlikely a spot for the JLA's HQ that almost the only reason to put it there is because...

it's ludicrously unlikely.

Think: if you were a supervillain, would it ever occur to you in a million years that the JLA would hole up in ... a small town in Rhode Island? I mean, unless you noticed they seemed to have a hep-talking adolescent mascot who lives there? And that's really not a criticism of the concept of the Secret Sanctuary being in Happy Harbor, but rather of the concept of Snapper Carr himself. One of many.

Kill it, Barry. Kill it NOW, while you still can.

So in a sense Happy Harbor is the perfect place to put the JLA's Secret Sanctuary, precisely because it's such an unlikely spot for it. As opposed to, say (just off the top of my head)... making Washington DC an even BIGGER terrorist target by putting a "Hall of Justice" on the National Mall, where Batman would have to gas a horde of protestors every time he wanted to land the Batplane. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you.

One of the early riddles of the Secret Sanctuary is how the members get in and out without being seen. Sure, most of the members have powers that allow them to arrive fairly stealthily. It ain't called the Invisible Plane for nothing, and, by comic book convention, one can always assume that, given sufficient time to prepare, Batman can do anything, no matter how unlikely, including arrive in the Batplane unnoticed. But the whole theory is spoiled by the same thing that spoils most things in the JLA:

Green Arrow.

Kill it, Barry. Kill it NOW, while you still can.

Green Arrow, with his idiotic Arrowplane.

blah blah failure blah blah blah Green Arrow blah blah turmoil

There is no friggin' way you can arrive unnoticed in a bright yellow jet fighter... unless you are in the boonies, in a small town whose view of the misty bay over which you approach is obscured by a big mountain. Just like Happy Harbor.

Oh and for those of you still fretting over why GREEN Arrow has a YELLOW plane: stop being stupid, the reasons are obvious.

One: it has to be yellow, otherwise it wouldn't match the Arrowcar.

Be really glad you didn't grow up in Star City.

Two: if you had a sweet jet fighter and wanted to make sure that certified moron and 'test-pilot-whose-job-it-is-to-crash-planes' Hal Jordan kept his stinking green mitts off the darned thing, what color would YOU paint it?

"No MAN can. But Jean is another story entirely."

As mention in our last post, next up at the Absorbascon is a celebration of the formation of the--



Oh, sorry about that. Ahem. A celebration of the formation of the Justice League in the DC's "New 52", in which we'll--


Okay, Jean Loring; I hear you! And I realize that I would ignore the demands of the DCU's craziest denizen at my peril. So, we will in fact be giving attention to some of your further adventures, as part of our forthcoming series:

JLA HQ Fortnight!

Because it takes more than a week, you know. Stay tuned.

JLA HQ: Split-leveling the scene!

In the coming weeks, to celebrate the (re-)formation of the JLA in the New 52, we're going to be taking a look at how the JLA made the shift from the Secret Sanctuary to the Satellite, how that marked the end of the Silver Age, making fun of easy targets Green Arrow, Red Tornado, Martian Manhunter, and Denny O'Neil.

We'll kick this celebration off with a new JLA HQ Heroclix map (below) and culminate it with something many people have been asking for... my map of the JLA Satellite; don't miss it!

In a recent post, I shared a custom Heroclix map of the JLA's original HQ, "the Secret Sanctuary".

But now I have already designed another version of the Secret Sanctuary that would more accurately portray the claustrophobic feel of its original depictions. It will be based on the black and white cutaway diagram that was DC's first attempt to show the layout of the JLA HQ, which can be seen here at the DC Database.

There are several challenges in this attempt at a "claustrophic" version of the Secret Sanctuary. Like most of the famous "DC headquarters cutaways", the diagram has levels stacked on top of one another, something which doesn't convey easily to Heroclix maps. Plus, there are a few matters of scale that are, to be kind, wildly off-base. For example, while it is easy to believe that the JLA would have meetings in an area no bigger than a split-level suburban home, it is NOT easy to believe that they can park the Invisible Plane, the Arrowplane, and the Batplane in hanger exactly that same size. And that's to say nothing of squeezing a pool, a gym, a lab, and a trophy room into the basement.

But I found a way to get it in all on one map, believe it or not. So, while my other version of the Secret Sanctuary is like playing in a football stadium, the second version is more like trying to storm a castle.



Starting areas for heroes and villains are marked in slightly different colors. Villain teams have two starting areas: the entrance cave and hangar (they've managed to break in somehow). The heroes are caught unawares; they are spread out at various locations in the Sanctuary; note that no two of their starting squares are adjacent!

Some special types of "territory" are included, out of necessity, including ELEVATOR squares and the INVISIBLE PLANE squares (it's explained on the map). The white "walls" denote areas' being on different levels, so those cannot be "broken through".

I went for total authenticity here, which is why the meeting room and balcony are such god-awful colors: I actually color-sampled the original comic panels of those locations to make sure the colors were (hideous but) authentic. There are no bedrooms (they didn't seem to have private quarters in the Sanctuary); but I did add bathrooms, just for realism's sake.

Authenticity is also responsible for the somewhat goofy looking scanners in the entryway and the very odd service elevator to the generator room. Weird, perhaps, but it was there in the original diagram so I wanted to maneuver it in.

Special touches include Aquaman's water passage from the swimming pool to the water outside (which is de rigeur to be authentic!) and a hologram in the cave disguising the entry tunnel.

I'm happy to send the JPG file to anyone who'd be interested in printing it.

Grim and Forbidding Haiku

It's Haikuesday at the Absorbascon, and this week, with only a little bit of careful listening, our haiku came to us readily from the evil lips of Sirena, Empress of the Planetoid Sargasso.

This poem is called...

"NO MATTER!"

He can go nowhere.

Now Green Lantern will surely

come for these earthmen.

So nihilistic. So fatalistic. So hopeless! Some Blue Lantern needs to kick her butt. Not that they do that, of course. Perhaps they could just inspire the crap out of her; it would serve her right.

What haiku can you compose about Sirena or how here attempt to conquer by capturing Green Lantern was foiled by Kairo the Venusian Helper and Beefy the Space-Owl?

Green Lantern Filmation: Sirena's Final Hissy

Meanwhile, on the grim and forbidding Planetoid Sargasso...

Sirena, the Empress of Evil (tm), has launched her fleet against the decrepit Oans, who prepare to watch the own destruction from the comfort of their own comfty chairs, up from which, like good retirees, they would never pick their asses.

"Despite our infinite wisdom, we have deceived by the nurses, Ollie Ollie Oxenfru! For surely this spectacle is not Mattlock!" "Silence, Jolly Jowly Jerry-Tol, or our pudding rations will be threatened!"

Meanwhile, Kairo, Hal Jordan's Venusian Helper, manages to convince the kamikaze space-owl (whom he is now calling "Beepy" --or maybe "Beaky"-- instead of "Beefy") to fly into the Rapunzel-tower where Green Lantern is being held just out of arms reach of his power ring, and do its thing.

Which it does.

Here's the windup...



and the pitch...

and... STRIKE OUT!


Finally, someone dumber than Hal Jordan. At least when Hal got hit in the head with a space-owl he wasn't STARING RIGHT AT IT.

Hal, as predicted makes a dive for his ring.

Actually, it's more a dainty 'pluck'.

And shoves it onto his middle finger, which is not where one usually wears rings.

Why does Hal wear his power ring on his middle finger?

Because "FUCK YOU!", that's why.

The Eyes of Hal Jordan will still stare you death, power ring or no.

But Hal doesn't follow rules, buddy; he breaks them. Or, perhaps, is simply blithely unaware of them, along with space-owls, highway signs, buttresses, the Twelve Steps and any other thing that might get in his way.

"Guh*hick*reat jzhob, Beasty!", Hal congratulates the kamkazi-bird that just an hour ago attacked him and let him get captured in the first place. To be fair, Hal may not even know that, since he didn't even SEE the owl hit him ...

Which looks like this, in case you've forgotten

...and therefore just assumes that this is some new pet of Kairo's. Named "Beasty". I kind of give up at this point, because the only thing stupider than Hal recognizing the space-owl and treating it as if it were Kairo's familiar pet and calling it by a name he can't possibly have ever heard is ... his doing all that AND GETTING THE BIRD'S NAME WRONG. Ironically, it's the only single word in the entire cartoon that Hal doesn't slur over. Even when doing the impossible, Hal not only does it incorrectly, but painstakingly incorrectly.

Hal rings his way out of prison, Kairo, with his pretty pretty eyelashes, mounts Hal...

Hey, I don't write 'em. I just call 'em as I see 'em.

and, because there is so little time left in the cartoon, Green Lantern does exactly what he should have done in the beginning: he boxing-gloves the entire Freakish Alien Horde into unconsciousness.

Hey! Hal can multi-task!

Wow; just like the "Before" and "After" photos at my 28th birthday party.
Except these guys are still wearing their unitards.

Green Lantern sends Kairo and Beastly (the owl's name changes every time it's said, by now) back to earth in the experimental space-plane with the other prisoners, while he goes off to kick Sirena's fleet's ass.

Literally.

Note that the ships are yellow. Just like the Freakish Alien Minions. None of which bothers Hal's ring at all. Because while kamikaze space-owl cannons are not too stupid for Filmation, apparently the power ring's traditional weakness to yellow is too stupid. Oh, and the "Chekov's gun" in the opening scene, where Hal didn't take the time to charge his power ring? Nope, that gun never gets fired, and Hal's ring doesn't come even close to running out of power. Why? Because Filmation doesn't follow rules, buddy, they break them.

In last, desperate attempt to save her plan, Sirena orders her armada to "fire their destructo-bombs" (as opposed, one supposes, to their constructo-bombs) at Green Lantern,



which he just sproings right back at them.

I'll say this for Hal: he's a FUN drunk.
Unlike Sinestro (mean drunk), John (sleepy drunk), Guy (lecherous drunk), or Kyle (sloppy drunk).

Her armada defeated, Sirena is sentenced to "a long-term of galactic confinement." Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding the term, but "galactic confinement" doesn't seem particularly onerous. "You may not leave the galaxy!" isn't much of a punishment, even for someone with a fleet of spaceships.

Back on earth, Hal and Kairo have a happy fade-out with Hal telling Kairo he can keep his space-owl pet, "Beastly", which is what they are calling it in the final scene.

You know, the longer you look at that, the creepier it gets.

If you don't believe any of this, watch the cartoon and tell me I'm lying. Meanwhile, Guardians bless writer George Kashdan ...

George. BEFORE martinis.

...for taking the ten minutes it took him to dash this episode on the back of a gin-ringed cocktail napkin before getting up from the breakfast table one morning, probably the same day as he wrote this incomparable classic.

Green Lantern Filmation: The Guardians Order Take-Out!

Meanwhile, on the Planetoid Sargasso….!

Equatorial rings are SO 1990s.

Which is "grim and forbidding". Because authoritarian announcer Ted Knight said so. Which is pretty much the final word on any factual matter.

Hal Jordan, having been hit in the head with a radar-guided space-owl, is dragged off

Which looks like this, in case you've forgotten.

by the Freakish Bat-Creature Minions of Sirena, Empress of Evil™, who is now free to initiate her attack on Oa.

The Sargassonian Fleet. Or four hotdog carts in Dubai. Hard to tell.

So, what’s the motivation to attack Oa, anyway? Perhaps we’ll find out soon. Meanwhile, the Freakish Alien Bat-Creatures do the logical thing: lock Green Lantern up in a windowless cell deep with the bowels of the earth behind many secure doors and seal his power ring in a steel box and bury it miles and miles away.

BWaahaahaha! Just kidding! This is Filmation, folks, so they do no such thing. They dump Hal like a rag doll on the floor of a Rapunzel-tower in their Magic Kingdom Castle, plop his ring on a wooden table right in front of him, and sit down to glare at him menacingly over that table with their improbably red eyes. Well, not sit, really, because there are no chairs. For that matter, I’m not sure the Freakish Alien Bat-Creatures can sit; another triumph of martini-guzzling Cartoon Evolution. Anyway, the whole set up is nearly foolproof and nothing could possibly go wrong, unless, I dunno, Hal gets the chance to grab his ring or something.

In fact, being a clever and resourceful superhero, I’m betting Green Lantern concocts some clever subterfuge to distract the Freakish Alien Bat-Creatures. Like suddenly shouting, “HEY, FREAKS! WHERE ARE YOUR FRICKIN’ HANDS, HUH?” Then, while they stare stupefied at the mysteriously empty points on the end of their wings and try to remember who dressed them in these blue unitards (I’m guessing Sirena, which would have been a sight; “No, you fools! First you must step INTO the leg holes, and then wriggle your left wing through the---arrgh! Very well, I’ll do it MYSELF!”), Hal knocks over the table so that the ring falls his way, while he does a Kirk-roll, slips it on his finger and then melts the whole shoddy castle in "a bath of green heat", while announcing every action out loud to no one, in as clear a voice as his TBI-addled brain can muster.

Bwaahahahaha! Just kidding! This is Hal Jordan, folks, so he does no such thing. He lies there in a heap, until Mr Schienman, er, I mean, one of the Guardians of the Universe sends a glowing ghost-o-gram to Hal’s Venusian helper, Kairo...

And on the way back, bring me a blintz. Wait—what’s that, Murray? Okay! Alright, make that two blintzes.

...telling him to stop arguing with the space-owl that hit GL in the head and go save Hal, because Hal’s his ride home.

And, oh, what a ride he is.

In other words, “Get off your ass and back on to Hal’s”. What the Guardian actually says, by the way, is "Green Lantern and his ring are in the topmost chamber of the castle; go; help him!" To which any normal person would reply, "Um, if Green Lantern and his ring are in the same place, why the heck does he need help from Eddie Munster in a jumpsuit?" But Kairo is not a normal person, he's a Venusian helper with a space-owl.

A space-owl?! Yes , in the time that it took the All-Male Horde of Freakish Alien Bat-Creature to haul Hal’s ride-able butt off to the Rapunzel tower, Kairo has inexplicably befriended Sirena’s space-owl and is treating it like it’s been his dog for the last five years: “Cut it out! I don’t have time to play with you now, Beefy! Green Lantern’s in trouble!”

Duck, Kairo, DUCK!

To which my official reaction would have to be: WTF?! This thing is the crazed predator that willingly flew head-first into the back of Hal Jordan’s skull

Which looks like this in case you’ve forgotten.

When and how did it become Kairo’s pal? When did it get a name? Did Kairo name it, and why? 'Cuz I'm having a hard time imagining that Sirena, Empress of Evil (tm), would name her killer space-owl "Beefy".

Kairo, why would you name the alien creature that just knocked out your friend? And name it "Beefy"? It's like watching a thug clobber your friend with blackjack, and then hanging out with him; "Hey, you're kind of cute; I'll call you Beefy."

Why the hell would you call a space-owl “Beefy” rather than “Raptor Redfeather”? And just what kinds of drugs did Filmation employees use, anyway? Really, this makes about as much sense as cutting back from a scene where the Joker and Harley Quin capture Batman to discover that, during the commercials, Robin became Harley’s boyfriend and started calling her “Betty”. “Cut it out! I don’t have time to play with you now, Betty! Batman’s in trouble!”

Anyway, logic be damned, Kairo and Beefy -- or Beepy (really, it’s hard to tell what Kairo is calling him, so thick is his Venusian accent, and it never sounds the same twice)-- climb the Rapunzel tower to rescue stupid, stupid Hal...

"I may be stupid... but I'm really, really good-looking."

...and, in the process, make evident exactly why Sirena is so motivated to conquer Oa.

Oa is a pretty shiny planet that would make a fabulous earring, the kind one might wear to a Klordny party at Legion Headquarters.

Sargasso, on other hand, is a crappy planetoid that looks like it was made out of mashed potatoes, sorghum, and food coloring.

But with a lovely view of the river, according to the real estate ad.

Oa has pretty shiny architecture that looks like something little Helen Frankenthaler would have made in crafts class at Color Field Elementary out of cellophane, frosting, and jimmies.

Or like C’thulu’s really pretty sister. The one who used to pick on him all the time.

Sargasso has a warped and bent castle that looks like somebody dropped Victor Von Doom’s birthday cake.

“I will have my revenge on gravity for this outrage! Curse you, RICHARDS!!!!!”

Geez, no wonder Sirena spent all her resources building a fleet of ships with which to conquer Oa. Rather than, say, creating a nice low-profiled neo-urbanist community for her and her All-Male Horde of Freakish Alien Bat-Creatures. Why build when you can “borrow”? Plus Oa already comes with its own All-Male Horde of Identical Alien Creatures: The Guardians.

Looks like somebody should have taken their Metamucil, like the nurse told them to.

And the only thing that could possibly stop her invasion is a precariously perched Venusian helper, a fickle space-owl, and a semi-conscious Hal Jordan.

Guess who wins?

NEXT UP: Sirena’s Final Hissy-Fit!