Gunn Shy

Okay, I will happily admit that I am nothing short of DELIGHTED that Anthony Carrigan has been cast as Metamorpho in the new James Gunn- helmed cinematic DC universe.

Obviously, I was hoping for KALE, but one must be reasonable.
Besides casting THAT perfect could cause the multiverse to implode.

This is the THIRD DCU character Carrigan will have played (he was The Mist on Flash and Mr. Zsazs on "Gotham") and I'm sure he'll be awesome because Carrigan is always awesome.

And the fact that he looks like my late partner, Ted, does not influence my opinion at all.

But EXCEPT FOR THAT...

I have next to zero faith in James Gunn.

Why, you wonder? 

1. I have seen other James Gunn movies. Before you'd ever heard of him. Because I'm a film hipster. Specifically, I am a HORROR hipster, the world that James Gunn comes from.  Dude is TROMA. And if you don't know what THAT means, well, then you AREN"T a horror hipster.  

James Gunn. James Wan (Saw; Insidious, etc.). David Sandberg (king of the $10 horror short).  It's no accident that owners of superhero IPs have turned to same directors who revitalized horror (another easily ridiculed and previously unrespected genre that now dominates the box office).

I'm certainly not going to assert that James Gunn is not talented. He certainly is.  He's Troma!  But James Gunn is.... not classy.  

I can't articulate why I think this.
It's just an instinct I have about it.

And not in the "I COULD be classy but I am choosing not to be"way of the intentional avant-garde.  No, I don't think James Gunn CAN be classy.  Call me old-fashioned, but I think someone who can't be classy shouldn't be in charge of the DCU's intellectual properties.

 I can't articulate why I think this.
It's just an instinct I have about it.

2. James Gunn trusts Tom King. 

“He’s been one of the guys in the room with us, along with four or five other others. I love his take on these characters. He just turns them slightly to be something very unique.”

It makes me wonder who the others four or five were.

Similarly trustworthy advisors, I'm sure.
P.S. Carrigan would be an AWESOME Tharok.

Troma should mean crazy, but not crazy STUPID. I can't imagine a worst choice for a person to advise on What To Do With/How To Handle DC characters, sort of reanimating Cullen Bunn (I mean, he's dead to me, at least).

Or asking Bob Haney to return from the planet Shakari
And HE could at least help with Metamorpho.  Just keep him away from Batman Stuff.

3. He's hired Nathan Filion to play Guy Gardner. Look, I know a lot of people have a soft spot for this actor, and I'm sure he's a wonderful fellow.  But (A) Nathan Filion, at 52 years old, is at least 15 years too old to play Guy Gardner and (B) even I, who barely know who Filion is, know that he's OBVIOUSLY a "Hal Jordan" not a "Guy Gardner".  How easy it would have been to find someone unlikeable who we were already primed to dislike. I'm sure Cullen Bunn's available.

I can't articulate why I think this.
It's just an instinct I have about it.

Gunn didn't hire Nathan Filion because he was right for the part (as Carrigan is for Metamorpho). He hired him because he likes him and has worked with him before.  I get what a Boy's Club Hollywood is but... yeah, you just proved to me that cronyism matters more to you than doing what's right for the character.  And if you have ME concerned that someone isn't doing right by GUY GARDNER... you cannot be trusted with the DCU.  

Per Degaton, Part 7: "We Are Undone!"

 In dystopian 1957, Per Degaton and Kale RULE. Literally.

Not metaphorically. Only Kale rules metaphorically.

But as you can see, there's trouble in dictatorial paradise. The Change is become unchanged, and any MINUTE now that phone could ring to announce the launching of SPUTNIK. Degaton's in deep kimchi, because something must have gone wrong (or, from our perspective, RIGHT) back at the Battle of Arbela in 331 BCE.

Not SULTAN, you hick. Try "Khshayathiya Vazraka," or just "Shah" if you're pressed for time. I mean, I ASSUME you're speaking Ancient Persian that's being translated for the readers' sake, cuz I know Darius didn't speak English.

At first things were going perfectly wrong, with Degaton's Diabolical Forces machine-gunning the Macedonians (who, btw, are already outnumbered five to one). Even Alex The G himself can't rally against that!

Hey, YER MAJESTY, you may wanna ixnay on the emocracies-day, seeing as how you got rid of all that when you subjected Greece to Macedon. Just ask the Thebans! Oh, that's right; you killed them all and burnt the city to the ground.

But then the JSA show up to un-ruin everything!

Assignments. Of course. The JSA is never too disheveled to omit the assignment process.

Sure, Johnny Thunder may be a moron. But he's still a man of his time and knows to SHAVE and fix your BOWTIE before going into battle.

Then comes the moment that nowadays would launch a thousand fanfics.

Naturally, Alex is INSTANTLY SMITTEN by Alan.
Don't weep, Alex; looks like there's a world left to conquer after all!

I give a lot of credit to Golden Age writers, seriously, for knowing that the value of heroes is inspirational.  The JSA don't win the battle simply with superpowers (it's why Jay was de-powered first, you'll notice); their heroism inspires Alexander's troops and THAT is what turns the tide of battle.

I'll concede that Atom's a small target but how it's harder to hit hulking HAWKMAN than a clay pigeon I cannot imagine. The element of surprise is more powerful than Special Metal.

The Macedonian forces win the battle and Alexander summons the JSAers to his tent to thank them properly.

"Oh. Alan. All your friends came, too.  
How... nice."

Here he engraves and signs the shield with his thanks; the very shield they are playing back this entire story on like a DVD thanks to Wonder Woman's magical past-o-meter.

"In fact, I'll keep it under my pillow. Alex.
And think of you every night I look at it."

THEN THEY DISAPPEAR. But you can probably guess why, because you are a modern person who has read time travel stories before.

Explanatory Floating Head of Wonder Woman would be a great meme.

Once they're back, Wonder Woman hits the Google Translate button on her Magic Sphere.

"Are you SURE it didn't say, 'Love, Alex'?"
"Yes, Alan."

So Per Degaton, in classic comic book irony, is back to square one, as a harmless dishwashing lab assistant.

I like to imagine that, à la Pinky & The Brain, this happens every night for Degaton, and that every time we see him is just his next work day, so that from his perspective, even though it's 80 years later, he's still only worked for Professor Zee for a week or so.  That's why he's always the same age.

Which leaves us with the real question: 

WHAT  HAPPENED TO KALE?!?!?!

P.S. Yes, I am aware that there is a SERIOUS CONTINUITY CONTRADICTION between this story and CRITICAL HISTORY OF AN ICONIC DC HERO who does not appear in this story.  I want to assure my readers that not only I am aware of this issue, I will soon bravely tackle it, with a hot take that will split the internet, and possibly the membership of the Classical Association of New England of which I am an alumnus, asunder. Prepare yourselves accordingly.

Per Degaton, Part 6: 1957/"Dazed But Still Intact"

Green Lantern arrives at Per Degaton's Colossal Caves hideout on his stealth mission to steal the Time Machine back so the JSA can reverse the damage P.D. did at the Battle of Arbela, which will then reverse The Change (which has been causing technology to vanish).

Alan's "ninja mission outfit" has a matte lining cape, rather than sateen.

"Just like at The Crew Club (a men's private health facility)!"

Did he... phase through the mountainside? Who knows?  The Golden Age operates on the Principle of Inverse Explainability: the Less Something Requires Explanation, the More It Is Discussed; the More Something Requires Explanation, the More We Pretend That It's All Perfectly Obviously And Nothing Needs To Be Said.

Note that, due to the Principle of Inverse Explainability, Alan continues to be dumbfounded by the concept of 'echoes', while unblinkingly nodding about time-travel and disappearing technology. And what is that echo he hears? It is the voice of reason!

And the voice of reason belongs, of course, to KALE.

Kale is trying to convince his shallow, short-sighted boss not to destroy the Time Machine, Humanity's Greatest Invention.  I'm not sure why Kale is surprised: Per Degaton's destroyed EVERY OTHER INVENTION (including pavement) .  He's not a scientist; he's just a brute.

OH MY GOD IT'S, IT'S SOME KIND OF ECHO, IT'S LIKE MAGIC

IT'S LIKE A HALL OF MIRRORS BUT MADE OF SOUND I FEEL LIKE I'M GOING MAD!

Poor Alan. If only he some non-technological device, immune to The Change, that magically could accomplish whatever he wanted. It might help him defeat the power of the Echo Chamber. It's like a maze on a children's paper restaurant placemat: "Can you help Green Lantern find his way through the Mountain Maze to the Time Machine?"

NO EVIL SHALL ESCAPE MY SIGHT.

Are we SURE Dr. Mid-Nite is the blind one?

So many things to say, but I'm just gonna go with:

DANG, Kale is FINE.

Somewhere in the multiverse there is an Earth where Kale just quietly shanked P.D. when no one was looking, and finished taking over the world and the JSA lived out the rest of their days, hunted in the woods and wastelands like an animals, and no more heroes (or villains) were ever born, and Kale led the world --forcibly at first but eventually through gratitude -- to everlasting peace and prosperity and personal fulfillment, and men still wear hats today.  

But, no, I am wrong; on any Earth, Kale is too supporting, too full of love and life, for such a betrayal. 

YES, Alan, I see, you found the Time Machine. Now, stop playing with your placemat and eat your French toast before it gets cold.

Or, Per, you could blow it up...now.  Because if a JSAer just shows up magically when it reappears they could stop it from exploding -- both of which are the kind of improbable things they do in between fistfights with thugs-- they'd have the machine and could come back and kick your butt (or more likely just FIX the Battle of Arbela).  But P.D. is a drama queen, and sending something 10,000 years into the future is more dramatic.  Speaking of drama queens...

Ladies and gentlemen: Alan Scott, Master of Stealth

Per Degaton, who is only good for hurtful things like undoing inventions and tearing down society, has to turn IMMEDIATELY to competent Kale for help when he needs anything constructive done.

Like machine-gunning people to death.

I'm sorry, Alan... did you just call Kale an UNDERLING?!  Look, I realize that you're repressing a lot of feelings in this decade but that's DANGED pompous and dismissive for someone who can fly and yet just TRIPPED ON AIR.

Hal Jordan did not start the fire, people.

Ah, whimsical Professor Zee! Sure, a Time Machine is cool, but he had to add fun, stylish touches like Compressed Air Shoots like a funhouse has and a solid wooden handle, because metal would be just too cold and impersonal.

"WE'RE running this city from now on."
Okay, P.D. can definitely be verbally abusive but... as a couple they are WAY more functional and mutually supportive than, say, Wind Pirate and Bosun.

Fortunately, Alan's Giant Head shaved 9,990 years off the journey into the future and pops out of the Time Machine 10 years later.  

"Dazed But Still Intact"-- The Green Lantern Motto

In the interest of story efficiency, the JSA are RIGHT there to greet him.  They tell him they defeated Degaton immediately after Alan got out of their way, then hired Kale as their manager, and therefore the world has been crime-free ever since, so he can finally take off that hideous costume.

"Your costumes look as though they haven't been dry-cleaned in YEARS!"

Oops.

Psych!  Without Alan Scott's absurd good looks (and magical wishing ring), they got their butts kicked and have been hunted, living in the woods and wastelands ever since.

But Johnny did NOT lose that bowtie.

Yes, it's a dystopian heckscape!  The world is completely conquered except for SIX PEOPLE:

• a chemist who USED to be fast;
• a guy who flies;
• Wonder Woman;
• a 5'1" 20-something with no college degree;
• a doctor; and
• a congenital idiot who happens to have a magic genie that could fix everything with one or two wishes, which is the premise for his being in the JSA to begin with, but we must completely ignore that, as we do for ALL stories, because it would end all stories immediately.  

No, really.  Our favorite criminal couple, now FULLY functional and happy as the world's rulers, have been pioneering minimalist decorating and occasionally remembering "heroes" and "opposition".  

DANG: ten years and Kale STILL looks that good,
just like Anthony Carrigan.
Oh, Per; did you ever realize, on your mad path to global domination,
that you had the whole world all long...?

And, sure enough, in 1957 (which would have been the year of Alan's return) there was no JSA and as result the DCU had gone to heck:

No more evidence, your honor; I rest my case.

BUT, with Alan's return of the Time Machine, the JSAers now have the power to fix everything!

Of COURSE you can, Wonder Woman!

Oops.

Oh. Yeah.  I forgot: the bomb.  And maybe if Alan had been a little more focused, he wouldn't have forgotten. But he's very pretty!  It's good reminder that the real reason we make fun of Hal Jordan so much is because: Alan Scott's not around.

"SAY, YOU have a magical genie that can whisk us back to the Battle of Arbela, don't you, Johnny?"

Remember, it's just like I said; JSA stories are cleverly planned, it's just the way YOU expect.  The three heavy-hitters were saved to the end. Green Lantern, who did get the Time Machine, but to no avail, which gives Johnny Thunder, who can now use the Thunderbolt to take them to the battle of Arbela, where Wonder Woman, being in her element will win the ancient warfare battle. Observe, my insightful analysis of Golden Age plotting logic in action:

Oops.

Oh. Um. Okay.  So, they... could have done that... from Zee's hospital room?  And just ... didn't try? And the JSAers have been living in a hunted heckscape for a DECADE with the world under Degaton's thumb, because this didn't occur to Alan before?   Well...  that gives me a NEW theory:

Green Lantern rings, past and present, may be directed by willpower, but they are fueled by temporarily burning I.Q. points.  It explains much about GL behavior and why the more powerful they get, the stupider they seem to be. Their oath is the Guardians' litmus test: if you're stupid enough to recite that oath aloud, then there's no chance you're going to be generate enough power to be a threat.

Tomorrow (phew): The Battle of Arbela (331 B.C.E).   

Per Degaton, Part 5: Appleby, Stanley, and Braun!

Dr. Mid-Nite, a physician, deputed himself to go protect the Scientists of the World, because the team's physicist and chemist had real work to do and because it would make too much sense to leave the team physician guarding the crucial old man who's been shot twice and in the hospital.

"I'm sure glad my magic see-in-the-dark-goggles and black-out-bombs aren't affected!"

Fortunately for Charles, the Scientists of the World have gathered THEMSELVES together for him, discussing what's to be done about The Change.  They've given themselves the most awesome assignment of all; let's just INVENT EVERYTHING AGAIN.

Golden Age scientists are really cool.  Professor Appleby was rebuilding society while Robert Robinson was just dulling the pain with cocaine and morphine.

Unfortunately, gathering together makes them a target so large, even Per Degaton can't miss. Kale, naturally, has the perfectly sensible plan to run with in the Diabolical Forces and quickly kick all their butts.  But that's not what happens. Why?

Because Degaton has to be a ****.  

Imagine having a strong, supportive, intelligent, devoted man played by Anthony Carrigan by your side and then continually negging him.  You truly deserve the dustbin of history, Per.

P.D. can't stop himself from waving his big "D" in front of the Scientists of the World; as a Lab Assistant, he feels they've always looked down upon him as a mere dishwasher.

When actually they never really noticed him at all.

Then he has to do his big "I am Keyser Sozey" reveal <eyeroll>. Drama queen.

"I'm done gloating and revealing my plans pointlessly, Kane! 

You can go ahead and be effective now! And make it snappy, before an enfeebled academic punches my face in!'

Dr. Mid-Nite and the ACTION SCIENTISTS spring into combat against Degaton's Diabolical Forces.

"We're not afraid of you; we're used to fighting IGNORANCE!"

Almost immediately, Degaton starts to get tossed around like a rag doll because he's nothing but an armchair general, but he's saved (as usual) by an underling.

Note the irony of a "blind" hero being felled by a light-giving candlestick while leading the scientists who illuminate the world's truths. Deep.

Naturally, the scientists get their bunsens burnt without Dr. Mid-Nite to lead them, because that's one of the conventions of the genre.  

These are the greatest of science's herds:

Appleby, Stanley, & Braun.

Trio of boffins, much greater than nerds,

Appleby, Stanley, & Braun.

Widely excelling in more fields than Hubble,

Making society rise from the rubble –

Names that are heavy with gravitas double:

Appleby, Stanley, & Braun.

Ah. Appleby, Stanley, and Braun; 1947's greatest Chemist, Physicist and Biologist!  You here on Earth Prime may not recognize their names, but there's hardly a piece of terrestrial comic book science that doesn't trace its roots to their work in one form or another. Plant-creatures, Chemo, responsometers, animorphs, freeze guns, Night Girl's hair; all the formulas, devices, and phenomenon we hold dear owe at least some debt to one or more of them.

And Degaton worked for all of them!

DON'T YOU REMEMBER ME?!

Actually, NO, they don't remember him, or at least they certainly do not act like they do or say anything about it.  This is why I love Golden Age comics. A BIG DEAL would be made of that in a modern comic.  In a Golden Age comic they just let it sit there uncommented on for you to notice or not, since it's not crucial to the plot.  The fact is, Degaton feels ignored because EVERYONE IGNORES DEGATON.  

"Now you three will be assistants to me!"  Comic book irony.

But ignoring Degaton is no longer a luxury they can afford, as he forces the three greatest minds of 1947 to devise an ingenious deathtrap out of whatever crap is in the room. Why? Because 

(a) he is probably embarrassed to try to do it himself in front of the greatest minds of his time and former bosses and 

(b) Degaton is a ****.

Degaton is not without self-awareness.  He knows he's a crappy deathtrap-deviser, but he is a good manager who delegates to specialists more talented than he, like Kale and Appleby, Stanley, & Braun.

Well, that's as low-rent --I mean, elegant-- as a death-trap gets, but if Appleby, Stanley, & Braun say IT CAN'T FAIL, then it might as well be one of Euler's Laws of Motion.  

"Earl-- he kept saying BASEMENT! He was trying to warn us!"

Fortunately, this is Appleby, Stanley, & Braun here; they are not only brilliant enough to devise an escape-proof deathtrap out of random crap, but brilliant enough to give Mid-Nite a clue how to escape it anyway, right in front of stupid Degaton's ugly face, showing why THEY were the superscientists and HE was the assistant.

  I am absolutely certain Penelope Pitstop did this escape once.

Let's see whether you can guess what's in the next panel, showing what's happening in the other room where Degaton took Appleby, Stanley, & Braun.

Hint: DEGATON IS A YOU-KNOW-WHAT.

Another guessing game! Even though The Change is so severe now that PAVEMENTS have disappeared (as the Flash noted several chapters ago), what technology remains?

BLACKOUT BOMBS!

How terribly convenient!

So, just as in all the other chapters, the JSAer encounters Degaton, is put in a death trap which they escape, but then they accomplish their essential mission, although Degaton escapes. 

Why are they at an isolated cabin at the outskirts of the city? Look, it doesn't really matter at this point, there's so much plot, reading a JSA story, it's like eating Thanksgiving meal three times a day, just keep eating, keep moving, you have to work off the calories...

But this time we return to the hospital, where Professor Zee (still under guard by Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder, and Green Lantern) is revived by the life-giving penicillin retrieved by Jay and reveals the historical event that Per Degaton altered to cause The Change.

But you knew that already.

The clue was given us in the first panel of the story: the Macedonian shield with the inscription of thanks, that's GENERATING this entire story, you'll recall. If there's a Macedonian battle that would have changed history broadly enough to undo all of modern technology--which is, it goes without saying, entirely the result of Western Civilization, which is, naturally, entirely the result of Alexander the Great's ten-year floruit--it's the Battle of Ἄρβηλα, at which the Macedonians finally defeated the Achaemenid Empire of Persian King Darius III. 

In 1947, any ten-year-old would have figured that out.

Now, that they know what event they need to fix, they just need a way to get there.  But, of course, Degaton has the Time Machine, stored in the only possible place.  

Sure, Alan. Go yourself. After all, you're the one dressed for stealth.

Oh, I get the JSA's game now: the niche players do field work, but the real heavy-hitters (Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder, and Green Lantern) are held back for the endgame action.

So now Alan has HIS assignment. Sneak in stealthily, in his red green gold ballet outfit and purple green queen of the universe cape while glowing with incandescent emerald flame, and retrieve the Time Machine.

What could possibly go wrong?