The Justice League Really Don't Like Each Other

I'm returning to the animated Justice League this week at CBR, revisiting a few times the team was pitted against itself. Maybe one day soon I'll be able to begin work on the Cadmus arc...

JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #69 - December 1992

Down for the Count!

Credits:  Dan Jurgens (story and art), Rick Burchett (finishes), Willie Schubert (letterer), Gene D’Angelo (colorist)

Summary:   The Justice League follows Doomsday’s trail to Ohio, where they soon  confront him at an oil refinery.  Meanwhile, Superman is interviewed by Cat Grant and her studio audience.  During the Justice League’s fight,  Blue Beetle is nearly killed.  When the news bulletin breaks inside the  television studio, Superman immediately flies to Ohio.  He arrives in  time to save Booster Gold, who’s been thrown into the sky by Doomsday.

Irrelevant Continuity:

• Doomsday is indirectly named this issue, as Booster Gold tells Superman “it’s like doomsday in here!” on the final page. 
• The  JLA of this era consists of Maxima, Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, Guy  Gardner, Fire, Ice, and Bloodwynd.  Superman is also listed as a member, and even the leader by Cat Grant (he rejects the title), which  surprised me since I’ve always believed that the post-Crisis Superman  didn’t join the JLA until the Grant Morrison relaunch. 
• Blue  Beetle feels he’s discovered Bloodwynd’s secret identity, but he’s beaten into unconsciousness as he’s about to blurt out the name.  The story hints that Bloodwynd is actually the Martian Manhunter, but looking online, the story appears to be more complicated than that.

Mom, Apple Pie, etc…:  Superman refuses to dignify a sexist remark about Fire’s looks made by a studio audience member.

Review:   I hope you enjoyed Doomsday killing wildlife and smashing up  semi-trucks in the last chapter, because that’s what you’re getting  here.  The art does a lot to save the thin plot (Jurgens/Burchett’s rendition of the cloaked Doomsday is reminiscent of something Mike Mignola would draw…those red goggles are creepy),  but it’s easy to imagine how much better this issue would’ve been if it featured a Justice League team not comprised of second-stringers.  It’s  amazing to me that DC ever thought there was a substantial audience for  a team like this, and that it took them so long to actually give  readers the Justice League they wanted to see.  Jurgens is able to introduce the team and their powers in such a concise manner it would make Jim Shooter proud, and his Bloodwynd/Martian Manhunter fake-out is a fun play on audience expectations, but the team has no visible chemistry and there’s no obvious reason to care about any of them. 

The fight scenes are interrupted with quick clips of Superman being interviewed by one of his supporting cast members, which if nothing  else, serve as a reminder of his personality before his inevitable death scene.  Superman doesn’t want to badmouth any of his teammates, even Guy Gardner, he agrees with a hippie audience member that violence  shouldn’t be the answer, and believes in treating ladies with respect, thank-you-very-much.  He also admits that he occasionally fears his own death, in a bit of not obvious at all foreshadowing.  The interview segments do a decent job of straddling the line between earnestness and corniness, and the bored reactions of some of the audience members highlight one of the points the event’s trying to make -- people are  taking Superman for granted.  Mike Carlin would later cite this point in interviews justifying the decision to kill Superman.  I actually think  it’s a legitimate avenue to explore, even though this is one of the few occasions the storyline even touches on the issue.

DARK CLAW ADVENTURES #1 - June 1997

Face to Face

Credits: Ty Templeton (writer/breakdowns), Dan Slott (plot assist), Rick Burchett (finishes), Tim Harkins (letters), Linda Medley (colors)

Summary: Undercover as Patch Malone, Dark Claw is attacked by Cyber-Ninjas while playing poker. Their master, Lady Talia, follows the tracer left in Dark Claw’s skin to his hidden lair, the Burrow. She incapacitates his sidekick Sparrow and engages Dark Claw in battle. Dark Claw, sympathetic towards Talia’s anger, stops the fight. Talia slashes his heart. After she realizes what she’s done, Talia prepares to commit suicide. Dark Claw comes to, resurrected by his healing factor, and talks to Talia. Having learned a lesson about revenge, Talia decides to move on.

Continuity Notes: Dark Claw (Wolverine and Batman) and Sparrow (Jubilee and Robin) first appeared in the initial wave of Amalgam titles in 1996. “Patch Malone,” perhaps my favorite amalgam, is a combination of Batman’s “Matches” Malone identity and Wolverine’s “Patch” persona. Lady Talia (Lady Deathstrike and Talia) is the daughter of Ra’s-A-Pocalypse (Apocalypse and Ra’s al Ghul). Lady Talia burned most of her body searching through the flaming wreckage of her father’s plane, which was shot down by Dark Claw in the “Legacy of Apocalypse” episode of Dark Claw: The Animated Show.

Review: Considering the obvious popularity of a Batman/Wolverine mash-up, it’s not a surprise Marvel and DC wanted another Dark Claw comic during the second Amalgam event. Doing it as a tie-in to a fictional television series, and hiring the creative team behind the actual comic tie-in to Batman: The Animated Series, was a stroke of genius. I’m a massive fan of the DC Adventures comics of the ‘90s, especially the ones written by Ty Templeton. This is a man with a deep love for Batman, obvious on every page he writes, and a knack for the animated style developed for the show. I realize some comic shops didn’t even bother to order the Adventures comics in the ‘90s (because, y’know, they’re not the “real” Batman and Superman), so many readers missed out on them, but they’re well worth an eBay hunt. Not every issue is a gem, but the overall level of quality maintained by the various incarnations of Batman Adventures over the course of ten years is amazing. Any issue by Mike Parobeck, Ty Templeton, and/or Rick Burchett is worth your attention.

As established in last year’s Dark Claw one-shot, Dark Claw is essentially Wolverine if he had been born into wealth, lost his parents, and later decided to don a long cape and fight crime. Despite the Batman trappings, Wolverine’s personality and power set remain the same. The concept is automatically biased towards the Marvel side, so it’s perfectly fair to incorporate Batman: The Animated Series and move the hero a little more towards DC’s neighborhood. While Templeton is very much a Batman guy, he effortlessly switches over to Wolverine’s persona, writing Wolverine Dark Claw as a grizzled brawler/noble warrior with a highly developed sense of honor. In fact, Dark Claw’s willingness to sacrifice his own life in order to grant Lady Talia some level of peace is virtually identical to one of the Wolverine/Lady Deathstrike confrontations from Larry Hama’s run. Not that the scene feels tired or recycled; it’s just true to the character. Considering that much of this comic, along with the rest of the Amalgam event, is tongue-in-cheek humor, the final scene between Dark Claw and Lady Talia has a surprising amount of heart. It’s one thing to use these meta-textual characters as vehicles for jokes, but to do an emotional sequence -- with the fictionalized cartoon versions of these in-jokey characters, no less -- takes real skill. I’m not sure if this qualifies as my favorite Amalgam comic (that probably remains Kurt Busiek and Paul Smith’s Iron Lantern) but it’s definitely a strong runner-up. Plus, it’s one of the best Adventures comics I’ve ever read…although my ‘90s X-completism might be influencing that decision.