“We need to move this logo out of Earth’s orbit!”
JSA #1
DC Comics (August, 1999; as posted to comiXology)
“Justice Be Done”
WRITERS: James Robinson & David Goyer
PENCILER: Stephen Sadowski
INKER: Michael Bain
COLORIST: John Kalisz
SEPARATIONS: Heroic Age
LETTERER: Ken Lopez
ASSISTANT EDITOR: L.A. Williams
EDITOR: Peter Tomasi
I guess older Jon needed a GPS to his home dimension.
Hey look! I did a half-decent S-Shield! I AM getting better! Anyway, you still have the older Jon for the Legion in the 31st century and you have younger Jon and Damian back in the Super Sons comic. Everybody wins. See, I’m willing to compromise. Of course I’m also going to need a way to restore Clark’s secret identity but baby steps.
More small projects in this week’s Clutter Report.
I wish I could say the crazy is dying down this week but it isn’t. My second vaccine shot is this week, my car needs fixing, another doctor is waiting for my appearance, and I’m frankly sick of this crap. 2021 must be trying for third worse year of my life. Losing my mom is #1 and losing part of my colon is #2. I hate this year and it’s only May. I fear what’s coming.
Still, chapter two of part one of Star Trek: Prime Directive is coming this week for Chapter By Chapter and that’s all I can really promise outside of the comic reviews. It’s like there’s a war on my creativity and it’s getting on my nerves. I’ll at least try to post interesting filler videos and daily quick posts, and I don’t think it’s going to be another Superman theme week. Have a good week, folks. I hope to someday!
Many Showcases ago I broke out the original Gigantor English dub and its successor The New Adventures Of Gigantor. Sadly as of this writing TMS has forced the latter off fan uploads while the original is still protected by the official US distributor’s channel. There is no official post but I’ll update here and in the next available Sunday update during Jake & Leon or a Programming Note if that’s what I end up with. However, TMS has at least softened the blow by beginning to post episodes of the original Japanese version of New Adventures, otherwise known as Shin Tetsujin 28.
Properly translated as New Iron Man 28, this is not a continuation as it was for his American counterpart. Instead, as you’ll see in tonight’s episode, it’s a total reboot of the series, based on the manga Tetsujin 28-gō. In the first episode, Shotoro Kaneda is given his father’s giant robot to go fight another giant robot whose owner wants to, naturally, take over the world. The Tetsujin franchise inspired the “super robots” I grew up with (though sadly we only got a few in our area), but this sticks to the OG robot. No weapons, just fists and a built-in jet engine for flight. It’s subtitled in the video so you don’t even need to use the captions. Enjoy.
“Next I’ll invent a machine that cleans up graffiti.”
Walt Disney’s Gyro Gearloose–Free Comic Book Day
Gemstone Publishing (May, 2008)
COVER ART: Carl Banks
COVER COLORIST: Susan Daigle-Leach
The remake of Ducktales may have gotten the art and story styles of the comics correct but the original was closer to the characterization. So if you’re expecting the cranky ego version of Gyro you’ll be disappointed. He’s just the absent-minded inventor in this comic. However in the comic he’s not a Scrooge employee with his own lab. He just uses a push cart to sell inventions and has some odd ways of coming up with solutions to problems…which actually causes more havoc than a more simple solution. The reprint contains three normal length stories (for this run anyway) and two shorts where Gyro teams with Ducktales original character Launchpad McQuack, so if you wondered what he would have looked like if Carl Banks had created him here’s your chance.
It may be virtual but it still counts.
It may be true that politics being injected into comics is nothing new. People love to bring up Captain America for example. The problem is HOW it’s done. Back in the old days it was usually subtle and tried to be fair to all sides even if the author was clearly picking one over the other. These days none of that is true. Political points of view seem to be the dominant reason any decision is made, from changing characters to creating new characters to how the enemy is depicted to who is hired to work on the thing in the first place. It’s heavy handed but not really properly examined and at times you risk making the hero look bad and end up being raked over the coals by a liberal black man who uses a cartoon character for his avatar. By the way, go watch Just Some Guy’s reviews. They’re hilarious and make a good point.
That point is you CAN discuss politics and make a statement. Superhero stories are at least in part science fiction and sci-fi has always been a good way to discuss the world around us and make commentary while still telling a good story. That doesn’t mean the reader will always agree. According to most science fiction my religion is a lie, and I certainly don’t agree with that. Star Wars doesn’t get into that but both Star Trek and Doctor Who, two of my favorite franchises, have been telling me that for as long as I’ve been watching them. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the stories, just that I disagreed with their sentiment. The question is how you do it right?
In 1970 writer Denny O’Neil decided to make some political commentary in the pages of Green Lantern in a multi-issue arc that saw Hal Jordan and Oliver “Green Arrow” Queen go on a road trip so Hal could experience the “real world” or some junk. It began in issue #76 and it’s a story that features a rather infamous panel of Hal being called out for not helping people of a certain skin color. I always wondered about the context so when I had the chance I looked into the digital posting on comiXology. I think it was a part of a set of comics put up for free after O’Neil’s passing, though I don’t remember if that was the reason for its inclusion. Well, it’s time to actually look at the story to see how well it holds up and to get proper context for that scene.
“Oh, you have that dumb lamp shaped like Black Canary’s leg and you’re going to critique MY décor?”
Green Lantern (co-starring Green Arrow) #76
DC Comics (April, 1970)
“No Evil Shall Escape My Sight”
WRITER: Denny O’Neil
ARTIST: Neil Adams
no colorist credited
LETTERER: John Costanza
EDITOR: Julius Schwartz
And just a heads up. We’re going to be doing a lot more sociopolitical talk here than usual. You may hear perspectives you agree with and ones you don’t. If you can’t read both with an open mind (and that’s is NOT the same as agreeing with it, just understanding where the other person is actually coming from…something people on Twitter refuse to do) you aren’t going to enjoy this. Because yes, some of my views have to come out as well. I’m doing a review and while I may make jokes and discuss how the story is being told I am going to have thoughts here. Getting the discussion going was hopefully what O’Neil was trying to do here. So you have been warned, here’s the review.
This will always be the real Captain Marvel to me.
Scooby-Doo Team-Up #16
DC Comics (July, 2016. as posted to comiXology as part of the vol. 3 trade collection)
“Simply Marvelous”
WRITER: Sholly Fisch
ARTIST: Dario Brizuela
COLORIST: Franco Riesco
LETTERER: Saida Temofonte
EDITOR: Kristy Quinn
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
