The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 833: Justice League of America #142, May 1977

(A slight deviation - I was away for a couple of days, so here's a fill-in post. I think WW is a member of the JLA here, but she doesn't do much in this issue. Back to reading her tomorrow.)

Every now and again in this project, I hit a point where I feel like I have to write about every comic, graphic novel, television series, or magazine that I consume that even remotely has anything to do with comics. When I realize this, I'll often traipse down to the collection and find something completely off the beaten track (whichever track that might be at the time) to read and simply enjoy for what it is.

I really, really tried that with this issue of Justice League, but it was just too interesting not to write about.

The origin of The Construct:

So, basically, Elongated Man, Atom, and Aquaman are fighting the Internet. In 1977. You have to hand it to Steve Englehart - he's pulled off a bit of a prescient moment here. Though hopefully not too prescient.

It's nice to see a Justice League story that revolves around some of the less-famous characters, though Atom's whinging was thoroughly obnoxious in this issue, and not at all in keeping with the characterizations of him I've previously read or seen. Ray Palmer doesn't act like much of a scientist in this issue, claiming that his power of shrinking is useless. But, like with Ant-Man, the compaction of so much mass into so small a container allows him the force of a bullet in certain instances, and at a sub-atomic scale, he's probably on par with Superman. One of my favourite Atom stories is from a fill-in issue of JLA, in which he sits like an elder statesman on his little tiny chair and solves problems using his head, not his fists. Perhaps what we're seeing in this issue is the moment where Palmer realizes that this power is useful, but it's really his brain that is the key to his heroism. It's something that the Brandon Routh version of the character on Legends of Tomorrow is in the process of learning. Hopefully the showrunners will give him the opportunity to do so.

The spirit of Earth versus the spirit of the Internet. Topical, for a 40-year old comic.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 739: DC Special Series #1, 1977

With a leisurely Sunday morning to spend in front of the fire, an 80-page comic seemed just the thing. When I checked the GCD listing, only the Flash story from this particular comic has been reprinted - at least, in English. I'm not surprised. The comic is rife with problems. The Flash story is a clever one, and actually read much like an episode of the TV series might have - further proof that the television show is drawing very much on this late Silver age aesthetic. I'd also say it was the best of the bunch in here. The Aquaman story is a good one, and it's interesting that these one-off tales are all very firmly rooted in their contemporary continuities. Aquaman's story takes place as he returns from battle with Black Manta, and is dealing with the death of his son. You'd think something like this would have been reprinted somewhere, but I wonder if it's because of the really terrible depiction of a Middle Eastern character that it wasn't. In fact, there's quite a lot of really terrible racism in this comic. Aquaman's nemesis du jour decides he's going to use his newly-acquired powers to create a new Persian empire, which obviously means he's evil and must be stopped. There's a little aside at the beginning of the story talking about the wealth disparity in the Middle Eastern city that the villain hails from, ostensibly to make America look better? It doesn't work, especially from a current standpoint. And then we come to the Batman story, which actually seen the Dark Knight using racial slurs against the henchmen he's fighting. It was extremely off-putting to hear these things coming from the mouth of the Batman.

That aside, the Green Lantern story was nice in that the main character never really knew what was going on, and never does. I read an issue of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up a couple of years ago in which something similar happens. I quite like this kind of story - superheroes are more than human, yes, but that doesn't gift them with omniscience, so leaving them confused as to what just happened in their crazy lives every now and again makes me happy.

But not happy enough to ignore the horrendous racism of the comic. *sigh*

To be continued.