Posts Tagged ‘Justice League’
Justice League (1986) 1
Celebrate those closest to you with Best Friends Day.
Take time to cherish the people who are there for the best of times and the worst of times. The people – and, maybe pets – who you can count on no matter what. This is the day to reward that loyalty, remember the smiles and revel in the tears.
Representing the day are Ted Kord and Michael Carter, maybe better known as Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. The odd couple first met in Justice League (1986) issue one.
In the aftermath of Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC’s editors, writers and artists worked to piece the universe back together. Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis teamed for concept and dialog chores. Kevin Maguire was the perfect choice for penciler and the quirky take on the tried and true super hero team took off.
Unlike so many comic books, the title gained speed as issue after issue rolled onto the comic book racks. Giffen and DeMatteis’s unique take added some much-needed humor to the DCU and served as a behind-the-scenes book of super heroing.
Justice League (1986) 1
Two of the main jokesters, whether intentional on their part or not, proved to be Kord and Carter. Ted was a Charlton Comics re-tred updated for the times. Carter was 25th-century reject who stepped back in time to earn a reputation as a hero.
Together they became known as the “Blue and Gold” team. While serving their country and world, their main objective was to discover how to get rich quick. Their schemes escalated to the point where they “appropriated” League funds and purchased an island getaway.
Booster and Beetle would later join the short-lived Extreme Justice off-shoot of the Justice League, but eventually part ways.
They were rejoined in the 2003 Formerly Known as the Justice League reunion of Justice League International. That was followed up a year later with the six-issue story arc in JLA: Classified issues four through nine.
Both made separate guest appearances in the years that followed.
Beetle would be murdered by former employer, Maxwell Lord, in the 80-page special Countdown to Infinite Crisis.
Booster earned his own title following DC’s One Year Later. In it, he would become a time master with Rip Hunter. His heroics went – mostly – unnoticed during the venture.
One event Booster attempted time and again to mend was the untimely death of his dear friend, Beetle. Over and over he learned the hard, hard lesson some events are just meant to be and his friend could not be saved.
Giffen and DeMatteis’s five years, and subsequent returns, with their Justice League helped true comic book fans enjoy the medium as speculators began to infiltrate the hobby. Like Booster and Beetle, investors hoped to get-rich-quick by purchasing multiple issues of certain issues nearly sinking the industry.
These comic books would be a fine way to share Best Friends Day, by turning someone close to you on to these gems of books. They are as good today as they were in the waning 1980s and early 1990s.
Other ways to celebrate the day include pretty much any form of sharing and just spending quality time with that special someone or someones.
“One punch!”
“One punch!”
Quote the two-word sentence to any Justice League fan and it instantly brings a smile.
“One punch!,” was Blue Beetles’ explanation, exhortation and exhalation for Guy Gardner’s come upence in Justice League (1987) five.
Further, it was continued reason why the book was gaining traction in the comic book community with each publication.
Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, with artist Kevin Maguire, were responsible for recreating one of DC Comics cornerstones, the Justice League, following the Crisis on Infinite Earths. However, the rest of the DC Universe was starting over, too.
This left the team hamstrung with a limited roster of heroes to choose from. John Byrne was reimagining Superman. George Perez was overseeing Wonder Woman.
Batman was the last of the original trinity and Bat-family editor Denny O’Neil took pity on the new league allowing the Dark Knight to be used in the book.
Other team members included Black Canary, Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel, Doctor Fate, Doctor Light, Guy Gardner, Martian Manhunter and Mister Miracle and camp (wife, Big Barda and manager, Oberon).
The roster would change over time, growing to flesh out various leagues once it reached international status, but Giffen and DeMatteis kept the group grounded while giving the readers a behind-the-scenes look at the team.
The writing duo focused as much on the in-house fighting as they did with the villains who cropped up.
Which, led to issue five’s fisticuffs.
Green Lantern Guy Gardner proved to be grating enough to the other members that by the time he challenged Batman for leadership, they were all too happy to see him splayed on the floor after, “one punch.”
The punch would indirectly lead to today’s non-holiday focus.
Picking himself up, Guy finds his ring where Beetle had thrown it earlier, which leads to him to bang his head causing a personality change that would last till issue 18.
Though Giffen and DeMatteis were responsible for many laughs over the course of their Justice League run, there’s nothing funny about National Brain Injury Awareness Day.
Dating back as far as ancient Mesopotamia, head injuries have been recognized as having side effects such as seizures, paralysis, loss of sight, speech and hearing. By the Middle Ages the term concussion was in use.
Yet, it wasn’t until post World War I brain injuries were recognized as health problems.
Over time treatment and management have improved. Standardized guidelines to treat brain injuries have been established, multiple drugs have come into use and survival rates have improved greatly.
The 1990s were dubbed the Decade of the Brain following the amount of study devoted to the organ.
This year’s National Brain Injury Conference and Awareness Day will be held March 3-5 in Washington, D.C.
It’s too late to really make plans to attend, but some study can be done, prevention prepared and, as always, use the excuse to relive a wonderfully bright – though brief – period in the DCU.