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Post by badwolf on Oct 29, 2019 9:37:45 GMT -5
JLA #171 “The Murderer Among Us: Crisis Above Earth One!” (October 1979)My Two Cents: A JLA/JSA reunion that involves neither some third team, nor a contrived “splitting up into squads” story! Glory be! Conway’s JLA is A-OK with me. Ha, now that you mention it, the next couple do have that!
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Post by rberman on Oct 29, 2019 9:56:33 GMT -5
JLA #171 “The Murderer Among Us: Crisis Above Earth One!” (October 1979)My Two Cents: A JLA/JSA reunion that involves neither some third team, nor a contrived “splitting up into squads” story! Glory be! Conway’s JLA is A-OK with me. Ha, now that you mention it, the next couple do have that! Those two go together. The more heroes you assemble, the more necessary it becomes to split them up into manageable groups.
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Post by codystarbuck on Oct 29, 2019 23:27:30 GMT -5
Loved these two issues as much as the last team-up. Nice mystery, and death was a rare thing, back then, though it is hard to be impactful when Mr Terrific had been out of the limelight for so long. They didn't really even use him in the All-Star revival. Really, I don't think anyone got the point of him until he fell into James Robinson's hands.
Zatanna getting taken off the board was one of the reasons I thought her joining the team didn't really work. More often than not, she is neutralized, so she can't work magic and save the day. She ends up mostly being there to have another female and show off her boob window.
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Post by zaku on Oct 30, 2019 1:34:30 GMT -5
The two teams chat for several pages. Batman-1 is bummed to hear of the death of Batman-2. Kinda makes you think! While they often showed us heroes interact with their doubles, I believe the two Batman didn't even talk each other. Why he should feel something particular? It's like a close parents of mines who I have never met dies. Yes, I could feel vaguely sorry, but nothing else.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Oct 30, 2019 2:08:01 GMT -5
The two teams chat for several pages. Batman-1 is bummed to hear of the death of Batman-2. Kinda makes you think! While they often showed us heroes interact with their doubles, I believe the two Batman didn't even talk each other. Why he should feel something particular? It's like a close parents of mines who I have never met dies. Yes, I could feel vaguely sorry, but nothing else. No, I'll vouch for Batman here. I was really sad when my alternate universe duplicate got killed by the Silver Lamprey.
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Post by rberman on Oct 30, 2019 6:46:17 GMT -5
The two teams chat for several pages. Batman-1 is bummed to hear of the death of Batman-2. Kinda makes you think! While they often showed us heroes interact with their doubles, I believe the two Batman didn't even talk each other. Why he should feel something particular? It's like a close parents of mines who I have never met dies. Yes, I could feel vaguely sorry, but nothing else. In context, Batman-1 is particularly thinking about "the road not taken" of family life, since Huntress is right there with him, reminding him of paths he rejected.
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Post by rberman on Oct 30, 2019 6:50:06 GMT -5
JLA #172 “I Accuse…” (November 1979)Creative Team: Written by Gerry Conway. Art by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin. The Story: After a full seven pages recapping the 17 pages of the previous issue, the JLA and JSA begin arguing about which of them is the culprit. They also surround the satellite with a shield to prevent the culprit from escaping. As we'll see, they fail to deactivate the teleport tube. Huntress sustains severe burns (mentioned but not shown, because Comics Code) while trying to analyze debris from the satellite hull explosion. Batman-1 figures out that Flash-2 has been possessed by Mister Terrific’s foe the Spirit King. The possessed Flash-2 high-tails it for the teleport tube and flees to Earth. My Two Cents: It was a pretty good whodunit, with Power Girl even getting framed by fingerprints in the wreckage. We’re never told how Flash-2 would have faked those, though. Worse than that, the “possessed Flash” cliffhanger gets totally dropped. The next issue of JLA starts a new story without mentioning this issue at all. At this time, the JSA’s adventures were the responsibility of Paul Levitz, and Adventure Comics #465 (November 1979) has Flash-2 acting normal. #466 has no explanation of how the Spirit King was exorcised from Flash-2. It does contain a single panel acknowledging the death of Mister Terrific; I suspect that dialogue was a late and incidental addition since it has no impact whatever on the story being told in this issue. Clearly Levitz and Conway were not on the same page. The heroes have a “Scooby Doo” moment of laughter over being stuck on the satellite which is triply inappropriate since (1) they’re not stuck; they could leave by the teleport tube, same as Flash-2 did; (2) Flash-2 is still possessed by a super-villain; and (3) they’re all looking right at the corpse of their fallen friend Mister Terrific as they guffaw.
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Post by codystarbuck on Oct 30, 2019 11:10:55 GMT -5
That's Mr Terrific, not Mister Miracle.
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Post by badwolf on Oct 30, 2019 11:12:41 GMT -5
Too bad it wasn't Mr. Not-so-Great.
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Post by codystarbuck on Oct 30, 2019 11:13:48 GMT -5
I'm willing to bet Levitz had no idea about Terrific being killed and had to have that dialogue pasted in at the last minute. As for Conway, it doesn't surprise me; he wasn't big on continuity over the issues, especially the JLA/JSA crossovers. He wasn't alone in that, as DC never seemed to care. bring back villains, yes; but not carrying storylines past their intended issues. Heck, Star-Tsar and the Privateer probably got the most mileage.
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Post by rberman on Oct 30, 2019 11:56:40 GMT -5
That's Mr Terrific, not Mister Miracle. Right you are! Correction made. I'm willing to bet Levitz had no idea about Terrific being killed and had to have that dialogue pasted in at the last minute. As for Conway, it doesn't surprise me; he wasn't big on continuity over the issues, especially the JLA/JSA crossovers. He wasn't alone in that, as DC never seemed to care. bring back villains, yes; but not carrying storylines past their intended issues. Heck, Star-Tsar and the Privateer probably got the most mileage. From all evidence, Levitz had no knowledge or consent. I'm surprised Conway's editor let him kill a JSA member without consulting the JSA editorial staff. That would be sort of like Sue Storm dying during an FF crossover into The Avengers, and all that happens in the Fantastic Four book is a word balloon "Too bad about Sue! Now let's go have an adventure..." Not that Mister Terrific was integral to JSA. Looking back over this JLA issue, it seems that Flash-2 didn't take the teleport tube to Earth-1. He took the teleport device to Earth-2, and the JSA followed him there. That's why the JLA are standing around (without the JSA) in the last panel, realizing that they have to dismantle the force field they erected around the station, before they can return to Earth-1. I still doubt they would have been laughing about it so soon after Mister Terrific's death at the hands of a still-possessed Flash-2, though.
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Post by zaku on Oct 30, 2019 12:21:57 GMT -5
While they often showed us heroes interact with their doubles, I believe the two Batman didn't even talk each other. Why he should feel something particular? It's like a close parents of mines who I have never met dies. Yes, I could feel vaguely sorry, but nothing else. In context, Batman-1 is particularly thinking about "the road not taken" of family life, since Huntress is right there with him, reminding him of paths he rejected. I'm not an expert on Batman-2's history, but I don't think he had a life to be envious of. He caused the death of his wife? He tried to arrest all the JSA? He died in a stupid manner in the arms of her daughter? And in any case he was dying of cancer after a life of pipe-smoking?
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Post by rberman on Oct 30, 2019 12:37:59 GMT -5
In context, Batman-1 is particularly thinking about "the road not taken" of family life, since Huntress is right there with him, reminding him of paths he rejected. I'm not an expert on Batman-2's history, but I don't think he had a life to be envious of. He caused the death of his wife? He tried to arrest all the JSA? He died in a stupid manner in the arms of her daughter? And in any case he was dying of cancer after a life of pipe-smoking? Batman-1 alludes to those substantial differences between him and Batman-2. But according to the narrative caption, his primary thought is about Huntress, "A woman who could have been his daughter."
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Post by zaku on Oct 30, 2019 13:07:39 GMT -5
I'm not an expert on Batman-2's history, but I don't think he had a life to be envious of. He caused the death of his wife? He tried to arrest all the JSA? He died in a stupid manner in the arms of her daughter? And in any case he was dying of cancer after a life of pipe-smoking? Batman-1 alludes to those substantial differences between him and Batman-2. But according to the narrative caption, his primary thought is about Huntress, "A woman who could have been his daughter." From the point of view of "the road not taken" I don't think they did a lot of interesting Earth1-2 stories. The only two ones I found quite stimulating are Brave And Bold #182 and DC Comics Presents Annual #1. The rest of them were just variation of the "Hi Doppelganger from another Earth! Let's put aside any existential question and beat the crap out of our respective enemies!" theme.
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Post by rberman on Oct 30, 2019 13:46:39 GMT -5
Batman-1 alludes to those substantial differences between him and Batman-2. But according to the narrative caption, his primary thought is about Huntress, "A woman who could have been his daughter." From the point of view of "the road not taken" I don't think they did a lot of interesting Earth1-2 stories. The only two ones I found quite stimulating are Brave And Bold #182 and DC Comics Presents Annual #1. The rest of them were just variation of the "Hi Doppelganger from another Earth! Let's put aside any existential question and beat the crap out of our respective enemies!" theme. Seems like fertile ground for a story. The only one that comes to mind immediately is Morrison's Animal Man in which the pre-Crisis Buddy Baker (no kids) and the post-Crisis Buddy Baker (who has a kid) compare notes. I'll see whether I can recall others.
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