JLElite: Repercussions of Murder

[espanolbot]

After the assassination of the genocidial President Bhat in the previous issue (along with two of his staff, though no one seems to care about them), Naif is having to explain to various political sorts why the JLElite appear to have killed people after he promised they wouldn't.



Three interesting things there: 1. the guy on the phone appears to be GW Bush, when he actually lost the 2000 election to Lex Luthor and thus was never president in the DCU. 2. Naif is so stressed that he's smoking three cigarettes at once. and 3. Note Vera's eyes, they appear as square and rectangles several times, so when they don't it could be argued not to be an artistic error.

Vera asks Manitou Raven to prepare a spell to root out the murderer on the team, but the fact that Raven is giving Vera and the team more attention than her doesn't help the increasing resentment she's started to feel for her husband.


Vera gathers the team on a rooftop, and states that if whoever is responsible steps forward, then they'll be given both a day's head start and the promise that the team would be the ones who catch them. So they'll be better treated than if they were caught by any of the other government agencies or superteams.

No one steps forward.

Then...




Wow, nice to see you add a semi-racist comment in there Ollie. *rolleyes*


And thus begins Ollie's term of boinking a teammate's wife.

Comments

[sailorlibra]

I like Ollie. I know he can be an ass sometimes, but I still like him. He's just... fun, I guess.

[espanolbot]

I liked him in JLU and when he was being written by Kevin Smith, other than that he's occasionally an asshat.

But I guess not all superheroes can be Batman, Wonder Woman or Superman in terms of personality, so having one selfish ass of a superhero doesn't hurt.

I PROTEST, SIR!

[stig]

A humorous, outspoken Britishwoman who does not pronounce the word as either the in-decent-company 'anus' or the full-on-blood-and-sputum 'arse' with a capital 'arrr'?

Joseph Kelly, I challenge you to pistols at (Manitou) Dawn! You may name your weapon!

Re: I PROTEST, SIR!

[espanolbot]

According to Ollie she only goes "Queen and Country" when she's stressed. So presumably the rest of the time she tones down her accent, whatever that might be.

*scratches head* Is she from Manchester? But that seems to be her brother's actual name, so the pair might not actually be from that way.

Hm, they do get a lot of scenes in London, but the textile mills (anachronistic ones that use child labour and Victorian equipment) in her flashbacks imply a Northern place I guess...

I don't know.

Re: I PROTEST, SIR!

[q99]

Huh, you just made me realize for the first time that Vera and Manchester may be quite old.

Re: I PROTEST, SIR!

[espanolbot]

Well Manchester's dad (not necessarily Vera's) was killed during World War Two, so the fat have to be in their fifties/sixties at the very least, even at the time they were in comics regularly.

Not I guess Manchester just looks young for his age, while with Vera it's implied that it isn't just her arms that are robotic (her eyes are implied to be by the angular pupils, she refers to having a metal bum and is able to (from a sitting position) kick someone out of a chair hard enough to lift them several feet into the air while also smashing the chair they were sitting on), so chances are she just looks younger than she is due to her robotical bits.

Re: I PROTEST, SIR!

[q99]

A later issue shows the center of her tech stuff is implanted in her chest.

Re: I PROTEST, SIR!

[espanolbot]

Ah, there you go then. :)

Re: I PROTEST, SIR!

[q99]

Yea. Her arms get the most attention because they're the only part of her that's entirely tech, but her control thingy is in her chest and there's tech throughout her body.

Re: I PROTEST, SIR!

[jaybee3]

The whole thing with Dawn and Ollie was a whole WTF? moment for me. Especially since at this point in time IIRC he was trying to get Dinah to believe he'd changed (he then also had a one-night stand with Joanna Pierce when Dinah took him back). And when Dawn was first introduced she was probably as attached to Manitou Chief as a wife could be...and then this. Of course later after Manitou dies and Dawn takes over his role (and knows he knew what happened with her and Ollie and never said anything) and she wallows in guilt while Ollie just shrugs it off with a few "oops" lines (in Johns' "Crisis of Conscience" JLA arc I believe) and moves on.

[taggerung301]

do you think that they'll ever bring Vera and Naif back or restart JLElite? this is a damn good series

[aaron_bourque]

this is a damn good series

Enh. Not really.

[taggerung301]

well, I enjoyed it

[q99]

I think it'd be cool if they did. Probably not restart the Elite, but Vera at least.

[taggerung301]

Yeah, that would be nice
If she does come back, I hope Naif shows up too

[jarodrussell]

I think it being so great precludes it from being something DC would want to work on. They tend to produce only crap.

[valtyr]

So he's willing to let the Martian in with urethral mind probes but not let Diana use her lariat? Wacky.

Also, LOL at Batman grabbing the lariat, using it, and then going all I DON'T TRUST MAGIC.

And I like pretty much all this art but Diana.

[psychopathicus_rex]

I got the impression that he was actually kind of planting the idea in everyone's minds that using the lariat might be effective. And really, I don't think Bats trusts ANY conclusion that hasn't been come to using his personal talents and equipment. Everything else is suspect.

[wetstereorebel]

Yeah, I love Mahnke's stuff, but his Wonder Woman looks...off.

[cmdr_zoom]

I will forever remember the big panel he drew of her reacting to being asked if she was a whore, with two of her teammates showing identical "ohhhhh shit" expressions at her shoulders.

[espanolbot]

I think she looks okay, what's wrong with her?

[wetstereorebel]

I really can't put my finger on it. It's almost like her facial proportions are off, but I think there's more to it than that. Perhaps someone more eloquent than myself would like to read my mind and help out here?

Anyone?

[blake_reitz]

Did Ollie's mustache spontaneously curl in the last panel?

[taggerung301]

I think so
hadn't noticed it until you pointed it out
that's actually pretty funny

[freezer]

So... Bats is unwilling to trust in Diana's Golden Lasso - which he has seen work time and time again - because it's "magic", but he's willing to trust Sodium Penthalate? Fucking "Truth Serum."

Someone needs to be beaten for writing that stupidity.

[q99]

To spoil a bit of what happens later, Vera *was* cheating the lasso, so Batman wasn't entirely wrong :)

[freezer]

Oh I figured she pulled somethign (from the way the art kept emphasizing her obviously artificial arm). My thing in this case is less Bats' ridiculous "No such thing as magic" kick than the fact that he's offering up the notoriously unreliable Sodium Penethol.

Any law enforcement agent or doctor who saw that would've had a hard time not laughing in his face..

(Not sure how widespread the knowledge that Truth Serum is far from a sure thing is, so I don't know if that counts as Dan Browned or Did Not Do The Research)

[warpedhand]

I'm pretty sure that Batman has been aware of this fact in the past, and attempted to create his own, so this may just be a case of both.

[jarodrussell]

Vera is so cool, it hurts.

[warpedhand]

Yes, because Batman wouldn't notice a thing like her arms are fake.

[espanolbot]

Quite a lot of her is. The question Batman faced was what parts of her arms are real?