Oracle's Tenure with the JLA, Part 2: Introductions

[glprime]

Continuing on from Part 1...

(Sorry for the Spine Smooshing)



So, the NEW League, flush with several NEW recruits, is giving a publicity-driven tour of their NEW moonbase and roster to the press. Get how everything's NEW? Well unfortunately, a NEW Marty Stu villain Prometheus is undercover as prize-winner hero Retro to attack and dismantle the League. He's doing well so far, even managing to take out the BatGod before gut-checking GL and Flash (who he beats by largely bluffing).

Bats wakes up and rallies the group by revealing his ace-in-the-hole, Miss Voice with An Internet Connection.



Aaaand that's it. That's all she does during the entire Prometheus debacle. Yep. Really glad you chose to expose her for that.

Stowaway thief Catwoman (disguised as reporter "Cat" Grant... get it?) grows a brain and just whips him in the nuts, while everyone else stands around listening to his blusterous threats to civilians. Oracle now gets to project her ultra-sweet hologram over the League's round table.



Note: the job is PR management after having their asses handed to them by a Batman-wannabe.

In the next case, the League is dealing with members disappearing alongside a statistically improbable series of disasters and crime sprees.



This would be the first of another JLA theme: J'onn and Oracle mind-meld. Also, notice those totally cool floating flat-screens in the Monitor Room? Never a technology offered to Oracle. Hmmm.



The League's tussling erupts into the White House where they discover the president to be... Julian September?



Seems Julian spent more time studying quantum physics than watching old episodes of The Twilight Zone. Messing with the laws of probability isn't usually a good idea.



I have no idea why Barbara's decided to go brunette for awhile. Apparently Howard Porter thinks she doesn't get enough sun to be a redhead. And must also be trying contact lenses. And collagen injections.

Despite shutting down the machine, Batman is quickly blinked away from the scene, leaving the League without the person who had been working the mystery behind the degenerating state of reality. But Oracle can step in with her years of training and act as his Watson, right? Nope.


Looks like Superman: True Brit could become canon!



So Barbara is understandably stymied by Bruce Wayne having his parents back and not being a total nutjob that crushes all independence and demeans every attempt at self-empowerment uses his incredible focus and drive to fight crime.



Oooh, burn, J'onn. "Men are from Mars..." indeed.



Well, Oracle at least doesn't stand in their way, but how can they understand anything subatomic without- ...oooooh.

So yeah, the Atom pops in, shrinks them all down, and helps them repair seven particles that September had split to power his quantum probability engine or something. This includes the wonderful lampshading of the ridiculousness of Atom's powers: Kyle (an artist and hero with light-based powers) wonders how they can see if they're currently smaller than photons? "You're not, your brain's just compensating with familiar senses. It's best not to think about it." But how could they even have corporeal bodies if they're smaller than-? *SHHH!*

Later, after everything is restored (and Batman wonders why he was transported from D.C. to Gotham unexpectedly), J'onn proves he's not a total dick and goes to apologize to Oracle in person.



It's strange, because Barbara's actually very particular about non-Bat Family intruding on her lair, but then J'onn is the badass wise uncle of superherodom. And he probably brought Choco cookies.



Yes, yes, "his parents are *zzzzzz*..." And apparently Oracle, one of the greatest technophiles in the ENTIRE DCU (behind Ted Kord, of course) "has no interest in being half-robot." Really? 'Cuz being a cyborg is considered fuckin' awesome by about 90% of all geeks.

Anyways, Oracle becomes known to the League as an asset, and will regularly be on call to act as Switchboard Operator and Reference Department. Whoopie.

While Oracle gets to be a total wimp here, it gets even worse next time, when she helps the League goes up against the Ultramarine Corps and the most powerful Amazo android EVAH! (who is actually totally lame and stupidly programmed).



14 pages, 2 from JLA #17 (art by Arnie Jorgensen), 5 from JLA #18 and 7 from JLA #19 (written by Mark Waid)

Comments

[perletwo]

...you're apologizing for spinal smooshing...

...in an Oracle megapost....

*brainn goze all brakey*

normally I'd use my Babs "dangerous librarian" icon for a post like this, but in this case the "my parents are dead" chibi seemed more appropriate.

[glprime]

I wasn't...

It was...

My scanner...

*sigh* Damn meta-textual reading.

[perletwo]

*patpat* Now,now. We've all been there. Some of the Silver Age crack posts, there's just no way not to entendre. :{

[zordboy]

"Anyways, Oracle becomes known to the League as an asset, and will regularly be on call to act as Switchboard Operator and Reference Department. Whoopie."

See, okay. Why the sarcasm? With all due respect to all the paraplegics in the audience, it's not like Oracle can bounce bullets off her eyeballs or go toe-to-toe with Amazo or Darkseid, right?

With everything that goes on on a daily basis on the DCU Earth, keeping tabs of all of that *plus* a league with a very large roster probably *is* a lot harder than it looks. I never minded Oracle's role in the JLA. Again, it's not like she can hit lightspeed on the ground or shove asteroids around with her bare hands.

[aaron_bourque]

There are certain fans who dislike any marginalizing--real or perceived--of their favorite characters. I'm not saying that's what's happening here.

Aaron "The Mad Whitaker" Bourque; then why am i bringing it up? Let that be an exercise for the reader.

[glprime]

She's a brain; they treat her like a phone operator. Barbara Gordon had to be on the team for years before they realized she could be utilized as a strategist and secondary leadership.

Or the writers were just crap at showcasing her talents. Reading how she was used in Birds of Prey, it's insulting to see what Morrison did with her here. At least half the published issues don't even feature her, and most of the time she's just a disembodied voice throwing out plot relevant details (meaning it could be anyone's dialogue).

[jelly_ace]

Well, Morrison's take on the JLA was supposed to be about the big seven (as far as I know). Maybe that's why Oracle was left to the sidelines?

[mad]

Or the writers were just crap at showcasing her talents. Reading how she was used in Birds of Prey, it's insulting to see what Morrison did with her here.

I think I'd have to agree. In Final Crisis, when Barbara realized the anti-life equation was infecting the Internet, her solution was "PULL ALL THE PLUGS!" That was Morrison writing as well.

At least half the published issues don't even feature her, and most of the time she's just a disembodied voice throwing out plot relevant details (meaning it could be anyone's dialogue).

I haven't read the bulk of Morrison's run, though it's possible that as with any big team book, not all members get featured all the time. That said, I do think Babs should be a mainstay of the JLA, and it's a shame she's not used more.

[jlbarnett]

The Morrison JLA didn't really do strategy outside of coming up with stuff in the middle of a fight and either having J'onn pass it on. Or even yelling it out and being so awesome it didn't matter that the villains could hear it too.

This wasn't a superteam like the X-men or Avengers that ran detailed simulations of battles in the hologram filled training rooms.

[arbre_rieur]

"and most of the time she's just a disembodied voice throwing out plot relevant details (meaning it could be anyone's dialogue)."

Eh, it's the Morrison League. I liked it, but distinct characterization was hardly its forte. You could say the same for most of the characters during his run. It was a comic about events, not people.

[zordboy]

"Or the writers were just crap at showcasing her talents"

I have to disagree with you there.

For a start, if she wasn't ultra-hyper-talented, she wouldn't be having anything to do with them in the first place.

And secondly, again, it's about context. You could be the most skilled computer programmer in the Universe, but your talent is going to be useless when a giant starfish drops out of the sky, or whatever. You know, the story isn't suggesting she's talentless or useless, it's just, for JLA-level threats to reality, you're gonna want the physically-strong members taking the lead in the fight, not the programming chick. Who is very smart and powerful in her own field -- and we're not saying otherwise -- but she's not the person to call when you need someone to beat up Despero.

Thirdly, as another poster pointed out -- Morrison's JLA was story-driven, it was all big and loud and melodramatic and The End Of The World every five minutes. Whether it's a good or a bad thing (and I was a *huge* fan), there just isn't a lot of room for indepth character development in the mean-time. If you wanted character-pieces on Barbara Gordon, go read "Birds of Prey" or one of the 20 Bat-books published every week. JLA, at that time, wasn't about that. And I'm not gonna fault the title for that. The title wasn't designed that way, and fair enough.

Having said that, yes, with the mess that "Justice League of America" has become since the reboot, I'm glad Oracle (and a lot of other people) have nothing to do with it anymore.

[arbre_rieur]

Agreed.

[mystery]

Okay, getting this out of the way, I don't think Batman crushes all independence and demeans every attempt at self-empowerment at all:)

But much more interesting to me is the 'whatever happens in this world happens for a reason' story reasoning route. It's not weird Babs relates it to getting shot--we've seen her relate plenty of things to her getting shot but I think it's extra weird to see it as relating it to her shooting and to Bruce's loss. 'Sometimes our only comfort is believing there *IS* no chance'? What? But that's her--or what they've assigned for her as an outlook. (Is no chance for her? Really?) It's not Buce's outlook. He comforted himself another way. Weird. Interesting, though!

[yaseen101]

I don't think Batman crushes all independence and demeans every attempt at self-empowerment at all:)

Yeah I agree. That's not Bruce at all, it's just whoever, wrote him that way in the JLA, didn't get him at all.

[mystery]

Yeah. Not really doing a lot of damage here with his two whole dialogue bubbles--one quite pleasantly introing Oracle--and one 'silent staring at his parent's graves' panel.

[mad]

Yeah, "there is no chance" doesn't really make sense for Batman or Babs, really.

[mad]

I found this interesting, because it's almost a parallel to what I posted about Booster Gold #25 (which took me a while to find just now, thanks tag trolls! *grumbles*).

[thebigapricot]

I'll assume the only reason there isn't a flashback panel of Oracle being shot by the Joker is because the woman playing Oracle in this story looks nothing like her.

[mystery]

Heh. I think it has to be the only answer to why is there not A Panel of Oracle Being Shot.

[sistermagpie]

Wait, if Bruce's parents didn't get killed, wouldn't there be a good chance Oracle wouldn't have become Oracle and Barbara wouldn't have gotten shot? I know she didn't get shot on duty, but the Joker would have had a very different life w/o Batman.

[aaron_bourque]

That's not how the luck thing worked. It was oddly selective, affecting ONLY those in the immediate vicinity . . . at first. Then larger waves spread out. But it kept Oracle in the 7 of the JLA.

[jlbarnett]

the whole butterfly affect wasn't really happening throughout this.

[thanekos]

One bad day is one bad day.

[jarodrussell]

'Cuz being a cyborg is considered fuckin' awesome by about 90% of all geeks.

You're adorable.

[yaseen101]

I believe we had a discussion once about how awesome it is to be in a wheel chair, didn't we, jarodrussell?