Small Stuff/Big Stuff: INVASION #1, JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #22, WONDER WOMAN #25 (JLI 26)

[tcampbell1000]

Plotted by Keith Giffen, Invasion would be the last big crossover to affect the JLI for a few years, almost until the end of the Giffen-DeMatteis era. It’s a classic war story with a twist: many different factions and races putting aside their differences and banding together against a dangerous common enemy. The twist is that the enemy is Earth.

It all begins when humans do better than expected in an alien-juried version of Squid Game. Script by Bill Mantlo, art by Todd McFarlane--and I suspect McFarlane added a few of the captions; they feel a lot like his style.









This 14% result is indeed alarming data for anyone who’s not a human. Various alien races who’ve had dealings with super-Earthers before don’t need a lot of convincing to squelch Earth before it can develop a billion MORE super-beings.

The alien allies start combining their strengths with interesting results. In "Little Murders"--the title is another film reference-- Giffen and DeMatteis come up with one of the most creative.

A group of bloodthirsty Khund warriors have reduced their size, using Psion tech derived from Imskian biology. This allows them to send a whole squad through the JLI teleporters at once, invading the JLI headquarters. They get the drop on Booster Gold, and the other Leaguers are fighting in Australia, so stopping this home invasion is up to Oberon. Meaning it’s short vs. shorter.







A recovered Booster moans in embarrassment at how fast he was taken out, then asks Oberon if he was afraid.



“What’s a ‘Yellow Pages’?”

Enough with this “small” stuff, time to go big. This page starts setting up the Australian theater of conflict and is Wonder Woman’s meatiest interaction with the League.



Another version of the same page--with slightly different details beyond the art--appears in Wonder Woman v2 #25. There are several other parts of both issues that, like this one, are parallel but not quite identical.



The credits for WW #25 versus JLI #22 suggest that in those instances, Giffen and DeMatteis supplied the first version of the script.



Some later alterations might’ve been made necessary in production. Fire’s jealous rant in the WW page feels truer to her character (as Giffen and DeMatteis wrote her) than Ice wrinkling her nose while Fire makes excuses for her in the JLI page. But the former version just wouldn’t have fit around the art Maguire ended up putting out.

On the other hand, Perez could write funny moments of cattiness or jealousy in WW now and again…



So who’s to say? Maybe he did change it. It’s less likely but not impossible.

Note that Guy is not impressed with Diana in either version above. I could just say, “Guy prefers his women with less self-esteem,” but in WW #25, we learn he’s got more defensible concerns about going to war alongside a peacenik superhero. Diana, Guy, and Red focus on rescuing Etta and the intelligence she’s gathered. But their op isn't as clean as Diana hoped to make it.





You wouldn’t expect this version of Guy to be one side of a “grey-and-gray morality” conflict, especially opposite Diana, but here we are. The rest of the League is blunting the invasion force elsewhere.






Once that’s done, we get one more set of parallel interactions.




In the WW version, Diana seems to be grappling with J’Onn’s conclusion like it’s a new concept for her, whereas in the JLI version, she seems to know just what he means. I’m not sure which feels more “right.” Even Paradise Islanders have taken more pleasure in violence than they should, now and then. But this incarnation of Diana still had more to learn about Man’s World…and even about her fellow Amazons.

Perez stopped drawing Wonder Woman with #24. One wishes he could’ve held on just a bit longer: Chris Marrinan seems competent but a bit overwhelmed in his debut as WW penciller. Note the frames where J’Onn’s dialogue has to be put in caption form, and the way Beetle’s last-page dialogue all goes in one frame, despite calling for at least two different facial expressions. Whereas seeing Perez handle the JLI at its peak would’ve been frikkin’ sweet. At least he gave us this cover.



Friday: Kevin Maguire draws his best Guy Gardner faces ever (high bar!), and the League confronts the enemies that most reflect its own nature.

Comments

[iamrman]

I'm with you on Perez doing more art on his Wonder Woman run. Perez only writing is better than not having him at all, I suppose.

[blues32]

Chubby?! This is one of the thinnest versions of Eatta I have ever seen.

[skjam]

Snapper and the other survivors of that test would go on to have a short-lived team book.

[beyondthefringe]

A one-shot if I recall correctly, and scant few appearances otherwise. I wonder what they’re up to these days…

Also hey, Invasion! Is where DC introduced the idea of the metagene, a permanent explanation for how superhumans manifest in the DCU. Fun times.

(Invasion! Had a surprising number of long-term ramifications when you think about it. A few lasting deaths, team changes, new teams, power changes, new characters…)

[icon_uk]

Did it have that many lasting deaths?

The only one I can think of was Scott Fischer from the Doom Patrol, who was already dealing with both leukemia when the gene bomb hit, and Grant Morrison wanting to change the line up of the book as they took it over. They also used the gene bomb to explain Crazy Jane's powers, as well as some of the Brotherhood of Dada IIRC.

Yes, The Blasters only got a one shot, and Snapper showed up ater having lost his powers when he had his hands cut off (Because 90's)

The rest of The Blasters I think are still out there somewhere.

[beyondthefringe]

Scott Fischer and Celsius from the Doom Patrol died, and Lodestone was put into a coma and later evolved during Morrison’s run.
A bunch of the Omega Men were wiped out in the early moments, but no one cared much.
Wally West’s dad blew up. At least for a while.
I mean hey, very few deaths last forever in comics, especially when you’re as fond of rebooting as DC.

The gene bomb became a convenient excuse to introduce new superhumans for ages… and of course it was responsible for altering Fire’s powers.

[tcampbell1000]

And Max's!

[mazway_75]

I thought I read Perez hadn't read JLI so agreed to let Diana in thinking classic Justice League. It was only then he realized how comedic it was and Diana wouldn't fit in (which is why her JLE run was nothing).

[tcampbell1000]

I've seen several versions of that story, but I think it's got to be a simplification at best. Like, there's no way Perez could have written this Wonder Woman issue without having read up on the JLI characters, and it's hard to read this issue and the next and NOT think he was on board with Diana as a member of this League when he wrote them.

Plus, JLI was one of the company's top titles. Maybe he didn't read it in detail before the talks began about bringing Diana in, but he couldn't have been totally unaware of its character. I'll probably get further into my own crackpot theories on this matter when we get over to JLE.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Love these posts, I just wish the alternating days schedule didn't see them land on new comic book day...

I've had this thought before about the cover, but looking at the interiors...

[lego_joker]

Woooooooow the "We wanted to tell a Yellow Peril story but can't get away with using actual Asians anymore" vibe is strong with this one. (And I thought some of Classic F4's Mole Man stories were bad...)

On a lighter note, I think at that stage in Perez's run (the one panel you did of Vanessa) Len Wein was still the one doing the actual scripting? Feels a bit more his style.

In any case, even if Perez was willing to loan Diana out to the JLI, I have the feeling Karen Berger would've never allowed it longterm. It would've been like having Ambush Bug join Swamp Thing's supporting cast.

Re: I've had this thought before about the cover, but looking at the interiors...

[tcampbell1000]

I've written the copy for the next few updates of this retrospective already, and my notes for INVASION #3 more or less share your conclusion about the Yellow Peril thing. I'm usually prepared to accept fantasy races or alien races as their own thing: I don't think we need to throw leprechauns on the garbage pile as long as we distinguish them from actual Irish people, for instance. But sometimes it's a little too hard to ignore the inspirations, and this time it was really hard, once you saw it.

The Perez panel is Perez! He took over writing with #17 and that's from #22. I'm sure he channeled Len and Marv when he needed some humor, though.

I suspect you're right that it was Karen Berger who nixed Diana's involvement in the League, if only because her departure is so abrupt that it seems more the work of editorial fiat than a writer's decision. It could have also been Andy Helfer's call after taking a few meetings with Berger, staring into the mirror, and saying, "This just isn't going to work out, is it?"

[zylly]

Dmitri’s fawning over Wonder Woman is weird, since he’s happily married.