The Two Stages of Grief: JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #40, 42 (JLI 57)

[tcampbell1000]

We last left the JLA in the aftermath of the Despero battle. A few hundred people were dead, and one of them was, apparently, Mister Miracle. Giffen, DeMatteis, Hughes.

If you’ve been keeping track, you know that the “Mister Miracle” on Earth at this point was a robot…



Just one of several human-impersonating clankers running around the JLI’s adventures around this point.



(When Giffen got a concept he liked, sometimes he did a few variations before moving on. A year before this, it was mind-control stories.)

However, not all readers were keeping up with the specials and spinoffs: I wasn’t, at the time. So we thought Scott was really gone, and the rest of issue #40 does nothing to contradict us. Instead, it hits us with emotional scene after emotional scene of the Leaguers grieving.





While I'm sorry nobody thought to make Jack Kirby a rabbi here, Pastor Kirby does deliver the kind of speech that makes me miss church a little.



Interesting how Superman, GL, and Aquaman are seen talking here; the next time they get together in JLI pages, it’ll be more or less to take over the two teams.

I think the other brunet taking Barda away at the end is meant to be Ed Ferbel, Barda’s neighbor from the Mister Miracle series. If so, he’s off-model. Here’s how that comic addressed Barda’s attendance of the funeral. She’d been framed and imprisoned for an animal-rights protest gone sideways:




You wouldn't think Barda and Blue Beetle would have much in common, but...



The shame of this moment will cling to Booster for a while longer. Superman brings his concerns to Batman, who is barely more civil than Beetle and Barda were…



“…are strangers,” Batman finishes. “You don’t know me. You never will.”

But while grief can drive people apart, it can also bring people together.



Guy is still too macho to admit he might be upset about this situation, but Ice can read between the lines. It comforts her that he’s trying to comfort her. It also comforts her that he’s seeking comfort in her. From him, this is no small gesture. The door that’s been closed between them is, after this, at least ajar.

Meanwhile, Max’s final encounter with Barda has left him with almost Spider-Man levels of self-blame. Remember when Spidey was all, “New rule: when I’m around, no one dies”?



(The JLE was “missing” due to their first battle with the Extremists, which would soon give Max even more to worry about. This funeral might explain why, in that storyline, Max hesitates to send in every Leaguer against the Extremists.)



At first I was a little unsure about Max calling the Justice League his “friends.” It’s clear J’Onn is his friend, but do the others consider him a friend or just a boss? However, a couple of later stories JLQ #8, JLA Annual #5) would indicate Fire and Ice saw him in friendly terms, at least.



JLA #41 is a fill-in issue we’ve covered elsewhere, but #42 picks up where #40 left off. Giffen, DeMatteis, Mike McKone. J’Onn invites Cynthia into the League, but she turns him down, saying she’s taking some time to process her loss. She does not mention she’s joining a rival superteam founded by a bitter ex-Leaguer. You know how it is with family: sometimes you avoid the awkward conversations.



As in the last recruitment issue, the Leaguers fan out to ask others to join. Blue Beetle and Fire are off to recruit El Diablo. Not the Suicide Squad guy from later, not the Old West hero from earlier...



...but Rafael Sandoval, the city councilman turned vigilante. Don’t worry if you’ve forgotten him: everyone else has too, and not in a performative way like his friends here.



Blue Beetle asks an excellent question: “If Max is so big on boosting the League’s power, how come he sent us here to recruit a guy with NO powers?” You could apply the same question to Max’s own recruit, the Huntress. I mean, the real answer is that El Diablo had a series to cross-promote with JLA…



But it’s still weird for Max to chase after him. Or for Max to chase other, barely superpowered heroes like Cynthia, Hawk, and Dove.




I don’t think any of these guys qualify as “Despero-proof.” Blue Beetle could defeat all of them if they came at him one at a time. But oh, look, Hawk and Dove had a series to promote too.



I do have to believe Max is sincere in his desire to strengthen the League (I will never not be mad about this retcon)…



…but in practice, he seems to flag down whoever catches his attention, regardless of their power set. Maybe he thinks if the cool kids join the table, the heavy hitters will follow?

Portuguese speakers often know Spanish too in America, so it isn’t long before Fire and El Diablo are conversing in his native tongue.



Guy Gardner is sent after the one hero whose series could use cross-promo and who could raise the League’s power quotient: Starman. Starman declines for the usual reasons: “my personal life’s a mess.” Quelle surprise, Guy doesn’t take rejection with grace.



The League does get one of its old members back, though. For about five minutes.



This isn’t the most quickly reversed funeral in superhero comics…(Dark Knight Returns’ is pretty hard to beat, by that metric…



But #40 might be the most quickly reversed “funeral issue,” in the sense that it made Scott look dead dead dead, even if Mister Miracle readers knew he was alive in space. Two issues later, nvm. Even the macabre “funeral issue” in “Kraven’s Last Hunt” stuck for longer than that.



Yes, Huntress’s continued presence does raise certain questions; we’ll address those in a couple more updates. Meantime, just enjoy her small smile as she watches Oberon getting chewed out, by Ice of all people. Beware the fury of the quiet woman!

Max and J’Onn ask Manga Khan to take the devolved Despero off-world, so that Despero can re-evolve unsupervised and kill the whole Justice League for good next time. No, that’s clearly not why, but I’m at a loss as to what they think will happen instead. My best read is that they’re under even more pressure than they’re acknowledging and need Despero to be “out of sight, out of mind.” At least Manga Khan’s reactions are consistent with his quirks:



Scott and Oberon are getting off easy, all things considered. I mean, when Swamp Thing went gallivanting about and left an impostor in his place, it freakin’ ended his marriage, and that bond had been so stable it’d survived the Crisis on Infinite Earths’ continuity rewrite without a blip (Swamp Thing v2 #134).



Sure, Barda’s mad during that phone call, but by the next issue of Mister Miracle, she’ll have focused on the most important detail:



By contrast, Scott’s return has done nothing to calm Max’s anxiety. Of course he’s glad Scott’s alive and wishes him well in his retirement, but the threat of losing Leaguers in the field is no less real than before, all the recruitment efforts failed, and what’s worse, the one powerhouse he thought he could count on might be drifting away from the League too.



Oberon slips in before Max can finish his pleading, telling Max and J’Onn there’s a surprise waiting for them in the hall.



Lightray is Orion’s buddy, and he’ll try anything once. I think he’d join the Zoo Crew and go on a date with Rubberduck if he were asked nicely. (Rubberduck’s not bisexual but likes to keep the fans guessing. So does Lightray.) Orion is joining because he sees this as a way of learning from his departed “brother,” the totally dead Mister Miracle.



Yes. I know. NOBODY TELL HIM.

Monday: A quick history of the Justice League International’s most intractable enemy: the dictionary.

Comments

[dan_ingram]

Sweet God in Heaven, what is going one with Lightray and Orion's hair?

Hippies would be ashamed of that hair!

[metadronos]

I like Reverend Kirby's eulogy too. (Agree that technically if they were going to use his likeness, they should've made him a rabbi, but that'd be kind of weird because not only is Scott not Jewish; I'm pretty sure none of the Leaguers were. Hey, maybe Max should've tried luring Seraph from the Global Guardians? Kidding.)

LOVE the consolation scene with Ice and Guy, especially with her arm-hugging him, despite his past douchery.

Uuuuggghh, the Alec/Abby breakup during Nancy Collins's Swamp Thing run. With both of them written massively out of character. I know DC editorial had informed Collins that by the end of her stint, Swampy had to be all alone once more, and that she was free to arrange that however she wished, including killing Abby off. Collins opted not to do that, fine, but instead she did something much worse: she turned Abby into a selfish, controlling jerkass who demanded Alec give up fighting evil permanently and spend all his time with her and Tefé. And she turned Alec into an idiot who, when unable to keep that promise, created a duplicate of himself and left him with Abby without telling her. At least Millar, with and without Morrison, was able to salvage the title character and then some, even though he never got back together with Abby within that continuity.

[beyondthefringe]

You gotta love it when the JLA comes calling and everyone is like 'nah, thanks, I'm good.' It was a huge deal many years ago when heroes like Black Lightning and Metamorpho turned them down... but it reeks of desperation when they hit up El Diablo or Hawk and Dove and get the cold shoulder.

I have always found it interesting how every event represents a specific era by highlighting and showcasing all the then-current heroes for a time. That five minutes when Will Payton or El Diablo or Aztek or Damage get the spotlight and then they're gone and it's someone else's turn to show up for "all hands on deck" crossovers.

[scorntx]

Hardly any moving scene of a hero dying and being mourned by their colleagues that can't be undermined by their coming back later.

Speaking of undermining, no-one noticed Scott's remains looked a little robotic before the funeral?
I can understand Ted not noticing, but no-one else?


(doing a few variations and moving on seems like it's better than being completely enamoured with a concept and just using it forever.)


That Batman scene is peak Moody Teenager Batman.
"You don't UNDERSTAND me! You don't KNOW what I'm going through! I hate you, you suck! Leave me alone!"


El Diablo, the current New Hotness! Even more than Starman or Hawk & Dove.
...
Just a random aside, but in the last sixteen years this Starman and even H&D got brief starring moments in major storylines - Will in Snyder's Justice League and Blackest Night for Dove, and as far as I can tell this Diablo never got that.
Not even a cameo appearance in an animated series.
Sixteen issues then murdered so obscurely apparently nobody bothered to check.


So, at this point, Ted's main contribution to the gang is that he has The Bug, right?
... oh my days. Ted's the Shaggy! Only without the bit where he inadvertently thwarts the villain by running into them!
Zoinks!

[beyondthefringe]

The last I recall of this version of El Diablo was him being pulled out of retirement briefly during Infinite Crisis to deal with the mass breakout of supervillains from various prisons. He survived at, AFAIK and presumably retired again afterwards.

[tcampbell1000]

The story did address the issue of Scott's remains a bit: J'Onn reported to Max that he searched the wreckage of the ship and found nothing--not even the after-echoes of Scott's soul. One presumes that any intact pieces of the robot would have been small enough to be indistinct from the wreckage of the ship. Of course, some people might latch onto this absence of body and soul as reason to hope that Scott had somehow survived. But J'Onn is not a guy known for his rosy-eyed optimism. And comic books were not yet so meta-aware that "not dead until you see the body" was an established rule.

[iamrman]

I concur with dan_ingram. What us going on with Lightray and Orion in that penultimate page?! That is some Sears-level nonsense!

[cainofdreaming]

That's a big tumor on the side of Lightray's leg.