Justice, Like Lightning…: JUSTICE LEAGUE QUARTERLY #8 (JLI 76)

[tcampbell1000]

I have a few tangents to explore with this one! The main story part will be quickish: three out of four of the stories in this JLQ volume are better placed elsewhere (we’ve seen one already). It’ll also be quickish because two of the three characters in the remaining story (Flash and Thunderbolt) can autocomplete the phrase “Quick as a…!”

I’m including Justice League Quarterly stories through #10 because they were mostly written like Giffen-era inventory stories with a few superficial changes. As Power Girl and Flash attend a British function, the only clue that we’re in the post-Giffen days is that Power Girl’s costume has…somehow…gotten even worse. The bar isn’t high when her best-known costume is “Look at My Power-Breasts,” but “Green Lantern Villain” still beats “Dominatrix-Themed Toothpaste Commercial.”




Enter the Rook, a looter who’s equipped to take out the two Justice Leaguers, but more vulnerable to the abilities of their SPECIAL GUEST STAR:





This story is by writer-penciller Mike Collins (a UK native who’d probably been snickering at that “Wally” thing for years. The last page reveals it’s a backdoor pilot for Collins’ Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt series. But it also gives us an enjoyable, JLI-focused punchline. I can forgive the "horndog Wally vs. brittle Kara" scenes when they end like this:



Collins seems to set Peter Cannon up as the most determined person on Earth, the one Batman looks at and goes, “I wish I could focus like THAT guy.” So it’s odd that in the first issue of Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt, Peter gives the heck up. In front of another determination-based hero, no less!



He gets back into action within ten pages, but those pages represent five years where he was moping about losing one fight.



“…Someone else? Someone actually Asian to use all these Asian-esque disciplines of yours? No, friend Peter, this just isn’t that kind of comic book.”

Another weird aspect of Thunderbolt in a JL context is that, like Blue Beetle and Captain Atom, he got his start as a Charlton comics character. Thunderbolt #1 from 1966 tells the story of Peter’s orphaning and training in the Himalayas. Think Iron Fist but more interdisciplinary.






A later JLQ lumped all the former Charlton characters together, including Nightshade and Judomaster…



Why is that weird? Because Watchmen revised Cannon into Ozymandias, whose scare-the-world-to-save-the-world plan drew comparisons to…the early Max Lord. Yet Lord and Cannon have almost nothing in common.



Actually, even Cannon was a revision of sorts...he was created as a substitute when Charlton couldn't get the rights to the red-and-blue hero known as Daredevil (who predates his Marvel namesake).

Cannon maintained some connections to the League as his series concluded, and he showed up in a few issues of Justice League Task Force (like #10, below).



And after that series ended, he…didn’t do much else for a while. Due to an unusual contract, the rights to the character reverted to his creator’s estate in 2003. More recently, he’s come out in several series by Dynamite, the latest of which is being published now!





This may make Thunderbolt the only Justice League character to leave the DC universe and have a creative life after it. (I can’t think of another!) Even if the Dynamite stories do milk his Watchmen connection now and then.



Never give up!

Thursday: The Justice Leaguers contemplate killing each other, and there’s not even an ice-skating float or Oreo theft involved.

Comments

[cainofdreaming]

If you'd photograph Kara in that third outfit from the shoulderpads up it'd look like a disembodied head had gone surfing.

Yeah, not a fan of it either.

[iamrman]

Oh, that's who the guy was in the Justice League Task Force issue. I thought he was one of the randos from the Bloodpack or whatever they were called.

[mastermahan]

You know, just reading this I was looking at Thunderbolt's weird asymmetrical colors and thinking that it looked like the Golden Age Daredevil. I never knew that character connection before.

That Venn diagram is pure gold.

[beyondthefringe]

I've always felt a little bad for Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt.
Most of the Charlton characters never made it big in the first place, even after their purchase by, and incorporation into, the DC stables. Blue Beetle may be the biggest, but even that came at the expense of replacing Ted with Jaime and giving the Beetle concept a full expansion based in part on the Dan Garrett version.
(Admittedly, the Golden Age Blue Beetle had some decent exposure with a radio serial, but even he saw revisions after his initial rush.)

Captain Atom? He's who you bring out when you need an easily-duped government/military stooge who explodes in the final act.
Sarge Steel? Absolute government stooge.
Nightshade? A team player, never a solo act.
Judomaster? Ha ha ha poor guy. The one in Peacemaker may be the highest profile he's ever seen.
Peacemaker? ... okay, but only because of James Gunn and John Cena really leaning into a very certain portrayal.

Thunderbolt? How many people even -remember- he was part of the DCU for all of ten minutes? That's like asking "who remembers that miniseries where they tried to make a team out of the Charlton heroes? L.A.W.? More like L.O.L.!"

When the thing you're best known for is being heavily adapted for Watchmen...

And yes, I even read Thunderbolt's short-lived series from this era.