The Lengthening Shadows: JLA CLASSIFIED #8-9

[tcampbell1000]

101 of 108. Warning for sexualized, disturbing alternate versions of Mary Marvel, Ice, Sue Dibny, and Shazam/Captain Marvel, with side orders of possible gay stereotype OR possible incestuous implications. It's...wild.

At the start of this issue, the Super Buddies get stomped into the ground by the giant foot of a kaiju G’Nort.



Which is kind of the physical equivalent of what happened to them emotionally last issue.



Guy and Bea probably wish they could forget that traumatic experience. but Blue Beetle is way ahead of them.



The irony is that even with amnesia, Beetle is centered enough to start leading the team by default. And leadership is needed, here. Though some Buddies are slow in realizing it, their path out of Hell hasn’t taken them home. Instead, they seem to be on a version of Earth-3. You remember Earth-3, right? The one where good guys are bad guys and vice versa?



Well, this version leads Giffen and DeMatteis to anticipate one of the most uncomfortable and tiresome storylines of the 2000s:



If the words “Black Mary” make you think of Spanish religious art or a mixed alcoholic drink, count yourself lucky. After her Super Buddies days, Mary Marvel would go through a long (long, long, LONG) corruption storyline, mostly in Countdown (to Final Crisis) and Final Crisis. If subtext were text, someone would be in jail over this.



The arc was actually called “Seduction of the Innocent,” probably because it was circumstantial evidence that Frederic Wertham had been right all along and comics were a mistake.



The Young Justice cartoon cleaned up the idea somewhat…but the way the creators talk about it, that just meant the subtext got a little more subtextual. “Things that were more appropriate to her 18-year-old body”? Yyyyyeah okay [backing away slowly]



Grant Morrison apologized for the subplot later, claiming it was intended as satire of the oversexualization of female characters.

For me at least, the sexing up of Countdown’s Black Mary Marvel had a real-world analogue in the sexualisation of Disney starlets like Britney, Christina, Miley, and the rest. Presented to the audience as wholesome kid entertainers and role models for girls – then given a ‘dirty’ makeover to attract a whole new following…

The savage satire sounded great on paper, but in the end, I felt bad about putting Mary Marvel through all that just to make a point about people putting her through all that.

I love most of Morrison’s work, but this seems either disingenuous or naïve. No one reads a megacrossover like Final Crisis as satire! Can you picture yourself picking up a copy of DC’s Antepenultimate Crisis or Marvel’s Secret Wars VI or whatever and saying, “Boy, I hope they SUBVERT SOME TROPES with this one”? The only time DC’s line-wide crossovers could veer somewhat close to self-parody was when they centered…the Giffen and DeMatteis Justice League.




There’s no non-creepy way to sexualize Mary Marvel, but at least when Giffen, DeMatteis, and Maguire do it…



…it feels like it’s supposed to be ridiculous.

Neither Guy nor Mary are at all prepared for the sight of Mistress Mary, and she tosses them away like beanbags. Power Girl has better luck, but that just introduces her to an even more disturbing sight.



Funny how THIS reimagining did NOT get a "satirically intended" run in a 59-issue pair of limited series...

Elsewhere, other Super Buddies are discovering the Earth-3 counterpart to their group, the Power Posse. Earth-3’s answer to the Justice League is the Crime Syndicate, an ultra-powerful cadre ruling the world through terror, force, and omerta. The Posse is more of a local protection racket. With Mistress Mary and Sub Billy on their roster, they could stop the giant G’Nort’s rampage but refuse until the mayor pays them.

Bea’s still easily triggered by what went down in Hell, which is bad news for Booster…



…but worse news for her. Only some of the Super Buddies have counterparts in the Posse, and vice versa. The Posse members react with no small surprise to Bea’s presence, and the reason for that gets clearer when one of the members, going by “Tiffany,” gets out of the bathroom.



Props to Kevin Maguire for “Tiffany’s” face in the penultimate panel. Not many artists could make us feel two things simultaneously: one, that “Tiffany” here feels enough affection for her “Bea” to feel sick and guilty about killing her twice…and two, that she isn’t going to let that stop her.

Booster uses his forcefield to shield first Bea, then the unconscious Beetle and himself. But he misses Ralph, also unconscious. This leads to a standoff where the Posse threaten Ralph as a hostage and the Super Buddies act like he’s not one of theirs.

(Just in case anyone’s not skeeved out enough by the BDSMarvels, this world’s Max seems to have some kind of triad going on with “Tiffany” and this world’s Sue Dibny. None of them seem so much affectionate as transactional. Which tracks for Earth-3 stuff, at least.)

In their chronological last appearance together as a real team, the ex-JLI remind us why they were once trusted to defend the entire planet:



According to the Demon, Tora’s now in Valhalla or something like it…but rather than trust a demon’s word, Ted backs up his old friend’s theory. Bea’s not fully convinced, but she appreciates the effort. The question of whether it's really Tora will be addressed further in not one but two separate follow-ups (we'll get to those).



The last panel above feels like it might've been wedged in as a sop to continuity. It's a hurried (if character-driven) explanation for why Beetle wears his old duds in his, er, chronological next appearance, and the previous panel's a little extra crowded.

Meanwhile, Guy, Mary, and Power Girl’s fight with Mistress Mary led to Giant G’Nort swallowing her like a pea. This has enraged the Earth-3 Billy, so the three heroes are lying low, Guy urging the others to stay out of the sky so “that Captain Marvel guy” doesn’t find them. Yes, you read that right: Guy is avoiding a fight.

“That wasn’t Billy!” Mary insists. That leads to this exchange, about as good an ending to Guy and Mary’s arc as one could hope for. Everyone we meet is fighting a battle we know nothing about, et cetera.



Though maybe produced earlier, these stories were published a year after Identity Crisis, in which Sue died pregnant, and months after Countdown to Infinite Crisis, in which Max goes evil and boring and kills the Blue Beetle. Awareness of those events would’ve been inescapable when the team talks about Sue’s alleged pregnancy and when Max and Beetle do anything.

Giffen, DeMatteis, and Maguire could’ve edited in some foreshadowing in these last pages, as they may have edited in "I wouldn't be caught dead in this anti-Beetle suit!" Instead, they finish on their own terms, as if in denial about the approaching darkness.



(Of course the Buddies are just trolling Booster. "Buster who?" Hell, Max was the one who brought Booster in, and Beetle’s mended fences with him at this point.)

What do I keep saying? It all depends on when you stop reading. If there’s an alternate universe where G’Nort is a skyscraper tall and Max is a petty racketeer, maybe there’s a world where these small-time heroes just kept up their small-time heroing. Max gave a toast at Bea and Booster’s wedding. Mary entered college and became godmother to Ralphina. Guy’s new bar got off the ground, and Beetle developed a VR arcade to go with it. They all lived bwahahappily ever after.

Isn’t all fiction just lies that make us feel good or bad, in the end?

Next: What happened instead, and the real problem with “post-Infinite” Max. I'll try to keep the kvetching to a minimum.

Comments

[metadronos]

I feel a homophobia warning may be in order for the portrayal of Evil Captain Marvel. That "all gay men lisp all the time" stereotype was way out of date by the time this appeared, and even though I'm used to DeMatteis's and Giffen's occasional lapses in taste by now, those panels with Evil Captain Marvel made my jaw drop open.

[tcampbell1000]

That stereotype is...new to me! The stereotype I picked up was that gay men had effeminate voices, sometimes deliberately so. (And I did know some real gay men who leaned into that intonation as part of their identity.) I didn't care to think too much about why Billy was talking like a cartoon baby, but I would've said it was more of a performative infantilization to go with his apparent status as submissive to Mary...which isn't exactly less disturbing than the Black Mary storyline, but at least seems less shamelessly targeted to horny het male nerds.

That said, maybe this is something I just haven't been exposed to, and Billy probably merits a warning either way. I'll adjust it.

[metadronos]

Thank you; I appreciate that. I'll grant it's been a long, long while since I've seen an instance of stereotypically using a speech impediment to denote "gay male," which may be why it shocked me. But I assure you it was once very common.

Reading my initial comment again, I do feel the need to "um, actually" myself. 🙂Evil Billy's speech pattern here isn't lisping -- that would be pronouncing "s" as "th" -- but rhotacism, AKA "Elmer Fudd speak," i.e. pronouncing "r" and "l" as "w." But the implication is essentially the same. You're right, though, that in addition to so-called "effeminacy," there's also a strong suggestion here of infantilization, which dovetails with the stereotype that gays aren't "real men."

[wind]

It’s been a while since I was reminded of those Mary Marvel moments. Yikes.

Glory days. They’ll pass you by.

[iamrman]

It makes you think whether the creators who berated the JLI as ineffectual idiots ever actually read the book.