Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decwrl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-akov68!boyajian
From: boyajian@akov68.DEC (Jerry Boyajian)
Newsgroups: net.comics
Subject: re: JLA ANNUAL
Message-ID: <2495@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Jul-84 09:23:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.2495
Posted: Thu Jul 12 09:23:12 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Jul-84 02:17:23 EDT
Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP
Organization: DEC Engineering Network
Lines: 73

> From:	abnjh!nova            [Scott Allen]
>
> I was so interested that I read the thing in the Comic Store's parking lot.
> What a surprise!! It was really good.

Well, I decided to give the thing a try, too, even though I was predisposed to
not like it. After all, it should get a fair shake before I tear it apart, non?
I figured it'd be awful, but I was wrong. It was worse.

> *The characterization is at a much more adult level.  First of all, the women
>	are allowed to take interest in male bodies around them.  Vixen thinks
>	J'onn J'onz is cute and Zantanna asks one of Steel's friends (who is
>	black) if he talks in his sleep.  It looks like DC is joining the real
>	world.  Now maybe we can get some interesting character development from
>	someplace other than Wolfman.

Personally, I don't see how Zatanna's character has improved any, or seems any
more adult, by her being suggestive in that way. It seems to me that the aggres-
sive woman is becoming an archetype "adult character". NB: I'm not a prude, nor
against this type of characterization on moral grounds. I just feel that this is
a cheap way to suggest adult characterization. And I don't see how Vixen's call-
ing J'onn J'onzz cute makes her any more mature. When its mentioned that Zatanna
and Gunn spotted the intruder (Gypsy), Vixen immediately leaps to the conclusion
that Zatanna's setting her sights on Gunn and makes a catty remark. How adult.

> The thing I didn't like was the accent they gave Vibe.  He keeps saying "chu"
> and it took me a while to figure out what he was saying.  At one point,  his
> accent disappears.  I don't know if this is supposed to be ethnic but I think
> they missed on this.

Missed isn't the word. Vibe has to be one of the most stereotyped minority char-
acters I've seen in a long time. Break dancing? Ghetto blaster? Spray painting
the wall? That ridiculously affected accent (Conway certainly makes it obvious
that the accent is a put-on. Why?). This characterization is just short of being
offensive, and that's on good days.


> All in all, I think this book now has a lot of possibility.

I don't. They've made a travesty out of it. Why they feel they have to oust all
the big guys and leave the second-stringers and a few rookies as the JLA is be-
yond me. The whole concept of the JLA was for it to be a book where one could
see all of the big-name heroes team up together. If Conway wanted to start a
new team, why couldn't he have created a whole new team instead of making a mess
of the JLA? Ahhh, because no one would touch it with a ten-foot pole if he did
it that way, and the comic would die after 6 issues (if not sooner). But by
calling river mud a diamond, they hope to foist it upon the jewelry collectors.
I mean, we haven't really gotten any idea what Gypsy is really like, so I can't
really dump on her, but no matter what her character is like, she just doesn't
cut the image of a JLAer. *

And I'm also not buying the rabbits that Conway seems to have pulled out of his
hat about Aquaman's authority to disband the JLA without a vote of the member-
ship, or the fact that the Justice League of AMERICA is chartered by the U.N.
Sure, Aquaman's distraught about his personal problems, but I can't believe it
didn't occur to him that Superman, Wonder Woman, etc. weren't around for the
Earth/Mars War because they might have had other pressing problems on their
hands rather than because they didn't want to interrupt their suntan on the
beaches of Acapulco. For all he knew, they could've been dead, or trapped by
some nefarious intergalactic badguy.

Feh.

* In all fairness, I should point out that the second-stringer syndrome is, as
far as I'm concerned, not much more palatable in the Avengers. At least in the
latter, even the second stringers have proven themselves as strong characters
elsewhere. The Avengers should be for the heavyweights; the Defenders and the
Champions, etc. are for the second-stringers.

--- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Maynard, MA)

UUCP:	{decvax|ihnp4|allegra|ucbvax|...}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-akov68!boyajian
ARPA:	boyajian%akov68.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA