Friday, May 28, 2010

Controversial post to follow...

Controversial...post...to...follow...in...the...next...few...days...Stay...tuned!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Young troublemakers can become explosive older troublemakers, sometimes in a good way...

Inspired by this post from The Cool Kids Table about Damage, which reminded me about Arsenal’s (Roy Harper’s) “You’re not good enough to be a hero/titan!” mentoring treatment of Damage.

Given what has happened to Roy in recent time (specifically his arm), wouldn’t it have been interesting if Damage were alive, suddenly popped up in front of Roy, pointed at his robo-arm and said, “ Haha!” (ala Nelson from the Simpsons).

[Of course, this scene could be extended to include the following: “Or that’s what I could’ve said, but I’m better than that. Remember that, old mentor. I could’ve kicked while you were down, but I chose not to…”]

Okay, I said interesting not nice or mildly appropriate.

Heck, I only mention this weird scenario, because that what I saw Damage as back in the Titans days: A young adult, ever so slightly more mature version of Nelson with the power to explode.

Compare…

This is Damage's original look:


This is Nelson:

There a few similarities. Both have explosive personalities. There’s the brown hair thing and bit about their dads not being around.

That’s seals it: DC owes Matt Groening some dough!

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

More DeviantArt stuff: Six different takes on the World’s Greatest Heroes...

It’s time to show the artists of DeviantArt some love. Click and enjoy!

A good line-up is featured in the artwork presented by Adamwhithers.

This piece by genesischant makes me want to say, “Those cats are cool.”

Those readers with Unlimited love, I’ll direct to this, courtesy of Apollorising. No, the ‘Unlimited love’ remark doesn’t mean that it’s slash fiction-inspired.

Laurie B give us a slightly stunned (or just a little wide-eyed) interpretation of the Justice League. Only Batman seems to be unphased by developments...as usual.

Some might say that Douglas Shuler gives the JLA more depth in this special work.

This work by DeaviantArt user JPRart is just plain beautiful, in my opinion.

Monday, May 3, 2010

The Firestorm Revelation...

Okay, here goes...I’m a Firestorm fan. In fact, Firestorm may actually have been the first in-comic-book-discovered DC hero that I found awesome.

For some inexplicable reason, I’ve only mentioned Firestorm once in passing on this blog and equally as worrisome is the fact that one of my few comics-loving offline friends had no idea I was a Firestorm fan. We’re talking about friends since the early 90s here...Strange.

Firestorm and Human Torch, dynamically drawn by Adam Kubert.

This little disclosure session was brought on by Firestorm’s...er...Ronnie’s return to the ranks of living heroes. Basically, I’ve always seen Firestorm as a hero with a lot of promise and someone who should always be on the shortlist for Justice League membership.

Speaking of which, if we ever get a JLA (the big guns) and JLI (Booster and co) co-existing on a permanent basis, Firestorm should have membership on both teams (in an “inter-team liaison” capacity).

Just bear with me out for a minute while I attempt to explain my thinking.

Some of you might rightly point out that if such a situation came about, J’onn would be the natural choice for inter-team liaison since he has history with both incarnations.

Such a point has merit, but Captain Atom will likely lead the JLI and he has never seen eye to eye with J’onn on League matters. That won’t be a smooth relationship and will likely be seen by Cap as some elitist interference from on high.

Okay, so why Firestorm? Well, it has to do with Firestorm’s new status (both Jason and Ronnie being Firestorm) and the way both are being written (so far). Since Ronnie is a frat boy-ish, brash dude now and Jason is more mature, Ronnie should take control while at JLI and Jason should take the wheel at JLA. Sure, Batman didn’t exactly make Jason feel at home when he was on the team, but at least he didn’t get one-punched. Ronnie might not be so lucky. Also, Ronnie didn’t cover himself in glory when he last followed Captain Atom’s orders. Maybe Ronnie has something to prove to Cap? Of course, I’m assuming Ronnie and Jason will be able to do the “You like it there, so you drive” thing. Big assumption.

Another thing, I liked Martin Stein as the floating head, but the Jason-Ronnie combination presents a lot of possibilities in terms of commentary. Firestorm is one of the characters that can get away with saying one thing while thinking another on a continual basis and not be thought of being disingenuous, because it’s two people in there. Add to that both Ronnie and Jason are opinionated (although in different ways) and a comic writer has got Firestorm-other-interaction gold. I mean, I get the feeling that Ronnie and Jason admire or dislike or are indifferent to different leaguers.

Of course, they have a lot of fall-out to work through before any of this could happen...