Literature's longest unresolved plot thread

Spirit King kills Mr. Terrific in 1979, escapes, they finally get around to capturing him in 1997.

The Case of the Beneficial Barrister

They ran a Perry Mason marathon on Encore on Saturday. These were the ‘80s-’90s 2-hour TV movies. They’re a guilty pleasure. They’re bland and there’s lots of filler, but there’s lots of character actors. What I really enjoy is the context behind the show.

Fred Silverman was a television executive and later producer whose success could be summed up this way: Spinoffs, recycling and familiar faces in the mystery genre. 

(Some samples of his spinoffs: Rhoda, Phyllis, the Jeffersons, Maude, Good Times, Laverne and Shirley, all hits, then his unlucky streak at NBC: Hello Larry, Sheriff Lobo.

Some samples of his familiar faces starring in mysteries: Jake and the Fatman, In the Heat of the Night, Matlock, Father Dowling Mysteries, and Diagnosis Murder. Brandon Tartikoff writes in his book “The Last Great Ride” about Silverman sending him to James Arness’ home on the ruse of discussing a new series with him, but actually checking him out to see if he’s too old and craggy for TV. Arness answers the door and says, “Are you here to see if I’m too old and craggy for TV?”)

Silverman first recycled Perry Mason in the early ‘70s at CBS, the Raymond Burr version had only been off the air for seven years when he brought back a version with a new cast. Monte Markham as Mason. (The real Raymond Burr was in the hit “Ironsides” and was unavailable.

It barely ran the season, but in the  ‘80s he recycled it again (this time as producer) with Burr and Barbara Hale reprising their roles from the original series. This time it worked and the series of 2-hour movies (two or three a year) ran for another 7 years. Incredible.

Toward the last few years Burr was in failing health and his weight was increasingly a problem. Look and you’ll see that he’s usually filmed leaning against something. And later when he was especially in failing health..and when he died...they kept making Perry Mason Mysteries! Nothing would stop Fred Silverman. They used Paul Sorvino and Hal Holbrook to play lawyer pals of Mason’s in town to handle his caseload. Heck they should have gotten Monte Markham!

There’s a good book by Susan Kandel called, “I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason,” it’s one in a series of mysteries about a writer writing biographies of mystery authors and then stumbling onto some kind of mystery herself. In this book the biography topic is Erle Stanley Gardner, so you get some background on Gardner, and a good mystery. This is a  brilliant concept for a series of mysteries and I wish I thought of it.

Review JSA Monument Point TPB

In theory the best reason to buy a trade paperback collection of several issues of a comic book would be that you’d get a complete story arc (beginning, middle, end) without the fear of jumping in the middle of a confusing arc.

Ahh theories, so cute.

The Monument Point TPB starts with a nine-page backstory of the members of the Justice League and how they were inspired by the JSA. As you keep reading further in the book you’ll realize this has nothing to do with anything.

Nothing.

Anything.

Actually they’re winding down an umpteenth JSA series, so they want to remind us that you couldn’t have a JLA if it weren’t for the JSA. This is only partially true. In actual comics history, Flash was the only JLA member who was inspired by the the Golden Age Flash. So it’s all retroactive continuity that Batman was inspired by Dr. Mid-Nite, Green Lantern inspired by The GA Green Lantern, etc.

The George Perez art in this chapter is of course extraordinary. He’s like Kubert, Infantino and Kane in that decades in the business just make him better.

Then we cut to Degaton being thwarted again and again by his own doppleganger, unlike most of everything else in this book, this will count for something later on.

(Great splash page by Freddie Williams III)

Things go to shit quickly with the umpteenth retelling of the JSA-meets-Joseph McCarthy-and-goes-into-retirement story with truly shitty art by comics legend Howard Chaykin. All the jaws are so perfectly square you’d think the JSA was filled with Jay Leno impersonators. And there’s a closeup of Black Canary that makes her look like that weird lady who had 100 plastic surgeries and doesn’t look human anymore.

OK, once again winding up things by touching on the past. The concept of the government putting superheores out of business would be stolen later by “The Incredibles.” 

Then...the story starts. The Flash is mayor of Monument Point, disaster strikes, Dr. Fate comes crashing to the ground after, it is explained, heading off to another dimension with Lightning. Umm, this probably happened in a previous trade paperback, so this would be a screw-you to casual readers.

Meanwhile, Degaton is wreaking havoc in the JSA HQ, OK, I like JSA beating up villains. I’m not sure why Green Lantern is dressed as a giant lantern, but OK, I can overlook that. It is a cool fight sequence, with Degaton using his temporal powers to age Wildcat, de-age Hourman, and summon dinosaurs. Cool! 

After he’s defeated we go to the JSA looking over the body of Lightning in some kind of coma/death, in a chamber. What happened to her, once again, who knows? And when did Blue Devil join the JSA, and who is the chick in the white robe? They spent two pages telling me who Superman is, yet they just throw in the white robe lady person and I’m supposed to know who she is.

This has happened before, I miss an issue of JSA and they add ten members. Stop it! 

Let’s institute what we’ll call The Power Girl Rule. Think back to 1976, Power Girl was the JSA’s first new member who was created specifically to join the JSA. She had never existed before in solo stories like everyone else in the JSA. And think about it: She was the Earth 2 Supergirl, who wanted her own identity separate from her cousin. A bit of a “woman’s libber,” the body of a healthy 16 year old girl. And this is important: Her superpowers were limited to those of Superman in Action Comics number 1: Leap tall buildings in a single bound, more powerful than a locomotive and faster than a speeding bullet.

She was not indestructible, she could not move planets, no heat/x-ray vision, and don’t even mention super ventriloquism.

This character had a lot of potential. 35 years later, I’m still waiting. 

Things went off the rails pretty quickly. Her costume changed from issue to issue. (peek-a-boo window came and went), she didn’t get an actual origin story for three years!, and then she got a new origin story every five years, and the limited super powers went out the window pretty quickly and she was soon moving planets.

This has been the story of every character created for the JSA since then. They start out good, then a new writer comes along and everything goes into the toilet, and the character is just part of this grand rotation of new members who ultimately don’t add anything. (Red Beetle? Blue Devil? Starboy?!! Nuklon, the character who looks like Nuklon who I have no idea who he is? Star Girl who started out as a teen, but is now all womanly, the Red Tornado girl, on and on.

So here’s the Power Girl Rule, no more new characters until you can complete a story arc with the old ones.

OK, so Lightning, who’s now a woman (when did this happen?) saves herself through her own will power. Oh, that seemed easy. Meanwhile Mayor Flash is having heated discussions with his cabinet because nothing’s more thrilling in comics than seeing men and women in suits discuss civic planning.

Also, Kent Nelson has a big mystic symbol burned onto his face, and whenever someone asks about it, he brushes it off as if he woke up at a frat party with “Loser” written on his forehead with permanent marker and he doesn’t want to talk about it.

I am not a fan of Tom Derenick, his super heroes look good, but his charcoal pencil style with civilians just look creepy. And the facial features never seem proportionate to each other.

The covers by Mario Alberti are amazing though. Good stuff.

After all this, we get to the real story, a big giant ancient city under Monument Point. It’s so spooky and mysterious, the JSA calls in the Challengers of the Unknown to help explore. 

Holy crap, as I’ve mentioned before, the JSA now has about 100 members they don’t know what to do with. Stop inviting guests!

Jerry Ordway jumps in now, another one like Perez, great in the ‘80s, even better now.

Johnny Quick unleashes an ancient Kirby-esque destructo-monster, and once again, as long as the JSA is beating up bad guys, I’m happy.

Everything is put right by GL who gives his life to save the world.

And this is probably the first time a comic book company killed one of its characters. Oh wait they do this monthly. And there’s no dramatic tension because the character always comes back to life. Always.

Oh and Mister Terrific inexplicably loses his intelligence, but it’s OK, he inexplicably gets it all back again.

So they wrap up loose ends, and at its heart there’s a good story, but there’s so much other crap going on. It’s so heartbreaking. I got hooked on the JSA with Justice League 22, and ever since then I’ve seen DC treat it with neglect.

Here’s another complaint about modern comics which will make me sound like an old fogey. Mike Sekowsky drew the JLA for eight straight years, then Dick Dillin took over and drew every page for every issue for 12 years. Today, an artist draws about five pages of a book and says, “Wow I’m beat, can someone else finish this book?” So we get these jarring shifts in style. 

Dick Dillin was only as good as his inkers, but, he had stamina.

Am I asking so much, a beginning, middle and end, with characters I’m familiar with?

Great moments in bad service

I once walked into a florist shop, asked for flowers and was told they didn't have any.

DC's last really interesting concept?

In the '60s DC had this really cool idea. They created a heroine whose job it was was to be rotating guest star. Zatanna was the daughter of 1940s DC B-lister Zatara, a thinly disguised rip-off of King Features' Mandrake the Magician.

Her story was her father went missing, and she would pop up in various DC titles in her quest to find him. Green Lantern would be tracking a bad guy on one mission and he'd run into Zatanna, whose quest intersected GL's plot. Months later The Elongated Man would be working on a case which once again would interconnect with Zatanna. And so on.

This went on until the climax when she teams up with the whole Justice League.

DC later collected these stories in a trade paperback which is a lot of fun (except for the Batman chapter which sucks really bad and doesn't even feature Zatanna. Pick up the book, but skip that chapter).

This remains a great silver age concept: A storyline that took years to tell, but still worked as standalone stories. They don't do that now. Pick up any individual issue of any of DC's constant universe-changing maxi-series and you'll be totally baffled.

I like the picture above because it's sexy without being revealing (do a Google image search for Zatanna and you'll see what I mean), and at first glance an Asian Zatanna takes a minute to absorb, but once you think about it, it's obvious Zatanna should look exotic.

Not-so-super heroes

I never quite understood the whole Seven Soldiers of Victory.
First of all, there were eight members!
While sister comic book company All-American Comics had the genuinely thrilling Justice Society, most members with a superhuman power, National had these guys. All non-powered civilians in long underwear.
Vigilante was a Lone Ranger rip-off, Crimson Avenger started as a Shadow rip-off, Green Arrow an unashamed Batman rip-off -- he drove an arrow mobile, worked in an arrow cave, flew an arrow plane...and he had an obligatory teen sidekick.
The gimmick with the Star-Spangled Kid was he was a  teen with an *adult* sidekick.
Let's face it, these guys were losers.

Charlton Comics had the same problem, with the exception of Captain Atom all their heroes were civilians in long underwear. Psssst, this isn't why kids buy comic books.

Facebook life cycle

OK, might as well.
Hey old friends want to friend me.
Let's look up some old crushes.
Wow, dodged a bullet with that one.
Various teen nieces want to friend me.
Some guy I knew for 15 minutes in 1979 wants to friend me.
Teen niece has posted pictures of herself in a bikini, this is kinda' awkward.
Girl I've thought of for the past 30 years defriended me after about a day and I didn't even do anything!
Girl from work who friended me doesn't say hi to me in the hallway.
Guy I knew for 15 minutes turns out to be a racist.
Let's start trimming some friends.