The first Flowers & Fishnets team-up: Ryan Daly welcomes Chris Franklin from the SUPER MATES PODCAST to talk about Justice League of America issues #219-220. These issues change everything readers thought they knew about Dinah Lance!
You can follow along with these issues by reading my original review of Justice League of America #219 right here, and issue #220 right here.
Find Chris and his wife, Cindy, at the Super Mates Podcast!
Music this episode:
"Farewell Daddy Blues"
Margot Bingham
ABKCO, 2014.
CLICK HERE TO PLAY EPISODE IN ANOTHER WINDOW.
I think the very licensing-friendly but surprisingly unemployed Chuck Patton was probably the best artist of the first volume of JLoA. As much as I love George Perez, I associate him so much with the Titans and Avengers that he's mildly distracting on the League. Also, Perez needs to illustrate highly emotional melodrama, and that's not what I want from the League. They're the icons, the pantheon... our idealized, stable four color parental figures. Chuck Patton got that, and while he was no super-polished JLGLPBHN, he had the Bronze Age sheen of a Dave Cockrum or Bob Layton with the broad expression of a Jim Aparo or Al Milgrom but with the congeniality of John Romita Sr. He should have been DC's Mike Zeck, but my understanding is that he had issues with his editor(s,) and the lightness that suited the League so well wasn't quite as suited to the Titans (though he would have fit far better there than Ed Barreto ever did.) All that having been said, Patton had no business drawing Vibe & Gypsy on the mean streets of Detroit, and Luke McDonnell was far more appropriate on that incarnation of the team.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I loved about James Robinson's Starman was his willingness to "go there" with older, more adult characters in their quietly sordid good/bad old days. The Ted/Dinah fling added dimension to both characters, and was far more palatable than Black Canary's decades on the back end of "Green Arrow &..."
"Farewell Daddy Blues?" Cheeky.
Was someone playing table tennis during the second issue synopsis?
The Wizard belongs on murderers row amongst the Black Canary's Jailbirds. It really speaks to the second class status of women even as recently as the '80s that this crime against a heroine and her daughter went unanswered in follow-up comics. William A. Zard needs to be revisited in some context to address his crimes.
Reasons you probably never want me to write Black Canary #1: I would totally play Larry Lance as an only slightly younger contemporary to Richard Drake with whom she worked through her daddy issues, and then defer to Ted Knight for working out her more immediate aerobic needs.
I kept "rewinding" sections of this episode because my eyes would glaze over for long periods as you guys tried to explain the plots and rationals related to this wretched tale. I'm not willing to parse this mess out for all the reasons you mentioned and more I could offer if it was in any way worth that sort of effort. It is not. My primary concern, and you touched on it briefly, is why this travesty was brought into existence in the first place. If it was a priority for Roy Thomas to have Earth-1 and Earth-2 Canaries, why kill off Dinah Drake and forget to reference her from then on? Was it some burning, cancerous need to over-explain the Canary Cry? Is it as sad a spectacle as requiring Canary be made younger? Whatever. None of it matters. This was an abomination.
The sound to which I believe you are referring during the second issue synopsis would be Chris and Cindy's dog drinking water next to the computer. I considered re-recording my summary to get rid of the sound, but I've been sick lately and busy adjusting sound levels on every other aspect of the show.
DeleteYeah, I apologize for that sound. I recognized it as soon as I heard it. Sorry for the distraction.
ReplyDeleteI chuckled out loud at "Farewell Daddy Blues'. Well played Ryan!
Chris
Oh, and the weird thing is, the water dish is clear across the room. I guess the dog was just REALLY thirsty. Again... Sorry!
DeleteWeird beyond weird. Creepy beyond creepy.
ReplyDeleteI don't have the issues. Am I too understand that even though she was in suspended animation, the baby grew into healthy adulthood? Like a bizarre empty vessel?
I suppose this was a way to get around the age difference and sonic powers. But this is so convoluted and so 'Jerry Springer' - "I want to jump your bones ... and your my dad!" Brrrrrrr.....
Glad this went away post Crisis
I remember when these issues came out, even then they didn't make a lick of sense. I mean, look at the two pages of explanation printed here - original Dinah's comment '...if only she could take my place' reads as if she wants a direct swap, she dies here and Jr goes back with Superman. But process that through the Superdickery brain and you wind up with the younger Dinah with her mind restarted, but tinged with her mother's memories. It's just sick.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, melded Dinah smiles like Carol Danvers after an Immortus shag, and just asks Superman to take her back to Earth rather than having a breakdown.
So, Dinah's sudden super power wasn't due to crossing Earths - someone should have a word with those Earth X guys...
Plus, the story was written to explain why Dinah looked so young, but it gave us the problem of all the JLA-ers not noticing that the late middle-aged broad with the lovely laugh lines was suddenly a teenybopper. I suppose they blamed that on Aquarius, too.
And to think, it was all so avoidable - give the kid a pacifier already.
I know you are doing female themed songs, but this ditty was in my head after listening to this show:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYlJH81dSiw
Hahaha! Nice.
ReplyDelete