My Top 5 DC Characters That JLU Introduced Me To

I’ve mentioned before in this blog my secret shame of not being as big a comic book fan as I feel I should be. My main exposure to these characters has always been through TV and movies, as a kid I never actually picked up a comic book. So because of that my knowledge has always only focused on mainstream characters. But in 2005 all of that changed when the cartoon series Justice League became Justice League Unlimited, and a slew of more obscure DC characters joined the roster. I was suddenly introduced to all these characters, some of which I had never even heard of before, and I became intensely interested in more than a few. Thanks to Wikipedia, and a few friends of mine who actually know a thing or two about comic books, I’ve learned more about these characters. But still I yearn to know more. Bring me into your four color world comic book characters, and teach me how to live!

I should also mention that almost all of these characters have made appearances in my fan fiction series “Justice League Xander”, in which I cast Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer into the role of some of DC’s coolest non-powered heroes. I’ll include links for anyone who’s interested.


5. Mr. Terrific

In JLU, Mr. Terrific only appeared a few times, and never in any kind of action capacity. He took over for Martian Manhunter running the Watchtower and coordinating the League’s missions. So what could have possibly attracted me to this character with such little screen time? The name, which sounds ridiculous even by DC Comics standards? Maybe it was the fact that he was billed as the third smartest man in the world.

My research told me that this was actually the second hero to use the name Mr. Terrific, and that he fought crime with tiny floating balls called T-Spheres. The Wikipedia page doesn’t have much I’m afraid, which has only peaked my curiosity. Enough to seek him out in comic book form? No. Enough to fit him into my fanfic? Why yes, how did you know. Mr. T has made an appearance in “An Arrow’s Flight”, my Xander as Speedy story, and I’m currently kicking around an idea for another story with him in a more central role. I guess it’s the idea of a superhero fighting crime with his wits and his intellect that interests me.


4. Shining Knight

The ultimate fish out of water, Shining Knight is a knight from Arthurian legend displaced in the modern age. I guess what drew me to the character was the impossible situation that he’s been placed in, living in a world that he doesn’t understand, and yet he remains true to himself and his values. I remember noticing him on the show around the same time I noticed Vigilante. Seeing the two of them together, the cowboy and the knight, before I knew anything about them, they were like the Justice League’s version of the Village People. All they needed was a construction worker and an Indian chief and they would have been complete. But the friendship of those two characters turned out to be one of the most interesting things about them on the show. Two heroes from different eras, fighting along side the Justice League in the modern world. It was like a nod the DC Comics beginnings, bridging the gap between that and the future.

The nobility of the character made me think that it would be a good fit for Xander, and so I wrote “Shining White Knight”, which saw Xander displaced into the future in the world of Batman Beyond, where he takes up the mantle of Shining Knight.


3. Vigilante

When I was a kid, my dad used to watch a lot of Westerns, and I was always bored by them. I guess I just always associated them with old movies and old fashioned story telling, which didn’t interest me as a child. Then I saw Tombstone, and everything changed. Kurt Russel and Val Kilmer were so badass in that movie, Westerns took on a whole new light for me and the cowboy as hero character became really interesting to me. Especially after I realized that characters like Han Solo, with his low slung blaster holster and his kicky vest, are basically cowboys. They’re rebels and rougues, but there’s a simple morality to them too, a very black and white sense of right and wrong. So when Vigilante showed up on JLU, I took an interest, even before I heard him speak. And when I heard Nathan Fillion doing his voice, the character really fleshed out and became interesting.

His wiki page reveals a very old history, and an interesting one at that. In researching most of these characters I’ve realized what a rich history that DC comics has. When even the minor characters have 60 plus years of continuity, he can be intimidating.

One of the other things that attracted me to the character, and something that I worked into my Xander story, was the fact that we never saw his face. It was the mysterious stranger character that’s so common in Westerns. What is he hiding? What happened in his past that made him who he is and makes him do what he does? These are some of the themes that I borrowed for “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys”.


2. Green Arrow

I’ve always liked archers, I don’t really know why. I remember the old Iron Man cartoon from the 90’s and really liking Hawkeye. Maybe because it’s just so unconventional, for a modern hero to fight crime with such an old fashioned weapon. There’s a romance to it as well, which I supposed is owed in no small part to Robin Hood, especially in Green Arrow’s case. Of all the characters on this list, he’s probably had the most screen time on JLU. When the League first went unlimited, Batman recognized the danger in creating such a large, powerful organization. Even though they had the best of intentions, there was the possibility that their power could be abused. Green Arrow was specifically recruited to be a voice for the regular guy, and to remind these heroes that their powers did not give them the right to cross the line, no matter what the reason. And in that regard, GA had a very important role on the show; the every man.

Xander is also an every man, which I felt made it a natural progression. In “An Arrow’s Flight”, he becomes Green Arrow’s sidekick because he admires him so much. The fact that a regular guy can work hard and accomplish great things without super powers is a reoccurring theme with most of these characters.



1. The Question

My friend Art (Scarecrows_Brain) and I had a discussion once about Batman. Specifically the idea that Bruce Wayne created the Batman persona to strike fear into criminals. Art contended that if in real life a man were to dress like a bat, criminals wouldn’t be scared of him, they would laugh at him and shoot him in the face (feel free to correct me Art if you feel that I’m misquoting you). This led to the question, which hero’s costume would work to that extent in real life? My answer: The Question. If a man approaches you in a dark alley, dressed in a suit and a long coat, and he doesn’t have a face, I don’t know about you but that would scare the shit out of me. When you can’t read facial expressions, you don’t know if he’s smiling or if he’s about to kill you, it’s unnerving. You can project anything onto that blank face, your worst fears.

On JLU Question (voiced by Jeffrey Combs) was played as a conspiracy nut, someone that the other Leaguers didn’t necessarily take seriously all the time. But in the end, The Question’s theories almost always proved to be true. He knows his stuff and he does his homework. He’s smart, not Albert Einstein smart or even Batman smart necessarily, but smart because he pays attention to everything and he knows how to read people and how to ask the right questions. I always felt like his conspiracy buff reputation spawned from the fact that his mind was sharp enough to make connections that no one else could see, that no one else would even think to consider. And his relationship with Huntress on the show added a vulnerability to the character and a humanity that made him not only interesting, but made you care about him.

The theme of masks is another common element in Xander fic, and one that I used for my stories “No Answers, Just Questions” and its sequel "Choices We Make". I like to think that I did the character justice, at least as far as the JLU version of the character. This is the one character on this list that I am planning on going back and reading the old comics, I’ve become that interested.

Checking My Geek Cred

So here I am, calling myself the Working Class Geek, and yet I can’t help but feel like I’m not all the geek that I could be. Like most geeks, most of my friends (real and imaginary) are also geeks, and whenever I interact with them I can’t help but wonder how I stack up. Sure, my knowledge of Star Trek is extensive, my love of Buffy unrivaled, but there are certain geek staples that I just haven’t been able to get onboard with. In some cases they’re things that I’ve made an effort with and just couldn’t get into for one reason or another. In others, they are things that I feel like I would genuinely love, but discovered too late and therefore feel like I could never catch up. In any case, I’ve decided to examine here some of the major deficiencies in my geek cred, and invite you all to laugh and ridicule me because of them.

Dr. Who

As I understand it (and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong), because of the Doctor’s ability to regenerate into a new body, which allows him to be played by different actors, every incarnation of the Doctor from the old show, to the new show, to comic books, to TV movies, is in fact canon. Meaning that it is all part of the same universe, with the same continuity. That’s a pretty tall order for a newbie to jump onboard with, considering that the original show started in the early 60’s. In 2005 when the new show came out, I gave it a go. I watched it off and on, though never really consistently. Between the Sci-Fi Channel and BBC America, I was watching episodes out of order. I saw a few with Christopher Eccleston, a few with David Tennant, and I even watched some of Torchwood. I really like everything that I saw, though because I watched so inconsistently I always felt like I was playing catch up. Eventually that became frustrating enough that I stopped making the effort.

Dr. Who is huge, like Star Trek huge. Not being a fan severely hurts my geek cred. However thanks to my casual viewership and association with a few fans, I know enough to fake my way through a casual conversation. The upside is that Dr. Who fans, like most geeks, won’t shun you if you admit that you’re not a member of their secret cult, for the simple reason that they’ll be more than happy to indoctrinate you. Be prepared for long conversations involving colored scarves, robot dogs, and sonic screwdrivers.

Smallville

This one I really kick myself for. I watched the show off and on during the first season, and I really enjoyed it. But then I missed a few episodes, and the ‘monster of the week’ plots started to get old, and the show just stopped being a priority for me. And now is my face ever red. If I knew then what I know now, that the show was going to last so long, that they were going to introduce tons of characters from DC comics (including Green Arrow, one of my favorites), that the stories were going to get more complicated and interesting, I would have stuck around. Once in a while I catch a new episode and I wish I knew what was going on. I mean, this is probably the closest thing we’re ever going to get to a live action Justice League show.

I know, catching up is as easy as Netflixing the DVDs and setting aside a few days of my life to watch the shit out of them. I just don’t think I can make the time, I’m not the same geek that I used to be. And once it becomes a chore, and no matter how great the show is watching eight seasons in a weekend is still a chore, it kind of sucks the enjoyment out of it. Maybe I’ll get to it someday. Or maybe Green Arrow will get a spin-off and I can just watch that.

Battlestar Gallactica

Even though I’m too young to have been a fan of the original, when the remake started up on Sci-Fi Channel, I was excited. If anything it seemed like an advantage, considering the changes to the show that the harsh reaction to some of them by the original fans. Starbuck, a woman! Blasphemy! So I started watching the show with interest, but two or three episodes in I bailed. At the time I’m not even sure I knew why, I just couldn’t seem to get into it. There was action, the effects were great, it was dark and raw and realistic, the way the original never was (or so I’ve been told). So why wasn’t I onboard? I didn’t care about any of the characters. Now I know what you’re going to say. It’s dark and raw and realistic, the characters aren’t supposed to be likable. I’m not saying that the heroes have to be stalwart and true and wear white hats, but is it too much to ask that they not all be complete assholes? I respect the show and I respect the fans, but I just can’t get interested in a show when I have no emotional stake in the characters. And maybe I’m wrong about this because I haven’t watched much of the show, but the characterizations seemed inconsistent to me as well. Characters that you thought were smart would do really dumb things, or characters that were nice would do something really mean for no reason. I remember an episode where Starbuck was torturing a Cylon, got in trouble with the president for it, and then the president shoved him out of an airlock at the end, and Starbuck was upset by it. Maybe I’m missing something, but that just doesn’t make any sense.

Do I have some residual anger left at the Sci-Fi channel for canceling Farscape, or MST3K, or The Invisible Man? Perhaps. But I like to think that I’m mature enough not to hold a grudge. Besides, I loved Stargate, so take that imaginary person who asked that question!

Dune

This one is a combination of ‘too much back story to catch up’ and ‘I tried, I really really tried’. I remember when I was a kid and I saw a commercial for the movie Dune coming up on some cable station. It was science fiction, Patrick Stewart was in it, it looked right up my alley. I think I made it twenty minutes in before I bailed. I’ve since made several attempts to get through that movie, but I’ve never made it all the way through. All I have now are vague memories that make very little sense. Glowing blue eyes, a floating fat man, giant sand worms, Sting in his underwear. I’m sure it all makes sense to someone, but I left my decoder ring in my other pants.

The movie that I saw had an introduction where they used paintings of all of the key characters and planets and tried to get a lot of the exposition out of the way. I’ve since learned that that isn’t the original cut of the movie, and that it was added to make it less confusing. I can’t even fathom what that first cut must have been like. And I know what you’re going to say, I need to read the books. The source material is always going to be more coherent than the adaptation. And while I’m sure that’s true, and many movies that I’ve seen have made me interested enough to seek out the original work, with Dune I just don’t have the interest.

Comic Books

My secret shame. Before you start putting up the cross to nail me to, let me explain a little. I love comic book movies, I grew up watching the cartoons of comic book characters and continue to watch some even into adulthood. So I’ve always had an interest in comics, I just never bothered to pick up an actual comic book and read it. It was so much easier as a kid to have it all spoon fed to me through TV. And when I finally did wander into a comic book store with the intent to develop my interest, I didn’t know where to begin. I was met with wall after wall of colorful comic book covers, filled with familiar characters and unfamiliar storylines. I ended up picking a couple just based on the cover art, having no idea what they were about, and to absolutely nobody’s surprise, I had no idea what was going on. I needed someone to guide me on my journey, and at the time I didn’t have any friends that were into comics and I was too shy to talk to the people at the store.

I found my guide several years ago in the form of my friend Art (also known as ScarecrowsBrain). He started bringing me books from his own collection, both old and new. I started reading Marvel’s Ultimate line, along with some other X-Men titles. I read classics like Watchmen and The Long Holloween, and I read more obscure stuff like Astro City and Concrete. Then the comics started coming directly to my computer via bit torrent. Astonishing X-Men, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I read comics blogs and watched Justice League Unlimited. It was my own personal golden age. But like all good things, it came to an end. I moved on to a new job, and no longer being coworkers, Art and I no longer saw each other every day. My gravy train ended, and I was left once again to navigate the world of comics on my own.

The intervening time has been spent on other geek pursuits, however I’ve recently decided to delve back into the comics world. A recent conversation with my good friend Glitterrock over at The Gunutook about the new Green Lantern series “Blackest Night” has convinced me to pick up the book, as well as some older Green Lantern stuff to try and get caught up. So you can see that I’m making an effort, you’ve got to give me credit for that. Right?

Additional

This list is by no means comprehensive, it’s just a few major examples that stick out to me at the moment. I was going to write an entry for Babylon 5, but decided against it. A Star Trek fan talking less than favorably about Babylon 5 on the Internet is kind of like pitching a Molotov cocktail through a church window. It’s going to start some shit that I don’t need, so I’ll pass.

So what do you think, Sirs? Am I still turtley enough for the turtle club?