InsaneJournal

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seawolf10 (seawolf10) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-07-15 22:54:00

Entry tags:

char: batman/bruce wayne, char: flash/kid flash/wally west, char: gamemnae, char: green lantern/kyle rayner, char: manitou raven, char: martian manhunter/j'onn j'onzz, char: plastic man/patrick o'brian, char: rama khan, char: superman/clark kent, char: tezumak, char: whaler, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: doug mahnke, creator: joe kelly, group: justice league of america, title: jla

Comics you really should read...

I'm in the process of dredging up a couple old recommendations of mine.

First on the list is JLA: The Obsidian Age. This was the crowning point of Joe Kelly and Doug Mahnke's run on JLA, a few years before Infinite Crisis. A mega-arc so big it took two trades to complete, this story could have been even better than it was. A little more refinement, a little more thought during the writing process, and Kelly would have crafted a masterpiece.

*sigh* Ah, well. Even the flawed version that we got was tons of fun.

Time travel, sorcery, and a substitute JLA (consisting of Nightwing, Green Arrow, Major Disaster, the Atom, Hawkgirl, Jason Blood, Zatanna, and others) stepping in to deal with a present-day crisis while the 'regular' JLA was dealing with a threat in 1000 B.C...that period's version of a Justice League (hereafter dubbed as the "Ancient League"), based out of ancient Atlantis, and acting under the impression "our" JLA intended to destroy the world. I'm just going to post the beginning...

It starts off with Wally and Kyle cleaning up after a freak storm dropped tons of sea life on Daytona Beach. Unfortunately, the storm was a consequence of the process the Ancient League used to send two members forward in time...

Meet Tezumak, Mesoamerican warrior-priest.

We don't see any more of that fight, but we do get Wally's after-action report, informing us that Tezumak took down Wally and Kyle with poisoned darts. "The darts weren't so much fast as...perfectly timed. No matter how fast you moved, you'd get hit." Wally's superspeed metabolism worked the toxin off within a few, but Kyle was down for the count, and Tezumak took advantage of the made a strategic retreat...although he did lose a piece of his armor in the fight....

Blood sacrifice of children atop a rollercoaster -- not an approved Disneyland attraction.

The JLA rescues the kids...and then they're introduced to Manitou Raven, a massively powerful Apache shaman, and his storm of magical constructs...

Left that last page huge so everyone can appreciate the art.

Guess who comes riding to the rescue...

Flash yanked Wonder Woman out of the way in time, but I had to cut that page due to the rules.

Manitou and the rest of the Ancient League (except for Tezumak) in council. Second panel, left to right: Sela (African warrior-woman), Gamemnae (Atlantean sorcerer-queen), Rama Khan (manipulator of earth and fire), Angel (alien fallen to earth and raised by Hebrew priests), the Whaler (Inuit who's sailed all over the world and learned to hurl energy blasts somewhere along the way).

Yes, that Rama Khan is a predecessor of the one seen in "Golden Perfect": http://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/143691.html

As a final teaser, the Ancient League makes ready for their battle with the JLA the next morning, and we finally get to hear the prophecy that motivated them. (Well, all of them except the traitor lurking at their heart...and no, I won't reveal who that is, so please don't ask. Read the story yourselves.)

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smarmyimp
2009-07-16 03:39 am UTC (link)

You know, I really loved Obsidian Age, but it's a pretty good example of how Black And White the morality in the DCU can be. You're either a bright, shiny white knight who never ever kills, or you bathe in the blood of babies and don't feel that bad about it.

Wonder Woman's comments about them being from a different age just comes off as more of a "Pity the poor savages" sort of thing than actually acknowledging that some of the ancient League simply have a moral compass that points a few degrees off of the modern League's.

I mean, if you just take the general outlay of the story into account, the League is just trying to protect the world, and doing it a bit more violently and extremely than most people nowadays would be comfortable with. Except that in practice, the story takes every opportunity possible to show them as hedonistic sadists who pretty much revel in all the violent, twisted things they ~~have~~ get to do in the name of saving the world. Top it off with them gloating over the modern League as they stand around holding Flash's legless body later, and it becomes very clear that this is, in practice, just another supervillain group under another name.

It's like, DC sets up these plots that almost hinge on exploring moral ambiguity and shades of gray... and then they get scared, make everyone either really good or really evil, and throw in a giant monster fight at the end.

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broblawsky
2009-07-16 04:46 am UTC (link)

Frankly, most ancient cultures were monstrous by the moral standards of any civilized modern nation. Slavery was omnipresent, human sacrifice was disturbingly common, and warfare was practically recreation. There's no point in condemning them in the here-and-now, but if the heroes of the modern age clash with heroes of the ancient world, I fully expect the latter to be portrayed as monsters. Because they were.

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	seawolf10 2009-07-16 05:13 am UTC (link)
	Actually, very few ancient cultures practiced human sacrifice for any significant length of time once they got past the tribal stage. Aztecs, Incas (I think), Mayans, Mongols, Phoenicians (and their offshoots, the Carthaginians), are the only ones I can think of. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	outlawpoet 2009-07-16 09:46 pm UTC (link)
	depends on whether you consider executing people for heresy "human sacrifice" or just religiously motivated murder. It's not entirely clear to me what the difference is between decapitating people and ritualistically displaying their heads because they were Catholic, and a tribe killing the strongest members of rival defeated tribes to please their gods. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	01d55 2009-07-16 07:47 am UTC (link)
	Frankly, most modern cultures are plenty monstrous still. Look at what the USA has done to Iraq, what China is doing to Uighurs. (Reply to this) (Parent)

seawolf10
2009-07-16 05:06 am UTC (link)

"It's like, DC sets up these plots that almost hinge on exploring moral ambiguity and shades of gray... and then they get scared, make everyone either really good or really evil, and throw in a giant monster fight at the end."

Hm. I didn't see the Ancient League as being painted as hedonistic sadists. Tezumak and (won't name because of spoiler) are the only ones presented as really monstrous. Manitou's pretty much the good guy of the team (remember where he and Dawn wind up in the end), and the rest actually are presented as just having a different moral compass (especially when it comes to collateral damage)...and two unpleasant associates.

(The recent JSA Magog/Gog mega-arc, on the other hand, fits your description to a T.)

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sherkahn
2009-07-16 06:10 pm UTC (link)

I have a particular hard on for Tezumak. He's monstrous in our eyes because his faith dictates certain gruesome sacrifices. But as we saw (or didn't see in the fight at the theme park) he bends the rules only as far he can without taking innocent life.

To get the blood to fuel his armor for his 2nd clash with the League, he took blood from the children on the roller coaster, but nothing more than a what you would when drawing blood at a hospital for testing. nothing more. With enough kids, the amount he drew was enough to appease his gods and fuel the battle armor.

As for the mutiliation, he mutilated himself so that others would not be hurt, per his traditions.

With that piece of the armor still at the JLA station, I hope that it makes it's way back to Latin America and we see a new Tezumak.

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	jlbarnett 2009-07-26 03:15 am UTC (link)
	of course, from what we can tell they weren't exactly reluctant on the sacrifices. So wouldn't having them revel in be perfectly reasonable? (Reply to this) (Parent)

	jelly_ace 2009-07-16 03:46 am UTC (link)
	Mostly remembered this due to The Kiss and The Hug. Other than that, I was confused by the ending, and how they came up with the resolution. (Reply to this)

	jedd_the_jedi 2009-07-16 05:00 am UTC (link)
	Wonder Woman looks freakishly freakish in scan 2 panel 4...like she's dislocated her face and her neck. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	seawolf10 2009-07-16 05:07 am UTC (link)
	Yeah, Mahnke's style can go badly wrong at times. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	arilou_skiff 2009-07-16 08:44 am UTC (link)
	Wait, is the Ancient League grabbed from different time-periods or what? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	404glitch 2009-07-16 09:06 am UTC (link)
	Same time period, but from cultures that were not in contact with one another. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	arilou_skiff 2009-07-16 04:32 pm UTC (link)
	I find it excessively dubious that there would be an apache culture in 1000 B.C. in any recognizable form. (especially since, well, the word is not theirs) (Wiki seems to have them enter the american southwest at around the year 1000 A.D.) At least they mesoamerican dude could potentially be an Olmec. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	seawolf10 2009-07-16 08:46 pm UTC (link)
	I think Kelly was using "Apache" as a way to point out a general location. Like I said, this arc could have been a lot better than it was. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	404glitch 2009-07-17 09:56 am UTC (link)
	Totally. However, the character was an homage to Apache Chief (from Super Friends) more than anything else. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	arilou_skiff 2009-07-17 04:16 pm UTC (link)
	Speaking of which, isn't Manitou an eastern-seaboard thingie? I'm not too up to date on my south-west amerindian mythology but I'm fairly certain he's not from those parts. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	seawolf10 2009-07-18 03:20 am UTC (link)
	Yup. The deity "Manitou" is from up in the Northeast-Great Lakes somewhere. Again, one of those things where the story needed more refinement. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	kamino_neko 2009-07-16 09:07 am UTC (link)
	No. They're all from the same time period. 1000 BC. (Reply to this) (Parent)

comicoz
2009-07-16 02:32 pm UTC (link)

I really enjoyed this arc, but I enjoy those time-funny ones that have the plan stretched across many years. This also introduced Manitou Raven into the league, along with his wife. Because he was so powerful, JLA really didn't seem to know how to use him, thus he drifted over to JLI, then back to JLA, then died and possessed his wife (creepy!) who was sleeping with one of the other JLA (*sigh*) but he was totally cool with that (huh?).

The wife, whatever her name was, then seemed to basically fade away as they couldn't figure out what to do with her. I can't even recall what happened to her.

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	smarmyimp 2009-07-16 03:32 pm UTC (link)
	She's buried in Dinah's basement. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	comicoz 2009-07-16 04:46 pm UTC (link)
	Seriously? The fact that I even have to ask if you're serious or not should show my current faith in storywriting... (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	smarmyimp 2009-07-16 05:23 pm UTC (link)
	Not seriously, to my knowledge. But hey, she's done other incredibly, mind-bogglingly, insanely stupid things lately (coughMARRIEDOLLIEcough), what's a little murder on the side? (Reply to this) (Parent)

galateus
2009-07-16 04:38 pm UTC (link)

Metallurgy. Radiographic resonance. Microparticle carbon dating. All tests put the origin point for this armor at 1000 B.C.

Ohh, DC, don't try to bring science into your exposition. With time travel that carbon dating should mean his armor is somehow covered in microparticles from 4000 B.C.

Unless Tezumak's immortal and secretly pulled a Bender instead of time-travelling with Manitou, Batman is doing it wrong.

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smarmyimp
2009-07-16 05:28 pm UTC (link)

Really, not a lot about Tezumak makes sense. Clearly the ancient League is intended to be analogs of a lot of the contemporary League they wind up fighting. But Tezumak is more like Steel, who doesn't seem to be involved in this incarnation of the League.

Why is a power armor guy there? Other than the fact that this story was written with a viewpoint that the best superhero fights are the whole team fighting a single something that's HYOOJ AND STRONG, wouldn't it have made more sense and lined up better to have him be some ancient warrior who thought that the metal seared into his skin and bathing in the blood of his fallen foes is what let him access the Speed Force?

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	chthonicspirit 2009-07-16 11:54 pm UTC (link)
	You're right, considering the time skip, the carbon-dating should say that the armor was built yesterday, not three thousand years ago. And I'm not sure how metallurgy or radiography - i.e. X-raying it - would conclusively prove it's age at all. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

galateus
2009-07-17 01:26 am UTC (link)

Me either. Off the top of my head I can't think of any dating techniques for human-made alloys at all. Unless the makeup of raw ores has somehow changed, everywhere, in the last few thousand years, there's not much I can think of that wouldn't be thwarted by time travel, too.

So I just focused on the one part I knew couldn't make sense. For all I know those other two things I never heard of might be able to work! Somehow. (Maybe 'radiography' really means neutron activation?)

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chthonicspirit
2009-07-17 06:11 am UTC (link)

Well, alloys smelted by ancient methods were full of impurities. They could be saying "This bronze contains traces of arsenic and lead in a ratio consistent with artifacts from location X and time period Y." But I thought Tezumak was supposed to hale from some unknown, completely forgotten civilization.

Maybe 'radiography' really means neutron activation?

It might. In fact it probably does. Some quick googling tells me that neutron radiography is better at revealing the internal structure of metals than X-rays, and that this is useful to archaeologists because it can show what methods were used to manufacture metallic artifacts. That could indicate when and where something was made, but again, in this case you'd need other examples of Tezumak-era metalwork for comparison.

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	blake_reitz 2009-07-16 07:38 pm UTC (link)
	Re: Last scan. How is guy with no mouth going to drink that? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	smarmyimp 2009-07-16 07:51 pm UTC (link)
	It's not that he has no mouth, it's just... plated over. I think he like poured it on his face or something. Maybe he drinks the little bits that leak in around the plate. (Reply to this) (Parent)