greenygal | (no subject)

I was going to complain about villains. GL villains, as far as I can tell, are the universe's revenge on me for expecting

ratcreature to take Flash's Rogues Gallery seriously. Like, say, the Demolition Team. (Or the DTs, which is not what I'd want my abbreviation to be.)

They were seen initially in a splash page with the guy who'd hired them gasping in a horrified fashion and wondering "What have I unleashed?" I mean, yeah, okay, five goons with a bunch of souped-up construction equipment can certainly do a lot of damage, but it's not exactly in the "unholy terror" category, now is it?

Now, sure, Star Sapphire's cool--she even makes that costume work somehow. And I like Hector Hammond. (Granted that my introduction to him was a fic where he mind-controlled Hal into patting his head and rubbing his stomach, but I can get past that.) The Predator...I try really hard with the Predator, but something about that costume gives me trouble. I think it might be the claws on his feet, I dunno. He's easily one of the best menaces in the book while he lasts, though. And I can pretty much deal with The Shark, who has a decent gimmick and, okay, an invisible yellow aura, but he's a Silver Age character, and Len Wein cheerfully admitted he had no idea how it was supposed to work. Oh, and Sinestro hasn't gotten anything to do in any of the issues I've read, but he does talk a good game.

And then we have Javelin and his overdone accent, and Sonar and his insistence that beating up Green Lantern is somehow going to benefit his home country, and Goldface, who does in fact have a personality, but boy, you couldn't tell it here, and Doctor Polaris, who ought to scare me and yet really, really doesn't, and people like Deadlok and Throttle and Blindside with barely a character trait to share between them. And then we have Truk.

Truk

I looked at that cover and went "uh-huh." Yeah, I was definitely going to complain about Truk. Until I got to the end of the issue, whereupon it was revealed that Truk was in actuality a two-foot cartoon-style rodent dressed in red and yellow proclaiming vengeance.

Whereupon I went, "Oh, total insanity! I can cope with that." And settled in happily for more.

...I've been reading comics for too long, right?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

vagabondsal.livejournal.com

Doc Polaris was pretty scary when he was all Joker-fied, I thought.

(Has he grown out of that yet?)

From:

greenygal.livejournal.com

I have no idea, although I don't recall hearing anything about him since then.

To clarify, I think Polaris should be scary because I've seen him be scary in other books. (Well, that and I've read so many Magneto books that it's kind of imprinted on me that magnetic megalomaniacs are badasses.) That's why I'm making a note that he ain't doing much for me here.

From:

caia-comica.livejournal.com

LOL. I saw the Demolition Squad in a random issue a long time ago, and I must say, I love the concept. Especially Rosie the Riveter. Nothing quite like a villainess with construction gear and sensible clothing.

You've already seen my comments on Predator. Haven't seen him anywhere else, although I do wonder about Star Sapphire's pregnancy--did she ever deliver, or was it just forgotten about, like the (other) Zamarons post-ET? I agree with you on his appearence, though.

...I've been reading comics for too long, right?

I can't tell anymore, being as my response to reading this is, gee, got to read some of those old GLs soon...

Not that I've been horribly impressed with Hal's rogue gallery, either. But how can anyone resist evil construction workers, an invisible yelllow aura (??!) and a two-foot cartoon-style rodent dressed in red and yellow proclaiming vengeance?

From:

greenygal.livejournal.com

Nothing quite like a villainess with construction gear and sensible clothing.

Well, true, there's that. Always something to be said for the lone female member of a team dressing precisely the same as the rest (not to mention being in charge). I still say the group T-shirts are somewhat lacking in the inspiring of fear, though.

You've already seen my comments on Predator. Haven't seen him anywhere else,

This is his initial appearance. Apparently Len Wein introduced him as an increasingly nasty antihero, with a personal agenda of "Carol Ferris and Ferris Aircraft: Mine." When he came on, Steve Englehart stuck closely to Predator's established behavior but decided that Predator would really be Carol mainly because he thought it would be neat. The explanation of Carol's psyche, #192, is quite a good issue, but I confess the element of the Predator's creation is a little...less than convincing. I gather Gerard Jones retconned that to some extent, and it may be as well.

although I do wonder about Star Sapphire's pregnancy--did she ever deliver, or was it just forgotten about, like the (other) Zamarons post-ET?

Something happened in EXTREME JUSTICE, but I'm not sure what, or indeed what Carol was doing there in the first place.

a two-foot cartoon-style rodent dressed in red and yellow proclaiming vengeance?

The rodent turned out to be awfully cool, too.

From:

ratcreature

A demolition crew?!? Do they have nuclear weapons or something? Why would the guy with this incredibly powerful weapon have to fight a demolition crew? I mean that in the sense of "why would the writer make him fight..." I can see why GL would do something against a rampaging demolition team on an intra-textual level, though I'm less sure why villains whose powers don't seem to be a match for GL's get into fights with him on the regular "nemesis" basis. You'd think it would be villains with psychic powers of some sort who'd have the most fun attacking him with GL's power being so much dependent on his mind and concentration, no? But then I haven't really read any regular GL comics so far.

From:

chicago-h.livejournal.com

It was a misinterpretation of the original idea, which was the DECONSTRUCTION Team!

When editorial couldn't decide whether it would go over our heads or offend us, they went the demolition route...

*giggles*

From:

greenygal.livejournal.com

This sounds so very much like something that would have shown up in Morrison's Doom Patrol. (Er, bearing in mind that I've never read it. But from all accounts.)

From:

greenygal.livejournal.com

I definitely cannot speak for what the author was thinking, although I note that he also created the (much more successful) Wrecking Crew (http://mathew.fcpages.com/cswreckingcrew.html) over at Marvel. In fact, though, it's more sensible than it sounds; they never engaged Green Lantern, and were never intended to even on an in-story level. They were hired to bust up Ferris Aircraft (Hal Jordan's place of employment at the time) and when their employer realized there was a possibility of Green Lantern getting involved he immediately tried to call them off, lest they should name names after getting caught. He was too late, but fortunately for him Green Lantern was called off on more urgent business at that precise moment, and it was left to other hands to deal with the Team. And that was their first and last appearance in GL--so no fight with Hal.

Now, actually, they might have lasted longer than you'd think, what with the numbers advantage, all that glaring yellow, and the rule that says that really dumb villains can still give ridiculously highpower heroes a hard time. (See: Captain Boomerang.) Still, I'm thinking twenty minutes tops.

You'd think it would be villains with psychic powers of some sort who'd have the most fun attacking him with GL's power being so much dependent on his mind and concentration, no?

This does happen; Hector Hammond is a mentalist, and the Shark eats minds, basically, and I gather a guy named Myrwhydden played mind games with Hal. (Specifically, he made him think he was Haljor the Barbarian. I've wanted that issue for years...) There's also apparently a guy named Malvolio whose name comes up a lot during "That wasn't really Hal Jordan in Emerald Twilight" discussions.

If it doesn't happen often, though--and bear in mind that my experience with Hal Jordan is still not all that broad either--I suspect there are two reasons. One, not very visual. GL is the book of the Big Green Things. (Am I exaggerating? Like, lots? Yes. Still think it's a factor, though.) Two, Hal is supposed to be the man when it comes to willpower and mental focus, and attacking him there is somewhat akin to shooting at Superman--you may knock him back a couple steps, but unless you came equipped with really heavy artillery that's all that's gonna happen. (Again, exaggerating to some extent, but in two out of three of the instances of attempted mental domination I've actually seen, Hal broke it almost immediately out of pure willpower, and he didn't do much worse with the third, either.)

Actually the villain with the nastiest gimmick to deal with that I've seen so far is Black Hand, a Silver Age supervillain who can store and redirect their green energy...so the more power they use, the stronger he gets, and the more he can do, and the more power they have to use stopping him, and...you see the problem.

From:

ratcreature

Oh that Black Hand idea is great. That has potential. I think it's not easy to make supervillains that really work, that are powerful enough to be able to hold their own, yet not so powerful where it then just seems ridiculous that they do superhero battles. I think I generally have less problems with their powers and their gimmicks or whatever, when they have proper motivation beyond wanting to do battle with some superhero, or merely some vague kind of "revenge" for whatever last plan of theirs the hero foiled (random alien invasion forces without a reason why they invade are kind of boring too). There are a couple who work without motivation because they are believably crazy and psychotic (though it helps if the kind of crazy they are makes sense, for example I like Scarecrow and even the Mad Hatter because I can kind of believe their craziness), but many don't. And it helps if they have a workable plan or strategy that could succeed for tension to be the there.

From:

illmantrim.livejournal.com

Dr Polaris was rarely shown as scary-- but pick up some of his appearances in Ray and you will see he is a bit more menacing there.. and also in Damage as well. He is a major threat but hes kinda like two face too in that hes annoying...

From:

greenygal.livejournal.com

Oh, definitely Damage. And Underworld Unleashed, and he carried off the feel of Uber-Menace well in that Flash/GL/GA crossover, as I recall. I know I've seen him elsewhere in Flash and GL, too, but as I don't remember more than broad outlines I'd be cheating to cite those.

(Mild irony: he's actually the catalyst for the origin of Magenta, a Titans/Flash character for whom I have more than passing fondness. As neither she nor anyone else knows this, however, it's never made for any interaction...)