Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!

ON THE JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA . . . AND THE BIGGEST FOUR-
COLOR "GUNS" OF THEM ALL
[3]

(He is also, your eternally grateful Unca Cheeks hastens to point out, pretty gosh-darned adept at online dynamics and interpersonal relationships, as well; giving selflessly and repeatedly of his time, energies and attention to practically any and every fan and reader on the 'net, whether via e-mail; message board; or mailing list.)

That being a "given," then: it seemed only fitting and proper to tap into the tres formidable knowledge of the man whose handful of JLA "fill-in" issues provided the team's last, great gasp before the long, dark night of JLA Detroit and (later) the Giffen/DeMatteis "BWAH-Ha-

Ha" League of the 1980s.

Without any further ado, then...

... ladies and germs: The Right Honorable Kurt Busiek, Esq.

CHEEKS: It's 1960, and you've just been handed the assignment to come up with a "try-out" issue of THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD for a (potential) ongoing series -- working title: "The Justice League of America." (... and with you being so young, too...!)
You're given (comparative) free reign, insofar as team line-up goes: ANY seven DC characters of the day...

... but: only seven.

Query: do you pick the same original "five plus two" heroes (Aquaman; Flash; Green Lantern; J'onn J'onzz; Wonder Woman; plus -- occasionally -- Superman and the Batman)? Or do you opt for one (or more) of the other character(s) within the DC Comics stable of said era (e.g.: Adam Strange; Captain Comet; Congorilla; Green Arrow; Robin; Supergirl; etc.), in place of one (or more), instead? And -- if so -- why?

KURT BUSIEK: I'd probably pick Green Arrow rather than The Martian Manhunter, because I always thought Jonn was a lox. Sorry, Mark, I know you love him. Sorry, John Ostrander; the book's fun to read. But I never got the appeal. To me, as a fan, he was just a big ugly Superman clone with even more powers and a ridiculous weakness.

Since those days, I've grown to like him more, but never to the level that I think of him as one of the gotta-have JLAers.

And Green Arrow, unlike the other candidates you mention, was a relatively straightforward superhero, like the others. Adam Strange and Captain Comet are more space-heroes, Congorilla's a jungle-adventure character, Robin's a sidekick, Supergirl's a derivative character (and for that matter, she was still Superman's "secret weapon" for another two years, right?) ... none of them seem to belong in the JLA as readily as Green Arrow. He fits the genre, and the type of stories they told, much more smoothly.

Of course, I'd happily ditch Aquaman, too, if there were anyone else who'd fit the bill. But the Atom and Hawkman didn't exist yet, and your rules preclude any GA-revivals for the sake of the series. And it'd be nice to have another woman in there. But the pickings were slim.

CHEEKS: There is a minor (but vociferous) segment of comics fandom which holds to the position that teams such as the JLA work best with line-ups comprised chiefly (or entirely) of characters not "tied" or "beholden" to their own regular, ongoing series' ; that "characterization" for said protagonists can never be meaningfully advanced, in the same way that (ostensibly) it can be for characters appearing within the pages of the team's title, solely.

There is a larger faction within the comics readership, however -- particularly as regards the JLA (as well as Marvel's THE AVENGERS) -- which feels that said teams best live up to their baseline premises when comprised chiefly (or entirely) of the "Big Gun" characters of their respective companies; and that it is this (more than anything else) which differentiates JLA (or AVENGERS) from the likes of -- say, THE X-MEN, or THE TEEN TITANS.

Which of these views (if either) do you lean towards; and why?

KURT: Both, depending on the book. I think JUSTICE LEAGUE is a big guns book by concept, tradition and atmosphere, while AVENGERS started out as a big guns book (if you can count Ant-Man and the Wasp as guns...) that rapidly became something else.

I don't think it's the big guns approach that distinguishes JLA and AVENGERS from teams like the X-Men, the Doom Patrol, the FF, the Teen Titans or what-have-you -- I think it's their respective status as their universe's varsity squad -- the go-to guys for world-saving. The X-Men are outlaws, the Doom Patrols are freaks, the Titans are kids, the FF are explorers -- but it's the Avengers and the JLA who are foursquare super-teams who stand on guard so we can sleep safe in our beds.

Within that concept, though, I think the books should be different -- if they weren't, we'd only need one of 'em.

CHEEKS: An odd question, admittedly (in three parts, no less)... but:

a.) What (if anything) do you feel the character of "Snapper" Carr added to the original series conceptualization of the JLA?

b.) Would said addition (if any) have worked as well, in your estimation, if Gardner Fox had opted, instead, to utilize a pre-existing comics "sidekick," instead? (e.g.: Thomas Kalmuku; Steve Trevor; Jimmy Olsen; Robin; etc.)

c.) Is there (to your mind) anything the concept of the whey-faced and powerless "sidekick" might conceivably add to the storytelling "mix" of the JLA today; or is this an auctorial notion whose time has -- for whatever reason(s) -- come and gone?

KURT: a) Not much. He did give the book a "resident supporting-character" who didn't appear anywhere else, and for some reason DC seemed convinced that any superhero book needed a kid-appeal character, as if the heroes weren't the appeal in the first place. But I can't really say I think either of those things is necessary.

b) No. That would have defeated the purpose of giving the series its own character. Pieface would have been "Green Lantern's pal," not "the JLA's pal," and so on down the line.

c) I think Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn and Barry Kitson found a nice way to work Snapper into JLA YEAR ONE, by making him the JLA's tech guy (of a sort) and link to the administration and backing. That gave him a purpose besides collecting souvenirs and writing up casebooks, the appeal of which does seem to have fallen by the wayside.

So if someone like that were to be added to the team today, I think it would only work if he had a part to play -- like Rick Jones and the Teen Brigade, or Captain America's Hotline (a network of kids calling in news of danger around the country to Cap). Put him in charge of an Internet-based resource for the team, where people can e-mail (or call) the JLA if they're in trouble, and there might be a place for him.

But on the other hand, that could be done through Oracle, or the Wayne Foundation, or any number of other venues. I don't think you gain any appeal by it.

CHEEKS: Given the fact that you are one of a scant handful of writers who have enjoyed tenures on both titles... I can't resist asking:

... what is (to your mind) the key, essential difference between the Justice League of America (as DC's quintessential super-team) and the Avengers (as Marvel's etcetera, etcetera), from a writer's standpoint? (Realizing, of course, that this begs the question: is there any essential difference between the two... ? <g>)

KURT: It's very kind of you to call my four scattered fill-ins on JUSTICE LEAGUE a "tenure."

But I've gone on record here and there as saying that the difference between the JLA and the Avengers is that the JLA are a league, and the Avengers are a team. The JLA are the big guns, as noted earlier -- they're DC's solo super-stars, leagued together in an alliance. They're not a well-coordinated fighting unit, but a group of solo heroes who work together when needed, to tackle foes no one of them could face alone. But each stands separate, like the member-nations of the UN, or the teams of the National League.

The Avengers, on the other hand, are a well-coordinated fighting team. While some of them are solo stars, they (along with full-time Avengers) come together to form a group more closely integrated than a team or an alliance. They train together more, they put more of an emphasis on teamwork, and they often have closer personal ties. The JLA friendships, while strong, are just that -- friendships. The Avengers become more of a family, more of a nuclear unit.

I'm not valuing one over the other -- I think it's good to have both. But the JLA are a pantheon -- a gathering of otherwise-standalone heroes -- and the Avengers are a squadron -- a single unit that exists more as a unit than as a collection of individual parts.

The Avengers can be popular when written like JLA should be, and the JLA can be popular when written like AVENGERS should be. But they're both better when they're true to their own central strengths, and the runs of both that are considered "classic" show those strengths.

CHEEKS: Upon re-reading your JLA work, prior to cobbling up the questions for this interview (I do my homework, by golly!): I've noticed, in retrospect (or, at least, believe I've noticed) a pronounced fondness on your part for the character of the team's luckless android, the Red Tornado.

(That, AND the four-issue RED TORNADO mini-series you authored, some years back, I mean.)

This strikes me as noteworthy, in that said character has never really seemed to enjoy any real "fan favorite"-type support within the greater comics readership. (Especially when held alongside the way that Marvel Comics readers have traditionally taken the Avengers' Vision to their collective bosom.)

What is it about this character, in especial, which (seemingly) so appeals to you? And why do you suppose the two android characters in question have been the beneficiaries of such wildly disparate reader reactions, overall? (I mean: they've "killed off" the Tornado -- what? -- eighty or ninety times, over the years...?)

KURT: I did a text piece in one of the RED TORNADO issues that went into this in detail, but I wouldn't say that Reddy is my favorite JLAer (Hal) by any (Hal) stretch (Hal). I do like him, because he's the wallflower at the dance, the shrinking violet in a roomful of extroverts, the underconfident guy amid the gods. I don't think there's any reason to explain why a bookish, studious, introverted kid would latch onto a character like that.

But for all that I like him, there's stuff I like about most of the others as well. When I was writing Reddy, I hooked into what I liked about him and had fun, but had I been given the chance to write, say, the Atom instead, I'd have focused on what I like about him, and you'd be asking me today why I especially like ol' Ray Palmer.

And I think the major differences between the Vision's appeal and Reddy's are:

(a) The Vision's visually more interesting. That John Buscema design is strikingly good, while Reddy's pre-Len Wein costume is drab.

(b) Marvel fans, particularly at the time, were more drawn to brooding heroes than DC fans. If DC fans wanted brooding, Byronic types, they'd have been over at Marvel.

(c) Here we come back to the league versus the team again -- but the Vision could take a central role in AVENGERS, since he wasn't one of the big guns, and the book needed a focus on the resident-Avengers characters to carry the soap operatics, while Reddy was always shunted off to the side, because the core and the appeal of the JLA is Superman, Batman and crew. The different approaches to the team combined to make the Vision part of the Avengers' nucleus, while Reddy was marginalized for not being a "solo superstar."

(d) Wanda. Kathy. Need I say more?

CHEEKS: The post-CRISIS JLA is (demonstrably) a very different breed of four-color animal than was its Silver (and Bronze) Age predecessor. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are no longer "founding members" of the team; two other of the team's founders were killed off, and replaced (with varying degrees of controversy accompanying) with younger "legatees" (if you like); Hawkman's backstory became so hopelessly snarled, DC pumped a bullet into his brain (figuratively, I mean) out of sheer desperation; and so on, and so on, and yadda yadda yadda.

Over the past few years, we've seen DC (seemingly) revisiting -- albeit in cautious, measured steps; to wildly varying degrees -- essential "core" aspects of the baseline pre-CRISIS concepts and conceits: Mark Waid's examination of the Hal Jordan/ Barry Allen relationship, in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD; Grant Morrison's tilted "take" on Gardner Fox and Len Wein, re: his own JLA tenure; Mark Waid's (again) "Hypertime" concept, re-integrating (literally) thousands of previously discarded pre-CRISIS stories into the DC canon; the Silver Age-flavored JLA: YEAR ONE; Karl Kesel's unabashedly "Kirby"-centric SUPERBOY; the redemption (in part) of Hal Jordan; and so on, ad infinitum.

The question (finally): do you see any/all of the foregoing as admission on DC's part -- tacit, or otherwise -- that the wholesale changes engineered in the wake of CRISIS went "too far," overall? Or is it (perhaps) the synchronicity of a handful of writers all attempting to "recapture" the essential feel, re: the comics of their youth? An attempt to reach out to older, disenfranchised comics readers? All of these? None of these?

KURT: I'd go with the "synchronicity of writers" choice. I don't think DC, as an ur-entity, is making an admission of any kind; they're dealing with what the current talent pool wants to do and does well, and what the readers respond to. I think each of these ideas comes in one by one, and gets done because someone thinks it'll excite the readership, make a good story, whatever. What they add up to, I'd say, isn't a plan so much as a trend -- a sensibility among the creators that comes from their desires and inspirations, not corporate directions.

CHEEKS: What is the one thing, above all else (in your estimation), that any writer absolutely MUST know, in order to "do" the Justice League right...?

KURT: How many miles up geosynchronous orbit occurs.

No, wait, they don't need to know that any more...

CHEEKS: Final query:

You're stranded somewhere in the darkest, most God forsaken bowels of Apokolips.

You're being stalked by a frighteningly well-armed horde of ravening Parademons.

They're herding you, inexorably, towards Darkseid's palace...

... and you have absolutely NO way of getting back home.

You can summon one -- and ONLY one -- JLAer to bail you out of this mess.

Who you gonna call...? (Other than the Ghostbusters, I mean.)

KURT: The Atom.

I mean, he's the hero, so he's gonna win -- heck, Black Canary and Catwoman were just on Apokalips, and they won -- so I know he'll get me back safely. [Unless the story is being written by someone who likes things "tough" and "brutal," in which case I've got no chance, even with Superman.]

But the Atom against Apokalips? I want to see how he pulls it off...

The Justice League of America: THE SILVER AGE (Page Two)
The Justice League of America: THE SILVER AGE (Page Four)

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