Part two of that last thing! A long time later! By Johnathan!

I may seem to be in the grip of some sort of late-Winter/early-Spring frenzy of procrastination frenzy but I am totally working on really cool things! With Paul! Also, I'm procrastinating a lot. But with a girl! Which isn't as bad, I think?

Anyway:

Mr Terrific - Would there even be a Mr Terrific in the Thirtieth Century? Terry Sloane started crime-fighting because he was the very best at everything and was super-duper suicidally bored by it all. But was he smarter than Brainiac 5? A better fighter than Karate Kid? More rolly-polly than Bouncing Boy? No, no and no. I figure that a Mr Terrific somehow thrust into a legion audition would find himself feeling suicidally inferior. He'd probably end up living in the sewers underneath the Clubhouse, eating future-vermin (astro-snakes! cosmic sand fleas! plasma eels!) and writing bad poetry about rejection. And everyone would forget about him until Five Years Later, when he shows up in two panels before getting shot by the Dominion. Poor guy.

Sandman - In contrast, Golden Age Wesley Dodds is just too damn hard to stop for him *not* to get into the Legion. Seriously, I don't know about his solo adventures but in the old All-Star Comics days he was easily the most bad-assed of the normal JSAers. As far as I can figure it, Lightning Lad or someone would have a scary dream about Sandman (and possibly also Sandy, the Golden Boy) punching him in the head and then he'd wake up and go to get a cup of coffee to steady his nerves and then Sandman would bust through the door and punch him in the head. He wouldn't even have a vote - no one would. they'd all wake up one day and Sandman would be just finishing screwing his name-plate onto that big horseshoe-shaped mass podium they have and that would be that.

Spectre - Well, he's got the power, but I don't know if his methods are in line with standard Legion non-homicidal practice. Also - and I know I made a very similar joke about Dr Fate - I think that "as old as time" is a bit too far past the age of eighteen to be ignored.

Starman - Let's ignore the fact that he wouldn't get in in a million years because he gains his power from a Cosmic Rod (and that thing really never did work too well, to tell the truth. It seemed like he lost it or found that it was completely useless about every other adventure) and think about how much more interestingly confusing the Legion would be if he got in. Star Boy! Starman! Together at last! Oh no, here comes Starfinger and Pulsar Stargrave! Aiee!

Wildcat - If his "nine lives" power was in effect, Wildcat would totally get in, but even if it wasn't I think that he would be a valuable addition to the Legion lineup for one simple reason: costume diversity. Essentially, most of the Legion (and a decent percentage of the JSA, actually) are wearing spaceman clothes with some sort of fancy-pants logo on the front. Whither the themed costumes of yore, super-teens? Wildcat, with his right-down-to-the-jowls attention to detail (okay, I haven't actually seen a jowled cat, but there must be some reason for those little flaps) could show those young punks a thing or two about looking good while cracking skulls. Picture brainiac 5 wearing a hat shaped like a brain. Are you delighted? The answer is yes.

Wonder Woman - The Justice Society's secretary, which is kind of heinous, yes. It's not quite as bad in the context of the stories ("We can only have eight members for some dumb reason, but we think that you're cool! Want to be our secretary?") but yeah: stupid. Despite (because of?) all of the bondage, Golden Age Wonder Woman actually kicked a fair amount of ass, and her own comic was delightfully weird. I can't really think of any powers that she has that aren't duplicated by half of the legion membership, though. Maybe having Etta Candy around could count (Etta Candy is the most delightful Golden Age sidekick since Slam Bradley's pal Shorty. So I have decreed). If not, I'm sure that she could get into the Wanderers, no problem.

Review of First Impressions: Slam Bradley, By Johnathan

Oh, dang. I dropped the ball. There was a vote for Slam Bradley and I did Command Kid anyway. Well, far be it from me to disappoint little abs, whoever he or she might be. Here comes the first in yet another series of reviews. I've got basically the entire run of Detective Comics here and I'm determined to read them all. This means that I'm going to come across all kinds of long-running DC characters as they make their very first appearance. Whee! So every time I encounter someone like Batman, the Joker or whoever I'm going to review the first impression that they made.

Today it's Slam Bradley, all the way from Detective Comics No. 1!


First off, let me say that this review is packed full of 1937 America's idea of what Chinese people looked like. There's really no avoiding them in the comics of the time. Sorry if it offends. Just for the record, I don't believe in a nation of vivid yellow, murderous, pajama-clad pony tail-havers. I've advanced to hating the scheming Communist hordes.

The above page isn't a preview of the rest of the comic, by the way. Slam Bradley comics start in media res, usually with Slam in the middle of a fight.

Slam knows how to talk to the ladies:


Sarcastically. So: Fact 1, Slam Bradley likes to fight. Fact 2, he's not impressed by wealth. He's an irreverent rogue with a ready wit.


He's also got Shorty following him around. Shorty's a mail-order detective, a sub-genre that popped up a lot in the Thirties and Forties but has since died out. He's also possibly the best sidekick of all time, the prototype for all of the half-cowardly, half-courageous second bananas to follow. Subsequent to this adventure he dresses better, too.



Fact 3: Slam Bradley likes fighting more than he likes poodle-dogs. Also, "Jumpin' blue blazes." is pretty good.

For this comic only, Slam is a bit of a jerk to Shorty, who only wants to be partners with him:


Anyway, Shorty ends up guarding the dog, and so is in a position to tell Slam when the owner-lady gets kidnapped by the Chinese for some reason.

Fact 4: Slam Bradley loves fighting so much that he will fight anything, even a store display:


What? That's not true, Slam! I'm almost certain that it isn't! The friggin' Manchu Dynasty made people grow their hair funny, that's all. Dude probably just wants you to stop pulling on it like that. Jerk.

Okay, pretend that in this next panel Slam is fighting someone other than horrible ethnic stereotypes. Ready? Go go go!


Possibly the best fight ever, right? I mean, screw swinging someone around by the leg. Were I in any position to demand things of DC Comics I would demand that Batman do this to someone post haste. Like, he's fighting evil hippies or something. That would be boss.

In any case, everything ends well. Shirtless Slam rescues the dame, Shorty proves himself by capturing the bad guy:


... and Slam and Shorty become BFFs:


Uh, that's a little creepy, Shorty.

So, disregarding the stereotypes (which are NOT APPROVED), I really enjoyed Slam and Shorty's first appearance. The fact that Slam is just in the detective racket because he loves to fight is terrific. Plus, Shorty is frequently funny when he's supposed to be funny, something that was almost vanishingly rare in comics for far too long. Therefore, Slam Bradley is

JOHN APPROVED.