30 Things I Like About Comics—#1 Justice League International

We’ve done it. We’ve gotten to one of my–if not the favorite–things in comics, the Justice League International. So how did a group of B and C list super heroes capture my heart?

Writers Keith Giffen and JM DeMatteis gave this motley crew such great personalities. Just look at some of them. Booster Gold was a greedy, scheming George Costanza type, but had the looks and self confidence to make it work. His best friend Blue Beetle was always cracking jokes, but secretly had low seelf esteem in regards to his appearance.
Fire was a Brazillian sex pot and her best friend Ice was a bit socially conservative.
Guy Gardner was the prototypical dumb jock and was stuck with an idiot would-be sidekick in G’nort. Power Girl and Black Canary were super feminists. Elongated Man and his wife Sue were the obnoxious cute couple. Maxwell Lord was like Mr. Sheffield from The Nanny, but more of a tool. And these were just the primary characters.

The best part of this book was how they were able to intertwine the JLI’s personal lives and problems equally with the crime fighting and world saving stories. The book may have been silly at times, but you would always be more interested in what was going on between the characters then what diabolical scheme they were stopping.

You remember the time that Booster and Beetle tried to open a vacation resort on the living island Kooey Koeey Kooey. You remember Guy’s awkward first date with Ice. Or when Batman finally had enough and punched Guy out. Just fun stuff.

I thin that’s why many readers, and myself personally, had such a hard time with the whole mid 2000s DC, where it seemed that JLI characters were being killed left and right. Sue Dibny’s death was the plot device in Identity Crisis (and later on Elongated Man got killed off). Maxwell Lord turned uber-villain and murdered Blue Beetle. Rocket Red bit the dust in OMAC Project. Saying the last decade was rough is an understatement. It sucks seeing your favorite characters getting knocked off left and right.

But I’m really excited for the fall, with a new book featuring JLI coming after Flashpoint. It’s written by Dan Jurgens, who not only worked on JLI back in the day but also created Booster Gold. I can’t wait!

Because You Can’t Have Enough Green Lantern Posts…

I think I’m still on some sort of post Green Lantern kick, because I keep wanting to write about related things. This clip from the wonderful Batman: The Brave and the Bold series from Cartoon Network.

In it we see G’nort Esplanade G’neesmacher trying to remember his Green Lantern oath. He debuted in the Justice League International books back in the late 1980s. When I got into those books, he became one of my favorite characters, mostly because he seemed so dimwittedly lovable.

Yes, G’nort is a bit of an idiot. But at his heart, he’s a loyal friend and brave. The way he interacts with Guy Gardner is a thing of beauty. Guy is so the alpha dog in their relationship and somewhat abusive, but he really is G’norts best friend, and therefore G’nort always puts up with him.

In his more recent appearances, he’s a bit depressed. His homeworld was destroyed during the Rann-Thangar war, and he is deservedly sad. G’nort hasn’t been seen in a while, and I hope he resurfaces in the new post-Flashpoint Justice League International.