COMICS: Dave's DC Rant: JLA, Supergirl

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's DC Rant:

JLA #20 "Rann-ting And Raving"
Supergirl #23 "Some People Don't Get It"

Spoilers....

JLA "Mystery In Space": Waid gets stuck with two unenviable things this
time out. One, all the damage which has been done to Adam Strange over the
past decade or so. Two, the rather horrid art of Arnie Jorgensen.
Still, where (for example), Iron Fist started bad and got worse, this
story starts out looking pretty bad (Adam Strange has gone off his rocker,
enslaved his entire planet and the JLA), the situation improves as time goes
on. His alien "enforcers" are actually blackmailing Adam with what seems to
be his wife, not dead after all (possibly a shapeshifter, though). He's
still a bit on the unhinged side, which I didn't care for, but he's not
totally delusional, and he *has* been put through hell by previous writers.
As for the rest, it probably would have worked a lot better with a
different artist. Orion's rage at being a slave came across as just goofy
under Jorgensen's pencils, for instance.
I'll stick around for the second part, but I won't really be eagerly
looking forward to it.

Supergirl "Double-Edged Sword": PAD tackles the rather thorny issue of
free speech versus racism. Do you shout down a racist? Is free speech more
important, or is enfranchisement? This issue comes up every year around
here, since the Klan loves to hold a yearly rally on the Statehouse steps in
Columbus, followed by thousands of protestors and round the clock news
coverage.
To his credit, PAD covers pretty much all sides of the issue, with both
the intelligent proponents and the blind mobs. Steel is quite eloquent in
presenting what seems to be the side PAD disagrees with (although PAD seems
more of the opinion that everyone's wrong once such a dispute starts). My
one quibble is that Steel was a little too quick to throw his hammer at
SGirl. It's more likely he would have flown up and calmly gotten in her
face. Still, it's not like Steel ended up being a strawman, as I was a
little worried he might. And in other respects, this was very much a "Priest
Story," in that there was so much moral abiguity it could float the Titanic.
}->
In the end, as I read it, the message isn't so much that Cutter is right
in his stand (that free speech is more important than fighting racism) as he
is right in his approach. Which is to actually *think* about all the
implications of his decision. Other character do this to a lesser extent
(especially Steel, who makes a good point along the lines of "your right to
swing your fist stops at my face"), but for the most part they seem not to be
giving their positions too much thought beyond the knee-jerk.

Dave Van Domelen, "Excuse the snot out of me for trying to get at the
truth. I didn't realize that everyone in that place but *me* had such a
clear grasp of what that *is*." - Cutter