Unearthed: "Revelations" by Christopher Priest & Eric Battle

Completing my three-day appreciation of Christopher Priest, I'm turning the clock back to 1998 and JLA 80-Page Special#1, featuring the story "Revelations" by Priest and artist Eric Battle. Earlier, I featured another of Priest's stories from the 80-Page Giants: "The Game"; I only learned of this tale thanks to J. Caleb Mozzocco.

At merely 10 pages it's a quick story, so it says something that people remember this tale so many years later.

We open with Wonder Woman responding to a distress call sent by Aquaman. Wearing a rebreather, she dives underwater to rendezvous with him. This tale is during Aquaman's hooked, bearded, frowny days and he's definitely crabby with his teammate from the outset. "I just-- expected J'onn -- or Superman--" he complains. The problem is a fairly simple one to solve, it merely requires an extra set of hands: a band of underwater treasure hunters submerged into an Atlantean labyrinth and now their craft is stuck; to add insult to injury, the underwater "gold" is fool's gold. Aquaman can't free the vessel alone, but with Wonder Woman's help he might succeed.

As they begin to work on the problem, using Wonder Woman's lasso to tow the vehicle, Wonder Woman wonders why Aquaman seems more grouchy than usual.

"Sometimes it's just easier to fence off the world. And, the truth of it is-- I spend a lot of time wondering what I'm doing in the JLA to begin with, Princess--"

"--Diana, Arthur. Unless you prefer I call you 'my lord.'"

"Actually-- I would."

Aquaman continues to grouch along, calling her "a little vapid and boring" and hates how people assume they "have anything at all in common simply because we're both royalty." Then his secret comes out: "I can't find any rational reason-- why I want you so badly." Wonder Woman deduces he's become tangled in her Lasso of Truth, hence his session of truth-telling. Unfortunately, this is carried entirely by the dialogue because the artist doesn't bother to show it all. Hey, it's only the incident the entire story depends on, no big deal.

Their conversation is interrupted by a second team of treasure hunters - these, figures wearing diving suits and carrying weaponry. Wonder Woman's communicator is knocked out so Aquaman monologues the rest of the underwater scenes solo, continuing to remark "wish they'd sent J'onn." However, now that she can't hear him and he's not wrapped in the lasso, he also remarks she's "part of the reason I remain with the JLA" and "I don't like to be alone with you."

They successfully fend off their attackers and save the submerged craft, but Aquaman is somewhat sheepish over what he admitted to her before. When he wonders if he can trust her to "keep this incident between us," she responds by swimming close to him and pressing her hand against his cheek. "Arthur -- my lord king --" and then she dives underwater, leaving him rattled and confused.

"Yes... well... glad we got that settled... wish they'd sent J'onn..."

Thoughts: While not wishing to psychoanalyze Priest, I do recall one of his essays described a relationship he'd wanted to pursue which didn't pan out - he wound up in "the friend zone," to use current parlance. He seems to put Aquaman through something similar here through the hero lusting after Wonder Woman while realizing such a relationship probably wouldn't work and his feelings probably wouldn't be reciprocated.

I don't know DC Comics continuity particularly well so I can't say whether this characterization of Aquaman & Wonder Woman holds (ahem) water. I do find it interesting to note that when people try to pair Wonder Woman off with one of her peers in the League (because that's what strong, independent women want, right? to be someone's "and..."), they pair her with Superman because they have similar power levels (and he's popular!) or Batman because they're children of royalty (and he's popular!). Poor unpopular Aquaman actually seems like a decent choice for her, given they originated in warrior-culture hidden lands with deep mystical/mythological connections. Then again, perhaps that's why they couldn't ever work out, they'd be all like, "Oh my gods, you follow Neptune? What's wrong with Artemis?" "I can't stand listening to the Greek pantheon, give me the Romans any time." "They're the same gods starfish-brain!"

Eric Battle's art is an unfortunate demerit; as noted above, he doesn't capture the Aquman-tangled-in-lasso moment at all and in general his panels don't tell the story; you could redialogue this tale into almost anything. The load is left upon Priest to carry the tale with his scripting and, fortunately, Priest was (and is) a fantastic scripter. The art isn't up to the same standard as Cary Nord in "the Game," but this is a minor triumph in Priest's bibliography. This one was definitely worth unearthing!

Comics That Changed Me: Justice League International#11

When I say that a certain comic book changed me, I don't want to sound like I'm indulging in hyperbole. I enjoy many forms of entertainment and there are fictional works in many mediums which can excite me, unsettle me, make me laugh or bring me to tears. But I would never say that any such work "changed my life." So when I say that a comic book changed me, I mean that it changed the way I approached the medium of comic books, from casual reader to devoted fan to part-time professional, with various stages of waning interest sprinkled throughout.

There are several signposts along my journey as a reader that I've thought about on the occasion; this post is the first in a series (planned to run 10 installments) in which I'll be processing those thoughts.

Operating from chronological order, I begin with Justice League International#11.

Written by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis; art by Kevin Maguire and Al Gordon.

JLI#11 was not my first comic book, but it is the earliest comic where I can recall criticizing what I was experiencing. I was nine years old at the time and while most of my knowledge of the Justice League of America was based on the Super Friends animated program, I had read a few issues of JLA earlier on. They really didn't prepare me for the JLI.

Giffen & DeMatteis' JLI is looked on rather favorably by today's fans, but I can only imagine what regular readers of the JLA thought at the time.* There were two things about JLI that I recognized as being very different:

1. The absence of big names; Batman, Black Canary & Martian Manhunter were all in this issue, but the remainder were heroes I had never heard of; Rocket Red? Booster Gold? Captain Atom? Mr. Miracle? Blue Beetle? And their Green Lantern (Guy Gardner) wasn't the one I had seen before; he had a stupid haircut and a goofy personality. Who were these people and what happened to the real Justice League?**
2. The humour. I was accustomed to finding humour in Archie or Star comics, not in my super hero books.

The second point was the one I felt most strongly about. As a childhood Star Wars fan I accepted comic relief characters existing side-by-side an otherwise serious story, but JLI#11 was levity through-and-through. Everyone, with the exception of Batman, was there to crack or be the foil of jokes. I think Guy Gardner was the one I loathed the most; I learned many years later that this issue came during a subplot where Guy's personality had been altered to (it says here) humourous effect, rendering him docile as an inversion of his customary obnoxious behavior. Knowing none of this, as my introduction to the character I was immediately put off. In JLI#11, Guy is incompetant, Booster Gold is airsick, Rocket Red talks in a "humourous" dialect. I cringed. This is the Justice League? The greatest super heroes in comics?

I couldn't fully articulate what upset me about JLI#11 at the age of nine, but on some level it offended me. I felt that the creators were mocking the super hero comics that I loved, portraying super heroes as bumbling idiots existing just to set up gags. It made me feel as though my taste in reading material was being ridiculed by the very people who fabricated it.*** About a decade later I would become a huge fan of the Tick which did a similar thing to super heroes; the difference being that the Tick himself was created as an act of satire. The presence of the words "Justice League" on the cover severely tested my tolerance for the buffoonery.

And so, my critical faculties were unleashed on a comic book for the first time. The result? Before long I abandoned DC Comics wholesale, throwing all my dollars to Marvel Comics. I'll get more into that during the next two installments, but for years afterward I would spy the JLI (or Justice League Europe) on the stands and sigh, seeing that nothing had changed; JLI#11 informed my opinion of DC Comics for the next decade and it wasn't the least bit favourable.

My concerns as a nine year old probably seem small to you if you have some knowledge of the comic book market today. There can't be that many nine year olds reading comic books in 2010 and reverence toward the protagonists isn't the biggest issue keeping kids away.

Some years ago I revisited Giffen**** & DeMatteis' work as an adult and found it more palatable, but I wonder how many kids in my age range were driven away from the League - or comics - by this creative direction. I have not purchased a Justice League comic since the 1980s.

*"Well, it still beats the Detroit League!"

**In fact, the opening scene has the JLI's company man Maxwell Lord becoming upset that none of the heroes who aided the JLI in a recent crossover were sticking around. Max, we were on the same page.

***I felt that way again the following year when I watched the Superman 50th Anniversary special on television, which made ten year old me grind his teeth and fluster, "Don't they know Superman is fictional?" In retrospect, I think the makers of the special were hoping to produce a riff on This is Spinal Tap.

****Not long after JLI#11 I discovered Giffen's Ambush Bug and enjoyed it immensely - that series, where the humour was completely off-the-wall mental, didn't seem to hold its audience in contempt. Would that I felt the same way about the recent Ambush Bug: Year None mini-series, which brought back JLI#11 flashbacks in the worst way.