The Hall of Doom

Okay, it's time to get my hands dirty. This week marks the thirteen-month mark until the thirtieth anniversary of the premier of the Legion of Doom. This works handily to one character per month, probably in the form of a small demo piece, not a full or even half story, which I figure is a reasonable pace for the amount of time I am able to commit. First up looks to be Solomon Grundy. He doesn't talk much, so I get to sidestep dialogue somewhat. The shadow work is a bit daunting, but I figure I can do much of it as a final step, so I can undo and retry until I'm satisfied.

An interesting tidbit floated by on Language Log, relevant to the big three-oh anniversary itself. The mark -30- (decimal thirty with a dash on either side), which is still seen in wire articles, apparently dates back to the days of the telegraph, where it carried the meaning "end of story". Perfect!

And then three days after that anniversary is another anniversary, namely six years since Nine-Eleven. I seem to recall rather less hubbub last year than in years previous, probably because cleanup and reconstruction has made enough progress, the linkage to the Iraq War had been debunked and, of course, because it was not an election year. But with the presidential campaign gearing up and the Republicans seemingly lacking moral high-ground on any issue, I foresee the attacks being squeezed one last time for patriotic fearmongering appeal. Whether real-world politics and media play out that way really does not matter though. The event already carries plenty enough emotional weight. Plus, hey, it never hurts to start off a new rein of terror with a bang.

Episode #5: Trial of the Super Friends

The opening scene forgoes the traditional bitch session at the HoD and cuts right to the action: The Super Friends standing around playing rent-a-cop outside a research facility. The scene inside of which was just begging for a voice-over, featuring the groooovy scientists in their psychotropic drug lab.

The main event is not the theft of a superpowerful alternative energy source, or even the theft of superpowerful weapons wielded by the archfoes, but rather the opportunity to taunt them in a mock trial. And then sentence them to battle their android duplicates, each of whom apparently has one of Manta's voice modulators.

Quotable quotes:

• Grodd: "Do you swear to tell untruths and nothing but untruths, so help you Grodd?"
• Luthor: "Give us control of all the world's oil, or we'll release the liquid light!"
• Random kids: "How many frogs did you get, Jimmy?"
• Batman: "Bat-Invisibility Ray."

Visuals:

• Scarecrow reclining on a pile of boulders. These guys are always kicking back.
• Superman and Flash with shadows on their costumes when close to the river of liquid light. This is the only take in the entire episode -- possibly the entir season -- where this effect is used.
• Luthor in a purple judge's robe. With the bald head and the eyebrows, all he was missing was a fine black goatee.

Welcome to the Hall of Doom. This is the discussion forum for a couple of projects that have been burning a hole in my mind for several years.

Introduction

Scoundrels. Ne'er-do-wells. Villains. For all the utopian predictions that mankind is on the verge of evolving beyond hatred, that we will soon come together in a big group hug, these aversive and often destructive elements continue to endure, even to thrive. Why?

At a certain level, we expect villains to exist. We rely on their existence. Where none exist, we manufacture them. All so we can shun them as alien, as defective, as the undesirable Other. But the uncomfortable truth is that perhaps they are not so different from us as we suppose. They are a dark reflection of ourselves in the looking glass. And they deserve a closer look.


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Tonight's viewing pleasure...

Episode #3: The Deadliest Game

Grundy is tired of stupid plans. Now that's comedy. But Brainiac has a plan. And apparently a short. And short-shorts. And his voice appears to be the same as Black Manta's, but just all gravelly, without the scary modulation.

Once again, senseless misuse of technology by the Legion. A hand-held gun that can render the entire planet invisible to someone orbiting the moon, and likewise cloak a small group of defeated villains from their opponents several feet away. Clearly the best use of this device is to lure three gullible heroes into deep space. No, wait... make that into a black hole. Or whatever it is. With a Toy Planet in the center.

Choice quotes, as best I can recall:

• Wonder Woman: Sector 371? But that's light-years away!
  Hawkman: No time to figure it out -- let's go!
• Brainiac: Flight 17, you are cleared to land -- provided you have ten billion dollars. Haw haw haw!

The only notable visual was Green Lantern merging with Superman. There is actually an Elseworlds one-shot covering a world where Kal-El became a GL. I also have a story on the backburner that basically implicates the Guardians in the destruction of Krypton and manages to handily explain most of weird plot devices that have been part of the Superman mythos since the beginning.

Episode #4: The Time Trap

Grodd has a remote control that creates golden-edged rectangular time portals of various sizes. Naturally, the Legion opts to use this to steal riches from the ancient past. There is another time-travel episode later in the season, wherein they apparently get a clue.

Choice quotes:

• Pretty much anything out of Grodd's mouth. He's a talking gorilla!

Memorable visuals:

• Grodd facial expressions as he explains his plans. Mmm, new icons.
• Apache Chief holding onto a shocked Aquaman, a la King Kong and Fay Wray.
• Batman and Robin in the Roman Coliseum fighting lions. Played straight, this would actually be a pretty cool scene.
• Grundy knocked flat on his back and inexplicably out cold on a pile of gold. Maybe he just needed a nap.