Figure skating was BIG in the late '70s (IIRC due to the…um…'78? Olympics). DC, never one to ignore a fad, jumped on the “Figure Skating” bandwagon and gave us their new, trendy* baddie. She’s Captain Cold’s sister and The Top’s main squeeze (when he was alive–his death made her become a baddun). Her gimmicks are ice skates that emit ice and allow her to skate in mid-air (like Iceman’s ice-slides) in X-Men. In addition she could spin (a-la The Top) at super-speed AND she had gimmicked jewel based powers (in other words, she had jewels that could do anything like Mirror Master had mirrors that could do anything or Bomerang had boomerangs that could do anything).
What made her slightly more interesting than the above suggests is that A) unlike the rest of the Rogues (remember Abra-Kadabra, Zoom and Grodd weren’t Rogues) she was a fucking psycho. Frothing at the mouth crazy. and B) She didn’t want to kill Barry–she wanted to kill one of his loved ones, like Barry had (in her mind) killed The Top. So she went after Iris, and in a very good storyline she brainwashed Iris into running off with another guy, which devestated Barry. Very creepy.
She died a while back when one of her boy-toys who she’d given a baby version of Captian Cold’s cold-gun snuffed her.
And if anyone cares, the story (which was just bizzarre at the time) where the Top came back from the dead and took over Barry’s dad (I think) was around Flash 305.
Footnotin’ Fenris
*See also “Disco Dazzler” and “Razorback, the CB Villain” for other examples of fad characters
Supergirl
Mary Marvel
Runaround Sue (GL villain from Action Comics Weekly)
Jaculi’s sister (Suicide Squad)
Barry Allen had a daughter and a granddaughter in the 30th century. Unlikely suspects, but ultimately, aren’t all super-speedsters time travelers?
I was thinking of speedsters, not heroines like Mary who have a degree of super-speed as part of their power list. I don’t know about Runaround Sue or Jaculi. Not familiar with them.
I guess the point here is that if Lil’ Boomer is CB’s son, he had to get together with a female speedster around 16-18 years ago and I can’t think of any who were active at that time.
It’s possible there are no speedsters in Baby Boomer’s bloodline.
It’s rare, but not unknown, for people born with superpowers in the DCU to have a different set than their parents.
There are probably more, but I can think of two offhand:
Captain Comet - ‘A mutant born 100,000 years ahead of his time’ (Mmm, some science there!) His parents are non-powered, IIRC.
Obsidian - Son of the Golden Age Green Lantern and Thorn, twin brother of Jade. While Jade’s powers are similar, if not identical, to her father’s, Obsidian’s are unrelated to either GL or Thorn’s.
And just for a laugh, I’ll mention the two most popular theories as to who’s behind everything on the other board I’m discussing it:
Lex Luthor. Based on ‘There will be a…crisis’ In B/S #6 and the presence of his armour in issue 1. This is also the one that gets the most vocal opposition (‘It’d be incredibly LAME’ and someone who says (without cite) that Metzer has specifically denied that it will be Luthor.)
The other most popular one (which has the people who come up with it patting themselves on the back) is…
Ralph.
Reasoning:
Facts: Baby Boomer apparently has superspeed. Ralph made a big deal over how Sue had chosen him over Barry.
Assumption: Sue cheated on Ralph with Barry. Baby Boomer was the result. Somehow the pregancy carried to term, and the kid given up for adoption, without Ralph catching on. (The memory-wipes are, in one case, how this part is explained. The others leave it assumed.)
Conclusion: Ralph finds out, eventually. Because of how his self-esteem is tied up in Sue, he arranges the hit on her (or, in one variation, does it himself, despite the timeline problems), and includes Jean, Jack Drake, and Lois to cover it up.
(Personally, my wild theory is Amanda Waller and/or Rick Flagg jr.)
Ah, okay, clearly I mis-remembered that it was GG who was likely not Boomer2’s parent, not Boomerang himself. But I think the Top has got to have something to do with it, otherwise why bring him up with such a strong connection to the IC storyline? (after all, Firestorm shows us that it’s possible to have an “IC tie-in” that has very little to do with the plot of IC)
One thing to add to the “this isn’t REALLY a red herring” idea of the Top being involved: we know he’s a teleporter; the JLA made a huge deal about how the most likely villian that could pull this off would have to be a teleporter.
and Tengu I love the Sue/Barry parentage idea – perhaps that all happened before Sue even met Ralph (thus making it a heck of a lot easier to hide). Though I’m not sure if too much time would have passed since then. But while it’s a killer idea for the mystery of Boomer2’s origin, I don’t think it extends all the way to making Ralph the killer. And it sounds like you agree that it doesn’t.
(and of course it has the problem of where the heck does boomerang come in)
With the exception of Jack Drake, the victims so far have a close Flash connection. Sue, wife of Flash-pal Ralph. Jean, wife of Flash-pal Atom. Captain Boomerang.
It could be the Top - but at this point, it seems sort of obvious that it might be the top, and we’re still two months from resolving the story.
Lex Luthor’s gotta be involved somehow, if only through providing information. Hey, maybe Lexy died in the building collapse we saw in Superman/Batman #6 and the Top possessed him.
The reason we’re assuming that Boomer Jr.'s speed comes from his mother is the way it’s set up in IC - right after he realizes he has the power, he asks the question about his mother, as if assuming the speed must come from there.
Problem is - he’s at least in his late teens, if not early 20’s. His birth predates the career of everybody in the Justice League, if the current DCU timeline is to be believed. Maybe Jay and Joan Garrick had a daughter they put up for adoption? But I seem to recall Joan is barren.
I considered the possibility that the Top might be Boomerang Jr’s mother - but the timeline doesn’t add up. Unless the Top was body-hopping before Barry’s accident transformed him into the Flash.
Regarding the Top connection: I think he’s inside Lil’ Boomer. Remember in Barry’s letter he suggested that the Top’s spirit could be anywhere. Maybe he’s inside the kid but not in full control. That could give the kid unexpected access to the Top’s power without him realizing why.
Fenris you obviously know more about the Top’s past than I do, but I got the impression from Barry’s letter that Barry thought the Top had a lot of untapped power related to speed. Some panels showed him moving around so fast (yes, while spinning) that he could keep up with a running Flash.
So perhaps if he was reincarnated as Young Boomerang, then he just accesses his speed power differently. And it (poorly) explains his boomerang powers because, well, boomerangs spin, don’t they?
It’s certainly a logical extension of The Top’s power and in a normal story I’d have no problem with it, but given that this has been billed as a murder mystery, I’d yell “cheat” if they pulled a new superpower for someone out of their butts to explain things. It would be like a murder mystery where, at the very end, a character explains how he did it with a time-travelling device–without any hint of a time-machine earlier in the story.
The Top possessing people? No prob. That’s a fair (if extremly obscure) factoid (or was, until someone did like a 3 part story about it a few years back–up 'till that story, it was a power he’d only used once*). But to give someone a new super-power strikes me as a cheat.
*Other one-shot powers include: Captain Cold having the power to make solid cold-mirages (hey, extreme heat causes mirages, right? Well, why not cold? Hmmm?) or Dr. Doom being able to switch minds with people (he actually did this a couple of times) or Superman (Earth 2) having “super muscle-control” such that he can change the shape of his face so he looks like someone else.
I’m not suggesting that the Top is behind the murders. Only that it could explain the kid’s speed power. I still don’t know who the killer is, but I’m leaning toward the Rainbow Raider.
I’d be down with the Sue/Barry hookup theory except it doesn’t really explain Cpt. Boomerang’s connection to the whole thing. I guess that Sue and Barry could have mindwiped someone to make them think the child was theirs and take care of it, but I’m relatively sure that person wouldn’t have been Captain Boomerang, so I’m still not sure how he fits in.
There’s no way Barry would have done that. I can just barely buy him mindwiping a psychopath to try to stop them from hurting people, but he’d never mindwipe someone for his own convienience.
True. I also forgot that for any mindwipes at all, they need Zatanna’s say-so, and she doesn’t seem to thrilled about doing it (not that it looks like she ever said no).
The heroes seem to think that everything is done once Boomerang is dead. Batman seems to be the only one who seeks further information. I find it a little hard to believe that any hero would be satisfied with “ohhh, it was Captain Boomerang. Of course!” as an answer, but there you go.
Boomy Jr. is the new Boomerang. Surprise, surprise.
Dr. Light appears to be up to something (fantastic page by Morales, btw).
The League mindwiped Batman (unanimously). Pretty much everone saw this coming after that panel in #2.
The Calculator isn’t behind everything. Also, the mastermind didn’t specifically want Boomerang dead, that’s just who Calculator happens to have hired. Also, Boomerang was only hired for the Drake job.
Sue Dibney died from a block in the blood vessles in her brain. Her brain also has tiny footprints on it. Batman figures out the shrinking thing as soon as Dr. Mid-Nite and Mr. Terrific do.
I’m still guessing Jean Loring is behind everything; the Atom thing is probably just the final misdirection. On the other hand, there’s still the question of who was slapping Sue around in IC #1.
On another note, I’m dangerously close to buying later printings of issues #1 and #2 just because I vastly prefer the new Morales covers to the Turner ones.
All I’ll comment is that these Atom hints could just as easily be Amazo using Atom’s power, so the theory I’ve been spouting for the last month or two is still valid.
