I’ve been a fan of the Justice League toon since it first began, but I can’t help but notice there hasn’t been any backstory on Hawkgirl or Flash.
Superman’s, Batman’s, and Wonder Woman’s stories are well established. There was a story showing what happened to Martian Manhunter’s world. We’ve picked up pieces of Green Lantern’s history (troubled youth, served in the military, etc).
That leaves Flash and Hawkgirl. I wonder why the creators haven’t done stories on them.
They’ve hinted at Hawkgirl’s back story; she’s some kind of marooned space traveller from the planet Thanagar, but she doesn’t have any idea how to navigate her way back from Earth. This is sorta-kinda-maybe close to the comic-book character, but in the comics, Shayera (Hawkgirl/woman) Thal is (or at one time, was) a political exile from Thanagar, along with her husband Katar (Hawkman) Hol.
This conflict between cartoon and comics is why cartoon-Hawkgirl and Flash have gone unexplained; the comic characters are have excessivley complicated backstories that require the involvement of still other characters that the cartoon-writers might not have full access rights to (copyright issues are always a pain in the ass when jumping media). If you’re going to do a Hawkgirl backstory that’s even close to the comic-book version, you’ll need Hawkman in there somewhere. Similarly, if you want to explain the Wally (Flash) West’s origins in a manner similar to the comics, you’d have to include the original silver-age Flash (Barry Allen) and try to explain how he died, and try not to get to mired in the whole Crisis on Infinite Earths thing (I’m still unclear myself why post-Crisis Barry Allen was still dead, since the whole crisis was suposed to rewrite history completely)…
To summarize, these two characters have back stories that are so screwed up that dedicating an episode or two to their back stories would have to be:
[ul][li]Complicated beyond belief, or[/li][li]Dissimilar in some very large ways from the comics[/ul][/li]Superman, Batman and WW, by contrast, have backstories that haven’t significantly changed despite 60+ years of continuity changes. Martian Manhunter, I don’t think, was ever popular enough in the comics for anyone to worry whether or not his backstory fit, and John Stewart’s Green Lantern (hey, when people say “J’on”, calling MM, why doesn’t Stewart ever look up?) is reasonably straightforward, though I’m curious if Hal Jordan has ever been referenced.
Not that I can recall, but Kyle Rayner has.
In “Hearts and Minds”, John Stewart’s teacher, Katma Tui, is trying to help John get his act together and makes the comment (paraphrased), “You’re about as useless as that Rayner kid you sent me.”
Ouch!
He was in a recent episode of Duck Dodgers, if that counts.
They still fought the Crisis in that rewritten history, though. It’s just a run of the mill universe-saving deal now, no alternate worlds.
I’ve heard that we’re going to get more insight into Hawgirl soon, and that the team behind the cartoon doesn’t even want to bother with whether Flash is Wally or Barry (there was a teensy flashback to his origin in the first episode with Gorilla Grodd).
Flash must be Wally. He’s too goofy to be Barry.
They flashed (no pun intended) on the flash’s origin when Grodd (I think, knocked him for a loop). He walked up to a Chemical shelf and got hit by lightning.
He’s never been unmasked or identified by name, AFAIK. It appears to be Barry’s origin (no previous Flash), with Wally’s attitude early in his career.
Hal’s never been mentioned. Kyle appeared in Superman’s solo cartoon from a few years back. He got Hal’s origin (dying Abin Sur gave him the ring), and at one point got knoecke dinto a plane that had Hal’s name painted on the side. Apparently Jon either replaced him or was already GL at this point, and took the job back. Wasn’t he more of a “angry young black man”, rather than a seasoned no-nonsense military verteran, in the comics? I like teh tension betwen him and Hawkgirl (so no, I doubt there’s a Hawkman anyway, Shiera always was cooler).
Anyone see the Secret Society of Super-villians episode last week? I think they’re finally getting it right. Jon used the ring creatively (decoy lanter, scanned the tracker), although not as artistically as Sinestro. Flash used his speed well, whereas previous he was really the weak link. And the villains were awesome!
I’ve been waiting for GL to use his ring for more than a flat shield or spherical force field for travelling in space.
Back to Hawkgirl & Flash, do you think we’ll ever see them unmasked? There’s a Christmas episode coming up and according to the episode guide: “Green Lantern and Hawkgirl have a snowball fight and visit a club for aliens”.
It would be nice to see these two lighten up just a bit.
Even Batman had a funny line:
“Backup? Maybe I should have thought of that.”
Then the wall behind him collapses and the rest of the JL come through.
“Oh wait, I did” and then he smiles.
Tonoght’s episode rocked as well!
It’s cliche, but until he met Savage, I didn’t figure out Superman was in the future. I feel slightly stupid now. I’ve always dug Vandal Savage, and I’ve never seen him do repentant. Nice going. Also always cool to see Lobo and Kalibak.
Voiced by Kevin Smith, no less.
Hal Jordan had a cameo non-speaking appearance in last night’s ep.
I don’t see why that can’t also be Wally’s origin. Wally sometimes gets made fun of in the comics for having an “unoriginal” origin. They can just ignore Barry and Jay and Bart and the rest of the Flash Family without being forced not to use Wally.
Hawkgirl did mention something about her people in an episode whose title escapes me. The JLA were battling a monster referred to as an “Old One” and whose name(never spelled) sounded like “Ick-thul-too” It had tentacles too. Sound familiar? Hawkgirl said here people used to worship this being, and it had taught them about arts and science.
Wally West’s origin story:
<Flash> … So that’s how I got my powers.
<Wally> Neat! I wish something like that would happen to me!
<It does, right then>
Thus the reason for the mockery Daniel mentioned.
My favorite comment on it (from a recap):
Flash: Ha! Sorry, Wally, but lightning doesn’t strike twice.
Narrator: It was as if God Himself had taken umbrage to the cliche.
My one problem with the Lantern/Sinestro battle in that episode was that John’s ring worked against Sinestro’s yellow ring. I thought the point of a villian like that was a GL couldn’t fight him directly, but then again I never read the comics. Still, cool fight.
Last night’s episode was amazing. I might start a thread on it, but don’t count on it. My favorite line of the many great ones:
There are so many reasons that shouldn’t have worked.
-Flash to Wonder Woman after blocking a lightning bolt with her braclets
Who would have thought a plot about a loss could have so much humor in it? Well done.
We’re way behind you guys over here on the other side of the Pacific, but we had a GREAT episode on sunday- the second part of the Apokolypse story. (from what I hear things only get better from here on out).
The fight between Superman and Darkseid was GREAT! Superman’s comments, ‘this time I won’t stop until you’re a greasy smear on my fist!’ and then using his heat-vision on the sole of Darkseid’s foot when Darkseid tries to push/stomp Supe’s face through the floor!
It’s an amazing cartoon once the powers start to be used properly. That being my biggest complaint about the early episodes where the powers were rarely used, and if they were it was always lame!
Alsdo very nice to see more of the New Gods and the fact that this JLA obvioulsy takes place in the same universe as the Superman animated series (Superman references his prior meeting with Darkseid).
Possibly the best line of all, Batman to WonderWoman, ‘next time I let Superman take charge, hit me! …Hard!’.
heh heh, tis to laugh!
(oh, and I loved Superman’s off-hand shove of Batman during the Darkseid fight at the end that obviously wounded Batman seriously!).
Woohoo!
I want more DVDs of this series!
It looks like Jon’s ring is based on Kyle’s: no weaknesses.
I understand that in an interview given by Paul Dini that Hawkgirl/Hawkman will appear in a three episode story.