Yeah - and Courtney thus parallels with Shining Knight, a mere page whose personal characteristics rather than his heritage made him worthy of being a hero.
Maybe I’m misremembering, but I thought that in the show, Pat says Ted Knight built the staff “but that’s a story for another day”.
You’re absolutely right; I had forgotten that exchange.
So, we know that Sylvester Pemberton got the Cosmic Staff from Ted Knight, who apparently made it, but we don’t know anything more about Ted Knight or the Staff’s origins in the show’s continuity.
Again, I really hope that Courtney doesn’t have any connections to Ted Knight or any the previous generations of heroes. It would undercut the very strong dramatic arc they established in this episode that heroism is personal, not hereditary.
I remember that run, though I ended up canceling JLA from my pull list at the local comic shop. I read it for a year, but I apparently started reading at a bad time. As far as I could tell, the team had just come off some major conflict that had serious repercussions, and every issue I read was mostly conversations between various team members as they dealt with whatever had happened. After a year/12 issues, I realized that I still didn’t know the “code names” of half the characters (because they were using real names among themselves), or what powers most of them had. I more or less didn’t “know” the characters at all after a year of reading, so the title got dropped.
Hey, they built Cerebro!
On the one hand, a radome is pretty obvious cinematic for a telepathy enhancer. On the other hand, it’s flamin’ Cerebro, down to the platform sticking out of the side into the center with the flared semi-circular platform for the seat. At least they didn’t have the helmet…
Wasn’t this plan needlessly complicated? They could have gotten everything they wanted by going to Washington DC and brainwashed the politicians. Fewer casualties, too.
Brainwave is pained by people having bad thoughts. Dragon King just thinks building brainwashing machines is fun, and Icicle thinks that people just ought to believe what he believes.
I’m impressed by this series’ willingness to kill off characters - last night makes four characters I thought would last going down (Wizard, son of Wizard, Henry Jr, and Fiddler). Will next season have a new set of villains?
Sportsmaster & Tigress taking out Fiddler was very in character. And I’m amused with the idea of her son striding up to people while playing a tuba and tooting them to death next season. There’s something kind of iconic and almost romantic about a violin that a giant tuba just lacks. (also, wouldn’t putting a bow in someone’s eardrum destroy the bow?)
Other thoughts:
Mike’s complaining about being treated like a child while futzing around with the drill made me want to scream. But I’m glad they finally brought Mike in (kind of). But they should have made him a “guy in the chair” though.
Where did that “cabin” come from? How did they happen to have a fully stocked multi-room cabin in the woods like that?
And I liked the reactions to the “new constitution” “aren’t those all good things?” It does add some depth to the ISA that they do seem to want to change the world for the better, just have a very, very misguided plan to make those changes.
Agree that killing Fiddler is in character - so is toying with Barbara and Pat instead of killing them straight off. Loved Sportsman’s bouncing the bat off the floor, by the way. I hadn’t quite realized that S&T were somewhat superhuman - I just thought they were very fit, but in the recent episode they did thinks not quite possible.
Bows are replaceable, post-eardrumming… and a tuba makes an effective blunt instrument, I suppose.
Give Mike a holster for the drill…
Yet another guess about the final shot of the season: while Mike is at the cabin, the dog runs into the woods, Mike follows, and sees the dog is digging up…Green Lantern’s ring. Or maybe Mike finds it at the cabin. Something important is going to happen at the cabin.
I was thinking Ci-Yous pen, but I would guess that will be next season and a young black dude.
Well, that was quite the end scene–who could have guessed they would end the season with Hansen’s MMMBop?
They would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!
The transmission continued, even after Brainwave died?
Does the staff provide warmth? because it looked cold for shorts and a bare midriff.
Brian
When Brainwave left Cerebro, he said to play the signal on a loop–showing that he was only necessary for a short part of the signal, and they can reuse it without him later. At least if the writing is consistent.
Thanks, I missed that (I did heard him say something about continuing after he disconnected)
Brian
He may be required for specific parts of the brainwashing process, like the beginning and the end. He was also using the machine to be able to control Pat from a distance - so when he couldn’t do that anymore he apparently had a window of opportunity to do a quick task.
PS - we see a teenager take his mother’s advice on social relationships (a tuba assault).
He was supposed to shove it in the guy’s ear.