Now that I’m home for spring break, I’ve finally managed to catch the new Justice League 'toon for the first time. Very cool, and I think it’s time to fill in some gaps in my superhero knowledge.
Green Lantern. I know the basic background and all, but I’ve never understood exactly what his powers are. On the show, as far as I can tell, the answer is “Anything the writers feel like, so long as it can be represented by green light.” Oh, and I always thought it had a weakness against the color yellow, but that doesn’t seem to be the case on JL - did something change? And does the ring make his eyes green, or is that just a random artistic choice?
J’onn J’onnz. Same question with regard to his powers. He can walk through walls, fly, he seems to have some kind of telepathy, and, um, whatever else they feel like.
Wonder Woman can fly? Since when?
Was the Flash always this much of a smartass? And which Flash is it on JL, anyway? Barry Allen, Wally West, another I’m not familiar with?
Never heard of this Hawkgirl person. What’s her deal?
Supposedly, the ring can materialize whatever the bearer wills it to. The stronger the will, the more powerful the construct. I have a beef against the show’s use of the ring. Whenever GL uses it, it’s always a force field or cutting torch. I believe they used John Stewart here in order to avoid the whole Hal Jordan/Kyle Rayner debacle.
He’s also a shape shifter. His only weakness is fire.
Since this show.
I don’t think so. His daily personna has not been addressed as yet.
She came from, of all places, Hawkworld. There’s a Hawkman in the comics as well. They’ve been around for a while.
Okay, I am not a full time comic book geek but I’ll give it a shot.
Green Lantern’s powers pretty much are “Anything the writers feel like as long as it can be represented by green light.” In theory, the power ring is capable of doing anything assuming that the person wielding it has strong enough willpower. This much power can make it difficult to write episodes or decent comics so expect him to routinely “forget” about certain capablities of his ring in much the same way that Superman “forgets” that he is theoretically invulnerable and Flash “forgets” how fast he can move and react.
Were the show being completely true to comic books, then yes, John’s ring has no business affecting the color yellow. However, they’ve seemingly created sort of a Composite Lantern for the show - John Stewart with Kyle Rayner’s ring.
In comic continuity the ring doesn’t cause glowing green eyes, but it looks cool on the show.
J’onn J’onnz - In comic books he can fly, is super strong, reasonably invulnerable, shapeshifts, turns invisible, reads minds (and occasionally does mental attacks) and has a severe weakness to fire. On the show he seemingly flys, reads minds, changes density and has no particular vulnerabilities aside from being portrayed as a wuss so far. I don’t know what the deal with the switch was although I suspect it was to distinguish him from Superman. J’onn is one of my personal favorite characters in DC comics and while I’m thrilled that he’s on the show, I dislike the way he’s being handled. Oh well, into each life . . .
Rule #1 Do not ask about Wonder Woman. Rule #2 is Do not ask about Wonder Woman. Seriously, I’m going to leave this one for someone with more comic book geekery than me. Suffice it to say that Wonder Woman’s exact powers and origin have been screwed over repeatedly by DC’s infamous “MUST. . . RESET. . . CONTINUITY” thing that they have been going through every 10 years or so. Speaking of which, isn’t it about time for another continuity reset?
On the show they seem to have the Golden Age (or “Good”) Wonder Woman origin combined with the Modern (or “Gawdawful”) Wonder Woman powerset. Probably the best way to go.
The Flash on the show is Wally West; he appeared in one episode of the old Superman show as well. Wally used to be that much of a smartass, but he’s been sort of toned down in recent years aside from continual sniping with the present Green Lantern.
Best Guess: I dunno. She seems to be Shaeyra Hol version 1, Thanagarian crime fighter - the First Second Hawkgirl. The potential problem with this idea is that in present continuity Shaeyra Hol version 1 never existed. You think Wonder Woman is bad check this out: Hawkman (and Hawkgirl) FAQ
In comics the present Hawkgirl seems to be a suicide victim reanimated by the cursed spirit of Egyptian Princess Chay-Ara or something like that anyway.
Re WW’s invisible jet, it’s been a while since I’ve been an official CBG (I think I still have my honorary membership), but isn’t it part of some sort of alien artifact that can manifest itself as pretty much anything up to and including a flying city?
RE Martian manhunter’s weakness around fire, I believe this was shown to be psychological in nature in a MM mini-series and he has largely overcome it.
It’s true that in one of Martian Manhunter’s mini series his weakness to fire was shown to be psychological. All his appearances since then seem to completely ignore this though. My theory is that it’s impossible to write a good superhero comic whithout giving the superhero some kind of weakness.
I was about to say "Glad to hear they finally got over that ‘invisible plane’ nonsense, but then Askia had to come along and spoil my fun. Sigh.
“It’s like a regular plane, only it’s invisible. It doesn’t make HER invisible, though. So instead of this big plane, you see a nice, inconspicuous, flying, squatting woman. Huh.”
-Lore Fitzgerald Sjoberg
So…okay. Let’s see if I’ve got this straight - Wonder Woman’s powers are flight and superstrength, plus she’s got a magic lasso (have the lasso’s mind control powers been seen or mentioned on JL?) and bracelets that can deflect bullets. Am I missing any? Hey, is she invulnerable? The fact that she needs the bracelets would seem to imply not.
Hawkgirl - wow, that was confusing. Okay, sticking strictly to the JL version, has she displayed any powers other than flight? And does that mace she carries do anything cool? Has her origin been discussed? (I heard them mention that she was an alien once, but that was it.)
Hawkgirl (JLA) is apparently very, very strong as evidenced by her performance during “Secret Origins”. Her mace also displayed the ability to make neat-o electrical visual effects during that episode.
In “Warworld” she was shown to be not quite so strong as perhaps previously imagined when she gets nearly mugged by a group of random alien ruffians until GL makes the save.
It’s the “forgetting about powers” thing again, presumably. As opposed to Superman and Martian Manhunter wearing spacesuits, which is done to sell more action figures.
I think during episode 1 of “Warworld” Superman mentioned that the shuttle they were flying around in was Thanagarian, but I could be mis-remembering.
She’s also pretty fast. If they’re following comic continuity, she ought to have the “wisdom of Athena” also, but that’s kinda hard to portray in a 22-minute cartoon. I don’t think we’ve seen her use the lasso to force the truth out of anyone yet. She’s not invulnerable, but she is pretty tough. A few episodes ago, she took several punches to the jaw from Superman and barely batted an eye.
As a brief followup on an earlier point; the IMDB does in fact list Maria Canals as providing the voice for Shayera Hol / Hawkgirl. So it would seem to be the Silver Age Hawkgirl.
[qoute]So…okay. Let’s see if I’ve got this straight - Wonder Woman’s powers are flight and superstrength, plus she’s got a magic lasso (have the lasso’s mind control powers been seen or mentioned on JL?) and bracelets that can deflect bullets. Am I missing any? Hey, is she invulnerable? The fact that she needs the bracelets would seem to imply not.
[/quote]
As MrAtoz said, she’s also fast…Mach 3, according to a fairly new JLA issue. She is also an accomplished fighter, which the JLA series has been showing with scenes where she spars with Batman: She can apparentily hold her own against him (Full contact and throwing). Dunno about how much of that the cartoon is showing though: I don’t have the Cartoon Network.
As far as GL using the ring to only make force fields and cutting torches, maybe the toon version or Stewart is extremely unimaginative.
“Hey! Did y’all know I can split atoms with this badboy? Watch this!” The last words of John Stewart’s predecessor
, Bubbah Jim GL
