I'm always amused by how comics retellings handle plot points that didn't age well. For instance...
Jay Garrick's origin story, 1940: He takes a smoke break in the lab, regardless of being in training for football, which leads to the accident that gives him his powers.
Same story, 1986: Okay, he did take a smoke break, but he says he knows he shouldn't do it, and when he comes out of the coma, he makes a big deal about vowing to quit. Don't smoke, kids.
Same story, 1997: What cigarette, he fell asleep and dropped a test tube, obviously.
Same story, 2024: LOL look at this idiot smoking in a lab
No matter what you may have heard, Young Justice did not in fact kill Santa. He collided with a villain that they were trying to fight, and the collision resulted in an explosion that obliterated both Santa and the villain. Young Justice witnessed this happening and even tried to prevent it but were not actively involved in this disaster.
They did, however, choose to fill in for Santa and proceed to take two months, three weeks, and five days (until about March 23, nearly Easter!) to finish the job. That was totally voluntary on their part.
So if they deserve to be given any grief, it's not for killing Santa but for taking so. darn. long. to deliver Christmas presents. They have a speedster and two others with lesser but still enhanced speed powers on the team, for crying out loud; there's no excuse for this. For shame, guys.
(please note the joking tone of this post. and read Young Justice 1998 #40 for yourself for the whole story.)
All due respect to Edna Mode, but there are in fact certain circumstances that do justify a hero's wearing a cape, and they are as follows:
1. Do you fly? (The cape might be helpful for that or at least provide an impressive effect.)
2. Were you created in the Golden Age or are you a legacy of someone who was? (The 1930s and 40s were all about those capes; most of the OG JSA had them. It's an era-appropriate fashion statement.)
3. Are you DRAMATIC? (You don't look as cool brooding on rooftops without a cape.)
If the answer to any or all of these is yes, then the cape is indeed a suitable design choice, and you may proceed without having to rethink your costume.
Unless you're one of those 1990s guys who is Too Cool for capes and prefers a Totally Radical leather jacket, in which case more power to you, I guess!
I get that a lot of these comics writers are just working on team books without giving every individual character much particular thought, that's how it works, but sometimes their seemingly inadvertent choices add up to characterization that's surprisingly consistent with the lore.
I'm in the middle of note-taking on all of Rick Tyler's appearances (for reference/fic writing purposes, I do this for a lot of characters because how else am I supposed to remember all that), and what's staying fairly consistent across these is that he tends to be the one making sure everyone around him is okay. Checking up on everyone. Making sure the injured get cared for. Easily stepping into the role of Team Dad for the younger JSA members. Keeping everyone safe, even if it means directly endangering himself. Basic hero stuff, sure, but with him it has a specific flavor of caretaking.
And along with this comes a habit of downplaying whatever's going on with him. Never mind about his personal woes--let's talk about a teammate's love life! Just been stabbed? Time to get quippy. His team's medic wants to have a serious talk with him about substance abuse? Distract her with awkward flirting! When he's terminally ill, he's more worried about his dad not getting rest by sitting up with him all night, or how upset his mom is when their house gets vandalized.
Which makes a lot of sense as behavior for someone who grew up in a chaotic household, the only child of parents who were both emotionally volatile, struggling with their fractured relationship and their addictions, not having much time for him. Of course he'd learn to look after everyone else constantly. Of course he'd learn to keep up a light-hearted front. He still rebels against his dad, but he doesn't take up the mantle out of spite--he's drawn to the sense of purpose that helping others gives him (and...other aspects of the role, but that's another discussion).
And I'll guarantee you that most writers were not taking that into consideration, but...somehow they tend to end up there.
It's a trope as old as superheroes: the pretense of being weak or ineffectual in one's civilian identity to deflect suspicion that one is really The Local Hero. Clark Kent does it. Bruce Wayne does it. It's pretty common, especially in the Golden Age.
So it's not surprising that the Golden Age Starman in his identity as Ted Knight would be a wealthy socialite whose exaggerated illnesses give him a convenient excuse to get away at certain moments.
...except, in his case, it's not completely an act. He does feign headaches and dizzy spells and fainting whenever he needs to run off and save the day, but the only reason that this is convincing to people who know him is because this is behavior that seems to predate his activity as Starman. He is a legit hypochondriac who is utilizing this aspect of himself in order to escape into his other persona.
He's known as "the sick boy of society." The first words he utters on-panel are “I trust you’ve made sure it’s not in a draft!” (regarding his table reservation). He's been to every doctor in town, and they all say he's "fit as a fiddle." He talks about going to sanitariums to rest with a readiness that suggests he does that fairly often. His fiancee Doris has known him for years and is exasperated but not surprised by his nearly constant worry about his blood pressure, his heart, his nerves. Often she dismisses it as his imagination, but she's also been concerned enough to take him to a research clinic for examination.
Usually the scenario of these stories will involve his playing up ill health only for it to be revealed once he's alone that he's gotten a summons from the FBI again. But this isn't always the case.
Here, a combination of an earthquake tremor and tomato soup getting spilled on him sends him into a spiral of panic comedically disproportionate to the situation, and Doris says some harsh standard-Golden-Age-love-interest things and leaves. Normally this is when the costume would go on--but not this time. He presumably...just goes to bed after this? And doesn't get involved as Starman until a day later. There is no summons to cover for. No ulterior motive for his reactions. This is just how he is--when he's not in his empowered alter ego.
(Adventure Comics #63)
This guy genuinely has some kind of anxiety problem, definitely regarding his health but perhaps in other ways also. He complains to Doris that "Going to parties is too strenuous for me," and although he'll host large groups of people to party on his yacht for days as would be expected of someone of his class, he's not seen joining them--he's out on deck with only Doris, insisting that "the very thought of work makes me ill."
She drags him around from activity to activity like she's hoping he'll take an interest in something, anything. Maybe he'll like going to the movies. Or dancing. Or swimming. Or golf--that's not too strenuous for him, is it? (He thinks it is.) Yet as Starman, he claims to have thrown the hammer and played football in college, and he seems to have a background as an equestrian too (Doris is thrilled when it looks like he's taking this up again). The suggestion is that he used to be an athlete, but evidently something happened to trigger this debilitating anxiety that's so prevalent in his personal life but absent when he's Starman.
...well, mostly absent. Sometimes it bleeds over. During an adventure in which the JSA are unexpectedly rocketed separately to all the planets (I don't know, just go with it), Ted's immediate assumption upon landing on Jupiter is that he must have keeled over, he's sick, he's delirious, the guys must have taken him to the hospital, he's having fever dreams...and it takes him a little while to get past this.
There's a shift in the stories starting when Doris in one of her efforts to get him a hobby takes him to a planetarium. This proves effective (probably because it's a preexisting interest that has been implied but not seen--he has, after all, created his stellar-powered gravity rod, and there's a reference to a laboratory that's never depicted), and as his interest in astronomy becomes more prominent in the stories, his hypochondriac tendencies start to dwindle.
This is also around the time that he enlists in the Air Force and is considered fit for service, with a doctor proclaiming him (and his JSA teammates) "fine physical specimens."
Later stories would lean heavily into the astronomer/scientist/inventor angle only, and while the 1994 series would address his having been in poor mental health after the war and Doris's murder, his original characterization of Hypochondriac Who Moonlights As A Superhero As A Form Of Escapism doesn't really get explored in any depth. It's an odd, contradictory take on the more common hero-fakes-weakness trope, and it would have been interesting to see how this aspect of him would affect, say, his relationships with his children--an additional complication to an already complicated family dynamic.
The nature of being a former home schooler is that sometimes people will ask you things like whether you were a band kid or a theater kid, and you have to admit that you did neither and didn't have the opportunity to and in that moment you feel like you probably also must have spent eighteen years shut up in a dark house with no friends and don't have a refrigerator.
This is Snapper Carr's first appearance, in February 1960. These are the first lines that he utters. This is how this narrative chose to introduce us to this child.
Pretty sure they were going for "relatable to The Youth," but instead here we have an ordinary kid with a completely bonkers vocabulary and turn of phrase. Like Bertie W ooster if he were a 1960s teenager. Weird and ridiculous and kind of endearing.
Script for The Ray 1994 #29 (the issue that never got to exist)
The Ray 1994 was canceled after #28. However, writer Christopher Priest had been planning more of where he wanted Ray's story to go from there, the "Year Three" of the series, and he discussed some of these ideas with readers/fans in the group rec.arts.comics.dc.universe back in the mid-1990s while the series was still running (and I'll talk in more detail about this in a future post).
After the cancelation of the series, he authorized the sharing of one of his unused scripts, for #29, picking up after Ray's family has been reunited and the lies have been exposed. Here's the first half and the second half. The script is not fully polished, there are some places where placeholder lines are still present, but it's complete enough that you get an idea of the story.
Here's a rundown!
As many Priest stories do, it begins in the middle of the action. Ray is in space, trying to move a malfunctioning telescope attached to a satellite. He's been at it for some time with no success and is confused about how to proceed further.
It finally occurs to him that NASA, who sent him on this mission, is still trying to move the telescope from mission control, and this might be getting in the way of his efforts.
He returns to mission control and yells at the people there through a window that they need to quit the recovery commands, and he gets impatient when they are freaked out by his appearance and debate amongst themselves whether he can be trusted.
He's in a hurry because he has a situation at home to return to. Cue flashback to earlier that day.
That morning, Ray is awakened much earlier than he wants to by the sound of his eight-year-old older (yes, Ray is nineteen, and yes, Joshua is technically older than him, long story) half-brother, Joshua, watching cartoons. The entire Terrill family is now staying at Ray's condo, the fancy residence that was a perk of his working for Vandal Savage.
Joshua is thrilled that Ray seems to be waking up, while Ray just wants to get back to sleep. He tries to do this, but Joshua keeps bugging him about whether he's awake until he gets angry.
And then Joshua, "just as sincere as he can be," asks, "...are you really my brother?" And Ray just melts. He replies, "You bet I am. And, to prove it--I will now tickle you to death--!!!" The brothers get into an affectionate tickle fight.
Their father, Happy, enters and makes some snide comments about Ray's working for a supervillain to get this nice place. Joshua is "overjoyed to see his father" but can't get more than a brief greeting out of him. Ray clarifies that he doesn't work for Savage anymore and has been fired and that's not Happy's business anyway. Happy concedes this and says that he needs to build a new chamber for Joshua and be on his way.
This baffles Ray, and his mother, Nadine, enters and explains. Happy cryogenically froze Joshua more than forty years ago, and he's planning to do it again. Nadine is still trying to process everything that she's been through: finding out that the child she was told died at birth is still alive, and losing her friend after Joshua destroyed the house she was in. She does not want Ray calling her "Mom" yet, but he's having trouble not doing that.
Ray tries to defend Joshua, who didn't know what he was doing, but Nadine isn't having it: "I'm not on that page yet."
Ray is horrified that his father is planning to just freeze Joshua again. Happy argues that what he does with his son is his business. Ray retorts, "He may be your son--but he's my brother!! And I'll be damned if I'll let you do it!!" Happy insists that Ray doesn't understand, but Ray calls him "some kind of sicko who buries his kids in the dark" and compares his upbringing to what happened to Joshua.
Happy gets defensive, says that it's easy for Ray to judge him, claims that he would have given his soul to have had both of his sons in his life (the same sort of nonsense he's been giving Ray for the entire series)--and Nadine reminds him that he lied to three people, including her. He says he was protecting her.
Nadine calls him a control freak and attributes the problem to him, not the boys. Ray says that every time he lets his guard down, Happy betrays him again, so what's next? Happy says that he did what he did "because I love you--both of you--"
And then Joshua, the person whom he didn't include in that statement, realizes that his entire family is fighting and starts to cry, pleading with them to stop yelling. His powers start to activate. His father easily contains him in an energy sphere as they try to talk him down.
Happy tries to tell Joshua that they "weren't really fighting," but Ray tells him not to lie to Joshua and assures his brother, "we were yelling because we're trying to decide what's best for you. Because we all love you that much." Joshua is pleased with this answer and goes about his business like nothing has happened.
A news report on TV introduces the problem of the NASA satellite. Happy wants Ray to go and deal with it, but Ray refuses: "Don't start that be a hero stuff again. I think I've had about enough of that. My brother is hungry. Let NASA solve its own problem." But Nadine tells him, "don't pass up a chance to do good just to spite him. Don't become him." That last sentence in particular cuts to the quick for Ray, and he goes.
Back in the present, Ray is able to resolve the satellite problem. He hopes his day will end better than it started; he can't remember the last time he had a good day.
When he returns to NASA, the president wants to speak to him over the phone and invites him to lunch. A beautiful woman wants Ray's autograph. NASA is going to have a ceremony in his honor. The company that owns the satellite is going to pay him 34.2 million dollars. He is stunned.
Back in Philadelphia, as he's trying to process all this, someone (a supervillain?) with earthquake-related powers runs through the city creating havoc. Ray after some waffling gets involved and saves the day. He is hailed as a hero, and the mayor gives him the key to the city.
Later, he gets dressed up in one of his elegant suits from his time working for Savage and, still in a state of shock, has lunch with the president in a scene that mirrors his reaction to his mom making him breakfast back in #15.
On his way home, he concludes that with everything good that has happened today, he must be doomed. The other shoe is going to drop.
At home, his father wants to talk to him. Ray doesn't give him the chance. He tells him, "You need to trust. There's no way I'm letting you put Joshua away. Maybe you don't want him in your world--but I want him in mine." And Happy replies, "Maybe you're right."
Ray is completely shocked. His father has never said that, ever. Happy concedes that they can try having Ray care for Joshua for a while. And Ray concludes again that he must be doomed, if something as good as this is happening.
Elsewhere, Gaelon, the girlfriend of the Ray from twenty years in the future who came back in time to prevent him from becoming a jerk, runs into Jazz, the woman Ray is currrently dating, at his old studio apartment (the one with no refrigerator). Gaelon has covered everything in the apartment, from the furniture to the windows, in plastic. The women exchange hostile, possessive remarks about him.
Ray arrives (flying, as is his usual mode of transportation) and slams straight into his bathroom window, not realizing that it's now covered in plastic. Jazz finds him dangling from a window ledge, still wearing his nice suit. (He had to hurriedly drop his light-construct costume since she doesn't know he's the Ray.)
After letting him inside, Jazz says that if he wants to have loony female friends and hang outside of windows and throw plastic all over everything, that's between him and his shrink. She claims she won't fight Gaelon or get worked up, and then she makes an effort to be sincere. She really likes him and hopes she can be a friend to him and they can grow from there.
Since she's normally rather forceful and demanding, Ray is surprised that she's being nice, and as she asks about his day, he concludes once again that he's doomed.
The end.
According to Priest, this would have been followed by an issue of the following day, in which everything goes wrong.
My verdict? I like this story a lot, on the whole, and am sorry we never got it in comic form. Ray has clearly grown a lot since his time working for Savage, which was starting to corrupt him. Here, he's still a bit reluctant to help, as he has always been, but his better nature wins out. He really does care about doing the right thing, even though he may need a nudge. I love his relationship with Joshua and how immediately protective he is of him. Joshua needs someone on his side, and Ray is determined to be the honest adult for him that he never got to have as a child.
Happy, on the other hand, seems to have learned nothing and is just repeating all his old strategies, even though they've never worked. It was very satisfying to see Ray stand up to him so adamantly, and surprising that he could seem to change his mind--but given what we know of the character, it's doubtful that this is a genuine change. Very likely, this would have all reversed in the following Bad Day story.
It's a little sad to see Nadine so emotionally distant from her son after their reunion in #28, but her reaction is completely understandable under the circumstances. Not letting them immediately have an uncomplicatedly warm relationship allows for that to gradually build and would make for an interesting story. She doesn't seem to have any real animosity toward Ray--she cares enough to offer him advice--but it seems it'll be harder for her to warm to Joshua.
The exaggerated onslaught of good things happening to Ray is hilarious, especially since all that would be reversed in the next issue (apparently he wouldn't be able to cash the check, for one thing), and a fun way to start the new chapter in Ray's life as he moves on from his previous job. I am less amused by the dueling girlfriends, but it was nice to see some depth to Jazz that she didn't get to display in the actual series.
There were still a lot of good stories and dynamics possible for this series, and it's a pity that we never got them. But I am so, so excited that this script exists and that it gives us a glimpse of where these characters were headed. If I ever get around to working on my own sequel to this series, I will definitely bear in mind what this story sets up.
