This occurred to me today, while I was working. I'm not sure why it came to me precisely, but that's how my brain tends to work anyway. I was performing some basic task, and something made me think of Martian Manhunter #24, the issue where J'onn tells Kyle Rayner about this horrible addiction to Chocos he once had.
In the story, J'onn's JLI teammates confront him with the true of his addiction to the creamy filling and crunchy cookie, and so J'onn promptly concentrates, isolates the addiction to a few specific cells in his body, and casts it out. But the addiction has a mind of its own, and starts possessing his teammates, jumping from Ice (who saved J'onn from being possessed), to Guy, to Fire, then to Max Lord*. Anyway, J'onn destroys the addiction entirely, and tells Booster and Beetle (who were behind the whole mess that got us to this point), that while he thanks them for helping him face his problem, they should never do anything like this again. The catch is, J'onn made up the whole story to get Kyle to think about the importance of being self-aware, which I knew at the time, but that didn't stop my brain. Not that things like that ever do.
The thing that occurred to me was, as the other JLIers are being controlled, Ted and Michael are standing off to one side, apparently taking note of every secret desire the others utter, because, as Booster put it, 'This stuff is, dare I say it. . . gold!'** So, were they planning to tease the others with what they said? Blackmail them? Play pranks related to the confessions? And then I thought, "Well, surely they wouldn't play one on Ice! That would be like kicking a puppy, and they aren't that cruel!" Then that raised the question of, well, assuming they were that cruel, how would they have used the fact that she secretly craves baby seal burgers? What are thye going to do, kill a baby seal and present it to her on a platter, with onions and whatever else she said she wanted on it? Even for Blue & Gold, that's a lot of heat to risk. I mean, I'm sure Fire would be digusted, Max would probably be pissed, especially once PETA somehow finds out about it, and starts protesting outside their embassy.
But mostly, it came back to the idea that Tora's simply too nice for people to play pranks on. Then I started wondering if she was really that sweet and nice, or might she have a more mischevous side to her. She could make life pretty difficult for those two, putting aside the possibility of simply siccing Guy on them. They could wake up with their lower bodies encased in ice, which would cause major shrinkage***, little ice on the floors when Ted's got some new bit of technology he's been waiting for, or engage them in conversation, while quietly creating ice stalagmites behind them, that once thye get large enough, give the two of them wedgies.
You can see that I'm not exactly good at this pranking thing. Perhaps that's the point of Blue & Gold's antics: That they don't really stop to consider what might happen (to others or to themselves) if they do something, they just do it. Because it's funny. Which isn't to say I hold J'onn turning into a Hulk-like creature bellowing about how 'Mars needs CHOCOS!' against them. That was probably far enough out there, it couldn't have been anticipated, even if it had actually happened to the characters. Though maybe it did happen, on one of those other Earths. The other universes, the were recreated as if they had history before Alex Luthor made them and Mr. Mind devored/altered some of them, so that could have happened, even though chronologically, it would have taken place during the "1 Universe" years, right?
Ugh, headache.
* I really wish Batman had been in attendance, rather than simply teleconferencing. Just to see what he would have blurted out.
** This is actually why it's probably good Batman wasn't there, because Booster and Beetle wouldn't be able to resist making fun of whatever he admitted being addicted to, and then he would probably use some paralyzer punch on both of them, and it would be a very sad day.
*** And probably leg-endagering levels of frostibite, but I'm sure the JLI have some gizmo that can help with that.
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2 comments:
Oh gosh, this is one of the funniest comics in existence. The scene where a hulked-out J'onn is chasing Booster and Beetle, while Max is trying to play mind-games with the UN is hilarious.
Of course, Booster and Beetle never once actually slowed down to think about what their pranks might actually be doing to people. They were...(at this stage anyway)...FAR too immature to even care. This came back to bite Beetle however, since he played an extremelly nasty prank on Guy at the Ice Capades, and took it WAAAY too far. Not much later, he noticed he'd put on some weight and went down to work out and Guy teased him about it. Beetle did NOT take it very well. That led of course to that stupid boxing match, the brainstorm of General Glory. I HATE General Glory!
Huff, huff. Ummm...what were we talking about?
sallyp: I think boxing matches in superhero comics have a long history of not going well, dating back to Peter Parker finally being goaded into the ring by Flash Thompson, then knocking him clean out of the ring. Flash looks silly, and wants revenge worse than ever, and everyone else figured Pete cheap shotted Flash.
It's just a lose-lose. Except for the audience, of course.
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