Some Favourite Selections from the 1997 JLA Gallery - Part 5

Crisis on Aaron's Scanner! I'm afraid my scanner cut off Black Canary, but it was her or Martian Manhunter. I like that the picture works as either pre-Crisis or post-Crisis. It's by Stuart Immonen, whose work on I was enjoying a lot at the time.

Some Favourite Selections from the 1997 JLA Gallery - Part 4

Penciller Gary Frank and inker Cam Smith - I loved these two together in the nineties, on Incredible Hulk and then Supergirl. This is not Frank's finest image - Wonder Woman's on her tippytoes or something, she just looks awkward. Batman seems out of proportion. What I did like is that their art as a team stood out because they didn't go insane with the detail lines, and their people had a natural, if ideal, look to them. I do like that Superman sort of looks like Paul Newman, and has a cocky smirk, as if to say, "I'm a nice guy, but I'm also aware I can put my fist through about anything." Note Wondie's Catherine Zeta- Jones-esque wall-eye, which Frank seemed to like, I remember a number of his girls had that. The colourists sort of went to town on shading her Wonder Twins (sorry) though. She would have looked more natural before the colouring process. Kinda too bad because Frank and Smith were among the few not giving women outrageous implants in the nineties, especially in the time they worked on the Marvel side of things, when the X-Men was nothing but detail lines and huge breastses. DC was generally more tasteful, Marvel less so, and I've got two Marvel Swimsuit Specials to prove it. I can't claim a friend gave them to me. I'm not sure if Power Girl wrecks the curve or is the exception that proves the rule. But enough about that.

Some Favourite Selections from the 1997 JLA Gallery - Part 3

Here's one by Craig Hamilton, a tribute to the cover of Brave and the Bold # 28. A great looking diorama of the scene was circulating at the San Diego Comic Con this year, with a Starro action figure that may or may not actually take over your mind - it could all be part of a plot.

In this case, Aquaman's gloves have been coloured green as opposed to the yellow of the original. Reading the Aquaman Shrine regularly has made me aware of such things. Conicidentally, the Shrine has another tribute to this pic up today.

Some Favourite Selections from the 1997 JLA Gallery - Part 2

This one's by Don Hillsman, and jumps ahead to the JLI era. I like it because you don't always see a pic where Guy Gardner looks so heroic. I also like that Guy's using so much power against Despero that he has to hold his wrist steady. Ice is down, so it's on. Click on image to get it bigger, if you so desire.

Some Favourite Selections from the 1997 JLA Gallery - Part 1

While going through my nineties JLA box the other day had an "Oh yeah, I remember this" moment - good ol' galleries, comics consisting entirely of what could have been covers, images that captured certain periods, in this case of the Justice League, by different artists. This week I'll feature some of my faves from the crop.


I'll start with this, old school Justice League of America by Jay Stephens:

Justice League of America #47: Jaded Captions and Sexy Gorilla Butt

writer: James Robinson

artists: Mark Bagley and Rob Hunter

One of the signs of the bogus maturity of comics, as I talked about in the previous post, is all the captions instead of thought bubbles, which presumably we are meant to take more seriously than thought bubbles because they are less "comic book". Yeesh! With that typical first person "jaded" voiceover. Enough already! I like James Robinson but his writing's full of them, the legacy of Dark Knight Returns, which was 24 years ago. Speaking of jaded, this ish gives us a lot of Jennifer, also known as Jade, Alan Scott's daughter, as she is rude to Donna Troy and then regrets it in her jaded caption. Everyone's got captions which are all identified by colours and symbols, because that's so much clearer than thought bubbles, right? Okay, I'll calm down. Enough about the captions, Aaron!!!

It's a pretty decent ish of Alan Scott being possessed by the Starheart along with Obsidian and Doctor Fate. If you're into bondage, there's Jay-Flash, Wildcat, and Sebastian Faust in one full page drawing and they're all tied up at the moment.

Wildcat: Alan, stop him! Come on, Alan! Come on! Fight this! You can, Al! I...We, know you can...

Jay-Flash: We believe in you, buddy. Your will is steel!

That's some fresh dialogue for ya!

Anyone with any vulnerability to the Starheart is going apesh*t. Speaking of which, the splash page treats us to a nice view of Congorilla's hairy butt. There's a wonderful blog called Green Lantern Butts Forever at least partly dedicated to its stated subject, but as far as I know there is no blog dedicated to the butts of DC Gorillas, so feast your baby blues: