JL #20 "The Return of the Weather Wizard!" Afterward

So...what did you think?

As I talked about in my FORWARD, this is one of those bittersweet issues for me. Reading it some ten plus years later I have to say I am proud about how it stands up; each character has something to do and it flows pretty well. It does pain me that I have extra holes on each page because I mis-aligned the  the setting of the hole puncher! And some of the art just hurts---literally--to look at now.

First off, as I mentioned in the FORWARD, I regret that I used this costume for Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man. This was another issue to "star" Ralph in a featured role. He continued to be easy to write and easy to visualize, although I did try to not overdo the stretching neck bit. I'm glad to say that I never used this costume again. In fact, after this I mostly stuck to his traditional "true" JLA-era red costume.

Speaking of Ralph, as soon as I decided to have the story begin at a basketball game, I knew I would have Elongated Man comment on then-current superstars Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman. Basketball was huge in Japan and especially huge with my English class students, who wanted to study English and go to the US to watch or play basketball. So this exchange between the JLAers was entertaining to my kids. Those who thought Dennis Rodman was TOO much of an extrovert could still see how Ralph Dibny would want to emulate him. :-)

I enjoyed introducing Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen to my universe. I think people who had seen the SUPERMAN movies would know who they were, and it made sense for them to do some of the narrating during the action at the Metropolis basketball arena.

I have to say now that I really liked the idea of the Weather Wizard attacking the All Star Game *before* he thought the JLA would be there. I mean, come on....criminals are all egotistical, right? Who would resist showing up and robbing a venue that an hour or so later the JLA was scheduled to appear in? I thought that was clever...and although it's not re-printed here I also liked the JLAers' response to this, "We like basketball, too, ya know!"

 This is just a quick visual I came up with. I wish I had been better at drawing a telephone, but I think it's clear what GL is doing.

One thing I didn't like about my series is that too many issues were stand-alone. Because I only published once every three months or so there was not much cohesiveness (if that's the word I mean) between issues. So for quite a while I tried to introduce super-villains that I could have return again and again to try to give depth (if that's the word I mean) to my universe.  Of course, obviously my job was not to be a professional comic book publisher, so there wasn't anything I could do about it besides make these types of references to past issues.

Finally I have gotten used to the idea that unless it's an A-1 Emergency, there is supposed to be somebody on monitor duty. Because Hawkwoman had appeared in an earlier issue but hadn't done much, I chose her to use in this type of cameo. It does help to show that she and Wonder Woman are good friends, too.

This issue is one of the best to show how well the JLA works as a team. Unlike several recent issues where one character or two characters "save the day," in this story Wonder Woman saves Hawkman who saves Green Lantern who saves Martian Manhunter. Original JLA writer Gardner Fox was great at this type of story, and in that sense I feel this story is dedicated to him.  

 As I've written about before, Superman was the most difficult character for me to write. Really, he should be able to do everything on his own! So I have a playful dig at this by having Elongated Man assume that Superman saved everybody's life. Of course it was Green Lantern, who I enjoyed writing much, much more!

And lastly, here's my "funny ending." It had been established in DC Comics that The Flash is always late in his private life. So I thought it would be amusing for The Fastest Man Alive to make a cameo appearance at the end of the adventure. Similarly to Superman, if The Flash was written well there wasn't much he couldn't do. If you go back through my stories you'll often find that I handicap him, Superman, or Batman (Batman because he was TOO popular) in order to let the other characters shine. I tried not to be too obvious about it most of the time. Anyway, I thought this was a nice way to end the story and I really love the way the breeze from The Flash's arrival knocks Green Arrow's cap off his head.  

JL #20 Extra: Regarding JLA Absenteeism

Regarding "Absenteeism in the Justice League"

Four JLAers did not appear in this issue's adventure. We are using the word "absent" but really when there is no Emergency Signal sent out there are always gonig to be "absent" members . When the Initial Level Emergency Signal (Yellow Alert) is sent out, only those members who have time will respond. At that time, those members who are always very busy (Aquaman, Batman, Black Canary, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Superman) are often absent. When the Highest Level Emergency Signal (Red Alert) is sent out, those members who are absent from that incident will have to fill out an "Absentee Report" detailing officially why they could not attend.

As of this issue, these are the members and the issues they have missed.  

AQUAMAN Including this issue, he has missed three times. In issues #9 and #20 the Emergency Signal was not sent, so he stayed on ocean patrol. In #17 during that crisis it made more sense for him to stay on patrol rather than attend the meeting.
BATMAN Including this issue, he has missed two times. Batman has another job as Bruce Wayne, the President of Wayne Enterprises. He is often very busy with this personal work. He was absent in issues #4 and #20, both issues where the Emergency Signal was not sent.
BLACK CANARY is currently the Justice League member with the most absences. In issues #9 and #20 when the Emergency Signal was not sent out, she stayed on patrol in her hometown of Star City. In issue #19 she was actually busy fighting against The Riddler so could not answer the summons. All together she has missed four issues.

THE FLASH is a police scientist so is very busy. However, because his power is super-speed, he usually can do his job quickly and then have some free time. This issue's adventure is a good example. On page 19 he is called by Green Lantern but he was too busy doing police work to respond. Then when he was finished with his job he was able to appear at the end of the story. So far this issue, #20, is the first time he has missed.
GREEN ARROW missed the same issues as Black Canary, #9 and #19. He also missed #11 on his own. That issue was the adventure that started as a series of charity shows, so he was busy fighting yakuza gangs in Star City at that time.
GREEN LANTERN is a police officer for the entire galaxy, so he is often on patrol in space. This is why he missed the adventures in #2, #15, and #17.
HAWKWOMAN's job is to be a representative of her planet and to be a super-heroine (JLA member). She has no other private life, so she responds to almost all summons. Her one absence was in #11 during the charity show. At that time she was in space visiting her home planet.

MANHUNTER has no private life outside of the Justice League, so he hardly ever misses an adventure. He sometimes does Private Detective work, but even when busy with that he gives JLA cases more priority. Also, he often volunteers for Monitor Duty (such as in issues #11, #15, and #17). Currently he only missed issue #4 when the Emergency Signal was not sent out.
SUPERMAN is the busiest Justice League member. He patrols Earth and space and also works as a reporter at The Daily Planet in Metropolis. In issue #9 he was busy fighting his arch-enemy Lex Luthor. In #18 he was off on another planet.

WONDER WOMAN is similar to Manhunter, Hawkwoman and Hawkman, and Elongated Man in that besides being a super-hero she has no other private life. Therefore she almost never misses a case. In issue #2 she was busy fighting her arch-enemy The Cheetah. She also missed the adventure in #4 when there was no Emergency Signal sent out.

ELONGATED MAN and HAWKMAN have only just joined in issue #13 and since then neither have missed an adventure!

JL #20 "The Return of the Weather Wizard!" Next Issue Blurb!

Next Issue Blurb

Next time, we go to the home world of Black Canary (shown on left), the other-dimensional world "Earth 2." The Justice League will meet up with many members of their mentor group, The Justice Society! Next: CRISIS ON EARTH TWO!

Don't miss it!

JL #20 Friends and Foe Profiles

JL #20 "The Return of the Weather Wizard!'

Here's the Omnibus "reading copy" of this story, collected in one post for your reading pleasure.
This is one that I didn't much care for while I was doing it, but turned out to be one of my favorites after I went back and re-read it.

JL #20 "The Return of the Weather Wizard!" Roll Call

JL #20 "The Return of the Weather Wizard!" Forward

This is a bittersweet issue for me in several ways.

For one thing, it turned out to be the last original story I ever wrote. Every issue after this one, until the series ends with issue 31, will be based on someone else's story or re-worked from an actual comic book story. At the time I wrote and drew this story I had no idea that this would be the case, of course. In fact, after I wrote this I made several notes about possible stories to write that I never got around to doing.

One of the reasons I did write this story is because there still was an unbalance between the appearances of all the members. I wanted to write a story featuring the characters that I thought I had overlooked before. I went through the issues and made notes of who had appeared and who had not, and then I took the members with the fewest appearances and crafted the story around them. Superman was an obvious choice, as I had not used him in #18. As soon as I decided to base the action around him, I quickly had Lois and Jimmy as well as the night out with the guys idea. I looked over the bad guys I had to choose from (you can see who the choices were here) but for some reason I decided to go with the Weather Wizard again. I always liked him, and figured he could accidentally come across the JLA and sort of give them trouble....and the story simple fell together after that. See what you think and let me know, please.

I ended up writing an afterward about "absent members" at the end of the story. I'll translate it into English when we get to it.
The other reason I wrote this particular issue is because I wanted to have my Justice League-Justice Society team-up in my 21st issue, and I needed a "place keeper" before that. More on that story NEXT month! :-)

This is also the last issue I used the half-page roll call portraits. I had been trying to come up with some other visual way to represent the "roll call" that wouldn't take up three or more pages of every issue. By now there were plenty of back-issues available for kids who weren't familiar with these characters yet to go back and find out about them. Plus, most of the kids were older and knew who they were. AND the next issue was going to be a super-sized special guest extravaganza, so I didn't want to keep wasting this space. Check out the "Absent Members" box to see Aquaman's beard continuing to grow, by the way.

The other regret I have about this story is that I featured Elongated Man's newest costume. I had plenty of actual DC Comics posters and advertisiting artwork featuring Ralph Dibny. The problem was that sometimes it featured his large "E" and masked outfit. I had already established that Ralph changed his costume often, so I thought it would be fun to switch it again. Once I got into the story, however, I realized just how much I hated this costume. Now I can't look at this issue and not wish I hadn't used it, haha!

The best thing about this story is that it marks the debut of my newest and last collaborator, Kinuyo Yamamura. Yamamura-san was the receptionist at the City Hall, so she was stuck answering the phones all day. She had seen me print and bind earlier issues and had expressed interest in the work. When I asked her to read my Japanese and help me translate the stories, she didn't exactly jump, but she did agree. And for the next 11 issues she was my right-hand woman. It's because of her that I think these last dozen issues are the best translated. Check out the Japanese and let me know what you think. :-)

JL #20 "The Return of the Weather Wizard!"

You can see that I stole this pose from Dan Jurgens. Superman, Hawkman, and Wonder Woman maybe were his; the rest were mine. You can see that I didn't do a good job mixing the styles, as my Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter especially don't "jibe."  Probably my least favorite cover.

You'll also notice the double-sets of holes on the left side of the illustration. I colored these pages and then put them into a three-ring binder. So of course, I had to punch holes in them. Well, there was a tool in my office to do that, but you had to set the punch-hole locations before you pressed on it. I forgot to do this. The person who had used the tool before me used a different sized paper, and so I had my entire 40 plus page story with the wrong holes in them. I wasn't going to re-color the whole thing, so there you are....!

I learned my lesson, though. I punched the black-and-white versions and THEN colored them, and I *always* checked the settings before I punched them.