Oh, f-bang. Willingham's the new JSA writer?

One of the reasons I liked Johns' run so much is that he is a creator-type writer--he leaves a book with more active characters in more useable shape than it had when he got it. That's exactly the kind of writer a legacy-themed book like JSA benefits from.

Willingham is a destroyer. He likes breaking toys to see what's inside. Start saying goodbye to characters. They won't be around much longer.

Despite what your grocer wants you to believe, cows don't lay eggs, Mr. Sattler.

Come on, Jerry. That's what makes DC's a magic egg.

1. I don't know how I feel about JMS. Every time I tried his Spider-Man, I thought "this may be an interesting book, but it is not a book about Spider-Man." And I found his Squadron Supreme reboot to be plodding and dull. On the other hand, I was enjoying the hell out of the Twelve. I'm not sure if I've read anything else of his.

Oh, and I finally watched Babylon 5 over the last month or so after years of hearing how it was The Greatest TV Series Ever. It was pretty good, but it did not live up to the hype.

2. Detective was very pretty (I've bene a fan of J.H, Williams since he was doing Chase), but the story seemed to lack meat. I didn't read Sirens -- sounds like I'll have to check it out.

3. I don't read X-Factor, but I am enjoying the letters pages in Spider-Man.

4. I don't think it's a typo. Eggs get stored in the dairy case at most supermarkets; my guess is Sattler considers them dairy.

5. Sounds like I'm missing something by not reading JSA. So it's a book about a bunch of paternalistic superheroes cock-blocking everyone who comes near their daughter-figure? Who's writing the book these days, and how much is his teenaged daughter rolling her eyes when she reads it?

1. Forced? Did someone hold a gun to JMS's head? He's also talked about how he had a clause in his contract basically keeping him from being edited and how he knew enough about One More Day to plan on it being an out for Peter and Gwen's (changed to Norman and Gwen's) kids in Sins Past.

5.2 With Captain Marvel, it made sense. Whitmore was definitely a minor and Marvel, apparently not. She's a few years older now, maybe 18, and I'm not sure how old Albert is supposed to be. Early 20s? This time played very differently. (Oh, and she knows Jay/Alan/Ted warned Billy off)

I'm pretty sure Courtney's not 18 yet; nothing's implied she's in college and she seems to still be living at home. I'd put her at 16-17.

Albert's age is trickier due to the floating DC timeline clashing with set events in his past. He was attending USC when introduced 23-24 years ago in Infinity Inc. However, his mother was introduced as a baby in an All-Star Squadron story set circa 1942, making her by that light around 67 years old. And his father was originally supposed to have died in Vietnam.

At any rate, Chris Miller's DCU Chronology puts Albert's birthdate as October 12, 1978 (he got the Oct. 12 from an issue of Infinity Inc). Which'd make him 30. Given that he debuted a bit before Crisis, I'd say he'd have to be at least mid-20s.

Greg: It's Willingham working with Matthew Sturges, and I've found the combination of the two to work out better than Willingham (or Sturges, for that matter) working alone.

Jason: Everyone writing the Squadron Supreme reboot has made it a plodding mess. It's one of the great mysteries of the universe that Marvel hasn't been able to do a decent Squadron Supreme story since the Mark Gruenwald mini. I agree with you on JMS's work. His Spider-Man (particularly Spidey's foray into The Spider Force) was a mess, and Babylon 5 was extremely overrated.

Joe: The Marvel warning bothered me more, since Billy Batson is still a kid himself. This is probably a reason why the "New Earth" idea of Cap as Billy in an adult suit (as opposed to being essentially a separate individual) gets a little creepy at times.

What worries me about the JSA hen-blocking is that it's been set up for a later Big Reveal in which we find that Courtney can't be allowed to get past first base for some sort of cosmic or mystical reasons. Or because she's really a robot and having sex would reveal that and break through the programming that keeps her from noticing she's a robot. A friend suggests the JSA needs to keep a virgin around just in case for mystic emergencies, and since Cyclone is an artsy type she probably hasn't qualified for a while despite Ma Hunkle's best efforts. :)

Of course, in Albert's case, it could just be, "We still don't trust you on the team, we certainly don't trust you around Courtney!"

Dave: That's creepy in the context of JSA, but brilliant as a plot device for a more "adult" team book.

And I'm willing to buy the fact that they just don't trust Albert and worry he might be a bad influence, but this close to the Marvel wave-off, it just seems suspicious.

It's true, you never know when you might need someone to ride a unicorn.

JL: We know Marvel's a kid, but the JSA triumvirate did not know that. They just saw this nearly 30 year old guy flirting with Whitmore. Johns got some decent mileage out of Batson angsting about telling them the truth or not.

Tom: thanks for the info on Atom Smasher. I've never read any appearances pre-JSA. Sounds like regardless of whether or not they trust him, he's too old for Whitmore anyway.

re: Zatanna

There is in fact a Dini Zatanna series in the works. Of course it might be like the now rumurily confirmed Johns/Lee JLA that it'll be there when DC gets around to it, but that's how DC rolls.

Sometimes, when I think about all of the damage Johns and Meltzer and their ilk have done to DC's characters over the years, I remind myself that someday someone who grew up reading their violent gorefest comics will get to write Stargirl.

Tenzil: While Johns has beaten upon some characters, I think his track record of rehabilitating lost characters has more than made up for it. And I can't say that I find Johns or Meltzer's writing to be gorier than Morrison's or Bendis's, in fact, I'd say it's just the opposite.

Actually, in the Paul Levitz written story that wrapped up the previous JSA series, they did make use of Courtney's virginity with respect to a mystic threat by the Gentleman Ghost. No unicorns yet though.