JL #18 "The Coming of ECLIPSO!" Afterward

So....what did you think!?
I know I sound like a geek, but I really think I did a good job on this one. Sure, a couple figures look bad and Aquaman's eyes are crossed in one panel (haha) but overall I think I did a good job. Please let me know if you disagree!

A few specific notes about this issue....

This is a good example of what I tried to do with the very strict panel layout I was using. For three statements by Dr. Bruce Gordon, instead of using the same pose for each of them,  I moved closer and closer in each until I got a pseudo-extreme-close-up of a determined Dr. Gordon telling his companion, "Now throw the switch, Hawkman!" I always tried to think of "different" ways to do things when I wrote myself into these types of situations. Sometimes it didn't work, and sometimes I got lazy, but this page is a good example of a time that I thought it worked.

I continued to enjoy using The Elongated Man. He was not only comic relief, but he also represented The Reader. So if I needed to explain to the reader something I would just have Ralph ask, "what the heck IS Eclipso, anyway?!" Worked every time, and I enjoyed drawing a confused Ralph Dibny. I could literally draw him all up in knots.

In the original story in JLA 109 Batman contacts Aquaman to join Black Canary and the Atom, but then he is attacked by Eclipso and isn't able to tell them. I changed this around a bit, having Hawkman and Hawkman (on Monitor Duty) call in not only Aquaman but The Flash (who I have already established is always late!). However, this means that I actually repeated a JLA team-up combination: The Batman, The Flash, and Wonder Woman had already teamed up in JUSTICE LEAGUE #5 when they faced Dr. Light in India. I tried *very* hard not to repeat groups, but Wonder Woman fit here better than the Martian Manhunter did. In hind-sight, I should not have done this. However, I do think they look good together.

This is a good example of another one of my visual designs. Here we have Eclipso telling the heroes that he is surrounded by a force field. What would YOU do if somebody told you that? You would verify it yourself, right? So we have Green Lantern and Elongated Man checking out the force field in their own personal ways. I just like how I have Ralph's hand enlarged, trying to reach around the force field. My art talent may be questionable, but I always thought I got the general visuals right.

Now we've come to one of my all-time favorite JLA scenes, so it was such a pleasure to draw it myself. In JLA 109 Eclipso is attacking some underwater recyle station or something. Aquaman didn't attend the meeting, but since it's an underwater problem, Batman calls him specifically and tells him to go help. Awesome! Aquaman as The US Cavalry, riding in to help his friends. I also like the idea that once he *does* show up, the others can leave him to it!

JLA 109 by Len Wein/Dick Dillin/Dick Giordano

And now we've come to the most difficult translation problem I ever had on the series. In the original script Eclipso sees Black Canary attacking him and says something condescending like, "Go away, girl!" So she then responds like this:

However, in Japanese there really isn't the same type of "tone" (for lack of a better term) for calling somebody a "girl" versus a woman (or a "boy" instead of a man). Well, let me rephrase that. There ARE differences, but they are not used with these particular words. So my translation partner and I could not get past the "tone" and the "meaning" of what was being said here. She insisted that we use the specific Japanese words for "girl" and "woman" instead of something like ""sweetheart" and "broad," which is what I was fighting for. So the Japanese translation says, literally, "I'm not a little girl, I'm a female!" which doesn't really make much sense. (sigh) After we had this discussion I think my friend decided it was too much trouble trying to help me. I don't remember if I actually stopped asking her, but I know she got a job at the state capitol right around this time and was less inclined to help out, so we let this be our last issue together. Thank you for all your help, Shoko-san!!

I thought I did a good job on the coloring in this issue. The books I printed and gave away were in black and white, but I really went to town on the colored copies that we saved in the town library. In this issue I thought I did a good job with the different blues of the sky and the ocean (in chapter 4) and on Eclipso, especially.


I always liked this panel on the right because it shows that the Flash was blinded (hand up shielding his eyes), Green Lantern whips up some power-ring goggles to see, and then there's Aquaman, who is looking on the blast without any trouble. He has limited super-vision, right? I mean, the ocean floor is pretty murky.

And this is the group shot from this issue, which I originally used on the blog's Header.

JL #18 "The Coming of ECLIPSO!"

 Here's your Omnibus "reading edition" of Justice League 18. It's one of my favorites, based off the real JLA #109 by Len Wein.

JL #18 "The Coming of ECLIPSO!" Forward

You're in for a treat this time. JUSTICE LEAGUE #18 is one of my favorite stories I did; not only because it was based on wonderful source material (which it was!) but because I think I did a pretty bang-up job on my parts, too.

My story "The Coming of Eclipso" is based on the story in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #109, "Doom of the Divided Man" by Len Wein, Dick Dillin, and Dick Giordano. Len Wein wrote my favorite run of JLA stories, so it should not be a surprise that this is another one of my favorites.

Things I changed:

JLA 109 starts with Red Tornado instead of Hawkman and Hawkwoman. Because he isn't a member of "my" JLA, I couldn't use him. Basic premise of the Eclipso-Gordon experiment is the same.

Wonder Woman was not an active member in 109, so I shoe-horned her in to my story. I think she stopped the ray-guns that Batman stops in 109.  

Because Hawkman is used at the beginning of the story, I cut him from the Elongated Man-GA-GL chapter.

The Atom is used in JLA 109 but he isn't in my JLA anymore. (That's him on Batman's shoulder below) So I used Martian Manhunter. I hadn't realized that the Atom doesn't really *do* anything in that story. In mine I atleast have J'Onn catch the bad guy after Black Canary and Aquaman set him up.  

And most differently, JLA 109 was based on Hawkman leaving the group. In my story there is no such sub-plot.

The title, too, was difficult to translate. It has a poetic ring to it in English, but I wanted to be more straight-forward. The English, "The Coming of Eclipso!" is translated as "The Eclipse Demon Eclipso."

For this issue I got my friend Shoko Taniguchi to help me. As I've talked about in the past, I was not happy with either her or Mrs. Ochiai, thinking both brought different strengths and weaknesses to the translation process. This is Shoko's last issue as associate translator. She did a good job while her heart was not really in it, and I thank her very much for helping me out as long as she did. I think this issue was pretty straight-forward where the translation was concerned...except for one item we will talk about in the Afterward.

One last thing....The credits below feature the pronunciation of each English word (the katakana) over each word. Try as I might, I could not find any information as to the proper pronunciation of Len Wein's name. So I guessed, and wrote the pronunciation as "wine." I have since met him and heard his name spoken, and know that it is pronounced "ween." Sorry, Mr. Wein!

JL #18 "The Coming of ECLIPSO!" Roll Call

JL #18 "The Coming of ECLIPSO!"

This is definitely one of my favorite covers...based on, of course, the cover of JUSTICE LEAGUE of AMERICA #217.
If you look closely behind Martian Manhunter's right shoulder you'll see the line that I forgot to erase that had been Superman's cape. I had the Man of Steel on the cover because originally I was using this illustration as a poster, so I wanted to have all the members there. When I went to use it as a cover, because Superman is not in the story I squeezed him out. However, I forgot to erase him completely, haha!