JL #31 "Going Home!"

JLA #31 "Going Home" Afterward

Well, what did you think?

Every time I re-read this issue I notice something different. Usually I just get caught up in the proceedings; I like how the Hawks have called the emergency meeting to drop their bombshell announcement. (I have to admit I took that bit from JUSTICE LEAGUE #109, the issue where Hawkman leaves the JLA.) Then before you can even catch your breath the nefarious Dr. Light attacks Batman and the adventure starts in earnest. It helps when you work with good material. 

As I mentioned in the Forward, I liked these adventures because I was able to give every character something exciting to do. If you were to re-read the story right now, which character do you think gets the least amount of screen time? It's probably Superman or Elongated Man, who are both knocked out pretty quickly, but they atleast do have scenes they can claim as theirs, right? 

Before I talk about some of the scenes that I liked, I want to say that I didn't think I did Dr. Light's spectrum death trap justice. It just didn't look right, and as I was drawing and then coloring it I was struck by its stupidity. It looked more impressive with art by Dick Dillin, I guess. 

Now I have to tell you the secret origin of this story, even if it is somewhat embarrassing. From 1987 to 2001 I lived and worked in a small Japanese town as their local English teacher and international relations planner. After ten years there I started wanting a long-term contract and more responsibilities. I was basically the hired help, but as I was getting older I wanted to spend more time planning events and less time out playing with kindergarten children. I was about 36 years old at the time. So I had several conversations with my bosses (my direct supervisor, the superintendent of education, and the mayor) asking for a better situation. Also, my direct supervisor was an agricultural man who had been named Education Head due to politics. I was told that when the then-current superintendent retired I would have better luck with his successor. (I was actually hired in by his predecessor, and was never a big priority for him while he was in charge.) Well, in 2000 he retired and was replaced by....my direct supervisor, who was promoted to take the position. When that happened, I knew I was leaving. 

So it struck me as a good idea to write a "good-bye" to the entire English class world. I decided to have Hawkman and Hawkwoman be "re-called" to their home planet and to voice MY reasons for MY leaving.

Re-read the following words in my voice and see if it makes more sense now...

 

 

In fact, if you go back and re-read all of the comments by or about the Hawks, odds are that they are based on my situation. For example, I knew I would have to make speeches at my various going away parties. So I thought about what I wanted to say about or to certain people, and came up with Shayera's words to Diana, shown here..

Now with Hawkman and Green Arrow, instead of my personal situation I used what I knew about their mainstream comics situation and worked on it...This is the first (and only) time that Green Arrow ever called Hawkman by his first name in my series, and also the only time Katar called GA "Ollie."  I don't think my readers "got" this scene, but I enjoyed it.

And here is probably my favorite panel in the whole story: Red Tornado quoting The Tin Man from "The Wizard of OZ." I was proud of how I was making Red Tornado into a "real" character and not a Johnny One Note who cried about how he wasn't human, boo hoo. I had introduced his girl-friend Kathy and his adopted daughter Traya, so I figured that he had enough self-confidence to remain on Earth (One) and to remain as a JLAer. With this I hoped to write a nice enough conclusion to the Saga of Red Tornado.

And with a scene of Shayera dissolving into tears as Katar bites his lip trying not to lose his composure, the Hawks are gone....and so is my series. It was a fun ride. I hope you enjoyed it.

JLA #31 "Going Home" Roll Call

JLA #31 "Going Home" Forward

Well, this is it. This is the LAST issue in my bilingual comic-book series.

I am happy to say that I went out with a bang. This is probably my favorite issue of the series. Not only because I based it on two really good source stories (JLA #122 by Martin Pasko and JLA #149 by Steve Englehart) but because there is no painful art sequences (just my normal mediocrity) AND because I added a twist to this story to mirror my own leaving of Japan. That part I sort of took from Len Wein; I will talk more about that part of the story in the Afterwards.

Here are the two stories I used as sources:

 

Both feature Dr. Light as a nefarious villain. In my story, I even have Red Tornado call him the Justice League's greatest enemy. In the actual DC comics of the early 80s he started to be featured as an incompetent idiot; I always resisted that characterization. I think of Dr. Light as an absolute genius who hates the JLA, so he always tries to be three steps ahead of them. Now that my series is over maybe I will go back and scan his original appearance (JL #3) to FRIENDS OF JUSTICE. It's kind of his secret origin and how I see the character: evil genius. I haven't uploaded it yet because I am embarrassed about the quality of the art, but I do remember the story fondly...

In the more recent mini-series IDENTITY CRISIS it was revealed that Dr. Light once tried to rape one of the wives of the JLAers. As an evil act, this ranks right up there; as a way to get back to the JLA in general I don't put this past him, I guess. I'm not a fan of this characterization, but if I had to pick between idiot or rapist, I suppose I would pick rapist. Still, this story you're about to read is from 2001, several years before he was shown to be *that* evil. Feel free to think of him as that type of scum-bag if you so choose.  Or forget that I even mentioned it.

One of the reasons I gravitated to then eventually chose these stories as my source is because they use most of the JLAers in them. Therefore, I was able to use most of the members in specific scenes. For example, the actions of Superman and The Flash are directly from JLA #149, and the scenes of Aquaman fighting Dr. Light came directly from JLA #122. It was easy to plug these stories into my universe. 

This group shot cover is one of my favorites, too. I went all out on it. It's loosely based on the WHO'S WHO illustration of the JLA by Luke McDonnell. I usually didn't date my work, but this time I did because I knew it would be the last cover I ever did.

Here are both for your consideration. 

 

One problem I see with my version is that it looks like Wonder Woman is putting her hand out to "stop" Red Tornado. Now that I see it that way, I can't "un-see" it. Sorry if I just spoiled it for you, too, haha~! 

Translation was, as always, done by my friend Kinuyo Yamamura. She did a great job on the last years of stories, and was my all-time favorite assistant. We'll talk more about this work in the Afterward, too, because I don't want to spoil any of the story beforehand.

 

JLA #31 "Going Home!"

And with this cover, we come to the last issue of "my" bilingual JUSTICE LEAGUE series.
I dated the day I actually finished inking it: May 29, 2001. Twelve years ago? Have I really been out of Japan that long? It seems just like yesterday....

New Pronunciation Key

In JL #27 I introduced a new system of pronunciation keys for the English words. If you don't know how Japanese works it's kind of difficult to explain, but over each Japanese word (such as Justice League in the title shown directly below) I write smaller Japanese characters as pronunciation. However, because the Japanese sounds are fewer and more stringent than English, words like "cup" and "cap" end up being given the same pronunciations in Japanese. I added a "dot" or a "triangle" to try to help differentiate the sounds. Obviously, it didn't work. :-)