JLA #32 "Drones of the Queen Bee" Afterward

So what did you think?

As I said in the Forward, I came up with this Queen Bee story at the same time I thought up the stories  that will be numbers 33 and 34. I ended up making my come-back with this story for two reasons. One, because the very first story I ever did featured Queen Bee, and I like the symmetry of using her in my come-back issue. And secondly, because this story is the most "straight forward" of the three: JLAer finds menace, contacts the League, they split up to battle the menace, and then come back together to finalize things. This technique would get boring if it is used every issue, but I do like it. And I think it really would be the way most JLA adventures would occur if they were real. Also, there is no guest-star in this issue, which I can't say about the next two. So there is that, too. 

First of all, I apologize for all the mistakes. It's typical for the creator to find only mistakes in their own work, but in my case there really are a lot of them to overlook. Like I said before, I'm a story-teller and not an artist. So the art could be better; I know. You'll have to take my word for it, but in the issue I'm working on right now I think I *have* slowed down a bit and that I'm getting better. We'll see if you agree. I just finished coloring number 34 and I never want to find that many mistakes ever again! 

Speaking of mistakes, did you happen to see the first mistake I made here? It's on the cover and title page....! I wrote the story as "Drones of the Queen Bee" but then when I went to draw the cover, for some reason I lettered, "Return of the Queen Bee!" in the upper right corner. It was too late to change all the chapter titles, and I had already colored the cover, so...it stayed. Oops!  I know that titles on covers sometimes don't match the actual titles inside, but I'll try not to make that mistake again, haha!

From when I was a kid I was a sucker for the "meanwhile" type scenes shown here, where we get to see what the various members are doing when they get the emergency call. And to help show everybody exactly who "my" JLA is, I included it here. Hope you got a kick out of cameos by Mera and Alfred. By the way, in my universe Black Canary dyes her hair blond; she wears a dark wig as Dinah Lance, not the other way around. I think this makes more sense, don't you? Also by the way, in my universe Kathy Sutton, the girlfriend of Red Tornado, was introduced as an African-American. I had no idea that I was starting a trend of changing the ethnicity of supporting characters when I did it, though! 

As I said, Queen Bee as a character appeared in my very first issue, back in 1991. However, it was done so badly that I have never scanned it and uploaded it here. So no one here has read it. To explain just who she is in "my" universe I relied on Red Tornado and his accurate memory chip. Thanks, Red. 

Speaking of Red Tornado, in an age of international communication I thought it made perfect sense to have Red be able to communicate with or in all the world's languages. I don't know *why* it occurred to me, but as soon as it did I liked it and kept it in. And I liked how he assumes it is not a big deal, although Wonder Woman thought it was. Red is always going to be the "ah, shucks" type of hero who doesn't even realize he is doing something wonderful.

Although I have to say I changed the blue in his cape so that next time it won't scan in to look so purple next time!

 

One of the many things I liked about the Steve Englehart run on JUSTICE LEAGUE in the late Seventies was his take on The Flash. Instead of being this world-weary cynic (like Green Arrow) I agree that he should be a guy who still sees the wonder in what he does. In that regard he and Elongated Man are similar, I think. Ralph shows his enthusiasm openly, but Barry doesn't. That's the big difference. And although Barry is friends with Green Lantern, a cosmic police-man, he never gets used to it. The Flash is a Mid-western boy at heart, and I like that about him. 

And lastly, just one word about my favorite member, Aquaman. I know he doesn't fit into every single story, but, really, nobody does, right? I think it's silly for comic-book writers to complain that Aquaman is "difficult to write" when he really isn't. Aquaman is probably fourth in terms of sheer strength (behind Superman, Wonder Woman, and Martian Manhunter); he's faster than most of them, and he's used to being a leader and tactician. So although he won't be in every issue, if he's around he's going to be doing stuff. 'Nuff said!?

See you in another month with another brand-new adventure!

NEXT ADVENTURE ON-SITE THE WEEK OF MARCH 10

JL #32 "Drones of the Queen Bee!"

JLA #32 Forward

"new" JLA logo by letterer Todd Klein, circa 1983

Welcome back!? 

I hope you are here to read about my All-New Basically-the-Same JUSTICE LEAGUE comic-book series. If you are here by accident, look at the pretty pictures and read the rambling prose. If you like what you see, I hope you'll come back next week for the actual comic story.

The last issue of my home-made comic-book was printed and distributed in the spring of 2001. I had been writing and drawing bilingual English-Japanese comics for about ten years at that point. They were given to the Japanese students of my English classes, but I have to admit that I *did* enjoy making them more than they enjoyed reading them. Then when I decided to quit that job and return to the States, I used my last issue as a representative statement to say good-bye: I had Hawkman and Hawkwoman leave Earth the same way I was leaving Japan.

After I returned to the US I was busy working and helping to raise our daughter. I also started to do community theatre, and that took up whatever free time I seemed to have.

A few years later I started this blog and began to scan and save all of my old stories. My friend Rick saw them and asked me to illustrate a story he had written as a birthday present to our buddy Rob for The Aquaman Shrine. I agreed to do it, then found myself using creative muscles I hadn't used in many years! Doing Rick's story made me seriously think about starting up my own series again.

Then two things happened. First, DC Comics wiped out their comic-book universe again and I did not particularly like what they re-created. The appeal of reading these comics was minimal. Secondly, my original series was coming to an end. So as I naturally saw "my" series ending in July, 2013, I began to think, again, about returning to them.

 

And then I listened to an episode of The Fire & Water Podcast by my buddies Rob and Shagg. They talked about "comfort comics." For those of us who didn't really enjoy The DC New 52 stuff, we should find older or forgotten comics and read/re-read those. That made me realize that there were definitely stories I wanted to tell about "my" universe, and writing and drawing them would be MY "comfort comic."

So I decided on a few things. First, I wanted to complete a couple of issues done before I shared any thing so that I could show I wasn't just a one-trick pony. So this is the first issue of three that I have already completed. I have three more in various degrees of completion, with two more scripted. I hope to stick to a bi-monthly release schedule.

Secondly, I realized that I had at least five stories to tell right off the bat, with a dozen other possibilities. For example, I really want to do a Starro the Conqueror story, but I still haven't figured out how to make a giant alien star-fish a real menace..! So I exploded on these first three "issues," working on each of them back-and-forth for months. It was only just recently that I decided to make *this* story No. 32 and *that* story No. 33, for example. The first one I finished writing was actually the story that will end up in No. 34! Then as I finished writing numbers 35 and 36, an odd thing  happened. My friend Rick asked me to revise a story he had written to fit into "my" universe. Another friend, Andy, asked if he could "play in my sandbox" and offered me a story about a character I had wanted to deal with for years!

 

So now I have stories tentatively scheduled through 38. I'm excited! I like the "pressure" of having to get something done "on deadline" at a set length in a set layout. I come home and look at my work-desk and think, "What do I want to work on tonight? Do I want to write, pencil, ink, or color?"

If you read these New Adventures after having read the previous episodes, you may notice a few changes. First and foremost, they are no longer in Japanese. I figured my audience is now a bunch of comic-book fans who speak English, so that aspect has been dropped. Sorry? Secondly, the pens and colored pencils available are different from what I had before, so the "look" might be a little bit different. I'm actually a little bit disappointed in how some of the colors scanned in, so that aspect should improve as we go along.

One last thing. I consider myself a story-teller, and not much of an artist. I know my art is really bad in some places, but hopefully it's not so bad that it takes you away from the story I am trying to tell. I apologize in advance if it ever does!