A Few Final Thoughts of Justice League of America #10
Scene from Justice League of America #10, script by Brad Meltzer, pencils by Ed Benes.
A month out, and this image still bugs me.
First, it’s the way Superman is scanning the “whole spectrum” including “microscopic, chemical, x-ray, auditory, ultrasonic, magnetic, photonic.” I wasn’t even aware that some of those had spectrums — and those that do are overlapping (auditory and ultrasonic fall within one spectrum, while magnetic, x-ray, and “photonic” fall within another). What exactly is a chemical spectrum, and how is Superman testing it? Is he smelling her? Tasting her? This is pushing his super-senses a little too far.
Second, and most important, the perspective really bothers me. It’s not that the art is particularly bad (though I’ve seen much better from Benes), but it’s the way he’s showing Superman’s x-ray vision. Superman is standing behind Sensor Girl and looking at her back, yet we are seeing the cutaway view of her front. I’m sure this is just Benes’s way of showing that Superman is using his x-ray vision and not how the scene would actually look, because the alternatives would truly be bizarre (Superman’s x-ray vision is also a mirror vision allowing him to see her front, or his x-ray vision is irradiating her so much that she is see-through to everyone). It’s not wrong per se, it just seems a strange way to stage the action.
Third, — and I want a show of hands — upon reading that Sensor Girl has two hearts, how many of you immediately thought: “She’s a Timelord!” I know I did.
July 17th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Maybe we’re seeing her front because of “background radiation”, or “time stuff”.
July 18th, 2007 at 2:47 am
[hand]
July 18th, 2007 at 5:39 am
Double hand!
July 18th, 2007 at 6:59 am
*raises Dalek plunger*
July 18th, 2007 at 7:09 am
I thought she was a Centauri from B5, actually.
July 18th, 2007 at 7:47 am
To be charitable, he meant something like “I check the whole spectrum of tests I can do” as in usage like “Spectrum of tests available to evaluate …”. Though it is awkwardly put. I agree it’s certainly over technobabbled.
July 18th, 2007 at 7:48 am
Does it make any evolutionary sense to have both hearts side-by-side? Wouldn’t it be better to have one lower down in the abdomen?
Anyway, if I had a dollar for every scientific mistake comic writers have ever made, I’d be a financial superman by now…the X-man has always been particularly bad this way.
July 18th, 2007 at 8:01 am
Why add in all the technobabble? If she wasn’t there and only a projection there would be nothing inside her body so he’d only need x-ray vision. No need for a whole spectrum of tests.
July 18th, 2007 at 8:24 am
Why add in all the technobabble? If she wasn’t there and only a projection there would be nothing inside her body so he’d only need x-ray vision. No need for a whole spectrum of tests.
Well… Sensor Girl is really good at this. She’s quite capable of coming up with an illusion of herself that includes internal anatomy, just in case Superman does what he’s doing now. On the other hand, Superman has a lot of senses, so it makes sense for him to try them all, just in case she left something out of such an illusion..
July 18th, 2007 at 8:47 am
I though Time Lord right away, but that must be wrong because they all died in the Time Wars, except for The Doctor.
By the way I know it’s supposed to be just a shadow, but what’s with Superman having a Hitler mustache?
July 18th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Off-topic: If the Time Lords died in the Time Wars, did they all die, from the beginning of the universe on? Wouldn’t that have seriously screwed up the past?
I just have a real problem with Dr. Who time-lines…
July 18th, 2007 at 11:02 am
I was thinking, “Wow! Since when does Jeckie have two hearts?” That’s the very first time that little factoid has been mentioned in the forty years the character’s been around.
July 18th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
[hand]
Also, I agree with Seth: it’s possible to read his statement as “whole spectrum of my powers”.
July 18th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Well, I’ll admit first I thought Time Lord, due to the fact I’ve just watched a Doctor Who marathon, but then the comic book side of me jumped in and thought of my old favorite X-men, Longshot!
July 19th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Due to the concept of a Time Stream and the Doctor surviving, everyone knows that at some point there were Time Lords (and Daleks), and they were all arrogant and/or murderous. They would’ve had to have existed right up until the Doctor went off to fight in the Time War, at which point they all ceased to. So anyone who had interacted with the Doctor’s past selves would have been existing in a point when the Time Lords existed, but now anyone the Doctor will meet must have always believed that the Time Lords (and the Daleks), were just some sort of myth that died out centuries ago. That or a Wizard did it.
Anyway, while I also thought Time Lord, was I the only one confused as to how she could be Sensor Girl instead of Princess Projectra when she didn’t adopt that persona until long after Val was dead?
July 20th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
So . . . all space and time is relative to the Doctor? (Also just finished a Dr. Who marat
July 24th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Since when did Princess Projectra have two hearts?
July 29th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Actually, Karate Kid and Sensor Girl coexisting bugged the hell out of me as well. There’s a throwaway line in one of the latter issues of the arc, though, where Starman mentions how “the entire Legion cheered when Val came back from the dead” or something to that general effect, suggesting that this Legion’s history is more or less identical to the pre-Crisis version, but that it diverges when it comes to certain events. Val’s resurrection – which is a damn a nice trick considering that he was beaten to a bloody pulp by Nemesis Kid, then fried extra crispy, and finally cremated as part of an Orando funeral rite – just happens to be one of these.
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