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Justice League Vs The Fatal Five

I'd say I am relatively recovered from covid. My sense of smell is back, that's the important thing. Ironically, everyone else I know now has it. (They didn't get it from me!)
I slept a lot. 2 weeks of mostly nothing.
But I did watch a few DC animated movies which prompted me to orders some comics.

Now. DC comics kind of suck. They're like the Square-Enix of comic book publishers. They had something great, for a while, but now everything they touch turns to shit. But even shit can be engaging if you pause-rewind and listen to writer/editor interviews on how it could have been great. It's not like Marvel's "what if" scenarios. It's more like deleted scenes, secret origins stuff.
Like they pull out alternative cover art that shows how 1 character was written to be someone else. It doesn't really change the story. But there are still artifacts of a discarded image. So a story that was "meh" on the surface is a lot more interesting underneath.

C.S. Lewis wrote a book on Medieval Literature titled "the discarded image". Which is about how stories are based on stories based on other stories. And emergent structures have arisen from centuries of adaptions and compensations. When he talks about "atmosphere" in a story, I think he's really talking about the underlining structure of the story. Today we think of atmosphere as a layer of air in the sky. But to ancients, it was the firmament, a vaulted ceiling. Structure. There was movement to it, and that has been imprinted in myths. Ultimately, the myth about Hades and Persephone is structured about the changing seasons. If you were to changed the details of the story but wanted to keep the same "atmosphere", that meant it would still be a story about the seasons. "About" meaning "around" or "encircled by" a thing.
The "dog days of summer" are hot. The Dog-star/constellation is high in winter, but comes down "in heat" as dogs do.
C.S. Lewis had criticism about film adaptations that change the "atmosphere". Like changing "trapped in a cold still tomb" into "trapped an erupting steaming volcano". In both cases "getting out" might be the point and general movement of a scene. And a volcano has more "action" to it. But silent stagnation and noisey-upheavel are completely different things metaphorically speaking. Is "action" the point?

On the subject of DC comics, a lot of the superpowers are metaphorical to the story. Like you can have a superhero who can make himself bigger and stronger. And another superhero who can change the mass of an object, making it lighter or heavier. You can show both holding up a boulder or a falling building, but fundamentally, metaphorically, they're doing different things. One character bears the weight of a burden while the other is negating it. So substituting one for the other can spoil the story.
The difference between "I can do this" and "you can do this".

That's the challenge of poetry. But I understand, superhero comics can't be pure poetry all the time. And sometimes extra details can frame the story in unfortunate ways that's not suppose to frame the story at all.
Getting to the point, I recently watched...

Justice league vs the Fatal Five
But once you see it, you might think it's a Green Lantern movie.
This is a new-ish female green lantern character that most people aren't familiar with, Jessica Cruz. Someone made the call that the script needed to show her traumatic backstory. However it's not the full backstory, just the traumatic part to explain why she's in counseling. This wasn't in the original draft. The original draft was simple. She wants pills for anxiety because using "mantras" doesn't work. The Green Lantern oath becomes her mantra. The end. Simple.
The problem with the final script, I think, is that they either tell you too much or not enough to tie it all together. Her trauma is that she has survivor's guilt. Some mobsters killed her friends but she managed to get away. She thinks about it everyday. How she became a green lantern after this is kinda related, but it's a-whole-nother story not explained in this movie. "The Fatal Five" represent another group of mobsters. The problematic framing here is that she calls for backup Green Lanterns to help, which The Fatal Five...maybe killed? It's not clear. It should be a "My friends, not again" moment. But instead, it's kind of a backwards mirror of events. In the beginning she's waking up everyday saying a mantra. Here, she says the Green Lantern mantra, then wakes up again like she did at the beginning.
I dunno. Maybe just getting through the day, or week, IS the point? Nothing changed, she has to keep dealing with the Fatal 5 regardless, and then ANOTHER character dies. This character is certainly dead because they have a funeral for him. The take away impression is that this guy she barely knew is now her inspiration or something. It's sooo bad.

Were the Fatal Five metaphors for the work week? IDK. They were from the future. So let's go with that. Nobody likes dealing with tomorrow's problems today, right? If they hadn't specified "survior's guilt" as her problem, we'd probably just assume she had generalized anxiety and depression - and the point of the story would be easier to grasp. As I said, it's either telling us too much in the beginning or in the end too little.
Now this other hero that died saving the planet, he was also from the future. And he also had mental health issues to parallel this Green Lantern character. Without his prescription meds that only exist in the future he gets the dumb and ends up babbling in Arkham for 10 months. One doctor calls it schizophrenia, and canonically that's maybe what he has. He tries to communicate, but it incomprehensible. You'd think he's the Riddler or something.
"21 bridges, count them! Gotta find the lime light! " He's trying to say "the green lantern from Portland" (which has 21 bridges apparently.)
Now, technically, any green lantern would do. The fatal five are trying to get someone out of a prison, and green lanterns are the only ones that can do that. This particular Green Lantern happened to be the closest as well as his childhood idol.
She shares her pudding with him after a little scuffle. He's been in Arkham for 10 months, so he's like. "We have pudding on Tuesdays. Wednesday is bingo night" and I guess his ability to focus on the positive is inspiring. Which is the thing she needs. Not meds. Not a mantra. He even tries to say something endearing about living in the present is a gift, even though from his perspective, it's not the present but the past. This story ends with his death. It's a terrible horrible fate that tomorrow dies today, and nothing will ever change or get better. On top of that, she'll survive and that makes her...great? I hate it. Not the part where she survives, the part where she confesses self awareness of what makes her great. It's worst than the girlfriend's-in-freezers trope. You know, when the girlfriend dies so the hero get's character development. "Character development" isn't diegetic. The hero should never be thinking "wow, I'm a better more interesting person because of this tragedy. I'm an inspiration. I feel better about myself knowing PEOPLE WOULD DIE FOR ME. So I'll convince myself that it's ok when they died at all". It's awful. It's shameful. Way to make everything about you, Karren.
Overcoming "survivor's guilt" would be one thing; acceptance is good. But, not overcoming it, and then building an identity around your mental illness to "own it" and consciously play the victim is really not healthy. WHAT ARE YOU THINKING DC?!

Ok. It's not that overt. I don't think they did it on purpose.
I get it, it can't be poetry all the time. Comics have to preserve continuity. They can't just cure the crazy, change the status quo and erase all the story potential.

This is what the B plot is for. When plot A can't reach an emotionally satisfying conclusion, you end on a different note. The B plot involved Miss Martian as Batman's sidekick, because she's trying to become a Justice League member. She does. But it was weak sauce. Why? The question of her being Justice League material was never explored. Presumably her actions in relation to Plot A would provide an answer. But what was the question?
Apparently all the DCAU films had companion comics. But DC didn't approve of one for this movie, according to rumors, because their last 4-5 releases flopped due to poor marketing.
The comics might have shed more light on this issue.

Because there are characters from the future, they learn Miss Martian would become a JL member. Like, Fate decrees it. Case closed. But 1 (maybe 3) people just died because of time travel. The question is, can they change the future? the present? the past? Armed with knowledge of the future, could or would Miss Martian rescind her application to the Justice League, with the hope that it might change history for better or worst. Batman says, "I didn't say how I voted". Hmmm, Could he have tried to change events?
It feels like the story signed off in the 11th hour.
 
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I had a few more thoughts about the characters and speculations about the plot.
But I found an interview with the writer that reveals a lot of cut ideas. Like how Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman had their own subplots. Superman would have criticisms about the future. Batman wouldn't be remembered in the future, so when the Fatal Five are fighting him they have no idea what they're dealing with.
He didn't say what Wonder Woman's story would be, but I suspect it might have been related to this Bloodsport villain who ranted about JFK assassination being a hoax. The time machine is set to November, which was the same month of the assassination.
While Jessica is over at the Green Lantern Prison, there's this this Time Machine just siting around on Earth. Which in one draft was even suppose to be in S.T.A.R. labs which was secretly run by Cadmus
*conspiracy theory intensifies*
We don't see Jessica return Earth. She just wakes up in a very questionable time skip. What were the JL and Star boy doing during this?

Edit: I found another interview by the same people, that did explain the dropped Wonder Woman plot. The Gods warned Wonder Woman that they were going to move to another dimension because the future was going to cease to exist. Presumably because of time paradoxes or something. They offer to take her with them, or leave her behind powerless.
 
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