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mygif

What struck me most about this page when I first saw it a few months ago was the unfortunate juxtaposition of “The OverMASTER” right above “BLACK Mass”. Perhaps not as jarring to someone not raised in the American South, but still, a strange and unsettling pairing.

Plus the name — “Black Mass” for a big fat black guy. How original; why not just go with “Big Black Fatty Fatty” and call it a day? I look forward to the relaunch of the JLA featuring “Fast Honky”, “Nordic Looking Strong Guy”, “Possibly a Lesbian Woman”, and “Bling-Wearing Paleface” instead of Flash, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern.

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malakim2099 said on October 2nd, 2008 at 10:20 am

I’d give Overmaster an additional -10% for the whole Ice thing, but as you say, she did come back (and good thing too, I think the whole Guy/Ice dynamic is a good thing).

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mygif

Didn’t Black Mass lose his armbands during the same poker game as Crowbar?

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I’d totally buy Flash if it was renamed Fast Honky…

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Polychrome said on October 2nd, 2008 at 10:43 am

As any pro wrestling fan knows, jobbers are necessary for the form.

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mygif

“they also had the Martian Manhunter and Zatanna around”

In 100 words or less, please describe a threat J’onn and Zatanna (assuming they aren’t being morons by fiat), working together, cannot solve. Be specific. Bonus points for explaining how any International/Detroit/Europe/Buddies era JL member could possibly help in any way.

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BSD:

They are in a room, on fire, tied up and ball-gagged.

In fact, this was the plot for Justice League of America #241, in a story titled “Vibe’s Glorious Moment.”

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Lister Sage said on October 2nd, 2008 at 11:02 am

BSD: A creature made of fire that can emmit sound waves that cancel out Zatanna’s vocal spell casting ability. Granted Ice could finish it off in a minute.

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Lister Sage said on October 2nd, 2008 at 11:03 am

Vibe’s Glorious Moment

lol. that sounds so dirty.

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lance lunchmeat said on October 2nd, 2008 at 11:05 am

I remember three of these guys in an episode of JLU. Superman and Batman were kicking their ass without making eye contact with them, talking to each other about Captain Marvel.

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lance lunchmeat said on October 2nd, 2008 at 11:07 am

My mistake, Crowbar man made it in as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udSr-HBEZOo

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mygif

I kinda feel sorry for Shrike. She converted to Christianity in prison, only to be killed on Apokolips. The idea of an evangelical former villain running around trying to forcibly convert others might make a decent story.

Then she showed up in one of those generic super-villain scenes, which shows that DC needs to do a new Who’s Who, if only so lazy artists will stop resurrecting characters that are supposed to be dead (See any comics set in Roulette’s gaming house).

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mygif

Fastball’s helmet WTF???

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malakim2099 said on October 2nd, 2008 at 11:52 am

The only cool thing about Vibe was that his little brother took up the alias “Reverb”. 🙂

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mygif

How, exactly, did they wind up in that situation?

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Since Overmaster’s face is yellow, I didn’t immediately leap to the “OMG DIS IS SUM RACISM!”

Though I did think that the team as a whole was kind of ethnic.

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Cookie McCool said on October 2nd, 2008 at 1:19 pm

Shatterfist looks like more Mightor’s kid brother than a luchador, or I guess really Mightor is some kind of early proto-Luchador. Jeez, these guys suck. 38%? You are soft on suck. But I would read the bejabbers out of Jeff Hebert’s comic. Sounds like he could get Minister Faust to write it for him real easy.

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Lister Sage said on October 2nd, 2008 at 1:44 pm

Cookie McCool: It actually says 33%.

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~I remember three of these guys in an episode of JLU. Superman and Batman were kicking their ass without making eye contact with them, talking to each other about Captain Marvel~

“Did we ever find out what these guys want?”
“Take over the world. Or rob banks.” (uppercuts Black Mass in the gut) “I forget which.”

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@BSD Says:
“In 100 words or less, please describe a threat J’onn and Zatanna (assuming they aren’t being morons by fiat), working together, cannot solve. Be specific. Bonus points for explaining how any International/Detroit/Europe/Buddies era JL member could possibly help in any way.”

I can do it one word.

Despero.

And amazingly Gypsy FTW.

I was actually a fan of Justice League Detroit. As a big JLA fan and years of space villians of the month it was a nice change of pace. And remember without the JLD we wouldn’t have been as open to JLI (Giffen, McGuire and DeMattias).

So show some respect. Vato!

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mygif

Now see, when I saw Overmaster and the first thing I thought of was those cartoons that one guy in Norway (or was it the Netherlands) did of Muhammad.

Yes Black Mass has a racially awkward name, but I don’t see anything overtly racist about the juxtaposition between Overmaster and Black Mass. I mean Overmaster is what? 30? 40 feet tall? What are they gonna do, put Black Mass behind him? Its not like he has the guy on a leash or anything.

Save that kind of stuff for Crowbar (anyone else reminded of the gay gardener from Dave Shappell’s Gay America sketch?)

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Zenrage:

Nothing will be more racially awkward than the name Dark Beast. I mean, come on.

Also, I’m trying to think of a story where a bunch of D-list villains got together and really caused havoc, but I can’t think of any. It almost happened in Identity Crisis with Boomerang. But I’ve always thought that would be a good story. A D-list villain(s) decide they are tired of being a laughingstock and set out to really destroy their chosen enemies’ life.

Pre-BND, I think The Shocker would have made a good candidate.

Ugh. I just wrote this whole diatribe and then remembered Kevin Smith’s run on Daredevil.

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@ T.Shock –
Heh, what about the Legion of Losers bit in Spiderman? Funny story.

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Didn’t Black Mass show up early during Geoff Johns’ run on Flash? He got shot with a vibrating bullet or something that forced him to keep the black hole open?

Funny enough, that was the issue that hooked me on Johns’ run.

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Cookie McCool said on October 2nd, 2008 at 5:41 pm

Lister Sage:
33% is still a bit high. Fastball should be an automatic -7500% all on his own.

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Sofa King said on October 2nd, 2008 at 6:24 pm

So Shatterfist is a lame Iron Fist?

And they all got beaten up by Black Lightning too. In three pages (because Big Black Fatty Fatty needed more room.) He’s a black Hulk! Blulk!

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RobotKeaton said on October 2nd, 2008 at 7:13 pm

Shatterfist is like a lame Iron Fist.
Crowbar is like a lame wrecker
And Fastball is like a lame Bullseye or Boomerang.

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Cookie McCool said on October 2nd, 2008 at 7:29 pm

You know you’re not the swiftest mountainous alien being when you got to learn of your parasite’s plots from the guys against whom your parasite is plotting. And you also know you’re not the swiftest alien parasite when your host can just remove you with some tweezers or something.

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mygif

You know Black Mass is actually a skinny guy who can grow big, a black male Big Bertha. THey could do something with his size shifting powers.

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@Nick Piers: You’re thinking of Chunk a reformed Flash bad guy. Genius science dude who infused himself with a white star or something equally comic booky…

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Rob Brown said on October 2nd, 2008 at 8:38 pm

@Jason: Just off the top of my head, it’d give him a way to escape from restraints while en route to prison. He makes sure he’s 9 feet tall and fat when they cuff him, then he shrinks down so the cuffs or manacles or whatever fall off, then he bulks up again, kicks ass, and escapes.

While I was writing that it occurred to me that it’s sort of similar to something Songbird once did in the early days of Thunderbolts. Oh well, all the good ideas have been done already anyway, might as well recycle ’em.

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mygif

Is Shatterfist supposed to be an Oni-type guy? If the mask had those sideways teeth I would know. He looks like if a depowered version of Sunfire and John Proudstar combined had a really angry Daredevil type kid sidekick. Also, is Shrike some kind of cat-alien thing? Because shrikes are actually badass Vlad the Impaler birds, complete with the cannibalism (well, almost, but not really). The Overmaster design reminds me of a generic “Evil Wizard Oracle Vizier Magic Mirror” head pasted on Cracker Galactus and Fastball is like all the really bad parts of Judge Dredd.

Anyone who can accidentally create black holes that he is immune to needs a better team. If Black Mass really can change size, he’s got the potential to be like an Ant-Man/Blob combo with Star Trek physics. And black holes really make Nightfall redundant because the light would be gone/warped anyway, and the immunity to subsequent gravitational effects of weirdness would make flying effectively useless. It would actually be interesting to use B.M. as a timespace portal, even as a stupid bad guy who would end up fucking with aliens. If you make him emotionally manipulative and obsessive compulsive, you’ve got half of Cloak and Dagger right there. And the survival of the brain injuries could be explained away by a) his blobbiness, b) constant rippling of the spacetime fabric around Black Mass’s… mass, or c) he is a Skrull.

I am perturbed by Crowbar. Is he going to be the black man who’s breaking into cars or something??

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Mark Temporis said on October 4th, 2008 at 1:08 am

Really, one would expect “Black Mass” to be a satanic villain, not a black guy.

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Just a couple of comments about Shrike. First, she didn’t die on Apokolips, she died in the African country of Ogaden (Suicide Squad #25). Second, the appearances after that was actually a similar but different character called Starshrike. I think she first appeared in the Power Company arc where the Cadre worked for Dr. Polaris.

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