Not-So-Super Heroes

NOTE: My dad just mailed me a data CD of all the files that I composed on the computer he built me before I went to college. Which means I now have exact record of all files from Jan. 1994 (my senior year in HS) until 1998.
Every journal from class. Every email. Every paper from every class. Every newpaper article I ever wrote. Everything.
Anyway, I came across this file titled simply "JLA." It was a newsroom/dinner/back-to-the-newsroom conversation on super heroes in which my college buddy Jon Fortt goes off of a hilarious riff about the ineptness of the Justice League of America. Seeing as how I spent last night handing out calories to all sorts of superheroes, from Spiderman to Superman to The Thing to Batman, I figured it'd be appropriate to share.


Jon: Here's what I am thinking. Robin was with Batman all the time, right, he was his sidekick. I'm thinking that if you're going to go out, stalk people, eavesdrop in dark alleys, you know, hide in the shadows, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, wearing a great big yellow cape and green elf shoes probably isn't the best way to do that, you know what I am saying? Unless of course, you're staking out some off-color gay bar in Gotham. Even then, though, bringing in a small boy in a bright, tight fitting outfit probably isn't the wisest thing to do in that case either.

When the JLA sat around the big table and talked strategy, here's how it always went.

"Okay, Batman, you sneak in and get the secret documents. Superman, you tunnel underground and then come up through the floor in an explosion of dust and cement and take them by surprise, and Robin, you distract their fire."

That's all he was. He was a target. Cannon fodder. They might as well have changed his name to Decoy Boy. That's all, he was just too naive to know this.

Ken: You haven't said anything about Batman yet.

Jon: That's cause you don't mess with the Bats. He WAS the Justice League. And sometimes you could tell that he knew it. I'm not saying that he got cocky. No, just the opposite. He'd just work to do more. I bet there were times when he would just go off and get totally pissed off. Wouldn't you? I mean, there he was, surrounded by these non-human freaks who were constantly falling into stupid traps who he'd have to go around and save.

That's why he spent so much time in the Batcave. He was practicing picking locks because he knew that if he ever got caught and put under wraps for more than four minutes, the entire world was doomed. That's why he had that utility belt. In it, he had all sorts of lock picks and explosives and acids to get out of any cell anywhere, but it was also a decoy. The idiot villains took his belt every time they captured him, but they thought that was it. Take the belt, take the power. The idiots never bothered to search him after they took the belt, they just threw him in a cell. Jeez, man, he could have built another Batmobile with all the crap he had in his gloves, boots, and cape.

Ken: What about Flash?

Jon: Flash was cool. Policeman. Forensic dude. Fast as light. Cool outfit and useful in a street fight, which you know if you've ever had a hundred punches land on your face in one nanosecond. No he was cool, but my one beef with Flash is that he seemed particularly susceptible to tranquilizer darts. Did you ever notice this? No bullet ever came close to this speedy son-of-a-bitch but fire a tranquilizer dart anywhere near him and it hits him square in the back of the neck every time. Then all the villains had to do was sedate Mr. Quick and he was nothing.

You'd think he'd have his costume mechanic install a metal plate in his uniform to combat that common occurrence, but he didn't. In the Justice League Universe, knowledge and intelligence are never retained from show to show. That why everyone, both the good guys and the bad guys were so screwed. Our childhood heroes were raving idiots with the retention rate of an infant. It was ridiculous man.