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Today, we look at a few “near-miss” relationships with Justice League characters.
In Drawing Crazy Patterns, I spotlight at least five scenes/moments from within comic book stories that fit under a specific theme (basically, stuff that happens frequently in comics). Note that these lists are inherently not exhaustive. They are a list of five examples (occasionally I’ll be nice and toss in a sixth). So no instance is “missing” if it is not listed. It’s just not one of the five examples that I chose.
The Justice League typically has had characters who have had their own books, so there has been less opportunity for romance, but there have still been a number of notable romances (like Green Arrow and Black Canary, Guy Gardner and Ice, Red Arrow and Hawkgirl and Superman and Wonder Woman, just to name four) and some near-miss ones, as well. Here, just like last week’s X-Men version of this, are five of the near-miss ones (and you can feel free to share some of your picks for other near-miss ones!).
ZATANNA AND FLASH HAD BAD TIMING
You can almost tell that Gerry Conway was getting jealous about how a number of other team books by 1981 were noted for the interpersonal relationships (and romances) in them, like New Teen Titans, Uncanny X-Men and Legion of Super-Heroes, and so he was likely really dying to have that sort of thing in his Justice League of America run, as well (it is what later inspired him to introduce the League now known as “Justice League Detroit,” as he wanted to be able to have more say over the lives of the characters in the book, which is tough when they all have their own solo features written by other writers). That split between what Conway could do in the Justice League versus what those characters’ own writers could do was seen in the short-lived Zatanna/Flash near-miss romance.
As shown in Justice League of America #187 (by Conway, Don Heck and Frank McLaughlin), the widowed Barry Allen became very close with his new teammate, Zatanna, who was trying to think of a way to make herself stand apart from the shadow of her father…
But by this point, Barry was already dating Fiona Webb in his own comic book (heck, Don Heck even drew their first romantic spark in Flash #291, written by Cary Bates)…
Barry eventually almost married Fiona, before the Reverse-Flash tried to kill her (after previously killing Barry’s first wife, Iris) and in their ensuing fight, Barry killed the Reverse-Flash and then went on trial for manslaughter. Had Barry been with Zatanna instead, who knows what would have happened?
AQUAMAN AND POWER GIRL HAD REALLY NO MORE THAN A SHARED HERITAGE
Once Power Girl lost her connection to Superman after Crisis on Infinite Earths, it was determined that she would now have a mysterious ancient Atlantean background, instead. It never really worked, but when Aquaman joined Justice League Europe with Power Girl, she was instantly drawn to him, as shown here in Justice League Europe #37 (by Gerard Jones, Ron Randall and Randy Elliot)…
Aquaman later brought her on a diplomatic mission and she was very touched…
And the two shared a moment together….
But ooph, look at Aquaman in this bit from Justice League Europe #47. You do not want to ever be in a romance with a guy who has a reaction like that. Way too over-the-top, buddy…
And, of course, Power Girl later learned that she was not Atlantean at all.
POWER GIRL STARTED SOMETHING WITH HAL JORDAN AT A REALLY BAD TIME IN HIS LIFE
In one of the weirdest character left turns in a series that was filled with a lot of them, in Justice League Europe #50 (by Jones, Randall and Elliott), Hal Jordan has lost his memory and Power Girl is trying to help him when they are attacked by Sonar and have to hide under Hal’s shield…
And then the two take this time to…well…get busy out of nowhere…
This is such a weird moment. And, of course, Hal then snapped soon after this, so there wasn’t even really a resolution to it all.
WONDER WOMAN’S MAGIC LASSO MADE AQUAMAN FACE SOME HARD TRUTHS
Aquaman and Wonder Woman had had some moments before (and in a famous storyline with the Queen of Fables, Aquaman was used to sub in for Prince Charming to wake Wonder Woman up from a sleep when she was placed into the story as a princess), but nothing was quite like this JLA 80-Page Giant #1 story by Christopher Priest, Eric Battle and Prentis Rollins, where Aquaman accidentally got tangled up in Wonder Woman’s lasso and admitted that he was hot for her…
Things were mostly just “let’s forget about it” at the end of the issue, but man, Aquaman comes off as quite repressed when he tells her how irked he was that they didn’t just send Martian Manhunter to team-up with him…
WONDER WOMAN AND BATMAN NEEDED SOME HIGH TECH TO SEE WHAT THEY SHOULD DO WITH THEIR FLIRTATION
Batman’s flirting with Wonder Woman during Joe Kelly’s run on JLA was much more reciprocated, and it actually got to the point where there was a whole issue, JLA #90 (art by Chriscross and Tom Nguyen) where the two strap themselves into a machine that can predict possible futures and they looked at some scenarios where the two got together and some of them were pretty outlandish…
while a lot of them were quite tragic, really, like Joker driving Wonder Woman into a fury by murdering Batman in front of her….
In the end, they don’t even really need the machine to know that they think that they are better off just being really close friends…
Chriscross really nailed that issue on art, man.
If you have suggestions for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!
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