A Salute To The Second Stringers

For some reason I was seized with a mighty sense of pity and love for those unsung individuals who are largely ignored in the DC universe. Yes, I’m talking about the second string heroes. The guys who always seemed to hang on the fringes of the Justice League (This is back when they had a big satellite orbiting the Earth with teleport booths on the roof tops of every major city, and had annual visits with the Justice Society from Earth 2) and only ever seemed to be really useful every 5th issue when it occurred to the writers they hadn’t been doing much lately and should probably have a situation calling for their unique talents. Witness for example:

The Atom

What happened?!? I LOVED this guy! Maybe it was the Uber Geek in me, but I thought that red and blue suit of his was just too cool and the guy could SHRINK! WOW! Not only that, but thanks to that piece of white dwarf star he had in his palm, he could also control his density, so that even though he was the size of a Star Wars action figure, he weighed as much as a full oil tanker, or was practically weightless.

True, his abilities only really came in handy when some giant robot made out of kryptonite was rampaging through the city and had a tiny hole in it somewhere but man, he could SHRINK! That’s gotta’ count for something in this world…

Elongated Man

He stretched and… well, that’s about it, really. This guy had the whackiest origin I’ve ever seen, since he got his ability to stretch as a result of soda pop. Sort of. Seems that young Ralph Dibney had a thing for circus contortionists and noticed they all drank the same soda pop. After realizing there was one ingredient in the soda that no other brands used (Something called the Gingo plant from the Yucatan) he distilled the stuff, started drinking it regularly and BEHOLD! He can stretch.

God, I love comic book logic…

All this guy ever seemed to do was travel the world with his wife Sue, solving mysteries and hooking up with the League for a little crime busting. Where is he now?!?

But if there’s one guy I really feel for, the one who is deserving to the entire world’s compassion, it’s this guy:

Aquaman

He swims, breathes underwater, and talks to fish. Not exactly the most versatile repetoire of abilities. Poor Aquaman’s been kicked around the DC universe more times than Pele’s favorite soccer ball. What do you with this guy? I’ve seen the attempts to save him, what with cutting his hand off, killing his son, having his wife divorce him, go back to her home dimension, then come back and try and kill him… HOW DOES THIS BUILD CHARACTER? Superman is a boy scout, Batman’s got psychotic angst all sewn up, how does sticking a hook on this guy’s amputated hand and have him swim around–BUT CRANKY!–make for a more complex and engaging super hero?



I feel for him, I really do. Not only was he unfortunate enough to have quite possibly the most embarassing costume ever (Come on… Green and orange?) but I recall a Super Friends episode where he, for once, had the ability to save the Earth and screwed up miserably as a result of his efforts being part of a carefully orchestrated plot to conquer the Earth. You gotta’ feel sorry for a guy when the only way he can save New York city is to talk a bunch of fish into creating a huge Tsunami to drown the city, only to find out you just contributed to an artificial Greenhouse Effect.



Poor bastard… Cut the guy some slack…