Very minimal annotations this time out. (Although the "two weeks" comment was helpful in updating the FINAL CRISIS timeline.)
Pp. 2-3:
Before he was Black Lightning, Jefferson Pierce was an Olympic decathlete, and over the course of this story we see him doing a few decathlon-type things--this, I suppose, would be one of the sprinting events...
Pg. 4:
...and this would be the hurdles.
Pg. 5:
As Evie points out, the "that's right" is a very blaxploitation gesture.
Pg. 15:
Jefferson's two daughters are Anissa (Thunder of the Outsiders) and Jennifer (Lightning of the JSA).
Pg. 22:
Here he is throwing the discus.
Pg. 23:
Jefferson was also a high school teacher for a while, and later the U.S. Secretary of Education under the Lex Luthor administration.
Who was the colleague he was trying to rescue? From FC #4, it looks like there were already a bunch of his colleagues at the Hall of Justice. (But he might not have known that; information-transmission is at a premium, obviously.) ETA: commenter Smurph indicates that it was probably Oracle.
The origin of "shoulder to the wheel" appears to be Aesop's fable of Hercules and the wagoner.
Pg. 26:
Suicide Slum was first named in STAR SPANGLED COMICS #7, although Kirby relocated it from NYC to Metropolis in JIMMY OLSEN #133. (Its official name is Hobb's Bay.)
"I learned it by watching you!"
Pg. 28:
Thunder, created by Judd Winick and Tom Raney, first appeared in 2003's OUTSIDERS #1. She seems to have gotten better after her brain injuries in recent issues of OUTSIDERS.
Incidentally, there's a real-world Omega Initiative!
Pg. 29:
Not exactly subtle to be burning a copy of Darwin... but this issue is not about subtlety. I'm wondering what the "S" painted on the window and the wall means, as opposed to the Justifier "J" we see in FINAL CRISIS #4 itself. [ETA: Several commenters have pointed out that it stands for "scapegoat"--see the Kirby image about three-quarters of the way down this page.]
Andrew Hickey points out that what Jefferson is saying echoes Gregory Bar Hebraeus's probably apocryphal account of Caliph Omar's order to burn the books of the Library of Alexandria: "they will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous."
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13 comments:
Oh God, I'm *so* glad I wasn't the only person who thought of that PSA when I got to that part.
You two are not alone.
re: Page 23. Who was the colleague he was trying to rescue?
I'm guessing maybe Barbara Gordon/Oracle? In FC #4 Green Arrow says "Barbara here was in hiding, holding the fort when we all rolled into Washington under the cover of darkness."
Good thing he didn't call her Oracle in front of Tattooed Man; then-again, why would the supers give a rat's ass about her from his perspective?
Certainly the wives of The Flash, but Babs wasn't verbally "tied" to anyone. :/ Guess they could have dismissed her as the "caretaker" or something.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the inspiration for the book-burning - the (probably apocryphal) story of the burning of the library of Alexandria, where the Caliph said "If it disagrees with the Koran, it's heresy; if it agrees with the Koran, it's redundant"...
Andrew, I didn't know that story, but it's a great one--I'll add a note. Thank you!
Anyone else get the feeling that it was Killer Croc chasing them around?
Regarding the S, Godfrey would have his Justifiers paint "S" for "scapegoat" on certain buildings in the original Kirby Fourth World stuff.
Haven't read it yet, but both teh book burning scene and the S are allusions to Forever People #3, "Life Vs. Anti-Life!". It was the first appearence of the Justifiers and Glorious Godfry.
http://fourthworldfridays.blogspot.com/2007/11/forever-people-3-life-vs-anti-life.html
(I hope this isn't marked as spam.)
I'm pretty sure that the guy in the corner of the last panel on page 6 is the David Tennant incarnation of Doctor Who.
Morrison confirmed that the "S" on the buildings is for scapegoat in this interview on FC#3
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/090808-MorrisonFC3.html
Just re-read Rock of Ages. The heresy / superfluous reference is in there too.
Never noticed before that the Jimmy Olson cover for the re-introduction of the Newsboy Legion is a riff on the cover to their original appearance. Kirby was homaging himself almost four decades ago!
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