Now let me tell you.

He has done a variety of roles but the one I’ll remember him best in is my introduction to him, where he wore a a set of fake breasts yet still convinced all that he was stronger than sin.

Of course, I’ll never think it was a bright move to introduce Kahn as a “superman” and then have Kirk beat him to unconsciousness with a PVC pipe.

I wish I could write a better obituary, but honestly I don’t care to do too much research so I can toast the man for things I have never seen. That is a sort of half-hearted tribute.

So Mr. Montalban did well, entertaining in Spy Kids 2. It was hard to ignore his performance on Kim Possible.

Any performance of Ricardo Montalban is difficult to ignore.

What the AP has written about Anakin’s new sidekick being a more interesting romantic component than the ever-dry and stand-offish love interest he already had bears reading. Of course, this sort of statutory pursuit is definite Dark Side.

My favorite part?

From there, she exhibits enough battle pluck and witty repartee to win over her brooding mentor – he warms quickly to the idea of having a young assistant (who Mark Rahner of the Seattle Times describes as “a tiny girl with huge eyes and a tube-top who looks like a slutty Disney character.” Fair enough).

Ultimately one wonders what Anakin will say when he, as Darth Vader, hacks this child to tiny Lolita pieces. Would something that is inappropriate to the general themes of the franchise (as tattered as they all may have been left by the morally-vacuous prequels and the mongrel Expanded Universe) be ultimately beneficial to the combined narrative? That is not relevant as even Darth Vader will not engage in romantic action with a child character. Is the Padawan intended to be a child character?

Three Kings, by my reckoning was made in the nineties, but more relevantly the movie was made before the 9/11 terrorist attacks and reflects a different ethos that popular culture had towards Iraq and our country’s prior invasion and occupation. Nowadays the idea is that we did too much by deposing Saddam Hussein from power. President George Walker Bush, Bush 43, is wrong.  Three Kings presents everything as if President George Herbert Walker Bush, Bush 41, was/is wrong.

The idea is clearly presented that we did too little by leaving Saddam Hussein in power.The only common denominator between not doing enough in Three Kings and doing too much in Redacted, Syriana, Rendition, etc. …seems to have been that whatever the U.S. did was always wrong — whether too little or too much.

I think it is a fair question whether Dr. Hanson is onto something or not.

The better question I want to ask is whether Three Kings was persuasive.

McCain shared a cell with Medal of Honor winner Col. Bud Day, a man who escaped the Viet Cong with a sprang knee, lived in the jungle on berries and uncooked frogs, swam across a river with an arm that was broken in three places and was captured AGAIN by the Viet Cong… where he met none other than John McCain (why is this not a movie?)

Indeed why is it not a movie? It sounds like a very epic story to me, however dark and even sad at times. Very few see the life and experiences of prisoners of war as adventures, let alone really exciting stories. I am among those. With very few exceptions I find the accounts depressing rather than greatly entertaining.

If John McCain was not a Presidential candidate, and at this point a politician among politicians, his young life as a soldier and hero is a good story.

MInd you, Bud Day’s is more exciting.

In some stories space battles are even viable events between the relatively static settings.

In real life a deliberate purposeful control of an object’s physical mass is a less viable option. As far as I know, and I am not a scientist, it is impossible.

Scientists actually declare that “Star Trek warp drive” is a possibility, according to the UK Telegaph. By which those scientists mean that the effects are the same. They obviously do not mean that their warp bubble is an element or tool for mass-shifting effects and there is no method with the prerequisite of synthesizing or discovering anti-matter elements in substantially massive quantities. This is fortunate. Fortunately the idea of warp drive involves literally warping space, and relying upon past scientific discoveries and ideas. In other words the science fiction idea reminds me of what used to be science fictional concepts which were just variations, deviations, and expansions of existing technologies. Unfortunately the use of string theory concepts in technology is not as far along as I would like it, but who can complain. The theories and ideas are dark energy, responsible for the expansion of the universe, and the 10th dimension involved in string theory.

Now Dr Gerald Cleaver, associate professor of physics at Baylor, and Richard Obousy have come up with a new twist on an existing idea to produce a warp drive that they believe can travel faster than the speed of light, without breaking the laws of physics.

In their scheme, in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, a starship could “warp” space so that it shrinks ahead of the vessel and expands behind it.

By pushing the departure point many light years backwards while simultaneously bringing distant stars and other destinations closer, the warp drive effectively transports the starship from place to place at faster-than-light speeds.

The theories of the speed of light are only effective speed limits at “unwarped ‘flat’ space.” Space itself has no speed limit and if a “spaceship can sit “at rest in its small [warp] bubble of space” it can skim and coast along the flow of space as the universe expands.

In the scheme outlined by Dr Cleaver dark energy would be used to create the bubble: if dark energy can be made negative in front of the ship, then that patch of space would contract in response.

I’m oversimplifying but the scheme cannot be put in practice yet anyway. I might also be muddling whether the ship is in the bubble or on the bubble. The bubble is a metaphor anyway. As it is the key to warping space in this manner is putting stuff that was in front of the ship behind the ship; it is changing the size of spatial dimension 10 that alters the energy that would “propel the ship faster than the speed of light.” Does anyone have an engine or mechanism to alter the 10th spatial dimension described in string theory?

I recall him from Truck Turner and as a fan of and character in Stargate SG-1.

Issac Hayes died yesterday, quite young, and I shall miss him.

My father passed away from similar illness.

My proper obituary will be forthcoming in a few weeks.

KistlerUniverse.com

I wondered if I would regret purchasing the “Superman: Doomsday” DVD due to some negative reviews I’d read about it.  I’m pleased to say that, indeed, I am content with the chance I took.

*possible minor spoilers ahead, and one major one which I’ll give another spoiler-warning for*

The major concern I had going in was wondering how they were going to
manage cramming three large (and rather significant) storylines, which
spanned over three multi-month arcs in four monthly titles, into a
75-minute video.  For the most part, this concern was negated by the
fact that the stories were largely changed from their comic book
counterparts.  75 minutes were definitely enough to cover the
resurrection tale they decided to give.  However, I did feel somewhat
cheated in my time with Doomsday.

Certainly I wouldn’t expect the story to exactly mirror that of the
comics.  I’m glad the Justice League didn’t make an appearance, as this
served in the comics mainly to illustrate just how powerful Doomsday
really was.  However, the comics took time to make the story much more
emotional, and the fight dragged on for quite some time before the
final blows were dealt.  In this movie, the fight takes place in
apparent real time, which is about fifteen minutes (this is an
estimate).  When the death scene actually took place, I felt like the magnitude of the situation was cheapened by the fact that we didn’t get the introspection on Superman’s character as he fought the monster.  We didn’t see the emotional toll it took for him to keep getting up and carrying on in the fight.

Despite this disappointment, the Doomsday fight did have its “wow” moments, like a very cool bird’s-eye shot of Superman grabbing him by the top of his mouth, swinging him over his head and slamming him into the ground.  The actual way in which Superman kills Doomsday (and thus himself) is also pretty exciting, although I admit that, given the way in which he did it, I was baffled as to why he didn’t think to take the fight outside of Metropolis while he was at it (if you’ve seen the film, you know what I’m talking about).

The Return story is the heart of the movie and is therefore given more time, and because it strays so much from the story in the comics I found it easier to accept (I am more open-minded than some when it comes to movie adaptations of stories from other forms of media).  Lex Luthor’s way of mourning the death of the Man of Steel is intriguing and really made for an enjoyable antagonist aspect.  I only had one major issue with Luthor in this film:

*MAJOR SPOILER IN THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH*

How on Earth did Luthor even survive being tossed off the top of a sky scraper by Superman’s clone?  I don’t care if he was encased in a metal box — he should have been DEAD, not just maimed to the point of ALMOST dying.  A much more believable ending would have been showing us a group of LexCorp scientists in the process of cloning Luthor himself and inserting his memory into his body.  It would have gone along with the storyline, and it would have made another tie-in to the books.

*END OF MAJOR SPOILER*

The movie had a lot of cool “wtf” moments, such as the out-smarting of Luthor by his own creation, the end of the climactic battle scene (specifically the manner in which Superman overcomes), some of the heavy blows dealt by Doomsday to Supes (some of which cause the Kryptonian to vomit blood; this film DEFINITELY earns its PG-13 rating), a cameo by Kevin Smith which openly mocks some of the back story behind his “Superman Lives” script, the fate of Toyman, and more.

Before I move on to another feature on the DVD that I really enjoyed, here is a summed-up list of my final critiques of the film:

-Animation: Influenced by the DC Animated Universe, but with a slight twist.  Superman has some odd-looking lines all over his face, Luthor is much skinnier and bony-faced, and Lois has longer, darker hair.  Given that DC is producing these direct-to-DVD movies in response to the success Marvel has had with such films as “Ultimate Avengers,” I feel that the animation was subpar and could have been given a lot more attention for fluidity and overall impressiveness.

-Jimmy Olsen: Jimmy has his own storyline that comes up now and then in the movie, but it is never REALLY resolved.  It exists to show how the world begins to go into a downfall without the influence of Superman around to buoy it up, but I felt like this was weakly and heartlessly carried out.

-Continuity: The DC Animated Universe is dead as we know it.  I knew that going into this movie.  However, I think this is one of the movie’s problems.  Which mythos does it fit into?  As best as I could tell, it fit in best with the continuity of “Superman Returns,” although the animation of some of the characters didn’t match how they were depicted in the live-action film.  Superman and Lois sleeping together in the Fortress of Solitude was the biggest indicator that this story belongs in a continuity we may not have seen in this medium before.  Given a lack of continuity, I think this contributed to the lack of emotion I complained about earlier with the Doomsday fight.  Which Superman is this?  What is his character like?  How am I supposed to care about him when I’m somewhat unfamiliar with his background?  Establishing his past adventures/development would give the writers more leeway to jump into his death so quickly.

Finally, what confirmed to me that I’d made a great purchase on this DVD was the “Superman Lives!” special feature, a 45-minute-or-so documentary on the Death/Return of Superman in the comic books.  It was so much fun seeing the creative team behind his death being interviewed about how it all happened, while seeing archive footage of the meetings that took place to plan it all out.  Louise Simonson is fantastic — she actually cries and becomes very emotional when discussing Lois and the Kents’ reactions to Superman’s death.  I love how attached she is to her characters!  I also learned a lot, too (for example, did you know that the Death came about as an indirect result of the “Lois and Clark” TV series on ABC?).  They also discuss the awesome impact this story had on the DC Universe, as well as comics in general (which reminded me of an article I wrote for Fanzing quite some time ago… not the most eloquent of things I’ve ever written, but still a demonstration of how profound the “mother of all deaths” in comics was).

All in all, I give the movie a 6.5/10, and the DVD itself a 7.5/10.  Definitely worth watching, but if you are looking to buy it then wait for it on sale, like I did.

Enjoy. Feel free to leave comments.

http://alankistler.squarespace.com/journal/2008/1/31/alan-kistlers-history-of-thor-part-1.html

http://www.cracked.com/article_15654_7-most-terrifying-celebrity-transformations.html

http://www.cracked.com/article_15655_5-awesome-sci-fi-inventions-that-would-actually-suck.html

http://www.cracked.com/article_15660_ultimate-war-simulation-game.html

On Heath Ledger, Michael Caine said this:

“He’s gone in a completely different direction to [Jack Nicholson]. Jack was like a clown figure, benign but wicked, maybe a killer old uncle. He could be funny and make you laugh. Heath is like a really scary psychopath … I didn’t see him for rehearsal and when he came out … he was so incredible I forgot my lines. He frightened the life out of me. … I’d never met him before. He’s a lovely guy and his Joker is going to be a hell of a revelation in this picture.”

Alan Kistler’s History of the Joker in comics and media.

So LevaFilmWorks (who’ve done wonderful documentaries and that really hilarious mockumentary “R2-D2: BENEATH THE DOME”) is doing a documentary on certain DC Comics characters and they want me to be in it as a comic book historian.

Good times! Let’s hope I sound like I know what I’m talking about and don’t come off as just a huge trivia freak.

And seriously, thank you to all the Monitor Duty bloggers and readers. Because of you, this site is here and this site is talked about and if that were not the case, these people would never have heard of me. So thank you all.

Oh, dear lord.

The full story is HERE.

The full story looking back on this event is on WIRED.

Don’t be stupid, of course you do.

Follow this link then to a list of awesome ideas that were never actually made.

The full story can be found HERE.

I was bored last week in between doing two new profiles that are coming up soon and so decided to spend the next few hours editing together a Transformers music video using footage from the new movie and the cartoon series. The music is the opening theme from the animated movie.

Enjoy. Feel free to comment.

And click on this link for a preview to the upcoming DEATH OF SUPERMAN DVD.

And check the trailer for the newSPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN CARTOON, coming soon to Kids WB!

This is the premise of the new BBC mini-series Jekyll (premiering this Saturday on BBC America), written by Steven Moffat, the creator of the British comedy “Coupling” and writer of several episodes of the new “Doctor Who” series (such as "The Girl In The Fireplace" and "The Empty Child"), and envisioned by both him and Jeffrey Taylor.

The six episode mini-series features Doctor Tom Jackman, a man who doesn’t know who his parents were, having been found as an abandoned baby in a railway station. For the past several months, Dr. Jackman has been having black-outs during which another force inhabits his body. A darker personality that is physically younger, thinner, two inches taller, seems to lack morals or inhibitions and has borderline superhuman strength and speed. Jackman finds out that the famous story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was based on a real person who lived and died in the 19th century, a person who was the spitting image of Tom Jackman. Now Jackman struggles to keep his life in control and his family safe, a family he prays his own "Mr. Hyde" will never find out about lest he decide to attack them.

Actor James Nesbitt (“Murphy’s Law”, Waking Ned Devine) does a superb job of playing the two lead roles. Like Christopher Reeve with Superman and Clark Kent, Nesbitt is able to make sure you know which personality is in control just by hearing the voice and seeing the way he carries himself. The make-up helps too, yes, but it would be nothing without the proper actor to utilize and almost overshadow it. As Jackman, he is reminiscent of Scott Bakula’s potrayal of Dr. Sam Beckett, a man we can’t help but root for and feel for, whereas Hyde is at once both charming and quite frightening. When he grins, you’re not sure if he’s just trying to scare you a bit for fun or if he’s finally decided to kill you outright just because you’re confident enough not to expect it.

What’s interesting though is that on several occasions, characters bring up the idea that Hyde is nothing as simple as Jackman’s "dark side." In fact, he seems to be like a child. He has a man’s physical desires to drive his actions but no memories or experience of an upbringing to fall back on or derive morals from. Since he doesn’t share Jackman’s memories and only started manifesting months before the show takes place, he never had a childhood to shape his persona and so the question comes up as to how responsible one can really hold him for his action.

By placing the series in the modern-day rather than just retelling a period piece, Steven Moffat has made it more personal and interesting to the viewers. Whereas the original Jekyll had no way of really tracking or controlling his dark side, Tom Jackman and Hyde use GPS trackers and tape recorders to monitor each other’s movements and communicate. They even arrange scheduled times when Hyde is allowed to roam free and indulge himself, provided he doesn’t break the "rules" both men agreed on. It’s an uneasy truce as Hyde begins to decide more and more that he deserves more control.

To set this apart from other adaptations of the famous body-sharing duo, the series introduces a conspiracy behind the works. Very quickly, we realize that both Jackman and Hyde are being followed by a very rich and very powerful organization, one that not only wants to use Hyde for their own purposes but also may hold the answers to what is the truth behind his condition and where Tom Jackman really came from.

Another interesting thing about the show is the difference in how they approach the transformation than certain movies of the past. In retelling the story, filmmakers have often tried to go for extreme transformations involving heavy make-up or masks. In this new series, subtlety is key. Hyde and Jackman don’t look drastically different. In fact, they look like they could be twin brothers. To distinguish the two, the make-up team gives James Nesbitt a carefully designed wig so that Hyde appears to have thicker, darker hair and a noticeably lower hairline (thus also making him look younger). Tiny prosthetics are applied to the chin and earlobes to give a slightly different face structure. The final touch is that James Nesbitt wears black contact lenses to play Hyde, making the dark persona appear more "soulless."

Nesbitt is joined by a cast of very talented actors, including Denis Lawson (who played Wedge Antilles in Star Wars) as Jackman’s friend Peter Syme, Michelle Ryan (“East Enders” and the new “Bionic Woman”) as Jackman’s assistant Dr. Katherine Reimer, Gina Bellman (“Coupling”) as Claire Jackman, and Paterson Joseph (from Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere” mini-series) as the wheeling and dealing villain Benjamin.

Jekyll is a six-episode mini-series and should be watched by all who enjoy a truly psychological thriller. You’ll come to enjoy not only Hyde’s truly frightening behavior and his dark charm as much as you connect and sympathize with Dr. Jackman’s raw humanity, his fear that those he trusts are working against him and his desperate struggle to make sure that the people he loves remain protected. Moffat’s storytelling and Nesbitt’s intensity both make this a must-see.

I now end this with two quotes from the show that won’t really give anything away about the episodes or plot lines.

TOM JACKMAN: "[Hyde] has Disney favorites?"
KATHERINE: "He likes the songs."
TOM JACKMAN: "My dark side likes Mary Poppins. No wonder I was bullied at school."

HYDE: "Ever killed anyone, Benjamin? … You’re missing out. It’s like sex. Only there’s a winner."

Alan Kistler is a New Yorker in his mid-twenties who works freelance as a film editor and as a "comic book historian", a label he got from several of his readers and from articles of Wikipedia.org. He enjoys the title very much and loves the opportunity of writing these articles for Monitor Duty, run by the ever-patient Michael Hutchison. His livejournal/fan-fiction can be found HERE. He would love to write for DC and Marvel some day. He also wants to time travel.

Other articles by Alan Kistler, including various other Profiles posted on Monitor Duty, can be found HERE.

Here then is a run down of each of the Doctor’s incarnations, as we’ve seen so far.

This is part of ALAN KISTLER’S GUIDE TO DOCTOR WHO.

If you want an in-depth look at the history of DOCTOR WHO, begin HERE.

If you want to look at a chronology of the Doctor’s adventures, CLICK HERE.

FIRST DOCTOR – William Hartnell

When we first met the Doctor, he was already nearing the end of his first incarnation. He was crotchety, grumpy and extremely open with his rather cynical opinions of everyone around him. However, once you go to know him, you found that there was a caring grandfather-type beneath the gruff exterior, a man who desperately wanted to keep his friends and innocents safe. In his first few adventures, he still acted very much like a Time Lord, willing to injure and trick people if he saw them as obstacles between him and his goals. After traveling with human companions for a while, he quickly eased up and became less confrontational and less dismissive of humans in general. The First Doctor died while fighting the Cybermen as a result of having his life-force drained (along with that of the Earth itself). Before retreating to the TARDIS to regenerate, he told his companions Ben and Polly: “It’s all over. That’s what you said … but it isn’t … It’s FAR from being all over!”

SECOND DOCTOR – Patrick Troughton

The Second Doctor dressed a little bit like a “cosmic hobo.” He was an effervescent man who showed great joy at discovering new things and was often smiles and jokes. He was also subject to great mood swings. If you annoyed him, he could get very haughty and self-righteous. The Second Doctor often played a recorder to help him think and also openly acted as an idiot or a coward in order to get his enemies to underestimate him.

It was during his second incarnation that we first saw the Doctor begin to use the alias of “John Smith” and first saw him use his sonic screwdriver. After many years of being on the run from the Time Lords, the Second Doctor was finally captured and put on trial. He was able to argue his way out of a death sentence, but was forced to do missions for the Time Lords’ black ops division the Celestial Intervention Agency. Afterwards, he was sent to Earth in exile and forced to regenerate by the Time Lords, thus ending his second life prematurely.

THIRD DOCTOR – Jon Pertwee

Known sometimes as “the dandy Doctor” due to his very flamboyant dress sense, the Third Doctor was a no-nonsense scientist who wanted nothing more than to be left alone in his laboratory. He was very snappish and sarcastic, often tossing our smart remarks to people whenever they said something he found the least bit silly or irritating. It was during this incarnation that the Doctor was temporarily exiled to Earth in the 1970′s and worked as “Dr. John Smith, unpaid Scientific Adviser to U.N.I.T.”

The Third Doctor enjoyed creating complex gadgets and riding around in fast vehicles, such as his personal flyer/hovercraft and a jalopy he customized and named Bessy. He was more prone to battle, often engaging enemies with a form of Venusian Aikido that he’d picked up. When he fought the Giant Spiders of the planet Metebilis Three, the Doctor was exposed to lethal doses of radiation. He began to die very slowly and painfully in the TARDIS, so much so that he was lost in the space-time vortex for a long time. Finally, it seems the TARDIS itself brought him back to U.N.I.T. headquarters in England where he died in front of the Brigadier and Sarah Jane Smith. His last words were to tell Sarah Jane “Now don’t cry. Where there’s life’s, there’s …”

FOURTH DOCTOR – Tom Baker

Known for wearing scarves that were anywhere between 15 to 20 feet in length, the Fourth Doctor was a laid-back bohemian who at times was possessed with manic energy. He was scatter-brained and so absorbed in his thoughts at times that he would occasionally speak his inner monologue aloud and completely forget that there were people around him. He was a fun-loving adventurer who took pride in occasionally being childish and who loved to charge into new situations even if he hadn’t assessed the possible risks. His love of adventure was such that he was instantly annoyed by anyone who seemed close-minded or conservative to him. He was often fun-loving and aloof, offering jelly baby candies to practically everyone he came across, but if you threatened innocent lives, he would let loose with righteous anger.

During a time travel trip to the early days of the Dalek race, the Fourth Doctor had a chance to end the Daleks before they even began but decided he couldn’t commit genocide for crimes that hadn’t even been committed yet, nor could he change history so drastically when the Daleks had affected so many and when certain races had actually become peaceful allies due to a common hatred of the monsters. This decision would haunt him in his ninth life. The Fourth Doctor died when he sacrificed his life to prevent the Master from holding the entire universe hostage. After falling several hundred feet, he lay on the ground and whispered his last words to his then companions: “It’s the end … But the moment has been prepared for …”

FIFTH DOCTOR – Peter Davison

In his fifth incarnation, the Doctor settled down a bit. Although he looked like an open-faced man in his thirties, the fifth Doctor displayed the manner of a much older man and took on the role of a teacher and a caring father-figure to his companions. He enjoyed peaceful afternoons and simply enjoying the company of others. In facing enemies, he was very serious and forthright. After the death of his companion Adric, he became a bit more cynical and sarcastic towards people around him. He also felt the weight of his age often, wondering how much good he’d really done in his life and how many enemies he would have to keep fighting before things ended. He wore celery on his lapel and explained once that in his fifth incarnation he was highly allergic to certain gases that when in contact with the vegetable would turn it purple, thus warning him of their proximity.

When he and his companion Peri Brown were both poisoned, the Doctor had only enough antidote to save one of them. He gave it to Peri and then succumbed to the poison. In his mind, he saw the Master laughing over him and telling him to die. In the audio play “Circular Time”, it was said that the Master had actually attacked the Doctor telepathically when he was poisoned, hoping to prevent the heroic Time Lord from regenerating. The attack failed and just before the Fifth Doctor regenerated, he wondered aloud “Is this death …? Feels different this time …”

SIXTH DOCTOR – Colin Baker

The Sixth Doctor was a loud, boisterous man who enjoyed announcing his presence and showing off his knowledge of literature, science and history. A mad scientist in a patchwork coat that was revolting to many, the Sixth Doctor was a man of passion who would occasionally dismiss even his friends as less impressive than he since they were “only human” but at the same time would be filled with incredible sadness over the plight of perfect strangers. Although not very popular during his TV run due to some poor stories, Colin Baker later proved he could be very entertaining and heroic as the Sixth Doctor through various audio plays and has become very popular to listeners. In some of these stories, the Sixth Doctor adopted a dark blue version of his outfit.

In the novel “Spiral Scratch” by Gary Russell, it was revealed that the Sixth Doctor was exposed to lethal levels of time energies when he attempted to save the multiverse. Sensing he was about to die (and not sure he would regenerate due to the amount of damage), he told his companion Mel “”Don’t cry, Mel. It was my time. Well, maybe not, but it was my time to give. To donate. I’ve had a good innings you know, seen and done a lot. Can’t complain this time. Don’t feel cheated.” Moments later, the renegade Time Lord known as the Rani shot down the Doctor’s TARDIS, forcing it to crash. During the chaos, the Doctor fell against the control console, evidently causing a head wound that jump-started his regeneration.

SEVENTH DOCTOR – Sylvester McCoy

Initially, the Seventh Doctor was the same aloof, oddly behaving adventurer that had been seen in many previous incarnations. After a few adventures though, he became concerned that he’d been wrong to only be reactive in fighting evil and decided that he would now be proactive, hunting down villains and setting up complex schemes to bring them down for good. As he became more and more involved in manipulations and master plans, he came to be darker and more aloof towards his friends and companions, sometimes forcing himself to look at them as pawns in his “big picture.” Even his protégé Ace wasn’t always sure he could trust him to be honest about his plans and intentions. At the same time, he was sad by how much he’d lost his fun-loving nature and was prone to deep contemplations.

The Seventh Doctor’s adventures were continued in various novels and audio plays, some of which revealed that he now considered himself to be “Time’s Champion.” In several adventures, he fought an Eternal (a race of cosmic beings) who called herself Death and considered the Doctor to be a hated enemy. After many years, the Seventh Doctor realized he’d become too cold and too emotionally removed from those he’d been protecting and tried to remember be more like the man he had once been. When he crash-landed on Earth in the year 1999, the Doctor was caught in the crossfire of a gang war. He was taken to a hospital and his wounds treated, but the surgeons didn’t understand his alien physiology and accidentally killed him on the table. The Seventh Doctor’s last words were a plea that he be left alone to find the Master, who he knew was once again loose on Earth.

EIGHTH DOCTOR – Paul McGann

Whereas the Seventh Doctor had been very somber and morose, the Eighth was a man who enjoyed the beauty of life all around him, becoming excited by simple things such as comfortable shoes and Earth sporting events. Whereas the Seventh Doctor was all about precision and making sure his TARDIS went exactly when and where he wanted, the Eighth deliberately set his TARDIS to be more random in its travels, believing it was more fun not knowing where you would end up. The Eighth Doctor was apparently half-human (which is not unheard of since it was shown and stated before that Time Lords can alter their species during regeneration). This may have been part of the reason why the Eighth Doctor was the most human of his incarnations. In the audio plays, he even stated flat-out that he had come to love his human companion Charley Pollard but at the same time felt he couldn’t act on this love for a variety of reasons.

The Eighth Doctor loved telling stories where he could name-drop and enjoyed meeting new people wherever he went, no matter who they were. He was a great fan of Earth pop culture and, like the Fourth Doctor, had a habit of speaking his thoughts aloud. In his later years, he was seen to become slightly harder-edged and more sarcastic. Also, despite his amiable nature, the Eighth Doctor made it clear several times that he, like the Seventh, was not as forgiving as many of his previous incarnations. How the Eighth Doctor died exactly isn’t known. It is known that he died at the end of the Last Time War, apparently while activating a weapon that destroyed both the Time Lords and nearly all of the Dalek race, thus finally ending the conflict.

ATTENTION, READERS! THE NEXT TWO SUMMARIES GIVE AWAY PLOT POINTS AND DETAILS ABOUT THE NEW SERIES OF DOCTOR WHO. IF YOU WISH TO WATCH THE NEW SERIES AND ENJOY IT FULLY, STOP READING NOW AND JUST RENT OR BUY THE DVDS TO DISCOVER IT ALL FOR YOURSELF.

NINTH DOCTOR – Christopher Eccleston

The Ninth Doctor was a seasoned warrior who loved rushing into danger but also had little patience for anyone who could slow him down or distract him from the next adventure. He was often aloof and short-tempered, but beneath his exterior it was clear that he cared very deeply about all life, which he now appreciated more than ever before since he was now the last of his people. Very much a product of his “birth”, the Ninth Doctor was constantly haunted by the events of the Time War and the death he had seen, as well as by survivor’s guilt. In many of his adventures, if something truly bad happened or if his friends were put into serious danger, the Ninth Doctor’s primary reaction was to lament about how the situation was “all my fault.” He was a tortured man constantly looking for the peaceful life he saw in so many others but knowing that he was driven to keep on having adventures rather than settle down.

The Ninth incarnation of the Doctor died while saving the life of Rose Tyler and exposing himself to lethal energies of the time/space vortex. His last words to Rose were “Before I go, I just wanted to say you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And you know what? … So was I.”

TENTH DOCTOR – David Tennant

The Tenth Doctor is a man who, although lonely, has learned to look beyond his experiences in the Last Time War. He is constantly searching for something new, something fun, something out of the ordinary. Like the Eighth incarnation, he finds joy in small simplistic things such as edible ball bearings and fun-looking gift shops. He enjoys dropping pop culture references and is given to manic bursts of activity when he’s excited by a new thought or a brainstorm. In times when his friends or humanity in general is seriously threatened, the Tenth Doctor has often reverted to a cold, unforgiving nature that emulates his seventh incarnation. Although he often smiles and shows himself as a laid-back explorer who run around in a winkled suit and tennis shoes, he has also repeatedly stated that he is a man who believes in “no second chances” when it comes to his enemies.

And those are the ten incarnations of the Doctor in a nutshell. CHEERS!

DOCTOR WHO lasted for 26 seasons (695 episodes), making it the longest running science-fiction program in history and was canceled in 1989. It was a phenomenon in British pop culture, reaching practically the same popularity that Superman gained in the U.S. After cancellation, it survived in novels, a TV movie on Fox and audio plays. A new series, picking up some time after the TV movie leaves off, started in 2005 and continues the story of the hero, an alien adventurer who never gives his real name but is known only as “The Doctor.”

Seal of the Time Lords

THE TIME LORDS

The Doctor is a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey (located in the constellation of Kasterborus). Time Lords are long-lived humanoid aliens with two-hearts, minor telepathic abilities and increased sensitivity to energy fields and the forces of time itself. To become a Time Lord, a Gallifreyan must study at “The Academy” for over a century, learning about other worlds, various advanced sciences and the mechanics of safely traveling through time without completely altering the history of the universe. At graduation, the newly appointed Time Lords are given the ability to completely regenerate their bodies if they are near-death (or if they’ve simply aged to the point that their bodies are wearing out). This means that not only are their injuries healed, they are given a completely different physical appearance. Memories remain intact but general behavior alters a bit because brain chemistry is now different. Time Lords can only regenerate a maximum of twelve times, allowing them thirteen lives.

Time Lords mastered space-time travel long before the human race ever appeared, thanks to Rassilon, founder of the Time Lords, and a stellar engineer named Omega. Together they created the Eye of Harmony, the original power source for Gallifrey’s time travel capsules, most of which were called TARDISes (Time And Relative Dimension In Space). These ships can travel to any planet and any point in that planet’s history by sailing through the “space-time vortex” and are actually bigger inside than on the outside. TARDISes are slightly alive and also extend a telepathic field over their crew members that allows them to understand any language they encounter as well as be understood by whomever they meet.

War with the vampire race (forever known afterwards as the “Ancient Enemy” of the Time Lords) led to Gallifrey developing a general abhorrence to violence. Later experiences led to laws of non-interference with other “lesser races” of the universe. Time Lords came to see themselves as historians and scientists who kept the status quo rather than discover new sciences or ideas.

Time went on and eventually there were two young boys on Gallifrey who decided that they would not be bound by the rules and laws of their society. Both wanted to explore the universe directly, to meet other races and discover secrets and technological wonders that Time Lords didn’t know because they simply weren’t interested enough to investigate. These two boys eventually grew up and left their home planet, both earning the status of being “renegade Time Lords.” It has been implied that to be labeled a renegade in Time Lord society means you give up your heritage, possibly even your name. These two men never give their real names when they encounter people, only the titles that they gave themselves after leaving their homes. One is a hero who calls himself the Doctor. The other is a villain who calls himself the Master. Whereas the Doctor explores the universe for the sheer thrill of it and for the joy of learning new things, the Master explores as a means to an end. He wants to control the universe itself and has often delighted in the chaos he’s caused in order to try and achieve his plan. The two former friends became blood enemies.

THE DOCTOR

The Doctor’s history on Gallifrey is largely unknown. His nickname at the Academy was “Theta Sigma.” He mentioned watching a meteor storm with his father when he was a child and that he had at least one brother. He grew up in a “large house on the side of a hill” in the southern mountains of Gallifrey. When he was young, a monk taught him how to expand his senses to the universe. He was evidently not the best student at the Academy, having said that he failed his test on how to pilot a TARDIS and that he barely graduated his final courses on his second try. It has said at times that the Doctor’s exile from Gallifrey wasn’t just due to his heretical beliefs but also because of a “scandal” he was involved in before stealing his TARDIS. What this scandal was has never been said.

The Doctor stole his TARDIS from a repair-shop. It wasn’t in the best working order and was already considered an antique by the time he took it. This, along with the fact that the Doctor rewired several bits in order to get past security protocols, means that from time to time his TARDIS can be either very accurate in its travels or completely random. TARDISes normally use “chameleon circuits” to allow them to blend in with the surroundings of wherever they travel to. But during a trip to England in 1963, the Doctor’s TARDIS became stuck looking like a blue police box and has largely remained that way since.

After leaving Gallifrey, the Doctor found himself taking on the role of a hero more and more often, unable to just let evil happen in front of him. He was always, however, careful not to interfere in certain historical events. Due to his training, he is able to interact in various time periods without usually changing anything significant in the flow of universal history. He will stop an alien invasion from destroying the human race but he will not stop the Black Plague or kill Hitler as a youth. Despite the fact that he is often engaged in battle, the Doctor never carries weapons and is usually against using any he comes across, preferring to lie on his wits, his powers of manipulation and his understanding of science to stop his enemies. He has, at times, shown he is quite adept at martial arts and is an expert swordsman.

The Doctor originally traveled with his teenage granddaughter Susan (who was from Gallifrey but not a Time Lord). The Doctor eventually left her to lead her own life. Due to his lonely nature, the Doctor has often made a point often to recruit traveling companion, usually humans since he has a great fondness for Earth (despite how frustrating he finds humanity at times). Many of his companions are looked on as students or trusted allies. He’s rarely ever seemed to have a romantic flirtation with a companion, such as with the human journalist Sarah Jane Smith and the young Time Lady named Romana. Over the years, three of the Doctor’s companions were killed during their adventures with him: a young girl named Katarina, a Space Patrol agent named Sara Kingdom and a young boy from another universe named Adric.

During his second incarnation, the Doctor was finally captured by the Time Lords and put on trial for his crimes of interference with other races in various different ways. He argued his case and eventually it was decided that he did more harm than good and he was granted his freedom, though in exchange for this freedom he had to agree to do occasional missions for the Time Lords whenever they deemed it necessary (specifically, for the Celestial Intervention Agency, a black ops division of Gallifrey). In their eyes, he was still a renegade that needed to be leashed.

ENEMIES

The Doctor made many enemies across time and space. The biggest ones, aside from the Master, were the Cybermen and the Daleks. Cybermen were once humans who lived on the planet Mondas, a twin version of Earth. Eventually they became a race of cyborgs with barely any organic components and with their emotions removed. The Cybermen are driven by a hive-mind mentality and want to expand their race by going to other planets and “converting” the natives into new Cybermen. The Cybermen live by a simple threat: “You belong to us. You will be like us. Resistance is useless.”

The Daleks were once a humanoid race known as the Kaleds and were native to the planet Skaro. A thousand year war involving nuclear and germ warfare caused the Kaleds to begin mutating. A scientist named Davros decided to create a new superior race out of the ashes of his people. He mutated the Kaleds into small tentacled creatures he called Daleks, increasing brainpower and removing emotional weaknesses such as sympathy and pity. Davros then equipped each Dalek with a mobile war machine that both protected them, allowed for easy travel and limited flight, and was equipped with a variety of weapons to destroy all enemies. Daleks believe that only other Daleks are genetically pure and that all other races must be destroyed or enslaved to ensure the safety of their own race. They are known for screaming “Exterminate!” as they kill others and are basically the sci-fi equivalent of Nazis. Like the Time Lords, Daleks also possess time travel technology, but to a much less-advanced degree.

The Daleks only fear the Doctor and have referred to him as “the oncoming storm” or as the “Ka Faraq Gatri”, which means “The Destroyer of Worlds” or “The Bringer of Death.” This was in refernce to the fact that during his seventh incarnation the Doctor actually blew up the planet Skaro.

The original series ended with the Seventh Doctor and his protégé Ace. The TV movie took place many years later in the Doctor’s life, when he was traveling alone. There he regenerated into the Eighth Doctor and was seen to be traveling along at the end of the film. Although the Eighth Doctor never appeared on-screen again, he gained further popularity by having adventures in novels, comic strips and dozens of audio plays that are still produced to this day.

ATTENTION, READERS! THE NEXT PART OF THIS ARTICLE GIVES AWAY PLOT POINTS AND DETAILS ABOUT THE NEW SERIES OF DOCTOR WHO. IF YOU WISH TO WATCH THE NEW SERIES AND ENJOY IT FULLY, STOP READING NOW AND JUST RENT OR BUY THE DVDS TO DISCOVER IT ALL FOR YOURSELF.

THE NEW SERIES

The new TV series began in 2005 and takes place many years after the appearance of the Eighth Doctor in the TV movie. In the first episode of the new series, the Doctor had only just began his ninth life and had recently survived the events of “The Last Great Time War.” This war was a conflict between the Daleks and the Time Lords that left both sides destroyed. The Doctor told his new companion Rose Tyler that his home planet was now gone, nothing but ash and dust, and that he was now the last of the Time Lords traveling in the last remaining TARDIS. Several Daleks survived the events of the Last Great Time War and have gone on to plague the Doctor, who now hates them even more than before. During his fourth life, the Doctor had been on Skaro during the early days of the Daleks and had a chance to wipe out the race before it had fully emerged. He chose not to do so, believing he didn’t have the right to commit genocide for crimes the Daleks had yet to commit and also fearing how much the universe’s history would change as a result of such actions. After the Time War, it’s possible the Doctor has thought about this decision and been haunted by it.

The Doctor was seen to use a “sonic screwdriver” several times in the original series to open locks and doors and rewire circuitry. In the new series, the Doctor has made himself a new sonic screwdriver that is now more of a multi-purpose tool, able to detect and scan energy readings, fuse wiring and thin bits of metal, undo locks, create localized sonic beams and patch into electronic signals. It can be considered as akin to a magic wand.
The Sonic Screwdrivers
Although the new TV series references the old one, it makes sure to do so in such a way that new fans will not feel at all lost or that they need to be familiar with the old adventures to understand the current stories. The show is in its third season now. At this point, Doctor is now in his tenth incarnation and is joined by a young woman named Martha Jones who is studying to be a physician. Recent hints have led fans to believe that the Doctor is not the last Time Lord as he believes and that his oldest enemy the Master has also survived. What happens when the two meet again remains to be seen.

And that’s DOCTOR WHO in a nutshell!

The Ten Doctors

If you want a brief rundown on the different personalities of the Doctor’s incarnations, go HERE.

If you want an in-depth look at the history of DOCTOR WHO, begin HERE.

If you want to look at a chronology of the Doctor’s adventures, CLICK HERE.

Kirby never finished the Fourth World saga, returning to Marvel Comics to work on other projects instead, and other writers down the years brought the New Gods more and more into the mainstream realm and added to their history.

So who are they exactly?

NEW GENESIS APOKOLIPS
The New Gods are a race of beings who live on the twin planets of New Genesis and Apokolips, worlds that can only be reached by long-distance teleportation methods. The New Gods themselves use stargates called "Boom Tubes" that release a sonic boom every time they’re used. Boom Tubes also adjust the natural size of the people using it. New Gods are, normally, giants compared to us but when they travel through the Boom Tube to other worlds, the Tube shrinks them to the basic humanoid proportions of the rest of the universe. The reverse also works whenever a being travels through a Boom Tube to New Genesis or Apocalypse. If Superman found a way to travel to New Genesis through basic space travel and finally actually made it, he would find that he was the size of an insect in comparison to the inhabitants there.
a “boom tube”
Compared to human beings, they are genetically perfect and have life-spans of several centuries. They are stronger, faster, more durable and possess greater intelligence than humans. They don’t suffer from disease and are incredibly resilient to various kinds of injury, although they’re all highly vulnerable to a toxic substance called Radion.

The major New God heroes that are usually seen running around the DCU are the heroes Orion, Lightray, Mr. Miracle and Big Barda and hippie-like young gods known as the Forever People (who can summon the hero Infinity Man with their Mother Box).
The Forever People and the Infinity Man

The major villains are Darkseid, his son Kalibak, his torturer Desaad, and his soldiers Granny Goodness and the Female Furies, Kanto, Steppenwolf and Glorious Godfrey.

The New God known as Metron also appears frequently, watching events from his Mobius Chair. Metron tends to act on his own agenda and may either help the good guys or just observe from afar out of interest depending on his mood and intentions.

Occasionally, the New God’s avatar of death has appeared as a being known as the Black Racer, a man in black armor who soars through the universe on skiis (because Kirby already used his idea of a cosmic traveler on a surfboard for another character at Marvel). The Black Racer comes to New Gods when they die and takes them to Hadis, their own version of the afterlife.

Those mortals who live on New Genesis, on the actual planet rather than in the floating city of Supertown, are usually referred to as “bugs” by the New Gods there. The mortal beings who live on Apokolips are slaves to Darkseid and referred to as “the lowlies.”

HISTORY OF THE NEW GODS

It started with the big bang. Matter and energy were created and spread throughout the universe. One great energy source that was eternal and powerful would later be called "The Source." As the New Gods consider time, the Big Bang marks the beginning of the "First World" (although a better name for it would’ve been the "First Age").

About 18 billion years before the common era of Earth began, a planet called Urgrund (later called the "Godworld") forms. A billion years later, sentient life begins to form on this planet, the first sentient life in the universe. This event marks the beginning of the "Second World." Being so near to the Source Wall (the barrier between the Source and the physical universe) affected the evolution of life on this planet. The humanoids become nearly immortal beings who, with their connection to the Source and their advanced technology, could have been considered "gods." In later ages, these beings will be known as the "Old Gods."

For you folks who are curious about how this compares to the Maltusians (who later became the Guardians of the Universe, the Controllers and the Zamarons), their planet Maltus began forming life about five billion years after the Old Gods had already achieved their godhood.

"There came a time when the Old Gods died!"

Eventually, the Old Gods began to war with each other. Eventually, one side mastered a sort of "anti-life force" that they believed would achieve victory over their enemies. Five billion years B.C.E., the anti-life force was released and ripped the Godworld apart. The anti-life force then spread out in a large radius, destroying all stars and matter in its wake, leaving only the rubble of the Godworld and the sun it orbited. This massive destruction to the surrounding area made the remains of the Godworld nearly impossible to reach by any normal means of space travel, cutting it off from the rest of the universe. The destruction of the Godworld marks the beginning of the "Third World."

The destruction of the Godworld released a wave of cosmic energy that spread across the universe. This seeded many world with the basic impressions and vague ideas about the wars and adventures of the Old Gods, inspiring many civilizations to develop similar mythologies. What’s more, the "godwave" seeded certain planets to have new god-like beings of their own. On Earth, for instance, the Greek gods (among other pantheons) formed as other-dimensional entities who were spiritually connected to the human race and drew power from belief and worship. According to John Byrne, this godwave was also responsible for the creation of energy fields such as quantum energy and the power of the Green Lantern power rings, but there is much to put this claim into doubt.

Around this time, Earth’s sun finally ignited.

4.8 billion years before the common era of Earth history, the rubble of the Godworld formed into two new planets that revolved around the same remaining star. The living essences of the Old Gods of good cause one planet to become a place of light and peace, later dubbed "New Genesis." The essence of the dark gods and an evil sorceress influence the other planet to become a harsh environment of spiritual darkness, later called "Apokolips."

4.3 billion years ago, intelligent life forms on New Genesis and Apokolips and civilizations begin to rise on both worlds are phenomenal speed.

30,000 years ago, a segment of the inhabitants of New Genesis and Apokolips both connect to the Source and achieve near immortality and cosmic power. These two groups are seen as "New Gods" by the still-mortal inhabitants of the two planets and this event marks the beginning of the "Fourth World." The New Gods of New Genesis establish the floating city of Supertown high above the ground. Many of the New Gods loosely refer to the still-mortal people who live below them as "bugs."

Overtime, the New Gods develop "boom tubes" to allow transport between their own worlds and the outside universe that lies so far away. They also create "Mother Boxes", hand-held sentient computers that commune telepathically with the user and access Source energy to accomplish a variety of feats, such as teleportation and matter rearrangement.

25,000 years ago, Izaya is born on New Genesis. A thousand years later, a man named Uxas, son of Heggra, grandson of Yuga Khan (ruler of Apokolips) is born.

18,000 years ago, Heggra overthrows her father and is made Queen of Apokolips. Her son Drax is a kind man but her son Uxas is already plotting to overthrow her and attain power to himself.

About 15,000 years ago, Uxas journeys to Earth and meets the Greek gods. Believing they may one day be a threat, he decides to cut down their power levels. By causing some of the humans on Earth to begin referring to the gods by new names and identities (calling Zeus "Jupiter" and calling Hermes "Mercury", etc.) he caused a schism in how people worshipped them. Since their power is tied to human belief, the Greek gods suddenly find themselves splitting off, creating new Roman duplicates of themselves, duplicates who took half of their power. The Greek and Roman pantheons go on co-existing in their mirror realms, each group no longer powerful enough that Uxas is as worried about them.

In the year 700 (as Earth measures time), Drax, who has been working to establish peace with New Genesis, attempted to master the Omega Force in order to gain cosmic power. He is killed by his brother Uxas who then obtains the Omega Force himself, taking on the new name of Darkseid the Destroyer. Drax wind up in another dimension, becoming the second person to be called Infinity Man, the same Infinity Man who will become an ally to the Forever People.

Around the year 800, Darkseid meets and marries the sorceress Suli, who later gave birth to his son Kalibak. 200 years later, Darkseid sends his uncle Steppenwolf the hunter to New Genesis, in order to hunt its citizens for sport. Steppenwolf kills the wife of Izaya, sparking the new war between New Genesis and Apokolips, just as Darkseid intended.

Around the year 1647, Darkseid’s wife Suli is murdered. Darkseid takes over the direction of the war and becomes ruler of Apocalypse after his lackey Desaad kills his mother Queen Heggra. He quickly establishes himself as the unquestioned authority on his world and organizes his elite band of troops, such as Desaad, Kanto, Granny Goodness, Glorious Godfrey, Steppenwolf, Virman Vundabar and Dr. Bedlam.
Darkseid commanding his parademon troopers

Darkseid’s Elite

Sometime afterwards, Darkseid sends troops to the planet Mars, which at this point is still inhabited. Darkseid is very interested in what the Martian scientist called M’yrn calls "subsets of free will" or "Life Equations." When questioned by Glorious Godfrey, M’yrn admits that by logical extension, there must be an "Anti-Life Equation" that would allow the user to completely subvert the free will of others and bring their souls under his control. Believing this is the key behind the anti-life entity that destroyed the Godworld, Darkseid becomes obsessed afterwards with finding the Anti-Life Equation. In later years, he makes an enemy of M’yrn’s son J’onn J’onnz, who eventually becomes the Earth hero known as the Martian Manhunter.

In 1698, Izaya (who has since become the leader or "Highfather" of New Genesis) negotiates a truce with Darkseid. Darkseid turns over his infant son Orion (born from his second wife Tigra) to Izaya. Izaya turns over his own infant son to Darkseid, who places the child in the care of the harsh warrior Granny Goodness. Granny keeps Izaya’s son in her orphanages and subjects him to various tortures and twisted obstacle courses. The boy becomes a master escape artist due to his sheer determination never to be trapped for long and earns the nickname "Scott Free."

Eventually, Scott Free escapes from Apokolips and journeys to Earth, becoming the circus performer-turned-super-hero known as Mister Miracle. He later convinces Barda, leader of Granny Goodnesses’s team the Female Furies, to defect and join him, eventually becoming his wife.

Mr. Miracle grins as he prepares to escape certain death with his wife Barda.

Darkseid’s son Orion learns to respect the peaceful ways of New Genesis despite his dark and violent nature and makes a friend of the New God called Lightray. Orion uses a mother box to give himself more human looking features (his true face resembles that of his father’s) and to help keep his anger in check. He joins the fight against Darkseid for the many years to come and earns the nickname of "the Dog of War."

TODAY’S WORLD

In the modern age of heroes, the New Gods have had many encounters with the heroes of Earth. Jimmy Olsen, photojournalist for the Daily Planet and longtime pal of Superman, was among the first modern people of Earth to find out about the New Gods and befriend them.

Over the years, Mr. Miracle, Barda, Lightray and Orion have all been members of the Justice League. The Justice League, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman have all had direct battles against Darkseid and the forces of Apokolips. One League adventure took several of them to a possible future where Darkseid had mastered the Anti-Life Equation and taken over the Earth. Darkseid’s soldier Doctor Bedlam once attacked Lex Luthor when he was still President of the United States. And Darkseid’s other agent Glorious Godfrey once used his powers of persuasion to turn Earth’s general populace against its super-heroes, even having them outlawed for a short time. During Zero Hour, Metron did much to aid Earth’s heroes survive the "crisis in time." And Batman was once seen to have utilized a smaller (and more limited) version of a boom tube for a space-craft of his own design.

Izaya eventually passed on and was succeeded as Highfather by Takion, an Earthman who’d become connected to the Source.

A "Father Box" was given to Orion some years ago, said to be the Apokoliptian version of a Mother Box. In recent times, a man called Doctor Impossible has appeared wearing a costume that emulates Mr. Miracle and claiming to be Scott Free’s brother. He has been seen using a Father Box and "hush tubes", which seem to accomplish the same thing as boom tubes except that they only emit a soft “pop” when activated (it’s unknown at this time if they have the same range as boom tubes). Powerboy, a soldier of Apokolips, has also been seen wielding a Father Box.

Dr. Impossible

Most recently, Lightray fell to the Earth, dead. How this happened is yet to be seen and is likely to be explored in the weekly series COUNTDOWN.

Alan Kistler is a New Yorker in his mid-twenties who works freelance as a film-editor and a "comic book historian", a label he got from several of his readers and from articles of Wikipedia.org. He enjoys the title very much and loves the opportunity of writing these articles for Monitor Duty, run by the ever-patient Michael Hutchison. His livejournal/fan-fiction can be found HERE. He would love to write for DC and Marvel some day. He also wants to time travel.

Alan Kistler

Other articles by Alan Kistler, including various other Profiles posted on Monitor Duty, can be found HERE.

If you just want a general overview of the show and characters of DOCTOR WHO that takes about five minutes or so to read, then check out my article: DOCTOR WHO IN A NUTSHELL.

If you want a simple and brief run-down on each incarnation of the Doctor, check out my DIFFERENT INCARNATIONS OF THE DOCTOR IN A NUTSHELL article.

If you want more detailed information on the career of each incarnation however, as well as lists of the Doctor’s adventures in different media in chronological order and info about the spin-offs, look below …

Profile on THE FIRST DOCTOR – The early years of DOCTOR WHO, including the first times fans met the Daleks and the Cybermen!

First Doctor Chronology.

Profile on THE SECOND DOCTOR – The first regeneration, which gave us the “Space Hobo.” Includes when the Doctor was finally found by the Time Lords and put on trial.

Second Doctor Chronology.

Profile on THE THIRD DOCTOR – The “Dandy Doctor” aka the gadget-man who worked alongside U.N.I.T. Includes the first seen battles with The Master, as well as the history of the Time Lords.

Third Doctor Chronology.

Profile on THE FOURTH DOCTOR – The Bohemian with a 20-foot-scarf. A return visit to Gallifrey. A female Time Lord companion. A robot dog! “Would you like a Jelly Baby?”

Profile on THE FIFTH DOCTOR – The cricket-playing Doctor with celery on his lapel and an old soul in a young body.

Profile on THE SIXTH DOCTOR – The mad scientist with the patch-work coat and the cat pin.

Profile on THE SEVENTH DOCTOR – The dark schemer and destroyer of worlds. Time’s champion.

Profile on THE EIGHTH DOCTOR – The Edwardian who was “almost human.”

Eighth Doctor Chronology.

Profile on THE NINTH DOCTOR – The leather jacket-wearing war survivor with a Northern accent and survivor’s guilt.

Ninth Doctor Chronology.

DOCTOR WHO: Mini-Series, Spin-Offs and Alternate Universes

So what if that really happened?

Guess what …?

It’s happening right now!

So what if that really happened?

Guess what …?

It’s happening right now!

This is continued from Part 2.

SEX AND VIOLENCE

William Messner-Loebs took over the WONDER WOMAN title. For the past few years, Perez had made the title a place heavily steeped in Greek mythology and magic. Messner-Loebs decided it was time to get Diana seeming less like a mythical warrior and more like a super-hero. The stories continued the theme of Diana as a strong, determined woman who understood when to be a warrior and when to be a diplomat. But Messner-Loebs’s run wasn’t without criticism. Although the stories weren’t bad, they didn’t stand out either. With the lack of focus on her heritage and mythological origins, Diana seemed to become more like other super-heroes rather than standing out as a unique icon. Also, while he normally wrote Diana with apparent respect, there were a couple of stories that seemed anti-female to some readers (such as a story in space that we’ll talk about in a bit).

One thing that was heavily criticized was the artwork. With Perez now gone, Mike Deodato jumped into the title as the new penciler. Deodato could do dynamic fight scenes and had a very clean, clear technique. He was a clear example of the art style that was very popular among many comic fans in the early 90s. The problem was, his art seemed at times antithetical to the idea of Wonder Woman as a symbol of feminist power. Deodato tended to draw all the women in the book in very sexualized poses and often times in very revealing outfits. Breasts, legs, exposed thighs and backsides were emphasized as much as possible. Where once the Amazons had been of different races, they were now all Caucasian (including those who had previously been depicted as other nationalities, such as Asian). These sexualized poses and pin-up-esque panels made it difficult at times to take Messner-Loebs’s script seriously. Brian Bolland did a lot of the cover art, but even these were often depicting Diana in sexual poses. This was due to the fact that DC had decided sexing up Diana would probably help improve sales.
Typical Deodato artwork

Messner-Loebs started his run with stories that focused on Wonder Woman’s career on the street, pitting her against mobsters and in traditional super-villain battles. Messner-Loebs also tried to emphasize Diana as part of the larger DCU. She teamed up with Deathstroke in an adventure overseas, during which time she had the god Proteus help her set up a cover identity as "Diana Prince", though she had no intention of really using that human disguise again. The story wasn’t great, but it did feature a fun scene where Diana got to kick Deathstroke’s ass and then shove him into the trunk of a car. Even Batman never got to take Deathstroke down with that much style.

Remember that short run years before when Diana was an astronaut? Apparently Messner-Loebs remembered it too. In a story where Diana met a seeming hero called the White Magician, our heroine went off into space to save the life Tasha, a female astronaut (and possibly a reference to Tasha Yar of STAR TREK: TNG?). But it was a trap. Once Wonder Woman and Tasha were aboard the experimental Russian spacecraft the astronaut had been piloting, the White Magician set off explosives that rocketed it into deep space. After drifting for two week, Diana and Tasha were found by alien slavers who took them back to the all-female prison world they ran.

Yep. This story was not exactly popular with folks who wanted to see Diana as a symbol of female empowerment, especially when the cover had her depicted half-naked, in a sexual pose, seemingly helpless and weeping, with the words "WONDER WOMAN in chains!" displayed above. There was even a dog-bowl style water dish in front of her.

The story said that Diana and Tasha were on this planet for a few months, working as slaves in the quarries. Fellow prisoners included a Khund warrior and a Daxamite that Diana named "Julia", after her friend from Earth. Eventually, Diana broke free and forced the emperor who ran the planet to realize slavery was a bad thing. She returned to Earth, only to find out three things had happened during his months-long absence: 1, Themyscira was missing (and all the Amazons along with it); 2, the White Magician had made a name for himself by replacing Wonder Woman as the "Hero of Boston"; 3, Superman had died just the day before, during a fearsome battle with the monster called Doomsday.

Wonder Woman was disturbed that she had not been around to help Superman fight the monster Doomsday and was present at his funeral. She was one of the heroes who actually closed the coffin lid at the funeral that was held in Metropolis. Afterwards, Diana joined several other super-heroes on Christmas Eve as they did their best to answer the letters many had sent to Superman, asking for help or hope.

The Justice League had lost a couple of members now, including Superman. Wonder Woman agreed to join the team as their new field leader. Months later, after the events of DC’s crossover ZERO HOUR, the Justice League of America was entirely reformed. Diana led the new team, operating out of a space vessel that had once belonged to the alien conqueror Overmaster. Diana expressed that in her mind, the team was not merely a strike-force but also a necessary club where superhumans could be around those they related to best, other superhumans, and not feel so isolated.

After being unable to find any trace of Themyscira, Diana went back to Boston and decided the only thing she could do was continue living her own life, on her own now in Patriarch’s World. In an attempt to connect more to humanity and the experiences of the average joe, she took a job at the fast food joint called Taco Whiz. Doing this let Diana understand working class folks a bit better. She also finally got her own apartment.

Not long afterwards, Diana met Micah Rains, a well-meaning if sometimes bumbling private detective. Wonder Woman helped him on a few cases, while also having to deal with balancing her super-hero career with her job at TacoWhiz and having to put up with the White Magician constantly making efforts to steal her limelight. Later, the mystical Doctor Fate contacted Diana and the two of them found out that Circe had apparently destroyed Themyscira, dying in the process.

In her personal life, Diana was busy dealing with the shocking revelation that Etta Candy was starving herself so that she would be thinner for her wedding day. Around this time, a new friend showed up in Wonder Woman’s life, attorney Donna Milton who worked for Ari Buchanan, a high-tech arms dealer. Donna Milton gained Diana’s trust only to then reveal that her employer was actually Ares, back to screw with Earth and make the White Magician one of his lieutenants. At the last moment though, Donna refused to let Ares torture Diana and the god of war shot her, despite the fact she was carrying his child. The White Magician, now demonically powered, escaped in the confusion, but not before turning several thugs into new super-villains and setting them loose.

Finally, Dr. Fate and Wonder Woman discovered that Paradise Island wasn’t destroyed but had been sent into another dimension. Diana fought Circe (who naturally wasn’t dead), though it took the sacrifice of a young girl named Cynthia to bring Paradise Island back to our dimension.

ARTEMIS, THE OTHER WONDER WOMAN

When Circe teleported both the Themyscira Amazons and the Bana-Mighdall Amazons into a dimension of demons, both tribes had to work together to stay alive. Though from Earth’s perspective they had only been absent for a few months, ten years had gone by from the perspective of the Amazons before they returned. Now back in Earth’s dimension, the Bana-Mighdallians set up shop on Themyscira, picking the harshest part of the island so that they wouldn’t lose any of their edge.

Inspired by the story published decades before in which Diana was replaced with a red-headed warrior named Orana, Messner-Loebs introduced a new red-headed Amazon named Artemis (a joke on the fact that Artemis was the Greek name for the goddess of the hunt that the Romans knew as Diana). Artemis was a Bana-Mighdall warrior who was sick of feeling like the Themyscirans saw her as a second-class citizen. As one of the Bana-Mighdall, she was already a hardened warrior but what’s more she was a girl who had spent her teens and early twenties trapped in a dimension full of demons. Ten years of those battles made her a very harsh and unforgiving woman. But despite her aggressive and confrontational nature, Diana could see that Artemis had a noble and true heart.

And then Diana received a shock. Hyppolyta told her that she was dissatisfied with Diana’s progress in Patriarch’s World. She’d been operating for years now and women were still second to men in many places. War was still the rule rather than the exception. Perhaps a new Wonder Woman was needed.

A new contest was held. And this time, the Bana-Migdhallians were also invited to join. During this story of Diana trying once again to prove herself, Messner-Loebs started retconning Wonder Woman’s origin. DC had just had a story called ZERO HOUR in which the timestream had been messed with and then rebuilt, so he figured he now had leeway to put his own spin on how Diana’s beginnings should be.

Through flashbacks, Messner-Loebs showed that Hypollyta’s syster Antiope (who had previously been depicted as a blonde) was actually a dead-ringer for Diana. He also retconned how the original contest to become Wonder Woman had happened. Before, Perez had said that all the Amazons had worn masks so that they wouldn’t hold back in case they competed against friends. Messner-Loebs said that only Diana wore the mask of Proteus, a magical thing that had given her a different appearance. The problem with this is that there are only so many Amazons living on Themyscira and I think someone would’ve noticed if there was a girl competing and absolutely NO ONE knew who she was. They’ve been living on an island for centuries, after all, they should’ve seen her before at least once.

Another retcon was that Diana’s powers didn’t work while she was on Themyscira, putting her on even footing with the other Amazons. This was to also help explain how the more aggressive and impulsive Artemis was able to prove a challenge. During the last contest, a race, Artemis and Diana were neck and neck but then Diana stumbled and Artemis pulled out ahead, winning and becoming the new Wonder Woman.

To help her be as formidable as Diana had been in Patriarch’s World, Artemis was given the Gauntlet of Atlas that increased her strength ten fold and sandals of Hermes that gave her flight. Nice to know the Amazons have such easy access to this stuff, eh? Artemis was given Diana’s armor and lasso as well, signs that she was now officially the Wonder Woman.

Artemis then went out into the world and expected to be greeted warmly as the new champion of the Amazons. To her annoyance though, the general public neither understood nor cared about how "official" the contest of the Amazons had been in giving this title to Artemis. All they saw was that the hero they knew and trusted had been replaced by a red-headed pretender who was too arrogant and violent for their tastes. Artemis went up to the JLA’s base and stated that since Diana had been leader of the team, that meant that she, as the new Wonder Woman, was now de facto leader. She was shocked to see the JLA members ignore her (and it was later stated that Batman, despite not being a member of the team at the time, paid Artemis a visit specifically to tell her not to even think about sitting in Diana’s chair at the JLA meeting table).

Meanwhile, Diana had returned to Patriarch’s World as well. She might not have been the Wonder Woman anymore, but she had spent too many years fighting evil to simply step out of the fight now. Adopting a new black leather outfit that only hinted at who she had once been, Diana went back to fighting crime, focusing more on street gangs and the like while working as an official partner of Private Detective Micah Rains. During the next few issues, she faced off against the Joker, the assassin Chesire, Poison Ivy and her old foe the Cheetah. What’s more, she acted with a harsher attitude now, partly because she was acting out on resentment for having been replaced and partially because she said that she now no longer saw herself bound by "Wonder Woman’s" code of honor. This last statement bothered many fans, who felt that Diana wouldn’t give in to anger so easily.

Realizing she needed to be liked by the public in order to get their respect, Artemis agreed to be helped by a PR company who promised to convince the world that she was the one, true Wonder Woman. Artemis then found herself in several battles in which she defended immigrant workers and battered women, not realizing until later that these battles had been staged by her PR company. Angry and convinced she had to prove she could take on true evil without having it staged by others, Artemis stormed off to single-handedly bring down Boston’s biggest crime families. But she hadn’t counted on what super-villain power the families might have and she was forced to fight against a man called the White Magician, a mob-employed sorcerer who had fought Diana before.

Meanwhile, Diana finally went back to Themyscira to confront her mother about just why the Queen had felt another contest necessary in the first place. It turned out that Hyppolyta had had a vision showing her that Wonder Woman was fated to die soon and so she’d set up the contest in the hopes that someone else would be chosen to fulfill the role of Wonder Woman and could die in Diana’s stead. The Queen pleaded to Diana that she’d only sought to protect her daughter, but Diana saw her behavior as weak and manipulative. Diana returned to Patriarch’s World and arrived just in time to see Artemis die at the hands of the White Magician, thus fulfilling the prophecy. This story marked the 100th issue of WONDER WOMAN and was the last one where Messner-Loebs worked as a regular writer.

And before we leave this section, I want to point out something. The dialogue during Messner-Loebs’s run was consistent with Diana’s attitude. She seemed cool and self-assured. But despite this seeming respect, we can’t ignore some basic facts. During his run, Messner-Loebs had a story involving Diana being half-naked and in chains on a prison world of all female slaves, had Etta Candy develop an eating disorder, and introduced characters such as Cynthia and Artemis only to kill them off as plot devices. Donna Milton was introduced to be sympathetic, then turned out to be a traitor and was then used as for shock value so we could see Ares shoot a pregnant woman. The fact that Artemis came back doesn’t change, for me, the fact that her entire run as the new Wonder Woman was just so she could die. With all that, it seems no mystery then that Messner-Loebs’s era seemed lackluster (not that he’s a bad writer, but I’ve seen him do better for the most part). And those retcons he did to the Wonder Woman origin? Changing Antiope’s appearance and saying that Diana wore a Proteus Mask? Those were NEVER mentioned again by any succeeding writer. They all preferred Perez’s take.

DAMMIT, BYRNE!

John Byrne was asked to step into the ring and take on both writing and artistic chores for Wonder Woman. Byrne was well known for his run on Superman when he’d brought the character "back to basics" in his mind, doing away with all he thought was too silly and re-imagining several aspects of the character to make him more modern and give him a more interesting supporting cast.

Byrne sought to alter the title completely. With little explanation, Diana moved from Boston (which had been her home for 100 issues now) to the fictional Gateway City. This meant that her whole supporting cast such as the Kapetelis family and Micah Rains were gone now, since they hadn’t moved along with her. He also redesigned the costume a bit. Wonder Woman’s shorts now only had two stars on the front rather than being star-spangled all over. Also, her bracelets were extended to now cover almost her entire forearms and the gold belt of her costume was extended to now cover most of her torso and reach up to the "WW" on her chest.

As soon as she got to Gateway City, Diana came across technology that had originated from the planet Apokolips, that same awful place ruled by the demonic Darkseid (John Byrne loves him those New God characters). Joined by a new friend, police detective Mike Schorr, Diana found out that Darkseid now had his sights set on Themyscira, thinking that hidden on the island was the means by which he could transport himself to the realm of the Greek gods. Diana got there after an Apokoliptian invasion force had come down on Paradise Island. Hypollyta was gone, having left before the attack, and so it was up to Diana to rally her sisters to fight off Darkseid’s parademon troopers. The battle raged on and in the end Darkseid left, satisfied he’d done enough damage: twelve hundred Amazons had died and five hundred had been injured. Diana was so distraught about this, she fainted. Mike caught her and she wept openly into his arms.

That’s right. She’d just met the guy a day earlier and was already weeping in his arms. This was when I started getting nervous about Byrne’s writing (that and the overly-expository dialogue that was peppered everywhere). I mean, let’s look at this. Themyscira is supposed to be this island of powerful, strong women, people who are, story-wise, supposed to be somewhat of a model for women (and, indeed, people) of the world. And John Byrne kills off half of them in one fell swoop and then has Diana openly weep, being vulnerable in the arms of a stranger when it would’ve been more natural for her to do so with one of her many sisters, friends, teachers who were all standing around her. Also, Byrne’s version of Diana seemed quicker to anger and much more aggressive than she’d been for the past several years (maybe she was channeling a bit of Artemis?) and her dialogue seemed more like it had been when she’d first come to Patriarch’s World, speaking almost like a Shakespearean character rather than as a person who’d now walked among humanity for a few years and had picked up on their language styles and idioms.

Byrne also had a habit of having his male characters get less damage whenever there was a fight. Despite being in a battlefield between Amazons and demonic parademons (who have very large teeth, claws and spears), Mike Schorr was mostly unscathed by the end of the story whereas Diana and her sisters got seriously cut up and bruised and battered. This kind of thing continued in later stories.

With her mother gone, Diana was offered the crown but rejected it, saying her place was as a warrior in the outside world. She returned to Gateway City and got a job at the local museum. The curator of the museum was Helena Sandsmark and she became a fast friend to Diana, as did her young adolescent daughter Cassie. Cassie was the typical "well-meaning youngster who gets into trouble" character, which she proved when she did things like accidentally bringing a golem to life.

The sorceress of Arthurian myth Morgaine LeFey came to be the new baddie in Diana’s life. She used the demon Etrigan, the sorcerer Arion, the immortal villain Vandal Savage and the nearly-forgotten General Immortus in a plot to become immortal herself, stealing the ageless life forces from each of the individuals named above. The problem was that Diana didn’t fit into the works because she’d actually given up her agelessness when she left Themyscira and so the with LeFey was beaten.

Messner-Loebs did a mini-series called ARTEMIS: REQUIEM with Mike Deodato doing the art chores. In the mini-series, we found out that Artemis’s spirit had found up in the prison dimension of Tartarus (why? Who knows?!) and there she became the ruling princess of that Hell, taking the tile of Dalkriig-Hath. She later escaped from the after life and joined a group of demon-hunters called the Hellenders. She was given the codename Javelin but immediately rejected it, preferring to call herself "Requiem." She adjusted to being alive again and took on a mentor relationship with her teammate Sojourner.

In the main WONDER WOMAN title, Diana encountered Artemis again (though Byrne only referred to her as Artemis, either not caring about or not knowing about her Requiem codename).

A new hero called Champion showed up in Gateway City, but he turned out to be Heracles in disguise. Soon after Champion showed up, a young boy whose consciousness was transferred into a computer system wound up creating "synthoid" recreations of the second Flash (Barry Allen), the Green Lantern enemy Sinestro and Doomsday. While fighting these phony menaces, Diana found herself hard-pressed to control all the chaos even with Champion’s help. Cassie wanted to join in on the action and so she cobbled together a quick disguise and then stole the Sandals of Hermes and Gauntles of Atlas which Artemis had once used (and which Diana had kept) and flew into the air as the new Wonder Girl.

Recognizing Cassie’s spirit, Diana offered to train the young girl to be a true hero but Helena Sandsmark was against it. Cassie was determined though that she would be the new Wonder Girl, no matter what her mom said.

Due to several factors, the Justice League (and its spin-off groups) had disbanded. But when the cosmic powered Know-Man manipulated the human race to his own designs and made all of Earth’s heroes amnesiac, something had to be done to stop him. Regaining their memories, Superman and Batman went off to gather the heroes they trusted the most and reform the JLA. Thus, Wonder Woman was recruited as one of the founders for the reborn team. Standing alongside Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, the third Flash (Wally West) and the latest Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner), she once again had a spotlight in both the comic book universe and among comic readers as one of the icons of the DCU. With the Leaguers, she fought White Martians, renegade angels, the new Injustice Gang and others. Many fans felt that JLA writer Grant Morrison actually did a better job of portraying her as a formidable and inspirational hero than John Byrne was doing in the actual title where she was the main star.

During an adventure with Champion and the Challengers of the Unknown, Wonder Woman met the people of Lansinar, an ancient city that had been hidden beneath the ice of Antarctica ever since about the time of Atlantis. The beast-men of Lansinar had apparently helped Ancient Egypt rise but were later overturned by Alexander the Great and the Greek gods. Now, centuries later, the Lansinarians intended to move their city back to where it had once been but Diana pointed out the dangers of this plan, to Earth (due to seismic disruptions) and to the Lansinarians themselves. The Lansinarians agreed and thanked Diana for her help and advice, giving her a "morphing disc" — a translucent object that responded to the user’s mental desires to become whatever object or vehicle they desired. This was Byrne’s way of bringing back the invisible jet, but making it a mite cooler. Diana could make herself a translucent plane capable of carrying multiple passengers, fly at several times the speed of sound in a craft that was invisible to radar and then when she landed she could have the craft turn BACK into a disc and fit into her pocket. This was, all in all, a very cool new take on the invisible jet, though the Lansinarians were never seen again.

Hyppolyta eventually showed up again, wandering the streets of Gateway as a homeless woman called "Polly." But she and Diana found themselves, and the Themysciran Amazons, all turning into stone. Apparently, this was a side-effect of the Greek gods fully leaving Earth’s dimension, causing the Amazons to revert to their true natures (which didn’t make sense to me since only Diana was actually created out of clay, but I find myself often confused with some of Byrne’s stories). The Greek gods decided to come back in the end and the Amazons were restored. Cassie Sandsmarks also wound up getting an audience with Zeus, who decided the little girl had spunk and gave her natural super-powers of flight, heightened resistance to injury and great strength. Now, Cassie was definitely deserving of the title of "Wonder Girl."

And then Byrne decided that he didn’t want a comic book about Wonder Woman so much as a comic book that starred everyone BUT Wonder Woman. First, he had Diana and Artemis fight a battle with the demon lord Neron in which Wonder Woman suffered fatal injuries. She was brought back to Earth’s dimension and despite everyone’s best efforts, she died. But then it was revealed that the Greek gods had saved her soul and allowed them to join them on Olympus as the goddess of truth. Meanwhile, Hypollyta was now the new Wonder Woman, as penance for sins such as letting Artemis die in her daughter’s place and the like. Byrne had Polly dress in a costume that harkened back to the original Wonder Woman look of the Golden Age.

The WONDER WOMAN title thus now featured two sets of story. In several issues, the first set of stories starred Hypollyta (now "Polly" to her friends) adjusting to her role as Wonder Woman and showing that she was a lot more aggressive and bloodthirsty than her daughter (for one thing, Polly carried a sword). The second half of the issues were devoted to the adventures of Mike Schorr teaming up with Artemis and the demon Etrigan as they journeyed into Hell and encountered people like Merlin and Morgaine LeFey. The stories seemed very cluttered with expository dialogue and it was a bit odd when you realized that none of the supporting cast was really mourning Diana’s death since technically she was just chilling out on Olympus. And rather than have Diana explore her new role as a goddess, Byrne merely used her as a voice-box through which we readers learned secrets of the Greek and Roman gods that no one had actually wondered about in the first place. In Diana’s brief story scenes, she found out that long, long ago, Darkseid had come to Earth and had started having Roman worshippers refer to the Greek gods by new, different names. Since the Greek gods have power that stems from belief, this caused them all to split into two beings, thus dividing their power into halves. There were now the Greek gods and their new counterparts, the Roman gods. Not a bad idea, story-wise, but it seemed like it deserved its own comic or mini-series rather than being shoved into Wonder Woman’s title. I mean, ultimately, what does Diana care where the Roman gods came from?

And now Byrne got smart. With verteran hero Jay Garrick (the original Flash) accompanying her, Polly went back in time to the 1940s. She did this by simply going to Paradise Island and then leaving again, since Byrne explained that the island existed in all times simultaneously (which is really weird and doesn’t make sense because then how can anyone from one time period attack them and why does their history progress linearly?). Despite this dumb plot device, we got a fun story where Polly encountered the original Justice Society of America and even folks like Sgt. Rock and Easy Company. The story also showed Polly and the JSA fighting against a Nazi named Baroness Paula von Gunther (remember her?), who used mystical power to become the demonic "Dark Angel."

The story was fun, especially for the nod to the Golden Age arch-enemy, but also had some weak points. The paradoxes of time travel were not handled with much creativity and what’s more, it seemed like Byrne was again pointing out that Polly was not as cool as Diana or as the men on the team. When Hypollyta struck down Hawkman, Byrne had Jay Garrick explain that this was a lucky shot and wouldn’t have happened under normal circumstances. Little things like that seemed to undermine the character we were supposed to be rooting for.

Jay returned to the present day while Polly stayed in the past until 1949. Thus, Byrne had brought back the Golden Age history of Wonder Woman by saying that it was Diana’s mom who had bought back in those days. A great idea. The only way I would’ve liked the idea better was if it hadn’t involved time travel and had been there from the start. Meaning, I would’ve liked it if DC had said "Okay, so there’s this island full of Amazons. And during World War II, one of them became the Wonder Woman and fought Nazis. Then she retired and came back and made a daughter out of clay and then her daughter Diana became the new Wonder Woman for the modern age, taking up her mother’s mantle."

By restoring a Golden Age Wonder Woman to continuity, Byrne thus also helped make the character of Donna Troy make more sense. For years since the Crisis, fans had to deal with the paradox that the original Wonder Girl had been in operation as a hero years before Diana had come to Patriarch’s World. Even if you wanted to say the name was a coincidence, the fact was that Donna Troy’s early costumes had involved a lasso, bracelets and a similar style/color motif. Now, Byrne was able to say that Donna Troy had actually been inspired by stories of the Golden Age Wonder Woman. What’s more, it was said that when Diana first came to Patriarch’s World, she had been dubbed Wonder Woman by the press due to her similar appearance to a Golden Age hero of that name, a woman that Diana had not been able to find much info on because she’d been very secretive (and I guess because the JSA didn’t feel like explaining the whole time travel thing to her).

But then Byrne did what he’s often done to me. He gives me a good idea that I like and then SCREWS IT UP in the last few pages. Just as I was thinking that a continuity hiccup had been fixed, he went and made some continuity more confusing than before.

Years back, Donna Troy had divorced her husband Terry, the father of her child. Just as Polly was about to return from her time travel trip, Donna was dealing with the news that Terry and her child had been killed in a car crash. Thinking life couldn’t get much worse, Donna was then stunned to see Dark Angel appear before her and whisk her away. And as she vanished, so did everyone’s memory of her.

Polly remembered Donna still because she’d been outside of the present-day when the girl had been abducted. And Flash also remembered, since he’d been conducting Speed Force experiments and thus had been slightly out of phase with Earth’s reality. Together, they found out the truth. Donna Troy was actually a magically created clone of Diana who’d been brought into being long ago as a secret friend for the child who was surrounded by adults on Paradise Island. But Dark Angel came, wishing revenge against Polly for several defeats during the 1940s. Thinking the clone was the real Diana, Dark Angel took her away. Wishing to torture her as revenge against her mother, Dark Angel forced the child (whom she named Donna Troy) to live out a wonderful life and then have it marred by tragedy, only to then "reboot" her life backwards several years and live a new version of her existence, until tragedy struck again and then the cycle would repeat. Her life as a super-hero was only the latest of the many lives she’d led. Wishing to restore the friend they remembered and loved, Polly and the Flash, with some help from Diana herself, were able to bring back the Donna Troy they knew, recreating her from their memories.

Now you there. You, faithful reader. Go back and re-read that last paragraph. Tell me why on Earth you would put a story like that into a publish comic book title when it add absolutely nothing to the value of the character in question (Donny Troy) and only serves to give a back story that is not only somewhat confusing to longtime fans but it sure to scare away new comic book readers who are already wary of characters having long, complicated histories.

DAMN YOU, BYRNE!

Oh, and as punishment for helping to resurrect Donna Troy, Diana was made mortal again. So yeah, big punishment. You just go from being a goddess who didn’t really do anything to returning to your family and friends and your life as a beloved super-hero and ass-kicking member of the JLA. Wow, those Greek gods are tough.

So Diana was Wonder Woman again (with Polly only occasionally taking up her own version of the costume now and then to help out old JSA teammates or her daughter now and then) and Byrne left with issue #136. Although many fans would point out that they consider his run the low-point of the series (which is arguable considering some of Messner-Loebs’s bland stuff), I would point out that Byrne did give us Cassie Sandsmark as the new, fun Wonder Girl and also made Hyppolyta a much more interesting character than just "Wonder Woman’s mom."

ROTATINGS WRITERS … AGAIN!

With Byrne gone, it seemed like DC wasn’t sure what to do with Wonder Woman. Christopher Priest did two issues and then Eric Luke did a run that lasted twenty issues. Under Luke’s direction, Diana questioned her place in the world and her own existence. She made an enemy of the ancient god Chronus, who created a daughter, a villainous child called Devastation made to be an evil reflection of Diana. Eric Luke also had Diana separate herself a bit from the mortal world by having her morph-disc expand and transform into a large floating palace/base of operations that came to be called the Wonder Dome. This occurred in a story that guest-starred Batman and Superman and it was revealed that Diana sometimes fantasized about a life with Clark at her side. Eric Luke did a very good job of showing Batman and Diana show a friendship and respect that had not been seen between the two since Pre-Crisis days. Luke emphasized that Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman were a trio who shared a special friendship (which also hadn’t really been seen since the Pre-Crisis days) and thus he called the story "Trinity." Since then, it has become standard with fans and DC writers to refer to the big three of Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman as the DC Trinity. Matt Wagner even used the word as the title of his mini-series that depicted Diana’s first meeting with Batman and Superman.

Cassie Sandsmark had been operating as Wonder Girl for a while now, both in the WONDER WOMAN title and as a member of the team Young Justice. She’d continued wearing a black wig and large goggles to disguise her appearance. But in Eric Luke’s run, things changed. Diana appointed Artemis as Cassie’s mentor and when an emergency broke out, Artemis told Cassie to forget the damn disguise and just get to helping people. Cassie agreed and went around helping people, resulting in her image being captured by news cameras. No longer able to hide her identity, Cassie could now let her natural attractive appearance show instead of disguising her looks and she began wearing more form-fitting outfits as well. A couple of years later, John Byrne saw how attractive Cassie now appeared in her latest super-hero costume and claimed that this went completely against his intention when he created the character. Despite this criticism, fans of WONDER WOMAN and YOUNG JUSTICE found that Cassie was slowly growing into a well-rounded and interesting character (thanks in no small part to YOUNG JUSTICE writer Peter David who portrayed her as having strong leadership skills and as the backbone of the team, often reminding her teenage friends about the real issues at stake whenever they started bickering with each other). Cassie also began developing a crush on the young hero Superboy (an attempt to clone Superman) at this time. Eventually, she became the official leader of Young Justice.

When Eric Luke left, Phil Jimenez took over writing and art and immediately became compared to Perez due to their similar art styles. Jimenez displayed Diana’s talents outside of being a super-hero. He showed Diana appearing at diplomatic functions, representing Themyscira in ceremonial robes. She showed her conducting experiments in the JLA labs, displaying a keen interest in science. He also showed her as a traveling figure who didn’t limit her mission to America. It was shown that in France, Diana taught several prostitutes martial arts and self-defense techniques. She knew she would not be able to convince many of them to leave their life-style, but at least this way they would not be victims either. Diana was seen as a self-sufficient businesswoman of sorts, helping to run the Wonder Woman Foundation which spanned the globe through various charities. Jimenez also introduced a new love interest, Trevor Barnes, a world-travelling United Nations employee who did his best to make the world a better place for people. What’s more, Jimenez had the aristocracy of Paradise Island removed when Diana gave up her crown and Artemis and Phillipus were appointed leaders of Themyscira. This meant that Diana no longer wore a tiara, which was a symbol of her royalty, but later she adopted it again out of tradition.

Jimenez had been a big fan of the Wonder Woman TV series with Lynda Carter and incorporated some of those elements into the comic. A few times, we saw Wonder Woman spin and change into her costume in a magical flash of light and energy. She also showed that she had various looks for different occasions and missions (including a motorcycle jumpsuit that had previously only been seen worn by Lynda Carter). Jimenez also brought Donna back as a supporting cast member. Since Byrne’s stories had revealed that Donna was basically a clone of Diana (though younger and not identical anymore due to the manipulations of Dark Angel), Donna was now openly referred to as Diana’s younger sister and the two wound up sharing an apartment together.

In a story-arc involving a team-up between some of the nastier Greek deities and some of the inmates of Arkham, Jimenez pointed out that the Batman and Wonder Woman families were actually closer than most people realized. Donna Troy and Dick Grayson had been friends and teammates for years, Tim Drake (the current Robin) and Cassie were teammates and trusted allies in Young Justice, and Batman and Wonder Woman liked and respected each other far more than they let other people realize. Jimenez also pointed out how Wonder Woman was looked up to by other female heroes when he had Diana lead just about every single woman super-hero into battle against Circe.

During the crossover OUR WORLDS AT WAR, Hypollyta went into battle for the last time and was killed while fighting off the forces of the menace called Imperiex. Jimenez explored how Diana was devastated by the loss, though she was later able to communicate with her mother’s spirit and was allowed a proper goodbye. During OUR WORLDS AT WAR, Themyscira was nearly entirely destroyed. With the combined designs of Julia Kapatelis, Martian Manhunter, Steve Trevor and others, a new version of Themyscira was built with alien tech, blessed by the Greek goddess worshipped by the Themyscirans and the Egyptian goddesses worshipped by the Bana-Mighdallans. Diana sacrificed her Wonder Dome, letting the morphing disc create structures on the island and thus a new floating version of Themyscira was born. The cluster of small islands was now located in the Bermuda Triangle (possibly because Jimenez remembered that the Lynda Carter TV series implied that’s where Paradise Island was). A few months later, a conflict with Hera meant that the island floated no longer but was stable in the waters.

Jimenez also brought back Diana’s young friend Vanessa "Nessie" Kapetelis, who was resentful that Diana had seemingly forgotten about her ever since leaving Boston. Vanessa had suffered trauma before (her father had died and a friend had committed suicide), but this seeming abandonment by Diana, whom she had admired despite the fact that it had made her a target for menaces like Dr. Psycho, was made even worse when she saw on the news that some other young girl Diana had met later had become the new Wonder Girl. Hadn’t she known Diana first? Why hadn’t she been given such a gift?

Using her confused emotional state, Circe and Dr. Psycho had Vanessa transformed into the new Silver Swan, with mental conditioning and cybernetic implants. She was given a girdle, chest plate and bracelets to emphasize that she was Wonder Woman’s counterpoint. Diana was horrified by what had happened to her friend and after being forced to defeat her in battle, she took Nessie to a hospital in Buenos Aires to heal and for the doctors to see what could be done to restore her.

Jimenez also did a time travel story in which Wonder Woman went back in time, masqueraded as the Golden Age hero Miss America, and fought alongside her mother. A nice idea, but the execution was a bit forgettable sadly.

RELATIONS WITH OTHER HEROES

In the JLA story "The Obsidian Age", it looked like the team was about to die. Just before the end seemed near, Batman grabbed Diana and the two shared a kiss. Afterwards, Batman was very uncomfortable and attempted to avoid conversation with Diana. Finally, the two confronted each other and even looked at several "imaginary future" that showed possible outcomes if they pursued a romantic relationship. In the end, Diana decided it would be best if they stayed as friends and comrades. Despite this, a new bond had been forged between the two. When Donna Troy was apparently killed in the line of battle, Diana remained stoic and strong in front of everyone, including Superman. It was only when she was left alone with Batman that she finally let her emotions show, weeping in his arms at the loss of her friend and sister.

Although the romantic feelings between Batman and Wonder Woman has not been spoken of much at all in the comics, it became an ongoing joke in the JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED cartoon series. In that cartoon, Diana recognized she had feelings for Batman and made several advances towards him, too stubborn to listen when he tried to explain that a relationship with him was a bad idea. It was treated as very humorous and cute and a lot of fans of the cartoon enjoyed it.

For years, Superman had thought he was the last of the House of El. But then he found out his cousin Kara Zor-El had also survived the destruction of Krypton. Clark took her in, but Batman came to believe that the young Kryptonian needed a firmer hand to train her how to use and control her powers, as well as the company of females rather than an over-bearing male cousin. Batman contacted Diana and she took Kara to Themyscira where she, Artemis and other Amazons trained the young Kryptonian for weeks, helping her get ready for her upcoming career as the new super-hero called Supergirl. Because of this, Kara Zor-El looks at Diana as a trusted aunt of sorts and is more likely to look to her for advice than her cousin Clark.

Back to the main Wonder Woman title. When Jimenez left, Walt Simonson did a short story-arc in which Diana lost her powers and adopted an all-white costume (sound familiar?). After that six-issue story, Greg Rucka stepped in. Known for crime dramas and intrigue stories, Rucka automatically made Diana a controversial figure by focusing on the fact that her views on life and morality didn’t match up with everyone else’s (never mind the fact that she was training prostitutes in self-defense, but she was also a pagan and had grown up on an island exclusively filled with women, which made many suspicious of her sexuality). Rucka also brought in a new enemy named Veronica Cale, a businesswoman who wanted to tear Wonder Woman down, convinced she was a complete fake and that no one with that much power and that beauty could be morally perfect as well. She manipulated people and committed murder, all in an effort to eventually tarnish Diana’s image and prove to the general public that no one was born that good and true and noble.

Diana also seemed a bit more business like herself. We saw her spending a lot more time in the Themysciran embassy in New York. We saw her secretary and her staff and friends. Now, if Wonder Woman defeated someone on live television, she didn’t just wait for the next battle, we saw her deal with the potential political fall-out of it all. So basically, picture Diana as part of the cast of the West Wing where suddenly she was as worried about her public image as she was about actually fighting evil. Make up your own mind whether you like that or not.

Rucka also had Olympus redesigned. When we saw the Olympic gods, they’d mentally recrafted their environment to resemble the modern day American world. Rather than looking for ancient texts in leather bound tomes, they brought it up on their laptops while they walked around in modern day suits and outfits. The gods and goddesses got involved in some political games of their own and in the end Zeus and Hades were dethroned and replaced by Athena and Ares respectively.

Rucka also displayed just how much of a bad-ass Wonder Woman could be to make sure she didn’t lose a fight. While fighting the creature Medusa, Diana knew she had to make sure not to look at the monster in the eyes or she’d be turned to stone. So, she grabbed one of Medusa’s snakes and had it spit acid in her eyes, blinding her and making herself invulnerable to the villain’s magic. Then, blinded and weary, Diana managed to decapitate Medusa in front of a live-television audience. Eventually, Diana got her eye-sight back but then the world became a darker place. When she was forced to choose between maintaining Themyscira and protecting a large chunk of humanity, Diana chose the greater good and as a result the place was left in ruins, the morphing disc’s properties removed from the island. The Amazons saw this as a final testament that their sister considered herself more of Patriarch’s World than of Themyscira. And they weren’t the only ones who would feel betrayed.

INFINITE CRISIS

The DC universe was in a bad state. Heroes betrayed those who thought they were trusted comrades. Batman, having grown steadily more paranoid over the past few years, created an artificially intelligent satellite called Brother I (which later renamed itself as "Brother Eye") as a monitoring system to keep watch on all heroes in case they ever went rogue. But Maxwell Lord, formerly an ally to the Justice League, turned out to be a power-hungry madman and took over Brother Eye for his own means. In an effort to prove that superhumans were too dangerous to be trusted, Maxwell Lord took hypnotic control of Superman and forced the hero to go rogue, hospitalizing Batman and then attacking Wonder Woman. In Superman’s mind, he didn’t see Diana but rather Doomsday, his old enemy back and having just killed his wife Lois.

Knowing she couldn’t break this delusion by herself and fearful of what Superman would do if he couldn’t be stopped, how many lives he would take without realizing it, Wonder Woman wrapped Maxwell Lord up in her lasso and demanded to know if there was a way to free Superman from his control. Forced to tell the truth, Maxwell Lord simply said, "Kill me."

And Diana snapped his neck.

Superman was free from his hypnotic spell but shocked at what Diana had done, despite her argument that it was the only sure way to end things under the circumstances. Batman, who values life as highly as Superman, considered Diana’s action a betrayal. As if the disappointment of her friends was not bad enough, Brother Eye had broadcast footage of Diana’s actions across the world but without sound. The human race saw Wonder Woman tie up a well-known businessman and then snap his neck in cold blood, without any context to help them understand why.

Wishing revenge for the death of Maxwell Lord, its leader, Brother Eye sent OMACs to Paradise Island. OMACs were people who had been injected with nannites that would convert them into cyborg warriors capable of adapting to defeat various superhuman opponents. An army of such beings came down on Themyscira and many Amazons died. Seeing that they were going to die, the Amazons appealed to their pantheons. It turned out the gods and goddesses were going to leave Earth’s plane of existence, due to events during INFINITE CRISIS such as the fact that magical energies all over the universe were now more chaotic thanks to the acts of the Spectre, who’d been manipulated into trying to destroy all magic from the universe. The gods and goddesses offered to take the Amazons with them, away from Earth’s dimension. The Amazons agreed, seeing it as their only lifeline, but Wonder Woman chose to stay. Her place was on Earth.

With her people gone and her friends still distrustful, Diana wasn’t sure how she was to help fight the chaos that was consuming Earth and the universe. And then she was visited by the strangest of people. A version of herself, only older.

Remember how at the end of THE CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, it was said that the Wonder Woman of Earth-2 went to live on Olympus since her universe was gone? Turned out she’d been there the whole time, hiding out in her own little corner of the place. But now with all the chaos, she’d come to make sure Diana got her life back on track. The Earth-2 Diana told our Wonder Woman that for too long she’d been unable to decide what she was. She’d been torn between being a diplomat or a super-hero or a warrior or even a goddess (which was a very nice criticism of how the title had had little consistency for years with each writer having a different view of what they wanted Diana to be). And the Earth-2 Diana said, "The one thing you haven’t been for a very long time … human." She reminded her younger counterpart to stop questioning herself so much and be true to her instincts and her nature and then told her she had to join in the battle, to help her friends.

Diana joined the battle and found her confidence restored. At the end of INFINITE CRISIS, the day was saved and what’s more, reality was altered again. Some of Diana’s silver age history came back. For instance, she and the rest of the world now remembered her as one of the founding members of the JLA and not Black Canary, which was how it had originally been Pre-Crisis. What’s more, Donna Troy’s original origin (an orphan raised on Paradise Island and becoming Diana’s sidekick as the first Wonder Girl) was also restored.

However, Diana wasn’t about to just go back to business as usual. To ensure she didn’t lose touch with herself again, and believing she’d tarnished the reputation of Wonder Woman by killing Maxwell Lord in cold blood, she decided to start a new life as a human being. With Batman’s help, she established the cover identity of Diana Prince and, taking an idea from Clark Kent, took to wearing tinted glasses and altering her hair and voice while in this disguise. For a year, most people didn’t know where she was, including her friends and loved ones. Only Batman and his own troops knew Diana’s whereabouts.

Without Diana to provide guidance, Cassie fell into a deep depression. After the death of Donna Troy, who’d been a role model, Cassie had continued her career as Wonder Girl as a member of the newest version of the Teen Titans. And while on that team, she and Superboy (Connor Kent) finally admitted their feelings to each other and began dating. Connor provided strength for Cassie, especially because her life got more complex when Ares gave her her own version of the lasso, this one empowered by anger to release power energy bolts. Having never known her father, she wondered if this was evidence that Ares was in fact her father. Later, she’d found it she was actually the bastard child of Zeus himself, making Ares her brother.

When INFINITE CRISIS occurred, Cassie found her powers going haywire due to the Greek gods leaving Earth’s dimension. With the chaos all around, she looked for comfort in Connor. The two spent the night together and the next day Connor went into the battle with Earth’s heroe, where he sacrificed himself to help preserve the universe.

Superboy’s death affected Cassie greatly and that, along with Diana’s disappearance (which she took as abandonment), caused Wonder Girl to desperately search for a way to bring Connor back from the dead. Eventually, she came to grips with the fact that her lover was gone and she had to move on. She ditched her costume and adopted a simple Wonder Woman t-shirt and jeans, emulating Superboy’s own outfit which had been a Superman t-shirt with jeans. She later rejoined the Teen Titans, though still held resentment towards Diana for simply leaving her and towards Robin when she found out the teenage detective knew Diana whereabouts and hadn’t told her (out of respect for Diana’s privacy).

Months later, Diana visited the mystic city of Nanda Parbat, where Batman was spending a spiritual retreat. There, Diana was visited by the spirit known as Rama Kushna and she told the heroine that in having now known failure, shame and regret in their truest sense for the first time in her life, she had truly come to understand human nature better. Soon after that, Diana met with a mystic named I-Ching, but what happened with that is unknown. Around the same time, the World Court dropped the charges on Wonder Woman for the killing of Maxwell Lord, unless any evidence was brought to the contrary.

ONE YEAR LATER …

Donna Troy: Wonder Woman!

Months later, almost one full year after Diana had vanished from the public eye, Donna Troy took on the role as the new Wonder Woman, donning a more armored version of the costume. And not long after that, Diana made herself known to Donna and Cassie, revealing that she was now working for the Department of Metahuman Affairs as Agent Diana Prince and was partnered with DC espionage hero Nemesis. At the end of the adventure, Diana stepped back into her role as Wonder Woman, wearing a slighly altered version of her outfit (new WW belt and a more leather like appearance).

In recent issues of MANHUNTER, Diana had Kate Spencer AKA Manhunter find a video tape that proved Maxwell Lord was controlling Superman when Diana killed him. But Diana requested the tape not be used, for fear it would not clear her name so much as it would cause suspicion to fall on Superman (who’s certainly gone rogue under mental control more than once).
The name’s Prince. Diana Prince.

The tale of Diana’s return to the role of Wonder Woman was done by Allan Heinberg, but he wasn’t allowed to finish the storyarc within the Wonder Woman title itself (possibly due to delays in completing scripts). DC made him stop before the last chapter and told him he could publish that as a separate spin-off one-shot, since they wanted to bring on new writer Jodi Picoult, whose run is supposed to tie-in to the upcoming AMAZONS ATTACK! cross-over (in which the Amazons are to return and attack Washington D.C.). Heinberg was doing a decent story and I found the interruption (especially after a cliffhanger ending) unwarranted. Also, Picoult seems to not understand Diana. Diana has been walking among us for years and her history as one of the first super-heroes of the modern age has been restored. What’s more, she spent a year between INFINITE CRISIS and her return to super-heroing as a "normal human being". Yet in her first issue, Picoult showed that Diana had no idea how to work a subway turn style or how to order coffee at a Starbucks. This would’ve made sense if the story took place many years ago. Also, when talking to Nemesis about the distrust the public feels towards Wonder Woman, Diana sheds a tear. This is not the strong, confident hero who learned to stop doubting herself during INFINITE CRISIS.

Now that she was back in action, Wonder Woman met with Batman and Superman and together they recently reformed the Justice League of America. So once again, Diana is at the forefront of DC’s premiere super-hero team.

Gail Simone is coming on board to the Wonder Woman title soon and I am please, as I think she will bring us back a version of Diana who is feminine but also very strong, iconic yet relatable. A character who truly deserves her place as one of the DCU’s big three along with Batman and Superman. We’ll have to wait and see.

And that’s all for now folks. Hope you enjoyed this look over Wonder Woman and her complex (and sometimes sad) history. Sorry it took so long. Cheers!

Alan Kistler is a New Yorker in his mid-twenties. He’s a would-be filmmaker who works freelance as a "comic book historian", a label he got from several of his readers. He enjoys the title very much and loves the opportunity of writing these articles for Monitor Duty, run by the ever-patient Michael Hutchison. His livejournal/fan-fiction can be found HERE. He would love to write for DC and Marvel some day. He also wants to time travel.
Alan Kistler
Other articles by Alan Kistler, including various other Profiles posted on Monitor Duty, can be found HERE.

If you’re just interested in J’onn’s recent appearances on SMALLVILLE, skip ahead to PART TWO.

That’s all for now. Enjoy!