Five Other Champions of Metropolis

Superman is well known for being the champion of Metropolis. It's his city and the residents love him as much as he loves them. He has fought many foes in that city and it's impossible to not connect the two.

However, Superman can't be everywhere and do everything. What about the smaller problems like street gangs? Or organized crime that are smart enough to work around Superman? This is why Metropolis has had other defenders over the years. Sometimes they work alone and other times they work with Superman, and while none are as well known or loved as The Man of Steel it's all part of the same never ending battle. Here are five:

Black Lightning

Even Metropolis has to have a slum section, and as you can expect a city as big as this one would have a large section of poverty. It's called Suicide Slum and is where Black Lightning first made his home when he first appeared. He was a teacher who donned the mask to help out his students. It makes sense, Superman can handle the big threats but who can handle the small one's that happen in parts of the city? I have no idea what his modern origin is these days. 

Top 10 Season 7 Star Trek-TNG Episodes

 The other day I talked about how Trek Season 3 did have some good episodes in it. Another much maligned season of Trek was Season 7 of TNG. Unlike TOS, which had a bad season because of budget constraints and being screwed by the network, TNG was screwed over by it own creators, Thanks to attention being on other projects like DS9, a new series and an upcoming movie a lot of episodes were rushed and/or made when they should not have been. But that doesn't mean they were all horrible. Here are ten episodes which I think were decent if not realty good from tat year. And again, just opinion.

#10.Lower Decks

This one is high because, much like last time, I do not care for the episode. I halted it at first and have come to appreciate the concept. It is interesting to see what the regular crew are doing when we are usually watching the senior officers. But the episode is still dull to me. 

Top 10 Season 3 Star Trek Episodes

 When people think of Trek Season 3 they usually think it was all bad. Including Spock's brain which is covered last time. But I still maintain there were some good episodes. Were they perfect? No the budget cuts were always pretty glaring even when the script was decent. I don't think any come close to the quality episodes we got the first two seasons. That being said, it's not fair to toss the whole season in the trash as if there was nothing good. 

So as proof, here are my top 10  best episode from Season 3 of TOS. Of course this is opinion 

#10. All Our Yesterday's

This is an awkward choice because I never cared about this episode. It's a derivative time travel story with no stakes, because you know Kirk, Spock and McCoy are gonna make it back at the end. So why list it? This episode is memorable for the scenes with Spock and Zarabth played by Mariette Hartley. And there scenes are well done, with the story here resonating into follow up books later. So while I never got into it, it deserves a nod for being a well written episode.

Underrated Trek:Spock's Brain (TOS)

Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. Star Trek has plenty of episodes which are less than perfect. But would you believe there's an episode so bad and so silly..that much like "The Room" it really has to be seen to be believed? This is...

I said four years ago I would never talk about this one because I think it's as stupid as everyone else does. But what makes it "so bad it's good"? 

Five Things I Liked in "Beetlejuice"

In 1988 a then relatively unknown director named Tim Burton arrived with a new horror comedy movie. The movie was called Beetlejuice, and was a monster hit. Even I saw it, and was expecting to hate it since it was a genre I hate. However, there is just something about this movie that makes it impossible not to enjoy it. The movie of course is...

In honor of Halloween, and it's thirty anniversary that I totally ignored, let's discuss this film. It came out March 1988 and I still remember how my whole school was talking about it. Normally I list bad things in a good movie. But since it's Halloween, and finding anything bad in this movie is very hard, I decided to discuss the five things I love about this movie. 

Scary and Funny

Its often hard for a movie to settle on one tone, let alone managed to successfully handle two. And yet this movie does, being down right scary at times and really funny. A great example is when Delia and Otho look into the closet and Barbara pulls her face off. Not realizing Delia and Otho cannot see her. The scene is horrific and funny in a way only Tim Burton could pull off.

Ten Least Favorite Members of Justice League of America

 

So I talked about my favorite characters in the Legion and the JSA. The next logical discussion is the Justice League. I have loved the idea of the JLA for as long as I can remember. There is just one problem, the best heroes are all characters I have discussed a thousand times already. So maybe to discuss the JLA, the best thing to do is discuss the members I do not like. The heroes that either contributed nothing or were just plain uninteresting. And yes, I am covering all versions of the team through the years. Well, ok not all. Through the 90's the team was formed and disbanded a bunch of time. Since New 52 there have been a million different versions of the League. That being said, here are my ten least favorite league members. 

The JLA was created in the silver age by writer Gardner Fox. The idea was to reimagine the JSA, which we discussed before. And to be fair, they did pre date the Avengers by a few year's. 

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Snapper Carr 

I brought this guy up before but it worth going over him again. Back in the Golden Age it was of course common for every super hero to have a kid sidekick. This applied to team's as well. JSA had Johnny Thunder, and JLA had Snapper Carr. He was annoying and useless, and DC has tried to reinvent the character many times over the years.

Ten Favorite Members of Justice Society of America

 Before Batman took over I discussed my favorite members of the Legion of Superheroes. I decides that it was time to do the same with the grandaddy of all superhero teams. That's right...

It was editor Sheldon Mayer and writer Gardner Fox who conceived the idea all the wya back in 1940 (hey, that makes them 80 years old!) as a way to get all the golden age heroes together in one book. The team faded after World War II only be revived as existing on Earth 2, and appearing in several crossover's with the JLA. After Crisis the team was retired, then brought back, then trimmed down and finally got a great new series in the 90's. A series I never read, though I have heard great things. While I never loved the team or members, I always did have a fascination for them. In universe they were united by FDR at the height of World War II to fight Hitler! 

So let's run down my favorite members, and no we will not discuss the All Star Squadron here, just JSA. the All Stars are another story entirely! Though since this team isn't quite as huge, I will include modern day members as well as the original one's. Like the Legion article these are no particular order.

Flash

Jay Garrick is an awesome character, and even though his uniform was a little silly he was still a great hero. Jay was the first Flash and inspired all after him. True, I know mostly his more modern appearances but you can't deny what this character started. His orign was kind of silly involving hard water of all things.