Chatting With Your Kids

Around the turn of the century a buddy of mine decided to get married and do the whole family thing. Considering that he, much to the surprise of the gene pool, had actually found someone to procreate with, we – his friends – all gave our support. Long story short, he now has a 10 year old daughter, a 9 year old son and a vasectomy. All good calls. What that means is that for the last decade his view of pop culture has been Sesame Street and, now, Nickelodeon. Nothing wrong with that. However he has missed a memo or two. In his case he missed the memo that the DC universe released a cartoon called Justice League Unlimited from 2001 to 2006. The series was geared towards more mature viewers with a slant to keep it acceptable for those 12 and above. My smart readers may have noted that my buddy’s kids are younger than that. That is now a salient point.

Now is the time I must disclose that I am a fan of the series and have the DVD collection. It is reason #127 why I am not allowed to procreate.

Now is also the point where I note that my buddy, like millions of others, stopped thinking about Batman when Adam West stopped portraying him. This is also very important here today.

In that TV series everyone spoke in HERO VOICES. When the cartoon Superfriends, also a collection of HERO VOICES, came out in the 70’s a lot of people, including my buddy, equated it with The Justice League. They were wrong.

That was a extremely homogenized, acceptable to 6 year olds, version of what was going on. The Wonder Twins were not that family friendly in the comic book universe.

Anyway, the latest version of Justice League Unlimited, sans Wonder Twins, has recently started to be re-broadcast on WGN here in Chicago.

Thus doth our story begin.

My buddy figured that Batman, et al, was safe TV and used the time-slot to baby sit his kids while he did important stuff like make breakfast.

First off the new cartoon, unlike the old TV show, introduced the world to a character called “The Question.” Unlike the goody two shoes mythos that permeated the TV when you were a kid, he would kill people. A great example is when he handed a group of villains their grenades and then, after a wonderful pause, tossed the pins to them. People who know what hand grenades can do can figure out the rest.

In other words, screw incarceration or rehabilitation, just kill the SOB’s.

In the series he ends up dating The Huntress who was kicked out of the Justice League for killing a mafia don. Her explanation? “He deserved it.”

In other words, she kills too.

Their love story is a second string plot in the series.

The third string plot, that covers multiple episodes, is the fact that Green Arrow is banging Black Canary (a white woman in fishnets for you 3 Tea Party fans who read this blog).

In other words this is a much darker, but not as explicit, cartoon than you might expect.

We can even ignore the whole Wonder Woman + mind control episode that immortalized the greatest chick fight in history. As to why a muscular woman who likes to hang out with other muscular women and likes to run her fingers across the skin of young muscular girls (episode 10, Paradise Lost, where she is exiled for working with men) wants to have sex with Batman all you really get is …

Well, jeez, he’s the freaking Batman.

Anyway, I bring all this up to mention to parents that they should not make assumptions based on their childhood. If they do they will end up calling me in a panic asking why the hell Green Arrow is a horn dog and there’s there is a nutcase named The Question on their TV who is willing to kill and wants to get in the leather panties of the hot chick who has issues and …..

Oh, and no, I don’t do house-calls.

You can figure it out with five minutes of research all on your own.

And, if you have kids, that research is worth your time.

Justice League Hex Girls from Samoyeds7

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.