#Brainwave Jr

[evilhorse]

Infinity Inc. and Batman and the Outsiders house ads (from Jonni Thunder A.K.A. Thunderbolt #3 circa June 1985)

[usedgingertwinkhole]

Hank: I consent!

Jen: I consent!

Todd : I DON'T!

[cavalierzee]

End Racist Pro-Israel Media Coverage

[brainwavejrsgaybarforstraightmen]

New amazing idea for a Hank event! Event where you can ship Hank with anyone as long as they're a (canonically) straight man. Anyone includes Batman characters as long as you read Infinity Inc. (1984) first). It includes Jason Todd.

[onlylonelylatino]

Where's Stripesy? by Fred Hembeck

[star-spangledblog]

Valentine's Day is in one week! Share some love with these star spangled sillies!

[infinityinc4ever]

Infinity, Inc by Fred Hembeck

[somewherefornow]

INFINITY INC. in CONVERGENCE: INFINITY INC. (2015)

[comicpolls]

[theflashzoom]

Infinity Inc Summer Swimsuits Cards

Hope all of you have a good summer holidays.

[dcdreamblog]

Speaking of Infinity Inc, didn't half of those guys go evil or something (Northwind, Silver Scarab, Atom Smasher, Brainwave Jr., the aforementioned Obsidian, etc)? What was up with that team?

What a very rude way to phrase that when you're talking about people's trauma. I'm going to assume well meaning ignorance and answer this as professionally as possible.

First of all, as much as you might think otherwise from how I casually communicate. My profession doesn't like to throw around the term "evil" lightly. It's too easy. When we study supervillains or other extranormal criminals to simply label them "evil" is to at once dismiss their humanity and also let them off the hook for their actual motivations. Supervillains aren't evil. They're greedy, or bigoted, or arrogant. These are human beings. They make choices. Often not good ones but to ignore the root of the problem is to allow it to keep sprouting under our feet. The four people you cite. That is Norda Cantrell, Hector Hall, Albert Rothstein and Henry King Jr respectively, not counting Obsidian. 2 of them made choices that the majority (including me to be clear) disagree with and the other two were swept up in circumstances outside their control. The controversy surrounding 3 of these men has to do with, of course, the Kahndaqian Revolution and following Black Marvel Crisis.

(A photograph taken from the body camera of a deceased Bialyan mercenary. Showing Cantrell, King and Rothstein on the right side alongside Black Adam, Eclipso and Nemesis)

I'm sure most people are familiar with the broad outline. The superhuman Black Adam engineers a violent revolution against Kahndaq's military dictator Asim Muhunnad with the unwitting help of the Justice Society. Installing himself as Kahndaq's unquestioned and beloved ruler, Adam assembles these so called "Champions of Kahndaq"

Rothstein and Cantrell are there by their own free will. Having become disillusioned with the moral limits placed upon superheroes in the general community, namely the limit on killing their opponents. Cantrell because of a violent attempted genocide on his people, the Feitherians and Rothstein because of trauma related to the death of his mother causing him to murder the villain Extant to return her to life. After the confrontation between the JSA and Black Adam, Rothstein was medically dead for a short period. Brought back to life by Adam's lightning and returned to America for treatment, Rothstein had begun to question Adam's motives and especially his dictatorial attitude. Pleading guilty to his international crimes he received a pardon after rejoining the JSA in their clash against Adam regarding his attempted genocide in Bialya. As of this moment he remains a member of the modern JSA in good standing having paid his debt to society and having proven his valor in standing up against his former ally at risk of his own life. I cannot force you to forgive him but to call him evil is to undersell the complexity of his motives and actions. Cantrell, as of this time is still loyal to Adam mostly due to Adam's support for turning part of Kahndaq into an autonomous homeland for the Feitherian people. I have complicated sympathies for that situation but would also not call it evil. King's membership here became much more complex than it appeared. King struggled for years due to guilt associated with his father, the original Brainwave and their shared powerset and mental illness. Like Obsidian, King was affected by the collapse of Infinity Inc and his support system. Exacerbated, it turns out, by a his brain being infected by the alien parasite Mr Mind, feeding on King's telepathic abilities and exacerbating his violent urges. When Mr. Mind was removed from his brain, King was placed under the care of his mother and has been retired ever since. Again, not evil, not even truly making choices in his own right mind in this case. Simply a vulnerable young man being taken advantage of by a nonhuman creature. And the Silver Scarab, AKA Hector Hall is a bit of an old example to bring up. Because all of that mystic hullabaloo that caused him to attack his teammates also wound up killing the man seemingly for several years until he was resurrected in possession of his faculties and is now the person active under the identity of Doctor Fate and he has been for an extended period by now. The superhero life is traumatic. I can only imagine the kind of stresses it places a person under, especially teenagers who are laboring under the expectations of legacies that overshadow everything about their lives. To simply say they "went evil" like it was a switch on the back of their head is to undercut the actual stories that these people went through and the lessons that we might learn from them. Or simply the acceptance that our fellow humanity, even super-humanity, is fragile and vulnerable even when we have the best of intentions for ourselves and those we care for.

[dcsnextgaycharacter]

*sighs* would you give Hank/Cameron a chance if I brought up the uncle murder or....

[do-you-ship-this-comic-ship]

propaganda:

This one got sent over by @do-you-ship-it-polls however I am quickly adding context to the propaganda because this ship is from my own fan theory

Because Sandy was so gay coded in JSA (1999) and the entire fanbase thought that Sandy was closeted (and there's online discussion of whether he could date Todd), and the early writers wrote a scene where Sandy was having a dream of the future and right before he woke up Hank was highlighted in the stars (implying that he would be... you know... important, and lowkey him being in the stars is kind of romantic) but then Geoff Johns took over and the only story they interacted in made sure that Sandy had a het ship be the most important aspect and then immediately had said het ship partner date Hawkman once Hank was gone... Geoff Johns this is suspicious.

Fellas is it gay to enter the mind of a tortured man and piece his psyche back together, resulting in you knowing him back to front, and having a tense unmentioned friendship (you didn’t even know each other before this happened) because if you actually spoke about it you might fall in love immediately

[fancyfade]

I love it when comic characters thought bubbles show the bitchy/sarcastic/passive aggressive thoughts they don't say like I wish I'd been keeping track in infinity inc bc it's been more than this once but here brainwave Jr is like out loud: "I think my dad brainwave Sr may be telling the truth" and then he thinks "for a change"

[splooosh]

Not the Super Squad

Tom Grummett