Untold Tales of the JLI: Easy Like Sunday Morning

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

I decided to go back to my archieves and polish up some of my stories. I did this for a number of reasons. After reading through some of these stories, many months later, I saw that I had a tendency to be very skimpy on descriptive passages. If you were an avid fan of Giffen and DeMatteis's League this wasn't a problem. However, some people came over and became fans after Formerly Known As the Justice League and I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League. For them, the descriptive passage might help them enjoy the story more.

Another reason that I went back to this story was that I really wanted to add a little more to the dialogue in order to make it flow better.

The final reason I went back to this story was that I hope to get back into the swing off writing as it has been several months since I've written anything. I thought that going back to polish up some of my older stories might be a nice reintroduction back into writing.

Some people have asked me where I came up with the idea for a Blue Beetle/Power Girl pairing. So, I'm gonna tell ya. Here's the story: the idea first came up a few years ago on DC Comics Messageboards. Someone started a thread that, I believe, was called "Superhero Hook-ups", in which the reader was asked to hook-up two heroes. I chose my favorite character, Blue Beetle (NO! Someone with the screenname blubeetle3 is really a BLUE BEETLE FAN! Shocking! Unheard of!).

I looked at Beetle's (admittedly sparse) comic relations: Tracey from the Charlton comics and Melody Case in the DC comics, and came to some snap conclusions. Beetle's attracted to smart women (Tracey was his lab assistant. Mel a research scientist.) that he works or has worked with. Beetle's crush on Oracle (Barbara Gordon, formerly Batgirl) in the Birds of Prey comics only supports this conclusion.

Smart women in comics, however, are not uncommon. So, I took it to the next level - exceptionally smart women. That narrowed the list down some. Narrowed it to the point that I almost skipped right over Power Girl. Like a lot of guys, I thought of her physical endowments before her intellect. But, then I remembered that Power Girl's alter ego was the C.E.O. of a software company.

And then it all clicked together!

Beetle is hardware, Power Girl is software. They're involved in related, though not similar, fields.

No question that Beetle would be interested in Power Girl (what guy isn't?). The question was: Would Power Girl be interested in Beetle? And looking through Power Girl's romantic involvements in comics, it became clear that it was just as dismal as Beetle's! Here was one of the hottest characters in comics, yet, it seemed that she couldn't find anyone to make her happy. So, I tried to delve into the character and think of why. And the answer I came up with was that P.G. always thought men were more interested in her physical assets as opposed to her intellectual assets. She was a computer geek stuck in Jayne Mansfield's body.

So, I floated the idea that a Blue Beetle/Power Girl hookup was a match made in Heaven. A technogeek that loves smart women and a computer geek that wants to be loved for her mind! GENIUS! PERFECTION!

...And then I quickly forgot about after posting it!

A couple of years later, in the pages of I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold go to the JSA brownstone in order to recruit Power Girl into the Superbuddies. P.G. ignores Booster and gives Beetle a BIG OL' HUG and tells him that SHE MISSES HIM!

WTF!

Now, I was a huge fan of the G&D League - none bigger! - BUT, I never remembered Beetle and P.G. being this chummy! I was shocked. Where did this come from? Did they... you know? And then I remembered that post to that thread from a few years early and came to the conclusion that...

KEITH GIFFEN STOLE MY IDEA! (You're welcome, Keith!)

...Either that or great minds think alike. One of the two. I can't decide.

So, for those asking where the idea came from... BLAME KEITH GIFFEN!