I grew up a Marvel rat, and freely admit that I'm not 100% up to snuff on 70's DC minutiae, including the "Satellite Era" of the JLA. But I'm sure that someone out there can enlighten me:*Obviously, it's not based on Earth tech...I'm assuming it's derived from Martian or Rannian or Thanagarian technology, or some combination.
*I dimly recall from the 70's that you couldn't just beam up/down from anywhere...there were specific transport points hidden in the home cities of Leaguers.
Yet that doesn't seem to be the case nowadays. During the "Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul" arc, for example, Nightwing uses Batman's "emergency override" code to teleport from a random New York City alley to the grounds of Wayne Manor.
*So what are the limitations on its use? Is there some restriction on the number of people, or the number of times it can be used? In that same arc Dick flies a jet to Tibet, and at the end he and Tim and Bruce fly back, despite being wounded--so why didn't they teleport? So can it be used only for JLA business, and the emergency override was a one-time card used up? (That would make no sense, of course)
*And really, why don't the Leaguers use their teleporter more often? Aside from Flash and Superman, it's got to be much faster for, say, Wonder Woman to teleport to Rio than fly her magic plane. So why don't we see them use it more often?
*And what about letting others use it? I understand such technology could be very dangerous in the wrong hands, but when you've got famines and floods and alien invasions and cities being wiped out, what rationale do the JLA give for not using their teleporter to immediately get relief supplies where needed, or evacuate New Orleans and Bludhaven, or whatever?
*And when bad guys break into JLA headquarters (The Least Secure Headquarters in Comics®), why don't they, you know, steal such an incredibly valuable piece of alien (?) technology and sell it on the black market to Luthor or the dictator of Evilastan, instead of raping the women and beat up the men??
Just askin'.
UPDATE:
In addition to a number of suggestions in the comments, we may have a new theory (although maybe not). This week's JLA Classified #50 by Stern and Byrne implies that the Watchtower transport tubes were based on the work of Dr. Erdel, whose experiments had accidently brought J'onn J'onzz to Earth in the first place.
Of course, if so, that means their teleporter is based on human technology, so there's no Prime Directive or such preventing them from sharing it with humanity in general. Which once again begs all of the questions I asked above, and would make us wonder why the JLA is the one who gets to decide what tech is safe for humans to have and what tech isn't...heading into Authority land here...
Shut up! You're introducing logic and common sense into superhero comics! Shaddap! Shaddap! Shaddaaappp!
ReplyDeleteSorry. I do that sometimes...
ReplyDeleteMy dim recollection is that the whole satellite was built with Thanagarian tech and so were the transporters. Like in Star Trek they do tend to become a deus ex machina sometimes used and sometimes ignored as plot dictates.
ReplyDeleteThey should really have left it as specific tubes (so you can beam to that particular phonebooth in Metropolis, but not anywhere else in town).
...or why not just teleport supervillains right back into the prison/insane asylum of choice?
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's definitely a bad idea to apply too much logic to this stuff.
The last thing I remember reading mentioned that all the fancy JLA tech - including the transporters - were a mix of Thanagarian, Martian and Kryptonian science. I think.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I always had the impression that the League members mostly just used the tubes to get to meetings on the satellite. It was like taking the elevator to whatever floor the Marketing Department was on.
The JLA satellite was constructed with a combination of Kryptonian & Thanagarian science. I forget if this was mentioned in JLA 70 or 130.
ReplyDeleteThe teleporter must be Kryptonian since an early Hawkman story (issue 7 IIRC) showed Hawkman eager to study some ancient Egyptian transporter tech since Thanagar didn't have any.
As for how it worked, hoo boy, it varied depending on the writer.
There were transporter tubes in various cities, but other stories allowed for a more Star Trek like beam-em anywhere feature.
Surprisingly even non-JLAers were occasionally allowed to use it.
By way of an update, this week's JLA Classified implies that the Watchtower transport tubes were based on the work of Dr. Erdel, whose experiments had accidently brought J'onn J'onzz to Earth in the first place.
ReplyDeleteOf course, if so, that means their teleporter is based on human technology, so there's no Prime Directive or such preventing them from sharing it with humanity in general. Which once again begs all of the questions I asked in the post, and wsould make us wonder why the JLA is the one who decides what tech is safe for humans to have and what tech isn't...