Klaarsh Reunion! AKA: Ted, did you really need to talk Tora and Bea into being your beards?
Caveat: I might indeed actually write a longer, more in-depth review of this tale when I get more into that era, but I wrote this to go on Boosterrific along with Walter’s view on this issue/story. Which you can (and should!) find and review yourself here. The downside is that I didn’t get to post it, because something glitched either on his site or in my browser. The upside is that I saved it, so now you get to read it here with added images.
ANYWAY!
This is one of my favorite short stories for a number of reasons. First, because I love the art: Ted's rarely looked so dashing and everyone else is well-rendered, too. (And Ted SHOULD be able to pull off dashing, dangit; my opinions on his nerfing in the JLI and after are on record.) The art isn't always perfect, but it's pretty damn decent and super charming to boot:
You can almost guarantee that Ted Kord did not dress himself given his usual fashion sense:
Second, the story itself is also darling and the date and timeline makes sense in context, as this would put Ted – who graduated early, IIRC – in his mid-twenties during his solo and at the beginning of the JLI. The location less-so, but I'm totally willing to overlook it for a fun romp like this.
But even more awesome is Ted actually getting to use his brains and clever their way out of the situation, and everyone getting to have a piece in their victory. The teamwork on display between the four JLIers is terrific and I adore it, and Ted stepping into a leadership role makes a lot more sense if you've read his solo and gained an appreciation for him as a truly competent and multi-faceted hero in his own right. (Later, he’s leading the JLI in Convergence and that’s always made sense to me.)
In fact, EVERYONE is competent here, and that's both a relief and a joy after the regular dysfunction of the Giffen/DeMatteis League.
(I do have opinions about Friedman as an author, but those are entirely unrelated to his work in comics and have more to do with his work as a Trek novelist. LOL! In this story, I think he knocks it out of the park, though like Walter says, it does take some suspension of disbelief.)
Third, there is something wildly and delightfully queer about three of the most queer-reading JLIers accompanying Ted to his high school class reunion, in fancy dress, for apparently no other given reason than friendship.
While I tend to read Ted as mostly straight (though if he would make an exception, it surely would be Booster), I absolutely feel like Bea, Tora and Booster are all queer as hell and pretty much constantly act like it — heck, it essentially goes from implied to stated, and not subtly, for Bea later after Tora's death in her dysfunctional thing with Sigrid, that her feelings for Tora were/are more complicated than 'just best buddies' — so you could read this tale as friendship, but you could ALSO legitimately read it as 'Ted talks his de facto husband into going to his class reunion and then also talks the other ambiguously gay duo there into acting as their beards.' LOL!
(And no, I don't think Tora dating Guy precludes that; frankly, there's not a single core member of the JLI who can't be read as at least slightly bent at some point or another. Or completely bent in some cases. Yes, even Max.)
And I mean— for all the whinging Booster does, he does indeed dress up very pretty and go with.
Anyway, it's a genuinely entertaining story, made no less so by the arrival of the rest of the team, with interesting appearances by the largely JLE-based members and everyone getting to show off their stuff. The ending wraps up it up with a smile and it makes for a pretty good introduction if you want to get people into the JLI without them having to navigate the sometimes very painfully dated humor of the late 80s and early 90s, and for a reminder that these people are bonafide superheroes and not just jokes.
And thanks to Walter for nudging us to share our thoughts!
