Back in 1996, Kenner discovered they could make some neat looking translucent plastic. And lo! A toyline was born! TOTAL JUSTICE - the strongest heroes in the DC universe, with see-through armour (or 'fractal techgear', as the geniuses at Kenner called it).
What this toyline needed though, was a comic book tie-in series. Enter Priest, and this odd 3-part mini-series which came out of the JLA office, is officially in continuity (it takes place just before Morrison's run), and features everybody's 'favourite' USENET personality, Michael A. Chary as a talking Parademon (one of Darkseid's normally nameless and speechless army). Also includes the first in-comic use of 'Crab-Faced Guy' to refer to GL Kyle, and some rather atrocious art.
Don't get me wrong, I do love Priest, but I think part of the fun of reading his comics in the late 1990s was following the drama on USENET. Would he forget another of Steel's relatives or get distracted by Louise Simonson's rather eccentric race-politics of the earlier run? Would he put Giant Talking Robot Monkey Space Pirates in Ka-Zar this month, or would it just be another instalment of the floating flamewar between him and J0hanna over DC's rather shoddy treatment of Xer0? Good times...
― carson dial (carson dial), Friday, 26 August 2005 10:23 (twenty years ago)