And Now...A Totally Random Observation:

I sometimes wonder who decides which celebrities get to appear as contestants on Dancing With The Stars. About 8 years ago, actress Daniella Monet campaigned on social media to drum up interest in seeing her appear on the show...it sounded like a great idea, but she has yet to appear on the show...especially since she co-starred with popstar Ariana Grande on the sitcom Victorious for all of its 3 seasons. It's simple arithmetic of fame=merit×association.

So..8 years later..and she's still not on Dancing With The Stars?!

And thus concludes this week's random observation...

The Great Justice League #Fancast of 2014...

I'm just going to hazard an assumption that fans of superhero teams like to imagine their own lineups. Like NBA draft picks. In 2014, I posted on Instagram two pages from my bullet journal of a Justice League lineup that consisted of 1) Azrael, Batgirl, Hawkman, Captain Marvel, Green Lantern & Plastic Man and 2) Azrael, Batgirl, The Atom, Hawkman, Vibe and Element Woman.

Considering that it was 2014, it was a very timely bit of casting. Barbara Gordon was back as Batgirl after 25 years spent wheelchair-bound as Oracle; Vibe had been sharply modified in large part by appearing as a supporting character in The Flash; Element Woman had appeared prominently in the Flashpoint mini-series and was presumably going to appear more often (she didn't). The point behind the two images was me imagining two or three years worth of stories, so this pipe-dream follows the tradition of shuffling the team roster midway through the tenure to keep things fresh. I even imagined Azrael's habit of wearing different costumes come into play - I used an image from when Sergio Cariello was drawing him, followed by the red armored costume he wore in Knightquest. 

So...of course, I  paid attention to Azrael appearing in Justice League Odyssey. Did somebody involved in the book see my post from 6 years ago and say, "Okay"? It's an extraordinary coincidence to use a character who had been in mothballs from DC canonical continuity for almost two decades. I remember turning Hal Jordan into The Spectre was based on a suggestion from a message board...having the 90's incarnation of Superboy be revealed as a clone made from DNA of Superman and Lex Luthor was inspired by a fan letter that got published in an issue of said placeholder's comic book.

At the end of the day, every idea gets used. I didn't imagine Congorilla joining the Justice League, but that was something James Robinson had in his bullet journal..maybe they just get willed into existence that way. Or we're just reading the same stuff. I'm not going to go into too much detail on how my take on these characters working together would've worked out, but hopefully it will inspire their existence.