The Jewish Justice League

Jewish comic book fans are pretty fortunate when it comes to looking for folks to hero worship be it behind the scenes or on the page. Whereas a kid who loves basketball getting set for his Bar Mitzvah may have somewhat limited options as far as finding an NBA player who can speak Hebrew, in the funny book business we’ve had Temple-goers steering the ship going back to Siegel and Schuster and Lee and Kirby with a fair amount of fictional avatars of the Jewish faith emerging over the years as well.

As a nod to my own heritage—my mother’s Christian but my dad’s Jewish—and in keeping with the example set by Adam Sandler, I decided to assemble a super hero team who could answer the call on Christmas Eve without conflict that those kids who stopped getting presents a few weeks back can look up to.

JUSTICE
Though everybody and their kid sister known Nova was my favorite New Warrior, certainly I also felt a kinship to and affinity for Vance Astrovik, the likable half-Jewish telekinetic who anchored the team. I’d tap Justice not so much for his powers but his leadership abilities, as his early days in the Avengers aside, he’s the type of guy who naturally draws others to his side and inspires confidence. He also rejected Israeli dreamboat Sabra for Firestar, so the guy’s non-denominational to boot.

BATWOMAN
She’s an ass-kicker, she’s ex-military, she’s got toys and she’s a freakin’ female Batman—why would you not want Batwoman on your team? She takes the lead when it’s time for hand-to-hand or street fighting plus we get her dad as our ops guy in the bargain.

MAGNETO
Tremendous powerhouse, obviously, but a wild card in terms of team dynamics as well. It will be interesting to see if his racial loyalty extends beyond mutantkind, but I think the Master of Magnetism is a risk worth taking here.

PRIME
Gets a Superman analogue on the team which provides plenty of power, but with the added wrinkle of it being little Kevin Green wearing that big hero body; with plenty of positive role models around, this would be a good thing for him.

KITTY PRYDE
Every fanboy’s teenage crush, the former Shadowcat is one of comics’ premiere Jewish characters and a shoo-in for this team. She’s got a unique power set that makes her both formidable and stealthy, she’s wicked smart, and everybody loves her!

COLOSSAL BOY
Whenever I’m coming up with dream teams, I like to include somebody from the future for kicks if I can, so Gim Allon gets the nod here over the similarly-powered and also-Jewish Atom Smasher. I also always loved that Colossal Boy’s mom—the President of Earth—had him and his Durlan wife over for Seder dinners.

THE TWO-GUN KID
And if you’re going to have one guy from the future, why not another from the past? Obviously every team can use a cowboy and a dude to take those Hawkeye/Green Arrow long shots, but Two-Gun is also a lawyer, a skill you never know when you’ll need.

WILLOW
I thought about short-lived Doctor Fate incarnation Linda Strauss as my magic user, but then remembered Willow from Buffy counts and she’s a way more rad character with probably a ton more skills to boot.

NITE-OWL
Watchmen’s aging crusader may be a bit past his prime, but he’s got heart—and more importantly a big ol’ owl-shaped spaceship for the team to ride around in.

THE THING
You saw this one coming, right? The ever-lovin’ Benjamin Jacob Grimm, who shares both my first and middle names, proudly lights the menorah and is one of the best characters in comics history. He’s a powerhouse, which is great, but he’s also an experienced adventurer who provides the moral center of the group. And if Magneto gets out of line? You know what time it is…

LENNY KRAVITZ
He was mentioned in Heroes For Hire v2 #6—good enough for me!