Justice League of America (vol. 2) #43

Issue Credits

Writer: James Robinson
Pencils: Mark Bagley
Inks: Rob Hunter and Norm Rapmund
Colour: Pete Pantazis
Letters: Rob Leigh
Cover: Mark Bagley and Rob Hunter
Variant Cover: Mike Mayhew and Andy Troy
Assistant Editor: Rex Ogle
Associate Editor: Adam Schlagman
Editor: Eddie Berganza

Synopsis “Rise And Fall All Along the Watchtower”

Previously in JLA #41 and JLA #42 – a new Justice League has been pulled together by Donna Troy after the events of Cry For Justice and Blackest Night. Wounds are still raw and the new members have yet to decide on their commitment. Meanwhile, a new threat has emerged. A new group of super villains (Dr Impossible, Hunter, the Chair, Tender Mercy, and Neon Black) have stolen a series of unidentified devices. The devices, each found during the adventures of one or more noted superheroes, appear to be parts of a larger machine, but its true purpose remains unknown.

Green Arrow’s mind wanders to an incident years ago when the original Justice League had been fighting the Shaggy Man in the Canadian Rockies. He remembers it as “another life”, simpler, more innocent, that things have become, but he also remembers a mysterious device that had been unearthed during the fight. Arrow’s recollection of that moment was triggered because he is now engaged in a life and death battle against the villains Neon Black, Hunter and Doctor Impossible who are trying to steal that same device from the Justice League Watchtower. They start hunting him through the Watchtower, but are forced to retreat through a Hush Tube when they are thrown back by the partially reassembled Red Tornado. Arrow thanks Red Tornado and then leaves. He had only been on the Watchtower because he wanted to use its computers to find current location of the Electrocutioner.

The rest of the Justice League have been called to Blackhawk Island where the Chair and Tender Mercy had stolen another part of the device. The pitched battle between the villains and the JLA is furious and Donna Troy takes some joy in being able to lose herself to the melee. Batman, Dick Grayson, isn’t so impressed and secretly believes that the new group is not melding as a team. The fight ends abruptly when Tender Mercy and the Chair flee through a Hush Tube. As the League collects their thoughts the Flash (Barry Allen) arrives and pulls Green Lantern away with news of a lead on Prometheus. Donna asks Starman and Congorilla to join them back on the Watchtower while Black Canary leaves to return to Star City.

News of the murder of Prometheus by Green Arrow shocks the JLA. In the following days Starfire and many others leave as more pressing situations take their time. However, those that are left – Donna, Batman, Starman, Congorilla – are the most committed to the League and are more focused as a team. They defeat Hellgrammite, Plastique, Mister Atomic, and Harpi – four villains who had also been working for Prometheus.

At the JLA’s Secret Sanctuary, the JSA scramble to Alan Scott’s side as he erupted with emerald energy.

In Sermersauq Greenland, Doctor Impossible and his allies have assembled the stolen devices into a massive spire. It transpires that they are working for somebody else and that they have their own agenda separate from this enterprise. The final component of the device is Blue Jay. They insert his tiny prison into the machine and its flares into life showing them windows into a dozen or more parallel worlds.

Opinion

For the most part I quite liked this issue. It continued the bright fun pace of the earlier issue, but then it hits that almighty bump where, as Michael Bailey at the Superman homepage put its, “suddenly the League THAT JUST FREAKING FORMED is broken up.”

In a perfect world we’d have two League books. One would be the big-guns and the second would be a second group of less well-known, but interesting characters. The team that emerged from this book felt more like the latter and not the former. Those with long memories will recall that James Robinson was to have written a second JLA title, but got shifted on to the “main” title after the previous writer (Dwayne McDuffie) was fired. Reviewing at CBR Greg McElhatton makes the worrying observation that,

This may sound strange, but reading “Justice League of America” #43 made me feel bad for James Robinson. Previous writer Dwayne McDuffie’s problems with storylines and roster changes getting changed left and right are well-documented, and it’s starting to feel like Robinson is now getting pulled into that same particular nightmare.

I do hope Greg’s wrong. James Robinson has admitted that he’d found that he couldn’t handle such a large group at once – couldn’t do a Geoff Johns – so that’s partially why we’re seeing the team shrink . Unfortunately it feels like we’ve lost too many of the “League” characters (Hal, Ollie, Ray, etc) and we’re back to characters that haven’t traditionally been part of the core League group – Josh Dean at Comic Book Bin nails it with: “This team has no identity. ”

(Yes, I know Batman is a core JLA character, but that’s Bruce Wayne and this is Dick Grayson – completely different dynamic. Bruce has a real presence in the JLA, but Dick just mopes around and hasn’t really done anything except monolog to himself for these three issues.)

What I do find quite ironic is that the Justice League that is left over isn’t the obvious group that Hal was assembling in Cry For Justice. Starman (Mikaal Thomas) and Congorilla had been fighting Prometheus’s schemes via a different route to Hal Jordan’s JLA splinter group. They only met Hal and co. after they approached Animal Man for help. Donna and Kory then became involved because they happened to be at Animal Man’s house at the moment Mikaal and Congorilla arrived. Dick Grayson’s Batman wasn’t even involved with that series.

I have to say I like the Chair – the snotty fat-kid who sits in it hurling insults isn’t the real character – the floating throne is the actual “Chair” (its the one the other villains are talking to). Floating, intelligent furniture as a super-villain. This is why I love the DC Universe. Any that, bizarrely, is why I’m sticking with this book. It is fun, and big, and bold when it is allowed to be those things, but it is so frustrating as a JLA fan that this book seems to get the short end of the stick to every other plot line going on in the DC Universe.

The Verdict

	Site	Reviewer	Original Score	%
Reviews Portal	Comic Book Resources	Greg McElthatton	2/5	40
Reviews Portal	IGN	Shawn Hill	3.5/5	70
Reviews Portal	IGN	Tyler Parker	4.7/10	47
Community Reviews	Comics Vine User Reviews	Ave of 4 review/s	2.875/5	58
Community Reviews	iFanboy	424 pulls	3.1/5	62
Character Site	Superman Homepage	Michael Bailey	1 (story) & 4 (art)/5	50
Reviews Blog	Comic Book Bin	Josh Dean	2/10	20
Reviews Blog	A Comic Book Blog	Wayland	60/100	60
Reviews Blog	Comics Per Day Reviews	Timbotron	Good	80
This Site	Captain’s JLA Blog	Jason Kirk		50%
		Grand Average		54%

Characters

Featured Characters

The Justice League

Atom (Ray Palmer, appeared last issue)
Batman (Dick Grayson, appeared last issue)
Black Canary (appeared last issue, next appears in Justice League: Rise and Fall Special #1)
Cyborg (Vic Stone, appeared last issue)
Doctor Light (appeared last issue)
Donna Troy (appeared last issue)
Green Arrow (appeared last issue, next appears in Justice League: Rise and Fall Special #1)
Green Lantern (Hal Jordan, appeared last issue, next appears in Justice League: Rise and Fall Special #1)
Guardian (appeared last issue)
Mon-El (appeared last issue)
Red Tornado (appeared last issue)
Starfire (appeared last issue, next appears in R.E.B.E.L.S #15)

New Members

Congorilla (Bill, appeared last issue, formerly joins this issue)
Starman (Mikaal Thomas, appeared last issue, formerly joins this issue)

Guest Stars

Flash (Barry Allen, next appears in Justice League: Rise and Fall Special #1)
Blue Jay (last appeared in JLA #38).

The Justice Society

Doctor Midnight
Flash (Jay Garrick)
Green Lantern (Alan Scott)
Obsidian
Wildcat (Ted Grant)

Villains

The reverse New Gods
- The Chair (appeared last issue)
- Doctor Impossible (appeared last issue)
- Hunter (appeared last issue)
- Neon Black (appeared last issue)
- Tender Mercy (appeared last issue)
Prometheus’s lieutenants
- Plastique
- Harpi
- Hellgrammite
- Mister Atomic

Classic Flashback

The Justice League

Aquaman
Batman (Bruce Wayne)
Flash (Barry Allen)
Green Arrow (Oliver Queen)
Green Lantern (Hal Jordan)
Martian Manhunter
Superman
Wonder Woman

Villains

Shaggy Man

Annotations

1.1 The Shaggy Man is a yeti-like indestructible creature that first appeared in Justice League of America vol 1. #45 (June 1966). It was created by Professor Andrew Zagarian in a Frankenstein like experiment to create a material that could be used for organ replacement. It was buried in a pit in Chile, fighting a never-ending contest with an exact duplicate of itself until Justice League of America vol 1. #104 (Feb 1973) when it was released by Hector Hammond. This encounter appears to be a previously untold adventure that happened sometime those two events – probably closer to the former than the latter given the line-up and costumes.
8-9.3 Donna Troy identifies that Tender Mercy is an Amazon from her fighting style.
10-11.4 The New Gods of Apokolips and New Genesis have traditionally travelled via a star-gate called a Boom Tube which is named after the massive “BOOM” is makes when opening. Following the theme that these villains are reverse New Gods – or mirrors of them – they travel in a Hush Tube that only makes a quiet “hush” when it opens. The Hush Tube first appeared in Justice League of America vol .2 #1 (Oct 2006) with the first appearance of Dr Impossible. Notice however that somebody is saying “hush” – it’s not an ambient sound effect, it’s an actual speech bubble.
12.2 Homage: A Green Arrow trapped alone on the JLA Watchtower without arrows against a seemingly overwhelming group of super villains. The same thing happened to Oliver Queen’s son, Conner Hawke, in JLA #9-10 (Aug–Sep 1997). Conner was to be inducted into the JLA, but he arrived on the Watchtower to discover that the Key had taken the JLA prisoner and that he was the only person left to stop him.
15.2 The Electrocutioner was the supervillain who, while working for Prometheus, planted the device that destroyed the centre of Star City and killed Lian Harper (Arrow’s granddaughter). Green Arrow killed Prometheus in the epilogue of Justice League: Cry For Justice #7 which happen simultaneously to the previous issue. Green Arrow catches up to the Electrocutioner in the Justice League: Rise and Fall Special #1.
16-17.3 – The lead on Prometheus that the Flash was talking about was the possibility that the Shade had been working with him. The Shade wasn’t, he was assisting the JLA, but that lead is followed up in Justice League: Rise and Fall Special #1 and is the route by which Barry and Hal discover Prometheus’s corpse with an arrow sticking out of it.
18.5 – Black Canary leaves for Star City. Needless to say, this is also followed-up in Justice League: Rise and Fall Special #1. She meets up with Green Arrow, but doesn’t realise what he has been up to until Hal and Barry arrive back from their own errand.
19.1 – Congorilla name chekcs Malavar, a scientist from Gorilla City who had been living native with the same troop of gorillas as Congorilla. Malavar had been kidnapped by Prometheus in Cry For Justice, but he hasn’t been seen since.
20.1 – Starfire leaves the League. Starfire has been quite unsettled since the events of Final Crisis when she was enslaved by Darkseid. There as a plot running through Titans about her needing to move on to pastures new. The move to the League could have been what she was looking for, but the presence of Donna, Dick Grayson, and Cyborg meant that she never really made that break. She next appears in R.E.B.E.L.S #15 when Vril Dox decides to make his new headquarters in the Vegan System.
22-23.1 – Hal’s dealing with the after effects of Blackest Night in Green Lantern. Black Canary rejoined Oracle for the new relaunch of Birds of Prey. Mon-El left with Superboy to help Superman stop Brainiac’s assault on Kandor – one assumes he was then forced to return to the Phantom Zone. Cyborg can be seen in the background of Justice League: Rise and Fall Special #1 making a new arm for Roy Harper.
22-23.1 – The four villains here are Hellgrammite (a Superman foe), Mister Atom (a Captain Marvel foe), Harpi (an old and obscure Titans foe), and Plastique (a Firestorm foe). Plastique was last seen in JLA during the “Tornado’s Path” where she and the Electrocutioner were operating as a short-lived duo. They and Dr Impossible were mind-controlled into helping Solomon Grundy.
26.1-3 – The Justice Society recently split into two groups – the core older heroes and a new All-Star group made up of the younger heroes. This is the core JSA group who are currently working out of the original JLA base after their own headquarters were damaged. This scene takes place after the current JSA storyline as Obsidian isn’t currently with the JSA.
28-29.1 – Sermersauq, Greenland. Not sure if this place really exists. There is a “Sermersooq” in Greenland. Fogborn Leghorn is a WB cartoon character, a rooster who talks with a comedy “Southern” accent.
29-29.6 – Blue Jay was captured by an unnamed villain in JLA #38 in the first scene of James Robinson and Mark Bagley’s run.
30-31 – The Multiverse. Some of these Earths were seen in 52, others in Final Crisis. A number of them appeared in Countdown only and this is their first non-Countdown appearance. Going clockwise around the outside starting in the top-left:
- Universe Designate-5: Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, and Captain Marvel Jnr – the old Fawcett Comics characters.
- Universe Designate-43: Vampire Batman from the Red Rain Elseworlds
- Universe Designate-4: Judomaster, Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, Peacemaker – the old Charlton Comics characters
- Universe Designate-10: Dollman, Uncle Sam, the Ray, Nazi Superman, Black Condor – based on the old JLA/Freedom Fighters story.
- Universe Designate-44: Robot Batman, Robot Superman, Robot Flash, and Robot Wonder Woman – made an appearance in the final issue of Final Crisis
- Universe Designate-50: Apollo, Mister Majestic, Maul, and Fairchild – the Wildstorm Universe
- Universe Designate-9: Green Lantern and the Flash – the Tangent universe, crossed over in Justice League of America #16 (Feb 2008)
- Universe Designate-3: Superwoman, Ultraman, and Owlman of a Crime Society – a duplicate of the anti-matter Earth.
- Universe Designate-8: Americommando – a Captain America clone, from an Earth called Angor – a duplicate of Blue Jay’s original home
- Universe Designate-33: Black Mage and Black Bird – from a universe when magic is dominant
- Universe Designate-17: Atomic Knights riding dog mounts – the Jack Kirby post-Great Disaster characters
- Universe Designate-30: Communist Superman from the Red Son graphic novel
- Universe Designate-11: Green Lantern, Flash, Super Woman, Atom, Red Tornado, Batwoman from a reverse gender Earth
- Universe Designate-12: Batman Beyond, the cartoon universe