Justice League of America (vol. 2) #45

Issue Credits

Synopsis “Prelude to the Dark Things”

Previously in the Justice League of America #44: The four remaining members of the Justice League (Batman, Donna Troy, Starman, and Congorilla) are responding to an unusual emerald meteorite that has crashed into the German Black Forest. The League  had to fight Etrigan for possession of the meteorite before they could rid him of its baneful influence. Inside the meteorite they discover the unconscious body of Jade. Meanwhile her father, Alan Scott the Golden Age Green Lantern, has fallen into a coma and his skin is radiating an unearthly green light. Sebastian Faust warns the JSA that Alan’s condition and the meteorite’s arrival are both portents of a chaotic and dangerous future.

The emerald light intensifies around Alan Scott and he begins levitating. An angry Obsidian (Alan’s son and Jade’s brother) orders Faust to tell them what is going on, but this new development confounds him. Jade, having regained consciousness, is angry that the German Rakete-Auslese’s Commander wants to take her in for questioning about the injuries to his men and the damage to the Black Forest caused by her arrival. Things have just about calmed down by the time that Alan Scott and the JSA appear over the horizon. However, their arrival is preempted by Power Girl who smashes through the JSA’s Star Rocket Racer aircraft. Jesse Quick and the Flash manage to save the other JSA heroes, but Obsidian has fallen into the same glowing zombie state as his father.

Supergirl intercepts Power Girl as she arcs around for another pass. Congo Bill contacted Supergirl as the League were leaving the JLA Watchtower, but she didn’t arrive until moments after Power Girl and the JSA . Power Girl throws off Supergirl and scatters the JLA, JSA, and Rakete-Auslese before she recovers. Their fight’s violence shakes the ground below. Dick Grayson realises that both women are vulnerable to magic and has Donna pull Supergirl free while Jade blasts Power Girl unconscious. Jade creates an energy bubble around the JLA and JSA to stop the Rakete-Auslese arresting them. Supergirl is also trapped inside so she accepts Batman’s offer to join the team.

Jade recites what she knows about the events that have occurred. The Starheart was a vessel created by the Guardians of the Universe to contain all the wild and chaotic elements of the universe. A fragment of it became the green railway lantern that Alan Scott derives his powers from. Batman picks up reports of other heroes and villains acting chaotically. The common elements are magic and elemental. Faust says that the same thing happened to his father and that the League’s earlier fights with Etrigan (JLA #44) and Atlas (JLA #42) are related. Mister Terrific also notes that weather systems are swing chaotically around the world. Jade theorizes that her resurrection “shook” the larger bulk of the Starheart that had remained out in space. It overtook her and absorbed her wish to return to Earth.

The comatose Alan Scott suddenly addresses Jade. She is ecstatic that Scott appears to have recovered, but it is actually the Starheart addressing her. The light around Scott suddenly solidifies into a suit of green armour.

Continuity

• Die Rakete-Auslese gets an official translation by the Batman as The Rocket Elite. They are German equals to the Russian Rocket Red Brigade and even share some of the same technology. Their “Uber-Komandant” is Karl Zorn.
• The JSA’s transport is the Star Rocket Rider Mark 8. It would seem they now need a Mark 9.
• Congo Bill’s summons of Supergirl led to Batman offering her JLA membership – all very informal.
• The Guardian’s tamed the Starheart by imprinting on it the desire to be controlled.

Opinion

This issue is ramping into the JLA/JSA crossover with the arrival of both teams in the German Black Forest. There is a lot to like here if you like the JSA (given that it’s a plot-line that derives from one of the core JSA members). But if, like Robert at Comic Bulletin, you “couldn’t give two squats about” the JSA you’ll probably hate this issue. And for that matter you’ll probably hate the preceding one and the next three. If, however, you like the JSA you’ll like this issue… probably. It’s a pity that Black Lightning is no longer in the Justice League as I’d have enjoyed him interacting with his daughter, the JSA’s Lightning, during this crossover.

While we’re on the subject of the JSA: I’m all for the them fighting Nazis – it’s what they formed to do and they are good at it – but, I’m rather uncomfortable with the JLA/JSA acting like dicks around the German Rocket Elite. Okay, they’re rather authoritarian, but they the good guys here and its their jurisdiction. It’s the JSA and JLA who have invaded their country and are refusing to cooperate.

The art continues to be strong, if at times slightly odd. I certainly agree with Superman Homepage’s Ralph Silver about Power Girl’s smash through the Star Rocket Racer Mk 8. However, Jade’s costume doesn’t seem quite right. The pattern on her chest is a star made from radiating triangles that symbolise the Starheart, but the art makes them look like rectangles. And as CBR’s Doug Zawisza observes Jade’s aura looks “more like a skunk stench wafting off of poor Jade.” The Supergirl variant cover by David Mack is beautiful and differs starkly from the normal cover with its strange “let’s stare at each other’s chests” moment (lets not mention what the Flash is looking at). It’s these odd little artistic choices that I find distracting.

A continuing element that people seem to like is James Robinson’s use of the Brad Meltzer style narration boxes. I don’t think its something I’ve remarked on before. CBR’s Doug describes it as,

Robinson’s narrational character of choice this issue is Batman, but it is pretty clear that one of Robinson’s favorites among this cast is Congorilla. Robinson does of good job of sharing the thoughts of several characters in this book, and spreads the spotlight around rather than locking in any one specific character.

They are a nice touch with just the small group of characters, but the boxes can get a little hectic with a larger group. The colouring works to a degree, but I constantly find Congorilla’s yellow boxes hard to read. I guess I’m just old-fashioned in preferring thought bubbles.

One thing that I had forgotten about until I saw the user Darman mention it on the DC Comics Message Boards was the Green Lantern: Heart of Darkness mini-series. This featured an evil version of the Starheart trying to over come Alan Scott, Jade, and Kyle Rayner. The Starheart is a great fantasy concept, but its been reused several times. Robinson is taking a very straight forward approach to it at the moment and is only really introducing what is necessary for this story. Exactly what Alan’s current relationship is to the Starheart, whether it’s part of him wholly or partially, isn’t entirely clear.

I’ve added a ranking from Comic Vine’s Babs to the table below. She loved this issue and gave it 5/5 which biases the ranking upwards to 70%. Without the new reviews the average rating of other people’s reviews would be 64%, only slightly up from 60% last issue – near enough to be equal given the lower number of reviews and the scatter in ratings. I’m inclined to agree with that mark. This was an enjoyable issue, but my concern from last issue about this being a 20-page story stretched out over 30-pages continues. I’d even go further and say that these last two 30-pages issues (JLA #44 and #45) have given us a 60-page short that could have been told more entertainingly and tightly in 20-pages.

The Verdict

	Site	Reviewer	Original Score	%
Reviews Portal	Comic Book Resources	Doug Zawisza	3/5	60
Reviews Portal	IGN	Robert Tacopina	2/5	40
Community Reviews	Comics Vine User Reviews	Ave of 3 review/s	4.5/5	90
Community Reviews	iFanboy	403 pulls	3.5/5	70
Character Site	Supergirl Comic Book Commentary	Anj	B+	70
Character Site	Superman Homepage	Ralph Silver	4 (story) & 4 (art)/5	80
Reviews Blog	Comic Book Bin	Herve St-Louis	7/10	70
Reviews Blog	A Comic Book Blog	Wayland	70/100	70
Reviews Blog	Comics Per Day Reviews	Timbotron	Fair	60
This Site	Captain’s JLA Blog	Jason Kirk		60%
		Grand Average		67%

Characters

Featuring

• The Justice League
  • Batman (Dick Grayson, appeared last issue)
  • Donna Troy (appeared last issue)
  • Congorilla (Congo Bill, appeared last issue)
  • Supergirl (Kara Zor-El, joins this issue)
  • Starman (Mikaal Tomas, appeared last issue)

Villains

• Starheart (possessing Alan Scott)

Guest Stars

• Jade (Jennifer Lynn-Hayden, appeared last issue)
• Power Girl (Karen Starr)
• The Justice Society
  • Doctor Mid-Nite (Pieter Cross, appeared last issue)
  • Flash (Jay Garrick, appeared last issue)
  • Green Lantern (Alan Scott, appeared last issue)
  • Jesse Quick (Jesse Chambers, appeared last issue)
  • Lightning (Jennifer Pierce)
  • Obsidian (Todd Rice, appeared last issue)
  • Mister America (Jeffery Graves)
  • Mister Terrific (Michael Holt, appeared last issue)
  • Wildcat (Ted Grant, appeared last issue)

Other Characters

• Sebastian Faust (sorcerer, appeared last issue)
• The Rocket Elite (German armoured battle corps, appeared last issue)
• Karl Zorn (“Uber-Komandant of the Rocker Elite, first appearance)

Flashback/Cameo

• Atlas (flashback to JLA #42)
• Felix Faust (attacked Los Aldama, Mexico, influenced by the Starheart)
• Firehawk (attacking St Petersburg, influenced by the Starheart)
• Green Lantern Hal Jordan (flashback to JLA #42)
• Guardians of the Universe (during Jade’s recap about Starheart/Alan Scott)
• Jason Woodrue (attacking Ivy Town, influenced by the Starheart, simultaneous with Titans: Villains For Hire)
• Shango (African Thunder God, influenced by the Starheart)
• Solomon Grundy (during Jade’s recap about Starheart/Alan Scott)
• Starfire (flashback to JLA #42)
• Zachary Zatara (comatose, influenced by the Starheart, last appeared in Action Comics #889)

Annotations

• 1.1 The JSA, who seem to be gathering in increasing numbers over the last few issues to watch Alan Scott’s night-light act. Shown are Mister Terrific, Mister America, Jesse Quick, Lightning, Flash, Obsidian, and Wildcat. Also shown with them is Faust – the son of the JLA villain Felix Faust. I hadn’t considered it before, but seeing him standing there reminds me slightly of Jack Knight – James Robinson’s character from his Starman series.
• 4-5.1 A fairly accurate description of Jade’s history. She, Obsidian, and Power Girl (who will show up later) were originally members of a team called Infinity Inc – they were the sons and daughters of the original Justice Society members and were comparable to an Earth-Two version of the Teen Titans (albeit older). Since then the JSA has relaunched with a more multi-generational brief and a lot of Infinity Inc members have joined the JSA.
• 4-5.6 “Grun-Gehautetes Mis-” translates roughly as green-skinned girl. “Green skinned girl” would literally translate as “grüne gehäutet Mädchen”
• 6-7.4 The Star Rocket Racer was originally the souped-up convertible used by the 1940s Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy in their crime fighting days. The original Kid is dead and the current Kid is Stripesy’s step-daughter. Stripesy, now as S.T.R.I.P.E.S. assisted the new Kid for a while, but he has since taken a backseat role as the JSA’s mechanic. He was responsible for building one of their earlier transports called the Steel Eagle. It would seem that the Star Rocket Racer is an evolution of that design.
• 6-7.10 Doctor Terry Thirteen is the DCU’s arch-skeptic. He refuses to believe in the paranormal and instead searches for explanations in physics, biology and rational science. He is the father of Traci Thirteen (the current Blue Beetle’s girlfriend).
• 8-9.1 Power Girl is a version of Supergirl from a defunct parallel universe. The JSA has recently split into two teams. The original JSAers and their older allies stayed as the Justice Society of America and moved into the JLA’s old cave headquarters. The younger, edgier JSAers created a new team called the JSA All-Stars led by Magog and Power Girl.
• 10-11.3 Jesse is shown in several at places once indicating that she is moving at superspeed. Flash Fact: The visual motif of using these after-images to show where a speedster has been wasn’t invented by the artists on the Flash comics, they were a feature of his Golden Age rival Johnny Quick – Jesse’s father.
• 12.1 Supergirl (Kara Zor-El) shouldn’t really need much introduction. She is Superman’s younger-cousin (their fathers were brothers). Recent events in the Superman comics haven’t been easy on Kara. She discovered that her mother and father were still alive in Kandor only for them to be killed in separate incidents by agents working for General Lane (Lois Lane’s father).
• 13.3 In Cry For Justice it was Supergirl and Congo Bill who discovered Roy Harper after Prometheus had torn his arm off and it was Supergirl who first deduced Prometheus’s disguise as Freddy Freeman. Supergirl could be talking about that incident.
• 15.3 After Infinite Crisis Power Girl recruited Supergirl to help her infiltrate the non-Kryptonian version of Kandor (there are two Kandors, only the second is from Krypton, but both were/are bottle cities). They were hunting a version of Ultraman who was posing as Superman, but the two women didn’t really get along very well. Supergirl was going through a rebellious streak and it ended messily.
• 16.1 Two Kryptonian level superhumans  flying full speed at each other has to be an allusion to the clash between Superman and Captain Marvel from the classic JLA/JSA crossover in Justice League of America vol 1. #135 (Dec 1976).

• 19.4 Jade mentions going to Oa. This occurred in Brightest Day #0.
• 21.4 Wildcat: “The Train. The Bridge collapse. Him and the Lantern”.  A version of Alan Scott’s origin. He was a railway engineer when he first came into possession of his magic lantern. At the time he knew nothing about it except that it appeared to be a normal railwayman’s green lantern. He was holding the Lantern when a bridge collapsed beneath his train. It was only because of the Lantern that he survived. It then spoke to him and commanded him to make a ring from its metal. He used the Lantern and the new ring to become a superhero called the Green Lantern. Lightning makes a good point here. Alan Scott may be called Green Lantern, but he is not part of the Guardian’s Green Lantern Corps.
• 22-23.2 “They’re little blue immortals with supreme power and intelligence, Ted. Hello.” – I bet it never occurred to Star Trek to dispense technobabble with cheerleader sarcasm.
• 22-23.3 That fragment that fell to Earth originally arrived in ancient China and was forged into a lamp. The metal of the magic lamp has been remade several times with its final form being the railway lantern that Alan Scott happened to be holding when he first became Green Lantern.
• 22-23.6 Alan Scott is shown battling Solomon Grundy, an undead swamp zombie.
• 24.3 “Shango, the African `Thunder God` is destroying Nairobi”. Shango is a member of a pantheon of African Gods called the Orishnia who first appeared in John Ostrander’s run on Firestorm. He is based on a god from West African mythology, a storm god whose totem is a double-bladed axe. The obvious parallel would be to call him an African Thor. Shango last appeared in James Robinson’s Captain Atom backup in Action Comics #886.
• 24.4 Zachary Zatara is Zatanna’s cousin. He appeared in several Superman comics until he was kidnapped by a sorceress working for General Lane. She took him to Sorcerer’s World and kept him as a pet/slave. Zachary was freed in Action Comics #889 when Captain Atom and the rebel leader overthrew the sorceress.
• 25.2 Jason Woodrue is a plant controlling enemy of the Atom. This particular sequence, Woodrue in Ivy Town, is the opening scene to Titans: Villains for Hire which features Atom Ryan Choi fighting Woodrue just before he is attacked by Deathstroke’s Titans.
• 25.3 Firehawk is Lorraine Reilly. She was Ronnie Raymond’s girlfriend back when he was originally Firestorm, but she’s matured since then and has succeed her father as a US Senator. Her inclusion here is based on the elemental part of the Firestorm matrix.