August 10, 2009

JLA: Rock of Ages

Darkseid is!

JLA issues 10-15.

This one of my favorite JLA albums: cosmic stuff, alternate futures, Darkseid, Lex Luthor leading the Injustice Gang. What more can you want from a simple super hero comic?

The all-male JLA is investigating attacks which are done by hard light constructs about themselves. The man behind the constructs is, of course, Luthor who has brought together a big team of super villains to beat the JLA; Joker, Mirror Master, Circe, and a few others I’m not familiar with. Luthor also controls the mind of an alien and makes the alien work for him.

While the team’s heavy hitters are dealing with that problem, New Gods’ Metron appears to Aquaman, Green Lantern, and the Flash. Metron tells them that they have to find the Philosopher’s Stone which is also called the Rock of Ages. If they don’t, Darkseid will destroy all life from the universe. Somewhat reluctantly, the trio agrees and Metron sends them to other realities. Unfortunately, they don’t quite succeed. After an arduous search, they are thrown 15 years into the future and into their future bodies on Earth which Darkseid has conquered. A few heroes and heroines are still alive and the trio tries to convince them that they need to get to Darkseid’s time machine and reverse everything that has happened.

In the future, only Aquaman is somewhat his old self; Flash doesn’t have any powers anymore, and the Green Lantern was captured and brainwashed in to one of Darkseid’s zombie soldiers. So, it’s a good thing that they get help from the heroes still left: the Atom, Wonder Woman, reprogrammed Amazo, elderly Green Arrow, a female Aztec, and Silver.

I really enjoyed all the alternate universes; the Wonder World at the end of existence where the greatest heroes of all time are waiting for the final battle and of course oppressed Earth. The future Wonder Woman was very impressive.

I also enjoyed the sequence where J’onn and Superman are trapped into hard light construct and the only way for them to get out of it is for J’onn to start thinking like Joker who designed the trap.

The plot does have some holes in it, though. For example, if the trio left Earth 15 years ago, why are their older selfs there? I also felt that Luthor wasn’t using the Stone much. The rest of the Injustice Gang was also pretty useless. The hard light constructs of JLA were there just for some gratuitous super brawling. But I like the rest of it so much that I’m willing to overlook those.

All in all, a very enjoyable cosmic romp!

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