Mild Mannered Reviews - JLA Comics

JLA #36

JLA #36

Scheduled to arrive in stores: October 27, 1999

Cover date: December 1999

Writer: Grant Morrison
Penciller: Howard Porter
Inker: John Dell

"World War Three: Part One"

Reviewed by: Michael Lum (machina_rex@yahoo.com)

The prologue begins with Wonder Woman, Big Barda and Metron arriving at a destroyed planet called "Wonderworld", home of the greatest super-champions of the universe. They come across a lone survivor that speaks of an anti-sun. His story tells of an "Adam One" bringing everyone together to stop the Anti-sun. The Anti-sun was stronger and broke free. After speaking of this, he then died. At the JLA Watchtower, Mr. Miracle is describing the Anti-sun, called Mageddon, to the JLA. It is a weapon created by the old gods that survived and was imprisoned for 15 billion years. After arguing with Aquaman about Sturmer, Orion starts talking about the destructional power of Mageddon. It brings war and ruin, the universe lies strewn with billions of corpses, it is "the Doomsday Machine". Knowing that Mageddon is coming their way, the JLA try to conjure up a plan. Superman tells Oracle to alert all Leaguers from past and present.

Aztek awakes in his apartment hearing his helmet shout, JLA Alert!

Meanwhile, in the Ghost Zone, Lex Luthor is with the newest member of the injustice gang, Prometheus. They stroll through the strange crooked house discussing the future plans of the injustice gang. They both exit the house and board the Queen Bee's ship. Prometheus kneels and introduces himself. As they continue down the ship, through an area that Prometheus said resembled a scene from 2001, they met another new member of the injustice gang, General Eiling (The Shaggyman). He was brought back by The Queen Bee from the astroid that was isolated on.

Back at the JLA Watchtower, Plastic Man and Zauriel are in the Trophy room when Zauriel discovers that The Helmet of Prometheus is missing.

Superman is seated in the Watchtower communicating with Batman in Gotham. They discuss the threat of Mageddon and also, Zauriel's news of Prometheus' missing helmet.

Oracle comes up with a hunch and has Steel interfacing the central processors looking for unusual power drains or surges. Suddenly, Steel finds a power drain and Oracle discovers a worm in the system. Without warning, Lex Luthor, Prometheus, Queen Bee and General Eiling appear in the Watchtower and catch the JLA off guard. With a push of a button, Luthor detonates bombs placed within the Watchtower.

3Story - 3: The Story wasn't the most exciting, mostly because it was setting the story for "World War 3". I thought that the stories of Mageddon and Wonder World could have been done a little better and I didn't think that the appearance of the Injustice Gang coincided smoothly with the Mageddon plot.

4Art - 4: I'm glad that the regular penciler, Howard Porter, is doing this issue. At times his art can be executed poorly, but it was very well done throughout the majority of this comic.

4Cover Art - 4: I like the placement in this cover. General Eiling crashing down from the top and Luthor in the center with his evil stare. It was well drawn but nothing out of the ordinary and not too eye catching.

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1999

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