Mild Mannered Reviews - JLA Comics

JLA #47

JLA #47

Scheduled to arrive in stores: September 27, 2000

Cover date: November 2000

Writer: Mark Waid
Penciller: Bryan Hitch
Inker: Paul Neary

Queen of Fables (Part One): "Into the Woods"

Reviewed by: Neal Bailey (baileyn@cc.wwu.edu)


A mother is putting her child to bed while examining a package she's just received in the mail. It's a book, seemingly fairy tales.

She finds them the gruesome, latter day versions of modern tales, where the stories were written to frighten, rather than entertain children. She puts her son to bed, hides the book under a mattress, and prepares herself for bed. From under the bed, the book attacks, spewing goblins and an attractive evil woman, the amalgamation of the evil queens from Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.

The queen kills the two people, then wonders aloud who is the fairest in the land, if the woman present is not indeed Snow White of old. She turns on the television and sees Wonder Woman. An obsession begins.

Kyle, having finished his many comic drawings due at his editor's desk, is surprised when the drawings come to life and try to kill him.

At the Amazon museum, artifacts begin melting.

Superman, hearing danger, departs his apartment dining with Lois. Flash and Plastic Man watch as Manhattan turns into one giant forest. Flash laments that Batman isn't there to help, and Plastic Man makes fun of him. Flash tries to take a punch, but Manhunter comes in and stops him.

Arthur ribs Flash as well.

Green Lantern, in costume, blasts through a nearby water tower, worrying for Superman's vulnerability to magic. And indeed, Superman is being thrashed by a fire being.

Manhunter and Plastic Man run from thorns, Plastic Man complaining all the way about how Batman was wrong, and how he's glad Batman is gone. Manhunter ignores him.

Batman, in the background, holds the book which started the whole mess.

The queen manifests, large like, in the background, and grabs Wonder Woman. The JLA, pinned, can't help her.

The team, together, now begins to trudge through the forest, reaching for a strategy that won't come. The only clue they have is the way that their respective cultures all had gruesome fairy tales.

Wonder Woman, in communique, notes that she cannot escape, but her powers are somewhat unaffected, though ineffective.

They split up. Manhunter and Plastic Man, Superman and Aquaman, Flash and Lantern.

Manhunter and Plastic Man happen upon a gingerbread house. Too late, they realize that the witch has a big oven with Manhunter's name on it. Demons grab him and drag him towards it.

Flash and Lantern find Wonder Woman, encased in glass, asleep, a la Sleeping Beauty.

4Story - 4: Original. Definitely original. Some technical beefs: Another case of a city being nearly destroyed with the assumption that no one is dying and that everything will remake itself in the end. Also, if Wonder Woman could communicate, how was she put to sleep without any warning or reaction?

All of this griping about Batman is good, but it never really mentions why Aquaman, an ends-justify-the-means guy like Batman is so quick to side against him. This was my beef with the last issue, and is still my beef with this one. Take Batman out, okay, but use a fair vote. I demand a recount. I think Aquaman is a pregnant chad. And Wonder Woman is questionable as well.

Great, however, is how this is rifting and hurting the heck out of the JLA.

3Art - 3: Very nice drawings, I love them. But there were just too many places where things needed to be spread out, that weren't, and places that didn't need emphasis that got a splash page. Note, the queen's profile. Not a good splash. Wonder Woman in glass. Not worthy of a whole splash. And Green Lantern makes small talk while smashing through a water tower. With a little shuffling, he could have been thrown through the tower, then spoke. But I must say, I love the double page splash of the city in ruins. That was pretty neat.

3Cover Art - 3: A lot better than the last one, and pertinent to the plot, but very green, and very oddly perspective oriented. It's also a scene which never occurred in the book: The main heroes being attacked in the dark by eyed demons. Off. Odd.


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Mild Mannered Reviews

2000

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