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Mild Mannered Reviews - JLA Comics

JLA #66

Scheduled to arrive in stores: May 29, 2002

Cover date: July 2002

Writer: Joe Kelly
Penciller: Doug Mahnke
Inker: Tom Nguyen

"The Destroyers"

Reviewed by: John-Paul Zito (ZitoMan11@aol.com)

A disturbing dream about a flood and a prophetic talking crow has left Green Lantern a bit on edge lately. He reveals the details of his dream to The Flash as they help a sea resort town in Florida recover from a massive storm that washed up an unnatural amount of sea life. Suddenly the discovery of an ancient Aztec armor startles the both of them. Before they can react in force the armor springs to life and attacks Flash and Lantern with a series of poison darts. Flash can barely get Kyle's unconscious body out of there in time.

Meanwhile out in the Atlantic Trench left by the disappearance of Atlantis, Superman searches for evidence of oceanic upheaval. On his way back to Florida Flash collides with him at dizzying speeds, carrying Lantern and a piece of the Aztec armor.

The JLA mobilizes at the Watchtower and immediately set to work on curing Lantern, who is stuck in a new dream again concerning prophetic crows. Batman's examination of the Aztec armor shows that the armor should be ancient but is in fact showing no signs of erosion or damage from age. Wonder Woman arrives and immediately recognizes the armor. She swats it from Batman's hands and explains that the armor carries the stench of children's blood. A quick check with the Watchtower computer shows that four children have been reported missing in Florida within the last few hours.

Somewhere in a Florida swamp a shadowy figure performs ancient rituals with the carcass of a dead bird.

The JLA rush towards a theme park mountain in pursuit of their Aztec nemesis. The Aztec stands atop the mountain preparing to sacrifice one of the children he has kidnaped. In a blur of motion Superman saves the child and accidentally detonates the armor. It was a decoy. The JLA are caught with their pants down as the Aztec rams them with a series of roller coaster cars.

Manhunter performs a quick telepathic scan and reveals the Aztec's true name is Tezumak and that he's come from the past. Before Manhunter can gain anymore knowledge he is assaulted telepathically himself, and taken out of the battle. And then, as if on cue, a swarm of crows descends from the sky and over powers the JLA. The crows regroup and form a body, a man, the man from the swamp.

To be continued...

Story - 3: Overall the story isn't that bad. It's actually well paced and intriguing. However, this issue marks the beginning of the "Search for Aquaman" saga that will run throughout the summer months. And I am a little ticked about that. When Aquaman died last year in "Our Worlds at War" it really took me back a bit. One of the magnificent seven bit the big one, and it gave a sense of horrible things to come with the war. Now a year later Aquaman's death has been used to great effect. It's given us the Atlantic Trench, a much more interesting Tempest, and it was a main focus of Superman's therapy. Now that Aquaman is coming back I feel like I've been cheated out of a genuinely great comic moment.

Who knows though? This was a really interesting issue and if I weren't so bitter about this it would have garnered a four. Maybe Aquaman's return will be better then his departure and I'll have to eat my words. Here's hoping.

Art - 4: A solid issue with a lot of memorable sequences. My personal favorite being pages 18-19. Just a lot of fun stuff going on there. I especially enjoyed the opening dream sequence where we see how Kyle envisions his teammates.

Cover Art - 3: The cover gives you an idea of what's happening inside the issue but like all cover complaints of late, there's no background. Not that the foreground isn't really well done, but you'd think for $2.25 we could get maybe a roller coaster or a Ferris wheel back there.

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