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Mild Mannered Reviews - Justice League Adventures

Justice League Adventures #18

Justice League Adventures #18

Scheduled to arrive in stores: April 2, 2003

Cover date: June 2003

Writer: Stan Berkowitz
Penciller: Chris Jones
Inker: Dan Davis

"Evano The Terrible"

Reviewed by: George O'Connor (mo442@nyu.edu)


Batman, The Flash, Hawkgirl, J'onn J'onnz, and Wonder Woman all regain consciousness with oxygen masks affixed over their faces. Confused as to where they have been taken and what has happened, they recall that they were all called to the laboratory of Professor Palmer (A.K.A. The Atom) where they were bombarded by Palmer's ray gun when he entered the room.

Before the heroes can grasp what has happened, however, they see a group of robotic ships coming at them.

Elsewhere, Green Lantern and Superman meet as they save a commuter airplane from crashing. Superman becomes suspicious when he hears that Lantern and the rest of the League were all invited to Palmer's laboratory without him, especially when he can't find the rest of his team members.

Meanwhile, the rest of the League springs into action against the robotic ships. The Atom shows up after the League has vanquished their foes, and informs them that they are inside Superman's body, which has been invaded by aliens that are plotting to control Superman's brain for their own nefarious purposes.

Palmer reveals that he was forced to turn his shrinking ray on the Leaguers in the laboratory without explanation because he knew Superman was approaching... and if the Man of Steel had already been taken control of by the aliens, there was no way the Leaguers would have been able to stop him. With the League members miniaturized, the Atom had then led them into Superman's body where they could hope to sabotage the aliens' efforts.

Later, the League finds themselves at the alien's base, and J'onn does reconnaissance on the command center. J'onn watches as the aliens try to test their control over Superman by having him K.O. Green Lantern. They fire a synaptic discharge and the Flash chases it up Superman's nerves, bashing the electrical stream with Hawkgirl's mace before it can reach its destination.

Superman screams out in pain as the confused aliens try again. The League invades a moment later and captures the leader, who tells them that they have controlled Superman's body so he can destroy the tyrant, Evano the Terrible, who apparently destroyed an exploration vehicle of their species that crash landed on Earth.

The Justice League insists that they don't know who this Evano is, and the whole matter is later cleared up when the Green Lantern tracks down Evan Offenhauser, an owner of a collectibles store in suburban America. Evan reveals that as a child, he found a ship that he thought was a toy submarine and put it in water.

Recognizing that the entire incident has just been an unfortunate tragedy, the aliens set off for space, exploring in honor of the fallen crew.

4Story - 4: This latest JL Adventure is a fun sci-fi story with an ironic twist ending. The Atom's inclusion, meanwhile, is a welcome one, even if his part doesn't seem very large (no pun intended). While I would have liked to see Superman really unleash on a few targets before the League gained control of the command center in his body, this was a taut, well-told tale that was engaging and enjoyable... though the premise of a miniature alien species being wiped out accidentally does remind me of part of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in which almost the exact same thing happened.

4Art - 4: The quality seems to slowly decrease as the book progresses, but it remains good enough to award it a 4 rating. The first page is the most beautiful in the whole book, with the League members awaking unconscious. The use of perspective and layout on this page is terrific. As the rest of the tale goes on, there's some rather typical action shots and dialogue sequences, but for every mediocre page, there is another that is, if not exactly gorgeous, very nice.

3Cover Art - 3: I've seen this cover a thousand times before, but that doesn't make it any less cool.


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