Mild Mannered Reviews - JLA Comics

JLA #43

JLA #43

Scheduled to arrive in stores: May 24, 2000

Cover date: July 2000

Writer: Mark Waid
Penciller: Howard Porter
Inker: Drew Geraci

"Survival of the Fittest"

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


At the Himalayan retreat of Ra's Al Ghul, one of his servants is disposed of after an accident resulting in the death of an endangered tiger species. As Ra's Al Ghul angers over the wildlife tragedy, he reviews his plan to "pare the human race to a manageable size."

Bruce Wayne climbs the small hill leading to his parent's grave when, with a look of astonishment, he is faced with an empty grave.

The Flash and Wonder Woman are desperately trying to put out a huge forest fire in Germany's Black Forest. As they ponder over how the fire could have started, a figure covered in fire dashes through the trees. Flash and Wonder Woman give chase, and once they are able to extinguish the fire around him, they are surprised to see that the figure covered in flames is The Martian Manhunter.

At the United Nations Headquarters, representatives of Atlantis are in negotiations when Aquaman and Plastic Man burst through the wall. Following closely behind are a group of armed assassins that fire a missile at Plastic Man, which freezes him in place. When another missile heads towards Plastic man, Aquaman intercepts it before it can shatter him. As Aquaman kneels on the floor, stunned from the impact, someone hands him a glass of water, but he knocks it out of his hand in a frightened rage.

In the JLA Watchtower, Superman, The Flash and Wonder Woman are trying to help Martian Manhunter, Aquaman and Plastic Man. After a quick scan with his telescopic vision, Superman finds that MM's skin was "bonded with nanites engineered to transmute trace elements into Magnesium", causing him to burst into flames. While The Flash tries to piece together a shattered Plastic Man, Wonder Woman tries to help Aquaman, who is dehydrated but deadly afraid of water.

Superman arrives at the Daily Planet to try and get some information. Meanwhile, Ra's Al Ghul is at his headquarters, seated and surrounded by screens. With his hand hovering over a large red button, he counts down to zero and presses it. Clark Kent opens up a newspaper and on it are undecipherable words. Throughout the office and even out in the streets, all printed words have turned to babble.

The Flash and Wonder Woman are at Kyle Rayner's apartment, to find out why he hasn't been responding to their signals. When they are finally able to find his apartment door through all of the babble, they enter to find Kyle sitting alone and blind.

5Story - 5: A sinister Ra's Al Ghul to start the issue and a cliffhanger at the end. The ways Ra's Al Ghul took out the JLA were pretty interesting. Mark Waid did a great job to start off his run on the JLA.

5Art - 5: Porter was really good in this issue, better than usual I would think. Some nice page layouts and great action panels.

3Cover Art - 3: While the JLA costume's hanging on the crosses is pretty cool, it seems to lack originality. There needs to be some eye catching action on this cover.


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Mild Mannered Reviews

2000

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