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Mild Mannered Reviews - JLA Comics

JLA #67

Scheduled to arrive in stores: June 26, 2002

Cover date: August 2002

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

"The Destroyers" (Part 2)

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

Green Lantern wakes up from his poisoned slumber aboard the Watchtower on the distant surface of the moon. He's groggy and out of it. He's in no condition to be a hero, least of all a super hero. Unfortunately, the JLA have been drugged and taken hostage at an amusement park in Southern Florida. Their captors, a Shaman from South American swamps and an Aztec warrior from the past, Tezumak, prepare to initiate their human sacrifice starting with the unconscious body of Wonder Woman.

Batman fights the effects of the drugs and manages to stall the Aztec warrior with a well-placed Bat-arang just long enough for Green Lantern to arrive with power ring blazing. The distraction allows Flash time to recover from the drug and save Wonder Woman from Tezumak.

The JLA regroup and prepare to take the offensive, but Green Lantern gets in the way. He uses strong arm tactics to force information out of the Shaman. Green Lantern believes the Shaman has some sort of connection to weird dreams he [GL] has been having about violent magical crows. The Shaman denies any involvement but Green Lantern clearly seems to think he's lying.

Flash, Plastic Man, and Batman take down Tezumak by wedging Plastic Man into a crack in the Aztec armour and forcing it open. Unfortunately Tezumak is not neutralised before he detonates hundreds of hidden bombs throughout the fun park. Flash races at mind boggling speed to evacuate the park of civilians.

Manhunter quickly mind probes the Shaman and discovers that he believes the JLA are the destroyers of the world. Further probes with the help of Wonder Woman's golden lasso confirms this and the Shaman's denial of any connection with Green Lantern.

Suddenly and without warning, the Shaman and Tezumak disappear into a wind blown swirl of leaves. The JLA give chase. The Shaman has realized the error of his ways, he can not destroy the destroyers in their world so he must lure them to his own. But he is weak and he cannot open the gateway to return the way he came. He and Tezumak make a desperate attempt to reach Atlantis, a place of great magic. However, once they get there they are horrified to find it is missing.

Just as the JLA have caught up with him the Shaman casts a last ditch spell. With an earth-shattering boom the Shaman and the Aztec have disappeared. In their place the ruins of Atlantis have reappeared ABOVE water.

To be continued....

Story - 4: I know, I know. I said I wasn't digging the whole rebirth of Aquaman thing. But the set up is so far out in left field that I'm really intrigued. I'm left with a dozen questions that I can't wait to have answered.

Where are the Shaman and Tezumak from? Where has Atlantis been? What happened to all of the Atlanteans? And those are just the most obvious questions.

The pacing is excellent as well. For an issue that could have easily turned into nothing more then "the fight issue" it really contributed to the storyline. Little bits of the mystery were revealed and we even managed to get some quality character interaction between Wonder Woman and Batman.

Art - 4: As usual I enjoy Mahnke's gritty larger then life pencils, no complaints. However, the colors are again disappointing. If it's not in the foreground it doesn't seem to get taken care of with more then a flat color. Which would be ok if that were the style of the book, or if it were only once and a while, but the discovery of Atlantis is colored flat and tan. This is supposed to be a monumental moment, and I know I'm being an nit picking annoying fan boy, but that was supposed to be the big pay off and I think it fell short because of the colors.

Cover Art - 3: Never has a bird been scarier outside of a Hitchcock film. This tiny six inch creature lords over a fallen and broken Martian Manhunter.