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Mild Mannered Reviews - Justice League Adventures

Justice League Adventures #1

Scheduled to arrive in stores: November 14, 2001

Cover date: January 2002

Writer: Ty Templeton
Penciller: Min S. Ku
Inker: Dan Davis

"Disarmed"

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

A family is escorted from their homes by the government when a strange, glowing object is found in a nearby neighbor's backyard. Calling on Green Lantern to deal with the contraption, the military stand by, unnerved and uncertain over what they are dealing with.

Meanwhile, at the Justice League's Watchtower Satellite, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, the Flash, and J'onn J'onnz jump from their seats simultaneously at the sound of an alarm. Hawkgirl points to the monitor and indicates the massive alien starship that has parked outside.

All of a sudden, a strange pyramidal object teleports into the center of the Watchtower's meeting room and the heroes step back as a bizarre, ant-like creature steps out, revealing that the strange, glowing object in the backyard on Earth is actually a gravity bomb. The startled Justice League questions the alien being and learns of the ongoing war between two galactic species, the Tahg and the Xioatal, and the misdirected gravity bomb that was meant for the Xioatal home world instead of Earth.

The League relaxes momentarily upon learning that the bomb is being handled by Green Lantern, until the ant-like alien reveals that the Green Lantern ring will trigger the bomb if it tries to dispatch of it. The alien's insistence causes Superman to leave the Watchtower and streak to Earth, where he intercepts Green Lantern before the hero can use to his ring to contain the bomb.

However, as the two heroes meet up with the rest of the League and their alien ally, John remains skeptical of the alien's story. To prove his point, the alien wraps one of his appendages with Wonder Woman's magic truth lasso and the League learns that the only one who might be able to disable the bomb is the Thanagarian Hawkgirl, whose race is famous for having mastered the gravity that the bomb alters.

Agreeing to help, Hawkgirl flies into the backyard, but her mission is interrupted when she finds a stray soldier suddenly becoming overcome by the first effects of the bomb. Swooping in, she saves the soldier, but is quickly overwhelmed by the altered gravity's effect. Houses begin turning upside down, cars float through the air, and Hawkgirl tries flying forward, but ends up hurtling down instead. Superman flies in and saves the two.

Outside, the gravitational anomaly grows as the military and the rest of the League rush to evacuate more of the surrounding area and retreat farther away from the growing threat. Inside a school building, a girl teenager is trapped until the Flash rushes inside. J'onn J'onnz, with Wonder Woman's lasso wrapped around him, finds the two and rescues them before the school building can tip over completely. Wonder Woman pulls her lasso from outside the anomaly, consequently saving the three from the bizarre, gravitational effects.

Moments later, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman regroup with Batman and Hawkgirl, who are both attempting to figure out a way to stop the gravity bomb's effects. The alien ant frantically demands answers, and his true purpose slips from his tongue when he rushes Hawkgirl to download the solution into his database. Batman realizes that the alien cares nothing for the Earth and is attempting to use Hawkgirl's expertise as a Thanagarian to unlock the secret of disabling gravity bombs to aid the war effort on his planet. The Dark Knight detective also reveals that the alien's race has trinary biology: three arms, three antennae, and three legs, pointing to the fourth arm that the alien used to wrap Diana's lasso around.

Batman pulls off the mechanical appendage and the startled alien, realizing his plan has been discovered, strikes out at the Caped Crusader, knocking him off his feet while Wonder Woman lassos the opponent. He reveals his true intent, and Hawkgirl, overcome by rage, attacks the alien. Green Lantern pulls her back, and, once he's certain her anger is controlled, sets off to deal with the bomb using his ring, as he had planned to do all along.

As Lantern begins to contain the massive anomaly, the alien strikes back with a blaster, which is deflected by Diana's bracelets, as the ant flees.

Batman and Hawkgirl give chase, dodging the laser beams from the alien and watching in rage as the ant turns his blaster on the their shuttle and destroys it.

Meanwhile, Lantern carries the bomb into space with the power of his ring and flings it away from the Earth, protecting himself with a shield as the bomb goes critical and explodes.

The alien ant blasts off in his starship, attempting to evade the Man of Steel's pursuit. Using a burst of his thrusters, he sends Superman hurtling backwards, and is about to celebrate when J'onn J'onnz enters his craft and destroys the inner circuitry. The damaged ship hurtles downwards, threatening to destroy a house in the course of its destruction, when Green Lantern returns from his space voyage and saves the ship and the house.

Superman pulls the alien out of the wrecked ship, hoisting his helpless prisoner into the air, in a gesture that promises justice will be served for the crimes it has committed.

Story - 4: A great start to the new series! Things are as quick paced, exciting, and fun as the animated series, and each of the characters was able to contribute something to the story. Green Lantern gets rid of the bomb, J'onn J'onnz stops the alien's escape, Batman figures out the insidious plot, Hawkgirl works on the puzzle of the antigravity, Wonder Woman makes use of her lasso, and the Flash and Superman... well, they save a lot of people. On the show, the creators have done an incredible job with making each character have a distinctive quality and difference and each of these personalities is faithfully represented in this issue. As well, the twist ending and clever use of Wonder Woman's lasso were well conceived and carried through brilliantly. My only complaint is that some of the saves seemed unnecessary. First Hawkgirl gets saved by Superman, then Flash gets saved by J'onn J'onnz in a similar fashion. All in all though, a promising first issue to represent what I hope will remain a strong, long lasting animated series.

Art - 4: Mr. Ku did some work on the Superman Adventures comic book three or four months back and I was impressed with the work I saw. After reviewing that issue, he wrote me an e-mail, thanking me for my comments and criticisms and revealing that he was excited to begin work on some Justice League Adventures issues. I was excited as well, especially upon seeing the art he's presented in this issue. It is not only an improvement over the work he's done on the Superman Adventures, but it is also a very strong, loyal interpretation of the characters of the series in new environments and alternate situations. Nice job!

Cover Art - 5: Wow! What can I say? The first time I saw this cover, I copied it off the Internet and used it as my desktop background. It's gorgeous. You think the Justice League is a dream team? I'll tell you the REAL dream team: Alex Ross and Bruce Timm!