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Mild Mannered Reviews - Justice League Adventures

Justice League Adventures #28

Justice League Adventures #28

Scheduled to arrive in stores: February 4, 2004

Cover date: April 2004

Writer: Jason Hall
Penciller: Min S. Ku
Inker: Ty Templeton

"Future Imperfect"

Reviewed by: Adam Dechanel



Ludwig Dyteman is a worker at STAR Labs with a dislike for a society in love with technology, an accident in the lab leads to Ludwig transforming into Kilg%re a villian akin too Livewire in Superman: The Animated Series.

His first port of call is a military base where he infects the tech with a supervirus to cause a possible nucleaur holocaust. Enter the League who leave Batman trying to re-enable the caches computer failsafes while the others try to defeat Kilg%re at the world fair.

Kilg%re causes havoc with the tech there until he sees a teleporter and launches himself into the future. The League follow but Superman is too slow. Superman alerts Batman via a walkie talkie and Bruce announces its too late...

A.D. 2980

The four remaining League members arrive and bump straight into the Legion.

They are kidnapped and taken to the Legion Headquarters where introductions are made. The League discover they are Legends and that in the future Superman and the League would eventually inspire the Legions formation.

Green Lantern observes that the Future is very hi tech and perhaps this is why Kilg%re made a beeline for it. A comlink interrupts the banter announcing that Kilg%re is causing trouble and so the Legion and the female members of the League rush to the rescue. (The Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl in disguise to not cause a riot of fans.)

Flash, GL and Brainiac 5 stay behind setting a trap for the villian with a super technological marvel - the robot C.O.M.P.U.T.O.

Kilg%re gloats to the heroes that the future he predicted has come to pass and revels in his discovery.

Suddenly C.O.M.P.U.T.O. goes online and Kilg%re immediately downloads himself into it and battles the remaining heroes unaware that he's fallen into a trap. Flash unplugs the machine trapping the villian inside, Legion member Kid Quantum slows down the machine and stops Killg%re uploading into anything else with a stasis field.

They then ask for the villain to give the antivirus to save the missile base in the present. Kilg%re refuses.

Brainiac reveals he has looked into Ludwig Dyteman's past and discovered that the technology that Kilg%re hates will eventually be the very thing that will cure his daughter Ella.

Repentent, Kilg%re gives the Justice League an antivirus and promptly erases himself.

Using a Cosmic Treadmill (an invention of the Atom to travel through time) that Brainiac 5 had been tinkering with the League travel back to the present just as the holocaust is beginning and save the day with the antivirus.

The End.

However Brainiac 5 had suspected that Kilg%re had survived somehow and he was right!

Kilg%re has downloaded himself into a VR machine where he lives a non-technological life in the program.

2Story - 2: OUCH! Reading this story through was not a good experience, it reeked of the terrible days of "Adventures In The DC Universe"

Prepare for a rant folks!

The characterisations were terrible, Superman was all muscles and no brain, Batman was bitchy, Flash was bland, Wonder Woman was jokey, Hawkgirl and Green Lantern were reduced to bit parts... and J'onn wasn't there.... and the featured members of the Legion were bland too...

There were a variety of Legion members featured but unfortunately as a non follower of the Legion and a lack of character building they were instantly lost to me.

Brainiac 5 and his link to Superman's evil villian were shrugged off. A lot of things were hinted at but were were repeatedly slapped in the face with "You can't know too much about the future" all well and good but then why hint at continuity and do nothing with it? "Green Lantern's aren't allowed on Earth" we're told... but by then I was in the stage of disbelief that this issue was actually printed...

Onto Kilg%re... BITE ME!

Ludwig Dyteman, is a techie at STAR Labs. He's working on a teleporter with Emil Hamilton and discusses that his daughter is ill... the doctors have no idea what her illness IS but they don't think its serious.... the first alarm bell.

Now all of a sudden he launches into a conversation with a monkey in the lab about not liking the fact we're in an age of technology (despite the fact it might save his sick daughter.) SMILING he wishes he could spend the rest of his life in a rowboat without the TV or internet.... ZAP he becomes a supervillian... second alarm bell...

To stop technology (for which he has no motive except wanting a fishing trip) he reprograms a military missile cache and the world technology fair....third alarm bell... not exactly Lex Luthor is he?

Once he goes to the future via Hamilton's gadget he wreaks havoc on the future... but when he is defeated and discovers his daughter will be saved by technology in the present day he relents and kills himself... fourth alarm bell...

ok does anyone think... if he only became a villian for seeing the bad side of technology why, when he's enlightened to the good does he do away with himself at all?

Oh one last thing-- leaving his sick daughter alone?

How will she be saved by tech if she can't afford treatment?

Who will look after her? Her father downloaded himself into a VR machine "killing himself" now the little girl is a pennyless orphan....

Mr Writer did you think this through?

(Also Flash zipped into the time portal, as did WW, GL & Hawkgirl... but Superman was too slow to make it?? Hello??)

I did notice the nods to Dawnstar and Laurel in the costume changes of the girls and the links to past issues via mentions of the cosmic treadmill and the Atom but that didn't add anything to rescue the issue.

Sorry but this WAS a turkey.

(I read the two JL Adventures mini graphic novels prior to the review so I felt this issue was terrible seeing the decline...)

4Art - 4: The artwork was true the the series style for the most part with a few glitches along the way but overall a lushly illustrated book.

Hats off to Min and Ty for a great job keeping to the animated style.

Pity the story was of a Marvel Comics level - the fact it was poorly written made me not want to actually experience the art which is NOT a good thing!

4Cover Art - 4: The cover looked like an animation cel and for that is definitely deserves a 4 gorgeously drawn and incredibly luch coloring but why it doesn't get top marks is C.O.M.P.U.T.O. never attacks the League or Legion... and also it states MEET THE LEGION! however C.O.M.P.U.T.O. is the focal point and the heroes are literally sprinkled with only GL being prominent out of six featured on it.



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Mild Mannered Reviews

2004

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