Time to look at another volume in the JLA saga! The series has been pretty solid, but now we’re getting towards the latter part of its run. This volume isn’t quite as good as the last two, but it’s a good adventure nonetheless and is still about the Justice League so how can you go wrong there right? The Martian Manhunter gets a very large role here, but it’s at the expense of his likability.

This collection brings together a lot of issues (They were pretty small for this series for some reason) so there are several arcs to be found. The first one involves a war over on another planet and the Justice League hesitantly decide to end it. The tough question is, how can they end the war without choosing sides and interfering with the politics?

It’s a decently interesting mini arc and Superman reminds us why he’s the leader of the group. That being said, the heroes may have been thinking too much on the subject. Defeating the oppressors is always the first step. No matter what the repercussions are, it’s their job to help. Superman even reminds the readers at the end that evil flourishes when good people do nothing. So, inaction is still an action and I’m glad that the heroes made the heroic call and stopped the alien civil war.
Another arc had the Justice League framed for destroying a whole lot of people and the worst part is that they seem to believe that they really did it. The telepath who’s behind this must be powerful. Can the Justice League defeat a threat with their minds instead of through brute strength for once? Although, the brute strength part does come into play since the villains are pretty skilled as a group although Superman would likely defeat them all without any real effort.

Aside from the political intrigue on that part, there was even a character who made reference to the politically correct era that we are in now as he asked if the JLA was just meeting their quotas by adding the two new members. Whether it was coincidence or not, it’s definitely something that people would discuss nowadays. Superman’s response was off screen so we couldn’t see what he said. Naturally, this topic wasn’t as big back in the day, but it was still intriguing to read.

This was an interesting collection of stories, but it made the heroes look weak against mental assaults once again. I still don’t think that Superman can be mind controlled or mentally influenced so this was a little iffy. It gave some plot development to Major Disaster and Faith along with a subplot that could come back someday that involves her past. I don’t mind if it doesn’t though since I didn’t find it particularly interesting. The villains were all one shot characters who were effectively doomed, but the premise of the arc was still fun. After all, how can the League recover from a natural disaster that doomed so many people? (Or so they thought anyway)

After that, the big arc begins with the Martian Manhunter. He had been getting some counseling from an ex villain. She would help him brave the fires while he would help her forget the past and move on. Unfortunately, Scorch does her job a little too well and Martian Manhunter awakens his true, fiery form. He completely goes off the deep end and decides to destroy the Justice League once and for all. Stopping him will be tough and Batman is forced to bring in one of the classic Justice League members from his retirement.

Well, this was the big arc! I believe that it spanned around 10 issues, which is certainly impressive. A little less so when I remind you that the issues appear to be a little on the short side, but it was still intense. The White Lanterns even got mentioned at one point, but Martian Manhunter took down the whole army by himself off screen. It comes back to how I think the writers overdid it trying to make his new form look very powerful. He got a lot of hype and Superman even says that the Manhunter is one of the scariest opponents to face and maybe the strongest.

I don’t typically mind the Martian Manhunter and the guy can even be a decent character at times. That being said, I’ve never considered him to be anywhere near Superman or Wonder Woman in terms of power. After those two, you can make a good argument for him to take down Green Lantern or the Flash, but it’s a battle that I could easily see going either way. The White Lanterns were on Superman’s level at times and they gave the League a good fight so I don’t see how Martian Manhunter could have possibly taken down all of them in such a short amount of time. The only explanation that I can buy is that his telepathy overpowered all of theirs and he basically broke them before destroying the beasts. That would be slightly feasible, but only slightly since he shouldn’t be quite that good compared to them.

The arc definitely started off with a bang as the heroes found Superman partially phased into a table and then the rest of the League was quickly defeated aside from Batman who managed to escape in time. The Flash may have been able to have put up a decent fight, but he was taken out before he could really try anything. There was definitely a lot of action here and the League was really on the defensive until Plasticman arrived onto the scene and Martian Manhunter also helped to stop himself from the inside. This was the highlight of the collection even if it couldn’t beat the big arcs from the other volumes like the original White Martian saga.

After that big arc, things died down for a little while as a one shot showed us what could happen in the future if Batman and Wonder Woman ever got together. Wonder Woman went into a mind chamber that showed her how the future could be, but is really more just about looking at the subconscious. None of these things might actually happens, but Wonder Woman thinks that they can. It’s really an AU and some ideas were decent, but I’m not much of an AU guy and since each story would abruptly start and end, the issue didn’t do much for me. As least it finally ended the whole Batman and Wonder Woman angle.

Finally, the volume concluded with a small arc about an alien who was shocked that humans became the dominant species on Earth. He went around the world checking out the sites and ultimately decided to just blow the planet up. The heroes stopped him of course and the guy just destroyed himself instead. It was certainly a bit of a morbid ending, but not as much as it could have been because of the art.

The art in this mini arc almost makes you a little insensitive because it’s just verrrry abstract. Almost cartoony in a sense that everyone was constantly off model and the issues were hilarious to look through. It’s one of those “so bad it’s good” moments for the collection. Beyond the art, I can’t say that the final mini arc was all that interesting and was really just there to show us how Earth has really gone down over the years aside from all the good that’s also been done. It is a cruel world out there for sure. On the whole, the art is quite good and unique as always. JLA is definitely a title that believes bigger is better as it uses a lot of big panels for the action scene and everyone is larger than life. The splash pages of the heroes always look quite good and naturally the fight scenes follow suit. One scene that will likely make you chuckle is when someone asks Wonder Woman if she is interested in Superman and she has a laugh that is extemely dramatized. It comes so suddenly and takes up a huge part of the page. Wonder Woman even apologizes afterwards and basically just states that it would never happen. It’s great to see that the writers knew not to go down that route back in the day. If only they had stayed true to that right?

Batman looks good here like you would expect, but his role isn’t a very large one. He forces the Justice League to apologize to him after they go on a mission without consulting him and then saves the team. It’s neat to see Batman in control like usual and aside from the plot with Wonder Woman that ended in a good way anyway, he was definitely in character and always had a plan. If not for his decision to bring an old member out of retirement. It would have been Game Over for the world.

Superman ‘s great as you would expect. There’s not much to say about his portrayal because it was really spot on. He was completely heroic and always did the right thing. He may have gotten crushed in his battle with the Martian Manhunter, but it was mostly due to the fact that Superman didn’t actually expect a fight and trusted the guy. That’s definitely a good reason for losing to someone!

Wonder Woman gets a fairly large role here thanks in part to the subplot with Batman as well as just being present for all of the adventures. She looks good and is actually the first member to want to help out in the alien civil war so she deserves major props for that. Even Superman was unsure about participating, but he was quickly brought on board. Wonder Woman’s initiative certainly saved a lot of lives there and I like how she is the one who decided to break things off with Batman. She made a very wise decision.

This time, the Green Lantern who is present is John Stewart. That means that we’ve now seen the big three through the span of the JLA series. John Stewart’s a good Green Lantern even if I slightly prefer the other two most of the time. The battle between John and Kyle is a close one. Stewart’s role isn’t very large, but still much bigger than the Flash. He manages to keep some people inside of his bubble for over a day, which is a great feat of concentration and he definitely gave it his all to save the day. After the Justice League cartoon, it’s always cool to see him in the comics.

The Flash is a complete non factor here. Seriously, it’s like he’s a ghost. He gets almost no lines and doesn’t really impact the plot in any way except to save civilians in the background. His speed is always amazing and he certainly makes rescues that nobody else could, but I really wish that he could have gotten a bigger role. He’s still one of my favorite Justice League members. Barry is my favorite, but Wally can be great as well.

Firestorm can be a decent hero at times, but I didn’t care for his romance subplot here and that really accounted for around 90% of his screen time here. His powers have the potential to be great, but he is constantly knocked around before he can even activate them. He’s just out of his depths here and this is one character who could possibly use some character development. Faith also has no real character development, but it’s intentional as she is a bit of a mystery at the moment. Her abilities are certainly useful as she has the classic telekinesis skill, but she hasn’t gotten to fight too much yet since this volume wasn’t as action packed as you may have expected. She’s a good character so far, but we’ll see where it goes from here since she was already tempted to go back to the dark side once. Hopefully she doesn’t make that mistake.

The Atom has a minor role in this collection, but it’s enough of one that I should at least give him a passing mention. He doesn’t have much of a personality yet, but he does like to sing and gets along well with Green Lantern. While he’s certainly not one of the more dangerous League members, he’s fairly talented. Plasticman is a Justice League member that I’ve never been crazy about, but he ends up getting a critical role in the fight against the Martian Manhunter. It involves a lot of plot hax and even some toon force as Plasticman’s erratic style of fighting confuses the Martian. How this is enough to overcome the Martian’s superior speed and strength dozens of times over is what I don’t buy and Plasticman should have died after a single hit. Still, he’s back with the team now and as long as he isn’t as exaggeratedly bad as he used to be, I suppose that I can live with it. He just needs to act a little more reserved and respectful to his teammates.

Manitou Raven was one of the new characters who joined the team and I can’t say that I was a fan of his. Considering that he just joined the team, he seems to already be quite vocal with his opinions and seems to not be trust worthy. I can already picture him trying to take out Firestorm at some point and his scene with Green Lantern definitely felt suspicious. I don’t trust the guy, but maybe it’s just a red herring. Still not a likable member though.

Likewise, I’m not a fan of Major Disaster. Maybe I just didn’t want any extra members on the Justice League. The roster was already fairly strong so it’s not like the team needed any extra firepower. I actually thought that Disaster was just a depowered Guy Gardner for a while since he looks so similar. This guy could improve as time goes on I suppose, but his personality just isn’t a likable one for me. He wants to be a hero, but he’ll need to work better at being a team player to win me over. (Or just being likable as a solo act)

This was not a good appearance for the Martian Manhunter and the whole collection made him look bad. After he took a drink that he shouldn’t have, the Manhunter basically lost his mind and turned evil. Sure, he was able to gain control again, but only after nearly destroying the heroes several times over and being pounded into submission. I don’t really see how the League can trust him again after this so I can see why the vote was so close. I still think that he was slightly overhyped in this volume, but I do acknowledge him as a strong fighter. The worst should be over for him now so maybe I’ll like him more in future volumes. When he’s on top of things, the Manhunter can definitely be a good ally/character.

Overall, This was a solid volume of JLA. I do think that it was weaker than the others, but JLA can’t hit it out of the park every time right? An 8 is still great so they did well in my book. This is also the final volume out over here so I’m caught up for the moment although I haven’t read a lot of the older volumes. I may go back to those someday. If you’re looking for a JLA story with political intrigue and some action, then this is your bet. After all, it doesn’t get anymore dramatic than a traitor within the league right!?

Overall 8/10