We have just eight regular issues in this set, but that's counterbalanced by there being two annuals and a whopping
four issues of
Justice League Quarterly. Note that chronological order and publication order are very out of sync between
JLA and
JLE during this stretch, thanks to the
Bloodlines event. In
JLA,
Bloodlines follows issue #85, cover dated Feb. 1994 (due to the status of Booster Gold and Ice), while for
JLE, it must precede issue #53, cover dated Aug. 1993 (due to the status of Elongated Man). This puts the two titles a whole six months off of each other!
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| from Justice League America #85 |
"Absolute Power" / "They Might Be Giants", from Justice League America #84-85 (Jan.-Feb. 1994), reprinted in Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 1 (2017)written by Dan Vado, pencilled by Kevin West, inked by Ken Branch, letters by Tim Harkins, colors by Gene D'AngeloIce was written out during Dan Jurgens's JLA run; following the death of Superman, she left the team. During Dan Vado's run, he began periodically checking in on her as she returned to her people... only to discover that her brother had gone mad with power and was deposing her father and imposing a dictatorship. She sent her mother for help, and her mother arrived during the "evil Guy" story arc, so following its conclusion, the JLA finally goes to help Ice in this two-part story.
Let's say you were a fan of Ice. Unfortunately, nothing that makes Ice a fun character can be found in this story that supposedly focuses on her, which is all ridiculous posturing and snarling and big fights. And while it's not the fault of Dan Vado and artists Kevin West and Ken Branch, the trade paperback reprints the pages of issue #85 almost entirely out of order. With a more interesting story, I'd be willing to put in the work to figure out how to read it... but this story just isn't worth it. (I can't find anyone else on the Internet complaining about this, so I don't know if my copy has a unique issue, or if no one else has ever bothered to read their copy of Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 1!)
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| from Justice League Quarterly #12 |
"Negative Feedback" / "On the Road" / "A Man of Parts" / "Love Is War" / "Grandpas and Other Strangers" / "The Unkindest Cut" / "Havoc Unleashed!" / "Scent of Fear" / "Flight" / "Ascent into the Abyss" / "A Hole in the World!" / "Galway Girls" / "The Devil You Know!", from Justice League Quarterly #12-15 (Autumn 1993–Summer 1994)written by Mark Waid, Kim Fryer, Michael Jan Friedman, Kevin Dooley, Paul Kupperberg, Pat McGreal, Steven T. Seagle, and David De Vries; pencilled by Dan Rodriguez & Antonio Daniel, Mike Wieringo, Mike Mayhew, Greg LaRocque, Michael Collins, Mike Vosburg, Frank Squillace, Mark Tenney, and Eddy Spurlock; inked by Ken Branch, Frank Percy, Mike Christian, Dan Davis, Aaron McClellan, Terry Beatty, Eduardo Barreto, Mike Vosburg, Bam, Bob Smith, Ray Kryssing, and Don Hillsman; colored by Buzz Setzer, Tom McCraw, Glenn Whitmore, Matt Webb, David Grape, Gene D'Angelo, Phil Allen, and Mia Wolf; lettered by Willie Schubert & John Workman, Albert De Guzman, Bob Pinaha, Clem Robins, Ken Bruzenak, and Agnes PinahaThese four issues of Justice League Quarterly all seem to fit in this general time period: in JLA-centric stories, Captain Atom is back, for example, while in JLI-centric stories, Crimson Fox, Elongated Man, and Hal Jordan are all still around. They also feature parts two through five of the ongoing Praxis story, "The Damnation Agenda." I'll go issue by issue here, except I'll save my comments on the Praxis story for the end.
Issue #12 launches with a Conglomerate lead story. This is, if I'm counting correctly, the third Conglomerate story from JLQ, and the third version of the team. Like the first (see item #6 below), it's about the tension between corporate interests and altruism; like the first, the team is a mix of returning characters (I recognized the JSA's Jesse Quick and Infinity, Inc.'s Nuklon) and new ones (I think so, anyway; I didn't recognize them). The art is all 1990s in what I would say is the worst possible way (except I've read Marc Campos's JLA run, so I know even worse is possible) and the new characters are pretty ridiculous. Worst of all, though, is that even though this is by Mark Waid and thus has some nice moments... we've read it all before, because this is just the original Conglomerate story over again! I'm guessing this was an attempt to set the team up for future adventures, but I'm not aware of any. This issue's non-Praxis backup is a flashback story about Ice and Doctor Light going on a road trip together; you've read better but you've read worse. A couple cute moments, but it doesn't always ring true.
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| from Justice League Quarterly #13 |
Issue #13's lead story focuses on Maxima and Captain Atom. Maxima's old consort, Ultraa, comes to Earth to take on Superman and resume his relationship with Maxima; however, at the same time, Maxima has decided to pursue Captain Atom instead. Captain Atom is dealing with his own issues, though, and doesn't think he can love again. There's probably a good story to be told with these ingredients, and this isn't the worst, but it wasn't very great either. I don't think Greg LaRocque has the character chops to pull this off, but he does draw a pretty Maxima.
One of the recurring features of JLQ has been getting Paul Kupperberg, who wrote the 1980s miniseries that reestablished Power Girl as an Atlantean, to write stories focused on Kara, continuing threads begun in that mini. Issue #13 contains the last of those, but it also seems to be dealing with threads for Kupperberg's Arion ongoing. I've read neither of these series, and I very much struggled to care about all this. Kupperberg also performs cleanup duties on issue #14's lead story, which seems to be focused on loose threads from the cancelled Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt ongoing, as Thunderbolt, along with Captain Atom, Nightshade, and Blue Beetle work together to take down a Thunderbolt villain. Again, it gets too much into the weeds with concepts from a series I haven't actually read, so not even some solid Mike Collins art can save it. The last page made me realize why this seemingly random collection of characters: they were all originally published by Quality Comics. Cute gag, I guess, but why build a story around it? The JL connection here seems slight. (Of the four, only Beetle is currently a member.)
#14 has two backups, one about the Crimson Fox, one about a new new Jack O'Lantern. The Fox one is by the usually dependable Pat McGreal, but like too many Crimson Fox stories, focuses on a man manipulating her sexuality. The Jack O'Lantern one is, surprisingly, a pro-choice story where he has to defend a woman fleeing her Irish Catholic community for England so she can get an abortion; the anti-abortion activists go to ridiculous lengths to stop her. O'Lantern spends the whole story going on about how he doesn't think abortion is moral but the girl has a right to do it anyway, which feels like a very 1990s take on the debate. Super heavy handed, and I'm kind of surprised it was even published.
There's another Jack O'Lantern backup in #15, which was so boring I never figured out what was going on. The fun story here is the Tasmanian Devil one, who joined the JLI in issue #50, but never got a lot of focus. Despite some confusing art, I enjoyed this one. Similarly, there's a Ray backup with ugly art but some good jokes. (I did not know Ray was a Star Trek fan.)
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| from Justice League Quarterly #15 |
So parts two through four of the Praxis story, "The Damnation Agenda," are backups in issues #12-14; then the longer concluding installment is the lead story in issue #15. It's fine. I think there are occasional flashes of something interesting, pulled down by the need to conform to a lot of clichés of the genre, like the fact that Praxis's female partner has to fall in love with him but he has to angst about it. Also, Praxis's power is to manipulate electricity, but this gets broadened to manipulating anything with
electrons in it. 1) This is not the same thing at all, and 2) leads to a lot of dumb moments where people say things like, "I forget air was
matter too!" In the last installment, some random members of the JLI show up (I guess to justify why this whole story appeared in a JLI-focused ongoing) but the story needs to make sure they're not essential to the resolution. I honestly got pretty lost in the thaumababble of the climax. On the whole, I would say the whole Praxis story wasn't as bad as I feared but probably not worth devoting five issues of
JLQ to either.
Back when I wrote up issues #8-10 of JLQ (see #10 below) I said this series was probably my favorite of the then-three Justice League ongoings. Unfortunately, it seems to have plummetted off a cliff fairly quickly; we've gone from cute fleshing out of the characters of the JLI to desperate chasing of the worst trends of 1990s comics.
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| from Justice League International Annual vol. 2 #4 |
"Bloody London", from Justice League International Annual vol. 2 #4 (1993)written by Gerard Jones, pencilled by Mike Parobeck, inked by Luke McDonnell, lettered by Clem Robins, colored by Gene D'AngeloBloodlines was the big crossover through DC's 1993 annuals; alien parasites fell to Earth, taking over people and turning them into monsters, but also creating the "New Bloods," heroes with powers to counter the parasites. To be honest, I'm a bit murky on the details; while I've systematically collected some of the themed annuals of the 1980s and '90s, what I have read of Bloodlines has demonstrated it to be everything that made the early 1990s a bad time for comics.
This isn't the worst. Gerard Jones's story focuses on Elongated Man, Tasmanian Devil, and Metamorpho hunting a serial killer in London, which is a good concept; Jones always does great by Ralph, and the premise is well-suited to him. Unfortunately, we also get a lot about Lionheart, the kind of angsty 1990s superhero who's torn between a government master and doing the right thing, with a dollop of English working-class resentment thrown in. I do in general think that Mike Parobeck is a really good artist, but a story about disgusting alien superkillers is not really a match for his cartoony sensibilities (though I do always like seeing him draw Elongated Man).
"Only the Lucky Ones Die", from Justice League America Annual #7 (1993), reprinted in Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 1 (2017)
written by Bill Loebs, pencilled by Greg LaRocque, inked by Robert Jones, Mark Stegbauer, & Bob Downs, letters by Ken Bruzenak, colors by Gene D'Angelo
Now this one is bad. It's written by William Messner-Loebs, not Dan Vado, but unfortunately Loebs does a good job of imitating the Vado style on JLA, where everyone snarls and argues all the time. Lots of gratuitous darkness and violence. Somehow this run on JLA keeps sinking to new lows.
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| from Justice League International vol. 2 #54 |
"Deadly Liasions" / "Impostors" / "Lest Darkness Fall" / "Ambush" / "Inferno!", from Justice League International vol. 2 #53-57 (Aug.-Late Oct. 1993)written by Gerard Jones & Will Jacobs; pencilled by Ron Randall and Mike Collins; inked by Randy Elliott, Aaron McClellan, Roy Richardson, and Romeo Tanghal; letters by Willie Schubert and Clem Robins; colors by Gene D'AngeloGerard Jones's run from JLE #37 to JLI #52 or so wasn't Great Art, but it was very much Solid Superhero Team Comics. Interesting characters, fun interactions, interesting villains, clever resolutions. Suddenly that goes away here. The first issue here is okayish, about Metamorpho following Crimson Fox to Paris. Fox's old boyfriend who she thought was dead turns out to be alive; he convinces her to fake her death to be with him. And she does. But why? I thought this was going somewhere, but it never does, she's just gone. What a weird way to write her out. But it's fun seeing Metamorpho kick up a storm in Paris; I love it when Jones makes up doofy European superheroes.
After this, though, things get very bad very quick. Lots of ideas that feel underbaked or dropped. Like, issue #54 is about everyone acting weirdly: Doctor Light puts on sexy lingerie to seduce Taz, for example. It turns out everyone has been replaced by robots, and they guy who did this is messing with their programming, and then he takes them to the future to fight in a war for him? Why? There's some attempt to make the conflict in the future philosophically interesting but the JLI just picks a side and fights people and none of the philosophy matters to that. Then the characters are back in the present day punching cultists?? And then it's over??? Kind of, anyway, all of these concepts will come back in future issues even thought they weren't worth devoting much time to to begin with.
Ralph and Sue (and, randomly, the ghost of Duke Donald) are written out at the end of issue #57. On the one hand, I'm grumpy because Ralph is literally my favorite; on the other hand, I'm glad my favorite character isn't around for the even worse issues to come.
What was the problem? Was Gerard Jones losing steam? Or was editorial jerking him around? Probably both.
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| from Justice League Task Force #9 |
"Saturday Night's All Right for Fightin'!", from Justice League Task Force #9 (Feb. 1994), reprinted in Justice League Task Force, Volume 1: The Purification Plague (2018)written by Jeph Loeb, pencilled by Greg LaRocque, inked by Kevin Conrad, lettered by Bob Pinaha, colored by Glenn WhitmoreThis one-off JLTF issue is a followup to Bloodlines; Martian Manhunter is trying to enjoy an evening alone in the League's New York embassy (I think this is the first indication we get that he still resides there now that he leads the JLTF, actually) when some "New Bloods" turning up wanting training. He ends up working with them to defeat some parasites, and shenanigans ensue. It's mildly funny, but writer Jeph Loeb dedicating the issue to Keith Giffen was probably just dooming himself to being an also-ran when it comes to funny League stories. You can never make me care about the New Bloods, sorry guys.
