JLA #40

World War Three Part Five

Grant Morrison – Writer
Howard Porter – Penciller
Drew Geraci – Inker
Ken Lopez – Letterer
Pat Garrahy – Colorist
Heroic Age – Separator
Tony Bedard – Assoc. Editor
Dan Raspler – Editor

This is a pretty scary cover — showing the three biggest heroes cowering in fear in the presence of some unseen evil. However, I have no idea what's going on (both on the cover and inside). As the cover clearly states, this is the fifth part of a six-part story, and I have not yet read the four preceding parts. And whenever Grant Morrison is involved, there's always the chance that I'd be confused anyway, even if I had read everything previously. Luckily, Impulse only shows up in one panel, so I don't need to worry about a whole lot.

So apparently it's World War III, and I mean actual war. Like all of Asia and Europe are fighting against America with soldiers, bombs, helicopters, tanks, etc. And there's a giant monster/weapon/entity/thing called Mageddon that is apparently responsible for all this. Amidst all the fighting, we see several members of Young Justice help repel invading forces on Venice Beach, Los Angeles.

We have Superboy, Impulse, Red Tornado and Arrowette here, which probably means that this story took place before Arrowette quit and all the stuff with Old Justice happened. Or maybe Arrowette decided to throw on her costume once more because it's well, you know, World War III. Anyway, that's all we see of Impulse, and therefore all we really care about. The rest of the issue involves a lot more fighting like this and some sitting around war tables and trying to come up with a plan. The ending is pretty neat, though. The Flash (Wally West) returns from a trip to the Speed Force. After remarking that he's glad he didn't end up on another parallel Earth again, he introduces everybody to the help he brought with him — a gigantic blue man made of energy.


So that's it. A big, brash story with tons of fighting possibilities, which is necessary for this version of the JLA, which currently has like 17 members on its team. The art was fairly decent, and I'm sure the story will be good, too, once I get around to reading it. But for now, and the purposes of this blog, I really don't have anything else to say about it.

Next time, we'll wrap up the Dark Flash saga in The Flash #159.