JLA: Tower of Babel (2000/ Collected 2001): written by Mark Waid, D. Curtis Johnson, John Ostrander, and Christopher Priest; illustrated by Howard Porter, Drew Geraci, Eric Battle, Ken Lashley, Prentis Rollins, Ron Boyd, Mark Pajarillo, Walden Wong, Steve Scott, and Mark Probst: Mark Waid began his run on JLA [Justice League of America] back in the year 2000 by pitting the League against its greatest enemy yet.
Of course, that enemy was a founding member of the League itself who came up with secret contingency plans to take out every member of the League in the event of an emergency. Unfortunately, that founding member's security wasn't as secure as the member believed. A super-villain gets the information and uses it, crippling the world's mightiest heroes as part of a plan to wipe out as much of humanity as possible so as to save the Earth.
Who is that member? Well, technically it's a spoiler. All I'll say is that it isn't Aquaman.
Waid's contemporary Silver-Age grooviness and knack for superhero characterization and plausibly implausible super-scientific threats make this particular story arc sing. Departing JLA penciller Howard Porter handles most of the art duties in his usual craggy, energetic style.
The fill-in issues and stand-alone stories by other hands collected here are all very enjoyable as well, especially the opening story penned by D. Curtis Johnson, which reads like a lost JLA story from the Denny O'Neil era of the 1970's. Highly recommended.
JLA: Syndicate Rules (2004-2005/ Collected 2006): written by Kurt Busiek; illustrated by Ron Garney and Dan Green: Among other things, the Syndicate Rules arc is a sequel to JLA/Avengers, also written by Kurt Busiek. This is never stated completely outright because DC doesn't have the rights to actually name the Avengers in a DC-only book, but there it is regardless. And it's really a fine sequel to that gigantic, over-stuffed, bombastic, hyper-enjoyable DC/Marvel crossover. We even get two artists then mainly associated with Marvel, Ron Garney and Dan Green, on the art duties.
This is also a follow-up to Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's JLA: Earth-2 graphic novel, which introduced new versions of the evil, alternate-Earth Crime Syndicate of Amerika to the early-oughts DC Universe. They're evil, anti-matter versions of Superman, Wonder Woman and company first introduced way back in the 1960's when Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky did the Justice League of America.
Anyway, Busiek is one of the masters of extrapolating and expanding and expounding upon comic-book continuity without making that continuity ponderous or onerous. And he's an expert at the necessary short-hand of mainstream superhero characterization. Syndicate Rules rings some interesting variations on old JLA/CSA stories while also adding new dimensions to this inter-dimensional tussle. Busiek also manages to give Silver-Age Green-Lantern-foes The Weaponers of Qward an interesting back-story while also making them a real threat to villains and heroes alike.
Ron Garney and inker Dan Green do nice work on what for them were unfamiliar characters at the time. This is an extremely action-packed saga, and Garney and Green render the action in convincing, epic fashion throughout. An enjoyably rousing, clever, and beautifully plotted story arc. Highly recommended.
Forever Evil: written by Geoff Johns; illustrated by David Finch and Richard Friend (2013-2014; collected 2015): I guess if you ever wanted to see Bizarro-Superman kill Otis from Superman: The Movie, then this is the Event Series for you. The Crime Syndicate of an Earth parallel to that of the Justice League figures out how to take the Justice League off the board without actually fighting them. And then they invade and conquer the Earth. But they hadn't reckoned on Lex Luthor putting together a team of super-criminals to... save the world? Yep.
David Finch's artwork is suitably gloomy for this crossover event. Writer Geoff Johns does love the ultraviolence from time to time. Moreover, the seven issues collected here seem awfully padded in the middle, a classic case of gear-grinding so as to get the maximum number of crossovers from the entire DC line (there were about 200 Forever Evil issues of other comic books in addition to the core miniseries). Competent series but not all that much fun; the Crime Syndicate was a lot more interesting when introduced in the wacky Silver Age or re-introduced by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely in a late 1990's Justice League graphic novel. Lightly recommended.
In Search of Galactus: written by Marv Wolfman; illustrated by Keith Pollard, John Byrne, Sal Buscema, Joe Sinnott, and others (1979-1980/collected 2010): From the sometimes fun, occasionally broody, and always wordy Marvel of the late 1970's (very late, given that we move into 1980 in the course of this collection) comes this collection of nearly a year's worth of Fantastic Four comics penned by Marv Wolfman.
Wolfman decided to wrap up the major plot-lines of his just-cancelled Nova series in the Fantastic Four comic, thus pairing the team with Nova and craptastic D-List superhero group New Champions for part of this adventure. The main adversary is the Sphinx, a super-powerful, immortal human with a yen to blow up the Earth. Outgunned, Reed Richards decides to find Galactus and get him to beat up the Sphinx. Why would Galactus do this? Because Reed will then waive the promise he received from Galactus to not eat the Earth. OK! This is a cunning plan.
There are also Skrulls, an aging virus that's going to kill all the members of the Fantastic Four not named the Human Torch in about three days, and a brief solo foray for the Human Torch with his buddy Spider-man at an evil college run by a forgotten FF villain from the later issues of the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby Fantastic Four. It's all enjoyably wordy, has some nice artwork -- especially from the John Byrne/Joe Sinnott team, who do a mean Galactus -- and goes down smoothly.
Though why Galactus wants yet another Herald, given the 100% failure rate of the first three (beginning with the Silver Surfer, natch), is a great question. As we learn in this series that Galactus has a zoo on board his spaceship, perhaps his recurring need for a Herald is just an expression of his deep-seated but unacknowledged need for... a friend. Recommended.
