Not one of Ernie Chan's best covers--the design is fine, but I kinda doubt the JLA are hurtled through the air like stiff-armed action figures. Of course, everything else about the comic is totally plausible.The Story: "The Evil Connection!" by Gerry Conway, Dick Dillin, and Frank McLaughlin. Picking up from last issue, the Weaponers of Qward come to Earth and quickly encounter Green Lantern.
They blast Lantern and rescue Two-Face, and then tell them their plan to destroy the Earth and save the alien world of Dronndar. They ask Dent for his help, he flips his coin...tails!
Two-Face meets up with Superman and Aquaman, then Hawkman, Flash, and Atom, and places tiny power-blast devices on them. So, unbeknownst to them, when they thought they were fighting and defeating the invaders from Qward, they were actually siphoning off energy from Dronndar, doing their work for them!
Luckily the Atom figures out Two-Face's treachery, and tells Superman and Aquaman that the way to reverse the process is to let themselves get defeated by the Qwardians, which they do.
The the Qwardians stupidly piled on, blasting the heroes over and over, reversing the whole energy-transferring process, which burns out the transmitters Two-Face placed on them. Then it was short work defeating now-weakened Qwardians (confused yet?).
The issue ends with Two-Face back in Arkham Asylum, telling the story to another cell-mate:
Notable Moments: I like how the Joker is about as chaotically insane as he's ever been--here he is, sort of wishing for the sweet embrace of death.
Thank God Two-Face decided to betray the League; otherwise they probably would've asked him to join!
My son has this comic now, the cover sold him on it. I've always strayed away from stories involving the Bat Villains and aliens, it never seems to jive.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this one was just weird. Well written, but weird.
ReplyDeleteThose Leaguers do look rather stiff, don't they? Chua/Chan must have had to do 100 covers that day.
Chris
This conclusion was SO much better than the set-up, IMHO. I loved how Aquaman, the Atom, and, oh yeah, Superman, managed to save Earth.
ReplyDeleteI used to have this issue but not the one before it so I never understood the entire story. Now that I have read your synopsis, it still makes no sense to me. Oh, if only Gardner Fox had written it! Then it would flow logically.
ReplyDelete>>Oh, if only Gardner Fox had written it! Then it would flow logically.<<
ReplyDeleteMuch as I love Fox's stories, he still had a few duds. Anyone remember "luck glands"?
I thought Conway handled the JLA pretty well in his first outing. For certain, having a villain help the JLA was original. But since it was Two-Face, the JLA should have been prepared for a double-cross (ha-ha).
I really enjoyed this period of the JLA, because of the variety of writers. Bates, Maggin, Conway, and Pasko all had some good stories. If you didn't like the story one month, you could see someone else's effort the next.
That's funny, the Two-Face cover is the oldest issue of JLA I have and I never had this one, so I never knew how the story turned out.
ReplyDeleteHa! It's too bad we didn't know each other; we could have swapped and gotten the whole story.
ReplyDelete