A nicely-designed cover by Ernie Chua. All eyes(!) lead to Despero!The Story: "Missing--One Man of Steel!" by Gerry Conway, Dick Dillin, and Frank McLaughlin. Picking up a story thread started last issue, we find out where Superman has been--grabbed by an outer-space tractor beam, brought to the planet Sirkus by two residents of that planet.
He is aided by alien duplicates of Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Aquaman built by the two aliens, who explain that their planet is under attack from...Despero!
Superman and the faux-JLAers attack Despero, but he easily defeats them when he discovers there's something...odd about these JLAers, how they're not acting like the opponents he knows.
After beating the other heroes, he attacks Superman with his mental energy, turning Superman's white-hot rage against him. The two aliens see this and figure their only hope now is to summon the real Justice League! To be continued!
Roll Call: Superman, with cameos by Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Atom, Hawkman, Black Canary, Elongated Man
Notable Moments: Guest-star Supergirl opens this issue, still wondering where in Rao her cousin in.
Despero is one of my favorite JLA villains, and I love how he never learns--he always has it out for the JLA!
"robot duplicates"? Weren't they actual actresses portraying the JLAers? I remember reading this comic for the first time at the orthodontist, waiting for something to be done on my braces, and not having any idea what was going on here. I had to read the story twice, and even then I didn't quite get it. This is probably the worst JLA story ever, since the JLA really doesn't appear, but the robots/actresses are good enough to convince Superman that they are real...?!?! (sigh)The title should have been: "Missing, One Good Story!" bwahaha!
ReplyDeletesome of the issues i have of JLA i've had for so long that i didn't think to go back and re-read them, or question my recollections.
ReplyDeleteusually, when i'm wrong, someone eventually points it out, like in this case! i think as a kid i somehow came away that they were robots, and never gave it a second thought. :)
Certainly not one of my favorites. You'd think that Superman would have automatically verified the other JLAers IDs. Just a quick x-ray peek behind the Flash's mask to see if it is really Barry Allen? Great Krypton! That's not Barry! That's not even a man!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of which, a few issues later an LoCer pointed out that the Sirkians in this story often used masculine pronouns to refer to each other (and not just those posing as JLA men).