The return of an old JLA foe, out for revenge!The Story: "The Price of Humanity" by Cary Burkett, Chuck Patton, and Romeo Tanghal. This issue opens on a light moment...Hawkman and the Elongated Man playing some video games aboard the JLA satellite! (No, not Grand Theft Auto.)
As Wonder Woman shows up for Monitor Duty, and Carter is embarrassed to be caught goofing off, something sinister is happening all over the world--mysterious, super-suited beings are kidnapping regular people, like a high school Baseball player, a ballet dancer, and a Hollywood stuntman!
One of them tries to kidnap a slightly harder target...the Black Canary!
As she tries to break free, she hits her JLA Signal Device, and Hawkman, Wonder Woman, and Elongated Man head out to rescue her.
They knock the being out long enough to see its a robot, but while they do this, two others sneak up on them, blasting them, and flying off with Canary in tow.
Later, up at the satellite, the rest of the JLA has met. While Green Arrow is rants and raves about what to do, Red Tornado offers a word of caution:
The JLA agrees, and takes a moment to congratulate Ralph on his fine detective work:
Meanwhile, we see where all the hostages went to: a secret base where a hooded figure tells Black Canary he is the longtime JLA foe Professor Ivo, and he has built a machine that will channel their life energies into him, reversing the horrible side effects he has suffered from by drinking a serum he created to make him immortal (way back in Brave the Bold #30!).
As Canary sees for herself, Ivo has been living all these years, horribly deformed:
Anyway, the robots do appear at the marathon, but they are so powerful they managed to fight the JLA to standstill.
Meanwhile, Hawkman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman find the robots' power source is a remote island. They've barely set foot on the island when robots there blast them, knocking out Hawkman and Aquaman, leaving Wonder Woman barely hanging on.
Back in Metropolis, the robots are making off with runners left and right, but Green Arrow manages to get off a tracking arrow and hits one of them.
Back at the island, Wonder Woman commands her invisible plane to dive-bomb three of the robots, which gives her just enough time to grab Aquaman and try and hurl him into the ocean. She tries, but gets hit by the recovering robots, leaving Aquaman at the lip of shore.
In Ivo's mountain lab, he is none too happy to see the JLA has followed him there, where he sicks even more robots on them!
On the island, just enough water makes its way to Aquaman to wake him up. Here he hatches an ingenious plan:
Betting that the robots are programmed not to attack each other, he emerges, and walks toward the equipment shed without being stopped by the others.
He uses Hawkman's mace to smash everything in site, shutting the robots down. This allows Red Tornado to destroy Ivo's machine, and to take pity on this poor creature, who thought he could reclaim his Humanity by giving up his soul.
Notable Moments: Like yesterday's fill-in issue by Paul Kupperberg, Cary Burkett delivers a superb, self-contained story. Fast-paced and exciting, it also works as a nice sequel of sorts to the first Professor Ivo story.
Also, Aquaman gets a great couple of moments here, and he saves the day due to a combo of his ingenuity and his particular powers. In fact, Aquaman got to play a central role in both yesterday and today's issues. If #s 217 and 218 were typical of the quality JLA fill-ins would have, I was ready to say let's have nothing but fill-ins!
The reveal of Professor Ivo is truly disturbing, and Chuck Patton's EC-esque background gives it an extra punch.
This issue's cover by Howard Bender and Dick Giordano is unusual, in that it uses yesterday's cover by George Perez as a backdrop. I don't know what it means, exactly, but its unique, to be sure.
Another great 'Done in One' stories. I'm with you on Ivo. The reveal of his disfigured face made me want to vomit back then too.
ReplyDeleteChuck Patton....'nuff said.
Hey, it's worth mentioning the awesome covers of the last two issues. I love the Logos to Infinity of #217. I remember wishing they had put ot a poster of that cover. Heck, I'd still buy it if they put it out tomorrow!
And I love how that same cover is juxtaposed into the cover for #218. Or am I the only one to think all this???
yeah, i'm not sure what this issue's cover is supposed to mean, exactly, but its cool nonetheless. it ties these two very good issues together, even tho they were meant "just" as fill-ins!
ReplyDeleteWow.......that sounds like a really spectacular story! I love the idea of Red Tornado having compassion on a man who has none, and the great duality of a machine with a soul and a man without. I really wish these issues were reprinted somewhere....
ReplyDeleteYou know what else? I've always thought that Wonder Woman and Aquaman should be pretty well matched. It sort of bothers me when I see things like "if WW couldn't fight her way out then I definitely can't!" Bah!
ReplyDeleteI agree with bentongrey. My approximation of how powerful Aquaman SHOULD be (and to my mind, his power level has fluctuated too much over the years) is either at Wonder Woman's level of strength, agility, and invunerability, OR comparable to that of Superman when he was first introduced in 1938. He couldn't fly, but could leap an 8th of a mile, was superstrong, and nothing less than a bursting shell could break his skin. Now those are power levels I'd like to see Aquaman consistently portrayed at. Just food for thought; what do you guys think?
ReplyDeleteI think that Golden Age Superman is a little more powerful than Aquaman should be, but I think you're pretty close. Bullets should hurt, but it should take light artillery to really do any heavy damage to him. Plus, he should easily be strong enough to throw a car, and his leaping ability is something that hasn't been played up enough.
ReplyDeletei think it was Neal Pozner, in his editorials for the 1986 aquaman mini, who flat out stated that aquaman is bulletproof: "the guy can withstand ocean pressures that can crush a battleship; no way is a 2 oz piece of lead breaking his skin!"
ReplyDeletei don't have a problem with him being less strong than WW--after all, she's in Supes' league--but i definitely think many of Aquaman's powers that make him so capable underwater--super-fast reflexes, super-strength, high invulnerability, and hell, excellent, long-ranging vision (how DOES he manage to see at the bottom of the ocean?) are frequently ignored in his comics.
in the JLA, i'd say in terms of raw strength, only Superman, WW, and Manhunter are ahead of him. not bad company.
Yeah, but I think WW has been constantly bumped up to Supes league, when she is really in the tier below him (along with Aquaman). I agree, his skin should be bulletproof (although gunshots should still hurt). I always think of him like the silver age Hercules at Marvel. Gunshots stung, but his skin was too tough to be punctured.
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