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Part 3 of the JLA versus the new Royal Flush Gang...and Hector Hammond!
The Story: "The Final Hand!" by Gerry Conway, Don Heck, and Romeo Tanghal. Continued from last issue, Black Canary and Elongated Man arrive back at the JLA satellite to find a comatose Green Arrow.
But Ten is still there, and tries to get the drop on them. It almost works, but Black Canary is so pissed off she lets loose her Canary Cry, knocking Ten out.
Green Arrow is added to the list of patients at UCLA Medical Center, and Elongated Man notices the similarity to the loss of brain function the JLAers are suffering from, and what happened with Derek Reston last issue--how he "lost his mind", as well.
We then see Firestorm's other identity, Martin Stein, as he desperately tries to wake his other half up. It's only Stein that knows the real villain behind all this is Hector Hammond, since they both exist on the same ectoplasmic plane (that's fun to type).
Ten is also at the hospital, and when she almost reveals the big plan, Hammond goes ballistic and induces a heart attack in her!
Meanwhile, Batman and Flash have been called in, and are heading to the desert with Canary and Ralph to find the Royal Flush Gang's HQ. Ralph is temporarily fooled by the image of his wife Sue, and is zapped by Queen.
They wind their way through a giant maze, and each get attacked by the Gang, and are defeated. They wake up strapped to giant playing cards, which Ace blasts into the sky. Ace is ecstatic of his victory over the JLA, and finally Jack has had enough:
Jack reveals the truth about Ace, who doesn't bother to deny it, and now says the rest of the Gang are "disposable now that the League has been smashed!"
Oh, really?
Ace suddenly explodes, the victim of Black Canary's Canary Cry! Jack cut a deal with the JLA--he saves them, they save him from Ace.
Unfortunately, the JLAers are still in a coma, and Hammond reveals his real plan--to steal the brain energy from the JLAers, taking it in for himself, which would allow his corporeal form to finally move again!
This drives Martin Stein to "create" a body for himself, and he decides to open a can of ectoplasmic (see? fun!) whoop-ass on Hammond:
Stein beats up Hammond, who backs down like the little twerp he is, releasing the JLAers out of their comas.
Firestorm wonders why Martin Stein seems so happy, and Stein promises he'll tell him later. At the moment, the JLA is wondering why Firestorm is talking to himself!
Roll Call: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Elongated Man, Firestorm
Notable Moments: A solid ending, I've always liked the idea of a villain cutting a deal with the heroes to save his own skin. I also like how much of a sniveling little jerk Hammond is. Big head, little guts.
The JLA Mail Room page has letters concerning JLA #200, and the response was uniformly positive, although some take the editors to task for not having Hawkgirl involved.
Part 2 of the JLA versus the new Royal Flush Gang!
The Story: "The Cut of the Cards!" by Gerry Conway, Don Heck, and Romeo Tanghal. This issue opens with Superman entertaining some kids at a local circus by juggling...elephants!
Afterwards, he is met by Lois Lane, who grabs him and plants one on him, much more passionately than usual. Before he realizes what's up, "Lois" reveals herself to be Queen, who blasts him with some sort of sceptre.
Up at the JLA satellite, Elongated Man is trying to keep track of all these attacks on his fellow teammates, and soon Green Arrow and Black Canary arrive.
Ralph and Canary head down to Earth and find an unconscious Wonder Woman, and they take her to the same hospital where Aquaman and Firestorm are. They are all in comas, with very little brain activity showing up on scans.
Green Arrow, still up on the satellite, is shocked when he sees a strangely-dressed woman outside in space! He goes to investigate, and she blasts her way in, chasing him:
...yes, Green Arrow, Ten is now a woman (no, Ollie, you can't...you know).
Anyway, Ten catches up to Arrow, and blasts him the way the others were.
Meanwhile, Canary and Ralph are investigating the manufacturer behind the trading card components found near each of the scenes. The trail leads to Megaform Industries, and they have to bluff their way into the company's compound. Luckily, Black Canary is one the doing the persuading to the guard:
...I love editor Len Wein's Stan Lee-esque footnote.
The two sneak around, grab some normal clothes, and find their way to the company's president, Derek Reston.
Once they enter the room, Reston goes insane and attacks the two of them, raving about how they are "two of the hated Justice League!"
They manage to subdue him, and after he wakes up, he is totally calm, and has no memory of what just happened! What's going on here?
It's here we see the ghostly image of Hector Hammond, bragging about how this is all his plan, and that Reston is only doing his bidding!
To be continued!
Roll Call: Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Elongated Man, Firestorm
Notable Moments: Great, insanely-detailed cover by George Perez (I'll be saying that a lot in the next few weeks). And even though nothing like this happens in the issue, who cares? Its still way cool to look at.
I don't know if the Royal Flush Gang sent Ten specifically to take on Green Arrow, figuring he'd be thinking with his arrows instead of his head. If they did, that's just good supervillain planning.
The return of the Shaggy Man!
The Story: "The Shaggy Man Will Get You If You Don't Watch Out! by Len Wein, Dick Dillin, and Dick Giordano. We open with the villanous, giant-domed Hector Hammond, using his vast mental powers to travel the earth, and landing upon the JLA as they have a meeting in their satellite.
Hammond is trying to devise a way to defeat the JLA, and he gets an idea from reviewing their cases in the JLA library, considering all the various baddies they have fought in the past...Amos Fortune, The Key, Amazon, Kanjar Ro, Despero...but settles on another. He heads(no pun intended) to Northern Chile, and revives the long dormant Shaggy Man!
He transports the Shaggy Man to the satellite, but sneakily. The Shaggy Man is discovered during a sequence with Aquaman giving the Black Canary a tour of the JLA Trophy Room. Aquaman shows Canary the Shaggy Man statue until he realizes "Waitaminnit...we never had a statue of the Shaggy Man!"
Aquaman and Canary fight the beast to a standstill, until Hammond gets involved and rings the Gamma Gong(as bad as it sounds!), knocking them out. Shaggy, with the help of Hammond, proceeds to make short work of the JLA, as he individually defeats Hawkman and Green Arrow, Batman and Atom, and the Flash.
Unfortunately, the Shaggy Man isn't the mintiest comic in the box, and he bursts through the hull of the satellite to get to Superman, causing the JLA HQ to lose orbit and it begins to hurtle towards Earth!
As the satellite is about too crash, Green Lantern shows up, catches it, and he then revives the unconscious JLAers to team up to fight the Shaggy Man, in one of those great full-page shots of the whole JLA:
The Shaggy Man makes like King Kong by grabbing Canary and heading for the top of a skyscraper. As Lantern fights him, Hammond finds his mental powers exhausted, leaving GL to reduce the Shaggy Man to action figure-size proportions, encasing him in a small tube.
We end with Hammond, still in prison, vowing revenge once again. Whatever, Mike Farrell!
Roll Call: Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Atom, Hawkman, Black Canary
Notable Moments: In just a few issues, writer Len Wein brought back the Seven Soldiers of Victory, plus classic JLA villains Felix Faust and the Shaggy Man. A fun issue all around, one of my favorites.
