Dan Liebke's Astonishing Tales

Table of Contents

• #16 – Camelot
• #17 – Prometheus Unbound
• #18 to #21 – Synchronicity, Seven Soldiers of Probability, Mystery in Space, Strange New World
• #22 – IT
• #23 – Conquerors

Issue Sixteen – Camelot

Supes’ embarrassing ‘take my superhero team and going home’ disbandment of last issue doesn’t last long. We’re already back with a fresh new issue and villain and team to face it. This new JLA seems much more media-savvy than the previous incarnation and has invited the assembled media (this includes Maury Povich!) up to the moon for a press conference.

Once again, some dreamboat villain shows up and J'onn turns to putty.

They’ve also held a contest for somebody to be a member of the JLA for a day. The first name they drew out of the hat was Elongated Man – which just caused red faces for everybody. Ralph for entering, and the League for having to insist on a redraw. In some teams, being able to stretch might warrant a tag of ‘fantastic’, but not in the Justice League, my friend.

The redraw pulls out some clown calling himself Retro. Bats doesn’t like the sound of this, but the others just dismiss it as his usual anti-Adam West thing. But, to the surprise of no regular readers, it turns out Bats is right. Retro takes down Steel, J’onn, Zauriel and Huntress in no time flat, with a combination of intricate planning, judiciously used toxins and fresh-faced joie de vivre. GL and Flasheroo show up, only to discover Retro (now more sinisterly and Greek mythologically known as Prometheus) has also taken down the Bat-dude. The issue ends with the pair of them browning their longjohns.

MVP: Lois Lane. While Supes is up on the moon hosting reporters like the PR drone he is, Lois is having J’onn dress up as Clark. There’s talk of secret identities and stuff, but c’mon. Who are we fooling? Everyone knows the chick’s got a thing for the aliens.

Issue Seventeen – Prometheus Unbound

Prometheus continues to torment the JLA and provide a recap for any readers who missed the last issue. He easily defeats GL (gives him a headache) and Flasheroo (pretends he’s set up bombs that will detonate if Flash runs fast). It is difficult to tell which of the two ‘heroes’ is the more useless at this point, so Prometheus shoots them both.

Onto the remaining JLA members. Supes and Wonder Woman are defeated by, uh, Prometheus’s trash-talk. He may have no powers, but he does talk one helluva fight, telling Supes that he (Prometheus) will rescue all the reporters from certain doom on the rapidly-oxygen-diminishing moonbase if he (Supes) kills himself. He also tells WW, that she should get ‘back in the kitchen, where she belongs’. Prometheus, sexist, yet effective.

'Kkrrennnkk'? Once again, Captain Fish-Head is good for nothing but innovative sound effects.

While Supes ponders the pros and cons of topping himself and Wonder Woman does the dishes, Captain Fish-Head has performed to his usual heroic standards. That is, he’s gone and turned the sprinklers on. Supes pretends to be impressed by this. Nobody really understands why.

Eventually, however, Prometheus is brought down by Catwoman, who was there as one of Bats’ inevitable backup plans. Prometheus may have had plans to defeat every known superhero, but he had prepared no such plans to defeat villains. Oh, Prometheus. You have been undone by your needlessly dichotomous world view. It’s all about the shades of grey, man.

MVP: Catwoman. She saves the day and is dressed up as a cat. What’s not to like?

Issues Eighteen To Twenty-One

Has J'onn betrayed the JLA?!? No.

Morrison lazes about and takes four issues off. He’s replaced by Mark Waid. We shall review those four issues in greater detail when I get around to covering the equally-renowned ‘Waid run’ of the JLA. For now, here’s a brief summary…

Eighteen – Synchronicity. The dubiously named Amos Fortune mucks about with the laws of probability and causes the most improbable of events to take place. Namely, Bats gets the solution to the crisis wrong!

Nineteen – Seven Soldiers of Probability. To rectify Amos Fortune’s madness and return Batman’s parents to their rightful (ie dead) state, the JLA shrinks down and plays photon hockey.

Twenty – Mystery In Space. An insane Adam Strange kidnaps the JLA and forces them to spruce up the planet Rann before the missus gets home. The JLA try to escape, but J’onn betrays them!!

Twenty-One – Strange New World. Oh, wait. No he doesn’t (45th time in a row). The JLA break free and beat up some aliens.

Issue Twenty-Two – IT

As always, starfish conquerors have arrived and started, well, conquering. So tedious is this turn of events that people all over the world start falling asleep. And excessive napping is clearly a job for the JLA.

The gang burst into action, flying to the moon (where applicable) and confronting Sandman, the King of Dreams. He is also known as the Oneiromancer, Morpheus, or, uh, Daniel. The latter is clearly a ludicrous name for one with near-infinite power but nobody calls him on it. The Sandman explains to Supes and the others that the giant starfish conqueror’s name is ‘IT’. Again, nobody makes any comment on the lack of imagination inherent in this particular monicker. The Justice League, respectful of people’s stupid names.

You can induce sleep in yourself? No wonder they call you Superman.

So it turns out IT has locked all the sleeping people in the world in some kind of dream prison. Luckily, a little dreaming kid remembers the existence of the JLA and wants them to come to his rescue. And the Sandman’s here to accommodate. He ushers Supes, GL and Wonder Woman into the dream world (Supes, as always, is totally full of himself: “I can induce sleep in myself,” he claims, as if this is a Kryptonian power we should all envy) where they are powerless and outnumbered. So perhaps less than perfectly thought out by Idiot Daniel.

Back in the waking world, Bats, Azrael and Flasheroo are going through the trophy cabinets, reminiscing about all the other alien invaders they’ve repelled (“we’re so awesome,” says Flash). Meanwhile, J’onn and Captain Fish-Head are checking out what the starfish conquerors are up to. Captain Fish-Head is as virtually useless as you’d expect (“I can confirm a presence,” he says, as if that helps), so J’onn flies into space where he sees a giant starfish covering most of Nova Scotia.

MVP: Sandman. He has a bit of fun with GL, telling him he’ll be better than his predecessor (Hal Jordan) because he’s so much more prone to peeing his pants in terror. And GL buys it.

Issue Twenty-Three – Conquerors

So while Supes, GL and Wonder Woman dream their way through some kid’s dream world, Captain Fish-Head decides the smartest thing to do would be to make telepathic contact with the giant starfish. None of the others think this is a great idea, but Captain Fish-Head has a sulk about it being his only proper power, so the rest of them let him try.

Of course, it’s an abject bloody failure, with the starfish just taking over Captain Fish-Head’s mind without breaking a five-legged sweat. As a result, J’onn’s forced to join the psychic fray, because he’s apparently ‘experienced in psycho-combat techniques’. So he’s in there, mentally kick-boxing away while Captain Fish-Head’s synapses sit wimpily in the corner.

Zauriel, angelic rescuer? Meet Captain Fish-Head, dismissive jerk.

Orion flies in to blast the shit out of everything. None of this telepathic ju jitsu for him. He’s got real live energy blasts and he’s going to use them. And if Captain Fish-Head gets fried to death in the process, then that’s just too bad. You’d call it friendly fire, but that’s probably overselling the relationship between the two of them. Luckily, Zauriel’s there to pull Captain Fish-Head to safety. But is Fish-Head grateful? No. Instead, he makes snide remarks about Zauriel’s attempts at levity. Tool.

So while the JLA is distracted sorting out the mess Captain Fish-Head has gotten himself into and listening to his incessant pissant whining (“I’ll make a formal complaint about Orion’s conduct later,” he says to J’onn. Such a crybaby), the starfish attack en masse from space. But meanwhile, in the dream, Supes and Wonder Woman and GL have, um, padded out a few panels. This padding has allowed us to get close enough to the end of the issue for a deus ex machina. The Sandman provides, just picking up all the starfish and making an exquisite necklace out of them. End of problem. Of course, the version of the JLA from the 853rd century then shows up. But that’s a completely different miniseries.

MVP: Bats. He doesn’t actually do all that much this issue, but he does say things like ‘If I’m right — and I don’t think we have time for me to be wrong — these things are…’ blah blah blah. Which is so wanky it’s almost kinda cool. Not quite, but nobody else would even have got that close.

Next: DC One Million

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4. JLA Book 7: World War Three
5. JLA Book 3: Rock of Ages