INDY REVIEWS
Score: 7 / 10 
JLA Book 8: Ultra-Marine Corps
Table of Contents
Issue One - Island of the Mighty
Morrison may be done with the JLA in his run on the official JLA comic, but that doesn't mean he's going to stay quiet for long. Instead, he's popped up on the first three issues of JLA Classified to tell us a simple tale which, uh, barely features the JLA at all. Oh, Morrison, you mad crackerjack, you.
Instead, we begin with a completely different superhero team. And, by 'different', I obviously mean 'one hundred percent ineffectual and inept'. For this is the Ultra-Marine Corps, a bunch of leftover wannabes who zoom around in a giant flying city ('Superbia' for heaven's sake. I mean, grow up!), looking for wrongs to right and chimpanzees to tease. Naturally enough, this mission statement leads them to one Gorilla Grodd, who has overrun the city of Kinshasha in Africa with an army of monkeys. He's carrying on in the usual manner, eating hostages, demanding more Planet of the Apes films and threatening to 'behead [us] all on [our] perfect lawns'.
This is the kind of thing that the JLA would knock over in their sleep (possibly sending only Snapper Carr, Captain Fish-Head and Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man, to clean up), but the Ultra-Marine Corps, muddle-headed B-listers that they are, manage to not only lose to the monkeys (who, to be fair, are throwing their faeces all over the place, and even superheroes don't deserve to put up with that shit) but also lose their giant flying city in the process.
Fortunately, one of these inept clowns (the, uh, 'Squire') escapes. She calls Batman, who is lounging around in the cave, playing online Texas Hold 'Em poker. He's $300 million dollars up, which means Wayne Enterprises can pay its employees for another month. Kudos, Bruce, on your corporate savvy. He listens to Squire's tale, goes all-in on the flop, then fires up the Bat-Spaceship and heads off to effortlessly rescue her. Then, because he's in that kind of mood, he opens a small space wormhole and zaps off to a JLA lab on, uh, the planet Pluto. (Bats isn't taking any of this 'Pluto is no longer a planet' nonsense. If he's got a JLA lab hidden away there, he can call it whatever the hell he likes.) Anyway, after putting Squire in her place on that astronomical front, he goes on to reveal that the reason the rest of the JLA couldn't be arsed showing up in this first issue is because they're trapped 'in the infant universe of Qwewq'. Which he keeps in a cardboard box in the broom cupboard. And just a look from him quells any further cosmological nitpicking.
MVP: Bats. Not really much doubt about this one, is there? Sure, you can make a case for the absent JLA members, who get their pay cheque, despite not actually appearing on panel at any point. But, on the other hand, Bats decides at one point to go by the alias of 'Goldfish Man'. I tell you, without the rest of the group to keep him in check, the man feels he can get away with just about anything.
Issue Two - Master of Light
As discussed, the JLA sans Batman are goofing off in the infant universe of Qwewq, pursuing a supervillain called Black Death. No doubt a cheery fellow. The JLA are keeping to the shadows because the Earth of the universe of Qwewq is an Earth without superheroes. If you can imagine such a thing! Trying to contact them from Batman's JLA lab on Pluto is Squire, who hitched a ride with Bats last issue. She is having no success (Pluto being notorious for its poor mobile phone reception), so Bats leaves her there to sort stuff out, while he boom tubes back to Earth along with a robot JLA.
The reason he has to head back in such a hurry? Because Gorilla Grodd has taken over the flying superhero city of 'Superbia' from last issue and, instead of renaming it as something a little less cringeworthy, has gone totally the other way, calling it 'Gorilla-tropolis'. In between his poorly market researched naming choices, he's mind-controlling the lame-ass Ultra-Marine Corps. Well, the ones he hasn't eaten anyway. Bats considers just about all of this to be beyond the pale.
Grodd sends those Ultra-Marine Corps members not digesting in his stomach off to fight Batman and the robot JLA. Perhaps it's the mind-control of Grodd helping to sort their usual ramshackle attack strategies out. Perhaps it's the fact Bats had the robot JLA assembled in one of his Korean-based Wayne Enterprises robot sweatshops. Perhaps it's the fact that they're being supported by some kind of all-powerful cosmic entity named (against all odds) Neh-Buh-Loh. But whatever the reason, the Ultra-Marine Corps takes the robots and Bats down with little to no sweat. Grodd eats one of them to celebrate, but saves room for a little bit of spit-roasted Batman. The issue ends with him scurrying through his pantry, looking for some coriander.
MVP: Supes. Squire finally manages to get through to the infant universe of Qwewq and leave a voice-mail for Supes, explaining what's going on. He orders the rest of the JLA to head back and save the day. His preferred battle-cry? "It's not over until the world ends!" So that's going to need some brainstorming in the next monthly meeting.
Issue Three - Seconds To Go
So the JLA are back and ready to rumble. Yes, even Captain Fish-Head. But we'll get to him later. First up is GL and Flash. One of the Ultra-Marine Corps (possibly The Klansman) turns the body of GL (apparently African-American John Stewart this time around (and, no, that's not the Jon Stewart from The Daily Show who is neither a Green Lantern, nor an African-American)) from a darkish hue to yellow. This apparently means he can no longer use his ring to fly. Luckily, Flash prevents him from plummeting to his death by covering him in soot, rendering him no longer yellow and, hence, capable of punching The Klansman out. He does so.
Wonder Woman, Supes and Martian Manhunter aren't fighting mindless racial bigotry, so they're proceeding rather more nicely. Sure, J'onn's got a cosmic spear in his back, but he's tough. He'll kick on. Morrison tries to build up Captain Fish-Head and make him worthy of sharing the stage with the rest of the gang. He claims that the man has 'muscles that permit him to swim Niagara Falls upstream'. But, really, Morrison, why would you want to do so? What's the incentive? Anyway, even Captain Fish-Head can knock out an Ultra-Marine Corps member, such is their lame-osity.
Finally, Supes makes his way through to Neh-Buh-Loh and starts beating him up. So NBL does what more cosmic entities should do. He simply disappears into another dimension to prepare for a future mini-series (Morrison's Seven Soldiers). Disappointed with the lack of a full-scale punch-a-rama, the Big Blue compensates by lecturing a random group of monkeys ("a bunch of dumb slogans, a few bananas and you belong to anybody, it seems"). Oh, and Bats? He escaped off-panel and threw a batarang into Gorilla Grodd's face. So, all's well that ends well, right? Especially for the Ultra-Marine Corps, who are sent into the micro-Earth in the infant universe of Qwewq to be their first superheroes. Those poor inhabitants won't know any better, right?
MVP: Supes again. The man gets onto a lecturing roll and delivers one of my all-time favourite comic book quotes, explaining to the Ultra-Marine Corps that while it may sound enticing to be a brutal, modern superhero team willing to take drastic steps to keep the world safe, 'these no-nonsense solutions of yours don't hold water in a complex world of jet-powered apes and time-travel'. Indeed, they don't, Clark. And amen to that.
Begone,
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