Hey kids - IT'S COMIC-ING TIME!
Okay, fine, I mixed universes and really stretched the pun. But that's my prerogative, because it's my blog.
Last Wednesday I did a Superman off the front handlebars of my bike on the way to work while avoiding a car that was too close to the curb. Luckily, my mutant healing factor is kicking in, my face is almost back to normal, and the rest of me is recovering too. Speaking of Superman (and Wolverine), the other big thing that happened last Wednesday – how's that for a segue – is that Deborah picked up the first copy of the Justice League of America/THE 99 crossover from one of our local comic stores! She was lucky – she'd ordered it ahead of time. If she'd just walked in, she would have been walked right back out again.
After days of healing, American Muslim Consumer Conferencing, and more healing, I finally got a chance to read issue 1 while convalescing on ice packs Monday night. It was worth it.
It's been soooo many years since I actually took the time to read a comic book I had almost forgotten how much fun they could be. The limited edition six-issue JLA/99 crossover series started to bring it back. Together again for the very first time, the seasoned heroes of the JLA team up with the n00bz of THE 99 to fight the bad guys... here's a truncated précis (relax, no meaningful spoilers):
Supes and the newly-modestly-uniformed Wonder Woman represent the JLA at the opening of the City of the Future, a domed biosphere-type place built in the Arabian desert area known as the Empty Quarter. It's an international Kum-Ba-Yah experiment, where people from all around the world have chosen to live as an example. The JLA are pretty international/interplanetary. Get it? The sponsor of this Bold Experiment In International Harmony is Dr. Ramzi Razem, the philanthropist and leader of THE 99. As Dr. Ramzi is giving his opening speech, accompanied by a few key members of THE 99, eeeeeeeeeeeeevil comes to town in the form of a flunky of THE 99's arch-nemesis, Rughal. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, chaos is breaking out in an American mall for entirely different reasons. OR SO IT WOULD SEEM!
Things of course, all go to H-E-double hockey sticks (that's HELL for those of you who can't SPELL), and the two super-groups team up to find out what's going on.
The dialogue is exactly as comic-overblown-silly as you think it should be, and the expository talk just makes it that much funnier (funner?). Really, nobody speaks like that, but then again, I'm criticizing speech in a comic book where one guy can shrink to the size of an atom and another can project force fields?
It's 34 pages between the covers, and 10 pages of those are ads. May not sound like much to you, but I gotta say, it was getting a bit annoying when in one section of the comic, literally every other page was an ad for a new Batman Incorporated series. Not cool DC, especially at US$4 per issue. (This old guy remembers paying 10 and 25 cents for an issue; four bucks is a lot of money for my eyeballs.) Interestingly, none of the ads were for Teshkeel Comics.
There's a lot of scene-setting/character-introducing, with little in the way of development. Again, not much of a surprise, given the newness of some of the characters to most of the readers, and that it's the first issue of a series. But hey, it's only six issues, so let's get on with it. (Need more space for development? Maybe knock out an ad or six.)
Anyway – it's under way. Can't wait until next month when we see where the shocking cliffhanger takes us! Up, up, and away!
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