Saturday, October 8, 2011

DC Retroactive: JLA - The '70s #1 (September, 2011)



22,300 miles above the Earth, the Justice League Satellite carried Hawkman, Red Tornado, Zatanna, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, and the Flash. Long range sensors detected a Zeta Beam carrying both Adam Strange and the alien despot Kanjar Ro toward Earth. The unstable beam split in two, before one continued and the other vanished entirely. Hawkman contacted the source planet of the beam, Rann, and learned from Sardath and Alanna that Kanjar Ro had stolen files allowing him to "hack" into Adam's teleportational beam.

Flash launched into a flurry of motion, and Red Tornado explained that "He's cross-analyzing the phase-ratios of the second splinter beam with the vibrational frequencies of all contiguous dimensions. The Scarlet Speedster and the Scarlet Android determined Adam's signal had sent him to Earth-Prime, an alternate Earth that almost exactly replicates the mundane one of most comic book readers. The Flash had been to that sad, drab world before, and at Red Tornado's suggestion, selected his own extraction team for a return visit.

Meanwhile, Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Hawkman pursued Kanjar Ro to the Rock Mountains of their own Earth-One. With his body having been transformed into "a living receptacle of Zeta-Beam energy," Kanjar Ro easily flattened them both. Thankfully, the away team had returned with Adam Strange from Earth-Prime, and despite a pressing time limit, Adam's brain was always up to the challenge. Kanjar Ro had to be stopped within a few hours, or else he would absorb even more power from an incoming Zeta Beam. Red Tornado provided Strange a replacement uniform and jet pack for the one he had lost previously.

In Peru, the heroic collective confronted Kanjar Ro, whose new telekinesis caused them to fire on themselves. For instance, Hawkman was left tangled in his own mace, while Red Tornado was caught in a vortex more powerful than he could ever produce. All that power on display came at a price, tapping out Kanjar Ro's reserves while Green Lantern had used his Power Ring to refract the expected Zeta Beam. Left restored to normal, Kanjar Ro was knocked out by a simple punch of Adam Strange's.

"Enter Justice League Prime" was by Cary Bates, Andy Smith, Gordon Purcell, and Jose Marzan Jr.

DC Retroactive

3 comments:

Rafa Rivas said...

I liked some nostalgic bits (Earth-Prime Julie), and I wish they dis a mini instead of a single issue. However, they should have gotten some one like Garcia Lopez (who is more awesome than ever) or Perez to do the art. The characters looked all weird with the wasp waists.
I think that the roster should have been more 70s: Zee and Reddy, but also Ralph and Hawkgirl. I think that Hawkman and Green Arrow bikering is also a trademark of that era.

Diabolu Frank said...

I thought that aside from the '90s anatomy, Andy Smith managed a nice Neal Adams vibe. Gordon Purcell was more boring than Dick Dillin. There aren't a lot of guys left alive who could have handled this book with period authenticity, and the ones you mentioned a) had better things to do & b) couldn't have hacked DC's thrown together schedule of late. Heck, the first month's solicitation didn't feature cover previews, and most of the books I've seen have needed two or more artists just for a standard length story. I love the concept, and given the time constraints, the execution could have been much worse on these things.

Rafa Rivas said...

I guess they got lucky with Maguire, then.
A satelite homage with Jose Luis Garcia Lopes would be my wet dream, haha. Even more than another Justice.