JLA Annual #3 - 1999

I desperately wanted to post this on January 31st--National Gorilla Suit Day, of course--but I ordered it via ebay just a few days too late to get it in on time. But using it for this week's Comic Friday is good, too.

This was the first chapter of DC's very very silly "Gorilla Warfare" multi-part storyline. There's a thin line between silly and just plain stupid; I would say Art Adams' awesome cover is the former, the rest of the comic mostly the latter. I think the main problem (for me) was that the story was drawn (and colored, even) like any other DCU comic, when maybe someone with a lighter, sillier touch artistically might've been a more suitable choice.

There is a good scene where, after some of the JLA has been turned into apes, Green Lantern walks in and assumes its a test of "the new guy" so he tries his best not to say anything. More unusual is the two-page ad for Playstation's Ape Escape video game(between pages 34 and 35), which features real monkeys and looks like its part of the story.

Note: Aquaman looked only slightly sillier as an ape than he normally did at this time.