Since the Shrine profiled the classic Justice League of America #200--which featured a recap and quasi-sequel to the also-classic JLA origin story--last Sunday, I thought it'd be fun to spend this last Comics Weekend segment of 2010 to look back at alternate take on the story, this time from Secret Origins #32.
Like JLA #200, this book even opens with a sort of three-page prologue:
The first hero to meet an Apellax alien is the new-to-this-world Martian Manhunter:
After seeing the residents of his adopted town have been turned to stone, Manhunter fights the giant Stone Creature. Using a combination of powers, Manhunter shatters the alien, rendering all the townspeople back to normal.
Having probed the giant's mind, Manhunter learned that other Apellax aliens are landing. He takes off to see if he can stop them before they "hatch."
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away:
Having probed the giant's mind, Manhunter learned that other Apellax aliens are landing. He takes off to see if he can stop them before they "hatch."
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away:
With great effort--and annoyance--Aquaman commands some of his finny friends to lure the Mercury alien towards the whirlpool, where its great force tears it apart, returning Aquaman to normal:
Simultaneously, the second generation hero Black Canary is on patrol:
Soon, Canary makes it to Florida, and find a giant glowing meteor. When she gets close to it, she realizes she's now paralyzed, along with some others...
At the same time, in outer space:
Meanwhile, in England:
On the way, he gets an idea: knocking into Martian Manhunter, it causes him to scrape against Green Lantern, exposing GL's power ring from its wood cover. In turn, Lantern shoots a beam at Black Canary's head, restoring her voice back to normal. Using her Canary Cry, she aims at Flash, shattering his wood shell!
Now free, Flash uses his super-speed vibratory powers to reduce the Wood Creature to splinters, leaving the alien destroyed and his hands cut to ribbons. After some brief intros, they all decide to head to Antarctica to combat the last Apellax alien. Great plan, except:
Surprisingly, the rest of the group don't initially go for it, but Flash's charm and enthusiasm wins them over. After considering some team names like the Justice Society II and The Avengers (nice), they settle on the Justice League of America:
Despite my general apathy--if not distaste--for ret-cons in general, I thought this was one great story. Totally removed from the doom-and-gloom aesthetic that would soon take over mainstream superhero comics, this story is as light as air (undoubtedly helped by the unusual choice of Eric Shanower on the art, who does a superb job here) yet still retains the beats of the classic original origin story.
Having Black Canary as an original member of the JLA never really sat well with me (she joined in JLA #75, dammit!), but it made sense at the time. Ultimately I'm glad DC ret-conned the ret-con, but even with that this issue remains a lot of fun, and its great to see Aquaman get so much to do!
3 comments:
Happy holidays, notice the yellow glove in the first panel for Aquaman? :)
I love this issue. I thought the humorous approach to dialogue that had become a staple of JLI at the time worked well with the original JLA for this story.
Was this Peter David's first time to write Aquaman?
One of my all-time favorite comic moments comes from this issue.
GL proudly proclaims "My Power Ring will get us there!"
And Black Canary has this thought balloon: "My, aren't we full of ourself!"
Great stuff! I never liked the post-Crisis retcons much, but this one worked out very well. Plus Shannower drew one of the best Canaries ever!
Chris
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