JLA: Year One #9 - Sept. 1998

"Change the World" by Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn, and Barry Kitson.

After Simon Carr wakes up from a dream--a nightmare, really--involving the Apellax aliens, we join The Flash, who is hanging out late at night at the Secret Sanctuary along with Snapper. The Flash is concerned that J'onn J'onnz's "betrayal" of the team will permanently break up the group, but his glum thoughts are interrupted by an emergency, spotted on the news by Snapper. The Flash sends out the JLA signal:

Three similar disturbances have popped up in the North Polar Icecaps, the Mariana Trench, and the California Redwoods. This, of course, necessitates the JLA to break up into groups, leaving the situation in California for later. As they take off, they resolve to worry about their missing teammate later. Seconds later, Snapper sees that J'onn was there all along, using his invisibility.

Flash and Black Canary encounter one of the Locus Agents, who have been promising global armageddon. They destroy the machine he was using to melt the ice caps, and take off for California. After a brief interlude with Vandal Savage, we find the other JLAers underwater:

Back at the Sanctuary, Snapper gets violently by his Uncle--my favorite scene in a JLA comic in a long time. Over in California, the four heroes reunite, and spot--J'onn J'onnz, manning some sort of vast machine!

The JLA act first, think later, and gang up on J'onn. The Flash sets off a fire--using J'onn's main weakness against him. J'onn tries to get a warning to his former teammates out, but they won't listen. The fire grows, because the machine--that J'onn was attempting to turn off--was designed to do just that:

To be continued!

I have to say, it really bothered me to watch the JLAers beat up on J'onn. After reading this characters in this context for so many decades, it just felt so very wrong. On the other end of the spectrum, it was nice to see Aquaman lighten up a bit, and have a laugh at Green Lantern's expense. And any comic that features Snapper Carr's face smashed and bloody is a good one.