The Bottom Line

by Ryan Riley

4/29/08

Grant Morrison's JLA

I've gone on in great detail about the brilliance of Grant Morrison in previous columns (such as my Animal Man review from a couple of years back). From his reinvention of the X-Men franchise in New X-Men to his garish new take on the Joker featured in the collection Batman & Son (which the late Heath Ledger seems to have effectively channeled in the upcoming Batman movie sequel "The Dark Knight"), Morrison has demonstrated an unprecedented ability to reinvent iconic comic book characters while staying true to their roots.

Morrison's writing prowess will once again be on display this May in DC's mini-series event Final Crisis. Lots of speculation and rumors have been bandied about regarding the content of this story, not the least of which is something bad possibly happening to iconic character/DC cash cow Batman. Personally, I'm not nearly as averse to the idea of Morrison breaking apart superheroes and challenging the status quo in order to make them more interesting as most fans are (although I wasn't all that down with turning the X-Men's Beast into a cat). I think the stories he tells are well-written enough that they will survive any controversy, and it's not like other, more conservative writers won't find a way to bring back a character that he kills/changes (see Magneto). To the naysayers, I would say this: if you want to get an idea of how Morrison is going to treat the DC universe in Final Crisis, read (or re-read) his run on JLA, where he and artist Howard Porter successfully charted the course of DC's biggest icons from 1997-2000. For the sake of convenience, all of these tales have been collected in the following books:

• Secret Origins featuring the JLA
• Volume 1 - JLA: New World Order
• Volume 2 - JLA: American Dreams
• Volume 3 - JLA: Rock of Ages
• Volume 4 - JLA: Strength in Numbers
• Volume 5 - JLA: Justice for All
• Volume 6 - JLA: World War III (not to be confused with the World War III crossover from the series 52)
• JLA One Million
• JLA: Earth 2

I listed the Secret Origins featuring the JLA trade paperback above solely for the Morrison/Porter story originally featured in single-issue form in the first JLA: Secret Files comic. If you don't want to waste time sifting through the other mediocre origin tales contained within I would suggest tracking down that issue. After the events of the mini-series JLA: A Midsummer's Nightmare, the "Big 7" of the DC Universe (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman & Martian Manhunter) have come together to form a new Justice League from the ashes of the old, and this "secret origin" features the new JLA's first case against the Star Conqueror. The tale quickly establishes the new character dynamic of the group and gives a good taste of what is to come.

Lots of Morrison-created aspects of the JLA determined the status quo for how these characters would be treated by future Justice League writers and other DC writers long after Morrison ended his run on the book.

Holy "Trust No One" Batman!

The most obvious of these is the concept of the "paranoid" Batman, portrayed by Morrison as a Machiavellian mastermind that uses his supreme intellect, cunning & technology to keep one step ahead of his teammates as well as his enemies. This Batman, while definitely not as cuddly as Adam West's portrayal of the character in the 1960's, pulled off the following:

• Taking out 4 White Martians (each about as strong as Superman in their own right) by luring them into a circle of gasoline and igniting it once inside.
• Inventing a device that masks his breathing & heartbeat from being detected by Superman
• Surviving almost five years of constant torture at the hands of DeSaad in an alternate future where Darkseid conquers Earth
• Defeating Prometheus (a Morrison-created character who downloads skills such as combat techniques directly to his cerebral cortex via a computer link in his helmet) by overwriting his combat skills with the physical characteristics of Professor Stephen Hawking

Indeed, this character trait was expanded on by Mark Waid when he took over JLA. His first story arc had Ra's Al Ghul stealing the contingency plans Batman formulated to take out his teammates and using them to take the team out. Brad Meltzer came up with a reason behind Batman's paranoid suspicion of his fellow JLA members (the mindwipe given to him after his discovery of Dr. Light's mental alteration in Identity Crisis) and Geoff Johns brought it all to a boil during his run on JLA and in Infinite Crisis. The post Infinite Crisis Batman is more relaxed and at peace with himself, which is an interesting change but not nearly as interesting as a Batman that never lets himself relax around anyone.

Cult of Personality

The Keith Giffen/JM Dematteis Justice League International (also known as the "Bwa-ha-ha" years" because of the often light-hearted, humorous tone of the stories) will always be near and dear to my heart, but the years that followed their departure from the franchise were pretty uninspired storytelling and less than stellar team lineups. It was like they took away the humor of the books and didn't bother replacing it with anything interesting. Morrison's relaunch of the franchise, set up by the Justice League: A Midsummer's Nightmare mini-series, brought back the "Big 7" lineup that began the franchise back in the 1960's. Even though (at the time) Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman were retconned out of the origin of the JLA, it seemed like the team was finally returning to greatness.

Because of Morrison, this "dream team" lineup didn't seem nearly as forced as Spider-Man & Wolverine being shoehorned into The New Avengers over at Marvel. Not to put down Bendis, who is quite a good writer in his own right, but it smacked of a stunt lineup that Marvel concocted in order to increase sales on the book by putting its two most popular characters on the lineup.

He brought his own unique perspective to each character. Besides the aforementioned take on Batman, he portrayed Superman as a hero that can never get used to the impact his presence has on everyone else in the meta-human community. He set up J'onn Jonzz as the foremost protector of Earth's southern hemisphere by pointing out the fact that most meta-human heroes don't bother with that portion of the planet. Flash (Wally West) and Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner) behaved consistently with how they were portrayed in their own titles, but their relationship with each other rotated between friendship and rivalry, altering the warmer friendship that their predecessors shared with one another.

Despite the attention to character development, Morrison was also able to put in place a team dynamic that had never been seen before, setting up the Justice League as a powerful pantheon of heroes rather than a team. He had at one point compared each of their character archetypes to that of the Greek Gods, and that comes across in how the team operated during his run. Superman sums up their team role the best when Green Lantern asks why humanity needs them at all: "To catch them if they fall."

The Writer Without Fear

Hal Jordan is the paragon of fearlessness in the DC Universe, but Grant Morrison could give old Hal a run for his money. He is as unafraid and innovative a writer as they come and it shows in his work.

• In JLA: Earth 2, he reinvented the concept of the anti-matter Earth and its version of the JLA, the Crime Syndicate of Amerika.
• In JLA: Rock of Ages, he imagines a Darkseid that would have Jack Kirby's version of the character wetting his tights if the two ever met in a dark alley (and you gotta love his catchphrase: "Darkseid is!").
• He created the aforementioned Prometheus, who was conceived as a criminal version of Batman that appears in both JLA: Strength in Numbers and JLA: World War III. He took out Batman the first time they met, and Batman only came out on top in their last fight by cheating.
• He established that the legacy of the JLA extends to well beyond the 30th century in JLA: One Million, where the Justice Legion A (featuring future versions of most of the current JLA lineup) protect the entire solar system in the year 85,271 A.D. and Superman (known there as Superman-Prime) is still alive, kicking and in charge of the Superman Squad, consisting of Supermen from all time eras that are in charge of policing the time-stream.
• In Justice League: Justice for All, he introduced the Ultramarine Corps, a military-sponsored superteam, by having them ambush the JLA. In the same storyline he revamped the classic JLA foe the Shaggy Man by having the commanding officer of the Ultramarine Corps transfer his mind into it. He then rechristened himself The General and was only stopped by the JLA teleporting him into an asteroid belt.

He loves his characters (sometimes so much it kills them)

On one hand, Morrison has a great amount of affection for the characters he writes (and has written). Appearances by Animal Man and Mirror Master in his run on JLA were clearly nods to his run on Animal Man run in the 1980's, and he had them behaving very consistently with how they acted in that book. Mirror Master was the merc with a conscience and Animal Man was a family man that moonlighted as a superhero.

Just because Morrison loves a character doesn't mean he's above killing them if it makes for an interesting story. He did it in New X-Men with both Magneto and Jean Grey, and he does it in JLA as well. The character of Aztek, a Morrison-created character that had his own series, was brought in as a member during the JLA: Rock of Ages storyline. Morrison literally brought him into this world, and he also took him out by having Aztek sacrifice his life to stop the Mageddon weapon in JLA: World War III.

The Bottom Line

The intensity of the stories from Morrison's run on JLA will likely not be matched anytime soon, although Brad Meltzer didn't do a bad job with the latest relaunch.

The entire run is well worth buying (or <SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT> you could rent it from the new Graphic Novel rental section of Pulp Fiction). Once you read it, I think you'll agree that while Batman might not get a free pass by the end of Final Crisis, you can bet that it will make for an interesting story.

<TOP>