Tales From the 50 Cent Bin! - JLA #10-15: Rock of Ages

Ah, that three/four day break from work/Nashville worked wonders. Yes, I wasn’t laying on my butt the whole time (my folks live on a farm), but you usually do that when you get a crown put on your tooth. Anyway, it’s time to get back into the swing of things. Some little indie movie called Justice League is coming out soon and I thought I’d look at a few things that feature the team. It’s not completely a themed month, but it’ll be a little DC-centered.

First up for the month is a return to Grant Morrison’s run on JLA. It’s even somewhat topical since it involves a Fourth World element. It’s “Rock of Ages” and it took place through JLA #11-15. At this point, the team had a bit of a change-up. Wonder Woman’s dead (don’t ask me, man), Superman’s in his electric phase, and we got a couple of new recruits in the form of Connor Hawke (Oliver Queen’s son) and Aztek. Morrison’s writes, Howard Porter draws (mostly) and John Dell inks. Porter does get a little help on the last issue from artists Greg Land and Gary Frank.

JLA #10-15: “Rock of Ages”

Writer: Grant Morrison

Pencils: Howard Porter, Greg Land (#15), and Gary Frank (#15)

Inks: John Dell

Colors: Pat Garrahy 
Separations: Heroic Age

Letters: Ken Lopez

Editors: Peter Tomasi, L.A. Williams, and Dan Raspler

SYNOPSIS

The story starts out as evil, purple versions of the JLA attack Star City. Seeing the damage, the real JLA jump into action and effectively take care of the evil versions which turn out to be holograms. Unbeknownst to them, we find out that the holograms are being controlled in space by some familiar villains. It turns out that the Injustice Gang is back and this time, Lex Luthor is handling the reins. He’s teamed up with the Joker, Ocean Master, Circe, Doctor Light, and Mirror Master to effectively take down the JLA. We find out that Lex is in the possession of a weird, glowing orb and a captured alien by the name of Jemm.

"All right, boys and girl! Let's do our best to look cool especially you, Doctor Light!"

Because of the Gang’s machinations and others things, the JLA is split off into groups. Batman, Superman and the Martian Manhunter deal with the Gang itself. Superman and MM find the Gang’s satellite but fall into a trap. They’re able to get out of the trap by using some ingenuity. Meanwhile, Batman tries to find the Gang’s satellite and recruits another hero, Plastic Man, to their cause. Unfortunately, Connor somehow falls under the sway of Circe and ends up joining the Gang. Aztek is left in the Watchtower with a bomb. Lex contacts him and tries to make him betray the JLA.

So, where are Aquaman, Green Lantern, and the Flash during all of this calamity? Well, they get tasked by Metron (a New God) to find the Philosopher’s Stone, a powerful orb that can warp reality. Metron gives them modified Mother Boxes and they search for the Stone in different dimensions. They all end up on an outpost called Wonderworld, the headquarters of the Theocracy. The Theocracy are basically a pretty weird superhero team and they protect their corner of reality against the Eternal Dark.

Well, this is indeed a Grant Morrison comic book.

It’s at Wonderworld where GL tells the others that they’ve been duped by Metron and that the stone is in Lex's possession. GL ran into a future version of Hourman and he warned him about a coming battle between the JLA and the Injustice Gang. If the JLA win and destroy the Philosopher’s Stone (the orb Lex has), Darkseid will one day come and enslave Earth. The Theocracy lets them use a time travel device that’ll send them back home. The Flash uses his speed on the device to catapult them back in time. The three run into a small problem when they return, though: Earth’s already invaded.

It turns out that they are 15 years off from their present course. Darkseid has already come and enslaved Earth. They also end up in their older bodies which sucks for Wally and Kyle. Luckily, the League is still around in this dark future. Members like Connor Hawke and Wonder Woman (don’t ask me how she came back) are still kicking butt. Batman was even posing as Desaad for a while. Our current Leaguers let them know that they need to get back to their time. Since the Future JLA is planning on taking out Darkseid permanently, they make plans to do both things.

Wow, the future version of Aztek is actually cooler than the the present version.

The Future JLA and the others put their plans into action. The Present JLAers end up using Future Metron’s Mobius Chair to get back home. By the way, he was the one who sent them on their goose chase since he was corrupted by Darkseid. Meanwhile, the Future JLA succeed in stopping Darkseid and die… yeah, it’s not a happy ending for that dark future. Orion then comes out of nowhere and uses something called the Genesis Box that’ll destroy the dark universe and rebuild it without Darkseid’s influence… huh.

So... Orion destroys the universe? The Fourth World is weird, y'all!

In the present day, Superman, MM, and Batman attack the Gang’s satellite. They even have help from Connor Hawke (who was on their side the whole time) and Plastic Man who somehow impersonated the Joker. Superman gets the Philosopher’s Stone and almost destroys it when GL contacts them and tells them not to. They all teleport back to the Watchtower. Somehow, the Joker gets ahold of the Stone. He tries to use it but MM basically makes the Joker go sane for a bit. Lex even has the Joker use the Stone to bring back the people who died during their attacks. Afterwards, Lex makes a hasty exit by using one of Mirror Master’s devices.

Batman: Hey, J'onn, can you do this more often? It'll help me out a lot!

In the end, the JLA hand the Stone over to the real Metron and he calls it the Worlogog. He also tells the heroes to fortify Earth since another major threat is on the horizon. He then leaves them to do other weird stuff since this is a Grant Morrison comic, after all. At the Watchtower, Superman, Batman, and Aquaman have a secret meeting while the others wait. Connor and Aztek decide to leave the JLA since Connor is better at being street-level and Aztek just found out that he was being secretly funded by Lex Luthor. The story ends as their meeting ends and Superman disbands the JLA.

OPINION

So, what did I think of this pretty loopy story? It was a pretty enjoyable one. It had its problems, but it made for a pleasing read. I thought the story was pretty interesting and the writing was also a treat. It starts out as a standard story with the Injustice Gang going after the JLA. By the way, that wasn’t a bad lineup. You had Lex leading it like it was a corporate takeover. How the JLA take care of their predicament was pretty cool as well. We got MM turning the Joker sane, Superman pulling some weird tricks, Batman doing his thing, and Plastic Man weirdly being useful.

Okay, this was a cool reveal for a kinda annoying hero.

Then, it really goes for a loop in the middle with the trip to Wonderworld and the future. While it felt a little weird, it was pretty cool seeing Aquaman, GL, and Flash go on a weird adventure. The dark future looked bleak and Darkseid was pretty evil-looking. A part of me wonders how much of this played into Final Crisis which came a decade later. A lot of things felt similar with a ragtag League, Darkseid in control, and the Black Racer showing up on those skis of his. Thankfully, we didn’t have any Monitors running around. That Wonderworld business was weird enough.

Dang. Doomsday ain't beating this dude to a pulp!

All the Leaguers got their moments to shine. It was also cool to see Aquaman be a temporary leader during the trip to the future. Even the future Leaguers get their time to shine. I didn’t know jack about the future Aztek, but I must say that she was actually cooler than the present Aztek. Of course, I have to mention how well Lex and Joker were handled here. Morrison always handled Lex well in later stories, so it was cool to see that he had him down in the beginning.

The artwork was pretty cool this time around. When I looked at this creative team’s first storyline, I remember the artwork not looking as good. Luckily, I don’t have to say that here. Porter did a good job on this one. He brought Morrison’s weird ideas to life pretty well.  Everyone mostly looked good. He even made Superman look cool with those weird powers of his. His future Wonder Woman even looked pretty good. The action scenes were nice as well. While they didn’t do much, Gary Frank’s and Greg Land’s contributions were good for the most part.

Well, that's weird!

While I do like this story, it does have its issues. It can a get a little confusing at times which is a given with Morrison. The plot twist with Metron flew over my head the first time. Then, there was the weirdness in the first issue. So, Wonder Woman died? I know it happened in her regular book, but I think we could have gotten a little more info on that here. Then, there’s that cliffhanger at the end of the first issue that gets little callback. While I liked the artwork, you did get some wonkiness here and there. Other than those things and couple of nitpicks (was Aztek ever cool?), this was good.

In the end, “Rock of Ages” was quite nice. Morrison took a familiar story and put his own weird spin on it. If you were ever wondering where Morrison got his inspirations for Final Crisis, check this story out. Well, I’m outta here. Next time will be a more current story that some say redefined DC for a long while. I’ll give you a hint: mindwipes. Until then, Peace, God Bless, be careful out there.