Justice League of America - Issue 22
Featuring the twin menaces of dimension-hopping crime trios and being out of shape
The Justice League (aka the Justice League of America, aka the JLA, aka Justice League International, aka Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)) is a collection of the DC Universe’s greatest heroes (and also Green Arrow).
I talked about why I love the JLA in this piece here. Now I’m breaking down each and every issue of the comic book, from their very first appearance, with Atom-sized summaries. Enjoy!
Look, I make my little japes and jests about this comic book, and some of the more childlike aspects that inexplicably riddle a book originally written for ten-year-olds. But this issue is good stuff - solid, Snapper Carr-less, superhero adventuring as the JSA and JLA continue their Earth 1 and Earth 2 team-up. While the twin Green Lanterns fly off to rescue the captured twin Flashes, the remaining heroes take on the still-absurdly-named Crime Champions, one by one, on their non-home Earths, triumphing more or less effortlessly, despite the JSA continually moaning about how old and out of shape they are. Unluckily, however, the villains have set a trap into which the GLs predictably stumble, leading to all the heroes now held captive. The sixteen of them then take a couple of pages to put their heads together and summon enough brainpower to escape their space prisons, before returning home to capture the villains before they can escape to a titillatingly foreshadowed Earth-3! Great comic. Well done, everybody involved. (Not you, Green Arrow.)
Fun With Comics!
MVP
It’s The Atom from Earth-One, whose understanding of quantum mechanics is tested to its very limits by all these atoms smooshed together. Look at them! Hate it when that happens.
What’s even funnier is that the teams’ eventual escape from the cages is triggered by him then suggesting to the Green Lanterns that maybe they can use their power rings to shrink down between the atoms in their cages, because those atoms haven’t been specifically designed to prevent such an escape route. Wonderful stuff on so many levels. First, way to make your powers superfluous, Ray. Second, can Green Lantern rings actually do that? Third, why didn’t the villains build the atoms in their cage out of yellow (the Earth-One power ring weakness) wood (the Earth-Two power ring weakness)? Maybe the hardware store was closed. Or out of stock of teeny-tiny buckets of yellow paint.
Top Panel
Look at this panel! Just look at it. Hourman and the Earth-2 Atom remarking out load about how delighted they are to be engaging in fisticuffs with a gorilla and a polar bear brought to life by the violin-playing of a master criminal. Close runner-up to this superb panel is the very next one, which sees The Fiddler also summon a pterodactyl and a kangaroo into the fray (this is not a joke). Comic books! The greatest medium of them all.
Villain Cryptic Crossword Clue
See previous issue!