Justice League of America - Issue 35
Featuring the twin menaces of empty clothing and heartbreaking truths
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!
PREVIOUSLY
Somewhere in DC’s back catalogue there’s a villain who commits crimes through conventional means like theft or extortion or running for the President of the United States of America (NOTE: POLITICAL SATIRE!), but Abnegazar, Ghast and Rath - The Demons Three - are not those villains. This issue leans hard into the idea that magic in the Silver Age doesn’t need to make sense, it just needs a concept to attach itself to, and this time around that concept is laundry. The Demons Three decide to break out of the prison in which the JLA left them back in issue eleven, and, naturally, the method for doing so they come up with is precisely the same one that you or I would. Namely, possessing spare superhero uniforms and using them to animate spare villain uniforms, which, in turn, create duplicates of the villains in question for some reason, leading to a paperwork nightmare. Luckily, the villains are lacklustre fare, such as Killer Moth, Dr. Polaris, Pied Piper, Dagon (?) and (the non-Jim Carrey) Mask, so even though the empty threads go on the rampage while the real villains presumably stay home in their underwear, it’s dealt with by the JLA with all the difficulty you’d expect from a comic book that is, at its heart, a story about superheroes fighting clothing.
Fun With Comics!
MVP
Yikes! It’s very nearly Snapper Carr, who comes perilously close to the famous Onion ‘Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point’ meme here. Luckily, after a page of two of sweating about this, the JLA explain that there were Sensible Reasons™ why they didn’t destroy the magical artefacts, and they just didn’t trust/like Snapper enough to share those reasons with him. Phew!
Top Panel
Here’s Aquaman once again commanding his so-called ‘friends’ to form a series of stepping stones for him, with not a single moment of consideration given to the prospect that maybe they’ve got better things to do with their day. Not acceptable, Arthur. (And yes, even if - in some versions of your continuity - you’re the monarch of these turtles, this is still dick behaviour. Show some respect to your subjects.)
Villain Cryptic Crossword Clue
See issue 11
Next Issue: MOCK BATTLES!