Justice League of America - Issue 5
Featuring the twin menaces of Doctor Destiny and way too many ideas
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!
The fifth issue of Justice League of America sees writer Gardner Fox go completely off the deep end, hurling a myriad of random story ideas into one increasingly mind-boggling plot. In no particular order, the JLA has to deal with Green Arrow’s purported betrayal, a shrinking ray-powered prison break, the sundial quicksand of King Clock, sky waterfalls, Professor Menace’s robot villain duplicates, invisible force fields, fish hook arrows, Green Lantern impostordom, gravitron-will-deadener rays and cosmic generators. And when I say ‘no particular order’, I mean, of course, ‘precisely that order’. Eventually the real Green Lantern saves the day, defeating a rookie Doctor Destiny with a startling combination of pluck and light bulb changing. (This is not a joke.)
Fun With Comics!
MVP
It’s Green Lantern. How many Green Lanterns does it take to change a light bulb? Two. (One to change the bulb, one to give us the editorial note that ‘Due to a necessary impurity, Green Lantern rings are powerless against the color yellow’.)
Top Panel
You’ve gotta love a villain with the self-confidence to declare themselves a ‘master thief’ despite never having stolen a thing.
Villain Cryptic Crossword Clue
A criminal many would consider dotty, insane (6, 7)