Thursday, March 10, 2016

80-Page Thursdays: Justice League Quarterly #13!


I may have overpaid for this issue last weekend, but at least I didn't pay internet prices.

From 1993, Justice League Quarterly #13, featuring stories by Kevin Dooley, Paul Kupperberg, and Michael Jan Friedman; with art by Greg LaRocque, Mike Collins, and Mike Mayhew. And a cover by Joseph Michael Linsner that I think is responsible for most of the price.

This issue features the return of old-time JLA stooge, Ultraa, revived here as an alien warlord intent on mating with Maxima. She was also an alien warlord, and had come to earth herself intent on mating with Superman. When that didn't work out, she started after the obvious second pick, Batman Captain Atom. I never really thought of Cap as a romantic lead, but he had been married prior to getting his powers and being launched into the future (from the sixties) and had dated Nightshade and Plastique. (In fact, I thought he married her, but it didn't work out.) At any rate, Cap isn't sure how he feels about Maxima, or being used to continue some alien warlord bloodline; and even Maxima seems to be having doubts when Ultraa shows up to prove himself to her. Ultraa wants to fight Superman, until he hears about Captain Atom, and the ensuing battle goes back and forth several times, as Cap won't kill Ultraa, even though he's rrrrrreally asking for it. Ultraa's even more punchable than usual here...

Also this issue: another chapter of the Praxis serial, and a Power Girl story, set when her origin was retconned so she wasn't from Krypton, she was the granddaughter of Arion the Immortal. That retcon didn't do either character any favors, and I have the feeling DC knew Power Girl had fans, but had no idea what to do with her.

2 comments:

SallyP said...

Gah! Two of my least favorite people! Captain Shinypants and Maxima!

Also, I don't think that her spine should be doing that.

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

Huh, interesting post-Crisis interpretation of Ultraa. Since he seemed to be set up to be a very an ideal and obvious candidate to mate with Maxima, you'd think they would've ended up together at the end of this. At least that's what I would've done to finally give a decent sendoff since she didn't serve much of a purpose after her initial few storylines. Oh well....

Yeah, no kidding on that ret-con of PG huh, which they'd later retcon that retcon away too, so yeah, other than being the epitome of a powerful male fantasy, they haven't really done much with her until this latest pairing with Harley Quinn.