Tuesday, August 19, 2025

I really expected more garter belts in Howard Chaykin's Justice League.

Well, they're all business in these issues, so maybe not. From 2006, JLA: Classified #26, "Secret History, Sacred Trust, part one" Written by Howard Chaykin, pencils by Kilian Plunkett, inks by Tom Nguyen.  

I think this was pretty concurrent with the JLA book at the time, with the Grant Morrison core team: the most seasoned of professionals, if a bit detached. They were like an encounter with a really good paramedic: if you need them, you're probably confused, helpless, and having the worst day of your life; but for them it's just Tuesday. They'll take care of you, but won't get all worked up about it.
Plotwise, this is both pretty solid and almost specifically what you would expect from Chaykin: two South American countries were on the verge of war, but both sides seem to somehow have put metahuman soldiers into the field. The JLA has to thread the needle between doing the right thing, and not overly imposing their will on foreign nations, while maybe also figuring out where the metahumans came from and not seeming too pro-America. Despite having two aliens and two monarchs on the team, they still work more closely with the U.S. government than you would probably expect; which feels real post-911 but also hopefully isn't rushing back. It's also completely not-surprising that the President is concerned about any other countries "using metahumans for international terrorism" yet being A-OK with America having them.
From Joe Kelly's run, Faith makes an appearance here, returning from the warring countries "on a mission I can't discuss for an agency that doesn't officially exist." (I honestly forget what her powers were, and I think she was traded to the Byrne-era Doom Patrol, which really feels like getting sent to the minors.) While in the field they might have been a unified front, the League seems a little back-bitey here: Kyle and Wally are seen by some of the others as a bit like children, American simpletons who don't really understand the rest of the world, no matter how many times they've saved it. (...fair.) Later, playing the king card, Aquaman throws a wrench in things, by insisting the President and the JLA make their case to the United Nations; where things get dragged to a halt by the objections of the Dutch ambassador. (Are her complaints legitimate, or somehow sinister? Maybe both, really.) While the JLA is officially ordered to stay out of the conflict, Faith takes Bruce, Clark, Kyle, Wally, and Diana undercover; on Mission: Impossible rules: if you're caught, no one's ever heard of you... 

This storyline would run through JLA Classified #31, and while I was able to get the whole thing from the dollar bins recently, I don't think it's been collected. Later in the story, J'onn plays one-man JLA to make it look like the others were where the world expected them to be; Kyle is effective undercover at a comic-con while Wally seems really bad at clandestine stuff; and the JLA honestly seems to get along pretty well regardless of if they're sometimes irritated or annoyed by each other.

5 comments:

Mr. Morbid said...

Hey I remember this series! It definitely started out strong with the initial story arc by Morrison & McGuinness & kinda cruised along after that to varying degrees. The Kid Amazo stuff is another story you might wanna read as it’s kinda as the premise of Amazo having a kid (human/machine cyborg combo) is kind of interesting, at least in regards to Amazo considering he’s usually not used that way.

In hindsight, making Batman a so damn serious & cold to the point of self-parody is a crime against him that never shouldn’ve been allowed to happen. At the time it didn’t bother me too much, but going back & re-reading that “Bat-God” era is just unbearable. I’ll even say Arthur’s line about Batman enjoying breaking the rules/law was dead-on even though both of them were in a secret contest to see who was the most miserable of the two the way they acted back then.

I do remember this for one particular scene; Kyle gets captured but had swallowed his GL ring, so he just coughs it back up & frees himself. Pretty amazing considering you’d thing he’d have to wait to poop it out 🤷‍♂️

googum said...

Usually around that era, Bruce Wayne was a smiling, handsome billionaire who had probably appeared on a lot of magazine and tabloid covers. This issue seems to go with, "what if all that scowling Batman does wrecked Bruce Wayne's face?"

Mr. Morbid said...

It totally would no matter how much expensive Asian facial cream he used.

CalvinPitt said...

What I'm taking from this conversation is Batman is proof that our mothers were right: If you keep making that face, it'll freeze that way.

Mr. Morbid said...

Pretty much yeah. Even the world’s greatest detective & billionaire playboy isn’t immune to such an outcome.