By Joe Kelly, Doug Mankhe, Tom Nguyen & various (DC Comics)
ISBNs: 978-1-84023-702-3 & 978-1-84023-709-2
When the World’s Greatest Superheroes and cornerstone of the Silver Age of Comics were relaunched in 1997 (see JLA: New World Order) the intrinsic quality actually lived up to the massive hype and made as many new fans as it won back old ones, but the glistening aura of “fresh and new†never lasts forever and by the time of these tales there had been numerous changes of creative team – usually a bad sign…
However Joe Kelly, Doug Mankhe and Tom Nguyen’s tenure proved to be a competent blend of steadying hands and boldly iconoclastic antics through which the JLA happily continued their tricky task of keeping excitement levels stoked for a fan-base cursed with a criminally short attention-span.
Kelly’s run on the series has some notable highs (and lows) and these two impressive editions collect the author’s boldest and most audacious adventure, an epic which spanned a year of publication and rewrote millennia of DC continuity.
Collecting issues # 66-71 and # 72-76 respectively, The Obsidian Age began in Book 1 with ‘The Destroyers Part 1’ wherein peculiar water-based events and phenomena indicated that Aquaman – believed killed in a catastrophe which eradicated Atlantis – was alive and trying to contact his JLA comrades. When the team are subsequently attacked by an ancient mystical warrior they get their first clue that it’s not “somewhere†but “somewhenâ€â€¦
‘The Destroyers Part 2’ sees the team recovering from a second attack by the terrifying Tezumak and shaman Manitou Raven whose coordinated manipulations bring the heroes into the ruins of ‘Stillborn Atlantis’ and all-out combat with the deranged Ocean Master. When Tempest (the all grown-up Aqualad and now a magical adept himself) and a conclave of mystic heroes, including Zatanna, Faust and Doctors Occult and Fate, are called in to assess the deteriorating situation in the no-longer sunken city, the assembled champions of science and magic realise that something truly terrible is about to be unleashed….
Renewed assaults from the past indicate another global crisis and when the JLA discover a message from Aquaman they head back 3000 years to discover an unsuspected era of Atlantean domination. With Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter and Plastic Man gone, a stand-in team of heroes are left to guard the world but the ancient mastermind behind the menace has also prepared a contemporary trap for the substitute JLA…
‘New Blood’ (illustrated by Yvel Guichet & Mark Propst) features Zatanna and the Atom trying to stave off a concatenation of clearly unnatural natural disasters with the aid of Green Arrow, Captain Marvel, Firestorm, Jason Blood (with and without Etrigan the Demon), Hawkgirl, ex-villain and troubled soul Major Disaster, Nightwing and new find Faith (as well as a little help from the Justice Society of America) – a desperate scratch-team woefully overmatched and under-trained…
Meanwhile the strands of mystery are unravelled in ‘Revisionist History’ which finds the time-lost First Team in 1000BC where an above-the-waves Atlantis leads a coalition of nations and super-warriors in a campaign to conquer the known world by sword and sorcery. This unknown episode of human history contravenes all the records and clandestine reconnaissance by the JLA reveals an enchantress named Gamemnae is behind the scheme.
But her plans extend far beyond her own epoch and to that end she has kidnapped the 21st century water-breathing Atlanteans and enslaved their king Aquaman…
However Gamemnae’s own team is far from united: Manitou Raven and his bride Dawn are deeply troubled by the venality of their allies and the obvious nobility of the Justice Leaguers… Meanwhile back in the future the last story of Book 1 returns focus to the new team in ‘Transition’ (by Guichet & Propst again) as the planet is ravaged by geological catastrophes and Gamemnae’s millennial booby-trap activates, intent on conquering the world of tomorrow by suborning its meta-human and mystic defenders…
Ending on a stunning mystery cliffhanger this volume also includes a behind-the-scenes text feature on the formidable enemy team ‘The Ancients’ including a delightful assemblage of design sketches.
Obsidian Age Book 2 opens with a handy précis of previous events before launching into ‘History is Written By…’ (Kelly, Mahnke & Nguyen) wherein the JLA battles hopeless odds in ancient Atlantis whilst trying to liberate the enslaved water-breathing descendents, and in modern times ‘Last Call’ (Guichet & Propst) finds the alternative League faring badly against Gamemnae’s monstrous animated time-trap until a ghostly message from the past enables them to turn the tide…
‘Obsidian’ follows the final tragic battle between the JLA and The Ancients, revealing how Gamemnae’s future assaults began whilst Manitou finally succumbs to his conscience and changes sides. ‘Tragic Kingdom’ (by Mahnke, Guichet, Darryl Banks, Dietrich Smith and inkers Nguyen, Propst, Wayne Faucher & Sean Parsons) simultaneously provides the origin and final fall of the deadly Witch-Queen in a cataclysmic confrontation that bends times, breaks the barriers between life and death and costs one of the heroes everything…
The story-portion culminates in ‘Picking up the Pieces’ (with art from Lewis LaRosa & Al Milgrom) as the JLA conclude a 3000 year quest to restore their fallen comrade and re-jig their roster in the aftermath of the epic adventure that has left them all changed…
This volume ends with an insightful and revealing ‘Afterword’ by Kelly.
The action of Obsidian Age takes place in the devastated aftermath of the DC Crossover Event “Our Worlds At War†wherein an alien doomsday device named Imperiex almost destroyed the planet – but there’s enough useful background and build-up in the chapters collected in both books to circumvent any possible confusion should that saga have passed you by…
Engaging, engrossing and especially entertaining this is a superior superhero slugfest that will appeal to a lot of readers who thought the Fights ‘n’ Tights genre beyond or beneath them…
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