I remembered this as Joe Kelly's first issue on JLA, but I'd forgotten all about the story where Wonder Woman's lasso breaks because it can't handle the concept of two things that are diametrically opposed both being true. I guess it needed a system update.
This issue has just two Justice Leaguers, though. Batman's stakeout of a weapons buy run gets crashed by Plastic Man looking for a favor. Batman is as pleasant as you would expect early-2000s Asshole Batman to be. Apparently there are official protocols everyone in the League is supposed to follow if they want to contact him. Cripes, pull your cowl out of your ass, Batman.
On a separate note, Mahnke kills it in this issue, and this run in general. Plas is changing shape in almost every panel.
Still, the problem. An exotic dancer friend of Plas' has a son that's possibly fallen in with a gang, and he needs help, but doesn't want the rest of the League to know, because he's not proud of anything that reminds him of his criminal past. He figures Batman doesn't care about that. Plus, it gives Batman the chance to scare a child!
I feel Plastic Man badly misunderstands Batman. Also, that joke about Beyonce being worthless without a partner was a pretty big swing and a miss by Kelly.
"Angel" faints when she sees Batman, who quickly finds three knives hidden in Luke's room. Plas and Angel start sniping at each other when he incorrectly guesses Luke's age. But why would O'Brian know, since Luke is just 'some kid'? Some kid that can change his shape into a Triceratops and is rampaging down the street with his gang pals on his back. There's a great bit where Luke pops his eyes out on stalks so he can see Batman landing on his back.
Plastic Man doesn't follow Batman's suggestion/order to contain them in a bubble so he can hit them with knockout gas, Instead, he impersonates the Flash, ordering them to surrender or face a 'whirlwind of whup-'
O'Brian admits he pulled a Scott Summers and abandoned his child and their mother, for any of a variety of reasons. He expects Batman will leave, and there's no way in hell Batman's letting a kid with better control of Plas' power join a gang. O'Brian takes offense and Batman counters, 'Dynamic density control. Spikes to rubber instantly. Increased attention to detail - and can you change color?'
Bats tries to nudge O'Brian to step up, because being scared straight by Batman is not a great experience. Unsurprisingly, Plastic Man has a backbone of jello and wusses out, so after Bats admits he's disappointed because he believed O'Brian would be the best parent of the League by always making his children laugh and feel loved, it's off to traumatize a kid!
(The way he phrases it, I assume Clark is his #2 choice for best parent. Still weird to see him casually use Superman's first name in public, even if it's with another JLAer.)
Luke is trying to psych himself up to complete his gang initiation with a little murder. He steps out of the bathroom and finds the others cringing and shell-shocked. Bats lays into him, tells him the others would turn him into their dog. That's when Luke reveals he knows full well who his dad is, and does Batman know Plastic Man? In fact, Plas is cosplaying as the utility belt, but won't break character for a Hallmark moment with his kid. So Bats tells Luke something no doubt terrifying about exactly what will happen if he ever even looks at those other gang members. Up in the Watchtower, Batman tells Plas not to ask for any more favors, and Plas responds by turning his nose blue. See, he can change color, too (with great difficulty)! Batman hits him with, 'Maybe you can. . .Maybe someday. . .You will.'
And he does! It takes being shattered and fragmented during the Obsidian Age, then spending 10,000 years going insane as a bunch of sentient discorporated particles at the bottom of the ocean, but he does it!
[6th longbox, 37th comic. JLA #65, by Joe Kelly (writer), Doug Mahnke (penciler), Tom Nguyen (inker), David Baron (colorist), Ken Lopez (letterer)]
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