Justice League 3000 #9
Giffen, DeMatteis, Porter, Batista, Underwood, Hi-Fi
SPOILER ALERT!
I will most certainly be SPOILING!
Last issue, we had the shock of Teri being brought back with Barry Allen’s powers. Justice League 3000 #9 takes a kind of strange layout for the story telling that I kind of dig. The first story in the book is about the Justice League and Ariel Masters escaping Cadmus World. They send Teri to handle her sociopathic “wonder” twin, and then begin dealing with Coeval.
This is where the layout comes in. There are literally moments between Teri leaving and Coeval threatening Batman and Masters. The second half of the book is dedicated to those few moments. Apparently, the new Flash (Teri) gets ahold of her brother, exercising her rage at being murdered on him at super speed, and then threatens Convert to give the League a way off the world or she’d return the neck-breaky favor on her brother. Terry does not call her bluff and authorizes the demands.
The League is ready to use their portal when Locus shows up, hell bent on keeping Masters around to create her Hal Jordan Harem. Hal forces the rest of the team into the portal and engages Locus, which if the previous eight issues have proven anything, it’s that this is a notoriously bad idea. So you can imagine my surprise when Hal tromps her neatly, hitting her and tossing her around so quickly she cannot focus to use her impressive reality bending powers! Our miniature Hal flies off into space just as Superman is ported back to extract Teri.
Our new Flash is just running full tilt, exuberant that she saved the League, but fatalistically running until she is stopped. None of the Convert’s bodies can seem to lay a finger on her, but Kali has no problem driving her into the ground. A few moments of mocking and Teri successfully stalls long enough for the “speed Backwash” to catch up to her. The air filling in the space that Teri zipped through wrenches Kali off of her. Before Kali can rise and do any more harm to our gifted speedster, Superman crushes her into the ground and spirits Teri away to safety.
The comic ends with Terry standing alone in a dark lab, telling his sister to enjoy her moment of glory because…
“…let me assure you, it won’t last very long.”
This issue felt a little rushed to me, but with the odd layout and the inclusion of the Flash, perhaps that was the point. As the Five have developed in the narrative, they have become both less frightening and completely insurmountable. Their heaviest hitters are coming off as useless and inept, while Coeval and Convert seem just as unbeatable as ever. With all of the smoke and mirrors, I am still wondering where Firestorm is and what his contribution is going to be to the final fight with the Five. All in all, it was an okay installment in the series, but left me wanting a little more.
My rating 3.5/5
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i really want to like this series… it’s just so hit-or-miss, though.