Three perfect moments by Grant Morrison
Now I am a great fan of the Justice League established by Grant Morrison, or the League of Gods as it often referred to, and there are so many awesome moments during the first three runs of the big creators, so it felt natural to post one of those moments, as others have already been shown. These are from Morrison's Ultramarines arc and highlight Plastic Man, Superman and of course, Batman.
In the arc the US military has created four supersoldiers with the intention of replacing JLA as the big superpowered muscle in the world, with the general behind it, Eiling who was seriously awesome, deciding to transfer his conscience from a dying body to a unstoppable cybernetic organism. Well, to replace the JLA, one of course has to remove the JLA, which causes the military to do a heavy strike against the League at the heart of a big city. Meanwhile, Batman, Plastic Man and Huntress, who was as useless here as she was during the majority of the time of her in the League, sneak in to a military base to find out more of Eiling's plans.
First we have Plastic Man, who shows us how to do a distraction.
Awesome, right. His presence in the JLA really made me love the character and he was the only who remained a constant important addition to the big guys. It's kind of weird that they're featuring him in the current League, especially since they are so desperately lacking starpower and while Plas isn't that, he was a central figure in the classic League.
Next up we have Superman. The League faces a difficult problem in how to stop the military attack without injuring any of the soldiers, especially since the surprise attack and Eiling's genius tactics have managed to take out over half of the team. So it's time for Superman to step up to the plate.
Again, that was pretty awesome.
And finally we have Batman. The trio stumbled across Eiling's dead body, suicide, just after he transferred his mind to the Shaggy Man, a being that can pretty much take on the JLA by itself. They, well Plas and Batman, manage to buy time to withdraw and replan as Eiling begins the second phase on his plan. So how can Batman fight such a being? By being awesome.
Unfortunately the rest of the JLA and the Ultramarines intervene to 'save' Batman, but luckily he has a plan B, which the rest of them help fulfill, with the team taking Eiling out.
As an afternote, these scenes actually do represent one theme Morrison included in his run on the JLA, with Superman being the most powerful man on Earth, but Batman being the most dangerous man on Earth. That duality between the two was at the heart of the JLA, with J'Onn being the third central figure in his JLA instead of Diana, both for canonical problems with the character at the time and for Morrison's own problems with getting the character. Morrison's run was also instrumental in shifting the Batman properly to the ranks of the gods, as he cemented the current role Bruce Wayne played, with the supreme tactician of the team instead of a bruiser and detective he had been at another point.
And now I leave you with those words, hoping you enjoyed these scans as much as I did.