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Underground > Comic Books >

JLA Classified #1

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Haus of Mystery

15:33 / 04.11.04

So, this was great yes?

Did my Flying saucer arrive from the Factory?

plus, y'know... Grodd

Nice to see the Ultramarines back (esp. inclusion Of Jack O'Lantern. Enjoyed racist banter between the Aristo and the Mick)

Art = not my favourite style, but solid, and a nice continuation of Porters ugly/cool art from the 90's.

Also
No, I'm Goldfish Man

Can't you tell?

so all in all, happiness.

And you?

17:13 / 04.11.04

Several ideas, several comments:

So it´s Flow, now Glob in the rain chamber... sitting in information gel... which is liquid containing information (related to the water memory theory used in Invisibles and homeopathy)

Pulse-8 now uses a quantum keyboard to channel his control of the unified field to rewrite the supercontext (which, for them, is Morrison´s plot)

Anyone know anything about that baby universe? Why does it look like the nebula man container-protoform?

Microwave pistol... I remember reading 20 years ago about masers...

There´s a slight planetary feeling... that sci fi closet, the JLA base in Pluto (and Planetary 21 has a strong Morrisonesque feeling, too)

Vampyre sun... Black iron sun? any alchemical meaning of the words of Nebula man?

And there might be, after all, some relation between Nebula man and the hunstman... those are manhunter droids in the fridge in Pluto

I´m starting to wonder if GM managed to put a metasygil in this.

22:50 / 04.11.04

For previous discussion on the issue, including a breakdown of the current Ultramarines roster and some background on the Nebular Man: Check this thread.

Batman = Fetish-mad and glorious.

I have no idea what people see wrong with Ed McGuiness' art - it's fantastic. There certainly isn't anything lacking in his renderings/technical abilities, and his work shines with nuance and personality.

Re: QWEWQ/Neh-Buh-Loh Proto-form - Morrison said something about an alternate dimension where there are no superheroes having something to do with this 3-issue arc. Don't know if that was jettisoned, but the Nebula Man may actually be a dimension in and of himself (it would jibe with his appearance) - it would then make some bizarre sense that there was more than one way 'into him'. He says he's a messenger, though.

If they're Manhunter droids, they've been tricked out severely - They're JLAndroids now (see next month's cover), not unlike (visually, anyway) the versions of them created by Amazo in Tom Peyer's Hourman series from awhile back.

Haus of Mystery

11:15 / 05.11.04

I don't know if this thread is unnecessary, but I thought it might be nice to have a clean slate to talk about the ish, but if any moderator wants to nix it, go ahead, I guess.

But while I'm here...

I prefer online shopping was a great line, and a nice updating of Alfred as a sarcastic Wildean housewife. I love the way Morrison can have psychadelic super-hero abandon alongside neat character summation - although it's become a hackneyed idea in recent times, he does it the best.

I really hope he's not just going to wipe out the Ultramarines though. They could definitely have their own comic. I mean 'Superbia'? Come on...

13:25 / 05.11.04

I fucking loved this - even though only 1 JLA member was actually in it: Batman. Grant really won me over, I never thought I would care this much about The Ultramarines. I really felt scared for them (and the world) when Grodd's plan became evident.

I love McGuiness' art and always have.

Gorika (or whatever) speaks only in HIAKUS!!! Ladies and gentlemen, Grant Morrison. I love it.

Haus of Mystery

14:05 / 05.11.04

when Grodd's plan became evident

But what about this 5-Dimensional lloigor elder-god thing? Is Grodd not it's puppet?

This really is ultra-fun comics, eh? I like the way it's fresh without soiling his previous run - more of an evolution. Did anyone actually buy the bastard? Come on chaps...

14:27 / 05.11.04

i can barely contain my glee at this issue. Goraiko makes me happy just thinking about him. plus Gorilla Grodd and super-apes with jetpacks, the flying city of Superbia, the sci-fi closet, boom tube gauntlets, Batsaucers... joy joy joy.

i loved the "don't tell my friends at the GCPD" line. translation: "i'm resurrecting an aspect of Batman's character which is embarassing to fans of the grim-n-gritty school of Batman, but fuck them - this is fun!"

14:38 / 05.11.04

plus, while i'm not on the "decompression makes Baby Jesus cry" bandwagon, i've got to say this "supercompressed" approach GM's taking here and with We3 feels like a breath of fresh air. if Bendis or Ellis were writing this issue, it would be a six-issue arc like so:

part 1- The Ultramarines get a distress call from Kinshasa. they sit around discussing it for a while. eventually, they head off to Africa.
part 2- Battle with Grodd in Kinshasa, part I
part 3- Battle with Grodd in Kinshasa, part II
part 4- The Squire is on her own and trying to contact Batman. she is angsty and lonely. at the end of the issue, she gets her call through.
part 5- Batman rescues the Squire in the Batsaucer. they discuss the events of the previous four issues.
part 6- the Batsaucer arrives at Pluto. the Squire explores the Pluto base. they discuss the events of the previous five issues. the Squire is angsty and lonely. Batman unveils the JLAndroids.

this is not to slag either one of them, as such (though Ultimate FF and Ultimate Nightmare have been frustratingly glacial), but this material works best at this rapid pace.

22:49 / 05.11.04

Goraiko rocks so hard it makes me proud to be human.

once again, grant takes everyone else to school.

miss wonderstarr

15:53 / 06.11.04

I think I enjoyed this comic more than either We3 -- and more than many episodes of The Filth or The Invisibles -- more, too, than much of GM's earlier JLA. (That must make it my favourite Morrison comic since, what? Zenith Phase III?

)

Clean, dynamic art, nothing like Porter and Dell in my opinion -- it's all sure and confident, but also inventive and stylishly semi-cartooned. The Knight looks just the right side of ridiculously hulking on his slightly undersized bike; the Squire is an almost-clownish little minx, Carrie Kelly crossed with Harley Quinn with a tinge of EastEnders' Bianca.

Panel designs are surprisingly creative -- surprisingly because they don't stand up going "I'm a storytelling revolution" but quietly, niftily echo the page's theme: check out the diagonal zoom of Batman whooshing across the empty sky in his saucer, the fragmented tumble of ape and Squire on the previous page, the flying Batarang frames knifing the page with the phone call, the globule panels of the Rain Room, the radiating splash-circles of Goraiko impacting upon Grodd.

Storytelling = no-nonsense cut to chase, but also gloriously, unapologetically pre-Crisis FUN for fuck-sake. The glowing Bat-phone! My God I could have kissed that panel. The Sci-Fi closet, almost seeming to stand for the camp closet where some of Batman's other adventures were hidden in the post-Crisis revision: he's got a Dalek in there, and you have to assume there's all kinds of party costumes like a Genie Batman and a Negative Batman stored in similar cupboards, barely opened since the 1960s. Super-fantastisch superheroics. I love that Morrison clearly loves the Batman and all his history, even the silly stuff.

This comic shows me Grant as genius more than his more serious material. Really glad Barbelith gave me the heads-up or I might never have known it was coming out.

miss wonderstarr

15:58 / 06.11.04

Two afterthoughts -- I didn't feel that Alfred as a raised-eyebrow, pursed-lip commentator was especially new. Surely this is the norm?

And Pluto -- wasn't this the Future Batman's HQ in "One Million"?

17:50 / 06.11.04

Close, it was Future Batman's HOME PLANET. It was a giant prison colony that Batman took over and ran himself after kicking out all the other guards.

God, I love this comic so much. The Batsaucer, the Sci-Fi closet, the Mini-Spitfires. I was vocally ranting about this comic when I saw the undialogued previews but now I'm just in humbled awe. I've seen on The4thRail that the reviewer doesn't like the idea that Batman has all these toys that he doesn't use in Gotham. Fuck that, it just means other writers haven't been creative enough.

This is Barbelith's Batman, the guy who travels into space every single fucking issue. As God intended.

miss wonderstarr

18:34 / 06.11.04

This might seem horrifically name-droppy but I interviewed Denny O'Neil at the time Morrison was writing JLA and O'Neil kvetched that it made his TEETH ACHE when he saw Morrison had put a teleporter in the Batcave. I HAD TO LAUGH wondering what the gritty old Group Editor -- now retired I think, but surely still a reader of some Batman titles -- thought when he first saw the Sci-Fi closet.

miss wonderstarr

18:41 / 06.11.04

Overall, this comic feels like classic Doom Patrol crossed over with Silver/Dark Age Composite Batman.

I am going to keep on talking to myself about it, I love this candy so much.

18:44 / 06.11.04

yes. batman may have a dalek in the sci-fi closet, but is that *gasp* the head of THE IRON GIANT in the upper right hand corner?

19:12 / 06.11.04

Quick Marvel archetypes rundown, near as I can manage:

Goraiko (my new fave-o character) = Hulk
Warmaker One = Iron Man
Flow/Glob = Thing ('ever-luvvin'' being the giveaway)
Jack O'Lantern = Spider-Man
Pulse 8/'The Master'(?) = Doc Strange?
Knight & Squire = Cap & Bucky? Good shout on the Carrie Kelly bit anyway, K, my thoughts exactly.
Vixen can be Tigra or summat.
4-Dee = Invisible Woman/Mr. Fantastic, mebbes.

Really great stuff though, eh? I think the Black Hand, of Green Lantern villain fame is apparently involved somewhere. I declare the Seven Soldiers saga underway!

miss wonderstarr

19:22 / 06.11.04

Beryl Hutchinson = what Frank Miller's stupid DK2 Catgirl should have been like.

19:40 / 06.11.04

I'll just echo most of the positive verbiage that's already been said about this book, and add my futile plea for DC to hand Giuseppe the reigns of just ONE of the Bat-monthlies for some blessed six to twelve month period...

21:36 / 06.11.04

Pluto is a quick reference back to Morrison's JLA as Greek Pantheon anologues. Batman=Hades, otherwise known as Pluto. I liked the quickness of it - Batman has a laboratory on Pluto filled with androids and alien corpses in green tubes - there is no argument that can stop this.

Gjorg said on Newsarama, I think, that the Marvel analogues going up against the JLA as Grodd-Controlled Suicide Ultramarines would be along the lines of the basic Millar-Ultimates roster. Squire's on Pluto and Pulse 8's been assimilated into the Nebular Man/Neh-Buh-Loh. There are also six JLA members besides Batman.

So... That's Iron Man, Cap, Thor, the Wasp, Giant Man, and the Hulk. Olympian is definitely the Thor guy, and I'd put money on Warmaker-One as the obvious Iron Man. The rest are up in the air to me.

God Bless that Dalek & the Iron Giant Head - thought the gun in the closet was Atom Avenger's Thermo-Revolver for a second, but I was wrong, dead wrong.

21:38 / 06.11.04

Goraiko did do that Gamma-Slap, though. That's a pretty strong Hulk-anaologue argument...

22:18 / 06.11.04

Well, Vixen is the sole woman, and she DOES have Animal powers, so she must be Wasp.

Jack O' Lantern as Cap? Both are mostly-unpowered acrobats.

Glob might be Pym, since he can change shape, and is a bit of a brain...

22:19 / 06.11.04

Sorry, forgot about 4-D. Can she change size?

22:23 / 06.11.04

Sadly it's not my cup of tea really.

I didn't care for his JLA run either.

I like his darker Batman better.

No complaints, it's good for what it is.

Lookin' ahead to Viminarama, not sure about Seven Soldiers.

00:04 / 07.11.04

Lotta fun, didn't thrill me as much as his previous JLA run.
Oh, except for "I ate them all!" I wondered if he was kidding. He wasn't. Grodd is hardcore.

Those androids are the ones Superman used as stand-ins when he was away/mad/busy/dead, yeah?

10:09 / 07.11.04

Thought it was funny how the squire told batman to 'slow down!', aware of the supercompression she was in.

Loved the quantum keyboard. Lets hope he doesn't kill them all by the end of the ark. They really would make a cool comic of their own.

Haus of Mystery

13:09 / 07.11.04

Panel designs are surprisingly creative -- surprisingly because they don't stand up going "I'm a storytelling revolution

Yeah, not like that shitty artwork in WE3.

miss wonderstarr

13:25 / 07.11.04

I've never said We3 artwork was shitty -- quite the contrary. I wouldn't even class panel design automatically with "artwork" -- the layout of the frames is not what most people think of if they say, look at Quitely's stellar art in this comic.

I would say though that We3 has been lauded in the terms I used above -- complete and utter comics storytelling revolution -- when its panel designs are not that much more radical or imaginative than those in JLA Classified. JLA Classified is very inventive in the way it arranges its images on the page: it will, however, be admired as a joy-joy, turbo bubblegum superhero comic rather than as "The First Ever Western Manga" or whatever label people are wanting to slap on We3 -- which is also a superhero adventure really, about a cyborg team of bantering misfits on the run being chased by other cyborgs and a sinister government agency.

I like We3 very much so far but I am wary of it being overrated and its importance being exaggerated.

18:24 / 07.11.04

^

The sound of several nails being hit on the head.

I like the Ultramarines much better this time about.

21:57 / 07.11.04

This was really great. Yet again, GM throws away more good ideas on almost every page than most comics writers come up with in their entire careers. I really like McGuiness working with him, as well. He's always been a solid draftsman, but he's really gone out of his way to try and keep pace with GM on this book. I can't wait for the whole thing to play out. I only wish each issue was 64 pages.

22:42 / 07.11.04

Could this be a Hypertime story?

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

23:00 / 07.11.04

Pretty easily, actually. The sudden acknowledgement of Batman's sci-fi period, the hotline, and the simple fact that the Knight must have been around Robin's age when he met Batman as the first Squire, but now appears to be the same age as Batman is usually portrayed. That kind of suggests that this Batman is suddenly a lot older than usual.

But of course, all that could just be the flexibility of comic book time.

I still love Beryl a lot, and I wanted to see more of the Sci-Fi closet!

10:48 / 08.11.04

think in the runup to this i remember geraint the kilt saying 'folk will have lots of fun/spend lots of time working out which analogue matches up to each'. he likes to muck about with this bit, see ff1234 no. 3 where namor says all of johnny's dialogue. i think the match the dots in this issue is usually at minimum two. so today, we see that both the knight and warmaker one are good swaps for iron man and cap am, sharing around half of each's key characteristics, just like goraiko and glob seem to be splitting hulk and pym's attributes between them.

18:49 / 08.11.04

>> Two afterthoughts -- I didn't feel that Alfred as a raised-eyebrow, pursed-lip commentator was especially new. Surely this is the norm?

You are correct, Alfred has been like this since Frank Miller's DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and BATMAN: Year One.

Can't wait for JLA: Classified #2. Sad there are only 2 more Grant-written issues...

09:26 / 09.11.04

How can this be supercompression? What really happened here? The bad guys attack and the good guys strike a heroic pose and vow to stop them. And that's it. Pretty much exactly what you would expect from a first issue. That other people may be going at 1mph doesn't make your 2mph 'super', especially when you consider there is a whole month gap between issues. If this stuff was coming out weekly it would have been different. ALternatively if the bad guys had attacked, batman had launched an unsuccessful counterattack and squire had contacted the JLA all one issue THEN you could argue better than normal compression.

11:01 / 09.11.04

Sci-Fi Batman? What kind of period are we talking about here, mid-70s? Which writers tackled Space Batman?

Really, I don't think we're seeing Batman here, we're seeing one of Grigori's favourite archetypes: the Science Ninja, who can also be seen playing Fantomex in NXM and the prototype seen in King Mob.

This series wants me to see Greg writing Black Panther or Iron Man so bad IT HURTS. Bleeding edge weirdtech, super-competant scientists who are ALSO superheroes.

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