First Look for December 16, 2017

In my first look at JLA #3 and Avengers Academy #26 there are tons of characters in these issues. Looking at the Marvel wikia, I count over 25 heroes of one sort or another at the Academy and most of them are new to me – that’s a lot to take in. JLA #3 is much more focused with only about 12 superbeings in the comic. In all though, that’s over 30 people to read about and it’s a bit overwhelming. The issues are decent though, with the JLA title taking my favorite of the day as it’s clearly the continuation of the Hyperclan storyline while the Avengers Academy is a new tale I have very little background on.

JLA #3

War of the Worlds by Grant Morrison and Howard Porter
As mentioned, this issue continues the Hyperclan story arc and things are getting dire for the Justice League. Superman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman were pretty soundly captured in the previous issue and we left it without knowing the status of Batman, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter and Flash. We find out what’s up with these guys soon though as we see that Flash and Green Lantern put up a pretty good fight before getting captured and Batman actually learns the secret behind the Clan. Inconceivably though, Martian Manhunter seems to be helping the bad guys – hopefully this is just a ruse to let him get close, but I’m not sure at this point. In any case, everyone except Batman is being held by the Clan by the middle of the issue and they’re about to get zapped by a machine called the Flower of Wrath.

A free Batman, though, is more than enough to save the League as he starts taking down the Hyperclan one at a time, then three at a time, and I’m sure he’ll get around to the rest in the next issue. This was pretty fun to read.

Avengers Academy #26

Career Day by Christos Gage and Tom Grummett
For me, this is an odd issue. It seems to be in the middle or at the end of a storyline that I haven’t followed, but that looks kinda interesting. Apparently one of the instructors at the academy, Jocosta, faked her death in a recent battle. She shows up in this issue though, perfectly healthy and looking to shut down the school. She’s proposing a different way of doing things and she wants each student to decide what path to take – not the greatest idea in my view considering these are kids who are at school to learn how to make better decisions in the first place. In any case, the pitch this guy, Jeremy Briggs, uses is that by following his path, the students can learn to solve the world’s real problems – global warming, autism, growing missing limbs, but it just sounds too good to be true – let the kids do whatever they want since there’s no reason to join together to defend the planet. This seems to be just some bauble to lure the young potential avengers away from the actual path of heroism, but we’ll see. On the other side of the issue is Henry Pym who’s been around the Avengers for a long time. He wants to keep the school as a preparation for becoming a full fledged Avenger and believes the kids are needed as a quality farm system for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The end result is some of the kids stay and some leave, but I’m not sure of the ramifications. This one was a bit confusing for me and I wish I had more perspective – there’s also a bit too much dialog for my tastes.