Golden Gail and The Key

First Look for December 21, 2017

Well, today I was able to take a first look at JLA #8 and Black Hammer #2 even though I had a meltdown of my Evernote account.  For what ever reason, it stopped synching and I was left without any of the notes I took while reading either of these issues.  I will try to recap what I thought however with the idea that I can always update things when I put together a more fleshed out review.  In any case, Golden Gail and The Key is my attmept to get a post together without my normal tools and I hope it works.

JLA #8

Imaginary Stories by Grant Morrison and Oscar Jimenez.  Published by DC Comics 1997.

This issue is a bit confusing and I’m sure would be even more perplexing if I hadn’t been reading the previous and nex issues in such close temporal proximity.  The main story is that The Key, who was the patient in the San Francisco hopsital in issue 6, and who blasted the League in the closing panels of the last issue, had captured the JLA and they are all unconscious.  He’s got them up on the Watchtower and is injecting each of them with a neural virus that is causing them to dream.  His plan is that when the team realizes they’re in a dream, they’ll wake up generating a bunch of energy that The Key can use to open a portal to a new universe.

Fortunately for the League, Green Arrow was scheduled to come up to the Watchtower to try out for membership today.  But when he shows up and no one is around, he grows suspicious.  As Superman becomes a Green Lantern, Bruce and Selina have children who take over as Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman loses her powers, and Aquaman fights in a New York that is drowned, Green Arrow fights in reality to save them.  All but Green Arrow are dreaming and only Connor Hawke can take on The Key to stop his diabolical plan.

While the issue starts with a jolt as the dream sequences happen it pick up speed and is a fun read.  It’ll be interesting to see how Green Arrow saves the day since I’ve never read anything with him it so far.

Black Hammer #2

The Curse of Zafram! by Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston.  Published by Dark Horse Comics 2016.

In this issue of Black Hammer, we focus mostly on Golden Gail.  We see her origin story and it revolves around an old wizard named Zafram.  When Gail was a child she ran away from the orphanage that she was in and one day wandered into a movie theater.  Inside there wasn’t a movie playing by instead a strange old man announced that he was the wizard Zafram.  When Gail repeated the name, she was struck by lightening and gained her powers.  The wizard died soon afterwards, as in minutes, but he died happy exclaiming that he was finally free.

Back in the present, we see Gail being forced to go to school to fit in.  She appears to be a 9 year old girl when she’s actually 55, and she really hates that she’s trapped in a child’s body.  Apparently whatever is holding the heroes in this town is also preventing her from returning to her normal age.  In any case, she has a run in with the principal at school and Abe and Madame Dragonfly have to head down and bail her out.

We also see that Talky-Walky and Barbalien have built a probe that they launch out of the town but they lose contact with it.  Again, whatever is keeping them in this town is preventing them from having any contact with the outside.

In all, it’s a good continuation of the story and I look forward to learning more about the origins of the other heroes similar to how we learned about Gail in this issue.