Maxima II, Captain Atom, & a clone of Ted Kord – Humanity’s last hope!
Welcome back to Strange Times & Places, where we’re sticking to the theme of “90s Justice League Annuals” with Justice League America Annual #10, “The Alliance”.
How’s It Different?
It, like all the Legends of the Dead Earth annuals, would be an Imaginary Story. It takes place in a possible future, year not given but distant enough that Earth is but a legend, where the legacy of Earth’s heroes has followed humanity in the colonies it set up as they left their home.
What’s The Story?
Captain Atom arrives from a quantum jump in the distant future to find the remnants of humanity and a bunch of other alien races living on War World, under the despotic metahuman grip of The Alliance. The Alliance is made up of his former Justice League International pals Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, Mr. Miracle, Martian Manhunter, Dr. Fate, Black Canary, Captain Marvel, and Guy Gardener….whic
The Alliance
h is weird, since most of them ought to be dead. He will have to join forces with local freedom fighters in order to get to the bottom of this mystery and save humanity from his pals!
Best of Differences
- As a fan of Cary Bates & Greg Weisman’s run on Captain Atom, I’m pleased to see his largely involuntary ability to time travel (when he absorbs too much energy, it flings him through the quantum field) be a plot point once more.
- The plot point ofJLI being resurrected via a cloning a method that overwrites a living host and coming back wrong is basically the plot of Justice League 3000, Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis’ New 52-era Justice League title. Though, ironically, it wasn’t the JLI mainstays that were resurrected in that title – they got to the future the slow way.
Booster Gold, wearing a clue that he’s not a clone stuck in the 80s.
- Maxwell Lord & Booster Gold’s cybernetic immortality spins directly out of events in the Justice League America monthly title, nicely tying this distant future tale to then-current events.
- The presence of Maxima, but not THAT Maxima, brings to mind the Rebirth-era revelation that the name is also an Almeracian title, one that can be passed on or claimed. One wonders if Steve Orlando had this ish when he was a kid.
Come Back Next Week for a New Installment of Tokusatsu Gesundheit!
