JLA: Gods and Monsters
Story:
Art:

Written by Dan Jolley, Josh Krach
Pencils by Scott Benefiel
Inks by Jasen Rodriguez
Colors by John Kalisz
Letters by Ken Lopez

Published by DC.
Price: $6.95

My Verdict: Not worth your time.

A woman near death receives a higher calling. A junkie is saved by what he believes is a god. And some religion zealots have their prayers answered by...Superman? What the heck is going on? Well, the JLA better figure it out quickly, because the world is about to be under attack from War Wheels--bearing the JLA members' insignias!

I got this book because I'm a JLA completist. Because Waid has so far not offended me enough to drop the title, and in fact, he's actually starting to act like the good old Flash Mark Waid instead of the I'm Going to Try And Out-Morrison Morrison Mark Waid. The trouble with these JLA one-shots and mini-series...I can't think of a single one that's really cranked my tractor. They're all overpriced and about as exciting as All-Bran cereal.

The good news about this one is...it doesn't suck as bad as the others. Is that a backhanded compliment? Why yes, I do believe it is. At least they got the characters right. Batman actually acts like Batman--which is a true barometer of a good JLA story--and there are some great moments to be had. Aquaman bringing the Atlantean army into New York to deal with War Wheels is nice. Flash admitting that he's sick of being the high speed gofer is good too.

The problem is...the villains are unnecessarily complicated. Religious zealots that worship the League? Okay, fine. But you can't tell me that an organization as big as this one (count the people in each war wheel--and there's more than sixty wheels) which suddenly goes nuts and start preaching and saying crap like "Superman be with you" wouldn't attract some attention before now. Also, there is a higher power at work here--but it's not good when your master villain is somebody who appears and everyone says "YOU???" and the audience says, "Um. Who?" Your villain loses impact if only the truly hardcore can recognize him. And you've got Sister Glory who gave herself over to...a devil-looking creature? Never followed up on.

But after all that--it boils down to the major question for a single issue with this hefty price tag on it: is it worth the $7? Well, no.

Quote: "Don't be a jerk."