Comics Reviews: Justice League International 17, Young All-Stars 16

Justice League International #17 – “Only the Dead Know Bialya” – Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis/Kevin Maguire/Al Gordon

Last issue, Batman, Green Flame, Blue Beetle, and Booster Gold went undercover in Bialya to check out Rumaan Harjavti’s new “secret weapon”. The weapon turned out to be Wandjina, the Thunder God from another dimension who was injured in a nuclear explosion. But Queen Bee had a surprise for Harjavti … Wandjina obeys her commands and he ended up killing Harjavti so she could take over the country. Beetle and Booster were captured and imprisoned, while Batman (who dropped his Bruce Wayne disguise to masquerade as Max Lord) and Green Flame (in her civilian identity of Beatriz Da Costa) were placed under house arrest. Back at JLI headquarters, Captain Atom is pissed off that nobody consulted him about the mission, but Oberon assures him Batman will have a way out. In Bialya, Jack O’Lantern (the former Global Guardian who’s been conspiring with Queen Bee) urges her to act before someone decides to rescue all the high profile hostages. Queen Bee tells him to be patient, taking him to the lab where a number of foreign dignitaries and businessmen are being brainwashed to unwittingly serve her, just as Wandjina was. Meanwhile, Booster and Beetle break out of their cell and promptly run into Batman, still disguised as Max. They’re soon joined by Beatriz (in her underwear, of course), who’s running from some guards. Batman pounds some of the guards and leads the others away before rejoining his teammates. Before they can figure a way out, they’re confronted by the controlled Wandjina, who starts blasting nuclear energy. Luckily, Captain Atom shows up and takes Wandjina down, but the Bialyans aren’t grateful. They’re cheering for Queen Bee (I’m not sure if they’re mind-controlled, or just swayed by her personality) and the Leaguers realize they have to leave to avoid an international incident. Meanwhile out in space, Manga Khan finds out his captive (Mr. Miracle) is Highfather’s son and heads for Apokolips to see if Darkseid is interested in buying him. Closer to Earth, Barda hooks her power wand into the spaceship’s warp drive, hoping the Boom Tube tech in the wand will allow them to follow Manga Khan through hyperspace. Unfortunately, there are five possible planets Khan might’ve warped to, so J’onn is forced to choose a destination and hope for he best.

Young All-Stars #16 – “Leviathan” – Roy and Dan Thomas/Michael Bair/Malcolm Jones III

This one starts with some Nazis (led by a Colonel named Streicher and a Professor Thule) landing a U-Boat on an island in the far North. They find a bunker and are surprised that their weapons can’t crack it open. The door opens and some tall pale humanoids (who Professor Thule calls Dzyan) emerge, crying out “tekeli-li” over and over. The Nazis mow the Dzyan down (although it takes a lot of damage to kill them) and advance into the bunker where they find the “island” is an artificial construct called Leviathan. It’s powered by a secret energy known as Vril and the Nazis want to learn to control it. Streicher is also looking for gold salvaged from the Titanic and he thinks the Dzyan’s leader (a human named Arthur Gordon Pym) can give it to him. Pym sends his Dzyan wife Kalla to get help and she turns into a bird and flies away, still crying “tekeli-li”. Kalla flies to All-Star Squadron headquarters in New York, interrupting a training session between Wildcat and Iron Munro (much to Wildcat’s relief). Kalla turns human (or Dzyan) again and tells Neptune Perkins she’s there to see him and has a message from his grandfather. Neptune doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about, since he thought his grandparents were dead. Kalla tells Neptune a long story about his grandfather, most of which is lifted from public domain books. The story starts with Pym and Dirk Peters journeying to Antarctica like in the Edgar Allan Poe novel and meeting the Dzyan, who taught him how to harness spiritual power called Vril. Pym eventually returned to America (where he told Poe his story) and killed Peters, absorbing his stock of Vril. Pym returned to the Dzyan and subjugated them, leaving Kalla free to become his mate. Pym forced the Dzyan to build a high-tech submarine (the Nautilus) for him and he became Captain Nemo, preying on ships all over the oceans (including the Mary Celeste). When the submarine sank, Pym went to the States and fathered a child named Ross, who he took to live with the Dzyan briefly before sending him to boarding school. Pym traded technological secrets to the Kaiser during World War I in exchange for the Germans constructing Leviathan, the giant floating island, which he used to sink the Titanic and steal the gold aboard her. Ross grew up and realized his father had been corrupted by the Vril, so he decided to oppose him whenever possible. Ross met a Titanic survivor named Miriam and they conceived a child (in a lab bathed with Vril radiation … how romantic) who turned out to be Neptune Perkins. Neptune wonders why he should help his grandfather if he’s such an asshole, but Kalla points out that if the Nazis can master Vril energy, or steal other Dzyan technology, the entire world will be in danger.

Noticeable Things:

• This story is cobbled together from various novels (The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym by Poe; 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne; The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton) as well as numerous conspiracy theories, like the Titanic carrying gold when it sank (it wasn’t). Roy seems to have taken quite a bit from The Book of Dzyan (a hoax work by Madame Blavatsky) and The Morning of the Magicians, a book of false conspiracies that a lot of people apparently took seriously.