Comics Reviews: Justice League International 20, Young All-Stars 19

Justice League International #20 – “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Apokolips” – Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis/Ty Templeton/Joe Rubinstein

This one starts on Apokolips, with Manga Khan and Virman Vundabar pontificating at each other. Khan has been trying to open trade with Apokolips for decades, but now he finally has something they want … Mr. Miracle. Khan gets a message from L-Ron that the Cluster blew the Justice League ship to hell as soon as it warped in, and that they still haven’t heard back from Lobo (who Khan hired to kill the Leaguers). Granny Goodness wants to “discipline” Miracle for running away from her orphanage, and Khan says he’s willing to trade Mr. Miracle … for Boom Tube technology. Across town, Big Barda, J’onn J’onzz, Gnort, and Rocket Red are fine, thanks to Barda Booming them out of their ship right before it exploded. They make contact with some resistance fighters and get Rocket Red a new suit of armour that’s primitive by Apokolips standards, but superior to his original suit (which was smashed by Lobo). The resistance tell Barda that her husband is being held at Granny’s orphanage and agree to help them get close to the building. They take out the guards and get inside, but are detected right away. Granny sends Parademons after them and alerts the security guards. Rocket Red ends up getting blown through the wall and fighting the Parademons outside, while the others pound their way through the guards, but J’onn realizes they’ll need reinforcements to get to Mr. Miracle, so he convinces Barda to Boom back to Earth for help. Meanwhile, Khan has been put under house arrest for leading the JLI to Apokolips and Granny takes Miracle. Khan orders L-Ron to attack Apokolips and removes his head, drifting out of his cell as some kind of mist. Back on Earth, Lobo and Guy are arm-wrestling and Hawkman is being a humourless pain in the ass, when Barda Booms in. She tells them they’re needed and Booms everyone—including Lobo—back to Apokolips just in time to face a horde of Parademons.

Young All-Stars #19 – “Vril!” – Roy and Dann Thomas/Ron Harris/Malcolm Jones III

This one continues from last issue, with Dr. Thule reveling in the new power of the Vril that he’s absorbed from Argor (who’s actually Arthur Gordon Pym … and Neptune Perkins’ grandpa), which also gives him control over the strange race known as the Dzyan. Argor is close to death and the Young All-Stars have been captured but when Colonel Streicher suggests killing them, Thule refuses, saying he wants to study their powers. But first, Thule decides to lead the Dzyan in a raid against an American army base in Iceland. Not far away, the Dzyan known as Kalla recovers from being shot by the Nazis last issue, with a little TLC from Frankenstein’s monster. (Yup, Roy’s tossing in another public domain character.) The monster seems rather taken with Kalla, but she wants to get back to Leviathan (Argor’s floating island base) to make up for betraying Argor and siding with the Nazis. She makes it into the lab and frees the All-Stars before being shot again. The containers breaking releases Vril energy that sets the lab on fire, so Streicher and the other Nazis lock the All-Stars in and take off. Kalla dies, telling Argor to “let the one become two”. The All-Stars bust out of the burning lab, but the Nazis have already taken off in a submarine. There’s a Nazi plane coming in to take the prisoners back to Germany, so Munro and Flying Fox commandeer it in the air and head for Iceland after picking up their teammates. At the American base in Iceland, Thule (who’s now ten feet tall and surrounded by fire) leads the Dzyan attack, causing the soldiers to retreat. The All-Stars show up and crash the plane into Thule, but his Vril power is strong enough to handle the impact. Thule rallies the Dzyan and things are looking bleak until Argor recalls Kalla’s final words about the one becoming two. He knows it’ll kill him, but he’s close to death anyway. He says goodbye to Neptune and Flying Fox takes him as close to Thule as they can get. Argor splits into two beings … Arthur Gordon Pym and Dirk Peters. It was absorbing Peters that gave Pym full control of the Vril power (as we saw a few issues ago), and now he reverses the process. Since Thule has absorbed all Argor’s Vril (and continues to do so), Argor splitting into two people literally rips Thule apart. That releases the Dzyan from his control and they transform into pure energy and head for outer space. Neptune is sad about losing his grandfather, but glad the old man’s last act was a heroic one to (partially) atone for all the bad things he’d done.