063 JLA Vol 9

This book was a real mixed bag for me.  It's the final volume in this era of JLA.  I believe it leads right into Infinite Crisis and then into the Brad Metzler run of JLA.

We have three big stories here.  And I see each of them differently.  One I loved.  One I hated.  One I liked.  The book starts off with the end of Kurt Busiek's run.  I love Busiek.  I think he's a fantastic writer.  His run of Avengers was my favorite run of the book.  Astro City is a book that is amazing to me.  But for some reason, Busiek and the DCU just don't gel together for me.  At all.  I don't know why.  The characters don't seem right to me.  The stories just don't grab my attention.  And this book starts off with a big story.  Nine or ten parts, I think.  It's massive.  And, for me, really hard to get through.  I did not enjoy it then.  I didn't enjoy it now.

The next story was my favorite.  It's a six part arc that sort of served as a sequel to Identity Crisis.  It was the beginning of the end of this era of JLA.  The team was falling apart.  Hard.  The Secret Society was going after the JLA and their loved ones.  Mind wipes were discussed.  It was a big mess for the team.  And although there was one more story arc, for all intents and purposes, the JLA was done.

The last story features the team pretty much packing it in, but before they can officially close this chapter, The Key strikes.

Despite my feeling towards the Busiek story, this is a really good collection of JLA tales from the early 2000s.

JLA Vol 9

Writer: Kurt Busiek, Bob Harras, Allan Heinberg, Geoff Johns

Artist: Chris Batista, Tom Derenick, Ron Garney, Mark Farmer, Dan Green

DC Comics

014 Wonder Woman: Her Greatest Battles

I've said before that I do love a good compilation.  This is one of those things that sounds so good in my head, but in reality kind of falls short.  The problems, for me, are (1) there are so many stories you could pick, but such limited space that something good is going to miss out and (2) there are rarely any done-in-one stories anymore that anything you put in a book like this is going to be one part of a multi part story.  So odds are you're going to be lost or not really care what's going on.

It's an interesting choice of stories here.  The oldest is from the beginning of George Perez's run and the most recent is from the Azzarello/Chiang run.  I'm bummed out that nothing from Phil Jimenez's run on the book made the cut.  Or from Allan Heinberg's run.  But space limitations and such.

The book does work well giving you a lot of fighting.  Wonder Woman battles Ares, Max Lord, Cheetah, Power Girl.  You get a nice variety.  There's an issue of Geoff Johns' New 52 Justice League in here that really doesn't fit.  At all.  I wish that was sacrificed in favor of something else.

All in all, it's a good, mindless romp through Wonder Woman's recent history.

Wonder Woman: Her Greatest Battles

Writer: George Perez, John Byrne, Greg Rucka, Gail Simone, Geoff Johns, Brian Azzarello

Artist: George Perez, John Byrne, Drew Johnson, Rags Morales, David Lopez, Tom Derenick, Georges Jeanty, Karl Kerschl, Chris Battista, Fernando Dagnino, Jim Lee, Cliff Chiang

DC Comics