Monday Memories #32 - Justice League Of Arkham

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

JLA: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF ARKHAM #1 - March 2001

Back in the early 2000's it seemed there was a new JLA one-shot or miniseries arriving every week. In the overarching story called Justice Leagues, a villain by the name of Advance Man had, with the help of Hector Hammond, erased the memory of the Justice League of America from everyone in the world so that his boss could come along and wipe out the world without a challenge. When Hammond found out, he regretted his part and tried to put things to right, making heroes remember a Justice League of A....

In this instalment we get the Justice League of Arkham with Batman putting together a team of his villains (along with Nightwing) to take down Advance Man and his plan to unleash a poisonous gas over Gotham. Recruiting the various villains for specific tasks, he sets out the plan and it's not long before he has to step in between the Riddler and the Joker:

With everyone straightened out, an attack is launched on the facility when the bad guys are about to release the gas:

And while the rest of the bad guys take out the workers and the stores of gas, Batman gets some help from the Joker in dealing with Advance Man:

Heh - Joker asking to be Robin!

Not surprisingly, the Joker attempts to betray Bats and release the gas himself and the bad guys turn tail and run just before the end, but everything's wrapped up neatly as the issue ends.

It's light-hearted and a bit silly; the Joker gets some good lines (such as the "Arkham assemble!" shout above) but there's really nothing much to this or, from memory, most of the other one-shots that completed the story. Still, it's a pleasant change from unrelenting grimness.