Comics Look-Back # 1

[dewline]

One of those little treasures you don't realize you had until a decade after you bought it?

JLA: Welcome to the Working Week by Patton Oswalt, Patrick Gleason, Christian Alamy, Ken Lopez and John Kalisz. Published back in 2003.

I know Oswalt is/was a big TV name once upon a time. Possibly, he still is. But this 64-page one-shot book is what I remember when I think of him. As comics go...it went a lot shorter and sweeter than it could've been. To quote its POV narrator, one Marlus Randone:

"If this were a comic book, it would have run twenty issues, and taken all summer. But it takes minutes. The world saved and it's too big and fast to take in..."

Marlus is a reporter who self-publishes a sometimes fannish, sometimes investigative magazine, Save us!, out of Portland, Oregon. Partly by accident, and partly by...other things that I won't spoil...Marlus ends up on the Justice League's lunar Watchtower complex for a week. What he sees, what he remembers before his visit to the Moon, and what some of the Leaguers learn of him? That's the story, as much as any world-saving they're all party to.

There's some continuity issues there, but compared to some of the bigger "grand crossovers", you can deal with these just fine.

If you find it in a back-issue bin? Grab it. Worth the time and the money.

Comments

[jennawaterford.livejournal.com]

I LOVE that story so much. The line about Aquaman is just so fantastic: "You should be thankful our Sea King isn't here!" (from memory -- my copy is in the basement).

That's really the first thing I knew him from.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

That was the last of several good Aquaman-related moments in the story!