JLA: Created Equal #1 - The Fall

 

THE FALL

JLA: CREATED EQUAL #1

Published: 19th January 2000
Cover Date: March 2000
Cover Artists: Kevin Maguire / Joe Rubinstein / Dave Stewart
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Penciler: Kevin Maguire
Inker: Joe Rubinstein
Colourist: Gloria Vasquez / Digital Chameleon
Letterer: Bob Lappan
Editors: Andrew Helfer / Jim Higgins

Introduction

So we start the new millennium of this reboot by covering my first-ever Elseworlds, if you ignore Tangent and Bombshells! And it's kinda sad that some of the points bought up in this mini, especially the second part (which we'll get to eventually) still have some resonance in 2023!

And obviously, this blog being what it is we start with an Elseworld that probably no one has given any thought to since it first came out almost twenty years ago!

Synopsis

We open with a character we'll meet again later Maria Contranetti, a struggling comedian putting up a flyer, only for her coffee to be spilled by a rushing through Kyle Rayner, our current Green Lantern though that won't be important soon! We have a quick snapshot of the JLA, apparently, in their Satellite Era being prepared for a radiation wave, that looks like a gas cloud apparently, sweeps through the Solar System. At the very end of the two-page spread, we see the shadow of what is for a reason that will quickly be obvious man starts coughing. On the next page, we see the graves of a host of male heroes, and on the next page we see the graves of thousands, this radiation wave has somehow wiped out every male on the planet! Something that was in vogue at the time it seems as Y-the Last Man is only a few years away. Though it applied that this happened pretty rapidly, and the cause isn't paid a lot of attention at this point, it's a little weird to read this in a post-pandemic world.

Anyway, only one man survived (that we know of) and that would be Superman, who very much seems to be more in his Golden Age mode. Now putting aside edge cases like J'onn, does a shapeshifter really have sex (we've seen him take on female forms before), we don't see any living male-coded heroes. No Metal Men or Red Tornado, or Clay Face or Grodd, and it seems this mysterious radiation only effect humanoids as the plot isn't worried about animals dying off or any of these kinds of things. And being from the early 2000s it doesn't talk about any surviving Trans characters (something Y briefly does a few years later), we're a good couple of decades before we'll see a transmale character anyways. It all works for the sake of the story but this radiation cloud is treated as both a deadly ray and a virus depending on how it's talked about in the story.

So Supes after working for a couple of days, probably burying all those males, goes up to meet the now all-female JLA, to help decide what to do next. In a nice surprise for this kind of thing, this isn't a post-apocalypse world, things keep running and society seems more or less okay despite losing half of the world's population, if anything it's a little weird that we don't get to see any character, except Supes right at the start, mourning that all there male friends and lovers have suddenly disappeared almost overnight.

The JLA decide that new world, and new structures and maybe they should try and do things differently, though we have to quickly cutaway to see that Shayera (Hawkwoman) has put on her best mourning armour and has now dedicated her life to defending Earth, which now it seems is her full time adopted home! Does this matter in the story? No! But I guess this is important if you followed the Hawks back in this decade.

So Wonder Woman, who along with Zatana is one of the main focuses for this part of the story, goes to the UN and gives a belonging together a speech that gives  Maguire a chance to do this lovely two-page spread showing lots of different faces of various women in different jobs. If I was going to be critical I'd point out how white-focused the images is, especially for the heroes, we have Kimiyo Doctor Light but no Black Heroes, obviously, Vixen was busy that day or something! The background images are much better, so I guess to be fair those chosen were decided by the writer and not the artists, indeed the comic as a whole has quite a lack of diversity in the heroes it decides to put front and centre.

We also see that Supes isn't the only male to survive, Lex Luthor has survived in an environment suit, but more importantly, we see the heroes having to cope with a number of villains, including Chemo who I guess kind of counts as a male character, and Titano the Super Ape who most definitely is male! And again in a nice bit, none of the female heroes are shown as struggling, indeed the only hero who gets their ass whooped is Supes who get beaten up by a giant Ape! Though this is mostly so Wonder Woman can convince him to take a break, visiting first his mum Martha and then Lois, it's not made clear if they're a married couple or not but I guess in this case we're going by the current main continuity and there married, though with everything else going on it's really not important.

From a conversation about them having children, we cut to show the attempts to cure humanity from the radiation, apparently, it's still around and will affect any males born after the fact. Kimiyo, our stand-in scientist (who if I remember right started out as an Astronomer), who uses a mix of advanced sciences for no real results. Zatana who turns Nabu into a natty cane goes talk to some of DC's mystical heavy hitters, and Deadman, for similar unhelpful results (Deadman and technically Spectre are the only male heroes we see in this issue). Poison Ivy goes into the Green to look for a solution, and Swampthing is there but he's a sentient plant and doesn't count, but it doesn't go well for poor Isely and she goes mad from the experience (why Swamp Thing can't go themselves is never covered, though it's nice they cover all the other options). More successfully Clark and Lois manage to get a baby the old fashion way, and because comics this child will obviously be male!

After we finally get a full reveal of Lex and his own attempts to cure the radiation, for personal reasons obviously, we find that the Amazons have opened up Themyscira as a centre for the world to live at peace, and because apparently, men were all that was holding peace back (not completely untrue to be fair) it works and humanity is generally at peace!

But what of Power Girl you ask, you know the reason we're here after all! Well, she's been showing up here and there, even having a few lines, but the next section is where she has her little moment. Having exhausted all other options they decide to send someone into space to see if any of the other species affected by the wave have found a solution. When Kyle popped his clogs his Ring, apparently at this time there is only one on Earth, choose Maria (remember her from the start), who has basically been spending her time chilling and doing nothing of any use! The heroes want her help, to go into space, but she's not having it so attacks a dozen heroes using giant constructs of the Chippendales! These are experienced heroes against someone that apparently hasn't done anything in the month(s) or so since the disaster, but she still holds her own for a few minutes before they trick her and bind her up in Wonder Woman's rope and they take the ring from her. To be fair they ask her if she wants to go into space first before taking the ring by force first. One question I do have here is why the Guardians didn't take the ring from her in the first place unless the cloud took a weird route Oa is still there and I'd guess the Guardians keep track of their Green Lanterns and take back from those who don't want to be space cops, or do they seed sectors with hundred of these things and we're lucky that every Earth person who picked up the ring becomes a hero!

Anyway, the ring is given to Barbara Gordon, who's still wheelchair-bound Oracle, who becomes the new Lantern and more or less goes straight into space to look to see if Earth can get any help! We then rapidly cut to first a month later, showing that the US is doing fine with its female President (I wonder here if they planned for Hillary to be President here, though that's not what is shown). and then a year since the Fall when Lois is going to Paradise Island to give birth soon with the help of Amazonian midwives. But at that point Lex Luthor shows up, stepping foot on Themyscira (Supes has been deliberate not stepping on the island, even if it doesn't matter right now).

She might not be quite as keen...

He explains that human males will be unviable for fifteen years and everyone until there will die, including Superman's new baby because Clark is apparently absorbing the radiation and it'll affect anyone around time, focusing it until it'll even kill women as well! With Clark gone his baby will be born okay, so Superman decides to put himself in exile, leaving the planet before his new baby is born. He does leave behind some of his seed, in a nice little urn, so that if Adam the half-Kryptonian baby survives they can help repopulate the planet!

Final Thoughts

Apart from the criticism I've already mentioned it's nice to see this kind of tale told without the whole world descending into chaos, though it comes at the cost of the characters not really having time to process all the loss that went on around them. 

Truth be told with the lack of Pee Gee this would probably be skippable, if it wasn't for what happens in the second issue, though that's for another time...