JLA Classified #51: First Contact

Written by Roger Stern/Penciled by John Byrne/Inked by Mark Farmer

Here’s a new one. A post not featuring any Atom, nor any Hawkman. Not even Red Tornado! I said I wanted to go with this JLA classified mini-series (the first part I covered can be seen here), and by God I’ll do it.
Now how, you may ask, is it that there’s no Atom in this issue, when the last one left off with Ray and the Batman tenderly holding each other in the corner whilst some behemoth raises the roof in celebration?
I answer: because it’s flashback time.

The story is narrated by the Martian Manhunter as he explains the first contact they had with the “enemy,” a decade ago.

The story opens on a student archaeological team sorting through ruins on a tiny island in the Aegean sea. Upon finding an altar, that may or may not have been used to worship Hera or Zeus, a great big lunk waltzes up to the team and begins to question them about the temple they’re currently rifling through, and who folks worship nowadays.
A few days later, houses of worship begin to mysteriously collapse.

Aquaman finds a vehicle of sorts on an islet in the Falklands, and Flash, Ollie, Hal, MM, and Canary go to check it out, whereupon they find footprints leading out of the thing. They take it back (much thanks to Arthur) for studying and are… a bit perplexed as to what they find. That’s basically the first half of the book.

The second half could be simply explained as: the pounding of the JLA. Once again this thing cuts through them like butter, crushing ribs, breaking arms, and surprising all.
Supes, who was in Paris attempting to figure out how the spire of the Great Cathedral gets torn off by a thunderstorm flies in and does his normal “those are my friends, now you have to deal with me,” bit.

This is what the “enemy” thinks of him.
Whoops.

The second solid entry by Stern and Byrne (Sternbyrne?). It's great to see old characters (particularly Arthur) hanging around, doing what they do.
As I mentioned previously, I'm a sucker for the JLA running into a seemingly unstoppable force.
I'm looking forward to the next issue.